A Day of Fun

Every once in a great while we throw all caution to the wind and just have a fun filled day. The girls especially like these kind of days!  Randi had her last basketball game this Saturday and on a whim we decided to head to Wichita after the game and let them girls just have some fun!

I got caught up in the spontaneity of it all and said let's just leave straight from the game. Then my motherly and wifely brain kicked in and said WAIT, we're going to the house and getting prepared. This was a choice that was not received well. I think I may have heard some boo's and hiss's but in the end, it's a good thing we did. Packed the cooler with snacks and water, got the wipes (for dirty hands and faces), got all he junk out of the suburban, cleaned it real fast, made everyone go pee and then we headed off, prepared and a little less anxiety on my part. So the girls are now happy we are heading out.

The first stop in Wichita......The Zoo! A little windy, a little chilly, but really not so bad.

 Getting some sweet cuddle time with Dad

 You can't tell here but Grace is terrified that turtle is going to get her while her back is turned. :)

 I wish you could see the looks of wonder on their faces in this picture. No matter how many times we go to the zoo (which is a lot) they still get that look of awe and amazement. I love when they get those faces, it means they are learning and soaking it all in. Tons of questions are asked and answered (if I know the answers) and you can just see that they appreciate the animals and have a healthy respect for the big scary ones, and even the small tiny ones too.

Yup, still amazed!

 Soaking it all in

 The girls had to stop at every statue they saw and pose. We veered clear of a few of them by distracting them but they still did their fair share of statue hunting.

 This one I just gave up on. I took 5 pictures and still didn't get a good one. This one was snapped right before I had to run over to Grace who was falling off backward. If you look closely you can see her hanging on to that gorillas head for dear life.  I did catch her thank goodness.

 But we pulled it together (kinda) for the last one. :)

After the Zoo the girls decided their time was best spent going to the mall (smart little girls). We had to eat dinner first and they chose Apple bee's. Yum Yum!!! When we got to the mall our plan was to head to Build-A-Bear but we stopped at Icing first, little miss Grace decided she wanted her ears pierced, and so it shall be. :) She was seriously brave, she didn't even make a peep. She was just thrilled to have her ears pierced. Grace is a tough cookie.

 Now, on to Build-A-Bear. Randi chose a purple bear with hearts on her and Grace picked a little dachshund dog. We got their little animals, stuffed them, cleaned them, dressed them and then we were out.

We had dinner and we headed back to good ole Pratt. The girls were tuckered but I think mom and dad were even more so! All and all a great day!! Maybe we should let the kids plan our days from now on, we seem to have much more fun when the girls are calling the shots.

Valentine's Day

Happy belated Valentine's Day!!!  Randi had to miss her party at school. She was seriously heartbroken. Cried, begged, pleaded. I felt horrible for her. She is such a sweet and good girl, especially at school, that I hate for her to miss the good stuff like the parties!! But, that's how it ended up. So we made the best of it and had ourselves a little party.

We decorated the house with pink, red and white streamers, made crafts, ate pink cotton candy, made pj's and bakes some pretty pink cupcakes. A great time was had by all! Jeff got me beautiful flowers, and I got him a gift certificate to his favorite hobby store. Then we all had pot roast, and veggies for dinner. Pretty perfect day with ALL my sweeties.

Jeff, being the great daddy he is, gave the girls roses and big old teddy bears.

 

Randi's pjs.

 Grace's pjs

Cousins

There is something special and grand about cousins. A bond that is deeper than friendship. Randi and Grace are lucky little girls to have many amazing cousins!  Jeff and I are lucky too. We are blessed with amazing nephews and nieces. The more the merrier in our book! I just wish I could talk him into adding to our tribe! :) Maybe sometime soon?? But for now I'm happy with my two love bugs and all the cousins!!

"A cousin is a little bit of childhood that can never be lost."

  Marion C. Garretty

The Secret is Out

The other evening, after the kids had gone to bed, I was going from one room to the next, cleaning each room as I went. I got to the bathroom and Jeff came in to talk to me. While I was bleaching the sink and tub and cleaning the mirror, I said "Hey, while your in here, clean the toilet". He looked at me a little stunned, which weirded me out.....why did he act all weird about it??  He seemed really uncomfortable about the whole toilet cleaning suggestion. Then it hit me!

I said "How many times have you cleaned our toilet?"
He responded with "Our toilet, or a toilet? I cleaned my work's toilet last week."
I say "Our toilet, the one here in our home"
He pauses, then says "Well......maybe never"
Me- "Maybe never!!!!!!"

Of course he thinks this is funny. We have lived together for 11+ years and he has never had to clean our toilet??? So then I'm almost determined to get him to clean the toilet this time, but he no more than gets started and he's doing it ALL wrong (He was probably doing just fine, but this is one of the things I'm weird about). I say "Geesh, just let me do it".

He again laughs. Then he let the secret out, the secret that probably every man on this earth knows. He says that men just act like they don't know how to do certain things so they don't have to do them.

Examples: Folding laundry wrong, putting laundry away wrong, loading the dishwasher wrong, putting dishes away wrong, doing kids (especially girls) hair wrong, dressing children in non-matching clothes (Jeff is a chronic mis-matcher) making the bed wrong, the list goes on and on folks.

He does these things wrong (or not my way, at least) because he knows it will bug me and eventually I won't ask. Ya know what??? It works..with the exception of a rare occasion when I'm desperate for help. Seriously, how ingenious is this??? He is so smart! 

Jeff is smart! As bad as he is at picking up after himself and cleaning, he more than makes up for in other areas. He is amazing as a father. Time and time again he takes the girls to the park, skating, bike riding, or to do anything that we didn't get to do during the busy day. He never fails to spend quality time with them each and every day. He never forgets to kiss me goodbye or goodnight and every day he makes it a point to let me know what I mean to him.

So all in all, who cares if the boy hasn't cleaned our toilet in 11 years? I can overlook it. :)
 

Chaos: It's a Good Thing

My personality is a little quirky. I'm super picky about somethings and not so much about others. However, I do like things to be in order, to be organized and remain that way. Not so much to ask for right?? Unplanned occasions, problems, things to do.. give me anxiety.  I try hard to just go with the flow and normally I do well. When my house gets crazy messy (which it does) and when I have something to do that is hanging over my head (which I normally do) I get a bit anxious. I feel totally out of control.

I've learned, though, that these situations ARE going to happen, no matter what I do, and it's how I respond that really matters. On those occasions where I can't seem to "go with the flow" I get grumpy, inpatient, short tempered. I'm' not pleasant to be around. ...at all.  Just ask Jeff and the kids. I'm sure they would be happy to tell you :)

The girls laugh hysterically when chaos hits our house...or rather hits Jeff or myself....they don't laugh so much when it's their turn for chaos to visit them. There have been so many occasions when I seriously think I may loose it....drink spills on the floor while I'm carrying a load full of stuff into the house, I then proceed to slip and scream and wave my arms to try to catch myself...by the way I did catch myself..dropping everything that was in my arms onto the puddle on the ground that I just slipped in. While this is happening our 3 dogs that are ecstatic we are home are going crazy, turning circles, running around, hitting stuff and us with their tails and bodies. The kids just die laughing. I'm sure it is actually really funny to see someone loose total control of a situation and watch the whole thing unfold. CHAOS, my friends is what that is called.


So why is chaos a good thing? Here are my Top 5 reasons:

1. Chaos is great for reminding those of us who have control issues (not me, of course) to let go. If you can't seem to let go, chaos will do it for you.....over and over again...even after you've learned the lesson. 
2. Chaos will make you laugh. Maybe not at first. You may loose your mind, get angry, yell, turn red, and say a few choice words. But after all that is done, eventually you will laugh. It is always funny later.
3. Chaos will give you perspective. While you are living in the chaotic moment and losing control you feel totally overwhelmed and helpless. Shortly after the chaotic moment ends you gain sanity again (hopefully) and can be thankful that not all days are chaotic and that things could be much worse and be thankful that they are not.
4. Chaos gives you an opportunity to show how well you work under pressure. If you do well you can totally put that on your resume. 
5. Chaos teaches your children/spouse and even yourself an important lesson. STUFF HAPPENS....even to the best of us. Nobody is above it, or immune. There is no such thing as perfect and chaos will make sure of it. Just deal with it gracefully when it's your turn (I don't always manage to do this), but I try. I will be trying harder though. I go long periods without getting hit with chaos so it's hard to remember to be humble when it is my turn.

This Old House

 Oh this old house indeed. We live in a massive, old house. Built in 1902 actually. Anyone that knows us knows that we are constantly and continuously working on this old house. It's always something....tearing down walls, building walls, painting, flooring, plumbing. But aside from all the work, we love this old house. We have made it into a home. Oh how I wish we had before and after pictures. But for now I do have 1 room of before/after. The upstairs bathroom is our latest project. Here is the before

Scary I know!!

And the after

Awww. That's more like it!!

All this before and after got me thinking. Because this old house is ever changing I thought I would document how it looks now. Actually this pictures were around Halloween time (you'll see paper bats in the dining room) but you'll get the idea. I'm sure even next year things will look much different. I thought it might be neat for the girls to look back on and see how they were living in 2011-2012 .I don't have pictures of all the rooms sorry. I'm missing the entire basement, our room, the upstairs hallway, the half bath and our staircase. (Maybe I can get that in the next edition of "This Old House" :)  So this is "this old house" Fogive any "messes" you may see. I didn't get our house "picture ready" for this..lol. This is just how we live and things aren't always perfect around this old house. :)

Living Room

Living Room

Living Room with staircase view

Dining Room

Dining Room

Sun Room (this is also Griffin's, our parrots, hang out place)

Kitchen (It's the next project)

Kitchen

Laundry room

Bathroom

Guest Bedroom

Randi's Bedroom

Randi's Bedroom

Randi's Bedroom

Grace's Bedroom (We still have to hang all the pictures in here)

Grace's Bedroom

Grace's Bedroom

Toy Room

Toy Room

Toy Room

You can click ----> HERE <---- for Part 2