Easter Baskets

SpunCandy Doll, BeckandBelle Headband, Ralph Lauren Jumper, Firetruck Puzzle, Tractor Slippers, Sleeveless Hoodie

Since having kids, one of my favorite things about Easter is making up the kids' Easter baskets.  Getting to fill a basket with pretty spring themed toys and clothes makes this mama's heart happy!  Since Liam's first Easter, I knew that I did not want to fill a basket with tons of candy and little trinkets.  I absolutely hate buying little trinket like items just for the fact that they may hold my kids' attention for a day, then they just sit in a toy basket, or on the stairs...or in the refrigerator (it's happened).  Since Christmas wasn't too far away and Liam just had his birthday, I also do not want to completely overdo it.  My happy median is finding one toy, books, or puzzle for each child, then throwing in some "fun" essentials.  Both kids need some spring clothes, so at least one item of clothing is a go to.  Bright slippers, socks, underwear, or pajamas can round out your clothing items.  Something to keep their little hands busy, like art supplies, is also a nice option.  In our case, Liam prefers stickers, so I found some really fun spring stickers in the dollar bin at target.  I did bite the bullet and get Liam a chocolate bunny for his basket, but a good alternative would be Annie's Cheddar Bunnies.  To fill out the basket, I like to put some items they can play with outside, like chalk, bubbles, or water toys for their water table.

It's Been A While...

So, it's been a while, as in a month and a half since I've "blogged" last.  I definitely go back and forth on whether to delete this blog or keep moving along.  Sometimes I feel like a trucker trying to connect to someone over the walkee talkee when i'm blogging.  "Niner, niner, is anyone out there?"  Regardless if I'm connecting with anyone else or not, it is fun to have a spot to look back to with your family stories, pictures, and things you love.

Since January, we've had fun celebrating Valentine's Day with the traditional Papa Murphey's heart shaped pizza, cupcakes, and our own Valentine mailboxes.  We've also celebrated a certain little boy's third birthday, John Deere style.  Both our parents and ourselves pitched in and got him his own Gator.  Luckily the weather has been nice a couple times, but for the most part, it's still too cold to play with it on a daily basis.  I think he has big plans to stroll Eva around in the passenger seat, but we're not quite there yet...

Eva turned eight months old and I'm still trying to wrap my head around how that is even possible.  I've said it before, but I felt like Liam was a baby forever and Eva is just zipping through this phase.  She's babbling, eating pureed food (with some puffs), and crawling.  Although, her crawl is more like an army crawl.  We're pretty sure she is going to have the buffest upper body any baby will ever have, but her legs will be atrophied since she hasn't been using them to crawl at all.

We'll see if I can keep this blog up a bit =)

Valentine's Day Prep

Candle, Valentine's Day Card, King of Hearts Shirt, The Day it Rained Hearts, Dress

Well, it's day three of Liam's fever and the doctor confirmed it is RSV.  Wah.  Poor little guy has been sleeping for three days straight and has barely eaten.  We're snuggled up in bed right now while he watches Ice Age on the IPad and I "window shop" for Valentine's Day items.  

Valentine's Day is one of my favorite holidays.  First of all, there are the cutest books that go along with Valentine's day.  The Day it Rained Hearts would be a great one to read before making your own Valentine's Day cards with your kids.  Such a cute story!  I'm not going to lie, looking at all the Pinterest homemade Valentine cards to get ideas for Liam's classmates gives me a certain level of anxiety.  A robot made out of a fruit cup and juice box...seriously?  I do not have the time nor the skills.  I lied.  I have the time, but I'd rather be watching Making a Murderer.  The skills part is true, though.

Greg and I don't typically do anything romantic, but I'm swooning over that card pictured above.  I'm pretty sure I have to get that.  We will most likely make some sort of dessert with the kids and make heart shaped pancakes for breakfast (or a heart shaped pizza for dinner...just know that some heart shaped food will be happening this day).  

The Never Ending Saga

I hope everyone had a healthy start to the new year, because we certainly have not.  For the past two months one of us has been sick with something, with maybe a gift of a day of two in between of everyone being healthy.  We had a streak of about five days where we were all good and I thought the germs were all behind us, until Friday night, when Liam woke up with a fever around midnight.  Now it's Sunday night and he's worse than he was Friday night. I hate seeing him this ill.  He's a kid who can be sick, but will still run around and play, but this round, he's pretty much couch bound and cries every time he coughs.  We took him to urgent care, but they said it's viral and we'd have to wait it out.  So, here I am, waiting it out with him, at 7:00pm in my bed (yup, writing from my bed).  I'm just hoping the rest of our family doesn't catch anything.  Being a stay-at-home mom is always in the back of my mind, but these times especially are the times I wish I could just devote 100% of my time to caring for my family.  

In happier news, Eva Las Vegas is a whole 6 months old!  I can hardly believe it.  I felt with Liam time passed so slow that first year as we were anxious for him to meet his first milestones.  I feel with Eva, if we blink, we'll miss everything and she'll be talking and walking before we know it.  She continues to be fairly easy going.  She loves hearing herself  "talk," rolling on her belly (and sleeping on her belly), watching Liam, looking in the mirror, and has recently discovered pulling the kitty's hair.  It's so fun to see how much more Liam attends to her now that she is getting her own personality and can respond with giggles and smiles to him.  She is working on sitting up by herself and can hold it together for about 10 seconds before she topples over (which Liam loves).

In unrelated news, after eating three meals of pizza this weekend, Greg and I decided we really need to eat healthier and actually took some action and wrote down some meal ideas, which is about one step further than we usually take when we mention we need to eat healthier.  I even prepped some over night oats for tomorrow.  Props to me.  Hopefully we can keep this health kick going...although I will admit, the idea of giving up pasta gives me a slight panic attack.  I think I'll compromise with that one by just adding spinach to the lasagna.  It's all about balance, right?

2016

I almost didn't want to write a "New Year, New Me" post, but after giving it a days thought, and with some inspiration from Instagram (seriously, have you followed natgeo or intherivervalley...if not, you need to!) , I have thought of one change I want to make for the new year: adventure.

I'll just start out by admitting I am not a risk taker.  I am happiest when I am safe, at home, and with the people I love.  However, for my kids' sake, I want to add a little adventure in our lives.  Specifically, adventure through nature.  I'd say as parents, we do a good job of exposing our kids to different activities and keeping them away from TV, but when I told Liam we were going to Target and his response was an overzealous, "Yay!," I knew it was time to add a little more excitement into our lives (although the mention of going to Target makes my heart beat a little faster, too).  Liam loves being outside and that's something I want to continue to foster within him.  Even when we're tired, busy, or unmotivated, I want to try to get the kids in nature as often as we can.  Here's to a more adventurous 2016!

A Merry Merry Christmas!

Christmas has come and gone...with the exception of one more Christmas celebration to go through on my side of the family.  I always thought Christmas as a kid was the absolute best, but I was wrong.  Christmas as a parent is about a million times better.  We've had two Christmas' prior to celebrate as parents, but this was the first year that Liam really understood what was going on and was visibly excited about it.  The morning started out with him waking up and asking, "is Santa coming," and the night ended by him saying, "Mommy, I love Christmas."  Cue heart melting.  We did the Elf on the Shelf, the Santa Clause visits, and the Christmas light looking, but also tried to reinforce the real reason for the season with bible stories and reminding him who it is we were celebrating.  We went to a Christmas eve service and to Liam's delight, they had a live nativity scene, camel and all!  I just want to point out that I told Greg there would be a real live camel, to which he said: "No, it's probably two people dressed up in a camel suit."  Owned. 

As sad as it was to pack away the Christmas decorations, it is nice to get the house back in order.  I think at age 29, I can say I officially feel like an adult.  Greg and I bought ourselves a bedroom set and are extremely pumped about it (along with the garage storage we got for Christmas).  We have lived together (including before we were married) for almost ten years and our bedroom has always consisted of a bed frame.  Just a bed frame.  Nothing to add here.  No big deal that Eva and Liam's rooms are fully decked out while we have pretty much been sleeping on a 20 year old hand-me-down mattress on a questionably sturdy frame, while our socks and undergarments are shoved into make-shift containers.  Parenthood.  But, in about 6 short weeks, our furniture will be here and we will have officially made it as adults.  I decided owning bedroom furniture is a qualifying component to adulthood.

With Christmas almost behind us, I have already moved onto the next three holidays.  Before you think I'm crazy, I have two weeks off for winter break and then it's back to work, where my attention will be once again divided and things will slip through the cracks, so my solution is to take care of Liam's birthday, Valentine's Day, and Easter preparation all within the next week.  We already bought Liam's birthday gift (keeping it a secret for now, but he is going to FLIP!), so from here it's pretty much ordering Liam's classroom valentines, scheduling a date for Greg and I, and ordering Easter baskets.

If you're wondering if I'm prepping for New Year's, be curious no longer.  I'll be in bed by 9pm, so my prep is pajamas and, if I'm feeling really feisty, downing a glass of wine.

Eva's Gift to Us

Look at the face.  Instead of us getting a gift for Eva for her five month birthday, she decided to bestow upon us a gift of her own, the flu.

I got a call from daycare Friday around noon that Eva just didn't seem like herself, so I picked up the kids and headed home for the weekend.  She was not running a temperature, but slept almost all day.  The next morning she woke up happy, hungry, and ready to play, so I did not think much of it.  Flash forward to five o'clock that night, the nausea and hot flashes struck me like a ton of bricks, all while we were at a retirement party.  Without going into details, it was not pretty and my little adventure turned into an emergency room event by the time ten o'clock came.  I actually attributed it to food poisoning, until Liam and Greg got struck with the same thing, luckily not as severe, the next morning. 

I'll just tell you now that having a family of four experience the stomach flu in a span of forty-eight hours falls just slightly below sky diving without a parachute on list of things I love to do.   Needless to say, we had some sacrifices during this ordeal, including some pillows and Eva's play-mat.

However, keeping things in perspective, we're lucky it was just the flu, as I know people experience much worse and ongoing struggles in their lives.  And thank goodness we live just minutes from the hospital...