Day 59

This was one of those moments where I just had to laugh at myself!

I had this bag of mini M&Ms, and I was too lazy to go track down the scissors to open it properly. I figured I could just open it without them. In a total comedic moment, the bag burst open and there were mini M&Ms all over my desk. This photo is of the ones on my keyboard.

I'll probably be finding the little Ms for a while. Or one of my guys will. ;)

Day 58

I don't generally have plans for Valentine's Day, but this year I had a few things I wanted to do for my guys. One of them was make a cake. I made the cake, but then we all got sick with the flu and all I could smell that entire night was that cake. I thought I'd never be able to eat a yellow cake again.

The first cake ended up being tossed before it was ever frosted. I decided to make another today. It turned out super yummy. One of my favorite parts is the black heart sprinkles. I'm not a fan of the holiday, so they were perfect!

Day 57

More of that white stuff showed up last night. It was actually falling while I was trying to get to work this morning, which pretty much doubled the length of my commute.

As I was leaving my parent's house after finally dropping off the boys, I noticed these dark clouds hanging over the valley. Unfortunately, I only had my iPhone with me, so I couldn't quite capture what I saw. One day I'll learn to take the good camera with me everywhere.

Day 56

Today is Ash Wednesday, so we went to the services at our church. The theme for Lent is The Cross Shaped Life. As a reminder, we were all encouraged to pick up one of these little wooden cross necklaces. I'm mulling over what to do with mine to make it my own.

Day 55

School was unexpectedly canceled today due to a family emergency. I promised Paul that we'd go and do something fun. I was planning to take him to one of the bounce houses, but I didn't want to tell him just in case we couldn't get ourselves together quickly enough to get there on time.

It was driving him crazy to not know what we were going to do, so I asked him what he would find fun to do. He wanted to go to the library. Once he got the idea in his head, then that's where we needed to go. Momma didn't have a problem with it, since it's free and brought us close to the mall where I wanted to do a bit of shopping.

The pic of the day is of Paul reading at the library. He loves to look through books and could spend a great deal of time finding his favorite characters and stories.

Day 54

I was home today taking care of my little one with the broken collar bone. I was sitting at the desk while he was napping and getting some work done with Paul played. I looked out the window and there was this blue jay.

I've mentioned it before, but one of the things I really like about living out here is the wildlife. A blue jay really isn't that monumental, but they're still so vivid and fun to see.

Day 53

My littlest monkey fell off our bed this afternoon. He was favoring his right arm, so Rob stayed home with Paul while I rushed little Matt to the emergency room. Seven hours later we returned with one baby with a broken collar bone and one worn out momma. This is the band they put on his leg in the ER.

Day 52

The purpose of our trip to Portland was to celebrate my grandma's 85th birthday. We've tried to visit her a couple of times since Paul was born, but it just hasn't worked out. This was the first time she met both Matt and Paul.

The boys took to all the family right away. They're nice people, and of course, it was quite the sacrifice for my boys to be the center of attention. ;)


Posing with us was my cousin's little girl. She and Paul hit it off right away, and Paul's already asking when he'll get to see his new cousin again.

Day 51

I love to take the boys to experience new things, and trips out of town are a fantastic opportunity to expose them to new adventures. The one thing I wanted to do while in Portland was go to the zoo. We got up this morning and headed straight to the zoo from the hotel. One of the cooler things about our zoo membership is being able to get free or discounted admission to other zoos. We were able to get into the Oregon Zoo for free, which is an awesome price.

This picture is of the seals. The Oregon Zoo has quite a few more water exhibits than our local zoo, and they were all pretty cool. The seals in this exhibit were having tons of fun just swimming around and around. I liked the motion in this shot.

Day 50

We were so busy getting ready to go right after I got off work that I almost missed out on getting my picture today. I try not to recycle pictures, but this one may end up in more than one place.

Today's picture is after we got to the hotel and put everyone in their pajamas. This is Matt's first hotel experience. I managed to take an okay picture from my phone while holding Matt.

Day 49

Tomorrow we are leaving on a mini-vacation to Portland to go to my grandma's 85th birthday. We extended the trip a couple of days to get some much needed family time. Of course, the packing falls to mom, so I thought of taking this picture at nearly midnight when I was still running laundry and packing.

Day 48

Kind of a random photo for today. I was messing around and taking some pictures of the boys. Matt had the lens cap in his hand and I thought I'd try taking a picture. It wasn't until after I looked at the results that I noticed the shadow of his fingers made a cross. I thought it turned out nice.

Day 47

When we moved, we heard that the cable provider out here was not really all that great. We figured that the easiest and least expensive thing to do would be to give the cable a shot.

I should have realized it wasn't a match made in heaven on the day they came out (at the last possible moment of our four hour window) and the guy cruised on over to the neighbor's house all the while telling me that he'd be right there.

So I waited and watched the time when I needed to leave to take my son to preschool get closer and closer. Finally he shows up and I need to go. I tell him I'll be back in about an hour and he's like, no it just takes 15 minutes, we'll have to reschedule. Um, no. So I was late to preschool.

On top of that, when we moved into the house our cable box had been hit (probably by the moving van of the people moving out). He noticed our box was destroyed, looked at it and never said a thing. I thought, oh they'll come fix it. Um, no.

But the capper was when we started getting really terrible reception. I'm talking, "gee, shouldn't you get new rabbit ears" reception. I figured it was the destroyed box and exposed cables, but a chat with my friends out in the area revealed that we weren't the only ones.

It was time for a change. DirecTV had been advertising quite a bit, so I looked into it and discovered that for just $2 extra a month we could get so much more. The decision was easily made.

We signed up a couple of weeks ago and the installation was today. The pic of the day is of the box in our bedroom.

The absolute final nail in the coffin - no Lost or The Office last week. Lost was a big black nothing, and The Office was unintelligible lines.

I'm never looking back! :)

Day 46

Valentine's Day was a big bust around here, so I disappointed my little preschooler by not being able to open my gift until just before bed last night. He was so very excited to give it to me though. It's a pin that he made in preschool, and he was so adorable because he told me that I could put it in my drawer with my jewelry.

No one ever could have told me how much these simple little gifts would mean the world to me. It's nice to know that my parents probably really did appreciate those silly little things we made growing up.

Day 45

The flu hit Rob and I last night with a vengeance. But I am determined to not give up on the spirit of my blog. I took five pictures today. Two of the others will show up somewhere else, but this one is what my life consisted of today.

My dear, sweet father brought over (and left on the porch) enough Gatorade for the next big game. The Pedialyte is for my sick baby.


Happy Valentine's Day!!

Day 44

A week ago today, I took the boys to daddy's work for lunch. As I was getting Paul out of his car seat, somehow my thumb slipped on the release button and I bent my thumbnail back well beyond a reasonable location. It was bleeding all over and just all around uncomfortable.

Why do I share this? Eh, because I can.

Actually, this was kind of an experiment on whether I could successfully snap a pic with my left hand. I think you can see the damaged part under the nail too. It's the dark line between the white of the nail and the pink.

Day 43

This is what a stripped down car seat looks like after the four-year-old has lost his cookies on the way home.

Day 42

My dear friend brought me a bouquet of flowers when she came to Matt's party on Saturday. It was all the more appropriate because I had just been talking to another friend of mine about how she felt the first birthday party should be for the mom because she's the one who did all the work making sure this baby was born. ;)

Either way, it was the sweetest thing, and a few days later they're still looking great!

Day 41

I guess there will be another photo of me for the month. The slightly out of focus, a little concerned smile is because of the four-year-old holding mom's fancy camera. He thought it was great fun and took a few pics of his own.

Day 40

I heard them talking about more of the white stuff, but honestly didn't believe it. I was shocked to look out my front door this morning and see that it was true. It was 46 degrees when we came home last night.

I set my camera out on the porch railing, put it on the night-time setting, and hit the button. This is one of three shots I took. The flash isn't ideal, but I think it gave the right amount of light to make the rest of the exposure turn out well.

Not the shot of a seasoned photographer by any means, but I like it.

Day 39

Today the boys had a birthday party to go to at one of the bounce houses. Matt was not sure about all these kids. I took him down the slide a few times and daddy bounced around with him. He eventually warmed up to the idea, but I think he was a bit overwhelmed.

And here's the picture of me for the month!

Day 38

Today was my little guy's birthday party. I think it went pretty well. It was loud and crazy, but it was good. Matt had a great time.

This is a picture of the spread before the guests arrived. I loved the mod-monkey theme.

Day 37

My other baby started complaining of an ear ache after his bath last night. Of course, at 9 at night there's not much we could do. We gave him some Tylenol and decongestant, but it just wasn't working.

In desperation, I called my mom to find out what she would do for my brother when he had ear infections. We put a bit of oil in the ear, a cotton ball, and secured it with a band aid. It helped a bit and eventually he fell asleep.

Here is the picture from this morning.

Day 36

Today is my baby boy's first birthday.

::sniff:: ::sniff::

I couldn't really decide which picture to use. There are some really cute ones of him, but I have other blogging for them. So for now I'm posting this one of his gifts from dad, mom and brother.

Day 35

I am not a cook at all. I don't have the time, and honestly, I can't stand the clean-up. But I got it in my head to try making my baby's cupcakes for his first birthday party from scratch. How hard can it be to follow directions? Actually, for me it can be challenging.

Anyway, here's the finished product.


They are Cookies and Cream Cupcakes. I think they turned out okay. Based on the batter, I think they might be a bit too floury, but they smell pretty good. I also think I might have gone after those poor Oreos a bit too much. It sure was fun to crush them though.

Now I have to figure out a frosting. I want something light. I'm going to try to find a whipping cream frosting. Or maybe mousse.

Day 34

The photo for today is taken at the end of a very stressful day and is the reason for the stress.

We moved a few months ago at probably the worst time possible. It was the end of September and hubby was back at work after being off for the summer - not the ideal time to move. Our move went very quickly and ended up being a lot of people helping us cram a lot of stuff in boxes.

One of the things I like to do for the boys' birthdays is put together a compilation of the videos from their year. Matt's party is on Saturday, and I was sure these tapes were in a particular box.

The problem? No box.

On my "day off" I spent the entire morning trying to track down this box. I touched every single box in the house at least three times and it was no where to be found. I spent so much time on this particular project that I almost didn't get Paul to preschool on time, I forgot his shin guards for soccer, and was an overall crabby mom.

On the way home from soccer, I called Rob and begged him to go looking one more time. By the time I got home he had found my missing box. The box I though I was looking for had already been unpacked. The box for this set of tapes was in a box full of shoes.

Of course. They were in a shoe box after all.

Day 33

This one was an accident, but I thought it was kind of interesting how the ball is in focus, but the baby is not.

Day 32

I thought I'd go for a touch of the creative today.


I took this at my parent's house. It's a stack of frosted glass coasters.