Seeking and Telling

weekend review part 2: valentine's day/jason's birthday

2012-02-14T10:00:00.000-06:00

so, as i said yesterday, we left siloam after sunday school because we had plans for sunday night. a few months ago, jason noticed that martin sexton, who is pretty much his favorite musician ever, was coming to little rock. conveniently, the concert was a week before his birthday and a few days before valentine's day, so it worked out that the date night was our valentine's day night out and the tickets were his birthday present.

we dropped the kids off with jason's mom around 6 and went out to dinner. our first plan was to make dinner at home, but we were running short on time, so we ended up going to the house, which was delicious. and i'm glad we went out. we don't go on many dates anymore. if we do things without the kids, it's usually with friends. which is fun, but different than an actual date. we have some nights at home together, but by the time the kids go to bed, dishes are done, etc etc, it's late, we're tired, and usually just end up watching a tv show and going to bed. lame. so, getting dressed up, going out, spending time with no kids, no time constraints - it was a breath of fresh air.

after dinner, we picked up our friends, shannon and steven, and headed downtown. we had bought tickets online to make sure we would get them - well, not a problem. it was a really small crowd, but that was great from our perspective. we sat front and center and it was a wonderful atmosphere. most of the other people were there also for the music - not just a random show.

yay for date nights!

the show was amazing. chris trapper opened, who we had never heard. he was really good. funny, good singer, good performer, good songs.

and then came martin. ya'll, if you have not ever heard of him, listen to his music. right now. do it. he is amazing. his voice is incredible. so much variety, so much heart and soul, so unique. we've seen him live three times now, and he blows me away each time. he never sings a song the same way twice. we were literally five feet away from him. "great" does not even begin to describe it.

he makes a lot of awesome faces

jason, stephen, and shannon enjoying the show

chris trapper joined him on one song - they made a pretty good duo

monday morning, we got to sleep in since the kids were gone, which was another breath of fresh air. if that had been the end of the weekend, it would have been wonderful - but we got an added bonus of a snow day! (well, for me. jason still had to work, but he closed, so we had the morning at home).

such a fun weekend. rest, family, date night, friends, food, music, sleep - pretty much everything i could have asked for.

weekend review part 1: oscar's 60th birthday

2012-02-13T13:36:00.000-06:00

you know those weekends that are just great? the kind where you get to do fun stuff and be with people that you love and actually feel relaxed at the end? this was one of those weekends. i think it was one of the best weekends we've had in a long time.

part one revolved around my dad's 60th birthday. we went up to siloam on friday night and spend the day saturday celebrating my dad. it was pretty relaxed and low key, which was great. my brother and sister-in-law, nate and kristin, came down from kansas and it was great to see them. rachel was there a well. hiba and matthias loved all the attention and getting to see aunts and uncles.

we read lots of books....

made birthday soup....

carrots and potatoes, peas and tomatoes.

...dug for treasures in a bowl of rice...

oooo, a dinosaur!

...played dress-up...

i'm thinking a career in fashion design may be in her future....

...and of course, had a birthday party.

birthday card from matthias to oscar

birthday card from hiba

math clock from rachel - set to siloam springs time

scrapbook of pictures and memories from the piston kids

we also got to go to a basketball game at "the JVU" (as matthias calls it). i'm not sure what the highlight was - seeing "the real golden eagle" or the unlimited supply of pizza and chips in the hospitality room. either way, it was definitely a good time.

we stayed for sunday school on sunday morning, so hiba and matthias could go to ms. barb and mr. jim's class. i love that they go to that class and there are pictures of rachel as a 2 and 3 year old on the wall.

after sunday school, we headed back down to little rock, because we had big plans for the evening. but that'll be part 2.

i'm so thankful for my dad and what a great example he is to me. it was fun to celebrate him this weekend and i'm glad that i've finally grown up and and can see now what a blessing it is to have a great dad like him.

mom of the year

2012-02-02T14:46:00.002-06:00

so yesterday, as i was writing a blog post, the kiddos were playing outside. it was past matthias' nap time, but it was such a nice day that i figured he could stay up as long as he wanted. he came in once and told me he was done, so i gave him the choice between napping and going back outside - he chose going back outside.

fast forward a few moments. i hear him crying - well, more like whining - and i ignore him. i figured he would come inside if he wanted to. but he kept whining, saying he needed my help. and, like any wonderful mom, i continued to ignore him. i mean, the last time he wanted my help it was stacking bricks. i figured he and hiba could work that out on their own.

finally, hiba came in and told me that matthias needed my help.

me: what? why? tell him to come inside.
hiba: well, he is stuck in the basement.
me: what?
hiba: he's stuck in the basement. come unlock it.

and what she meant in fact was that matthias was locked in the shed. (some friends came over the other day and were calling it a basement).

he crawled in through this.

and then couldn't get out.

he was less than thrilled about getting his picture taken

not only did i ignore him while he needed my help, but i tried to get him to pose for a picture. ha. go me. mom of the year.

school

2012-02-01T13:43:00.000-06:00

i registered hiba for pre-k today.

i cannot believe that she is old enough to be going to school. (well, in a couple months.) i know that it is so cliche, but really - where has the time gone?

we still haven't completely decided if we are going to send her, but the registration is this week and to get a spot, we figured we'd go ahead and sign her up to keep our options open. one of the positive things about the little rock school district (and there aren't all that many of those) is that the pre-k programs are free and really good. the one we want to send her to is close to our house, the whole school is only pre-k, and we have several friends who have sent their kids there and have had very positive experiences.

but, as good as it is, we still aren't decided on what is the best. i've been having these theoretical conversations with friends, jason, parents, since hiba was born. where will she go to school? the answer was always that it depends on where we live, how long we plan on being there, what the schools are like, yadda yadda yadda. well, now that time is here. and even though she is registered for next year, i really have no idea what our decision is.

we have basically ruled out private schools. lots of different reasons, some that we we feel strongly about, some that we don't, but even if we wanted it to be an option it is expensive. and i don't want to pay that much money for elementary school.

so that leaves home school and public school. home school, for me right now, is a pretty definite no. i don't know that i can be hiba's teacher. we just kind of clash. i think we will have a much better relationship in the long run if i don't try. there are lots of great home school groups and options in the little rock area that would make it easier, but really i just don't want to. i'm not a "teacher" kind of mom. we don't do crafts. we don't do any sort of lesson time now. we barely make it to story hour at the library on a regular basis. and i know that with some support, that could change, but it just doesn't interest me.

but the problem is that we live in little rock. and the truth is that the schools just aren't great here. that may be an understatement. there are good schools. there are good teachers. there are good administrations. but there are also a lot of problems. our neighborhood elementary school is not my first choice. it is one of the worst performing schools in the state. like bottom ten. i know people who have their kids there or who have sent their kids there, but what i hear is pretty much the same story - the kids are nice, the teachers are good, but the parents are so uninvolved that the kids are so far behind that it leave the teachers no choice but to teach what is necessary. it doesn't matter how good of a teacher you are - if you have a class full of kindergartners who don't know what sounds letters make, you have to teach that first no matter what the curriculum says. and it doesn't matter how involved i am in that school - if other parents aren't, it is not going to make a huge difference.

now, that's not to say that all the parents there are uninvolved. but that is what seems to be true about the majority. and we knew that would be an issue when we chose to live where we do. we knew school would be a hard decision. i just didn't know it would sneak up on us so soon.

but here we are. next year is full of good options. if she gets into the school we want her to go to, great. we will strongly consider sending her. and if we don't like it - either the school or the idea of school - we can pull her out, no harm done, we'll start over in kindergarten. if she doesn't get in there, she can stay home another year and i'm not really worried about that affecting her academic career.

but, one short year away is the year of decisions. public or home? magnet school or neighborhood school? what about charter schools? which magnet school? what is plan b if she doesn't get into one? home school group or on our own? un-schooling? do i try to go back to work so jason can home school the kids? do i suck it up and home school them for a few years and hope we move?

and the choice isn't just about education. because honestly, we can supplement at home what she doesn't learn in school. i am not worried about one or two years in an under-performing school ruining her chances of getting into college. because, for us, the choice is much bigger than that. it's about being where we live. it's about social justice. it's about making a positive change in the community that we have chosen to surround ourselves with. it's about having our kids be around people who are different than them and in a place that is representative of where we really live. and it is a balancing act between ideals and reality, principles and necessity, great plans and the realistic needs of your kids.

so that's where my thoughts are today. and probably will be for the next year. any thoughts? advice? people who have sent their kids to little rock schools - what did you think? parents who have sent their kids through less-than-stellar districts?

because we only have a year to decide. and apparently that is not really that long.

yum

2012-01-30T20:12:00.001-06:00

jason found a rack of ribs on manager's special at kroger this weekend. so he made them for dinner tonight. add some mashed sweet potatoes and homemade coleslaw and you've got yourself quite a delicious meal. a perfect end to a rather long monday.

one of the many reasons i am thankful for my husband.

fabulous friday

2012-01-27T14:41:00.001-06:00

sun + perfect temperature + jason's day off + heifer village + zoo = great for the soul.

matthias trying to pick up a bucket of water

the mosquito net was quite a hit

giraffes up close

checking out the monkeys

sassy pants.

2012-01-15T16:57:00.001-06:00

hiba hits matthias.

hiba goes to timeout.

hiba yells to me from her bed, "mom, can I get up?".

I answer something to the effect of, "no and if you yell again or talk or move you will be sitting on your bed for the rest of your life".

a few moments of silence.

then hiba yells again, "mom! mom! MOM!!!"

i reply with something like "be quiet and stop yelling and think about how mean you are to your brother and don't ask me again if you can get up or you will have to stay in timeout for a week!!!!" (or something just as helpful and age appropriate).

hiba yells back, "i love you mom".

(and i can totally hear her smirking as she yells it.)

why an iPhone makes my life better

2012-01-09T08:28:00.001-06:00

because i can capture sweet moments like this.

kairos

2012-01-06T13:38:00.000-06:00

a few friends of mine posted an excellent blog post on facebook the last few days and i finally read it this morning. if you are a mom, or if you have been a mom, or if you like to read good things, you need to read this.

i couldn't have said it better.

because let's all be honest. anyone who tells moms with young kids to love and cherish every minute either has never had young kids or has completely forgotten reality that comes with having young kids. it's nice to have someone else write those thoughts and see that it has been shared on facebook thousands of times, with hundreds of positive and agreeing comments. it makes me feel better about not being a fan of the whole carpe diem with your kids attitude.

but it's also a good reminder that just because i don't love every minute of my days, doesn't mean i can't (or shouldn't) find those moments that i do treasure. kairos time. a time in between, a moment of indeterminate time in which something special happens (thanks wikipedia). it's a good reminder that there are those moments, every day, where my kids amaze me, make me laugh, make me smile, make me thankful, show me glimpses of how much God must love me, show me the good that is in this world, teach me, humble me. it is a good reminder to look for those kairos moments and hang on to them when all the other moments seem so overwhelming.

today has been a kairos day. it's been filled with moments that i can treasure. homemade biscuits for breakfast. bubble bath for the kiddos this morning, given my daddy which meant an uninterrupted shower for me. family time. a trip to kroger that produced zero tears or yelling. family pillow fights. gorgeous weather. dancing in the car. playing outside. laughter from my kids as they play together.

it's also been filled with getting up at 6:15 because my kids are incapable of telling time. hiba throwing tantrums because something wasn't just right. matthias throwing a lego at my face. hiba and matthias bickering about anything and everything. me losing my temper. once or twice.

but instead of focusing on all those moments - the moments that seem to make up the days that are currently my life - i'll try to remember the kairos moments. i won't kid myself into thinking that it's been a perfect day or wish that i could do this for the rest of my life. because it wasn't and i don't. i am so happy to see my kids grow up and most days i can't wait for this stage of life to be over.

but.

instead of just wishing it away and simply making it through, maybe i can carpe those kairos moments. maybe i can try harder to notice them when they are blatantly in front of me and learn to look for them when they aren't. and at the end of the day, i can look back at them and say, yeah. it wasn't so bad after all. and i can probably make it through tomorrow. especially if i try to carpe the kairos and don't get overwhelmed by the diem.

in the still of the night

2012-01-03T13:44:00.002-06:00

sometimes i talk in my sleep.

let me re-phase. sometimes i have really urgent, adamant, loud conversations with jason while he was sleeping and i am somewhere between awake and asleep.

it's pretty funny to wake up the next morning and think "did i that conversation really happen?" and then to have jason confirm it as he mocks me for what i said.

i don't do it a lot, but they are usually pretty funny. there are two great ones. so for your reading enjoyment - my two best sleep-talking episodes.

as a background, you have to know that i often dream about things from the day. only they are really weird in my dreams. like if i play a game for a long time before i got to bed, i'll dream that i'm in that game somehow. or if i watch a movie or tv show, the characters show up but usually mixed with real people i know. and i remember a lot of them when i wake up. it's some pretty bizarre memories.

also i have weird dreams when i'm pregnant. (which i am NOT. N-O-T, NOT, that has to do with the second story. not the first one. i'll just clear that up right now).

story number 1: the bed

last night, jason and i stayed up way to late playing monopoly on my kindle fire. i had just been talking a few days ago about how we need to get monopoly and then it was offered free for a day, so i got it and have been a tad on the obsessive side with it. so as i was going to sleep, visions of property cards, dogs and race cars, and money disappearing danced in my head.

and somewhere in the middle of the night, jason was clearly trying to take over my property, so this conversation happened:

me: (shoving jason) jason, you're in my bed.
jason: (not really too happy about being woken up) huh? what?
me: you're in my bed. you need to get out.
jason: why do i need to get out? what are you talking about?
me: (realizing that we're both awake at this point) oh, never mind.

story number 2: the horse

so, when i was about 7 months pregnant with hiba, we were coming home from a baby shower that some friends threw me in jerusalem. we had to go through the checkpoint to get back to bethlehem and as we pulled up to it, this horse came running at us. not really at us, but towards us and then ran off. it was strange. not so sure where it came from or where it was going. then we went home and i went to bed.

in the middle of the night, this conversation happened:

me: jason, wake up!!! there is a horse in our room!
jason: huh? go to sleep.
me: no! (very frantic at this point) jason!! wake up! there is a horse!!
jason: (still not very concerned, which really annoyed me) no there is not. go to sleep.
me: WAKE UP! THERE IS A HORSE IN OUR ROOM! YOU'RE JUST NOT LOOKING!
jason: (finally sitting up, turns on the bedside lamp) no. there is not.
me: (very quietly) oh.

and then i laid back down and went to sleep. because he was right. there was no horse.

2012-01-02T22:09:00.000-06:00

happy 2012, friends.

it's that time of year. new years resolution time. the time of year when we look back and see all of the things we sucked at last year and swear we'll change them. the time of year when we publicly admit all of our faults and come up with elaborate plans to fix them. the time of year when we make long lists of goals and things we'll start doing.

ha.

i made a list last year. and i actually did pretty well. at least on the published list. i didn't keep up with everything i wanted to, but it wasn't a failure. now the list i found in a notebook the other day....well, let's just say it wasn't a complete failure, but i wouldn't call it anywhere close to a success either.

throughout the year, i've thought of lots of things i want to do. most have to do with doing things with hiba and matthias, or projects around the house, or starting new family traditions. but i've realized that most of the things i think i need to start are not really realistic at this point in my life. my kids are little. my patience is thin. my extra time and energy are non-existent. this is not the time of my life for grand projects. this is the time of my life for survival.

so forget about all that stuff. 2012 is about me. not about lists that i want to complete, but about ways i want to grow. i have three. i think they are simple enough, doable, and are habits that i want to establish now.

be a better friend.

sometimes i think i am an awful friend. sometimes i know i am an awful friend. i'm just really bad about keeping in touch with people, making those little phone calls, actually doing things to reach out to people. i have a lot of nice ideas in my head - emails i should write, cards i should send, lunches i should have, dinners i should make, playdates i should arrange, care packages i should send. but i don't. partly because i think of these things when i'm driving or working or other times when i obviously can't do anything. but partly just because i have a hard time with it.

so this year i want to be intentional about being a better friend. i don't have specifics, like a number of emails or phone calls i need to make each week, but i want to be intentional about using my free time to connect with people. real people, not the cast of mad men.

exercise.

for real. and regularly. i was last year, for quite a while. pair that with eating well (which i do a relatively good job at most of the time) and i was feeling pretty good about myself. and working out really was good for my soul. but, the gym we were going to changed the childcare hours and it just wasn't working anymore. so i stopped.

but i'm back at it. i'm starting with a workout dvd at home because then i have no excuse not to. and i want to make this a part of life this year. i think jason and i have done a good job of making healthier choices a natural part of our lives and i want exercise to be like that for me as well.

figure out what i want to be when i grow up.

last year, i had plans to go back to school. that obviously didn't happen and don't know if it will. i realized that my kids are just too little for me to be gone from them that much. and although i wouldn't put being a stay at home mom at the top of my "favorite things ever" list, i've seen this year that it is at the top of my kids' "favorite things ever" list. so what's the rush?

i love having a part-time job and i know that has been good for me. but it's still not in an area that i really want to work full-time in, which still leaves me with no idea what i want to be when i grow up. i am leaning more and more away from homeschool, which means that in a few short years, it'll be just me.

i don't want to rush into going back to school or go back just because i don't want to do something else. so i'm taking this year - and i will probably try to make myself take the whole year - to figure out what i want to be. i'm not real sure how i'm going to figure this one out - so if you have any ideas or magic books that give you all of life's answers, feel free to pass those this way.

so there you have it. my goals for this year. i'm excited to see what's ahead.

magical pizza

2011-12-31T09:12:00.001-06:00

jason has been gone most evenings this week, so dinners have mostly been pbj or cheerios. but since that is what hiba and matthias had for lunch and breakfast yesterday, that wasn't going to work. we were having a little bit of a rough afternoon, so dinner needed to be a distraction and something that wouldn't cause a fight. so i thought we'd make pizzas.

i told hiba and she was SO excited. she loves helping me with anything, so when i told her that she would get to make her own, she was pretty thrilled. she asked if they could be magical pizzas. sure, why not? (i'm not sure what made them magical. of course, i'm not sure what made them pizzas either since they were really just slices of bread, cheese, and olives. but hey, whatever works.)

hiba was very careful and concentrated.

you may or may not have noticed that matthias isn't in those pictures. is this because i thought it would be easier to do one at a time? or because i wanted to spend quality time with them separately?

no, not so much. it's because at this point, he is in his bedroom in time-out, where he has been for the last hour (not even joking) because he didn't want to pick up the books he threw all over the living room. i would put him in time-out, get him up, ask him if he wanted to pick up the books or go back to his bed, he would scream at me or just flat out tell me he didn't want to pick them up, and we'd do it over again. for an hour.

so many books. i totally understand his opposition.

the pizzas finally lured him into cleaning up, and i finally gave in and helped him (although i did make him start and do most of the books). so then he got to make his magical pizzas too.

matthias was not so careful about spreading the cheese. he just dumped out the whole bowl.

hiba at a lot of her olives before we actually cooked the pizzas.

so magical.

maybe we should go to india first

2011-12-29T16:51:00.001-06:00

hiba (as we are on our way home from the zoo, in the late afternoon): hey mom, can we go to china today?
me: um, no. i don't think we'll be able to fit that in today.
hiba: why not?
me: well, china is very far away and so it takes a long time to get there.
hiba: but i told marty and yaqin that i would come see them at China with you. so we need to go to china.
me: i hope that someday we can go see marty and yaqin in china with you and matthias, but i just don't think that we'll have time for that today. it takes a very long time to get to china because it is very far away.
hiba: oh. little rock is far from china? *pause* well, what is close?
me: what do you mean? what is close to little rock? or what is close to china?
hiba: what is close to china?
me: um, india is close to china.
hiba: well, maybe we should just go to india first do then we would be close to china. will that work?

christmas recap

2011-12-28T14:27:00.000-06:00

we had a pretty great christmas.

well, as long as you over-look the fact that matthias was sick, which meant he was sad and pathetic and didn't sleep, which meant i was stressed for him and didn't sleep. it was seriously like having a newborn again. up every few hours at night. for four nights. i don't do well when i am sleep deprived.

but, other than that minor detail, things were great. this is the first year since we've had kids that we could do christmas at our own house. hiba's first christmas was spent in the US while we were here for a visit. we were living at jason's family's house for matthias' first christmas. and last year, we split the time between my family and jason's, so we didn't do anything at our own house. we didn't even have a tree.

so i was pretty excited to do christmas at our house, start our own traditions, etc. and it was fun. it lived up to my (pretty low) expectations and i think the kids really enjoyed it. christmas is so fun with two little kids. they are still at the age where they are grateful for almost anything, so getting all those presents, in hiba's words, was magical. (also, according to hiba dishwashers, making cake, playing matching games, christmas lights, and a whole list of other things are magical. but i still think she loved presents the best.)

yay for decorations!

my parents, rachel, and daniel came down to our house on the 23rd and stayed the night. we had a birthday dinner for rachel on christmas eve eve (also a magical day), and then did christmas on christmas eve. it was fun to host and great to see them all.

birthday girl!

new children from grammy and oscar

opening a present from uncle daniel

gifts from uncle nate and aunt kristin - we missed them!

"ooooo, trains!"

a new "finding" book from nate and kristen.

hippy grammy and hiba

christmas morning, we had christmas with our little family. the kids got to open their stockings (magical) before breakfast. they were pretty excited about stockings.

then we had breakfast and read the christmas story. in my head, this was going to be a really sweet time, with both the kids listening attentively, while jason and i explained the reason for christmas, the mystery that is Christ's birth, and the depth of God's love for us.

in reality, matthias refused to sit and listen and spent half the story turning our christmas lights on and off, while hiba listened, but interrupted every other sentence to interject comments that may or may not have had anything to do with what i was reading. but hey, that's how our life is, and we got through the story, with matthias even joining us at the end. and really in my head, that is exactly how i thought it would go.

then on to the presents. by this point, the kids had it down pretty well and there was no taking turns. there was lots of hiba and matthias helping me and jason open presents though.

a microphone!

princess stickers!

a new basketball goal - their big present for both of them

hiba got a shopping cart and reusable bags

matthias got a tool bench. now he can hammer to his little heart's content!

our big presents from them came from our church building, because we sold the building and were cleaning it out. some people may call that being cheap. i think of it as being green. i was pretty excited and all three things have been a huge hit the last few days. i was a little hesitant to give matthias that encouraged him to hammer, since he hammers everything with anything, but it's actually worked out well, because now he just hammers on his tool bench. all the time.

after naptime, we headed over to jason's family's house for more presents and dinner. yaqin made chinese food for dinner, which was delicious. i forgot my camera, so no pictures, but we had a great time. the best moment was when matthias opened his present from marty and yaqin - a bag of cheetos! weeks ago, when i asked him what he wanted for christmas, he said "chips". and that was all. so he got chips. presents at the pollack's was right at the worst time of his sickness - fever, runny nose, coughing a ton, watery eyes. he looked terrible. but when he pulled the cheetos out of the gift bag, he eyes got so big and lit up. it was awesome. apparently, he knew exactly what he wanted.

a birthday present for Jesus

2011-12-23T12:10:00.000-06:00

i'm going to take a break from writing about potty training. mostly because right now matthias has a pull-up on. and we have no clean towels left.

anyway.

this morning, i was talking to hiba about christmas. i really want her to know that christmas is about Jesus, not about presents and getting stuff. so i was telling her how it is Jesus' birthday and that is why we get presents for each other. then i asked her what she wanted to get Jesus for his birthday.

she stopped and thought for a minute. i couldn't wait to hear what she said - a new toy, some cookies, a car - really, these were the answers i was expecting.

but instead, she looked at me and said, "sharing. i want to get Jesus sharing for his birthday".

she then talked for about five minutes about how Jesus is happy when we share and how she should share with matthias and all her friends and this is what she wanted to give Jesus for his birthday. she even talked about how we should share with people if they need things and we have a lot.

i don't think i've ever been more happy hearing something come out of her mouth. i know that some of what she said was just repeating what i've said the last few weeks. but she's hearing it. she has such a tender heart, so much love and care for people. it's fun to see this in her at such a young age. hearing her talk about how to love Jesus by loving others is just about the best present she could give me.

the train has left the station

2011-12-22T09:12:00.002-06:00

so on a scale of success to fail, i would put potty training yesterday on the epic fail side. in all fairness to matthias, it was not the best day to start. more about that in a minute. but really, he is ridiculous. so stubborn. so dramatic. SO whiney. and then also so cute. so cooperative. so excited.

the day started out ok. he sat on his little potty while they watched a tv show, with no real results, but hey - points for trying. then he put on his big boy underwear and ran around, playing. then i suggested about a half hour later that he try again - something that i thought was a reasonable request and he had been relativiely excited about moments before. well, this suggestion brought the response of throwing himself on the floor, whining, and absolutly refusing the idea of sitting on the potty.

ok, plan b. i asked him if he wanted to change underwear after he sat on the potty. his response was more fussing, grabbing new underwear and wanting to put it on right then, without trying to go potty. i said no, which resulted in more screaming. literally. screaming.

ok, plan c. i break out the treats. all he has to do is sit on his little potty for two seconds and he can have a treat. that's it. pretty simple, if you ask me. well, apparently that was to much to ask. he just wanted a treat. for being. and for his stellar behavior up to this point. i said no. more screaming.

so that was a great start. i finally just ignored him, he went back to playing and literally less than a minute later, i hear "oopsy, oopsy, oppsy". and he's standing in a puddle.

awesome.

but i didn't give up. the day did get a little better. no success, but only a few accidents and less fits. at the end of the night when i was changing him into his bedtime diaper, he actually wanted to sit on the potty. so we're trying again today and tomorrow, when we really don't have anywhere to be or things to do, and then we'll reassess the situation. this morning has already been better, so i have hope.

on to a new topic - as i said, yesterday may not have been the best day for the potty train to arrive. and that's because jason, marty, and alan (jason's brother and dad) spent the majority of the day tearing apart our kitchen, installing a garbage disposal and dishwasher, and putting the kitchen back together. so it was a little hectic around here. i obviously didn't have my full attention to devote to matthias and we went out several times to get the kids out of the way.

so now we have a dishwasher. the house didn't have one when we moved in, which wasn't a huge deal to me. i've never had a dishwasher. my parents don't have one, we didn't have one in our first apartment, we didn't have one in palestine, so it didn't really phase me to not have one here. the is a place where there used to be one in our kitchen (and now there's one again!), so we always thought that we would put one in. well, someone gave us one, so the guys decided to install it. and a garbage disposal. it took a little longer than expected, but they got the job done.

i've never really minded doing dishes, but it's not one of my favorite things. and i especially hate waking up to a pile of dishes. on a good day, there are a few dishes from the evening before and a lot of dishes from jason's breakfast in the sink to greet me as a wake up. often there are dishes from dinner the night before piled in the sink, on the stove, on the counter, mocking me viscously as i wake up.

this morning - there was hot coffee in the coffee pot and zero dishes out. and my kids slept till 8. and matthias happily sat on the potty while watching dora. i felt like i was in an alternate universe.

so potty train fail + successful installation of a dishwasher = not such a bad day after all.

choo choo!

2011-12-21T08:29:00.001-06:00

the potty train is here.

when my sister was little, we were on summer vacation and talked about how when we got back home, she would get potty trained. so she started talking about "the potty train" and how it was coming to our house on july 6. the phrase has sorta stuck.

so the potty train has arrived at our house.

the playroom - all ready to be peed in!

carpets are rolled up, underwear is bought, towels are stocked, i've got a super enthusiastic and encouraging older sister to help out, and we've got minimal plans for the next few weeks.

big boy!

i'm so glad that one of my jobs as a parent is to take and share photos that will one day embarrass the heck out of my kids.

so we'll see how it goes. matthias goes between being really enthusiastic and absolutely uninterested - like in two minute time spans - so i'm knocking on wood.

from our family to yours....

2011-12-20T13:46:00.000-06:00

....Merry Christmas!!

if i was on top of it enough to do a christmas card, these would be our pictures. and i would have totally sent you one. but now you get to see our christmas cheer and not hang us up on your refrigerator for the next few months. unless you want to.

merry christmas, everyone!

weekend update

2011-12-19T09:21:00.002-06:00

it's finally starting to look like christmas around our house. i hadn't really done much as far as gift shopping, christmas cookies, talking with the kids about christmas, etc. until the teen mops christmas party was over. so this weekend was the start to our short holiday season. it was quite busy, but lots of fun.

friday night we had some friends come over for dinner at the last minute. the kids played great together and watched a movie, while jason, shannon, and i enjoyed dinner and games. we introduced shannon to one of our nerd games - ticket to ride - or as jason calls it, the gateway nerd game. we had fun and i think we may have a new couple recruited for nerdy games. we'll see. we also made chex mix, which is one of my new favorite activities. i made it for our christmas party a few weeks ago, for the teen mops christmas party, for our church christmas party - and there is always some leftover. homemade chex mix = delicious. the highlight of friday night was when the kids cleaned up the toys completely unprompted. we have shannon's kids to thank for that - it's never happened with our kids before.

saturday was busy, busy, busy. jason had to work for a few hours and then wanted to try out a new gym, so hiba, matthias, and i decided to hop on the holly trolley and enjoy the festivities. it was....well, it was a lot better idea in my head than in reality, but it wasn't too bad. we met up with shannon and her kids, and leslie and her family - some other friends from mops. i've ridden the trolley a few times with my kids, but it's usually pretty empty. well, not when it's free and includes coupons to all sorts of fun things downtown. nope, then it is very crowded.

we rode from the little rock side to north little rock and got off to peruse the argenta market and have lunch. there was free hot chocolate, which matthias immediately spilled all over himself. when we got to lunch, i realized that my shirt was soaking wet....from where i was holding matthias. because his pants were soaking wet. and of course, i didn't have any clothes for him. so he changed into hiba's cute little pants. luckily, he is huge so they wear the same size and the jeans i had for her were just a little girly. so lunch finished without any huge problems, but then we missed the trolley by about a minute, so had to wait at the stop for about twenty minutes for the next one to come. we opted to not go get pictures with santa during this time, which meant six kids running around at the bus stop, trying to run into the road, collecting apartment hunting magaizines....fun times. finally the trolley came and we were first in line, so we all got seats. and as soon as i sat down, i smelled an awful smell coming from matthias. and of course i didn't have any extra diapers. because why would i? and i wasn't going to change him in the middle of the trolley, so we just suffered for the ride and then leslie came to our rescue when we stopped.

whew. so we went home and took naps.

in the evening, we had a christmas party with our church peeps. i love our church peeps. they are awesome. hiba was a little bit sick (which seems to be a recurring theme when we have fun church functions), so she and jason had to stay home. but they watched christmas movies, ate popcorn and chex mix, and had hot coco. matthias and i went to the party and had a fabulous time. we're in the process of selling our church building and finding a new place to meet, so we did advent and communion at the party. there was also a lively round of christmas songs, which matthias loved. he found some jingle bells and danced his little booty off. and then of course he was loud and disruptive during silent night and our ending prayer, but no one seemed to be upset or judgy (except for me. i was totally judging myself and my lack of parenting skills), which is why i love my church peeps.

sunday was great. jason, my wonderful husband, let me sleep in so i woke up to coffee and breakfast being made. since we had church on saturday night, we got to just take it easy for the morning. jason and i went over our christmas lists and figured out what gifts we needed to get. he took matthias in the morning and went shopping for the girls. before they left, hiba gave two requests - a sword like the one matthias has and a tiger she can sleep with. matthias actually found both of them and is super excited that he got presents for hiba. so far he hasn't told her what they are, but we'll see if that lasts till next sunday. in the afternoon, i braved wal-mart and got grocery shopping and christmas shopping all knocked out. so now presents are wrapped and under the tree, christmas music is playing, cookies are being decorated every day, and we are talking about Jesus' birthday a lot. yay for christmas time!

Jesus, the mechanic

2011-12-17T09:27:00.000-06:00

apparently, Jesus likes to fix our car. which is just fine with me. i'm definitely not going to complain about that one.

we recently had to have our headlights fixed. which was kind of necessary, but also kind of expensive. but instead of stressing out, i really did just know that it would be taken care of. the china trip used up a good bit our our savings, but we had enough to pay for the car. and buy food. and buy christmas presents. and give presents away. i think i had a bit more perspective on how much we really have this time around.

so we paid for it, i said a little prayer asking God to not let anything else break in the next few months, and went back to life. simple as that.

and then we got an unexpected gift. that was for just over the amount it took to fix the car. which means we can still pay for the car. and buy food. and buy christmas presents. and give even more presents away.

a teen mops christmas

2011-12-16T08:36:00.004-06:00

hi there. remember me? i used to write things here - sometimes funny, sometimes about my kids, sometimes thoughts on life? yes, hi.

i'm not really sure what has happened since thanksgiving, but i do know that we've been busy. i'll try to post about anything exciting or interesting that i think of, but really, let's just get this ball rolling again.

so it's christmas time! i love christmas. i love getting presents for poeple. i'm pretty sure my love language is receiving gifts, but not just stuff. real gifts, that mean something and are heartfelt or something that is especially needed. and so i love giving gifts like that too.

one of the thing that my parents were great about is making christmas about giving. especially about giving to people who don't have as much and can't give back to us. we would serve at salvation army christmas meals, get gifts for kids through angel tree, help out families in town that we knew were needy. and i really loved it. my dad especially would get really excited about giving, which was definitely passed on to me. and i hope that i can pass that on to my kids.

and last night was the perfect chance. we had a christmas party for our teen mops meeting, which included loading the moms up with presents for them and their kids, diapers, and food. it was a really fun night and i loved seeing them all get presents. i know that some of them would get stuff anyway and aren't really needy. but i also know that some of them wouldn't. or at least wouldn't get stuff without stressing out about how they can get presents for their kids and food at the same time.

i took hiba and matthias shopping earlier this week to get gifts for a few of the moms and kids. it was neat to be able to talk about why we were getting things for other people and not for ourselves. we had to stop by chick-fil-a to get something for jason, which was also a perfect opportunity to explain to hiba that we wouldn't get food, but instead we would use that money to buy presents for kids who need them. she was actually more excited about this idea than i thought she would be. it was a little hard for her to walk through wal-mart and see all the toys displayed and only pick things for other people, but she did a great job and i think even got it a little bit - as much as her 3-year-old mind could understand. and she didn't tell any kids last night that we got them presents because their mommy would not be able to, so that's a good thing too.

hiba did a great job too of not being sad when she didn't get any presents to take home with her. i did assure her that she would get presents on christmas, so she was ok with that. matthias was great too. mostly because he didn't know what was going on. which is fine too.

i hope the rest of christmas can stay focused on giving. i've been pretty wrapped up in planning the party, making sure there were gifts for everyone, etc that i haven't really done christmas stuff for us. so i hope that as i shift to getting presents for our kids and jason that i can stay focused on giving meaningful gifts and can keep sharing the idea of giving with hiba and matthias. it's been really fun to see her understand that it's not about her, it's not about getting things, but it's about giving things because of Jesus' birthday, so i hope that trend will continue over the next few weeks.

this girl is too much

2011-11-22T19:54:00.001-06:00

some day most days, i think i should follow my kids around with a video camera to record everything they say. they say the funniest things. and they are super cute these days, when they decide not to be holy terrors. these are some things that hiba has said tonight. like since dinner time. seriously, this girl cracks me up.

hiba, after i told her to clean up her toys: no, i don't want to.
me: what did you say to me?
hiba: nothing, i wasn't talking to you. i was talking to myself. never mind.

me, while hiba was playing a memory game on my kindle: you are really good at this! great job!
hiba: yeah, i'm awesome.

hiba, in reference to an angry bird: ha. hiba has a mustache. that one is named hiba. and that one is jason. and that one is j.j.

(i'm not really sure who j.j. is).

hiba, after i gave her a jolly rancher when matthias was in bed: mommy candy is just for big kids. you have to be 3 or 28 or 27. you can't be 2.

hiba, while hearing matthias calling for me when he was in bed: i'm taking care of matthias by ignoring him.

hiba, while watching x factor: this guy is a good singer.
me: yeah, he's not that great.
hiba: yeah, well don't call him an idiot. i know sometimes it is hard for you not to call people idots, but it's not nice.

two years

2011-11-18T07:44:00.001-06:00

last year, i was pretty much a wreck. i functioned and i like to think that i fooled a lot of people into thinking that i was doing great with this whole life transition thing. but the truth is, i was not. between november 5 and november 17, all of my thoughts were consumed by what we were doing a year ago that day. i would spend hours every day looking at pictures from our time in palestine, facebook stalking our old friends, not talking to people about all this, and just being really sad. looking back at my blog, you can see that i was really obsessed with the whole "moving on" theme from matthias' birthday through the end of the year.

and i think it was good for me. not the whole bottling-it-up-and-not-talking-about-it or facebook-picture-stalking things, but it's good to process, good to mourn, and good to move on. i definitely could have found more healthy ways to mourn, but it was important for me to process everything that had happened a year before.

yesterday was november 17. the day we left palestine. and i didn't even realize that until in the evening when someone asked me how long we had been back in the US. i had quite a full day - we had a big thanksgiving dinner for teen mops, so i was busy decorating, cooking, making sure all the details were taken care of. i had to take matthias to the doctor in the morning to make sure he doesn't have asthma (he doesn't). i spent the evening at teen mops, hanging out with teen moms and my other mentor friends, making sure everyone got enough food and had a great time.

thoughts of sadness, thoughts of missing palestine, thoughts of wishing for our old life - these thoughts didn't consume me. when i realized that it was november 17, i had a twinge of sadness, a moment of thinking back. but that's all it was. thinking back. which i think is appropriate. we've been here two years. and i finally really feel like we are here. or at least i am.

it's taken me a long time to get here. almost two years, in fact. and it feels good. it feels good that i can look back over by past blog posts and not burst into tears, but really be happy remembering our time in palestine. it feels good to have friends that we can have over, have playdates with, have birthday parties with - friends that i actually really like instead of thinking of how i miss our old friend. it feels good to have a church that jason and i are both excited about instead of thinking about how great our "not-church" group was in palestine. it feels good to be involved in groups that we love, both the work and the people involved, instead of thinking of how awesome paidia was.

so all this to say, i still do miss palestine. i will always miss it. i will always be sad that we had to leave in the way we did, that we had to leave our great friends, that we had to leave the place both our kids were born, that we had to leave the work we were doing. but i also am finally able to say that i am here. and i like being here. and thoughts of being there don't ruin my ability to be here. which i think is pretty good for me.

epic fail

2011-11-17T08:38:00.001-06:00

i feel like that describes my week so far. epic fail.

ok, maybe that's a tiny bit dramatic, but really. it seems like lists have not been completed, projects have gone wrong, things have been forgotten, easy fixes turn out to be really complicated. it's one of those weeks that i wish i had a restart button. or staples button.

but i don't, so oh well. i'll just keep laughing when i can and watching mindless t.v. shows when i can't.

i think the following story pretty much sums up how everything has gone this week:

last night, i was putting a rub on a turkey that i'm cooking today for our teen mops thanksgiving dinner. i took the turkey out of the bag, and read the instructions. i easily found the neck and pulled it out. but then it said to remove the giblet bag from the skin by the neck hole. i looked and looked at the neck hole. there was no skin around it, no giblet bag. so i called jason over to see what i was missing. he took one look at the turkey and said, "that's not the neck hole. that's the ass hole. please don't ever take my temperature!".

yep, that sums it up.

we are the champions!

2011-11-14T12:08:00.001-06:00

this weekend was the ozark rugby tournament, here in little rock. it was a pretty great weekend. my sister came to visit, which was so fun. it's always good to see her and i love hanging out with her now that we are both "grown-ups". we had several friends come out to watch the games, which always makes it better. jason had a great time, no real injuries, and little rock won the tournament!

all ready to go on saturday!

ice cream makes watching rugby way better.

ref: "do you know what you did?"
jason: "i punched him, sir."

congratulating jason for scoring!

matthias was out. in the middle of cheering - zero response.

that's my man!

it was a pretty great way to end the the season. i am definitely looking forward to the break (even if it is only like a month).

the weekend was also great because it was so different from last year. jason and the team always talk about themselves as the "rugby family". because they are like a family. i always talked about them as "my step-family". because a lot of times it felt like that. but over this last year, i have made some great friends with the guys, the wags (wives and girlfriends), the women's team. it was a fun weekend because i felt like our whole family belonged there, not just jason. and having mutual friends is something we've missed for a long time, so it's great to feel that changing.

surprise!

2011-11-10T08:58:00.001-06:00

a lot of people claim that they have the best husband. but, sorry to break it to you all, that is not true. because i do. seriously.

my birthday was last week. i had told jason that i wanted a birthday party, which he said he would throw, but then he didn't. i was a little on the disappointed side, but my birthday was great anyway, so i didn't really dwell on it too much.

fast forward a week. yesterday, jason called in the afternoon and said his mom offered to watch the kids so we could go out for my birthday, since we hadn't had a birthday date. that plan sounded great to me. so i got home from work, jason was making dinner so we could eat (he had told me we'd go out for drinks and desert), the kids could eat, and we could take the kids down to his parent's house. just as we were about to leave, he got a call from work. he told me that something came up and he needed to do a little bit of work from home, planning stuff, for the morning. so, could i just take the kids by myself and then come pick him up? i was a little on the annoyed side, but what could i do?

so i took the kids, dropped them off, called jason to tell him i was on my way home so he could be ready. jason's brother had offered to bring the kids home and said he would bring them around 10, which meant we had a limited time frame. by this time, it was almost 7. well, jason suggested that i go pick up a bottle of wine so we could enjoy it when we got home. at this point i was really annoyed. the wine store is on the way to the restaurant that we were going to, we wouldn't get there till almost 8 at this rate and needed to be home by 10! which, probably would have been plenty of time, but i don't like being rushed. but, again, i said ok.

once i got home, i called him from the car, because i didn't want to get out. he told me he was just getting his shoes on, so i should bring the wine in to chill it. i replied "it's a red", hung up, and came inside, still annoyed by this whole turn of events. and then.....

SURPRISE!!!

my wonderful husband had been planning a surprise party for me all along. i took zero pictures, but it was great. it was a wine and cheese party. jason had different little tables set up with different kinds of cheese and crackers and wines that went well with them. it was so much fun and i was quite surprised, seeing as my birthday was a week ago. i asked him why he waited a week, and he pointed out that if he had sent me all around on my birthday, i would have known what was going on. which is true.

so it was a fun night and just proves that my husband is the best ever. fact.

freaky friday

2011-11-05T09:38:00.003-05:00

let me tell you what my plan for yesterday was. i actually got up, out of bed, when the kids got up, even though jason was home. this never happens. even if he's not home, i usually lay in bed till i hear them screaming at each other or lay on the couch while they watch their tv shows. but nope, i got up. and started being productive! i did some dishes, re-arranged the cabinets to fit all my new dishes, double checked my grocery list, got the kids breakfast, didn't waste a lot of time of facebook. i knew i needed to leave the house by 9 a.m., so we could go to target and kroger, get back home, have lunch, i could start dinner, matthias down to nap by noon, watch thursday night's gray's while making dinner/lounging around, wake him up at 2, take them to a friends' house (since my babysitter quit AGAIN), go to work, come home, finish up dinner, go out with friends for my birthday. it was a great plan. and i actually did the work ahead of time (grocery planning, being productive in the morning) to make it possible.

so at 9:03, we left the house. first stop - target. grab some diapers and my birth control. i always love picking it up with my kids, so there is no judgement from the pharmacist. clearly it is a good idea for me to have. well, i just switched insurance plans and apparently my perscription isn't covered. at least not automatically. so now i have to call them and fight with them about it. the pharmacist was super nice and helpful, but it took a good 30 minutes to figure it all out. which meant we were behind schedule.

but, it was ok. because i am awesome at shopping at kroger. so we took a quick stop by the bank and headed on to kroger. as soon as we got out of the car, hiba told me she needed to go potty. ok, great. we'll go as soon as we get in the store. so we rush to the bathroom, she gets into the stall, pulls down her pants....and pees on the floor. super.

she actually handled the situation really well. she was really upset, but calmed down and was helpful in getting it cleaned up. then the best part was i had no extra clothes for her. of course. so, we pull her pants up, walk out to the car as descreately as possible, find a plastic bag in the car for her to sit on, drive home to change clothes.

now we are definitely behind schedule.

plus, one of the draws about shopping at kroger is the sample cookies they get. which i had been bribing them with the entire time at target. hiba did a great job of understanding that we were going back to kroger and she would get a cookie then, but matthias did not so much understand. which meant that he was crying the entire way home and i had to bribe him with halloween candy to get him to settle down. yes, i was that mom.

so we get hiba all cleaned up, eat some candy, pile back in the car and head back to kroger. we head straight to the bakery to get some cookies, but of course they were out. so i bought some for them. and they ended up having two each to get them to be good. i was that mom again.

but at this point i didn't care. it was almost 11:45 before we got home, which meant i wouldn't start dinner on time (i was making spaghetti and meatballs, so it needed to cook for a certain amount of time). it also meant that matthias would not get the nap that he needed, which meant the afternoon and evening would be miserable. luckily, he fell asleep on the way home and transfered into his bed, slept through lunch and didn't wake up till i got him up at 2.

i eventually got everything done, but i had zero rest time, definitely didn't watch gray's, and was frazzled and exhausted when i got to work. and my class was AWFUL. 5 o'clock could not come fast enough. but eventually it did, i got home, my wonderful husband finished up making dinner and fed the kids so i could go out. i did have a great time at dinner and came home to a clean kitchen. so the day definitely ended on a good note.

but the moral of the story is: if you have small kids, don't try to be productive. don't even try. because they will ruin it for you and stress you out and then you'll be stressed and disappointed, instead of just stressed like you would have been if you didn't plan ahead. at least i know for next time.

happy birthday to me!

2011-11-03T10:22:00.001-05:00

i love birthdays. i love anyones birthday, really. i love getting presents and celebrating a person for a whole day. i think mostly i love other birthdays because i love mine so much. and i do love it. i am like a little kid, giddy with excitement, trying to figure out my presents, loving every minute of birthday wishes and "happy birthday" being sung to me.

so yesterday was my birthday. and it was great. the day started with breakfast in bed at about 7:30 - bacon, perfectly fried eggs, toast, coffee, and flowers. matthias didn't even try to steal my bacon. talk about birthday love. plus, jason had already fed the kids breakfast, changed diapers, and held off on watching their tv shows.

after i finished eating, hiba wanted to give me my presents. she was so cute about my presents. they went shopping on sunday night and she did a great job of not telling me what they got me. on the way home, jason kept trying to get her to practice telling me "it's a surprise" if i asked what she got. so when she got home, she kept trying to get me to ask what my present was, which i wouldn't ask her because i didn't want her to tell me. she finally went over to jason and said "mommy isn't saying what her present is so i can't tell her it's a surprise". she was so stressed about it. poor girl. so i asked, she told me it was a surprise and not another word was said till wednesday morning. but by the time wednesday morning came, she was ready to give them to me.

from hiba...

pajama pants and jewelry. she thought of the pajama pants all by herself, because she just got new pjs and thought i would like some too. and she was right! i love warm fuzzy pjs and i'm sure jason will be happy that i have new cute ones as i bundle up and wear them all day during the winter. and she loves to get me jewelry. so fun.

from matthias....

an apron! which is perfect, since i love to cook and have ruined several shirts recently and he loves to eat my cooking. win for everyone! plus it's cute and makes me feel like a real cook when i wear it.

from jason....

a new saute pan! yay for this one!! while living in palestine, i learned to improvise in my cooking, especially when it came to what pots and pans were available. so i have a hard time buying things that i don't really "need" for the kitchen. but, it does make cooking really cool meals a little hard. so this pan is something i've wanted for a long time, but couldn't bring myself to spend money on, and will definitely use.

the rest of the day was fun. i had MOPS in the morning, went to work in the afternoon and then went over to jason's family's house for dinner. his dad cooked a delicious meal - steak kebabs, blackened tilapia, and shrimp pasta. top that off with yummy chocolate cake and mint chocolate chip ice cream and you've got yourself a pretty darn good meal. plus, they got me new plates and bowls, which is also exciting to me. i love hosting people, but again with my minimalist, i-can-sort-of-get-by-without-this attitude, i haven't bought the dishes that i need to really entertain. and now i have them and they all match. so be prepared to dinner parties at my house. :-)

and in a few weeks, i'll also have this:

i put a kindle fire and ipad on my birthday list that i sent to my mom and dad, mostly as wishful thinking. but hey, ask and you shall receive, right? i can't wait for it to come and download the angry birds app. good-bye productivity! i mean, i totally plan on using it to organize my life, read more, have easy access to my calendar, recipies, pictures, etc. not just check facebook and play games.

i'm also looking forward to a shopping spree thanks to gift cards and birthday money from rachel and my grandma. it was definitely a great birthday. i am so thankful for all my friends and family who make it a great day and embrace the wonderfulness of birthdays as much as i do!

happy halloween!

2011-11-02T13:44:00.002-05:00

ok, so i know i'm a few days late on this, but hey, better late than never, right?

we had a fun halloween. i think it lived up to the hype that hiba and matthias had built up in their heads. there is a halloween episode of yo gabba gabba that they have been watching, so they knew all about dressing up and trick-or-treating. they also knew that too much candy makes you sick, which hiba was actually very concerned about. so they very happily eat one or two pieces at a time. see, tv is good for kids.

anyway, we went cheap and easy for the costumes this year. i found a spiderman costume at goodwill for matthias that i thought would be perfect since he climbs on everything. nevermind he has absolutely no clue who spiderman is. hiba was a fairy, which consisted of a hand-me-down dress up dress and wings and wand from savers. she was very excited about her wings and wand and loved being a fairy. of course they would not both look at the camera and smile at the same time, so here are a few shots before we went out trick-or-treating.

trick-or-treating was fun. i never went as a kid (which i am totally over, by the way....), but we still always dressed up and handed out candy. so i think that i was almost as excited as hiba was about trick-or-treating. we went around our neighborhood with a few of our neighbors. it was really nice and we got to meet some more of our neighbors, something we are terrible at so it was a good excuse to randomly knock on their doors and introduce ourselves.

the dads

matthias, discovering the true meaning of halloween.

let me tell you who is a hardcore trick-or-treater. matthias. i wish i had gotten a picture that totally captured the look on his face most of the night, but this is close. we went to get our neighbors for our first stop and told hiba and matthias they could eat a piece of candy while we waited for them to get ready. well, once that whole thing clicked in his head, he was ready to go. he was great about holding my hand as we walked and was dragging me. when we would get to a house, he would barrel through anyone in front of us, knock on the door, very seriously say "trick or treat", and wait for the candy. then on to the next house. he loved holding his pumpkin and even when he was clearly tired and exhausted at the end, he did not want help carrying it. "no! my pumpkin! i carry pumpkin!". even when we got home and let them choose a few pieces of candy, he was super serious. i think he had fun with it, but it was hard to tell, since he was a little on the stressed side. all in all, a great year and i can't wait till next year.

he's having fun - i promise!

saturday's a rugby day!

2011-10-29T17:00:00.003-05:00

Little Rock's Future Prop

Such a cutie!

Cheering on daddy

All conked out

beautiful weather. friends to hang out with. rugby to watch. all adds up to a pretty great saturday. did i mention that my awesome husband was man of the match? yeah, he's pretty great.

open a freaking door

2011-10-27T13:22:00.001-05:00

you know what i'm tired of?

(i can hear all of you holding your breath in anticipation of my answer. i know you all really care.)

windows.

as in, "when God closes a door, he opens a window".

well, guess what. i don't like windows. they are annoying. they are inconvenient. they take a lot longer to get through, they are harder to climb through, you can't take as much crap with you when you crawl through them. it would be much easier if i could just walk through an open door.

about a year ago, i was suffering from post-missionary entitlement syndrome. i think i'm over that. i've moved on to just suffering from entitlement syndrome.

and i don't actually really feel entitled to all that much. i know that my little family is blessed beyond what we could ask or imagine. we are all healthy. we all love each other. we have a warm house and cozy beds. i have more shoes than can fit in the shoe holder in my closet. we have clothes pouring our of dressers. we eat really good food, until our stomachs hurt from being so full. we have great friends. we have an awesome faith community. God has definitely provided far beyond anything i deserve.

but it's still frustrating. especially when doors seem to be opening. doors that look really cool on the side. doors that seem to be opening when i'm not even looking for open doors. doors that i look through and see the life that i think we not only want to live, but the life i think we are called to live.

so i walk towards the door. with a lot of confidence. and a lot of gratitude. and a lot of hope. and then...

BAM!!!!

closed. and that's it. and there's always a little window next to the door that i can climb through, but the window really leads back to where i was.

and i know that where we are is not a bad place to be. i want for nothing. (well, except an iphone, but in grand scheme of things....). but this place does not seem to be our "forever place". you know, that place where you get when you are doing what you want to do. our grown up life. our living-with-a-purpose-and-loving-every-minute-of-it life. that's the life i see through the doors that keep closing. and i'm getting a little tired of climbing back in through the window and waiting for the next door to open.

fear and safety

2011-10-26T07:47:00.000-05:00

warning: this is not a very up-beat post. i've been meaning to write this for about a week, and finally found the time to sit down and do it. it's not nearly as fun as talking about hiba and matthias or food or fun things we do, but this is life, so hear goes....

about two weeks ago, a student at UALR went missing. in broad daylight. she left her house at 8:45 a.m. and never made it to her 10 a.m. class. her car was found in a burger king parking lot, where students park every day. a very busy parking lot. with lots of people and businesses around. no one had seen her or knew what happened. her body was found a few days later.

it's a tragic story. there are a lot of unanswered questions and the last i heard, there are no suspects. but the thing about this story for me is that it happened in my neighborhood.

the parking lot where her car was found is a five minute walk from my house. i don't walk in that area often, but now i won't. since there are no leads or suspects, or at least none that the police are sharing with the public, even walking in my neighborhood makes me nervous. i know that patricia and i have very different lives and just because something happened to her doesn't mean it will happen to me. but it's scary. which is a very sad, conflicting feeling for me.

jason and i have never been ones to shy away from "dangerous" situations. we moved to palestine days after the 2006 war between israel and lebenon. we actually boarded the plane to fly into tel aviv the day a ceasefire was agreed upon. we lived in palestine for three and a half years, including during the time that hamas took over the gaza strip and the israeli war on gaza. our kids were born there and i had no reservations about raising them there. even though it seemed dangerous to others, we never were really afraid. yes, there were times that we were nervous. but after those isolated incidents were over, there was no fear. i never thought the israeli military would come arrest us in the middle of the night. i never thought a building that we were living in would be demolished. i never thought we would be kidnapped by hamas. i knew that if any real threat was upon us, our friends would help take care of us. so it wasn't really scary.

when we moved back to the US, we wanted to live in a place that others might not choose to live. when we bought our house, we knew it wasn't in the nicest neighborhood, but we knew it wasn't in the worst. we believed (and still do) that God was calling us to live in area that we could make a positive difference simply by living there. we want to do more than just live here, but it's a good start in how we can impact the community around us. we didn't have a strong community to come with us, so we chose a place in the middle - not great, not the "safest", but not really scary. our neighborhood is quiet, has a lot of families, and a lot of people own their houses. a few streets over though, different story. which is the burger king is.

jason and i probably have a different theology of safety than a lot of people that we know. his life motto is "better sorry than safe". we both believe that God ever promises us safety. He promises he will be with us, that He will never leave us, but He never promises us we'll be safe. quite the opposite in fact. so i don't think it's appropriate for me to expect a safe, cushy life. i don't think it's appropriate for our family to shy away from danger. because that is not the life that Jesus has called us to.

but now that's changed.

now that "danger" is real. now that fear is growing every day in my mind. now, when i see someone walking down the street, i think "i wonder if he did it". when i hear a noise, i think "are my doors locked?". when it's a beautiful day, i think "i don't really feel comfortable taking a walk around my neighborhood because what if something happens". when i know that jason is walking home from the UALR gym, i think "he left five minutes ago. he should be home by now. i wonder if i should call the police?". every time i hear sirens, i think "i wonder if they caught someone. i wonder where they live". so i lock my doors, i stay inside, i don't meet the new neighbors, i read the news obsessively hoping for answers.

i still believe that this is where God has called us to live. i still believe we should be doing a better job of hanging out with people in our neighborhood. i still believe that God's promise to be with me is way better than if He had promised me i would always be safe. i still believe that we should not pass on a theology of fear, but rather a theology of love and sacrifice to our kids.

but it's a lot harder to say that and write that nowadays. two weeks ago, i would have given you a long lecture. now i half-heartedly say this is how we're called to live, while secretly looking for houses online. two weeks ago i would have invited you to rent the house next door. now, i think you probably wouldn't want to.

fear can be a crippling thing. the thing is, it's almost based on some sort of reality. but how i respond is my choice. i can let the fear rule over me, stay home, avoid the park, avoid the neighbors, be suspicious of everyone i see. or i can rest in the knowledge that God is good. He is with me. He will never leave me. He will never leave my children. He never left Patricia. in the middle of fear, sadness, doubt, confusion - He is there.

all my children

2011-10-25T09:53:00.001-05:00

hiba is going through a mommy stage. not a i-love-my-mom-so-much-that-she-is-the-only-one-who-can-hold-me-or-help-me-with-anything-and-if-anyone-else-who-may-love-me-like-my-dad-offers-to-help-or-hug-me-i-get-offended-or-throw-a-fit stage. no, that would be thing 2. it's sweet and all that he loves me, but it's getting a little out of control. i mean really, is throwing yourself on the ground the appropriate response to your dad asking if you want his help when you wanted your mom's help, but she is in the middle of making dinner and still standing in the same room as you, so what's the big freaking deal?

anyway.

back to hiba. so she has the mommy bug. she spends the majority of her time alone (like during rest time, not like when we leave her at home or anything) taking care of her children.

it started with about five - missy sissy, baby hiba, bob the tomato (the mom, not to be confused with bob the tomato from veggie tales), farmer, and cowy. during her big girl rest time, she would set them up, read to them, give them baths, cook for them - you know, things like that. it was pretty cute.

Farmer, Bob the Tomato, and Baby Hiba

Story time!

over the weeks, her children have multiplied. they now include (but are not limited to) daddy truck, baby truck, yellow bear, baby sasha, the purple elephant car (i think her name is just "the sister"), mommy lego, baby lego, and a whole lot more. basically any toy that is small and has a face is her child.

Hiba's ever-growing family

she sets up trains for them. she gives them boat rides. she still bathes and feeds them (which is impressive, since i stopped doing that when my children went from one to two. i can't imagine trying to bathe 27 or however many she has.), she plays with them, reads them bedtime stories. it's sweet.

Daddy Truck, Cowy, the Turtle, and Baby Truck.

that is, until someone (i.e. matthias) tries to touch them. which is often, since she has taken over most of the toys, including cars and trucks which are technically his. let's just say she's a very protective mom. and he has not yet been named the adoptive father. every once in a while he seems to be granted supervised visitation rights.

hungry? grab a snickers.

2011-10-20T22:04:00.003-05:00

i subbed today for the first time today. all day. 4th grade.

a few observations....
i don't ever want to be a full time teacher. ever. at all.
i get cranky when i don't eat.

overall, it was a good day. it was fun and i enjoyed the kids. i subbed for the same class that i teach in the afternoons, so it was nice to already know the students. but it also meant i had a looooooong time with them. other than probably getting played by an overly dramatic child when i told her i was emailing her parents, getting my snickers bar stolen by one of the students, and having a student flatly refuse to do any work that i assigned, it was a great day.

cheers to all you teachers out there. for real.

who knew mondays could be good?

2011-10-17T11:45:00.001-05:00

jason has started working monday nights. while this is not my first choice when it comes time to put the kids to bed (especially weeks like this when he is gone every night except friday), it is pretty nice during the day on monday. especially since he isn't working over the weekend, so we still have the actual weekend to hang out and do things, but then we get an added bonus on monday mornings.

so this morning, we took a family outing to the state fair. i wasn't sure if it would be fun or an epic failure, but since it was free and jason was going with us, i figured we should take the chance. and i'm so glad we did. we had a great time and will definitely be making this a yearly tradition.

the kids got to ride several kiddie rides. hiba LOVED them. she and i even went on a little roller coaster and she absolutely loved it. as soon as it was over she wanted to do it again. that made my heart happy, since i am like a little kid when it comes to fun rides. i can't wait till she's old enough to take to a real amusement park. matthias did not love the rides as much. for being such a precocious kid, he sure is not a thrill seeker. he sort of like the tea-cups and he sort of like the car merry-go-round, but he didn't love them. but he did love the animals. especially the little cows. so we all ended up having a good time. i am so glad i decided to go this morning instead of waiting till friday (which is also free for kids from 9 - 11), because i'm not sure how that would have worked out. so yay for a fun start to the week - who knew mondays could actually be good?

Hiba rode on the first ride all by herself - she is fearless!

That's my girl!

Even the train made Matthias a little nervous, but he had Hiba there to help him.

This was about as excited as he got on the carousel...and this was before we were moving.

Hiba loved it!

This was Hiba's favorite ride

All ready to go on the roller coaster with mommy!

Another ride Matthias tolerated

Yay for cow!

He loved it in the animal area - so glad that he had some fun!

a little of this, a little of that

2011-10-15T11:00:00.002-05:00

so after my overly dramatic post a few days ago, things are looking up. and really they weren't ever too bad. i think i'm just sleep deprived. my kids refuse to both sleep through the night and since jason usually has to get up at some ungodly hour, i'm on kid duty at night. which means i haven't gotten an uninterrupted night of sleep in, oh, two years. it can make a person crazy.

anyway.

friday was way better than thursday. my friend who had been watching hiba and matthias had to go out of town due to sick family, so lizzie graciously volunteered to watch my kids. at our house. she did get to skip the afternoon of school, so i feel like she got a pretty good deal, but my kids got to nap, i got to watch gray's anatomy and we got to have a fun morning, so we got a good deal to. and when i got home from work, lizzie had made dinner and cookies and my kids had played outside so they were nice and tired and she gave them a bath after dinner. i told her she's like the mom i've always wanted to be. ha.

plus, i hired a new babysitter! yay! we met at chick-fil-a and i think she will be great. hiba talked her ear off and she didn't seem to mind, so i take that as a great sign. funny story - when i was hiring my first babysitter, i met a couple of them at chick-fil-a and the day ended by hiba peeing in the playground and us making a quick exit because of a lack of extra clothes. yesterday, the day ended by matthias having a massive blowout in his diaper (something that hasn't happened in months) and us making a quick exit because he was in socks and a diaper. fun times. luckily, this time around i had clothes in the car for him.

we even made it to the library! hiba got her own library card and checked out some books, which was actually quite anit-climactic. about a year ago, when i got my card, i held off on getting the kids' cards, because i was told they get a cute little bag and a free book, but at the time they were out. so instead of going back the next week, we waited a year and i was so excited about it, but she still didn't get anything cool and wasn't too impressed with her card. oh well.

last night, jason and i went to our first book club meeting. two other couples and us have started it, but it's reading optional. my kind of book club. the book ~~read~~ were supposed to read this month was nurture shock, which actually looks really interesting. we talked about race, poverty, intentional living, budgets, family plans....it was kind of a loaded night, but a lot of fun. i think there are a lot of diverse ideas within the group, even though it's only six people, but a lot of the same values and big ideas - just different views on how to get there. one of the couples have a "family plan" - basically an outline of their family values, what kind of life they want to have, what they want to provide for their kids, etc. - that they use to make life decisions. jason and i are totally making one, since as you all know we have ~~no life direction~~ way too many life directions. my head is spinning with ideas of what it will look like - move back overseas, start an intentional community here, move to the ghetto, get high-paying jobs and make a lot of money so we can give it away, homeschool our kids, send our kids to the worst schools here. lots of ideas and i'm excited to see where we go with this.

today jason has his first rugby game of the fall season. well, i guess last week was actually his first game, but he missed to to be at jbu homecoming to play in the alumni game. so he's gone all day, which means it's just me and the kiddos. i have big, exciting plans. laundry, dishes, grocery shopping. fun times. they have actually been playing together pretty well this morning (knock on wood), so we'll see where the day takes us.

tomorrow is service sunday at our church. i love our church. we're meeting at miss bev's house to do some yardwork and maybe fix stuff up inside and then have lunch with the ladies living there. i love that this is what our church is spending it's time and energy on. i love that this is what our kids' get to see on a regular basis as what the Church is. i'll probably write more about that another day.

and now my kids are screaming and probably biting. time to go distract with cheese crackers.

happy weekend!

a sweet bedtime story

2011-10-14T21:00:00.000-05:00

tonight as i was putting hiba to bed, we had a sweet conversation. it went something like this:

hiba: i don't want you to leave, i don't want to be in here by myself.
me: awww, don't worry. matthias is here. and Jesus.
hiba: yeah. Jesus is always with me. (and I am thinking "awesome. she gets it. she listens to me. sweet.") what about God?
me: yes, God is always with you, too.
hiba: yeah, like when the shark is chasing me, Jesus and God can be the door and then i can't get into the shark's mouth.

uhhh. sure. that's totally what i meant.

the daily grind

2011-10-13T12:48:00.000-05:00

i am tired. exhausted. worn out. stretched thin. any of those could describe me pretty well these days. it seems like the chores just never end. everywhere i look there are piles of laundry to be folded, lesson plans to be written, rugs to vacuum, dished to be washed, dinner to be made, floors to sweep....you get the point. i feel like the last few weeks, my time has been so consumed with these daily tasks that i haven't had time to rest or enjoy life. which is one reason i haven't blogged lately - all i have to write about is complaining about life. (not like this post....).

a good measure of how rested i am is how much tv i get to watch and how much i do with the kids outside of running errands. i have three episodes of grey's, two episodes of desperate housewives, all of this season of 30 rock, and two episodes of the office that i haven't watched. the last twenty viewed videos on our netflix are either yo gabba gabba or dora. those were not my choices. i've never been the kind of mom who takes my kids on lots of spontaneous outings, but i do sometimes and i do plan things a lot. i can count on zero hands the number of times we've been to the library or the park or the zoo or really anywhere that is not called kroger, target, or walmart in the last three weeks.

i'm even not enjoying things that i usually do enjoy. our babysitter that i had for work had to quit two weeks ago, which has made working a bigger chore than it may be work. luckily, i have great friends who took my kids for play dates the first week and a friend who is watching them this week. but i means nap-time is moved up (which is usually a failure - for example, i can hear matthias right now and he is not asleep. probably not even on his bed), and the "work time" is added on to because of driving. fingers crossed that i'll hire someone to come here by next week. teen mops has been going for four weeks and i'm starting to dread each week. ok, maybe that's a little dramatic too, but it's so much work and it's been hard to see any positive pay-off with the girls this year, so it's hard. i love planning for it, but by the time thursday night rolls around i just want to sit and watch tv and drink a glass of wine. even writing this blog right now isn't my first choice of how to spend my time. everyday life is sucking the joy and fun out of everything. yes. dramatic.

i know i make choices that form the way my life is. our family makes choices. jason makes choices. i make choices. some choices i love and wouldn't change, no matter how hard it is. some i tolerate and am able to see the greater good. some i'm not so happy about, but i'm trying to stick it out before giving up. but right now it feels like day to day life isn't a choice so much as a list of things to do before crashing on my bed at night.

i have lots of things i want to be doing. i want to be excited about the lesson plans i'm making for my job. i just switched to 4th grade literacy which is a kajillion times better than 1st grade. i have a lot of cool ideas that i'm actually excited about. i want to be going to the zoo, playing in the leaves, going to a pumpkin patch, going to the library with my kids. i want to be taking pictures of them playing together and making photo books so i don't forget this stage of their life (no matter how much i want to some days. ha.). i want to be writing more blog posts - bragging on my kids, more stories from china, writing about where our lives are and aren't headed, sharing fun recipes.

so what's the point? i don't know. i don't know how to make the daily chores go away or be more manageable. i don't know how to be more rested. i don't know how to make more time for myself without ignoring all the things to be done. so for now, i'll keep on keeping on, knowing that some day soon hiba will be old enough to do the dishes.

just what i needed

2011-10-03T08:47:00.000-05:00

last week was a long week. i'm not really sure why. nothing in particular, just regular life with a 2-year-old and a 3 1/2-year-old. and most days being an emphasis on the longest days and looking forward to the shortest years. at any rate, by this weekend i was ready to be done.

friday started off pretty bad. we went to the zoo with some friends on friday morning, which i thought would be fun. beautiful day, animals, friends - what's not to love? well, apparently when you are 3 1/2 there is a lot not to love, like pretty much everything in life. so what could have been a fun outing ended in tears and screaming on pretty much everyone's part. so when i realized i still needed to go grocery shopping after naps, i was less than trilled.

but then my weekend took a very pleasant turn. naptime was extra long, i actually got to sleep, and jason called right when i was getting ready to leave to tell me he as on his way home. so we took a family shopping trip, which took half as much time and ended with everyone happy instead of melting down. which is always a much better way to go, in my opinion.

we got home, fed the kids, put them to bed and had an at-home date night. if someone would come do the dishes after those, they would be my absolute favorite. i love cooking with jason and we make some pretty yummy food. we made pizza with shrimp and veggies and pesto sauce using an amazing no-rise crust. i was a little skeptical, but it turned out really well and was super yummy. then we spent the rest of the evening catching up on our favorite comedies - gotta love some office and modern family. a rugby friend of jason's was in town, so then he went out with them super late, which meant i also got to watch grey's anatomy and go to bed early. win win for everyone.

on saturday, jason wanted to take matthias out for breakfast and then take hiba to the women's rugby game in the afternoon. which meant i would get to stay home all day (which was actually wonderful) and only have one kid. it was so fun. i think both hiba and matthias had a great time spending time alone with each of us and i know i enjoyed it. after jason got home from breakfast, he needed to run some errands and offered to take both kids! so in addition to sleeping in and only having one kid for most of the day, i also got an hour to myself. i literally did not know what to do with myself. i don't do well with unplanned free time - i think of all the things i should be doing and then just sit and watch tv because i can't decide what to do. so that's what i did. yay for college football.

sunday was pretty normal sunday - church, football, jason working out, family dinner, and bedtime.

i'm so glad that i got this weekend. sometimes you just need things like that. i'm so glad i got a lot of rest. i'm so glad that i got to spend some good, quality time with my kids that i actually enjoyed. i'm so glad that i got to spend time with jason. i'm so glad that he got a ton of time with the kids and we got a good amount of time as a family. it makes me feel like i can conquer the week ahead, even with all the craziness and meltdowns i know it is sure to bring.

i'll leave you with these. a little photo shoot of matthias while we were home on saturday afternoon. seriously, how cute is he?!?!

the longest days....the shortest years

2011-09-29T09:35:00.000-05:00

i have a friend who has a blog with that name. it's full of fun stories about her kids. it's pretty great - you should check it out.

some days, i think that saying could not be more true. especially the "longest days" part. like this morning. the kind of morning when they cry over what to watch on tv, over half of their toys are in "time out" because they won't clean them up, there is not enough coffee, and the fighting starts at 6:45 a.m. fun times. and i figure i have two options. i can yell and scream and be annoyed with them all day. or i can block out their fighting as much as possible, love on them, and try to focus on the positive. so here's to option number 2.

hiba has said some pretty great things lately. like yesterday, we were laying on the couch together and she looked at me and said "did you know that we used to have pineapple in our house?". um, no i didn't. she went on to explain "we used to have pineapple in our house when we were babies and then we ate it and now we aren't babies anymore because pineapples are for babies". ok then.

then this morning, she dropped some of her cheerios on the floor. i asked her to pick them up, which she did without throwing a fit (!!). she was going to throw them away because "they all have germs on them", but then she told me, "did you know that the floor sometimes puts protein inside the cheerios? not in all of them, but sometimes if you spill your cheerios then the floor puts protein inside of them and then you can eat them because they have protein instead of germs. just like chicken".

matthias is pretty cute these days as well. well, when he's not screaming or whining or biting. he's started "counting" and he is so proud of himself. yesterday, i was reading him the very hungry caterpillar and he was so excited to "count" all the food. there were 12 things on each page. only he always skips 2 and 7.

i also have a lot of conversations with him that go like this:
me: (yelling to him in the next room) hey, matthias!
matthias: (yelling back) what?
me: matthias! come here.
matthias: (walking out to me and looking annoyed that i interrupted his play time) what, mom? what?

anyway, it's good to be reminded that my kids are cute and fun and they really do love me and each other. and before i know it, they'll be grown and gone.

at least that's what i'm counting on - the second half of the saying better be true. :-)

it's official now

2011-09-28T12:03:00.002-05:00

no, it's not what you might be thinking. quite the opposite in fact.

jason and i have known for a while (like since the second we found out i was pregnant with matthias) that we are quite ~~overwhelmed~~ happy with our two kids. our family of four feels complete.

but. i have held onto all of our baby stuff. you know, just in case. even though the possibilties of "just in case" are one in a million. (and now we all know what my blog will be about next month...let's just all knock on wood real quick).

this weekend, matthias got a "big boy bed". his crib is gone. he does not fit into his pack n play. i have not used the baby carrier since he was six months. we don't use cloth diapers anymore. and the boxes and boxes of baby clothes are all packed up. all of our baby stuff has either been donated or is for sale. we officially are done with the baby stage of our lives.

it was a little more sad that i thought it would be. mainly because i didn't think it would be sad at all. but it was bittersweet going through it all, sorting through the clothes and the baby toys and bottles that have been in our attic since we moved here. i'm still very sure that we don't want a bigger family, at least at this point in our lives. but it's still kinda sad that we're done with babies. and now that all the stuff is gone, it's for real.

two great things did come of all this sorting, though. first, matthias found about eight shirts of mine that were in a suitcase of baby clothes. for some reason, when we came back from palestine, i packed the shirts in with their clothes and then promptly put that suitcase in the attic. for two years. i knew i had lost one of the shirts, which i was super sad about because it's really cute and it was brand new, but the others i had completely forgotten about. so fun day! i was so excited when matthias pulled them out that he got super excited and started just pulling out any piece of clothing and waiting for me to praise him for it.

secondly, i re-discovered some of the great clothes we got for the kids while we were in palestine. ahh, the wonderfulness of english writing on clothes in a foreign country. for your viewing pleasure....

what is an official dog anyway?

i'm not sure if this should be for a girl or boy. or what size. or if it is long pants or not. all sorts of fun things to figure out.

the best thing about these clothes is hiba actually wore them.

maybe they are going for "beauty"? i'm not sure.

quite possibly the scariest dog/cat i have ever seen. definitely not an official dog.

i don't think anyone would dispute whose pony this is....

is it just me, or does that look like drops of blood coming out of the elephant's trunk? but again, hiba really wore this. several times.

i know about "sweet 16", but i didn't know sweet 15 was a thing. on second thought, i don't think it is.

and my favorite. hiba wore this sweatshirt all the time. and why wouldn't she? i will send it to anyone who can tell me what the pink word behind the picture is supposed to be. you know you want this....

2!!!

2011-09-15T08:35:00.000-05:00

two years ago, i had my bags all packed, hiba was off to a friends' house, and jason and i headed off to the hospital for my last check-up. it was my due date and i was ready to meet my little boy. the doctor checked us out and said everything looked good, so i told him i wanted to check into the hospital and have them break my water to start labor. he tried to talk me out of it for that night, since it was already late afternoon, but i was not leaving without my baby. i was pretty confident it would be a quickish birth.

about 2 hours later, matthias edward pollack made his debut.

i'm so glad that God decided to give him to us. he has changed our lives for the better. he let hiba become a big sister, which has been so fun to see. he let me become a mom to a boy, which is way different than being a mom to a girl. he let jason have a son. he has brought so much love, laughter, snuggles, bumps and bruises, and adventure into our life. i can't imagine the last two years without him and i'm really excited about all the years we have ahead.

happy birthday, buddy boy!

new house rule

2011-09-06T09:56:00.002-05:00

we have a new rule at our house. it's for the grown-ups. the rule is "if you go outside, for any reason - get something out of the car, check the mail, lock the shed, whatever - take your keys". you might be wondering why. well, let me tell you a little story.

once upon a time, there was a little boy named matthias. he was mischievous. and kind of clever. he loved learning new things and was always soaking up information and learning new tricks. like how to lock doors. but he didn't quite know how to unlock them. sometimes, he would unlock a door on accident and be so proud of himself. other times, he would just lock doors and be so proud of himself.

so one day, mommy was at the gym and daddy went outside to lock the shed. hiba followed him, because, well, she's nosy and follows mommy and daddy everywhere. the shed is approximately ten steps outside of our back door. maybe closer. so no big deal, right? well, this is the moment that little matthias decided to demonstrate his new-founded ability to lock doors. and of course, he decided to demonstrate his inability to unlock doors.

so daddy did what anyone would do in this situation - climb in the window. luckily, it was a beautiful day, so the window was open instead of locked. so daddy climbed in (which was made a little difficult due to our high, little windows thanks to our older house), unlocked the door, and let hiba in. and everyone lived happily ever after

back to reality

2011-09-05T09:42:00.001-05:00

so apparently catching up on life is a lot more tiresome than i imagined. but i think, one week later, we're good. it also helps that today is labor day, so we've had an extra-long weekend to recover.

i think regular life in an of itself wouldn't have taken so long to adjust back to, but i also started a new job last week, so that may have added to the chaos. just a bit. i'm teaching at eStem, a charter school down-town, in their prime time classes. these are classes that are offered to all of the students after the regular school day. i've got first grade fine arts. fun. times.

when i say "first grader", i think of someone way older than hiba. because if they were close to hiba's age, that wold mean that i would need to be thinking about school options, realizing that she's growing up, etc. but when i say "6 year-old", i don't think of someone way older than hiba - i think of someone a little older than hiba. maybe i should have thought of this before i took this job. ha.

really, it's working out well. the hours are great, i found a babysitter who can come here, it gives me a few hours out of the house each day, it gives me more lists and plans to make (yay!), and it really is fun. of course, the first day was awful and overwhelming and terrible, but each day has gotten exponetionally better, so i'm optimistic. i'm trying to do more than just arts & crafts each day and it is amazing how much these kids want to learn. it's also amazing how much they want to talk, wrestle, pick their noses, and make fart noises with their armpits.

so that's a new development. i'm going to add in going to the gym and hopefully seeing other human beings this week, since last week was mainly survival mode. but i think it'll work. i'm a little ahead on lesson plans, i've got our schedule down, so here we go.

the weekend was a much welcomed break. we actually had no plans, which was amazing. we spent a good part of saturday and sunday working on our yard. the front actually looks good. it still needs some work, but i'm not embarrassed when i drive by. the back - well, it's got a ways to go. but we did make some improvements and it's not a complete toddler trap, so i'm not afraid to let hiba and matthias out there by themselves. now today, jason is working a short day, so we've got more time to relax and gear up for the week.

so that's what we've been up to and where we've been. i'll get back to china posts - we've got some good stories and pictures that i'm sure you're dying to hear and see. stay tuned!

hanging out with amanda

2011-08-29T20:50:00.003-05:00

while we were in china, we were blessed by being able to see our great friend, amanda. seriously. she is wonderful. we met at camp barnabas and have kept up over the years, so it was so fun to actually see her and not just read emails.

she lives in the same apartment complex as marty, so we got to hang out a few times. we walked around the city a little, ate some wonderful ice cream, got blind massages, and at the famous "13 flavors".

i didn't get any pictures at the ice cream place, but it is called "happy heart ice cream". which i thought was a totally fitting name. i was happy to eat real chinese food, but i was also happy to eat real american ice cream.

blind massages are apparently a popular thing among the foreigners. they are massages given by blind chinese people. it gives these people real, meaningful jobs as a way to support their families and be a part of society. and it gives me a good way to relax. i really wish i had taken pictures. i didn't want to be tacky, so i didn't. it was about as different from a massage here as you can get. first, there were four beds downstairs and a few more upstairs, all in a row. you don't take your clothes off, you don't get a nice fuzzy blanket, you don't get hot oil and soothing music. you just lay down and get a full body massage, mostly on pressure points. who knew that i had so many pressure points in my skull? as different as it was, it was relaxing and i had a huge kink in my neck that was completely gone afterwards.

and then on to 13 Flavors. that is the name of a restaurant that we heard a lot about. and i would say it was worth the hype. pretty dang good.

plus, we got to hang out with amanda and catch up on life while we ate there, so that made it pretty dang great.

xining

2011-08-28T13:25:00.007-05:00

we're back home and trying to adjust to real life. it's a little rough. between jet-lag, stomaches that are still a little bit off, and kids who are used to grandparents - well, you can imagine. but is good to be home. it was good to be gone, good to get away, good to see marty and yaqin, good to see amanda, good to have a vacation good to be travelers. but it is good to be home.

so. a quick re-cap isn't really possible. so you'll have the privelge of reading several posts about the trip, complete with pictures. so first - xining.

xining (pronounced she-ning) is the "town" that marty and yaqin live in. they say town, i say metropolis. it's about 6 million people, which in china qualifies as a town. i tried to explain to yaqin that little rock, which is a capital city, has about six tall buildings downtown. just a little different.

we spent the majority of our time here. we didn't really do anything particularly exciting, but rather lived life with marty and yaqin. we also got to see our dear friend, amanda, who lives there too. our days basically revolved around eating and sleeping. we'd all sleep in (well, except for jason. i think he was annoyed with us most mornings), then we'd have lunch with friends and dinner with more friends. the in-between times included a lot of walking around, shopping at various markets, sometimes visiting people, and cooking.

and man, was the food good! i was a little nervous, because i'm not a super adventurous eater. i like american chinese food, but i knew ahead of time that is not what we'd be eating. and thank goodness that's not what we were eating. because the food was a kazillion times better. yaqin is an excellent cook. we went to several great restaurants as well and even hole-in-the-wall places were delish. so it worked out well that food was one of the main themes of our time in xining.

coming up: fun times with amanda, the adventures of buying train tickets, how to survive a 24 hour train ride, beijing and beyond, and the most awesome picture from our trip.

adventures

2011-08-20T23:18:00.001-05:00

being in china has been an adventure. xining, where marty lives, has
about 400 foreigners in a "town" of about 2 million people. so not so
many people speak english. the only english on signs often doesn't
make any sense or is simply a transliteration of the chinese words
(which is very helpful....). so just being here has been an adventure.
walking down the street, going to restruants, going through the
markets, taking taxis or busses. we have had marty or yaqin with us
for pretty much everything, but it's still been a little crazy.
but yesterday, we had a real adventure. we were going to go up to a
village in the mountains to visit some friends of theirs, eat the
iftar meal with them (the meal that muslims eat to break their fast
during ramadan), spend the night, and come back to xining today. on
the way to the village, we drove through another little village and
there was a tibetian archery competition going on. so of course we
stopped to have a look. because really, how often do you see a
tibetian archery competition in a little chinese village?
so marty let us out, found a place to park, and we watched for about
ten minutes. i took some pictures (including pictures of people taking
pictures of me), we had our pictures taken with random people, because
we are foreigners, we listened to some really loud, slightly obnoxious
tibetian singing (which was actually sung by a muslim who was not
tibetian). then we headed back to the van.
and when we got to the van, i noticed something was a little off. like
we were missing a window. yup. we got robbed. fun times.
actually, we didn't get robbed. i had my purse with me that had my
passport, money, and camera and jason had his wallet. marty had his
wallet, yaqin had her purse, so whoever broke in got a bad deal. they
dumped all of our clothes out of our bags and did take the bag of a
girl who was with us, shelly, but all it had was clothes and a bible.
so the little thug (who we assume was a boy) just got a bible and some
teenage girl clothes. probably not what he was expecting when he broke
into a van that had foreigners in it.
so instead of going to the village, we got to spend the afternoon
waiting for the police to show up, waiting for the police to take
pictures, waiting at the police station for them to take our
statements, waiting for the computer to work right so they could take
our statements. the police were actually really helpful - much more
helpful than i anticipated. they were sooooo embarressed and
apologitic for something like this happening in their city. they made
the case a priority case and were very nice. but, still not the way
that we wanted to spend the day.
but there is some silver lining. i was so close to taking our computer
with us so i could use it to charge our camera and put pictures on if
our memory card filled up. but i decided that i didn't want to carry
it around. it would hav been in the van, which would have made the
whole thing way worse. marty and yaqin now have really good standing
with the police in that village, so if they ever want to go there to
share Jesus, it will be a lot easier for them to do.
so all in all, not our favorite day here, but not as bad as it could
have been. plus, i feel like every trip has to have some story like
this, so at least we got it out of the way.

china is awesome!

2011-08-20T21:13:00.001-05:00

so china is pretty awesome so far. we havne't done much except walk
around and lived life with marty and yaquin. we have met a lot of
their friends, ate a lot of food, walked a lot, rode in a lot of scary
vehicles, seen a lot of cool things. it's been fun.

unfortunately, the internets is a bit on the slow side, so uploading
pictures would take approximtely one hour. for real. so those will
have to wait till we get home.

last night, we had some of marty and yaquin's friends over for dinner
and i taught yaqin how to make american food. we made hummus (which
isn't american) and alfredo (which isn't really amerian either). it
tunred out pretty good, which is amazing since i made it using woks
and chopsticks. for real.

we're in china!

2011-08-16T01:26:00.001-05:00

i know this post title is a little ovbious and not clever, but we are and it's still hard to believe we are actually here. it was a very uneventful trip, no major kinks. it's great to be here. but more on that later. here are some thoughts from our trip over.

*traveling without kids is so extreamly different and easier than traveling with kids. we got to sit in our own seats, eat our own food, watch movies, sleep, get up and go to the bathroom, not push a huge stroller through the airport, not pack an embaressingly large amount of stuff, sleep. jason says it was like the difference between walking and driving across the country.

*bringing my own pillow on the plane was probably the best decision of my life. well, at least in the top ten. jason told me i would be annoyed at having to carry it around everywhere, but it was not nearly as annoing as it was awesome to have it to sleep with. it was even more awesome because my husband is wonderful and let me lean on him and take up half his seat due to the lack of children traveling with us.

*when we pack, perhaps it would be helpful to check the weather in the place we are visiting, not just assume it will be the same as where we are coming from. i mean, i guess i didn't really assume it would be the same, but i didn't think that through real clearly. a jacket would have been a good thing to throw in my suitcase.

*suckerpunch may be the dumbest movie i have ever seen. and i've watch all three twilight movies, so that's saying something.

*when we were traveling, we saw things that made me think "oh, that's fun. hiba would really enjoy that. we should have brought her". and then i missed my kids for a moment and then remembered the seven hours of sleep i got on the plane.

*chinese fashion sense is awesome. we saw so many wonderful outfits in the beijing airport. i wanted to take pictures, but i thought that would be rude. i also wonder if the people who make shirts with english writing on them know what they are saying and just enjoy putting random words together for other people to wear.

*chinglish signs are also awesome. i have started taking pictures of those. which i know is what everyone does, but they are still funny to me.

we walked around xining (the city that marty and yaqin live in) today and we'll probably go out again this afternoon so we don't fall asleep. so hopefully tonight or tomorrow i'll write a little about that and put up some pictures. so stay tuned!

these are a few of my favorite things....

2011-08-12T07:53:00.001-05:00

so it's friday morning and we leave for china on sunday at 6:30 a.m. the kids go up to my parent's house tomorrow. have i packed? no. have i done laundry? no. have i finished cleaning the house? no. have i gone shopping for things i want to take? no. have i.....well, you get the picture. so instead of actually doing any of those things, i am drinking coffee and blogging. it sounds like a good plan to me. i'm hoping that while i am writing this, all of the other things will just get magically done. hmmmm.

anyway, i had a realization yesterday that i am going to miss my kids when we are in china. i knew that i would miss them eventually, and that i would be really happy to see them when we get home. but i didn't think it would be hard to leave them. it wasn't hard to leave them when i went to the bahamas. it's never hard to leave them over a weekend. but two weeks? that's a long time. so, i thought i'd write about them today.

(also, just now, hiba started throwing a fit about something completely ridiculous. maybe she senses that it will be hard for me to leave her and is trying to make it easier....)

hiba and matthias are at a really cute stage in life right now. granted, it is also a very annoying stage of life, but really they are cute so much of the time. they're at the point where they can talk to each other, play together, make up games. hiba's not too old for everything she says to be over matthias' head (although i am pretty convinced that most of life is over matthias' head) and he isn't too young for her to just get annoyed and ignore him. this also means lots of fights, lots of yelling at each other, lots of hitting....BUT when they play together, it is so fun to watch. so here are a few of their favorite games.

*dora and swiper. matthias is always swiper, trying to swipe something from hiba. he either gets it successfully and laughs manically as he throws it across the room (which can be dangerous, like if he swipes a stroller) or he is fended off by dora, says "oh maaaan!" (which is actually said "oh maaaaam, because matthias doesn't say "n") and runs down the hall. they do this over and over and over again.

*baby evan. we have some friends who have a baby, named evan, so hiba and matthias like to play baby evan now. actually, i'm pretty sure that matthias thinks that all babies are baby evan. so they'll get blankets and wrap themselves up and lay on the ground/couch/bed and be baby evan. that's the whole game. they love it.

*wheel of fortune. i love this show. i know, that makes me like a 70-year-old woman, but i think it's fun. and it's sort of a life goal to be on it someday. so we watch it a lot, because it teaches letters and counting and involves clapping - which is pretty much a winning combo. so now, hiba and matthias like to play wheel of fortune, or "guessing letters" as they call it. one of them stands by our front window as vanna and the other stands by the couch and guesses letters. there are always letters. except for "r". which they always guess anyway, even though the answer is always "no r. awww.".

*working out. jason and i have been going to the gym pretty regularly lately (well, jason has and i have thought about it a lot.), so hiba and matthias like to "work out" when we are home. jason sometimes leads them in exercises, but sometimes they do it on their own. their favorites are burpies, squats, jumping jacks, lunges, and sprints. hiba can do a pretty good push-up as well. after about 2 of any given exercise, they sit on the floor or couch and say "whew, my legs are very sore from working out".

*cooking. matthias is pretty obsessed with food. real food, fake food, whatever. so they cook in their kitchen a lot. and make me snacks alllllll day. they always tell me what it is. we have some play food and then they'll just make stuff up too. matthias likes to make pizza, cookies, and soup. hiba always tries to bring me peas and carrots. i like matthias' cooking better.

so those are a few favorites around here these days. i'm sure in two weeks it will be completely different. which is good - i mean, that's the way life is supposed to go, right? but i will miss my little pat sajack and vanna white.

wordless wednesday: muscles

2011-08-10T08:42:00.001-05:00

what if i just want to take a nap?

2011-08-09T08:40:00.004-05:00

i like to help people. some of you who know me might think this is not true, but it is. i really do. especially people who are disadvantaged, hurting, over-looked. and i'm very thankful that i've found a lot of opportunities to do this in little rock.

teen mops comes with all sorts of people who need help and love. all the time. which is great, because i'm a stay-at-home mom and i have a lot of time and a relatively flexible schedule, so i can help them a lot. but i've thought a lot about boundaries lately. and i wonder how to draw the boundaries between helping and saying no because i'm really tired and need a break, boundaries between helping and enabling, boundaries between helping out of love and helping out of guilt.

Jesus told us to love others. He told us to feed the poor, clothe the naked, take care of orphans and widows. He told us to go the extra mile, to give the shirt off our back if we were asked for it. and i think He really meant those things. i want to live a life that is not attached to my things, a life that reflects a heart of service. i want hiba and matthias to see that jason and i love others with actions, not just with words or money in the offering plate. but it's hard. because sometimes i am tired. sometimes it is inconvenient. and sometimes i need a break.

there is one girl, j, who needs a lot of help in particular. she actually got a job this summer, which helped her a ton and made the requests go down, but she still always needs rides to get places, needs help getting food stamps, often needs to "borrow" money to get formula for her baby until her next wic check comes. and she never plans ahead. so this is how a phone call usually goes.

j: uh, hi. are you gonna be busy at 3 today?

me: (in my head): that depends on how you define busy. matthias will probably still be sleeping, which means i will either be watching some awesome show like grey's anatomy or sleeping on the couch and i don't particularly want to give up either of those activities, but i guess that's not really busy....

me: (out loud) well, i'm not sure. what do you need?

j: i need a ride to [insert something important here like pick up a check, go to the doctor, get food]

me: (in my head): crap. that seems more important that what i will be doing.

me: (out loud): uh, well. ok. i can come pick you up. see you at 2:45.

j: [hangs up the phone without really confirming our plans, so i'm not entirely sure what the plan is]

so now i have to re-arrange my morning plans so that matthias can go down for a nap early, even though i know he won't really go to sleep, so i can wake him up before he is ready which means he will be super cranky which means i will be super cranky which means we won't get to go to the pool which means hiba will be super cranky, but hey - i'm doing a good deed, right?

or am i? this is where i just don't know. Jesus took time to pray by himself. He fell asleep in a hurricane because he was tired (ok, maybe it wasn't a hurricane because i don't think they have those on the sea of galilee....). he clearly took time to be by Himself. which means that i should also be able to draw some lines, but saying no to take a nap just doesn't seem to be a good boundary. so where is the line between sacrificing your time and energy and saying no? or is there a line?

i don't really know where i'm going with all this. i don't have a grand point or conclusion. it's just something i've been thinking a lot about. so what do you think? what does Jesus mean when he says to serve and love others? is there room for boundaries in that call? or do we just always have to give up our nap?

saturday's a rugby day!

2011-08-08T09:44:00.006-05:00

this weekend, we went to memphis for a rugby tournament. jason takes the summer off from rugby, which i am very thankful for. but it was fun to get in on one tournament and i know jason enjoyed playing. as an added bonus, some of our really great friends, kristina and rhys, came with us! they moved her from the UK a few months ago and rhys was going through rugby withdrawals, so they came along and he got to play some games. it was really great to see them and i was glad that kristina was there for me to hang out with.

after the tournament, we headed to downtown memphis for a night out. rhys hadn't ever been to memphis, so we thought we'd hit up beale street.

at dinner

no-teeth smiles due to the ribs that were stuck in our teeth

yay for friends!

the hampton inn in the background is where jason and i stayed on our way home from our honeymoon, and we hung out in this park while we were in memphis. awwwww.

despite the awful heat, the very early morning, and the total lack of sleep for the weekend, it was a great time. and totally worth it.

too hot!

2011-08-03T08:08:00.003-05:00

yesterday was laundry day.

and surprisingly enough, i actually did all of the laundry. that's not actually that unusual, but i actually put it all away the same day that is was washed. i think that's happened, like, twice. ever. i even color coordinated my closet when putting my clothes away.

you may remember a few weeks ago when i wrote this post about how hiba is getting old enough to do jobs. like put her laundry away. and how excited i am that we have reached that point. and how she has a cute little sticker chart for when she does a job.

the problem with the sticker chart is that she finished it on a sunday. and she wanted ice cream from chick-fil-a as a treat. only they aren't open on sunday, so i kind of didn't make a big deal out of it. and then monday came and something happened so we didn't go get ice cream. and then tuesday, wednesday, yadda, yadda, yadda. so the sticker chart is still on the fridge, complete, but no ice cream yet. that was like a week and a half ago. (see, i really do never fold laundry).

so last night when i folder her laundry, i didn't let her put it away. i mean, i gave her the option, but when she protested even just a little, i did it for her. and i only gave her the option because she caught me - i was totally just going to do it. so she didn't put it away, which means she didn't get a sticker, which means she didn't remember that she has a completed sticker chart and is owed an ice cream cone, which means i didn't have to leave the house when there was a heat index of 116 to go to chick-fil-a.

does that make me a bad mom? or just a mom that is reeeeeeeeally tired of this heat?

(if the answer is yes to the first questions, it's rhetorical.)

(i think a visit to chick-fil-a is on the schedule for today.)

china!

2011-08-02T08:32:00.006-05:00

yesterday, this came in the mail.

which means, we are really going to china. not we are going to china, as long as i remember to actually get our visas before we go. but we are actually going. in two weeks. for two weeks. with no kids.

to say i am excited is a bit of an understatement. i am really, really, really looking forward to this trip. i love my children. i even ~~love~~ like traveling with them. we've had some fun trips. but i LOVE traveling with jason. we're a good pair. we have a lot of fun. we take cool trips. we do did in our past life cool things like quit our jobs and go on a 40 day road trip around the western US. we moved to palestine. we went to jordan. we went to turkey. and these were all trips that would not work well with kids. or at least would not work well with me and kids. it's not so much that we actually "rough it" on these trips, but we always find trouble or adventure that would not work while toting around two small kiddos.

so two weeks in china, just me and jason. we're going to visit jason's brother who is living in western china, studying chinese and living life. he got married last october to a chinese woman named yaqin, so we get to meet her. we're planning on hitting the big tourist sites in beijing, but otherwise we'll just be hanging out with marty and yaqin, seeing where he lives, meeting his friends, eating their food (well, jason will be anyway....i'm not so adventurous....i'm taking a big box of granola bars). he lives in a place with a lot of muslims and our trip falls right in the middle of ramadan. i'm looking forward to seeing ramadan in a different culture and hoping to share an iftar or two with his friends.

it's been seven years tomorrow, since we said our vows...

2011-08-01T07:56:00.004-05:00

well, actually it's been seven years yesterday since we said our vows. but that's not how the song goes.

we celebrated with a great date night, kid-free evening, and a relaxing day. we usually go on a little get-a-way for the weekend, but we figured that our china trip in two weeks can count for that. it was a great weekend and i loved my time with jason.

seven years. a lot has happened. a lot that i did not expect, some that i did. lots of laughs, a few tears, a couple of moves, a couple of countries, a couple of kids - here we are. i have loved the journey and i really am looking forward to what's ahead. i doing life with anyone else - real or imaginary. love you, jason!

friday fun

2011-07-29T10:21:00.009-05:00

i love friday mornings. last summer, i started swapping kids with my friend, megan, each friday morning. and it has been wonderful. it means that every other friday, i have a morning to myself at no cost. which is pretty much awesome. and on the alternate fridays, i have three cute kiddos over at my house to entertain my children. i always joke with jason that really i'm having lydia and jenna over to babysit my kids. the kids play with each other enough that they know the rules of the house, the general schedule of the morning, what they like to play together, how to work out fights (well, most of the time....). so it's really great having them over.

the girls playing some sort of musical chairs/tag/ring around the rosie

the boys looking on, trying to figure it out....

....and giving up and playing their own game.

playing on the non-working jeep power wheels (we got it off of freecycle and it needs a new battery. which we will get in september for matthias' birthday. until then, it's sitting in our yard. yes - i know. we are white trash. at least it's not the front yard....)

matthias doing his own thing.

who needs power wheels when you have sticks? (maybe we should re-think the birthday idea....)

matthias riding his "bike" - another freecycle score. and still doing his own thing.

watching dora while i get lunch ready

mac and cheese! megan and i both started making this each week for them, just by coincidence, and i'm pretty sure that there would be a riot if we tried to serve anything else.

what a big boy - eating all by himself.

and now it's nap time. which is another perk of friday mornings - my kids sleep great after playing so hard all morning. and after having all those kiddos, i think i deserve a nap too.

for the bible tells me so

2011-07-28T08:41:00.006-05:00

some days i think it's time to start teaching hiba and matthias bible stories. this may come to a shock to some of you that our kids are 3 and almost 2 and don't know a lot of bible stories. we aren't bad parents. or heathens. i promise. but we just haven't ever put a lot of emphasis on teaching bible stories to them. we pray, we talk about Jesus, they know the Lord's prayer, but we don't really read Bible books. we also go to a rather non-traditional church that has a pretty non-traditional children's ministry idea, so they don't always get the basics there.

actually, they do get the basics there. they have learned that God is love. that we are to love the poor and help the needy. that actions speak louder than words. that evil will be defeated by good. that God is always with them, even when it doesn't feel like it and it doesn't make sense. they see people living lives that reflect Jesus in their everyday life.

but i don't think they know the story of noah and the ark.

which brings me to my current life dilemma. i love Jesus. i believe He is the Son of God. i believe the Bible is the word of God.

but i have a really hard time with a lot of the Bible. especially the old testament. which is where i feel like a lot of kids Bible stories come from. i know that the stories teach basic principles about the nature of God, his provision and love for His people. but i have a hard time with the stories.

take david and goliath. it's a great story about how trusting in God is the way to go, not relying on your own strength. great. that is something that i want hiba and matthias to know and to live by. it is a good lesson and i totally agree that it needs to be taught. but maybe by a different story. because here is the end of the story, from the NIV:

As the Philistine moved closer to attack him, David ran quickly toward the battle line to meet him. Reaching into his bag and taking out a stone, he slung it and struck the Philistine on the forehead. The stone sank into his forehead, and he fell facedown on the ground.

So David triumphed over the Philistine with a sling and a stone; without a sword in his hand he struck down the Philistine and killed him.

David ran and stood over him. He took hold of the Philistine’s sword and drew it from the sheath. After he killed him, he cut off his head with the sword.

When the Philistines saw that their hero was dead, they turned and ran. Then the men of Israel and Judah surged forward with a shout and pursued the Philistines to the entrance of Gath and to the gates of Ekron. Their dead were strewn along the Shaaraim road to Gath and Ekron. When the Israelites returned from chasing the Philistines, they plundered their camp. (1 Sam 17:48 - 53)

um. ok. how do you make that into a veggietales movie? or a coloring page? or a cute little story book? you don't. because it is graphic. and horrible. and hard to read. and definitely hard to explain to little kids. and this is just one example. the Bible is full of stories like this. horrible, violent, graphic stories about thing that people did in the name of God, with God on their side. and i'm just not sure what to do with that.

i have a hard time with these being taught to kids, because they are all watered down. the bad parts are taken out, the heroic parts are left in, and the whole story is boiled down to a 25 minute cartoon with catchy songs or a colorful story-book. and that's not reality.

reality is that understanding God is hard. reality is that the israelites did some pretty horrible things. reality is that people still do pretty horrible things in the name of God. reality is that there seems to be a disconnect between the God of the old testament and the Jesus of the new testament. and reality is that even things in the new testament aren't as pretty and simple as we make them out to be.

but reality is also that God is love. God is good. faith is hard. Jesus is our example. following Him is difficult, confusing, messy. and it is not simple.

so maybe i'll hold off on the bible stories. maybe i'll keep trying to live a life that reflects Jesus and His love. maybe i'll keep surrounding my kids with people who love them and love Jesus. and i'll just have faith that it will be enough.

because i need more ways to waste time....

2011-07-28T08:34:00.002-05:00

what are some of your favorite blogs (or websites) to read?

i figure reading is better than watching tv, right? so all i have to do is cut down on my tv-watching-time-wasting, and i can read as many blogs as i want.

loving and not so much

2011-07-27T17:20:00.004-05:00

things i'm loving....

*matthias talking. it is sooooo cute. he is starting to put small sentences together. like "hiba time out!".

*hiba at the pool. she is so fearless and it is so fun to watch her swim and jump and play. yesterday, she was doing belly-flops off the diving board because that's what the big kids were doing.

*yo gabba gabba. for real. so much better than dora. if my kids are going to be obsessed with a tv show, i'll take this one. at least for this week - i'll probably be tired of it soon.

*bargains. i got some great new clothes when i visited my parent's last week. everything was on super clearance. i've worn new clothes every day this week - something that has not happened in a loooooooong time.

*our church. it did take me a while to warm up to it (don't be offended, guys. i pretty much hated anything here for a good year....it's not just you). but i really love it. i love the people. i love that my kids are seeing their lives. i love that they all love us.

*air conditioning. i don't know how i lived without it for 3 years. i am thankful every day that i have great ac in my house and car.

*watching hiba and matthias play together. they are finally to the age where she isn't too old and cool for him and he isn't to little for her. they play games, read books, make trouble. when they are sweet, they are so sweet.

and things i'm loving not as much....

*matthias and hiba fighting together. they are also to the age where they fight. matthias fights back. and starts fights. and has his own ideas on how their games should go, which are usually different than hiba's ideas. they fight all day. and then go back to being best buds. and then fighting.

*the heat and humidity. i really get unreasonably angry when i have to be outside these days. like actual anger builds inside of me when i step outside of our door. i can handle the pool and usually i can handle walking to and from the car, but that is about it. and yes, i do realize this is a ridiculous problem that probably need to work on.

*netflix. i know, old news. but i still have to decide what i want to do about it. keep the streaming so the kids can watch things? change to huluplus? amazon prime? get rid of it all because really who needs to be watching that much tv?

*matthias wanting to be potty trained. i know, i should love this. but i don't. i really don't want to deal with it. will it save me lots of money each month? will it make my life easier in a very short time? is he very ready, like asking "potty, please? potty, please?" every time i change his diaper? yes, yes, and yes. but do i want to deal with it? no.

so there you have it. some thoughts from my wednesday afternoon. what are you loving today? or not so much loving today?

hiba, the negotiator

2011-07-26T08:35:00.001-05:00

this morning at breakfast.....

hiba: i'm done, i don't want to eat my eggs.

me: well, you have to eat some. you need the protein. if you eat two big bites, you can get down.

hiba: noooooooooo!! i want to eat FOUR bites.

um, ok. you win.

Yummy Pasta Sala

2011-07-25T16:34:00.005-05:00

i love cooking. i especially love cooking easy meals that the whole family can enjoy. and it is an even more added bonus when said meals are semi-healthy. like the pasta salad that i made for dinner tonight.

i used to think of pasta salad as being a side dish. but, if you make enough of it, it makes a pretty great meal. especially if you load it up with fresh veggies, throw in some tuna - you have a well-rounded meal in one dish. one dish that you can make ahead of time, like when your kids are napping, thus avoiding the pre-dinner meltdown that happens anytime that you humungous, food loving child sees you preparing something. and i love the dressing. it's a good change from just mayo or italian dressing. it's got a nice mix of flavors, but it isn't too crazy, so kids will like it. at least mine do. and that's saying something.

so here you go. it's so simple. what you need is:

*one box of pasta (i use whole wheat, but you don't have to)

*raw veggies of your choice. tonight, i used broccoli, celery, carrots, orange peppers, grape tomatoes, and olives. and yes, i know olives are not a raw veggie. other veggies you could use would be red and green peppers, cauliflower, green onions, or red onions.

dressing:

*1/2 cup of may

*1/4 cup of ranch dressing

*3 T of milk

*2 T red wine vinigar

*1 T minced dried onion

*1/2 t seasoned salt

*1/4 teaspoon garlic powder

*1/4 teaspoon black pepper

*1/4 teaspoon dried parsley

*1/4 teaspoon (or a little squirt) mustard

cook the pasta. while it is cooking, chop the veggies. i like them to be really small, but you could use big chunks that's how you like it. i use about equal parts veggies to cooked noodles. i know - this is a very precise, helpful recipe, huh?

when you're done chopping, mix up the dressing. just put all of the ingredients in a bowl and mix it up. pretty simple.

once the pasta is cooked, drain it and rinse it with cold water. you want to cool it down quite a bit before adding the veggies so that they don't cook at all. one of the best things about this dish is the contrast between the crunchy veggies and the soft noodles.

add the dressing to the noodles, mix it all around, until they are all nice and coated. at this point, i take some of the noodles out for my kids. i'm not that mom. you know, the one that makes two different dinners every night. but, i've tried giving them this before and they are not fans of the raw veggies and dinner was a disaster. which i understand. it's hard to chew, especially when you don't have all of your teeth. so whole wheat noodles with a little dressing and a few olives sprinkled it, with a side of cooked green beans isn't a bad meal. and it is a way that i can easily make them dinner that is still good for them without making a whole other meal. we still get to eat as a family and they still eat (sort of) what jason and i are eating.

so once i take out their noodles, i add all the veggies to the noodles and dressing and mix it all together. throw it in the fridge and wait for dinner time. i add some tuna to jason's, but not mine. and there you have a complete meal in one dish - veggies, grains, protein, and yumminess (which is definitely an essential ingredient to a well-balanced meal).

t-town

2011-07-20T19:45:00.006-05:00

the second half our our little trip was spent in tulsa. it was so much fun. first, we went to see by bff, christa. the last time we got to hang out was in the bahamas, so it was a little more stressful this time around, as we also got to hang out with 4 kids under 4. but it really was fun to see christa and so much fun to see our kids play together. at one point as all the kids were walking together, christa looked at me and said "when did this happen?!?". it is so crazy that we have two kids each (well, she has 2 1/2).

we spent the afternoon at their house, playing with toys, splashing in the pool. then we loaded up the kiddos and went to taco bell for dinner and then to the dollar movie theater. we saw "rio", which was a huge hit. it was hiba and matthias' first movie in the theater and they did great. hiba loved it and matthias did really well for the first half and even when he was "all dum", he was ok. by the time we got home, everyone was exhausted and we heard zero peeps out of the kids.

this morning, we said good-bye to the clarks and headed over to kristina's house to hang out with her and eleri. kristina is a friend from jbu who we haven't seen in a really long time. she and her husband just moved back to the US from london and whales. it was great to catch up with her. i hope we will get to see them a lot more often now that they are on this side of the world.

so now we are back home. hiba and matthias are exhausted - we didn't exactly follow a real nap and bedtime schedule over the last few days. i have high hopes for their sleeping tonight. unfortunately, jason is not home. he and john are stuck in charlotte, north carolina due to weather delays. bummer.

grammy and oscar's

2011-07-19T12:18:00.005-05:00

hiba, matthias, and i have enjoyed a couple days at grammy and oscar's. lots of books, playdough, and fun toys for hiba and matthias. lots of sleeping, adult conversation, and resting for me. rachel is here and didn't have to work so we enjoyed lunch at the best restaurant in town and a shopping trip.

tickles from aunt rachel

reading with oscar

bubble bath!

books with grammy

jones soda!

we also had a birthday party for grammy, whose birthday is on saturday. hiba helped make cupcakes - because no birthday party is complete without cupcakes.

now we're off to tulsa to see friends. yay for mini-vacations!

don't you wish you lived at my house....

2011-07-16T20:10:00.003-05:00

i love saturdays.

yummy breakfast.

cute boy, self-decorated

funny faces.

i'm way too old for this shiz....

2011-07-15T10:45:00.006-05:00

thursday:

6 a.m. - woken up by hiba. laid in bed with her till about 7, but sure didn't sleep at all.

7 a.m. - matthias gets up. drag myself out of bed (and yes, i realize this isn't super early. but i hate mornings. any mornings. so every day i drag myself out of bed. even if it's at 10 a.m.)

8 a.m. - breakfast with the kiddos, make a grocery list, meal plan, plan for the day

9 a.m. - head to walmart. the "mommy's helper" novelty has totally worn off.

10:30 - go to the gym. regretting not drinking more than one cup of coffee.

12 - make it home without a complete meltdown by hiba or myself. all endorphins created during my workout are immediately sucked out of me.

1 - naptime for the kiddos! but instead of napping, i decide to watch tv. i immediately regret this decision.

3 - kids up, time to clean up the house and get dinner going.

5:30 - friends from out of town get here. yay!

6 - i leave to go to a teen mops bbq, which is fun, but always really emotionally exhausting

9 p.m. - get home, hang out with friends, catch up on life

11 p.m. - leave to go to the movie theater for the premier of the final harry potter. wondering why the heck i thought this was a good idea a week ago.

12:01 - not watching harry potter yet. stupid movie theater.

12:10 - movie starts. somehow i am still awake. yay for coke!

2:30 A.M. (i guess this should technically be under "friday") - get home, stumble into bed, and sleep

friday:

6:30 a.m. - wake up to the sounds of hiba and matthias jumping in matthias' crib. drag myself out of bed, turn on "yo gabba gabba", give the kiddos milk and bananas, and go back to sleep on the playroom floor

7:45 - doorbell rings. open it to find a policeman. not quite awake for this. it was actually nothing, our friends had bikes on the back of their car and a bike was found down the street, so he wanted to make sure it wasn't theirs. at this point, i decided it was time for coffee.

8 a.m. - breakfast, coffee, enjoying time with friends, glad jason got to go into work late. more coffee.

9:30 a.m. - three little friends join us for the rest of the morning. more coffee. it really was great they were here, because they play great with hiba and matthias so i could do things like space out on the couch, drink more coffee, and write important blog posts.

1 p.m. - naptime! this time for everyone. although i did have to stay awake long enough to run a load of hiba's clothes through the washer and move them on to the drier, so she could put them away and get a sticker.

4:30 - wake up from my nap. wishing i didn't have to. head out to the store to pick up stuff for dinner and then head to the jason's parents house. we had dinner there, then put the kids to bed (which apparently was an epic failure after we left....).

8 - get to some friends' house to teach them how to play "settlers of catan". yay! new dorky game friends! jason crushed us both games.

11:30 - leave their house, back to jason's parents to pick up our kids and take them home.

12:26 - finally home, hiba and matthias back to bed, stumble into bed and pass out.

and it doesn't really slow down here. we've got a full day today and then jason leaves for atlanta on sunday and i leave for nwa/tulsa for a few days. thank God for coffee. i'm sooooooo too old for this.

it's coming...

2011-07-13T10:32:00.004-05:00

i am not a huge fan of having toddlers. i mean, they are funny and cute and fun to watch. but they also need EVERYTHING done for them. and they make a lot of messes. and need a lot of help. so i don't think it's my favorite stage of life (mine or theirs).

but the end is in sight. very faint sight, but in sight none the less. this week we implemented the first "job" for hiba. she is now in charge of putting away her clothes and matthias' clothes after i wash and fold them. and she is so excited about it.

i made her a little sticker chart to make it a little more exciting, which has only enhanced her desire to put clothes away. it's also enhanced her desire for me to do laundry. pretty much every day, she asks me if i will wash her clothes so that she can put them away and get a sticker.

mommy's little helper

2011-07-06T12:44:00.003-05:00

one thing that i think i'm pretty good at is grocery shopping with both kids. or at least grocery shopping at our kroger with both kids. i have it down to an art. meal planning and grocery list ahead of time, car carts for the kids, i know where to find everything, cookies are in the middle which serve as a bribe till we get to them and a treat till the end, self check-out. it's pretty great.

but now, i think i'm switching to wal-mart. not because i really want to, but because it will save us money. i really don't like shopping at wal-mart. it is just so big and takes forever and the kids' carts are so huge and i always hit stuff with them and my kids (and i, for that matter) are on the verge of a meltdown by the time we get to the check-out.

so last week, i tried a new approach. i told hiba that if we could just get a regular cart for only matthias to ride in that she could help me shop. she loved this idea way more than i anticipated. she was so excited about being my helper. especially since matthias was not. she told him that, once or twice.

and it really worked well. it took a little longer, because hiba got to "pick out" the things and put them in the cart, but she didn't run away, she and matthias weren't fighting the whole time, it didn't take nearly as long as i thought it would, and no one melted down in front of our cashier. pretty successful trip if you ask me.

so now anytime that we run errands, hiba asks if she can help me and i'll help her and matthias will just ride in the cart and not be a helper.

summertime!

2011-07-04T09:39:00.006-05:00

back to blogging. as a little catch-up, here is what has happened since you last saw us.

-i had a wonderful vacation in the bahamas with my bff. i highly recommend trips like that. we have four days to do nothing. and when you are a full-time mom (or even a part-time mom, or a babysitter, or whatever), that is invaluable. we talked, laughed, read books, slept, ate, drank, didn't do dishes, didn't change diapers, didn't do anything we didn't want to do. when i came back, i was disappointed at how quickly all of my relaxed feelings were sucked away, but jason pointed out that the trip was mostly about anticipating, not so much being relaxed afterwards. so i'm anticipating our next trip in five years already. let the countdown begin.

-summer is in full swing. it is hot and muggy and i remember why i hate the south. but, the pool is open, so that makes it a little better. hiba knows no fear when it comes to the pool and matthias is slowly warming up to it. i bought them both puddle jumpers, which was one of the best decisions that i have made recently.

-i finally got everything worked out for school and i really am going back to school in the fall. i'll just be part-time for the first year, which i think will be a good way to ease into this whole student/mom thing.

-we spent a weekend with my family in branson and had a great time. it was great to all be together and hiba and matthias love seeing grammy and oscar and all their aunts and uncles.

-matthias has learned to talk. i used to think that he would be less verbal than hiba, because it took him longer to start talking. which is not to say that he was a late talker, since hiba started talking when she was like eight months. but i was wrong. he loves to talk. all. the. time. and he is at that oh-so-delightful stage where he wants me to repeat back whatever he is saying, so he knows i know what he is saying. all. the. time. he's started putting two or three words together, but pauses between words. it's so cute. and it amazing how fast he is learning new words or phrases. i guess that's what happens when he has an older sister who talks like an adult.

-jason and i got to spend a weekend in nashville with two of our best friends and see U2 and florence + the machine. in concert. our friend, matt, scored some really great tickets, so we were on the floor, about 40 yards from the stage. it was pretty amazing. florence was a great opening act. and then there was U2. i adore U2. i love their music and i love bono, so really "pretty amazing" doesn't even begin to describe how i felt about it. epic. and the weekend was so fun. i love my new friends, but there is something so great about hanging out with old friends. and it was a fun to road-trip with just me and jason, something we haven't gotten to do in a while.

sun-tanned toes, ticklin' the sand

2011-06-08T08:47:00.003-05:00

and the ranting has stopped...

2011-05-30T13:08:00.002-05:00

I am on the beach. It's amazing. So far today, I've slept till I woke up on my own, had breakfast and lunch that was made for me, not made my bed, not cleaned up anything, sat on the beach, had yummy drinks and snacks while sitting on the beach. And that's about it. This afternoon we have a sailing lesson, dinner reservations, and a show to go to. I know, busy busy busy.

I want to take a minute to brag on my husband. He is amazing. Really. So huge thanks to him for makng it possible for me to dit in the beach today thanks to his hard work. Also, a HUGE shoutout and thanks to the pollacks and my aprents for watching the kids. Last night, I as thinking of what we would do today and it took me several minutes to realize I don't have to plan around nap time. Well, the kids' naptime at least. So thank you.

So. I'm gonna go sit by the pool while I wait to go sailing. I'll try to post pictures tonight or r tomorrow from christa's iPod. Mine doesn't have a camera. But it is beautiful and so great to hang out with my bff and do nothing. Ahhhhhhhh.

bored + too much time + airports= rants

2011-05-29T13:33:00.003-05:00

just a little ranting. Because I'm bored. First, when I am rich I am going to build an airport that has outdoor waiting areas. I have been in plains and airports since 6 am. Blech. Second, when I am rich, I'm gonna hire a travel agent to book all my awesome trips and their only job will be to fight with the airlines when they try to give me stupid iteneraries and layovers. I just feel like there is probably a more efficient way to get to the bahamas from little rock than three flights and seven hours in airports.

I survived the first two flights fine. The first plane was so loud. It as small but not that small. At one point, the captain started talking and you could barely hear him. The second flight was a little bumpy, but I avoided throwing up all over the little kid in front of me, so it was all good. At least I wasn't watching "lost" like I was the last time I was on a rough flight. Also, did you know they charge for snacks on planes now? Or at least on continental. The graciously gave us a complementry beverage and that was it. We could buy pretzels if we wanted. For like $3. Um, no thanks. It was probably better that way so I didn't lose it all when our pilot was attempting to "land".

what will you be when you grow up?

2011-05-27T21:53:00.004-05:00

hiba and matthias went over to some friends' house this morning, which was a wonderful break. my friend, megan, and i swap kids each week and it is one of the best things in the world.

anyway, while they were there, they watched a dora movie. i was asking hiba about it at dinner tonight and she told me that it was called "job day" and talked about what you want to be when you grow up. so she asked me what i want to be when i grow up. and the rest of the conversation went like this.

hiba: mommy, i think you can be a lunch maker.

jason: what do you think i will be?

hiba: you can be a soccer player.

I love how she picked the two things that were most offensive to us.

little moments

2011-05-17T13:52:00.003-05:00

sometimes i have bad days with my kids. i know, hard to believe, right? ha. anyway, it's true. it seems like hiba's new favorite thing to do is follow matthias around and take things from him so he'll scream. matthias' favorite thing to do is answer "no!" while shaking his finger at me and then react to a spank on the hand with an ear-splitting scream. this is what a lot of my days are filled with recently. fun times.

but every once in a while, there are those moments. moments when they love each other. moments when things we have been saying to them click. moments that make my heart melt.

last night, matthias went to bed at 7. he went without a fight, which is actually rare these days. but as eager as he was to go to bed, apparently he wasn't so eager to go to sleep. so when hiba's 8 o'clock bedtime rolled around, jason and i opted to go ahead and put her to bed in their room (they share a bedroom) and hope that they would fall asleep eventually.

well, they didn't go to sleep very quickly. they were getting pretty loud and it was getting annoying and i was about to get up to tell them to be quiet when jason called me back to stand outside their door. and what we heard was so sweet.

hiba was doing their bedtime routine with matthias so that he would go to sleep. this started with her saying The Lord's Prayer, which jason has been teaching her at bedtime. this was followed with her and matthias singing "Jesus loves me". matthias sings about every other word - and "word" is used in the loose sense here. then, hiba prayed and told matthias good night an to go to sleep. the whole time, she was talking sweetly to him and he was answering sweetly and they were just being so cute.

such a great little moment.

and then they woke up this morning....

all about me

2011-05-09T09:13:00.005-05:00

i like weekends that are all about me.

like this last weekend. jason and the kiddos did an excellent job of pampering me for mother's day. it started on saturday morning, where jason got up with the kids and took them garage-saleing (not really sure how to spell that....). they had a great time and i got to sleep to my hearts content and wake up to an empty, clean house. bliss. i don't know the last time that happened. jason does a great job of letting me sleep in one weekend day each week, but i always get woken up by the screams of joy from our little friends. but not this week. i got to wake up to pure silence.

and it just got better from there. while the kids were napping, we got some yard work done (which might not sound too fun, but our yard is a complete wreck, so it was nice to see some progress). then we took the kids to jason's parents house for the night.

jason told me that we could go eat anywhere i wanted or we could make whatever i wanted. i really love cooking, especially with jason, and especially with no kids, so we opted to stay home and cook. which turned out to be an excellent choice. we made lemon chicken ravioli with tomato artichoke sauce. which was every bit as wonderful as it sounds. we made whole-wheat pasta from scratch and used all fresh ingredients (well, the artichoke hearts were canned), and it was delish. add a great bottle of sauvignon blanc and you have one meal to die for.

the pampering continued on sunday. it started with a yummy omelet stuffed full of my favorite things - bacon, feta cheese, and spinach. and it just kept getting better from there. i think i changed one diaper all day and didn't wash a single dish. we had jason's mom, brother, and sister for lunch and they all cooked while his mom and i sat on the couch. we had steak, baked potatoes, and grilled veggies - another wonderful meal (there seems to be a theme developing....).

i love my kids, but sometimes i need a break. and this weekend was one of those times. it was so fun to hang out with jason, relax, not have a to-do list. i think the gift of rest is sometimes overlooked, and we feel like we need to get stuff - cards, teddy bears, flowers, chocolate. and while i will take any of those things, i loved my restful weekend.

things i love

2011-05-05T08:21:00.003-05:00

i love the weather these days. not too hot, not too cold, not too humid. we are soaking it up while we can.

i love that my kids love watching tv, but that they don't watch a lot so it's still a treat. and it totally captures their attention, which allows me to drink coffee, blog, and check facebook.

i love that matthias and hiba are best friends. hiba likes doing things alone a little bit, but if matthias and i go somewhere without hiba (which happens almost never), he just stresses out the whole time about where hiba is. and then they greet each other with huge hugs when we get back.

i love that matthias is trying to talk. even though i think my theory about him being quiet because hiba talks so much is going to be proven false. he is talking so much. and repeating himself so much. and doing this very loudly. but it's cute.

i love that my kids love books. hiba memorizes them and "reads" them to matthias. i have tried to get a video of this, but every time i pull out the camera, they stop being cute and start being goofy. i need to be more sneaky.

i love that my husband likes it when the kids get up before he leaves for work (well, unless he leaves at like 6. then no one likes it). this morning he said he was about to leave and was sad that he didn't get to see them, but then they woke up, so he stayed so he could get them up (which lucky for me includes changing diapers) and see them. this meant that i was awakened by jason coming sweetly in to my room, followed by hiba and matthias who were excited to see me, instead of being awakened by their cries, screaming, and/or wet diapers.

i love cooking. now that jason is done with rugby, we have dinner a lot more evenings, so i've been cooking a lot more. it's fun. and yummy. and since both adults are home, we try to make hiba and matthias eat what we're eating. maybe one day they will learn to appreciate the wonderfulness that is the food i make.

i love that i finally decided to start lifting weights instead of just doing cardio for my workouts. i like to think it's working well.

i love that matthias likes to sing "Jesus loves me" and pray before he goes to bed. he tries to sing along - by singing "Jesus" and "bible" the whole time - and he always starts praying by saying "dear Jesus, zuzu", meaning "dear Jesus, thank you for matthias". it is so sweet and precious.

E is for Easter...and ER

2011-04-25T10:14:00.004-05:00

i have decided to stop making plans. because they never turn out. seriously, anything from grocery shopping to when i'm gonna work out to birthday parties to holiday celebrations. plans down the drain. it always works out and ends up being ok, but just not the way i planned it.

take this weekend, for example. i planned to have a nice easter lunch with our family and jason's family, followed by a fun easter egg hunt for the kids. we would all be dressed up in our cute spring clothes to get some nice family pictures before church. we'd go to church as a family (for the first time in forever....) and have a sweet conversation with hiba about what easter means.

but in reality, matthias spiked a fever on saturday night. i figured it was mostly just teething and he's sleep it off. but then he woke up at 6 a.m. on sunday morning and still had a fever of 102*, which meant no church for us. and no family pictures.

hiba looked adorable when she went to church. but of course i didn't get any pictures because matthias was glued to me and melted down if i let go of him. there's always next week, right?

and in reality, when i went to wal-mart on saturday to get easter candy and eggs, i was so overwhelmed and disgusted by all the crap they were selling in the name of easter that i couldn't bring myself to buy any of it. we had a few eggs at home already from various other activities, so i figured i'd use those.

we did have a nice easter lunch. liz and tom (jason's younger sibblings) spent the night with us on saturday and spent sunday morning/afternoon with us. their mom is out of town, visiting her brother in florida. i roasted a chicken (and did a pretty dang good job, if i do say so myself). it was a great meal. but - still no pictures, because i was distracted by matthias's morose self and furnace-like body.

so, we put the kids down for a nap, and i figured we'd do an egg hunt/really-great-spiritual-conversation with hiba when they got up.

but in reality, matthias woke up still burning up, coughing like a seal, and not catching his breath (i feel like we've been through this once or twice before.....). so, i scooped him up and took him to children's. turns out, he's fine, but i'm still glad i took him. they checked his ears and throat to rule out ear infections/strep, which means i didn't have to waste my time at the doctor this morning to hear he has croup. which i already knew, based on his coughing. so, they gave him a steroid dose and sent us home. which meant at least we didn't have to go back in the middle of the night.

so at the hospital, i finally got my easter pictures. only instead of being of our family, they're of just matthias. and instead of being all dressed up, he looks pretty dang cute in his pjs.

C is for chaos

2011-04-18T13:53:00.003-05:00

whew! what a weekend. i want to start out by saying that i know my particular situation is not nearly as bad as a lot of people's around here and in the surrounding states. i have friends who still don't have power and others who have a tree on their house. i know a lot of people lost family and friends because of these storms and i am thankful that we are safe and our house is fine. but - i also think that just because my life isn't as crazy and bad as other peoples' lives, doesn't mean that mine isn't crazy. and it was definitely a crazy weekend.

it all started thursday night. or friday morning, technically. the tornado sirens woke me up and since i am terrified of tornados, i jumped out of bed to turn on the tv. only we didn't have any power. so in my still half-way asleep state, i tried the internet. but apparently our modem take power to use. so i grabbed my phone. i have a data phone, but it is so far from a smart phone. so i can access the internet, but no streaming video or anything like that. i finally found a radar on one of the local news websites, but it was about 10 minutes behind, which doesn't really help anything.

so i'm sitting in bed, tornado sirens blaring, hail hitting our window, no power, wondering if i should wake everyone up and cram into a closet. see, in siloam (where i grew up), if the sirens went off, you take cover. here, they go off all the time during storms and as far as i know, since we've lived in this house, there hasn't been a tornado spotted in our direct area. so i decided not to wake everyone up, and just laid there hoping that we didn't blow away.

we didn't. we're all fine. but when we woke up, the power was still off. bummer. so the kids and i came up with something for breakfast and headed over to a friend's house for the morning. on a normal day, this would be fine. but my plan for friday was to clean the house, shop for hiba's birthday party, make a great dinner and be ready for my mom, dad, and sister to come visit. yeah...that didn't happen.

after the morning at leigh ann's (who graciously watched my kids while i at least did the shopping for the birthday party), we went back home for nap time. i laid on the couch and kept thinking that any minute, the power would come back on and we'd be back on track. by about 4 p.m., i decided i needed to come up with a plan b.

jason's parents graciously offered their house to us. so i threw some things in an overnight bag, grabbed the air mattress, called my sister and parents, and headed over. it was our family of four, jason's mom and dad, two younger sibs, his brother brad and sister-in-law katy, my parents, my sister, and my sister's new boyfriendish guy (couldn't ever get a straight answer on that one. but poor guys - if he sticks with her after this introduction to her family, he's a keeper.). it was a little bit of a full house.

jason's family is great. they have a pretty big house and his mom loves having people over. but being there did mean that i was at someone else's house, not in my own space, and me and my plans were at the mercy of an electric company and not in charge of what happens (that's a tough thing for me...). and all of the plans i had in my head for how friday and saturday were going to go were quickly crumbling. plan b turned into plan c, which changed to plan d and so on.

but, at the end of the day, it was fine. we have a house. we had a place to stay. we had a place for my family to stay. we had a fridge to put all of our freshly bought groceries in. hiba had a great time being surrounded by people who love her. we had balloons and dora decorations. and even though we didn't have a schedule, a plan, an event, control - hiba still had a wonderful birthday that i'm sure she will remember fondly

B is for Bahamas!

2011-04-11T17:17:00.002-05:00

in a few short weeks (well, actually more like seven), my best friend and i will be laying on the beach, sipping on mohitos, soaking up the sun, eating to our hearts content with no kids and no husbands. a four night, five day trip of pure bliss, rest, laughing, talking, relaxing in the bahamas.

i can't wait. christa and i are celebrating our 20 year anniversary of being best friends this summer. we pretty much clicked right away, from the moment i saved her from being beaten over the head with a folding chair by my little brother. i don't know many people my age who have had a best friend for twenty years. i feel very lucky. we've had our fair share of ups and downs, but through the years we've stuck together. so we're celebrating.

we found an amazing deal on living social and our wonderful husbands made it work. so on may 29, i'll be here.

today, i started operation: bahamas. i've never really took the time to lose the baby weight from matthias (or the left over from hiba....) so i think now is the time. i don't think i'm super huge or anything, but i could definitely stand to shed a little. plus i'm hoping that if i stick to this for the next seven weeks, it will actually just be part of my lifestyle. i do need the reward at the end, but i think i'll keep going when i get back. really i'll have to, since all of our yummy food is included in our deal. mmmmmmm.

anyway, what does operation: bahamas entail? well, i'm going to work out on a regular basis. four times a week, no excuses. jason is done with rugby for the season, so he'll be home most nights which means that even if the kiddos are sick and i can't take them to the childcare hours, i can go at night. no more bags of chips smothered by bags of cheese (i like to pretend they are nachos) for lunch. fresh fruit for breakfasts every day - i already do this for my kids. veggies at lunch. and no more sonic. i almost decided on no chick-fil-a, but lets not get ridiculous here. we already eat mostly whole wheat and lean protein, so i don't feel like i have to drastically change my diet. just cutting out the super unhealthy things i do on a regular basis and quit coming up with excuses to not work out.

so here we go. it's been my goal since new years to start being more healthy and now i have a short-term goal that will hopefully turn into a long-term habit. but at any rate, in seven weeks i'll be rewarding myself with five days of bliss.

A is for Attitude

2011-04-09T13:55:00.004-05:00

i'm realizing lately that life is really all about what sort of attitude i bring to it. even on the worst of days, if i have a more positive outlook, it goes better. easier said than done, though.

today was one of those days. as i lay in bed at 6 a.m., awaked by matthias screaming in his bed (seriously - screaming. not crying, not even really seeming to be that upset. just screaming. nice wake-up call.), i thought this day can go one of two ways. i can wallow in my misery or i can get up and go. my misery really isn't that bad. we're over all of our sicknesses, the weather is beautiful, we have all day to do whatever we want, but jason is gone for the weekend to play rugby so i'm on my own. with the kids. at 6 a.m.

as i got up, fumbled around to turn on sesame street, and laid back down on the couch hoping to sleep for a little while longer, i thought "i'm just gonna have a good attitude about today". the day started way to early, which meant tired and cranky kids were in my near future, but the sun was shining (well, it was going to shine later in the day, at the more appropriate hour to be getting out of bed...), the breeze was blowing, so we would get up and go.

and we did. and it was great. the kids watched a little tv while i rested on the couch. we had breakfast, got dressed, and headed out to the zoo. it was a beautiful day, hiba was well behaved, matthias loved the animals, they got to play on the playground, and i wasn't stuck at home with them all day.

we came home and i promised them ice cream after lunch if they ate a good lunch. they both did. that matthias fellow is a lot smarter than he sometimes lets on. lately, he's been eating about half his food and then dumping the rest on the ground. not today. he ate every bite and then asked for ice cream. which i gladly gave to him, but now i know that he knows what's happening.

so now they are napping, both worn out from the morning, i'm enjoying sitting on the couch, basking in the sun, and thinking of what fun things we'll do this afternoon. i'm debating between the library (which never really ends well) or going to see the ducks at the peabody. or maybe a picnic at the park for dinner. we'll see.

the point is, i wish i would do this every day. it's not as hard as it seems in my head to just get up and go instead of sitting around, wishing hiba would stop hitting matthias and that matthias would stop throwing everything he picks up. it really is a matter of attitude. which is good, because it gives me the opportunity to control my day, but it also means that when we have bad days of staying home and fighting all day i am probably mostly to blame. obviously we will have sick days or tired days or days where we just need to stay put. and those days will probably be filled with fighting and time-outs. but on days where getting up and going is an option, i want to do it with a good attitude. the day just goes so much better. i hope i remember today for a while. because maybe it will help me to do it again tomorrow.

totally worth it

2011-04-05T08:58:00.004-05:00

as tired as i am of spending most of my time at home with my kiddos, they are pretty great. sometimes i have to remind myself of that, and sometimes, they remind me.

they are goofy.

they are gorgeous.

they're growing - fast.

and they love each other. and have so much fun together. and are totally worth it.

blech

2011-04-04T10:00:00.005-05:00

i am so ready to not have sickness invading our house. i would say we are on the upswing, but i've said that before in the last three weeks and as soon as i say it, another round hits - so who knows.

it all started about three weeks ago. hiba and matthias both had a horrible sounding cough (matthias more than hiba). it sounded like croup, but it never got to where they lost their breath or anything. i finally ended up taking matthias to the doctor about a week later, because it wouldn't go away and he was having trouble sleeping. so he got some meds and allergy medicine and i thought "yay, this will help and everything will be fine soon!".

well, then i caught it. whatever it is. a nice combination of a cold, allergies, sinus problems, and a slight fever here or there. i am not a nice sick person. i like to lay in bed, drink sprite, eat hot and sour soup, and not take care of two crazy kids. but, i did not get to do that. i had to suck it up and go on as if life was just dandy.

i think there were a few days in the last few weeks when most of us were mostly well. but it just keeps getting passed around. hiba's fine, but matthias is sick. matthias is fine, but hiba is sick. they are both fine (and bouncing off the walls), but i am sick. bleh. not fun.

on thursday (well technically friday), hiba woke up about 4:45 a.m. and complained that her ear hurt. she didn't go back to bed. that was a fun day. so now she is on antibiotics for that, which will also hopefully clear up some of the nastiness in her throat. we'll see.

and when we got back from the doctor on friday afternoon, i pointed out to jason that matthias was wearing different clothes than when he went down for nap. jason answered "that's because there was an enormous amount of vomit all over his bed when he woke up from nap". fun times. it became apparent that i was in fact a bug, and not just something that he ate.

so now it is monday. we seem to be getting better. matthias hasn't puked in a day, and hiba hasn't started throwing up yet (knock on wood). so i have high hopes for this week. hopes of getting out of the house, playing with other kids, not having horrible headaches all day every from the ridiculous amount of pollen in the air, hopes of my kids sleeping well at night and not waking up from ear aches/coughing/vomit. we will see. i mean, it has to end at some point, right?

things i learned this week....

2011-03-26T10:05:00.005-05:00

-ten hours of sleep at night is not enough for matthias.

-a pizza cutter is great for cutting up spaghetti.

-hiba is ready to drink out of a normal cup by herself...but matthias is not.

-matthias is very strong-willed. very.

-i love spring weather.

-the number of times a day i can listen to hiba tell be "but i will try to XYZ" (where XYZ is whatever i have just told her not to do) without losing it is seven.

-matthias loves to imitate hiba's every move. like her screaming. and talking back. but also her hugs.

-hiba loves her little brother and really does want to make him happy.

-hiba, matthias, and i all need regular interaction with other people. we all go a little crazy when this doesn't happen.

-the phrase "don't touch that" means as much to matthias as the phrase "xlkjfdsiaopihgkl;jfdls" means to you.

-trolly rides will become a regular part of our lives this summer.

-a snickers bar and coffee make a very yummy breakfast. not so filling though.

-there is such a thing as too much coffee.

two new favorites

2011-03-17T17:01:00.001-05:00

i like good deals. one of the things that i realized while living in palestine is that you can always get a better deal. always. this knowledge does make it a little tricky for me when i'm shopping, because i'm always convince that i can find it cheaper if i just wait - but, it also helps me to find new awesome ways to get good deals. and i have recently found two.

the first site is for all you bookworms. it is called PaperBackSwap. it's a huge online community of readers who want to share their old books and get new ones. basically, you post books and mail them to people who request them. you get one credit for each book you send. when you sign up, you get two credits for just posting 10 books. when you request a book, you don't have to pay anything for it - the owner just sends it to you, yours to keep, and then you read it. we got the help and secret life of bees with our first two credits. and we've shipped four books so far (two of which we laughed at every time we saw them on our bookshelf...), so there is more to come. it's a fun site and there are tons of books to choose from. check it out.

the second site is for all my mom friends. maybe you already know about it. it's called thredUP. it's a clothes swap site. basically, when you sign up, they send you flat rate boxes that you can pack full of your kids' old clothes and list. then you can look at other boxes that are listed and get one. each box costs $15.95 ($5 to the site and $10.95 for shipping), but when you ship a box you don't have to pay for shipping - you just print of a shipping label from the site and stick it in the mail. i just got a box for matthias yesterday and it had 14 articles of clothing - all in great shape, spring clothes. he's in desperate need of clothes. so it came out to just over $1 per item - which is a pretty fantastic deal if you ask me. plus, i got to avoid going to a store, rummaging through clothes, trying to find the best deal - i did that all while sitting on my couch. because it's a swap site, you get credits for the boxes you send and you can only pick boxes if you send one. when sign up, you get two free picks, but after that you get one pick for every box you send. it's a pretty great way to get rid of old clothes and find new ones. i'm totally hooked.

so there you go. two fun sites with a little community involved and a lot of great deals.

the best laid plans....

2011-03-16T12:25:00.007-05:00

*note - i started writing this on monday. it's been that kind of week.

a few weeks ago, a lady came to our MOPS group and talked about organization. she focused on ways to "manage the chaos" that is in the home when you have little kids. she emphasized that the chaos is there, and always will be, so we need to find ways to manage it. i already do a lot of the things she talked about - lists, lists, and more lists, grocery planning, mean planning, calendars, etc - but it did remind me that i can do them better.

so this week i planned to start my new organized life. with managed chaos. we woke up at a leisurely time on monday morning (thank you, daylight savings time), i got my coffee, got my planner out, and started to plan. i planned my week in broad strokes, made sure our meals were all planned and made sense with our schedule, planned my day in detail. errands in the morning, cleaning, laundry, emails and sleeping during nap, workout in the afternoon, maybe a few more errands, in-laws house for dinner. it was a pretty great plan.

so we got going, made the rounds to different thrift stores and target in the morning (trying to find clothes for hiba and matthias for a wedding this weekend that can double as easter outfits - fail) and made it home by lunch time. got lunch on the table for the kids, planned what i was going to enjoy as soon as they went to nap, made sure the laundry was rotated so i could fold it all during nap time. i'm doing great. making my list and checking it twice. crossing things off.

and then J called. J is a teenage girl who is part of a group that i volunteer with for teenage mothers. and she was in labor. well, at least she thought she was in labor. and her mom's boyfriend had the car and her boyfriend's mom's car was broken, so could i take her to the hospital.

i didn't want to. i had my day planned and it was going great. i had a nap coming up, i was actually being productive. i didn't want to take a teenage girl to the hospital to give birth to her first child. J said i could just drop her off, i didn't need to stay. but i knew i needed to. she didn't have anyone else.

so i packed up the kiddos and went to get her. she was pretty unprepared - no hospital bag, no one to go with her, and no real idea of what was coming up. so i took her, got her checked in and called a friend to take the kids. she called her boyfriend who had just gotten off work and told him i was on my way to pick him up.

i picked up M, her boyfriend and went back to the hospital. and then we waited. she was definitely in labor, but it was more of pre-labor, so there wasn't a lot they could do for her. no drugs till she progressed more, but they wanted to keep the monitor on her for 30 minutes at a time, so no moving. after what seemed forever on the monitor, she finally got to get up and walk some, which i think helped.

i spent all afternoon there, answering her questions about what was coming (although maybe i lied a little about how awful giving birth is...), making sure M had food to eat so he didn't have to leave her side, a quick run to target to get her some things for her recovery, talking to the nurse and asking the right questions since J didn't even know where to start. when i left, they were about to officially admit her, hook up an iv and help the process a long a little bit.

she gave birth to a healthy baby girl at 11:30 that night, via c-section. i visited her on tuesday and she was beaming. so was M. and M's mom was there, helping out a lot just like a good grandma should. i'm going back this afternoon to take her some formula for the baby and snacks for her.

so now it's wednesday. i'm finally caught up on my to-do list and back on track to manage my chaos. back on track to live my wonderfully planned life. i think it's good to manage chaos, to make plans, and to try to follow them. but i'm also thankful for the things God throws at me that i haven't planned for, the times when He lets me help, just a little, to manage chaos.

lent

2011-03-12T13:18:00.002-06:00

i've never given anything up for lent. i don't know why - we never really talked about lent growing up and then once i was an adult, i just never really thought about it. this year, a lot of my friends have posted about what they are giving up, why, etc. and it got me thinking. so i've decided to give something up this year. (and yes, i know lent started on wednesday. i'm just a few days behind....) so what is it that i'm giving up? not napping.

seriously.

that may sound a little silly and trite, so let me first say that i am not trying to take lent lightly or make a joke or be offensive. but here is the deal. i am in the wonderful stage of my life where my kids take naps at the same time every day. 99% of the time, they are asleep in their beds between 1 pm and 3 pm. which means that i have to be home during that time and i have two hours to myself.

i used to use this time wisely. i would spend the first hour or so being productive. i'd do dishes, fold laundry, make phone calls, write emails, clean, plan for dinner - things that need to be done and are waaaaaay easier without thing 1 and thing 2. then i would spend the rest of the time sleeping. these naps were a very vital part of my day. i love sleep. i do not function well without it. i keep thinking that one day i will learn how to get by with waking up early and not sleeping during the day. but that is just not the case. i need my rest. i need to have a time where i don't do anything, don't talk to anyone, and just rest. sometimes i actually sleep, other times i just lay on the couch and enjoy the silence. it was wonderful and really helped the rest of the afternoon to go well. i had energy to love my kids, take care of my house, and not be on the edge of a nervous breakdown when jason walked in the door.

but then i discovered netflix. i will watch anything on tv. i will get sucked into the dumbest show you could ever think of and watch it obsessively. i don't do that whole "just watch one episode and then get up and be productive" thing. i don't even watch tv and fold laundry at the same time. i just watch tv. i sit on the couch, watch as many episodes of whatever trashy show i happen to be obsessed with in the alloted time, and i get nothing done. it's also not restful. because at the end of naptime, i still have a pile of dishes, a pile of laundry, dinner to make, errands to run, two kids to play with, and no energy or interest in doing any of it, and definitely not enough time.

so for lent, i'm giving up my laziness. which may sound ironic since that includes napping, but it's really not. i promise. if i use their naptime to get a little work done and then take the break that i need - usually in the form of sleep - i am way better off.

and it is a sacrifice. because it's way easier to save all the dishes for the end of the night or to leave the pile of clothes in the laundry room or not vacuum and sweep when it's needed, and instead just sit and watch mindless entertainment. it's easier to not plan my time out, to not care about what the house looks like. it's easier to get sucked into these shows where i watch people live extravagant lives that i'll never have and imagine what it would be like. it's easier to just not care enough to take the time to rest. it's easier to not nap.

but for the next 40 days (well, minus a few....), i'm not watching tv during nap time. i'm going to sleep. because it helps me to be a better wife, mom, and friend when i do - and isn't that the point?

2011-03-09T18:13:00.004-06:00

so i missed february. i don't know what we were doing that kept me from blogging, but i'm sure it was super exciting and super important. which is why i didn't write about it....

so now it is march. this year is flying by. spring is on the way, which makes my life a lot better. days always go better with the windows open, at least in my opinion. we're all staying busy with life - mops, play dates, rugby games, teen mops, dishes, laundry, dishes, laundry, rugby games...you get the idea. mostly it's the same old, same old.

but, i do have one interesting development. i've figured out what i want to be when i grow up. i think. my plan right now is to go back to school in the fall for occupational therapy. only this time, it's more than a plan. i've emailed and chatted with the admission counselor for OT at UCA, looked at the classes i need, figured out when and where i'm going to take them, filled out my fafsa. which is much more concrete steps than i've ever taken towards this whole "back to school" thing. so i think it's for real this time.

2011-01-29T11:37:00.003-06:00

i have decided that i need to live in a tv show. well, one of two actually. desperate housewives or brothers and sisters. (um, both of which i never watch, because that would be trashy......). see, the thing is that the weather is always perfect in these shows.

brothers and sisters is set in southern california, so obviously the weather is beautiful. but seriously, i'm almost done with season 1 and there has not been a single rainy day, or even a cloudy day. that is my kind of life.

and desperate housewives is set in fairview, some mythical town with perfect weather. the only time there is ever rain or storms, it is only for thematic elements in the show. in the last season that i watched, they were wearing long-sleeved t-shirts in the christmas episode and looked very comfortable jogging outside in the middle of the summer.

the last two days, we have had amazing weather. temperatures in the mid 60s - 70s, mostly sunny, slight breeze. and no bugs or humidity. so i've been able to leave the back door open and let hiba and matthias go in and out as they please, which has resulted in very happy kids and a very happy mom.

so where are these tv towns? because, seriously, i want to live there.

family dinner

2011-01-19T20:00:00.003-06:00

i have this thing about family dinners. in my mind, they are a great idea. they are a time for us all to sit down together, jason and i can talk about our day, hiba can tell funny stories, matthias can throw food on the ground. you know, special moments like that.

in reality, they usually end with me yelling at hiba and/or matthias and on the brink of yelling at jason. the kids don't like my cooking, i have to feed matthias the whole time so my food is cold by the time i eat it, hiba whines about everything from the food being to spicy (aka having any flavor at all) to where we set her napkin down. the meal is usually ended by matthias throwing his half-eaten plate of food on the ground. by the end of the meal, i am usually convince that home-cooked meals are over-rated, goldfish for dinner could be a balanced meal, and eating in front of the tv is the best idea in the world.

but not tonight. tonight, we had a successful family dinner. i'm trying not to get too excited about it, because i'm sure tomorrow will more closely resemble the paragraph above. but tonight, it was a success.

i made spaghetti and meatballs, french bread, and fresh green beans. hiba actually ate the spaghetti, mostly by herself, and completely with no fits. she tried the green beans, which she very over-dramatically told us she didn't like, but hey - she tried them. and she didn't fuss the whole time.

and matthias. he was amazing. i decided to skip the spaghetti and just cut up the meatballs for him. which he ate on his own (messy - yes, but still), and he at his green beans, and he dipped his bread pieces in the extra sauce on his plate. and the most amazing part - he ended dinner by taking a drink and calmly pushing his plate towards me and signing "all done". which he has NEVER done before. i almost didn't even know what to do.

tomorrow will probably be a family dinner filled with melt-downs, thrown food, and complaints, but hey - i have have tonight to hold on to.

i hate new years

2011-01-12T15:12:00.001-06:00

i realized this year that new years is my least favorite holiday. there is just so much pressure. pressure to do something fun. pressure to stay up late. pressure to wipe the slate clean and make all sorts of unattainable goals for yourself. pressure to completely turn your life around overnight. and i don't like it.

i like having a good time, but i don't like feeling like it is forced. like i have to come up with some epic event that will go down in history or else i am a loser. and i do like staying up late, but only if i know that i won't have to take care of my kids the next day or the week after while i recover. yes, i am one of those lame moms now. i think it's hereditary. (boom, roasted!).

and i realllllly hate new years resolutions. i think they are stupid. because you can't make reasonable resolutions, like "i won't eat chips". it has to be something extreme, like "i won't ever eat anything unhealthy for the rest of my life". which obviously isn't a realistic goal.

so some of my friends have written lists of goals or things they want to accomplish instead of resolutions. these seem to be more reasonable, so i thought i would do it too. and then the list got really long, because there are more than a few things i would like to start/quit doing. so that overwhelmed me too. but after having a small meltdown when jason informed me that we had a lot of extra crap in our house to get rid of, i decided to take a second look a the list and take a little advice from jason.

just pick something. something small. something that i can get done. and then do it.

so it started by me taking the small things and extra clothes to goodwill. and some of our baby stuff to teen mops. and boxing up the rest, in a nice and neat way, to tackle another day.

and that wasn't nearly as hard in reality as it was in my head. which calmed me down enough to look over my list and narrow it down. so here are some things i want to do this year. maybe they won't all start right away. maybe they won't all continue all year. but it's a doable list of small life changes, that will hopefully develop into habits and eventually just my way of life. here's to 2011.

-finish decorating the kids' bedroom

-start (and finish) decorating our bedroom

-finish the half-way started projects in the kitchen

-work-out three times a week (even if it's just a walk around the block)

-do one family activity each month - go to the zoo, have a picnic, go to a water park

-have people over for dinner at least every other week, hopefully turning into each week

-do fun projects with hiba and matthias, and do fun things with them. no more sitting at home and watching tv! (well, maybe a little sitting at home and watching tv....)

-become more involved in our church and get to know the people there

-clean my house on a regular basis (i originally said clean each room every week, but let's not be ridiculous...)

-write letters, we'll start with one a week. maybe by the end of the year i'll even be sending birthday cards.

so there it is. my 2011 list. i think i can do it. it doesn't make me hyperventilate and i don't think it's so drastic. it's almost even doable. so maybe after this year, i won't hate new years quite so much.

hibaisms

2011-01-10T08:15:00.004-06:00

so i have a lot of things i want to write about - christmas, new years, resolutions (or lack thereof), life in general - but they are all kind of overwhelming to me at the moment, so instead i will share some awesome things my daughter has said recently. i really need to write these down as soon as she says them, because i feel like i am missing the best ones. oh well. enjoy!

"there's still snow outside, but it's stopped snow-flying".

in response to me telling her to say in bed at nap time: "don't worry mommy, i'll get back in".

hiba and matthias are sharing a room now. last night, i told her that when she wakes up this morning, she needed to stay in bed quietly until i came and got her. instead, she got up and woke matthias up by trying to get into his crib. i told her that this did not make me happy. so she said, "ok, i'll get back in bed and try to stay there until you come get me. then will you be happy?"

we were at a restaurant with some friends the other night and hiba was being super whiney, so jason told her if she didn't stop, he'd give her a spanking. well, she kept whining, so he picked her up and took her into the bathroom, while she was covering her bottom and saying "no,no,no, i don't want a spanking". when they got in the bathroom, she looked so relieved and said "oh, good. you just have to go pee-pee. it's ok, daddy, you can go to the bathroom".

my husband the rock star

2010-12-19T09:30:00.004-06:00

Appreciate: What’s the one thing you have come to appreciate most in the past year? How do you express gratitude for it?

this one is easy. jason.

my husband is wonderful. i have always known this - i mean, i wouldn'tve married him otherwise - but this year, i have really learned to appreciate how awesome he is.

this has, by far, been the hardest year of our marriage. moving across the world, living with family, having kids, buying a house and getting a real job will do that. i really liked the life we had in palestine - the shorter work week, jason's flexibility with his schedule, our proximity to where he worked, the amount of outside activities he was involved in. all of that changed when we lived in the us. all of a sudden, his work day was 9 hours, plus the drive. he had to go to work, even if i was sick or hiba was cranky or i was tired or whatever. he started playing rugby, which took way more time and commitment than i was expecting. we moved into a house that we own, which is a lot more work than people tell you. and all of this was done after moving to a brand new place halfway across the world from the life we were used to. it was hard to adjust to all of this. the first few months were rough. not a lot of good communication, a lot of frustration.

but then, once we started to adjust and actually talk about stuff, life has gotten a lot better. jason works really hard to make sure i am happy and well taken care of. he works hard to make sure we're provided for. he plays rugby so that he doesn't go crazy and has found a good balance of spending time doing that and spending time with our family. he makes sure that i have time to hang out with my friends when i need it. when he is home, he plays with our kids, helps with bedtime, does the dishes (well, sometimes), watches my favorite tv shows with me. he encourages me to be involved in things i want to be involved in and makes a real effort to work out the details of that.

when we lived in palestine, jason did all of the above as well. but we did have a lot more time, one kid, and just a different lifestyle. so i just figured that it was normal for husbands to be this involved in their kids' lives, this willing to help out in ways besides going to work and making money. but what i've found is that it is not necessarily the norm. and once i realized that, it helped me to appreciate all of the work and energy jason puts into being a good husband and father way more than i had in the past.

i've tried recently to really tell him how much i appreciate it. if i have a moms night out, i tell him thank you even though i feel it is something i deserve. if he does the dishes after dinner, i tell him thanks even though it is one of his jobs. if he spends sunday afternoon playing with hiba and matthias so i can sit on the couch and watch football, i tell him how much i appreciate it even though i think obviously he should play with them and give me a break. i've learned to let him know how much i love him and how thankful i am for all he does, even if it's things i think are normal. because maybe they are normal, maybe they're not, but either way they are wonderful and i need to show my appreciation for what he does.

because he is great. and he should know that.