Last Year in My Twenties

**Disclaimer:  This post is going up picture-free or it won’t end up going up at all.  I only have two pics from my birthday, both of which are on my phone, neither of which I know how to load on to my blog.  When If I do, I’ll plaster those babies on here.

I turned 29 on Saturday, though Brant (inexplicably) thinks it’s hilarious to pretend I turned 30.   Sorry, old man.  This chick is still solidly in her twenties.

As far as days of celebration go, this wasn’t exactly my top day.  It’s not as though anything bad happened.  Nothing really happened at all.  Therein lies the problem.  This birthday really was just another day.

I realize for most people over the age of 21, “just another day” is pretty much the birthday norm.  But I’ll be the first to admit that I am not like everybody else.  I still LOVE my birthday.  I love having a day that celebrates me.  And truthfully, I don’t think there’s anything wrong with that.  In fact, I think more people should feel the way I do about their day ‘o birth.  Birthdays are excuses to be spoiled and pampered.  I think I appreciate these aspects of birthdays even more as a mom.  Any time I have a no-fail excuse to get out of any and all diaper changes is fantastic.

Me:  “Cohen needs to be changed.”

Brant:  “Aren’t you already in there with him, a clean diaper, and wipes?”

Me:  “Yes.  But it’s my birthday.”

Brant:  … (defeated silence)*

*not an actual conversation

Unfortunately for me, on the twenty ninth anniversary of my birth, I received no such passes on diaper changes or anything else stay-at-home-mom related.  Brant had to work, so I was left to do it all myself.

On the up side, I did get to spend the day with the two cutest kiddos on the planet.  Which included Evie singing her best rendition yet of “Happy Birthday.”  It was absolutely my favorite part of the day.

After Brant got home we went to dinner at Chili’s.  Not because Chili’s is my favorite restaurant, but because we live in Bullhead Arizona and our eatery choices here are limited to Chili’s, Buffalo Wild Wings, or a slew of questionable Chinese restaurant/massage parlors.  Despite the limited options, dinner really was fun.  My company was fabulous, and I got to wear my new moto jacket.  In case I need to go into a controlled slide.  Win-win.

So that’s it.  My last year in my twenties has officially begun.  Can’t wait to see what it brings!

A New Year

2014.

I’ve never been super into New Year’s Eve or the sparkly wonderment of a brand new year, but I will freely admit that I DO like to take such opportunities to write up some resolutions.  So here they are, for your viewing/judging pleasure…

New Year Resolutions

2014

• Read the Book of Mormon

• Complete the Insanity program (ALL 60 days) twice

• Be more present with my kids

• Update my blog more frequently—try for at least once a week

• Serve more

• Worry less about what other people owe me

•  TRY CrossFit

• Learn how to use one new power tool

• SEW—put that new machine to good use

• Read four legitimate works of literature

• Be braver

I wrote this little list up earlier today, and am hoping that by publishing it on my blog I will be forced into being more accountable for said list.

And with that, I’m already rocking the hell out of item #4.

Milestones

My kiddos are growing soooo fast!

Imma coming up on two birthdays in less than a month.  What!?  Can’t wait, though.  I’ve always LOVED my own birthday (still do, not ashamed), but I am beyond words excited as my kids get older to be able to do awesome things for their birthdays to make them completely memorable.  So, as I begin to think about their upcoming celebrations (can I get a quick AMEN for Pinterest) I wanted to jot down a couple of milestones Evie and Cohen are hitting right now.

First up, my girl.  Evie is almost 3, and we are hitting up the potty training.  Hard core.  To be honest, she’s struggled with this much more than I expected her to.  And I’m almost exactly as bad/impatient with it as I thought I’d be.  I guess I figured that because she’s so smart she’d figure out the whole pee-in-the-pot-not-in-my-drawers concept a little faster.  I’m slowly figuring out that there may not actually be as much of a correlation there as I thought.  Damn.

We definitely had a rough start with it.  Though, I’ll go ahead and put most of the blame on Brant and me with that one.  We definitely relied on diapers as a backup too much, and we just never REALLY went for it.  So, a couple of weeks ago I decided that I had had enough of buying diapers for two kids, and we were going to get Miss Francis trained once and for all. 

It hasn’t been completely smooth sailing by any means.  We still have our fair share of accidents around the house, but since we ditched the diapers and have only been sporting Dora and Hello Kitty panties around here, Evie has done MUCH better.  She’s really starting to hate the feeling of her underwear being wet, and she’s doing better at telling me when she’s needs to go (as opposed to me always asking her).

As for Mr. Elway, he has finally started to pull himself up.  He’s a bit behind, as most kiddos is age have been doing that for a bit (or so I read), but I’m not concerned.   Evie was always a motor skill slacker too, and she’s pretty awesome and caught up by now.  On that note, however, don’t expect the old “he took his first steps” post for. a. while.  Thinking he’s going to take his time with that one.  That’s ok with Mom, though.  Dude gets around enough as it is.

LOVE these amazing kiddos.  It’s so awesome to get to watch them learn new things every single day.  Except when Evie learned to say “shut up.”  That wasn’t as cool.

Merry Christmas

Oooh I LOVE Christmas!  It makes my heart happy, and we had such an awesome holiday (full disclosure:  I’m writing this entry on February 17^th and backdating it so it shows up as part of the 2012 blog year.)!

I left off the last entry just as I was getting ready to head over to the traditional Christmas Eve dinner over at Aunt Janet’s and Uncle Russ’ house.  Tons of fun, as per use, but the highlight came during our annual after dinner program.  Evie sang “Jingle Bells.”  And when I say she sang it, I mean she sang it!  No fear.  Out loud and proud.  And it was without a doubt the cutest thing I’ve ever seen!  Everyone loved it!  I was so excited and proud that she sang it as loud/cute/clearly as she did.  The only downside?  Brant and I were so busy watching her beaming with pride that we didn’t get a video of it.

After dinner, we went over to Grandma and Grandpa Ruesch’s house to open Christmas Eve jammies and spend the night.  Brant probably wasn’t super excited to sleep in the guest room (since our own beds were mere miles away), but he was a good sport about it.  Garrett was staying at the house too, and I thought it would be fun to wake up all together and have the entire Christmas morning together in one house without having to wake the kiddos and load them in the car.

Evie was pretty hysterical to watch open gifts.  She tore into them like crazy then immediately moved on to the next one.  The best was watching her open clothes.  She literally threw them out of the box before she looked at them and then moved on.  She had us all laughing pretty hard.  Except for Cohen.  He didn’t find her shenanigans amusing.  Truth be told, I felt bad waking Cohen up so early (the rest of us got up around 8 a.m.) that I let him miss the very first part of the morning.

Around 11, Holly and her entourage came over and we opened more presents and enjoyed our traditional Christmas morning breakfast (egg casserole and cinnamon rolls).

We headed over to Grandma and Grandpa Boyer’s a bit later and spent the afternoon with them.  We opened more presents and had a Christmas lunch/dinner with them.  Our kids were both so spoiled by all their grandparents this year, and to be honest, so were Brant and I.  Our parents were CRAZY generous this year, and gave us some much appreciated gifts.

Around 6 p.m. we went back to my parents place to hang out with everyone a bit more.  We laughed, ate, played games, ate, had a great time, and ate.  Pretty much a typical day holiday for our family.

It really was such an awesome day.  I’m a total sucker for Christmas and this one did not disappoint.  It’s such a blessing to live near so much family and to love spending time together the way we do.  I love them all too much!

 

Merry Christmas!