HUGE MILESTONES + POOP DOG

my goodness. Although I am there for just about every single milestone my boys have...I still feel like they are growing up faster than I can handle! It seems when one does something new the other has to top him. I guess I should get used to this huh?

Cayden...you have had your tricycle since Christmas from your Mamaw + Papaw. You love your bike! It folds up so we can throw it in our car and head to the nearest park! But on August 24 you got on your bike (at aunt Kim's house) and just started riding it down the sidewalk like you had been riding it for months!! I was scrambling to get my phone out to take video. I was afraid you wouldn't do it ever again for some reason...stupid mom brain. To my dismay you rode that bike for the rest of the night and lots of people got to see you do this! Mamaw and Papaw were so happy to see you accomplish this. I have a feeling Papaw will be trying to buy you a big boy bike for Christmas or your birthday. He is a sneaky one!

Potty training is still a daily struggle. I can with utmost confidence tell you that it is mostly our fault. We have not devoted 100% to it. BUT on the contrary you do not seem to get the idea that poop is not cute to to sit in IN YOUR BIG BOY UNDERPANTS!!!!!

SPEAKING OF POOP...OHHHH "POOP DOG". HOW MUCH I LOATHE YOU "POOP DOG". oh, you want to know what poop dog is?! Ask C. Go ahead...but when you ask him you may want to take a mask so you don't have to smell his breathe. YUP. UGH.

PS. never show your toddler dog poop (thinking I was being a good mom so he wouldn't step on it...but instead he became obsessed)

Mason...my little itty bitty bitty baby whom I literally can not keep track of how old you are because I'm stuck on your being my blue eyed newborn angel. On August 22 not only did you begin eating cut up table food (macaroni and bananas) but when I left to go run an errand you proceeded to pick up the food and eat it with your own fingers!! SERIOUSLY BATMAN! You are also pulling yourself up with our finger and any day now you will be pulling up completely with out guidance.

God is so GOOD. My boys amaze me every single day. I seriously have to step back and take a deep breathe so I completely take in this moment. I do not want to miss a beat.

DRUMMMMMRRROOOOLLLL PLLLLEEAAASSSSEEEE....
JORDAN IS AN OFFICIAL FULL TIME FIREFIGHTER/PARAMEDIC. He starts on September 4th!!! I have never been more proud of this man. You guys I am so beyond blessed!!! God is so GOOD! Did I mention that already?!?

“And my God will meet all your needs according to his glorious riches in Christ Jesus.” – Phil 4:19

1st family of 4 photos.

I am so excited to show off our new photos! Megan of belle + blanc which is owned by a friend of ours Neysa Ruhl. She has such an amazing talent and taught Megan all she knows. Megan did such an amazing job, every single picture I kept saying..."I LOOOOOOOVE THIS ONE"!!! I am currently making an order right now because if you know me you will know that I have a problem ordering pics and actually putting them up! I suck. I'm aware. So here is a little treat of our first family of four photo shoot!!!

thank you so much Megan for being so AMAZING! I am already

thinking about when we should take more ha ha!

GREAT weekend + GAP underwear

What a fun weekend! I have had something up my sleeve for the past 3 weeks or so, planning a surprise birthday dinner for my hubby! I managed to get ALL of his close family and my best friend in the same resaurant at the same time! It has been so so hard, more specifically because J is TERRIBLE at surprises even gifts! So this was especially fun for me. When we entered the restaurant the whole family was seated in the very back of Wild Ginger, HANDS DOWN BEST SUSHI EVER (well I guess all around food too). We walked to the back and they yelled SURPRISE!!! Boy was he surprised he could not believe that everyone was there and he did not have a stinkin clue! The WIFE IS GOOD!

C is attempting potty training!!I am not pushing the issue, he is doing this with his own free will. I ask, and if he declines thats it. We have started to notice that he now knows when he needs to pee and does not like the feeling. Poo...NOT SO MUCH. So when I was diverting J so his family could get into the restaurant we went to Gap. They had 30% off F+F so we picked up one pack of underwear for him. Dang my boy can rock the Gap briefs. So far when he wears them (inside only) he does relly well. But once diaper is on its like it was all a dream...I have not a clue what I am doing so wish me well and any advice you may have I would LOVE it.

They have dinosaurs on them. Tear.

"aunt" sara + Mas

Mommy + Mas before Sara and I went to check out the craft stores.

Mamaw + Papaw came over to play before they left to

go back home. It was really nice to have company over!

Mamaw + Mason cuddling <3

Mason, your smile is so contagious.

we may or may not bribe for potty time.

dont judge.

Cayden, mommy and daddy are so proud of you for trying to start potty training. You get so excited when you pee pee. The best part is you think you have to PUUUUSSSH it out lol. We had a good laugha about that one.

Mason, you are finally eating food with more texture and love to watch your brother play. You have been trying to play w big bro's toys now more specifically his fire trucks. Go figure.

BIG NEWS!!!!!

So...usually I try to combine topics when I post because I'm a terrible blogger. BUT I just can not hold this one back. After 2 and a half years of my husband applying...testing...driving (all over GODS green earth), not getting high enough score of 100?!?!?...our time has finally come.

Background:

        (For those that do not know he has had two fire jobs as a fire fighter/paramedic which pay (kind of well) BUT in OHIO they offer NOT A SINGLE STINKIN BENEFIT!!!!!! So...like when your wife and unborn child are almost crashed in an OR and you have to take off days a whole month early, instead of the days you had originally planned!! YUP...there is no PTO to cover that. Thanks for the extra stress OHIO. It was pretty nerve racking watching my baby all tachy and not a single acceleration to be noticed...look like absolute shit on a monitor and my husband searching for people to help him cover his shifts and trade them all out.

 ONLY IF YOU GET HURT ON THE JOB DO THEY "HELP". I have choice words which I will hold back.) No benefits meaning...no sick, no vacation, no PTO/GTB, no health insurance no diddly nothing. That's where my job comes in. The Lord blessed us with the job I currently have we could not have been more blessed with our circumstances. For many reasons...most of which being...I refuse day care and even If I found one I was semi comfy with I would probably never be able to afford it! We needed me to have a job that kept me home on the days he worked, and something that kept my foot in the door with nursing. And boy did God come through! He is great RIGHT??

Anywho:

He interviewed for a local department a couple of weeks ago. They loved him (obviously) ha ha And all seemed a go. BUT (there is always a BUT in our life). There would be no new job for J if this Special fire/police levy did not pass. Dear Lord, I was considering going door to door with my kids. "please, please really old people...you DO REAALLY want the fire department to come with in an hour to your home catching fire...RIGHT?...NO? UGH. The levy would be held on August 7, 2012. That day came slower than molasses. My stomach was in knots. This very decision by people we have never met would change our lives dramatically. And by the grace of God, the ballots were in thankfully people are not as dumb as we think and it was pretty unanimous that YES we should let the fire/police still exist (DUH!?!?).

FAST FORWARD:

J is @ work and he calls me to tell me he has his final chief interview. Which is the final step! After this, he will be an official full timer. My heart is dancing all around just typing this. My hubby on the other hand...he is showing not a single emotion (go figure) and keeps saying, "ill believe it when I get the offer letter or phone call". Can not blame the guy, I would be the same way.

SOO...Can you PLEASE PRAY. Pray HARD. That everything goes well and he gets his offer and we can celebrate all of our hard work (ie: going to a one car family to save money). And by celebrate I mean go buy a new to us car so we can stop taking family trips to work. I dearly miss my quiet drive to work, with my KLOVE radio and my coffee. SIGH.

The "SICK" has left the building!!

Oh I feel like I just got my first slap in the face with having 2 kiddos. This past *almost 2 weeks we have been in a battle with this summer bug. First mason got it, and it was just 102 temps & an achey body (i think). So as soon as mas was beginning to feel better and just starting to sleep a lot because those fevers just broke his poor little body down, OF COURSE Cayden had to join in the fun! There are a lot of similarities between these boys. But one major difference is how they cope with being sick...I can already tell! Mason was nearly throwing himself all over the bed, refusing sleep and just being a (sweet) MAD sick boy. I felt sorry for his big brother because he was requiring so much of my undivided attention.

                                   happy M, post bug                     sad M, during bug.

We were honestly already having really funny talks with C about how every part of his body had a "boo boo", just so he could get more attention. He even broke out the temporal digital thermometer because he was sick (per Dr Cayden). UNTIL I got home from work about 4 days ago...and I noticed some rosey cheeks. My first thought was daddy just gave him a bath, but when I went to love on him I almost instantly started to sweat upon contact. AWESOME...so for an addition 4 days we turned our heads to the ACTUALLY sick C.

Today although was a one fever...one round of Tylenol kind of day! We are about done with this junk! In saying that I blame that for not being efficient with my dining table progress. O well, all will be done tomorrow! I can not wait.

Now we just need to make a decision on chairs and paint colors. Because we live in a condo we will not be painting the walls. We will be painting the sideboard and the metal Ikea rack the kitchen. I'm sticking with a sunflower yellow, teal(ish), white and persimmon.

Anyways, just wanted to make an update on my progress and the boys. If anyone has any pointers on my final step (polycrylic application over black flat paint) PLEASE leave me your two sense!

I will have the final dining table (minus chairs) tomorrow! YAH!

PS. On August 8, MIddletown had a special levy day. It was to decide on fire and police cuts or adding on fire/medics. Jordan has this new job in the bag and all he needed was for this levy to pass. God has answered our prayers!!! We will not believe it till we see it, but we know God has BIG...HUGE plans. Nuff said.

DIY project meltdown!!!

OK so this post has no photos, it has no happy comments and nothing that interesting at that. I am DIY'ing our dining room table. It WAS a yellowish wood table for 8 with a bench which I adore and 4 chairs which I do not adore. I took on the task of painting this thing last week. I wanted a black table and white chairs. Done? SSOOOOO not done!

First...the lady at Lowes sold me what I thought was a black brown paint, liquid sandpaper and some brushes. EASY PEASY RIGHT? NOT! the color was sooo not black brown, it was Hersheys chocolate brown. So the next day I went to Home Depot because it was on my way home and bought a beautiful flat black. It looks so good!!! I was really lifting my spirits in thinking that I could do this on my own. SIKE.

OK so yesterday I went and bought what I thought was polyacrylic to top off my table which eneded up being polyurathene! Its a good thing I only painted one side to test!

Now upating you to today...I went BACK to HD to return my product to get the water based one when THE paint guy told me I SHOULD NOT get that kind and should just get lacquer in spray paint form. Either I am the worst spray painter EVER OR this product was not for my project.

It is now 12am, and I have RE liquid sanded & re painted AGAIN. So I am going to bed and getting up in 5 hours for work, and when I get off work I will be going back o LOWES to buy the polyacrylic AGAIN!!!!!!!!!!!!

LORD HAVE MERCY ON MY DIY'N soul!

Sick day & Family day

As eager as I was to get back into blogging, I am not so eager that I would blog while one of my kiddos is sick. Which was what we did all Tuesday. M ran 100-102 from about 6am till 9 that night! Poor thing also has two front teeth coming in and what might be those "fangs". The day quickly went from pool day to stay on the couch and watch Disney movie day ALLLLL day. C on the other hand was not so thrilled with this decision once he got bored. Poor guy, I tried to give him more attention but he just was not getting it. He complained of his toe being sick, his "bewey", you name it became an ailment.

Big brother tried so hard to make him smile.

He loves his "Mas" so much.

I did however try to have some fun with him and we built a tent smack in the middle of the living room. I think I got mom points, we even pulled out daddy's lantern (behind his head).

Shh...while C was taking a bath sick boy

(who flashed his first smile of the day)

took a load off in the tent.

And then we ended the evening watching some Disney. I just love this picture, I never thought I would get to this day where both of my boys look like such big boys! God is so Good!

I absolutely couldn't wait for J to get home! Thankfully M slept all night probably from pure exhaustion over this fever and woke up with no fever. Woo Hoo!!! Watching J pull up this morning was the best feeling. I was just so exhausted and needed another parent. It took a little while for us to get around but when we finally did I remembered we had not been to the local Root Beer Stand. I grow up at this place with my family, and is one of the few good memories I have with my parents and brother.

C's first time eating here. I love sharing my past with my family.

He didn't believe me that he was drinking the exact same pop as mom and dad. We do not give him pop EVER. He gets sips of something we have but its rare. Honestly he gets more from stealing my Diet Coke. Yes that is a gallon of their Root Beer. It is epic.

Eating here was a win win! We got to sit and eat yummy food, daddy and I got to talk (I know right?) and C got to play! He had lots of energy to burn. Notice the infamous ambulance. It goes everywhere, beats a Binky!!!!

Nothing says old fashioned drive up style place than your food in a box!

 I love it!

...and the infamous chili dog. If you go, you must get the foot long.

It is illegal to get smaller.

Goofball with his first gum ball. I was a tad nervous I can not lie.

But, he didn't get it and swallowed it every time.

Oh hey little guy! Good to see you up and smiling.

After lunch and playing we headed to the half price book store. Cayden got two books and 2 movies and mommy got a book called "Happy mommy" it looks really funny. I will have to let you know what I think.

I hope everyone has a great night! Tomorrow we are swimming with a sweet friend and I am tackling my first BIG DIY!!!! More info tomorrow!