Happy 36th!

My husband turns 36 today. He prefers 26, but since we can't turn back the hands of time, here are 36 of my favorite things about him. Keep in mind, I didn't say THE 36 favorite things. I'm sure I left something really important off of here without intending too, and quite honestly, the toilet seat probably shouldn't make the top 36. Obviously, in no specific order (again...the toilet seat....):

1. I never have to wonder what you are really thinking.
2. You are 100% honest - ALWAYS.
3. You never leave the toilet seat up.
4. Your passion for helping others through firefighting and EMS work is inspiring.
5. You don't mind going shopping.
6. You always carry the shopping bags.
7. You are willing to teach kid's Sunday School.
8. You are a very good money manager.
8 1/2. Sometimes TOO good, but if you threw money away, it would drive me crazy, so your over-practical ways can still make the list.
9. When you made a commitment to me, it was for LIFE, and I never have to question that.
10. Even though you tend to be on the quiet side, you are always willing to talk to me about anything.
11. You will clean up kid vomit. And probably big people vomit, but hopefully you will be getting paid to do it if that occurs.
12. You are a great combination of the practical, logical engineer and the adrenaline junkie, crazy firefighter.
13. You are great at trimming the ceilings and corners of nasty paint jobs.
14. You want to serve the Lord in all you do.
15. You love to camp, waterski, tube, and ride the jetski.
16. You are ok with letting me have girl nights and girl weekends.
17. I never have to wonder if the kids are being well-taken care of when I'm gone.
18. You go skiing with your college friends every year so I don't have to feel so guilty about taking girl weekends. I am sure this is the only reason you go.
19. You love sports, but don't let them run your life.
20. You are willing to watch chick flicks whenever I ask you to.
21. You are sad when you can't give your child the gift he wants the most.
21 1/2. Which is kind of funny since you don't really care about birthdays.
22. You don't mind when I don't cook.
23. You will take your turn cooking and do it better than me (I'm happy to hand over that responsibility at any time).
24. You will take the kids on the amusement park rides that make me want to puke.
25. Not much scares you or grosses you out, which means you take care of all the things that scare me and gross me out (heights, blood, a clogged drain...to name a few).
25 1/2. Although, if you would develop even a small fear of heights, maybe you would stop volunteering to go to the highest parts of burning houses, grain elevators, and humongous churches to change the light bulbs while five measly men hold ropes to hold your ladder up. You should work on that.
26. If we are together, you always put the fuel in the car, even in freezing cold temps.
27. You will play games with your kids even when you really don't want to.
28. You still like to spend time with me.
29. You support me working or me staying home, or some weird combination of the two.
30. You grieved our miscarriages and infertility issues just as much as I did.
31. You finally caved and got a cell phone. By next year at this time maybe you will actually be texting.
32. You put your best into every project you work on.
33. You like that I scrapbook and blog, even though it takes up extra time.
34. You don't like Chinese food.
35. You are able to look past the exterior of a person and really see their heart.
36. You are still smiling even though you don't like it when I blog about you!

Happy Birthday!

Not Your Average Morning

This has been a CRAZY week! Nothing unusually different, just crazy schedules and all of us fighting colds and sore throats. Therefore, I have been looking forward to today for a long time.

Time for laundry, time for seeing if there is a house under all this clutter, time for a little reading....ahhhhhh.

I got up this morning, happy I didn't work because it was my day to volunteer at the preschool, and slowly started to get the boys ready for school. My husband was taking both boys with him this morning since the bus stop and preschool are both on the way to his job. Ahhhhhh.

Breakfast - Check. Boys dressed - check. Lunch packed - check. One set of teeth brushed - check. Ten minutes until time to leave. And I still got to be in my pajamas. Ahhhhhh.

And then the fire pager went off and the husband flew out the door.

Me still in my pajamas.
Haven't even looked in the mirror yet.
Teeth to brush.
Lots of shoes to get on.
Backbacks to gather.
Two kids to load up.
Bus to catch.

AGGGGGHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I was hoping my windows were tinted enough for no one to see me at the bus stop, and wondering if it would be bad parenting for my 3 yo to walk in, check himself in on the computer, and enter the preschool classroom all by himself.

We flew around the house, brushed teeth, I got dressed, grabbed shoes for all, found backpacks and the lunchbox, and were running out the door with a minute to spare......when the phone rang.

False alarm. My husband was on his way back home to get the boys.

I was thankful, I really was, and so were all the people who were going to have to see me. But avoiding the heart attack altogether would have been my first choice. At least now I know I can go from not ready at all to out the door with kids in tow in 8.5 minutes if I really have to.

Ahhhh.....Friday

I'm am SO not sad to say goodbye to yesterday.

• Woke up with a sore throat.
• Couldn't find a thing to wear for spirit week. Finally ditched the effort and wore boring teacher clothes.
• Spilled my favorite mineral powder make-up on my carpet.
• Couldn't have been the bathroom floor....had to be the carpet.
• Not too mention the $$$ down the drain.
• Tried to do 5 hours of work in 3 hours time.
• Didn't work - I was late to pick my son up from preschool.
• Made a cheesecake.
• Cleaned up all the cream cheese I splattered all over the floor.
• Completely wasted the afternoon in the name of letting my three year old nap in the living room. I couldn't get anything done in any part of the house.
• He never fell asleep.
• Husband ended up having a meeting from 5:00 - 7:00 p.m.
• Because the hour from 4:00 to 5:00 isn't' hard enough?
• Paid for the fact that the 3 yo never fell asleep.
• Made supper, helped with piano, listened to homework, did baths.
• Turned on the TV and saw reports about Haiti.
• Smacked myself in the head for feeling like my day was difficult.
• Worked on changing my attitude.
• And then...happily ended the day with my very first book club ever. Wonderful evening with old friends, new friends, and great conversation.

A Nice Shade of Crimson

Has anyone noticed all the facebook status' that are just colors? Of couse you have, because nearly everyone has posted a color (or lack there of....). I saw a few Wednesday night and a few more yesterday morning, but at that time did not yet know what it was. I really should know better by now and just try to figure things out by myself. But I didn't...

So, while chatting on facebook with a guy friend yesterday, I asked him if he knew what all the colors meant. Two seconds later I saw someone's comment on a status about the fact that they are bra colors.

Nice.

Do they make an embarrassed smiley icon?

They really should.

The List Just Got Longer

Reason #321 why I don't love living in the country.

A coyote in my backyard.

The Janirator

Last night was the last night of Christmas break. Back to work. Back to school. Back to 8:00 bedtime.

At 7:45, my first grader remembered that he had not read all his homework for the break. This "homework" was not required, but was a chance to earn extra tickets in class. He had done half of it, but was not satisfied that he would not receive ALL SIX TICKETS.

I know, I know, I should be thankful that he wanted to do his reading homework. But since it was 15 minutes before the precious time of day that I had been looking forward to for hours, I pulled the mom response about waiting until the last minute.

And then I caved. Because, after all, he wasn't asking for more video game time, he wanted to READ. I ran upstairs to get something, and on my way back down, I heard him say, "Mom, this is a play. I'll be the wolf and the pigs, will you be the janirator?"

At first I just laughed at his very mixed up word for 'narrator'. But then I realized the truth in the word. If a man reads the part, it's called a Narrator. If a woman reads the part, she is probably dusting, vacuuming, and reading all at the same time; therefore, she is The Janirator.

New Year's Resolutions

I understand why some people do not make New Year's resolutions. If there is something in your life that needs improvement, why wait until January 1? And then there is that little issue of making resolutions that fall by the wayside in a few short weeks. So, really, what is the point?

Point or no point, I still do it. Every year. Just the other day I mentioned that I need to go back and read my New Year's post for 2009 to check on my progress. Honestly, I had no idea what resolutions I had even made for the year, which furthers the question of why I even make them. Regardless, I was sure to be depressed at what I did not accomplish from my list.

Then I read my list and burst out laughing. Thankfully, 2009 was the year of really low expectations. I had forgotten that at this point last year I was fairly stressed out with work and simply surviving the school year seemed like enough of a feat for me. This may be the first year ever I ended the year over 50%!

Here's how I did:

*I'm pretty sure I made it through January without forgetting all the birthdays and anniversaries. I didn't say I had to send everyone a card, just not forget them.

*Return from the all-family vacation to Branson in June with everyone still speaking to each other. - CHECK!

*Potty train the little guy. - CHECK!!!! HALLELUJAH.

*End the year weighing no more than I did this last summer. - FAILED.

*Have relatively happy, relatively healthy, relatively normal children the majority of the year. (It's all relative...) - CHECK? Other than H1N1, we survived ok.

*Make a concerted effort to unload everything from the vehicle that had been put in the vehicle during the course of the day. - HMMM....NOT ALWAYS, BUT I'M GONNA GO WITH 'CHECK' SINCE WE TRADED IN THE VAN. THIS IS MUCH EASIER WITH A CAR SINCE THERE IS NOT AS MUCH ROOM FOR JUNK.

And this year? Well, I am going to have to do something about the one I failed; therefore, it gets spot #1. Ugh.

So here is what I'll be up to this year:

1) Lose the weight I gained, plus a little more would be nice. My resolution is that this will not have to be a resolution next year.

2) Read the Bible in a year - chronologically. I've never tried it this way before.

I'm tossing around the idea of a few more, but I know if I make a list a mile long, I will not stick with any of them. So for now, this is it, and anything else is just icing on the cake. HAPPY NEW YEAR!

The last 24 hours

2010 is here! Before I make my official list of "New Year's Resolutions", which has been an interesting topic the past few days, I need to take a moment to capture some of the highlights of the final hours of 2009. Here is what I discovered...

• There really was someone left in this world who had not heard the song The Christmas Shoes.
• Pomegranite has made the list of my new favorite juice flavors.
• Laughter created by Mad Gab can cause enough stomach exercise to be a suitable replacement for crunches.
• Mad Gab Phrase: Up Aisle Us No Boss. Can anyone guess it? They couldn't.

• I can still stay up until 2:00 a.m. and remain reasonably functional.
• And when the kids are not in the house, I can actually still sleep in until 9 o'clock. Who knew!
• Apparently New Year's Resolutions are overrated. I'm gonna make some anyway. I personally think people who don't make New Year's Resolutions are those who have never had to seriously diet at any point in their lives. I'm sure someone will prove me wrong on this, but for now, I'm sticking to that theory.
• It was a great New Year's Eve with great friends!