a case of the mondays

usually i am a pretty pro-monday kinda gal.  i actually love ’em.  since most weekends are pretty busy for us, monday has always been such a nice relief.  prior to school starting this fall you would 9 times out of 10 find the kids and i hanging out in our jammies the entire monday long.  it’s the perfect reaction to an on the go weekend.  school has some what changed the pace of our daily life, and mondays are quite so laid back anymore.  i still tend to enjoy them though since the girls and i are able to maintain a pretty low-key monday existence.

then came today.

it’s bound to happen.  we’re all going to have one of “those” mondays from time to time.  i guess i had finally come back around in the rotations of handing out cases of the mondays.

i decided i would help myself out a bit by bathing the girls this morning since i knew brad had a meeting at cornerstone tonight.  only having one child to bathe tonight would definitely be easier than three.  laurel is first up so i can get her bathed and down for nap before needing to get her up in time for our stroll intense walk around walnut creek at 10.  all is great until i spy it.  i had let her have 3 toys in the tub, but now there were more than 3 objects in the tub.  yup.  poop in the tub.  every mom’s dream nightmare.  out of the tub comes laurel and out come the bottle of cleaner.  scrub tub.  (yay for a clean bathtub!)  refill and reinsert laurel for a second attempt at a bath.  transition to nap goes smoothly.  jilly is bathed with no extra drama.  yay for two clean girls.

fast-forward to lunch time.  laurel and jilly are both happily eating lunch.  i’ve just begun working on my sandwich.  jilly (as is her norm) announces that although she absolutely, beyond a shadow of a doubt had no need to go potty before lunch now must use the potty.  i send her off and add cheese to my turkey sandwich.  then screams of “mommmmyyyyy!”  i don’t even have to move to know what’s happened.  as i enter the bathroom, i find that yes, the contents of all 5 great lakes now reside in a puddle on the half bath floor.  jilly’s bath is now null and void.  i take the easy route and give her a baby wipes thorough wipe down and scrubbing.  jilly is now redressed and back at the table finishing lunch.  i soak up the great lakes and figure a clorox wipe floor scrubbing will have to do until naptime.  back to fixing my sandwich that by now i should have finished eating.

fast-forward to nap time.  you know, i’m thankful for my scrubbed tub.  after working through my bsf day 5, i decide it’s time to mop.  if i’m going to pull out the mop, i’m going to go ahead and mop the kitchen, dining, entryway, and the peed in bathroom.  i’d been wanting to mop yesterday and am now so thankful that i ran out of time before small group came over.  so, i mopped.  and felt good about now having mopped floor to go along with the scrubbed tub.

fast-forward to post dinner.  we hit fazoli’s for dinner.  in all my unplanned cleaning efforts, i forgot to pull anything out for dinner.  a nonchalant mention of fazoli’s to my fazoli loving family, and we had our minds made up.  (oh, and i decided to wash my van real quick between brad coming home and heading out for an early dinner since way too soon it’ll be time to pay for car washes once again.)  jilly always requests lemonade when getting a kids meal.  she’d had her milk at home already because she will only drink skim and most places serve 2%.  she never finishes her lemonade.  it always comes home with us.  (i think this is intentional.)  after the happenings of the day, i’m a little leery that next up might be nate getting sick and throwing up all over the carpet or furniture, well, because that would just fit in with how the day had gone.  then i hear a strange noise.  laurel is missing.  laurel is in the kitchen.  sitting in a big pool of lemonade holding a fazoli’s kid-size cup which had been left too close to the edge of the kitchen table that our littlest is now big enough to reach things placed close to the edge of.  yay.  now, a kid and a floor i’ve already washed today are both a sticky mess.  (can i crawl in bed yet?)  clean kid with baby wipes.  clean floor with clorox wipes.  pray that bedtime come very, very soon.

let’s hope my turn at a case of the mondays doesn’t come around again for a long, long time. (and that i don’t get awakened during the night to find vomit somewhere in the house!)

party time!

this past saturday nate had his first non-family only birthday party.  i figured it was about time, and he loved every moment of it.  h had asked a few of my small group girls to help me out with games and such since they are way more creative in that area.  they arranged a candy/toy hunt, pin the wheel on the tractor game, duck-duck-goose (nate’s request), and face painting.  that along with some time to just play kept everyone busy.  we a fun time, but it was exhausting.  i think it took me a full day to recover and just looking at the pictures makes me tired all over again!!!  thank goodness we don’t have another child with a birthday until august!!!

family fun friday 9.10

bowling was the name of the game today.  nate was super excited, and he was awake at 6:22 am to prove it to us.  we had a great time and were so glad that one of our small group girls, V, joined us.  jilly helped Brad, V, and myself with our games, and we decided that we would all bumper bowl.   i did feel bad for nate who’s wii bowling skills are phenomenal, but his actually bowling skills kept hugging the right side bumper.

next friday:  a trip to the fair!

weekend pics

my camera stayed dormant this weekend, but luckily other people posted pictures on facebook which i was able to snag to share with you.

saturday 2 of our small group girls picked the kids up and took them to the zoo.  it was a great surprise date time for brad and i!  while we were wandering the mall and getting the grocery shopping done (what?  grocery shopping isn’t a date activity???), they had a great time at the zoo.

sunday was another busy day.  we skipped our first fun activity of the day because it became all to obvious that the kids both needed a decent nap, but then we headed to lincoln to get together with all of brad’s cousins.  it was a lot of fun, and we would love to be better about getting together with them more often.  again, i can’t take credit for taking any pictures, but i’m glad other’s had their cameras handy!

kc in a day

yesterday was day trip day.

not much could lead me to trap both kids in their carseats for a 3+ hour drive each way type day trip, but this one had two things going for it.  one we were able to help one of my small group girls move in to her new place as she start school in kansas city, and two there was hope of chick-fil-a.

moving went smoothly (not that preggo me was a ton of help), and the chick-fil-a was a-ma-zing!!!!

why we still don’t have one doesn’t make any sense to me and never will.

the kids devoured their food which is always nice to see, and nate kept wanting more nuggets.  that’s my boy!!!

since we were there for a later lunch, we had the play area all to ourselves after eating.  i’m usually one to pretend such germ havens don’t exist, but both kids had done so well traveling and such . . .

and of course we made good use of the antibacterial wipes offered when we finished!

it was a great day with kids that were wonderful travelers.

Amazed

On Brad’s birthday he and I received the following card:

Four years ago this fall Brad and I were each assigned a group of teens to lead in weekly Bible study, prayer, and such.  Although we were both excited, I’m not quite sure either of us knew what we were getting into fully.  Over the years the group has gone from high school freshman to high school graduates, and we can’t imagine what life will be like without them coming over every Sunday evening this fall.  Nate absolutely adores them and will be heartbroken when he doesn’t get to see “his kids” every week.  Jilly also has never known life without them showing up on a weekly basis, and although she’s been a bit tougher to open up to them, she’s really come a long way lately.

Four years worth of building amazing relationships with these teens led us to feel totally comfortable taking them up on their offer for us to get away for a few days.  So, we did it.

This past Saturday afternoon we took off for Minneapolis-St. Paul, MN.  We had never spent time there before, and it was a do-able 6 hour drive.

It was the most amazing 75 hours I have had in a LONG time.

75 hours of fun and relaxation with my best friend, my husband.  For 75 hours we didn’t have to be “mom” and “dad” first and foremost.  Although we truly missed our kids, we have never more than at this point needed to take a break from them and enjoy just being just us again.  Getting out for a date night gives a glimpse, but there is just something different about getting away for a few days together.  Amazing.  (and highly recommended!!!)

We has 2 full days of being up there in-between our 2 travel days.  After unknowingly sleeping in until after 9am we of course hit IKEA and the Mall of America on Sunday after worship.  We found this at IKEA:

I’d been wanting this at Target, but love that I hadn’t pulled the trigger yet and found something similar which I like much better from IKEA.  We also added a couple of frames to my collection and after ordering a couple more pictures today, I think we’re finally ready to hang our picture wall pictures on the wall and continue to add to it over time!

We also went and saw the movie Grown Ups on Sunday evening.  I have seriously not laughed out loud so much at a movie in a LONG time!  We both loved it and would totally see it again.  (We knew nothing other than a short blurb we read on the internet before going in.)

After another slow start to our morning thanks to sleeping in once again, we drove to find Concordia St. Paul and the the University of Minnesota.  I don’t really understand this need, but my husband loves college campuses, and I love him.  We also found where the Vikings play and the new Twins stadium.  After lunch we headed out to Stillwater and wandered in and out of the shops along Main Street.  After a while, my preggo self just really needed a break from being on my feet so much.  We headed back to the hotel so I could take a much needed nap.

Tuesday we dragged ourselves out of bed a bit earlier and were on the road by about quarter to 9.

We were thrilled to see the kids, and they both gave us some awesome loving when we got home.

We also were thrilled to see our small group girls had been busy at work making us another scrapbook full of more memories from the past few years!

(we jokingly call ourselves a “spiritual clique”.)

Amazing teens watching our amazing kids so we could have an amazing couple of days away.

seward and waco

yesterday was a full day.  for the first time in a long time i was up , breakfasted, and showered before the clock read 7:30am.  we were on the road towards seward bright and early.  brad preached at the concordia chapel service, and we then waited around to take some of our k0k’s students to lunch.  afterward we headed a little further down the road to waco to make a long overdue trip to see gma and  gpa knorr.  a shy nate was quickly comfortable after a trip to the shop with great gpa to get an old toy combine and a few others out.

he also remembered from our last trip out there (over a year ago) the table top tennis game.  (his memory is scary good sometimes!)

it would have been a more productive game if a certain little someone wasn’t an expert ball snatcher.

gma seemed to enjoy watching the kids have a ton of fun and find a little bit of trouble to get into.

jilly learned timeouts take place no matter whose house we’re at.

the peach trees were blossoming and looking gorgeous.  my outside picture taking came to a quick halt after stepping on a snake in the yard.  after that we headed inside and stayed inside!!

hopefully it won’t take us another almost 15 months to make it back out there!

not me! monday

Welcome to Not Me! Monday! This blog carnival was created by MckMama. You can head over to her blog to read what she and everyone else have not been doing this week.

MckMama is not not me!ing right now because baby Stellan is still having issues with his heart.  They have relocated to a hospital in Boston to be with a doctor that will hopefully be able to help Stellan work through this.  Currently the plan is for Stellan to have surgery tomorrow.  Be sure to both pray for him, his family, and his medical team and to also head over and check on how he’s doing.

Being a pastor’s wife is not what I ever thought I’d end up as.  I’m fine with it.  I love my husband and wouldn’t want thing to be any other way (okay, other than closer to Little Rock).  One of the most stressful thing about being married to a pastor though is the kids.  You know you’ve noticed in the past.  PKs (pastors’ kids) are one of two extremes:  really rebellious or really goody-two-shoes good.  There is somehow not that middle of the road kid.  I suppose if I had to pick either really goody-two-shoes sounds a lot less stressful in the teen years to deal with.  That being said, leads me into my first not me!

I am not beginning to be concerned about Nater’s future career path at only 3 years of age.  He is not currently in a drop my drawers stage.  He did not lightning fast drop both his jeans and underwear the second our pediatrician walked in the exam room for his 3 year check up.  I did not sit there in shock with Jill on my lap trying to figure how to explain my way out of this one.  It did not take several long, shocked seconds for me to come to, set Jill down and redress my Brad’s son.

As we were hanging out in the Haven (Sr. High area) after worship yesterday, Nate was not up on one of the pool tables crawling around.  He did not then, as I watched in slow motion horror from across the room while changing Jill’s diaper, drop his pants to around his ankles, again!!!!  The Haven was not full of teens and parents wondering what in the world this PK was up to.  I did not turn 12 shades of red.  Shrugging my shoulders, I did not shout for Brad to go take care of his son.

Going back to the doctor, I was not also amazed by Nate.  I’d asked at Jill’s last appointment if we should expect any vaccines at Nate’s 3 year check up.  None were needed, but they would need a finger prick to check lead levels in his blood.  I remember this from the 2 year check up, and it wasn’t pretty.  He didn’t totally surprise me with is reaction.  He was not fascinated by what the nurse was doing.  He did not watch in awe as she squeezed his blood out of his finger and into the vial.  He made it through with out a single tear!!  Oh wait, he did not start crying up a storm when they went to put the band-aid on.  My mom use to have to hid the band-aids from Tori.  I will never have that issue with my son.  He hates them.  He did not immediately return to normal the moment I removed the yellow crayon band-aid.

I did not text my older sister, Ginny, yesterday the following message when I heard she was back at the hospital:  “umm, i picked friday.  so uh, no pushing until then!  love you!”  Let’s hope she knew I was joking!  (Gin – Really, I was kidding!)  I am not super excited that it looks like my nephew will be born at some point this week!  (A week from today at the latest.)  I am also not hoping for my brother and sister-in-law to find out tomorrow that their expecting a boy.  I am not hoping this just because Lindsay says if it’s a girl she’s most likely done.  I have not all along had the gut instinct that it’s a girl.  My gut instinct is not seldom wrong.

That’s all for today.  Hopefully this next week will be filled with many funny not me! worthy moments.  (But none that include being pantless.)

not me! monday

Welcome to Not Me! Monday! This blog carnival was created by MckMama. You can head over to her blog to read what she and everyone else have not been doing this week.

I did not skip worship yesterday morning just because I didn’t have it in me to face winter once more.  I did not not go just because I didn’t want to haul both kids in the snow and wind by myself across the vast expanse we call a parking lot.

I have not been holding back on my son for almost 3 years in the breakfast department.  I did not just show him Sunday that you can put milk on cheerios.  I most certainly did not indulge him this morning when he also wanted to add “cheese crackers” to the bowl.

I was not totally corrected by my son this weekend regarding specific names of trucks.  When he asked and I lazily responded that a truck in a magazine was a “digger”, he did not say, “no” and then run off.  He did not reappear shortly carrying his handy pocket guide and open up to the page of farm machines.  Pointing to one (one exactly like the magazine but in a different color), he said, “read mommy”.  Mommy sheepishly did not read, “front end loader”.  He did not then point at the magazine picture, look at me, and say, “it’s not a digger, it’s a fron en woader, mommy”.  I am not completely amazed and frightened by his memory.

Brad and I did not use part of our date day on Friday to go to the teen center at kok and play wii.  We did not leave wishing we could have one for our house.  We did not get the same “want it” bug on Sunday after two other wii encounters.  Wii most certainly did not decide that wii really wanted one and of course did not give in.  We did not “joke” about if it could be a tax write off work expense since our small group kids will most likely use it on Sunday nights.  I’m not headed off to pratice my tennis game while the kids nap.

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