The Birthday Old Man

So today is this guy's birthday:

I had an epiphany earlier today about what Andrew will be like in another 10 years. First, let me list off a few of what I like to call, "Andrewisms" (hilarious things Andrew says that I find ridiculously hilarious)...

Jack-wagon: a name he calls people without wanting to insult them
Jack-hole: as opposed to a$$hole
Loose canon: someone on the rode who is driving sporadically
Butterproof: a gluten-free bread I had him try a few weeks ago

Not only does he have funny descriptions for things, he also has hilarious analogies. For example, when describing the difficulty of backing up in the new mini-van, he described it as follows: "if there was a birthday party of small children behind me I would run over each one of them!"

So I have come to the conclusion that Andrew is going to turn into this guy:

"You wouldn't hear a dump truck driving through a nitroglycerin plant"

Anyways, yes, I'm just being silly :)

To the person that makes me laugh more than anyone else:
Happy Birthday, Andrew ;)

Busy Week!

This week was a little "cray-cray." Mainly between us selling the Corolla, buying a minivan (yes, I know, I have a minivan), and Andrew's birthday party all within the course of a few days. Throw in 2 small children, regular life, and one night of me working in there and you have yourself a little bit of chaos.

Selling the Corolla and buying the Honda Odyssey was totally God's doing. Well, everything is, but this is one of those times where it's distinctly evident. After talking with some friends that had just bought a van off Craigslist, we thought we'd be in for a long and frustrating search. On top of that, since we were selling our only car, we were concerned about having a lapse of time without a car. However! We put the Corolla on Craigslist on Tuesday. Wednesday Andrew got in contact with a family that was selling their van- we got the heads up from his dad who found out from his friend/mechanic. The family who was selling the van turned out to be a very kind Christian family who ended up being very happy to take our offer and hold the van for us while we sold our car. Thursday night (after I got off work) we sold our car and bought the van. The van is exactly what we were hoping for but never thought we would be able to afford, but thanks to some very generous people we were able to get it! I'll post some photos of it some other time.

I haven't mentioned this yet but I'm sure I'll mention this often in future posts: when I married Andrew I obtained solid gold in in-laws. 1) because they love and care for us so much, 2) because they love and care for our children so much, 3) because they are so stinkin' generous! Take Thursday for example: my MIL watched my kids while I worked (which Augustine gets so excited he can barely nap), she let me steal her car to go to work, and my FIL came over to help install a new kitchen faucet and give us their old patio set.

The "new-to-us" patio set

Friday was Andrew's birthday party (he'll be 30 on Tuesday). We did our traditional Blue Wasabi outing with a few friends. Afterwards I had planned a "Beer and Bacon" party for him. I would post pictures but 1) since I was the host, I was too distracted and totally forgot to take some! and 2) the pictures wouldn't be that interesting seeing as how I wasn't able to do any fancy Pinterest decorations ;) We played Munchkins which almost always solicits some sort of rowdiness and heated discussions about the rules but always overall ends up being fun.

Like I said, Andrew's birthday is on Tuesday and we are going up to my in-laws' cabin (see, their they are again! ;) next weekend to celebrate. I'm sure I'll end up taking plenty of photos to post; especially since I failed to do so on Friday... but for now I'll just post a picture of little Ella since she's standing next to me being so cute :)

When Andrew first saw her this morning he said, "what is she wearing?? A moo-moo?!" Men! ;)

Nailed It!

How I felt when I was trimming our ficus tree the other day:





How I envisioned our ficus tree to turn out:

How our ficus tree actually turned out:

As Andrew would say, "now, in my defense" the tree was looking pretty gangly in the first place. Apparently trees around these parts can't handle cooler temperatures at all. And when I say "cooler temperatures" I mean if it dips even slightly below 32* this wimpy little tree starts to shrivel up and die. A few months ago this happened and (despite putting 5 blankets and a heater on it) we ended up having to cut huge chunks of dead branches out of it. I feel as though the poor thing had a bad accident and is having to go through a series of surgeries to get back to it's normal figure...

Baby Girl Has and Addiction

Ella has a little addiction to eating paper....

I could have our floor completely spotless (which almost never happens, but still) and she would still find a tiny piece of paper to chew on. She even gets this crazy look in her eyes when she first spots it and then hones in on it as quickly as possible. Silly girl :)

Fun stuff

Andrew made an awesome swing for Augustine; I'm so impressed!

And Ella is hitting the "please-hold-me-all-the-time-especially-when-you're-trying-to-cook-dinner" milestone.

Friday Funday

I like to have my to-do list as short as possible of Fridays so I can do fun stuff with the kids and not be stressed that I'm not "getting stuff done". Normally, I have a bunch of other moms come over so we can chat/catch up while the boys (Ella being the only girl amongst 9 boys) run a muck. Today we switched it up, though and went to a splash pad with our friends and then came home to swim in the kiddie pool. 

Ella with her friend, Lukey.

In the pool!

How Much is Enough Water According to WebMD?

I've recently noticed that I've have a slight addiction to drink ice water at night. After I put the kids down, it's almost as if I can't get enough of it. As I mentioned this to my friends, everyone has the same question: "do you think you're drinking enough water during the day?" I've wondered this myself as well. So yesterday I decided to track exactly how much water I drink in a day by writing how many ounces I've drank on the top of my "trophy" cup (the cups I get from Mercy Gilbert Hospital when I have babies).

As of yesterday, I drank 92 ounces (11.5 cups) of water; not including any of the coffee I drank... we won't go there. I was curious as to what the current recommended daily water intake was so I decided to do a search on the good old Google. However, I came across an interesting find on WebMD. They say that the traditional "drink 8 glasses of water a day" had no scientific evidence to back it up and they are now suggesting "that we no longer need to worry about drinking specific amounts of water. Instead, we can simply satisfy our thirst with any beverage" including coffee, soft drinks, and beer. Yes, that's right, even caffeinated drinks! The article continues on by saying that "the recommended amount of beverages, including water, would be approximately 9 cups for women and 12.5 cups for men."

Am I the only one that's taken aback by this? That most of of my daily fluid intake could be caffeinated and I would still be fine? I am really interested to get some feedback on this because this has not been my experience but I don't like to completely reject a source like WebMD.

Andrew's New Form of Therapy

Killing flies. 

And yes, that's my child at the top of a ladder in the background.

Nursing Moms Room

This is my usual Sunday routine. Worship and then getting Baby Girl to take a nap in the Nursing Moms Room. 

It Begins

I finally caved. I'm starting a blog.

I've been tossing the idea around in my head for quite some time now but I wasn't sure I wanted to for a number of reasons; am I being vain? do I want a specific topic? would I be able to keep up with it? But alas, I decided to "just do it" because I have yet to make any real photo albums since I've had my kids (aside from good old Facebook) and I really want a simple place to journal about our family even for just our own viewing pleasure.

So what's going on with us these days? Andrew and I just celebrated our 5th anniversary in March. We have 2 kids; Augustine (who will be 3 in a couple months) and Ella (8 months). We have still have good old Ewan who will be 6 in August. And now we are starting to look into, as Andrew would say, "purchasing our next child" ;)

Andrew's big "hobby" right now is cycling. He rides to/from work and likes to go on rides with our good friend, David. They've even gotten a couple centuries (100 mile rides) under their belts. I've been into running lately and plan on doing several half marathons staring in the fall. Augustine has been into not sharing lately and we've been having to lay the smackdown on that (will post more on that later). And Ella has just recently decided she's a beaver and has been chewing away at her crib railing during her naps.