Straight Hair
Curly Hair

Her hair spring up so much, isn't it funny! Emma's curly hair is one of the things that drives me nuts and that I love all at the same time. It is just hard to contain and loves to do its own thing. Thought I'd post these cute photos. If anyone has any products to recommend I am all ears.

So, About Our Anniversary!

I realized I never told you guys about our anniversary! It was the most romantic thing ever...well except for the night Nick proposed. Anyway, just a recap this was our big five year anniversary, so Nick had this big secret planned. He refused to tell me anything about it. On the night of the Saturday before our anniversary he blind-folded me and had me in the car driving. When we were behind a police car driving is when he told me I could take the blind fold off. He drove for a while and ended up taking me to the beach. How romantic! He had a wine and cheese picnic planned! For those of you who do not know I love the beach: the sand, the waves, the birds. Nick on the other hand despises it. So for him to do this just brought tears to my eyes. It was a picture perfect day and it was nice to lay on the blanket and stare up at the crystal blue sky. We talked about our past, our future, and how blessed we truly are. We laughed hard. Below are pictures of Nicholas and I. I don't know why we didn't get the bright idea to take a picture together!

Afterwards Nick said we could go to one of the fancy beach side places we frequent or grab a burger at Redamaks. And did I go for the burger? You bet I did because I am an All-American kind of girl. And to be honest, holding hands while watching the Cubs and waiting for our food made me feel young again. Really young. And I love Nick for it. Because despite everything that comes our way, we are still the same young couple that fell in love all those years ago. We still make one another giggle. He still gives me butterflies. And we still are both so darn passionate that we argue over lots. But that's what makes us us. And nothing can break us apart.

Saturday Movie Madness

Last night we decided it would be fun to have a movie night. But not just any movie night. We popped popcorn and then decimated our living room to be a movie watching fort. It was so much fun. I hope it is something Emma remembers us doing. We watched some of the Jungle Book before it was time for little ones to go to bed.

Our Holiday Weekend

So we are planning on not doing anything this weekend and it is going to be fabulous! We have no plans which just sounds heavenly to me right about now. I am ready to just bum around the house and get some cleaning done. Doesn't that sound nice? I am getting ready to do the Organized Home's cleaning routing starting Sunday in an effort to get ready for the holidays. Hopefully this will be something that I can follow and stick with. What are your plans for the weekend?

Go Cubbies

We are Cubs fans, no secret there! Nick is at the Cubs game being wined and dined by companies that want his business. Isn't he a lucky duck? I am a lucky duck to have him and my family. Tonight since he is away the kids and I are hanging out with Jaime and Gram. I love living so close to everyone.

They call her Weigel...

We don't look alike at all, do we? This is my cousin Arielle, aka my little sis. This is a photo of the night we went out for a drink for her birthday! We had so much fun and I must admit that it was fun to get out of the house and act like a grown-up...although we were in a hooka bar...shh!!! We are also drinking adult beverages but were not drunk, nor on the hooka so shut your gossiping down now please! Just had to introduce you to my cousin because she's cute and single and I love her to death.

My Little Prince

I always call Calvin my little Prince so I think that the crown suits him perfectly! As you can see he is sitting! He has actually been doing this for about two months now. He has however just started scooching around on the floor...so we are getting there! I am blessed beyond measure with my two children! Our little Cal will be a boy before we know it and not just our precious little baby...so sad and yet so incredible.

Where do YOU shop?

Photo courtesy of http://outsidetheboxblog.files.wordpress.com

I am curious to see where you shop and what kind of stores you shop at? Before I used to shop everywhere to get the best deals. My usual night was Tuesday...I would hit Aldi's if I needed something I couldn't find on sale, then Kroger, Meijer, and then CVS and/or Walgreens on the way home if they had good sales. However, since the huge gas price jump I have toned it down a bit. I have been shopping at Walmart and Meijer predominantly. So where do you shop? Are you still able to swallow the prices of local stores or are you finding yourself buddying up to the box store concept? Let's find out what our callers have to say...

5 Years

Five years. Five years since I said I do…and what did I say I do to? To sticking by my best friend through whatever life throws at us: lies, financial hardship, infidelity, fights; To laughing with Nick every day: staying up all night talking, teasing one another about the silliest things, and doing imitations of Joey on friends eating a sub sandwich; to loving him: missing him like I am missing a limb when he is gone, being so fiercely loyal to him that no one can ever say anything bad, clinging to him when things get really tough as my comfort, and always giving him the benefit of the doubt; to falling more and more in love every day...seriously, I do. I look at him and think “how in the world was I lucky enough to get him?” And it really isn’t a lucky thing…it’s a being blessed with thing. God made us for one another, there has never been a doubt in my mind. When we started dating it was really weird because it was as though we had known one another for so long. We get one another on a very deep level. We both have our things that we have to beat out of the other: I am crazy and irrational and Nick constantly has to tell me to knock it off. Nick is quiet and pensive and I have to get my big cavewoman club out and beat him into talking to me about things. But in the end, as I look back on five years, I cannot believe that we have been married for that long. It really seems like just the other day I stood on the shore of Hawaii with my Nicholas and gave my heart and my life over to him…I gave him all of me, everything that I have. And I am so glad that I did. I would never take a second back. I relish that we have college memories, and dating memories, and being engaged memories. I am tickled that we have eloping memories, and first apartment memories. When I think of Nick things pop into my head instantly…the way he looked in the dorm waiting at the bottom of the winding staircase for me to meet him, the look in his eyes as he sat with me before I went it to surgery to have our little girl, the way he laughs at me when I rub my nose. I always worried when we were engaged that we might grow tired of one another and run out of things to talk about. And now I have no fear of that. I am looking forward to the next five years and the next fifty years. I am looking forward to growing old with my best friend: The best friend a woman could ask for.

Homemade Christmas Gifts

Its official, there is only 4 months until Christmas…put your panicked face on now. I like to make homemade Christmas gifts for everyone as a) it is cheaper than shopping, b) it doesn’t involve me trying to race around wondering if I bought enough or if Uncle Henry really needs a sock warmer for Christmas, and c) it teaches my Children that Christmas isn’t about how much stuff people buy you. And so I have been casually rifling through magazines and books, trying to find something fun and not overly complicated to make for everyone. Does anyone have any fabulous ideas they would like to share with me? Last year I made everyone a set of 10 note cards and while that sounds fun and fine, I made over 100 of those stupid cards, and everyone was just kind of half-heartedly saying “oh thanks”. I wanted gushing but for pete’ sake they were only note cards…they weren’t fashioned out of gold or anything. So now I am trying to figure out what the heck to make. Does anyone have any suggestions? Because if you want doilies I am going to have to learn that skill starting, well NOW.

Visions Dance through My Head

Its happening again. I am imagining myself in a small cozy shop. I am sensing that warm burst of air you feel as you step in from the crisp air that the outside holds. I am smelling that warm, aromatic scent of pine, cinnamon and crisp wrapping paper. I am hearing the bells in the background of music playing softly for me to enjoy. I am seeing the twinling lights, like small drops of dew reflecting the sun. That’s right: I am beginning to yearn for Christmas shopping again. This starts within me, every year without fail around August. I get bored with the pristine weather conditions and begin to yearn for snowfalls, Christmas shopping, and always being cozy with my family. Do you yearn for Christmas? Do you dream of the way the snow twinkles as it cascades gently down to the ground, while you leisurely stand in the window with a warm mug of cocoa, wasting your evening away just watching? Do you breathe in the hard, cold air and feel alive?

Going to the Chapel

Two weekends ago our good friend Matt got married and Nick was a groomsman. It was in the Chicago area so we ditched the kids with Grandma and Grandpa and off to the wedding we went. We got to our hotel that we booked through hotels.com and found that they had bumped us from a king non-smoking room to a smoking with two doubles. The morale of that story is to never, ever book with hotels.com. Apparently they can just downgrade you when you feel like it and you are stuck with it. Besides sleeping like June and Ward Cleaver we had a splendid time together at the wedding. The night before was the rehearsal and at the rehearsal they had the most ginormous desserts, seen here:

The next day it was off to get Matty married so to the church I went with my tux model of a husband (he really was ladies, now you're jealous! :))
After the wedding it was picture time, so I decided to take some of our friends...Nick's friends are pretty handsome, right?
This is all of us pals that spent time together for the wedding. We had such a good time and we laughed so hard! Sarah in the middle is one of my dearest friends. She's married to Nick's friend Greg and somehow the Lord just knew I needed her. Wow.

And here's a picture of Nick and I. We had such a good time together getting away from it all and really reconnecting. I love this man and a good wedding really makes me realize how lucky I am.

Schedule Recap

My new schedule is going splendidly. I have not gotten the laundry started every day at 4 am as originally hoped for but even not, I still have ample time to get it done, folded and put away throughout the rest of the day. I am an avid reader of simple mom’s blog and she says to just clean it up when it happens and you won’t have such a mess. I know this is so simple and yes I knew it before; I think I just needed someone to slap me upside the head and show that to me again. So I am trying to get that into my thick skull. I am a huge piler: I’ll make piles downstairs of what needs to go in what room upstairs. Then I will take everything up and just throw it in the room it belongs in…not a good idea. I have been trying to not make any new messes and also whittle down the messes that are still there from before. I think it is working fairly well. The weekend was coming last week though and I was anxious to see how I would do. The weekend is a big time for me to feel bad about not being with the kids 24/7 so I just put everything off to be with them. Then Sunday evening comes around and I am in tears that the house looks like a tornado hit it. But this weekend went well. I'm not going to say that we are better off but we definitely didn't have the massive piles of junk to pick up come Sunday evening. I think the new schedule is actually working!

The original/semi-new me

Photo courtesy of girltalk.com

Back from the weekend I decided to have a new outlook on life, or rather Nick kind of forced me to have a new outlook. I am going to go to bed at 10, not an option anymore. I am not going to be a slave shackled to the washing machine all weekend, and I am not going to worry so much. My primary problem lately has been that I have been so tired. Going to bed at 11:30 and getting up at 4ish is not a good idea for a busy mom. So 10 I will be in bed. I did it last night and amazed at how renewed I feel. My other complaint has been the house…it is just so dirty and messy. So no more to either one of those. I have a monthly cleaning calendar in place to make sure every part of the house is covered and is adequately cleaned. My third problem has been the laundry. I have been trying to cram doing a week’ worth of laundry into Saturday. My problem with that is that it hardly ever gets done: we are either running around somewhere or I am just too busy with the kids. What then happens is that I wake up Sunday to clothes in the living room where I was folding the night before. And I am really bad at all or nothing: I either do it all in one day which is what I want to do or I do nothing and the clean laundry will sit around the house all week rather than be ironed and put away. My mom when I was a kid had a system where she washed one person’s laundry a day. I have decided to try this technique. Unlike my mother I however will not have the rule that if you don’t bring your laundry to the washing machine it won’t be done…that’s just mean, kids forget things. I started this yesterday and I think I am going to like it. I had Nick bring his basket down the night before and the next morning when I woke up I sleepily shoved the first load of laundry in the wash. When I came home from work I got that drying, put the next (and last!) load in the wash and was done! I had all of his clothes folded for him by 6:00 and I was able to play with the kids while he went and put them away. Another one of our problems is that even when the laundry does get done and folded we just get too busy with the kids to put it away. Those of you with kids can attest to how they love to pull things out of the laundry baskets…who cares if its already folded? So that’s my plan of action…how are things in your neck of the woods?