It Happened!

I was wondering and wondering when it would happen, and last night IT happened!! Ryley found the scissors and cut her hair! Why do kids do that? Luckily Scott came in and she had only gotten a small chunk cut off, so at least her hair isn't all lopsided. We know this little girl who cut her hair a few months ago. She is 4, so you think they would know better by then, but kids just love those scissors. They had to cut her hair really short, but it ended up being a cute hair cut. Sometimes when you have to "fix" the hair after they've cut it, it just looks so awful and you know they tried to cut their hair themselves.

This morning Ryley says to me, "Please don't talk to me like that." I was like, excuse me? And all I said to her was to please go in the bathroom and get a towel to clean up the water she spilled. She is getting to the age where you say something to her, and you don't like it, she will try to talk back or stand up for herself. Sometimes it can be humorous, and other times it can just be flat out annoying.

After my run yesterday morning I found a few fun garage sales in the neighborhood. I ended up getting Ryley so much fun princess dress up clothes, shoes and crowns for really cheap. I came home and she got so excited about them. If I was smart, I would have saved some for her birthday that is coming up at the end of August. Oh well. Maybe I can find a few other good garage sales and get her some good stuff for her birthday. It is funny because the things I found were practically brand new. I found Kirye some clothes and shoes that had only been worn once! I love garage sales...especially since we are trying to be very conservative with our money.

Better

Today Ryley has been a little sweet heart. I think God knew how much she put me through yesterday and is helping her to be more loving today.
It is so beautiful here today so we met our friends at the park for a picnic. The kids played for almost 2 hours. It was fun to be in the sun and for the kids to get some good exercise. Kirye was so mad at me when I got him off the swing. I felt bad, but we had to leave sometime.
This weekend it is supposed to be 95! Yikes! The air in our car isn't working either, so I will definitely need to get that fixed, or else I will not be driving around. It is fine for me to roll down the window when it is 75-80 degrees, but past that it just gets too hot...especially with black leather seats!

New baby

My sister Karen had a baby boy last night. I am so excited for her. They named him Skylar, which is kind of funny because we were thinking about naming Ryley that. His big sister Reagan is already in love with him and was asking to hold him when they were at the hospital. It makes me wonder how different the relationship between Ryley and Kirye would be if they were 3 years apart. Ryley never asked to hold Kirye when he was a baby...EVER! I really do think she was jealous of him coming in to her perfect little life where she was everything to mommy and daddy. I love her so much, but sometimes I just wish she could be nice to her brother and understand how much it hurts him and me when she is rotten to him.

This weekend I spent an afternoon out with Kirye while dad stayed home with Ryley. We went out to lunch, which was a lot of fun. I didn't have to worry about Ryley wanting to sit in the high chair, even though she is almost 3. If Kirye gets a high chair, she wants one. So anyway, it was fun. We went to Quiznos and just ate our lunch and he was so content. While we were there I saw 2 girls walk in with these HUGE Starbucks creations. I had to ask them what they were because they looked so good (and so fattening!). I guess they were mint mocha chip frappuccinno's with whipped cream. The whipped cream was about 3 inches high! So, my curiosity got the best of me and I came home and looked on line to see how much fat was in them. If I put in the right drink, they have 22 grams of fat in them and 79 grams of sugar! Is that not insane???!! SEVENTY-NINE grams of sugar! That is crazy. And they had the venti ones, which are just ridiculously huge. I don't know why anyone needs a drink that big.

After lunch Kirye and I went to the grocery store, and he got a little sugar cookie at the bakery. It was so easy to shop, and it reminded me of when I only had one child to worry about. Everything was so much easier. I was so in love with Ryley and everything she did. Now that she is almost 3, I feel like she breaks me down so much physically, mentally, and emotionally. I often want to go back to the days when she is just 9 months old and listens to me and doesn't make me want to scream. But that is not possible is it? The whole purpose of this life is to grow and learn, and that is exactly what she is doing. At the same time, she is teaching me patience and tolerance, although I feel my patience level is not where I would like it to be. I need to try to stay positive. I feel like there are many more hard times than there are good times right now. I am constantly disciplining and feeling like every day is a battle. Some days I want to go back to work full time because I know it was easier than staying at home raising 2 children. People seriously underestimate how difficult it is being a mother. I feel so trapped sometimes and I don't know what to do. I hope some of you can understand what I am going through. I feel like I just needed to get this off my chest.

Happy Father's Day (1 day late)

Happy Father's Day to all of those wonderful father's and husband's out there (especially mine)!

We had a great day yesterday..the weather was beautiful. We had friends over for a BBQ and Ryley and their girls played from 4pm-10pm! It was crazy. She was so grumpy this morning from going to bed so late. I just love having friends over and making lots of yummy food. I got some steak for Scott, since that is his favorite meal. A few weeks ago I bought him a new dress shirt and tie, which was his present. I also went to Cash and Carry and bought him a 24 count box of Big Hunk's, his favorite treat. I don't know how he is going to eat all of them. I wonder if we should freeze some? And lastly, I burned him a cd to listen to on his way to work. I know, cheesy, but I didn't want to spend a lot of money! :)

This morning it was so hard to wake up. Ugh. Monday's are the worst! It is so hard for me to recover from the weekend! Sunday's are my days off as far as exercise goes, and they are also my "get to eat whatever junk I want" day! So when Monday rolls around I am definitely feeling a lack of energy. On Saturday I got up early and ran 10 miles. It felt so great, and the weather was perfect. I was done and home just as the kids were waking up. Then I took Ryley over to her friends house to play. My friend Melanie has 3 year old twins and a 5 1/2 year old and they all play so well together. She seems so grown up when she is playing with them. It is really cute how they "pretend" play. They get out their purses, keys, cell phones, dolls, etc. And all of them are such girlie girls, but they also can get a little rough when they are playing outside. I need to take some pictures of them to post.

Hope everyone had a great weekend! School is out here and summer has officially begun! YEAH!

Gummy Vitamins?

I don't really understand the concept of gummy vitamins. I mean, ultimately I do...so your kids will eat their vitamins. But, if your kids are anything like my kids, they will just think they are candy and want more than one gummy bear more than once a day. I have a hard enough time with the Ryley thinking the Flinstone vitamins aren't candy. She always wants more than one. So I'm sorry vitamin industry, but I will never give in to having vitamins that look and taste like candy. Does anyone use those, and if so, how does that go over with your kids? Maybe if Ryley was 5 and not almost 3 she would understand the concept a little better.

On a side note can I just say how much I love Jeffrey Dean Morgan! You know, he was Denny Duquette on Grey's Anatomy, and I LOVED him then too! I just watched him in PS I Love You and I am completely infatuated with him now (I just googled him and he was born in Seattle!). He was so cute in that movie and I was so happy with the ending. I really did not want Hillary Swank to get with Harry Connick Jr. There was just no chemistry there! Sorry for spoiling it if you haven't seen the movie yet. It took me probably 4 times of starting and stopping that movie to finally finish it. I just love girly movies like that..and of course I always cry. Scott will come in and go, "what's wrong" and I just grab my tissue and say "nothing, it's just the movie." I wonder if guys ever get that emotional over any movies. I have yet to see Scott get emotional over very many movies. Oh, speaking of movies...the other night we went out to dinner with our friends. On the way back we went through the mall to get to the parking garage. It was so funny because we were in the elevator and about 12 women got in all at once with us. I just laughed and asked them if they had just seen the Sex and the City movie. Of course they had and this one girl said it was so good and it made her cry. I thought that was pretty funny!

Track and Field

On Sunday the Nike Prefontaine Classic was on TV and fortunately Scott recorded it for me.
It is a track meet held every year in Eugene, Oregon featuring top track and field athletes from all over the world. Can I just tell you how much I love watching track and field! I ran track and cross country in high school and that is truly where my passion lies (lay, lyes??? English major anyone). I was so excited for them, and so nervous. When the runners would get in their starting blocks, I would get butterflies in my stomach. I could feel myself in their shoes and remember the nervousness that would set in until the gun went off. It was so great to watch it! I watched most of it when I was working out on the treadmill (it has been really bad weather here for the last few days, so I have been running inside). The boys ran a 2 mile race in just over 8 minutes! 8 MINUTES! Are you kidding me?! They are so fast. During the breaks they had a few commercials that sucked me in. One of them was for nutrilite, a vitamin supplement that is specially formulated for "active lifestyles." Can I just say what a great job they did with their advertising. After seeing about 10 commercials for it, I was ready to sign up for a lifetime supply! They also had a commercial for Reese's peanut butter cups, which I thought was unusually cruel. I hate when I am working out and a commercial for chocolate comes on.
I registered for my 10K today. It is the Run Like a Girl race in Portland. I am so excited!

Question

You know those birds that WILL NOT fly, even if you are driving at them 50 mph? They just walk really really fast and have that funny thing sticking up on their head. If anyone is a bird expert I would like to know about these weird birds. Every morning I see them and think how obnoxious they are for never wanting to fly.

I just caught Ryley with her legs spread apart, peeing in our back yard! Why does she do that?!!

First for everything...

Jill and I were finally relaxing after a long day of monotonous nothingness when I decided to read our blog. I chuckled to myself as I read about Bo Duke and the poopy seeds. I figured that she puts so much work into writing that I need to fulfill my sensitive male side by writing also.

It seems that I've been in a vacuum of space and time for the past year or so. I've lost touch with reality I think. Case in point, recently JIll and I  found some really great friends in this area after losing all hope that there was anyone that we could really connect with. We were ready to throw in the towel and start wearing plaid coats with sweatshirt hoods, take up hunting "just for fun", and put a spoiler and colored windshield wipers on our cars... just to fit in. So we meet this couple and instantly hit it off. Now here's the weird part. It was as if we were dating all over again! I've never felt so non-heterosexual in my life. Jill would email and call Melanie constantly while Dave and I would stay up late nights discussing the history of the Quiche Mayan civilizations and their migratory patterns! It's really been great...but I think we need some time apart. It's really not them, it's us. No really...

Seriously though, it's been a real blessing for Jill to have someone to talk to during the day. It's important to have good friends whether near or far.