Thankful Thursday

This is what I'm thankful for today. Not just snow, but a second chance to enjoy the snow! We didn't get outside to play when it snowed at Christmas, so we feel especially blessed that God sent us a great amount of beautiful white powdery goodness! 

Julia had so much fun today. This morning she looked out the window and said, "Mommy can we put our shoes on, and pants on, and sots on, and shirts on, and jattets on, and nose on, and eyes on..." and i'm just sitting there anxious for her to finish and say "and go outside?!" In that moment I just couldn't wait to say "YES! Let's do it!" 


Strangely enough, it took her longer than expected to get ready to go outside. But hey, we did it and wonderful memories were made. The snow was kind of hard this morning so i couldn't really roll it up good and my snowmen were really tiny. So we threw snowballs at each other, and at our window (Riley was just inside, working from home on his laptop). Cue Julia's giggles. 


Then I laid her down to make a snow angel, she didn't really get it but laughed! My mental camera was flashing like crazy. The look on her face as she lied there with her eyes closed tightly and the giddy smile that stretched across her precious face. Ahhh yes, i am thankful.

While I was cooking dinner, Riley took her outside again, this time in the back of our apartment, there was a lot thicker snow. He pulled out a broken down box from the patio and used it as a sled. I couldn't get very good pix since I was taking them from inside the glass door, but I'm just thankful that our camera stayed awake long enough to capture a couple. (It's been majorly on the fritz lately, which is another reason to be thankful that we'll be getting our Nikon soon!)

From the sound of it (good ol' meteorologists makin' those economists look good!), we should get to have more snowy fun tomorrow. Woohoo! What are you thankful for?

On second thought...

those of you that know me (who else reads my blog?!) know that for a really long time, i wanted to have a lot of kids. like somewhere between 5 and 8. no one told me that might change after having one or two.

after having julia, i was pretty content for a few months and even thought that i would be okay if i never had anymore-- she was perfect! but of course as she approached her first birthday, i started wanting another one. not right away, but by the time she was 2 or 3 i was hoping to have another. a boy, at that. it took a little longer for riley to feel the same way, but i'm glad that eventually we both were okay with getting pregnant again. only a couple months after we stopped preventing, we found out that #2 was on the way!

we were thrilled but nervous, and i was definitely eager to find out that i was having a riley 2.0!

fast forward to august, 2009. zip-zip-zip...

being a mom just got a little somewhat A WHOLE LOT harder! and math doesn't work the same anymore. taking care of two kids isn't just twice as much work as one kid. the increase in difficulty is exponential, my friends! just to give you an example, here is a typical rundown of how things go just to get out the door: feed josiah and change his diaper . get julia dressed. decide there's no time to change josiah's shirt so just wipe the spit up off with a burpie. put julia's socks and shoes on. put josiah in the carseat. put julia's shoes and socks on again, because she took them off. sing to josiah so he stops whining. take julia potty. make sure i have everything i need in the diaper bag. nope, where's that thing i need? put the toy bar that julia ripped off josiah's carseat back on the handle. fill up julia's sippy cup. find that thing i needed. where are my keys? and my sunglasses? put julia's socks and shoes on again. no, julia you can't take your doll stroller in the car. stop whining, we need to go. out the door we go. julia, wait for me. julia, stop! (running down the sidewalk towards the parking lot)... finally everybody's all buckled into the car, and i realize my cell phone is still on the charger/bar/nightstand/desk/wherever. ugh. you get the picture. and that's just the abbreviated version!

cleaning is harder. naptime is harder. and when it does happen, julia wakes josiah up, or i spend one of their naptimes trying to get the other one to nap. it helps when riley's home because he can help with one while i put the other one down. i'm thankful that julia has finally stopped trying to pick josiah up, now it's just a matter of keeping her voice down while he's sleeping!

there's so much more, but i digress. you moms of more than one know what i mean. alas, i have gradually gotten to the point where "eight kids?! on second thought, i'm good." don't get me wrong, i think it would be totally awesome as a grandma to have a whole bunch of adult children. but right now, it's too hard just with two! maybe i never thought through the fact that i'd have to see eight babies from birth through the toddler years. 

i have to bite my tongue when i hear yet-to-be-parents talk about their grand intentions of having lots of children. "ha! just wait till you have ONE!" seriously though, i wish them well. 

as for me, i have to really try hard to depend on the Lord for grace, and remember that it IS sufficient. children are a blessing, and while i would recognize that if i ever did get pregnant again, at the moment i'm pretty happy with our family just being a foursome! one boy, one girl, no minivan, one hand for each. 

not that i'm scheduling a tubal ligation or anything, but i just don't have the desire for more babies. i applaud and admire large families, and even felt guilty when at first i realized i no longer wanted to have a lot (after all, we're supposed to be fruitful and multiply right?!) but hey, if anybody has experienced this it's me: God is more than welcome to change my heart! and hey, I LOVE AND CHERISH MY TWO WONDERFUL, ADORABLE KIDDOS!

Almost there!

Riley and I have been wanting to get a DSLR for quite some time now. We both have somewhat of an eye for creative photography, and since our regular digital camera has been on the fritz lately, we've stepped it up a notch to save towards this bad boy:

 

This is the Nikon D5000. I don't know a whole lot about DSLRs but am aware of the competition between Canon and Nikon. Riley knew that he preferred Nikon but we still did a lot of research to make sure exactly what we thought would be best. It also helps that there is a discount program that we can buy from through his work. Woohoo! So we've been selling stuff and doing odd jobs to rack up enough cash to buy it and we are almost there! We're just waiting on a refund check for our old monitor that lost 1/3 of the screen and was still under warranty.

I'm so excited! Even though I've never even taken a picture with a DSLR (or an SLR for that matter!) and have so much to learn. Who knows, I may even get good enough at it to start a business! One can dream, right? It's no secret that I do love taking pictures of children... 
=)

Let's get physical!

That's the song that our P.E. teacher played every week during class in elementary school. I don't know the other words so don't attack me if it means something beyond exercise.

Ok!...so, Riley and I joined a gym! I'm totally excited. I've been wanting to for a while now. It's the 24 hour fitness like 3 minutes from us, they have free childcare (major points!), and it's cheaper than most of the other clubs I looked into. so yay. we're getting in shape! My goal is to work out 3 times a week. Some cardio each time, and alternate arms-legs-abs workouts also. I've also tried out a couple classes. I've heard a lot of great things about Zumba, but it just didn't do it for me. As far as dancing goes, I'll stick with Lindyhop. The spin class was great though. Well except for the first 5-10 minutes which royally sucked because I'd never done it before and the seat hurt my bum like nobody's business! So I'll probably do that again. May try some yoga or other classes too.

Had my fitness orientation last week, although it got cut short because Josiah needed a diaper change so they had to page me since they don't take care of that. My body fat is 19% which I could care less about, I just want to look and feel better and be healthier. We're going to have a followup next week so he can show me some stretches that will help some funky leg posture thingy he noticed.

I started the couch to 5k thing again on the treadmill, the 1st one was a piece of cake, so i'll probably just skip ahead to week 2 next time. yay! we're going to get in shape, and i'm so thrilled.

Just because I don't have pictures...

...doesn't mean I can't blog! I think that's why I don't do it more often, because the thought always pops up in my head, "Oh I'd have to take a picture to make it interesting." well phooey. If it's boring then it's boring. I've decided to write anyway! So, without further ado, this is the end of a photo-less blog. Go Me!