Snow!

I was trying to think of something interesting to blog about and coming up dry, and then it snowed today! Thank you weather for saving my less than exciting life at the moment. It's one of those parenting is hard, I don't like being pregnant, there is nothing to do and no money to do it with sorts of weeks and a lovely snow day was just what I needed to stop thinking about all that stuff and have a good afternoon. So skim past my small pity party and enjoy a few pics of my cute kids. :)

That's right, it actually snowed in South Carolina, like really snowed! The most I've seen in the last year since we moved here is a few flakes in the air. Today it legitimately snowed all afternoon and it may have stopped now, but it's dark so I can't tell. There's about an inch of snow on the ground, just a bit on the road, so nothing earth shattering, but enough to be fun to go play in for the kids and way  more than this place generally sees.

This has nothing to do with the snow, but the kids think it's amazing to hide out in the linen closet. Spencer gets a stool, climbs in, closes the door and then just sits there, occasionally asking for graham crackers. Genevieve pulls down all the blankets and makes a little nest for herself, then sits and sucks her fingers while cuddling her dog.

Look kids, snow! They were mesmerized.

Hey Mom, look, I've never seen anything like this!

See, the grass is white! Genevieve was not sure about this white stuff. She didn't want to walk on it at first and just wanted me to hold her. Then I showed her how to throw snow, and she was good to go. lol

He ran up and down this ramp a million times. It was awesome.

I'm so glad I caught this face for the picture. I taught her how to frown for the "If You Chance to Meet a Frown" song, and it looks like this. She loves it, and totally knows what it means. So yes, she really is frowning here about the snow. She's so not sure about the weirdness. I tried to take her inside and she decided snow was more fun than that. Especially once the throwing started. It wasn't good snowball snow, so we just threw chunks around. And a random sidenote, she discovered tonight that this is also a very good way to give kisses and proceeded to kiss all of us about a hundred times. She just kills me with her fantastic personality. :)

Happy Anniversary to us

Friday was our five-year anniversary. Years ago Bill and I foolishly thought that by the time we'd been married for five years we would be able to go on a cruise to celebrate. Silly us! Maybe at 10 years, but I'm not holding my breath. Turns out life kind of gets in the way of things like that. That's okay though. We're in a great place. Bill is enjoying is PhD program, I love South Carolina, the kids are happy. I couldn't really ask for anything else.

Friday I made a pretty tasty dinner: chili, cornbread, brussel sprouts, and Brazilian Caramel Flan to finish it off. Oh goodness that dessert was good. It made a bunch of little ramekins, so we have more for today.

We had intended to go test drive minivans yesterday, but I came down with pink eye instead and spent a good chunk of yesterday afternoon waiting to get seen and then shuttling to three different pharmacies to get some eye drops. It was not how either of us wanted to spend our day together, but oh well. We did make it to our dinner reservation at Calhoun Corners, a ritzy restaurant in town. It was so good. Bill and I both decided we'd go there again, though we probably won't because we don't go out to eat very often and we want to try out other places in town too. They had the best key lime pie I have ever tasted.

With the pink eye came a crazy cold. I've been fighting one cold or another since two days after Christmas. I would really be okay being healthy again. I ended up staying home from church today with Genevieve while Bill took Spencer. She woke up at 1AM this morning and we didn't get her back down until 3AM, so neither Bill nor I were particularly rested today. When it rains, it pours, that's all I can say.

So the five-year anniversary has been maybe not quite as momentous as I expected, but much more like normal life, and that's just fine. Someday we won't have babies to cuddle up with in the middle of the night, whether we want to be asleep or not. Someday we won't need a babysitter to watch our kids so we can go out to a simple dinner together. Though it can be rough in the thick of things, I don't wish these days away. Life changes much too fast for that. I'll take the colds and lack of sleep and enjoy this time while I've got it.

And here's a cute photo or two just because.

I re-ordered the furniture in our apartment and now the kids can actually sit at their little table in the dining room. Genevieve loves it.

These are the Lorax shorts. They're Spencer's and they're a few sizes too big for him, making them a few plus at least one or two sizes too big for Genevieve. She adores them. It's so amusing. I wish I had a picture of Spencer wearing three pairs of shorts all at once, which he has done for the last four days at least.

And this is the only picture I have of Spencer from this week. Well, I have one other one of him screaming.  He does that a lot at the moment. I hope it will all magically go away in two days when he turns three. Hahaha!

Finding Myself

I'm turning 31 in six days. I remember when I was a teenager and even when I was in my early 20s I thought that sounded so old. Funny, I don't feel old now, minus what pregnancy makes me feel like, but I do feel a lot more centered. I'm happy with my life in a way I could never say I was a decade or even half a decade ago. I didn't feel a need to make goals for what I would do before I hit 30 or that kind of thing, but my SIL and a friend both wrote posts in the last couple days about being happy with and  accepting themselves and it made me think on that subject. There are still some things that sometimes I think ought to be different or I ought to feel different about. Maybe I still need to let go of a few of those. But in general I like who I've become and I think it's a good exercise to acknowledge who I am to myself. So in no particular order, 31 things about myself that I'm embracing.

1. I always look on the bright side of any situation. I find little use for feeling bad about things the way they are, so I try to accept them, decide on my response, and move on. I don't like to feel bad, so I choose to find something positive in a situation and focus on that. 
2. I like change. It can come in many different ways, but the unknown adds spice to my life. If nothing is changing around me, I'll change something myself just to enjoy the novelty of newness.
3. I like solving problems. I get so much satisfaction out of fixing something, helping someone out, making something run better, etc. 
4. I have a driving need to create. I used to be a little embarrassed that I liked to do things like cross-stitch and crochet, but I just really do. I'm not much of an artist when it comes to drawing, but I get inspiration from things I see and recreate it or tweak it to how I like it better. 
5. I value education for the sake of education alone and not just what job I can have because of it. I find myself embarrassed at times that I went from finishing my master's degree straight to the child bearing years of my life without working in my field that I enjoy so much. I may never get back to it. Who knows what life will send my way? I don't regret my years in school in the slightest. I'd take more classes if the opportunity presented itself.
6.  I believe life is all about cycles and in this particular cycle in my life I'm a homebody. It takes way too much effort to coordinate everyone to go places. I prefer staying home and I usually stay in my PJs until the afternoon. My dream is to have a wonderful yard to play in someday so we're not stuck between these four walls.
7.  I love to save money. I feel more secure with money in the bank, but I also love having the money there to spend when I'm ready to spend it. No stress money decisions are my favorite. Since we are still not to that elusive having a real job and good income phase, every little bit counts.
8.  I'd rather wait to get something I really want that costs more than buy a cheap thing that isn't as nice.
9.  Any food I can make from scratch without a ton of effort, I will. The extra time it takes is enjoyable for me. I like knowing what goes into my food. The fact that my kids prefer crackers and fruit snacks to real food drives me a little crazy, though I was totally like that as a kid too.
10.  I like to live as natural as I can, within reason. I like the cost savings and the feel of a more simple life. I don't do it to make a statement or try to make others be like me. I just prefer cloth diapering, making my own home products, canning, cooking from scratch, etc. Using things I've created makes me happy.
11.  I can do without any packaged candy or dessert. I adore homemade ones though.
12.  For all the quality food I try to eat, I love Little Caesars pizza. I'd eat it multiple times a week if I didn't feels so bad afterwards.
13.  Exercising centers me and makes my viewpoint of the world around me more positive.
14. I run because it's an outlet for me to be competitive with myself and others around me. I don't have to share it with anyone or need a partner or group to do it.
15. Being in the outdoors makes me feel closer to the spirit. That's a major motivation for me to hike and camp.
16. I hate playing make believe. It bores me to tears. I'd rather read books than most any other activity with my kids. 
17. Any building toy that will keep my kid's attention without me being involved is worth the cost.  
18. I love to read, so much so that I neglect my kids, chores, my husband, etc when I have a good book. Therefore I read much less often than when I was younger and mostly in binges and then resurface to the world when I'm done. I prefer fantasy to any other genre and I will most likely never read another classic.
19. Playing the piano and singing calms me.
20. I love to build furniture. I find the design part is nearly as rewarding as the build itself. 
21. I like my house to be orderly. It doesn't have to be perfectly clean, I just don't like junk everywhere, crumbs on the counter, that kind of a thing.  
22. I love to entertain but I'm not good at initiating it. I love having friends in my home but have never gotten into the habit of inviting them.  
23. I love to talk to friends and family on the phone but a year of phone fundraising makes me cringe to pick up the phone and dial. I text like crazy since it doesn't seem to give me the same feeling.
24. Time to myself is worth its weight in gold. 
25. I've struggled for years to get enough sleep. I've always been a night owl, but my schedule is such that it is easier for me to get up super early to do my work before the kids are up. So I've slowly transitioned to going to be earlier at night and it makes me a much happier person. Someday I hope I won't have to work, and I hope I have more flexibility at that time because I really like to sleep in rather than get up at 5:30. However, I'll stay up late any night to watch old Star Trek episodes with my husband or read a book until the wee hours of the morning.
26. I love researching about new things to try. It's like a little pleasant surprise when I find something I want to start doing and can learn all about it.
27. I only follow current events and politics to the point that it doesn't make me angry. I find I don't fully agree with anyone's viewpoint out there in the popular media, and I prefer not to spend all my time riled up about it.
28. I prefer to be comfortable over looking cute. I like to be both, but I rarely choose discomfort for fashion.
29. I like acquiring things. Not pointless stuff just to have it, but useful things, like a nice set of dishes, or tools for particular projects. It's nice to feel self-sufficient in that way.
30. I dream of owning my own home and all the things that come with that. We're still a few years away from that dream, so I do my best to make our current living arrangements feel permanent rather than living like we're in transition.
31. I do my best to be happy. I've spent enough time in my life feeling depressed. It's awful. I do my best to enjoy the present and hope for good things to follow.

Gradimatated

I've mentioned before here that Spencer was doing speech and occupational therapy to help with his eating issues. We've been doing it for about six months until this week. This week he graduated. Yay for him!

I'd like to say that means he no longer has any problems eating, but that would be wishful thinking. However, we have learned so, so, so many things and he's made leaps and bounds in his ability to deal with this issue that is so hard for him. We had gotten to the point where we went to the sessions and he was happy to do whatever they wanted there, but it didn't translate to him doing that at home. We together decided this was a good place to stop for now. We'll check back probably in the fall if we feel like there is a need, but I don't think that will happen. If anything, I've learned so much I think we'll be able to handle any new challenges that come up.

Spencer's issue has always been that he struggles to try new food. It scares him to pieces. We tried so many different things to help him, and I feel like we've gotten to a much better place now. He's not scared of eating at the table. He doesn't freak out about food. We can communicate that he does or doesn't want to try something. It's going to take years to not be a super picky eater, but the lines of communication are there now and we are all in this together.

I think the most valuable thing coming out of this therapy is actually what I've learned. I'm sure I will learn this again in the future, but what I really learned is to not compare my kids to the "norm", whatever that is. It's not like I intended to, but when you start to see issues with your kids, it's so natural to start looking around and making comparisons. I've realized over the course of the last six months that Spencer is his own little person who will develop in his own way, and that is not comparable to anyone else. He is ridiculously advanced in some areas and not in others. But everything comes. At first I worried he was going to have all these major problems, but I don't feel that way at all anymore. He just is going to do things the way he does it. If i try to force him into some framework that seems normal, I will just be frustrated. It was a great learning experience for me. It helps with Genevieve too and our future kids. I have learned, at least a bit, how to just deal with each of my kids individually and let them be how they're going to be. I'd call that a huge success.

So yes, we've graduated from speech and occupational therapy, me as much as Spencer. Yay for us!

And now here's a few cute picture of the kiddos from this week.

Genevieve wanted to wear Spencer's shorts. She loved it when we let her. :)

This is the kids' new favorite nest. They alternate between climbing up on all the blankets or pulling them all down to nest in.

16 Months and Nearly 3

I haven't done an update on the kids lately on here, so here goes.

Spencer:

If you ask Spencer how old he is, he'll tell you he's almost 3. He's been almost 3 for months. It just seems like it's taken forever to get to this birthday. I'm not sure why. We'll be celebrating his 3rd birthday in a couple weeks and he'll be so happy to say he is actually 3 at that point. :)

I asked him today how old he thought I was. 80! was his answer. Bill and I just busted up laughing when he said it. I don't think he realized how funny it was. :)

He's always been super into letters and numbers and has been able to read both dating back to when Genevieve was born and he was 19 months old. Lately Bill has been teaching him how to spell a few words. Bill resurrected an old school keyboard that is at least as old as he is from the wind tunnel and bought no less than two adapters to get it to connect to our computer. It's super loud when you press each key and the kids love it. Spencer wants to come and type words on the computer now. The three words he knows? "Cat", "dog", and "BYU." Good boy!

He is still into bartering for everything. It goes back to the numbers thing, and that he still struggles with eating quite a bit. We're always talking about how many bites of whatever he needs to eat before he can go play. He'd much rather be playing than eating, so we try to work with him on that. It's hard to find what motivates him, but we're working on it and things get better slowly, ever so slowly.

We've been working lately on his first reaction to things he doesn't like. As is fairly typical at his age, when someone tells him now, he immediately starts screaming. We've been trying to teach him to talk through things first and it's really having good results. He's always been super reasonable to talk to, and he's only getting better the more his language skills improve. We've been teaching him more polite ways to ask for things and it's the cutest thing when he says "May I please have another graham cracker," or some such thing.

He's still my shadow. He loves to be wherever I am and doing whatever I'm doing. I'm okay with that. He's a great little side kick.

He'll smile for a picture now if I ask him to. It's a total cheesy grin, which makes me laugh every time.

He still loves the Lorax, but has added Finding Nemo to his favorite movies list as well as Monsters Inc. and Monsters University. He'd watch movies all day if he could actually. Heck, sometimes I feel like doing that too. :)

He also loves to play the piano. Before we went to church today he asked when he was going to get to play the piano. He means the one in the primary room. I take him to play it after church and he just loves it. He gets down the primary songbook and sits and picks out his own little tunes for a few minutes. He's never been a piano pounder. When he's older I'm definitely going to get him into lessons. I'm already amazed to hear little pleasing sounding tunes come from his playing. It blows me away to hear him go.

He's a great little helper. He likes things to be in order, so emptying the dishwasher or putting away clothes is right up his alley.

I just love this oldest son of mine. He seems to be coming out of his terrible twos a bit at a time, and I couldn't be happier. The ability to reason with a child opens so many amazing doors. Here's to more of that!

Genevieve:

Genevieve is a little firecracker. She knows what she wants and nothing much stops her from getting it. She's a crazy climber. We have folding chairs at our kitchen table that we've had since we moved here and never replaced the ones we left behind. It's really helpful because now we can fold them up after every meal. Otherwise the instant she sees one she is up on the table, then onto the countertop. That girl is fast!

She's mischievous. She has the cutest little sense of humor. She knows how to get people to laugh and seemingly relishes doing it. She's still pretty standoffish with other people, but she likes to talk to them from a distance.

She's not really a center of attention type of kid. She is still kind of iffy on adults. She adores Bill and if he's around she tolerates me. I exaggerate slightly there, but really, if she wakes up crying at night she'd rather have him than me. If she's sad and he's holding her and I try to take her, she screams and tries to get back to him. It generally works out alright since Spencer is my little shadow, but she's still in the wanting to be held when she's unhappy stage and so Bill spends way more time than he'd really like with our 25-pound "baby" in his arms.  She's been going through a rough stretch with an ear infection, all four eye teeth coming in at the slowest, most painful rate possible, and what seems to be the early onset of her terrible twos. She just gets way more easily distressed than she ever used to and I hope some of these things clear up so she can be a bit more sunshiney. When she's happy it's wonderful. It's just not as often as it used to be.

She has never liked a pacifier, but ever since her eye teeth have been coming, she discovered our stash of binkies and has been chewing on them incessantly. She doesn't suck on them, just chews them slightly off center in her mouth. It's pretty amusing to watch, and I'm glad she's found something to help her teeth because I can only imagine how sore her mouth is.

She is talking up a storm. We didn't do this until way later with Spencer, but we taught her please/thank you/you're welcome early on and she'll use them. The other I asked her to say thank you and instead she said you're welcome. She's got this teeny tiny voice and it's just so cute to hear her talk. She says dog, puppy, shoes, boots, hat, cat, please, thank you, you're welcome, Spencer, mommy, daddy, jacket, milk, frog, horse, lion, camel, monkey, and loads of other things that I just can't think of at the moment. She seems to pick stuff up so fast as a second child. I'm always amazed the concepts that come so much more easily with a big brother to mimic.

Genevieve loves to help out too. She will go get things, put stuff away, and loves to help with anything I'm doing. I have to have two chairs in the kitchen whenever I cook so both kids can be standing up there helping me. It's crazy, but fun.

She already loves nursery at church. She's still a few weeks away from being in there officially, but we just go in with her and she could care less that we're there. She loves to play with all the toys and being around all the other kids doesn't faze her at all.

One thing she and Spencer both get way better now that they are both bigger is the concept of not taking a toy another kid is playing with. We work on that a lot at home and they don't really do it well there, but at nursery they are really well mannered about stuff like that, which is so nice. Sometimes they'll still take a toy from another kid, but they'll give it back on prompting, which is definite progress over six months ago.

Genevieve loves to read books. She likes to be read to and read them herself. She assumes that mine and Bill's laps are always available for her to plop down in with a book and be read to. Turns out they generally are so her assumption isn't far off. :)

Spencer is a super affectionate kid, and it's not that Genevieve isn't, but if you compare them she's way  more standoffish. It's part of her sense of humor though. If you ask her for a hug she may come running or she may turn around and run the other way, waiting to get chased.

We're just discovering she loves to throw balls and such. We pulled out a frisbee the other night and she caught the hang of it almost immediately. I'm not one to pin my kids into boxes, and we'll give them all plenty of opportunities, but I'm already betting she's going to love to play sports. I'm undecided on that point with Spencer. Maybe yes, maybe no. Time will tell.

Genevieve knows how to make things fun. She spent at least half an hour the other day wandering around the house with the clothes hamper on her head. It came down to her shins. She would squat down to pick things up and get bothered when they were outside the circle, but when it fell off she immediately brought it back to Bill to put it back on.

I don't know if I'll have another girl baby. I think this next one is a boy, though we won't know until February or March. So in the meantime, I love this little girl of mine. I love watching her grow and develop into her own person.

DIY

I don't think I've mentioned anything about it here, but I've spent the last few months trying out a bunch of DIY home care items, both cleaners and other things. It feels a little like being in a middle school science class again, mixing bunches of ingredients and making cool things.

A number of factors influenced my desire to start doing this stuff. I rediscovered the Skin Deep Database. It allows you to enter in just about any makeup, shampoo, conditioner, deodorant, skin care product, etc., and breaks it down into what harmful chemicals are in them and rates the product on a scale of 0-10. It's enlightening and frightening at the same time to see what seemingly innocuous products have some pretty nasty things in them. Besides that, I am always looking for ways to simplify, save a bit of money, and be healthier. Toting two kids to the store, soon to be three, gets tiresome. Some would disagree, but I find making my own things is way less stressful to me because I don't have to leave the house to buy yet another product.

I already make a lot of stuff we eat from scratch, so it wasn't that much of a stretch to move to other things. I've tried my hand at my own windex, all purpose cleaner, and dishwasher detergent. The first two have been great, but we decided after load after load of not quite clean dishes came out of our dishwasher that we preferred the dishwasher detergent from the store. But besides that, Dawn, vinegar, hot water, washing, soda, and borax are pretty amazing things. I've been making my own laundry detergent for several years and still do that. It saves me so much money.

Lately I've moved on to all the bathroom personal care products we use. I made my own deodorant and am pretty happy with that. I just started using a homemade shampoo and conditioner, which is basically just baking soda and water for one and apple cider vinegar and water for the other. I'm seriously impressed. So far I can't tell the difference. If it continues, I'm happy to never buy shampoo and conditioner again. Bill and I just started picking up some ingredients to make our own soap. That's going to be a bigger project, and I can't wait. Oh, I made my own loose powder and blush as well, which works great.  Hello, each of those cost like $20 a pop. There's something so satisfying discovering a few simple ingredients that do the same thing as the stuff I've bought for years. We do fine financially, but we're still a PhD family. That does not equate to wealth, and the money isn't going to get any better the longer we're here, so I feel like little things like not buying some of these products every month makes a big difference over the long run. Plus, I'm a closet nerd, and the idea of seeing saponification in action when we make soap in the next few weeks sounds really fascinating. :)

I've pinned all the sites I got recipes from or want to try sometime soon on my DIY board on Pinterest if you want to see where I got my info.