Update on Goals

Good thing I did not make blogging more regularly part of my “goals” for this year. It’s been so long since I’ve looked at my blog that I missed the spam comment I received on my last post. 

During my blog absence I have been working on my goals for 2015.

 I just finished up my last spring semester of my master’s program and I only lack three hours (one course) to graduate in the fall. I will be completing an internship in the fall and I will be finished. My degree program does not require the completion of an internship, but I really want the experience since I will not be pursuing a job immediately upon graduating. I was also not crazy about paying tuition for the internship since basically you are working for free. However, I found a scholarship to apply for that awards $1000 upon completing an internship. I applied and I was awarded the scholarship. So yea for not paying tuition for my final course!

I have not lost 30 pounds yet, but I also did not put forth any effort until the beginning of April. So far I have lost 12 pounds with seven months of the year left to try and lose 18 more.

We did manage to fly last week with both of our kiddos. After I finished my final paper of the semester we left for Florida. We flew into Orlando with a quick layover in Dallas where we met up with the grandparents (yea for extra help!). Once in Orlando we drove to Saint Augustine, FL.

Saint Augustine is the oldest city in the country off of the Atlantic coast. The beach was beautiful and it did not feel as terribly humid as it does on the Gulf of Mexico side.

These pictures were from the first leg of the trip to from OKC to Dallas.

 Here is Blake's first walk on the beach.

 This is Bonnie in her swim suit for the first time.

And here is our little girl waiting to board at the plane on the way home. It was a fun trip, and the children did very well with flying and going through the airport.

No resolutions just goals

For 2015 we decided to set goals for the upcoming year which we have never intentionally done before to begin a new year. This seems like a better idea than resolutions since some people tend to think resolutions are meant to be broken. I slightly agree with that sentiment because you are just setting yourself up to mess up once and ruin it if you resolve to work out every day, quit caffeine, or sugar intake.

I've decided to share my goals on here to a smaller audience rather than Facebook. I'm just not feeling that bold and probably not many people really care either.

For 2015 my goals are to graduate with my masters degree and to lose thirty pounds. A shared goal we came up with was to travel somewhere by plane sometime this year whether that is with or without the children.

Graduating was sort of my "easy" goal and the weight loss is my more challenging goal. The traveling was a goal set just for fun.

Christmas was a fun time this year getting together with family four different times. I really enjoyed my big boy and little girl to spend time with while daddy was off work for a while.

We updated our family picture with Bob's family.

And we have a new picture of our Santa Baby.

Meeting Thomas!

Our little boy has an obsession with any kind of vehicle. He loves to sing "The Wheels on the Bus" and enjoys lining up all of his cars and trucks. The obsession is all encompassing and of course it includes Thomas the Train. Before I had a child of my own I was aware of this PBS show, but I did not understand how such a simple little show was so loved by so many children. Being a  parent hasn't provided me with any extra insight, but I know that my son LOVES Thomas. Whenever he sees Thomas come on the television he says "Toot Toot!"

Since he is so entranced by the show we thought this year it might be appropriate to take him to see Thomas the Train at the Oklahoma Railway Museum this year. They had the same event last year, but it seemed a little silly to bring a barely one year old boy.


 The main event was getting to ride Thomas the Train.

Blake loved getting to see Thomas the Train, but actually riding the train was not his favorite part.

 

 He spent a good amount of time playing at one of the train tables they had set up.

They also had other free activities live entertainment, free tattoos, a moon bounce, a line to meet Sir Topham Hat, and a playground area. For next year we now know that we won't have to buy everybody a train ticket. We will probably just buy one for Blake and one for a parent to go with him. We really don't bother too much with taking Blake on an outing that we are not sure he is going to like, fortunately this was a fun experience for him and we will probably go again in the future.

We have a two year old now

I am trying to fight the slow painful death of my blog. All of my good intentions seem to amount into nothing, but oh well. We are busy living life with a now two year old boy!

What do two year old boys like to do? Well, all I can say is what our two year old boy likes to do.

He likes to line up his vehicles and count them. 

He likes to build with blocks and read his birthday card.

He loves to climb, play, and slide at the playground.

 He likes to line up his ducks and sing "I'm a little duck and God made me."

For his birthday party, I thought I was keeping it low key by serving dinner and dessert and having a pool party for the kids in the backyard. We just had local family over except Bob's parents came from Fort Worth so it made for a packed house. It was fun and we enjoyed everyone coming over to celebrate, but I am really not sure how to downscale from this.

All of the babies at the party were intrigued by the Sesame Street wrapping paper, so we had to open that present first!

Blake had a fun time in the pool with his cousins. He never seemed to enjoy the pool as much after having them over to play in it with him. So there's hope that he'll appreciate having a little sister to play with for next summer!

big blog hiatus

If anyone has noticed, my blog has been neglected for the past 2-3 months. Life has been happening and we have been busy.

The beginning of May I was finishing my spring semester of grad school on May 7th and I had plans to take two summer intercession courses which were from May 12th-June 30th.

For some reason I had a grand idea that we should sneak in a quick family get-away/vacation between my spring and summer classes. Yes, a whole four days off did not give us much time to work with. We booked a trip to Denver, CO to visit one of Bob's cousins and explore the city of Denver. Once we had the trip planned and booked I realized that it fell on Mother's Day weekend, OOPS! We took care of our moms beforehand and I believe all was forgiven.

This was our second plane trip with our little man, and once again we were fortunate to not have any traumatic episodes or meltdowns. We even had a major delay leaving OKC and he did amazing.

During our time in Denver it happened to snow 3-5 inches, which even for Denver that is quite out of the norm for the beginning of May. Luckily, the snow we experienced in Denver was nothing like I've ever seen in Oklahoma City. Their snow was soft and fluffy and came right off the car in one big swoop. The only snow I've experienced in Oklahoma is the kind with a ton of ice on top or underneath it and it is incredibly difficult to scrape off the car or drive on the roads safely. This was so not the case fortunately. This is a picture of when the snow first started to accumulate outside our hotel.

 One of the major highlights of the trip for us was going to the Children's Museum in Denver. It was a toddler's dream come true. This place is very much deservedly on the Forbes top ten list of children's museums. Our little guy had  a blast and wore him self completely out.

 We also went to a place called tiny town that was near the more mountainous area of Denver and they had a little town, park, and a train to ride. My only regrets are that he was just so incredibly tired from the time zone change and most of the places we went to opened late in the morning, which meant we were usually there close to his nap time.

Here we are on the train

 

 And here's little man going down the slide.

 

Unfortunately, nap time was usually spent at the hotel for three hours during the day. He was one tired boy during the trip.

We had fun getting away for a little bit and now I've been finished with my summer course for a little over a week now. No school for me for the month of July so I will try to continue bringing the blog up to speed on our busy lives.

Crunchy or not?

Three years ago if I were asked what makes you a crunchy mom I would have been baffled. I had heard the term before, but that was about it. That terminology was not in my vocabulary and understanding yet. Now, I know oh so much more about it. Although I do a couple of things which are considered "crunchy" it is not because I am trying to be a "crunchy mom". Those things just happen to be convenient and fit my lifestyle. I know I have friends/acquaintances (because they've shared their thoughts on social media about it) who cannot fathom why somebody would bother messing with cloth diapers. I'm fairly certain they are not familiar with the new technology of cloth diapers and they are thinking about the old school kind. Even with new advancements in the cloth diaper world I can also understand why someone would not want to choose that option because it might not fit their lifestyle.

Anyway, I feel most crunchy practices boil down to preferences. Some people may not care for it or it's not their cup of tea while others become fluent in the crunchy mom world. No matter how you swing this video is good for a few laughs.

Your two cents?

I try to avoid debates and drama on Facebook, but this time the subject matter has sucked me in and I can't find my way out. So now I must turn to my mostly reasonable and sensible half dozen readers on here :)

The topic is on storm shelters in schools. I am highly interested because I am a former teacher and have had some instances where severe weather was indeed a threat.

Kelly Ogle from the local news channel 9 does a feature called My Two Cents. This time it is in response to a Moore Senator's plan to adjust the school calendar so that school is not in session during prime tornado season.

Here he is responding to the Senator's plan.
Here is the original story.

If you read those links you should be up to speed now.

What is my take on this? I am fully aware that storm shelters in schools is going to be very expensive and take time to construct, but I feel they are still very necessary. I think the Senator's plan is a wonderful temporary plan which can be utilized until our schools are equipped with tornado shelters or safe rooms, even if it takes several years to achieve this.

After reading several of the comments from the Facebook users it is very clear that everyone is not in agreement.

1. People don't want to spend money (increase taxes).
2. There are some who are of the opinion that "good" parents can  pull their children out of school when severe weather is a threat.
3. Schools are not babysitters.

There are many more thoughts out there, but I can only bear to read so many of them.

I think the plan is a fine temporary plan, but I can just see them changing the school calendar and then we turn around and a huge F5 tornado will make its way through in April. Number two really bothered me. These people must not understand nor are familiar with jobs that fall under the category of public servants. Police officers, EM T's, nurses, doctors, teachers and several other occupations require them to report to work and do their job so that other people benefit.

It's really sad because the teachers seem like the biggest losers in this situation. Most teachers do not have the luxury to go and retrieve their own children when severe weather becomes an issue and school is in session. No, they have to stay at school with other people's children and do their best to keep them safe in a building which most likely does not have a storm shelter. Plus several educators are married to each other which makes it even more difficult for them to go get their child. Which is why #2 bothers me so much. Yes, lots of people are very fortunate to be able to leave their job quickly in an emergency situation, they probably work in an office type setting though. If I were still teaching and my child were in school I would probably arrange for my dad to go pick him up and take him to our house where we have a storm shelter. Again, not everyone has these options. I've also stayed at school during severe weather while other teachers were allowed to leave while I took on their students. It wasn't a big deal and usually there were only about 10 or fewer students left in class by then because parents did come and pick them up (which I am not against, parents should be allowed this option and not be penalized). Anyway, teachers have to give and take in those situations, unfortunately.

Number three: schools are not babysitters. Technically no, they are not, but our children do spend nine months out of the year in school and most of the day time hours. A storm shelter can be necessary during other months of the year because tornadoes do occur during other times of the year.

I'm also of the opinion that neighborhood residents should not rely on use of the school's storm shelter. If it is not school hours then the building should not be opened up specifically for people to come take shelter. Sounds harsh or even wasteful huh? Allowing public access causes  an array of issues. How many people can you let in? Can you turn people away? When do you shut the door to cut off access? Even traveling to come up and open the building could be a safety issue if there is little time to take shelter. People should continue to stick with or implement a severe weather plan if they do not already have one.

By having the storm shelters the schools can have an easier time protecting children (no it is not fool proof) and hopefully we will not have tragic situations where students do not survive a tornado while in school.

Now that I have ranted, rambled a bit, and probably left some stuff out, what do you think? Do you have any other thoughts I did not address or have a better plan? I would like to hear from you.

Birthdays and weird weather

Bob and I have birthdays within a week of each other which is nice and convenient at times. It's interesting because even though it is winter our Oklahoma weather has a hard time making up its mind. Here is Blake on daddy's birthday playing outside.

Then the day after my birthday this is going down.

Although my birthday usually comes along with a little bit of snowy weather. Remember this?

This doesn't have anything to do with the title of my post, but this week we also got to go on our first trip to Children's hospital. Everything is fine now, but yesterday morning was a little too eventful to say the least.

Blake fell down and hit his head.  
His symptoms afterwards resembled a concussion to me so I decided it was best to take him in and get him checked out. I knew this was going to happen one day with my spirited child and it probably won't be our last trip to the ER either.

I'm not sure if this is how things go down in a children's ER, but they were really happy and kept saying, "oh, he's going to be fine." The doctor came in to check him one last time and said, "oh he's eating? He's fine." I guess they are used to dealing with parents who are not being very calm, but it just came across as if they were not very concerned. I'm sure they took good care of him and it is just the daily of occurrences in the ER that probably numbs them a bit.

This is where Blake hit his head :( Poor baby!

 Here he is afterwards eating some snacks I brought along. I'm glad I had those otherwise he would not have sat in the examination room while we waited.

After being cooped up inside due to all the snow, this was not my ideal choice of an outing. Oh well, life happens and Mr. Blake has already bounced back from this.

New Year Challenge

My very brave cousin started a blog to share her weight loss goals and journey for 2014. In her latest post she ended it with this challenge for herself and her readers: Name 5 positive things about yourself and name 3 things you like about your body. Here it goes, I think I might struggle completing this perhaps due to a lack of self esteem and also partly to not come across as delusional. I think it can be easier to list these things about other people rather than for yourself.

Name 5 positive things about yourself: *****

1. I am punctual and complete things in a timely manner.
2. I can cook and bake food that is quite tasty.
3. I am honest. Here's an interesting article I came across this week. Bob and I must be incredibly trustworthy ;)
   
4. I am dependable.
5. I like to try new things.

Name 3 things you love like about your body: *****

1. I can get a tan in moderate sunlight exposure while wearing sunscreen.
2. My dimples (on my face ;)
3. My arms, I like that they are a good length for reaching things, but right now they could probably benefit from some lifting and toning exercises.  

Well, that was a fun little self evaluation exercise. I kept realizing that some of my positive attributes tend to come across in the extreme and sometimes don't seem very positive. I guess that is something I can work on this year. Happy new year folks. I'll leave you with a cute picture of me and the kitty from this morning.

A Merry Little Christmas

I always love this time of year and celebrating Christmas with family and friends. Besides keeping up with my roles of wifey and Blake's mommy I tend to take on extra projects and activities during this time of year. They are never a burden and I enjoy each moment and the busyness. I realize others may not care for being busy and how hectic this time of year can be, but I guess the extrovert part of me thrives on it.

At the beginning of the month I was able to attend the Christmas party at my former school where I taught for four years. I have also made it a tradition to bring by cookies to my former coworkers before Christmas break. The first thing the music teacher said the year I announced I was not returning after having my baby was, "Who is going to make us cookies?" So far I have kept up the tradition of bringing them cookies for two years. Plus it is a good reason to come by, visit, and catch up with everyone.

 A few days before Christmas Blake got the cutest set of tiny books in the mail from a relative. I don't have much else to say about that, but I had to post the picture. I just love my little book worm!

 

 I was a little bit late getting Blake in to see Santa this year. I knew he wasn't going to like it, so here is my unhappy baby taking his picture with Santa.

This year I decided to take on a project to make something for my grandmother. During the spring I saw a pin on Pinterest around Mother's day showing how this lady made a present for her mother who had several grandchildren. I pinned the pin and was determined to make one as a Christmas gift for my grandmother of all her great grandchildren. Here is how that turned out.

 

Christmas Eve was spent with my grandmother, her five children plus spouses, her twelve grandchildren plus spouses, along with most of the great grandchildren.  We had to reserve the Family Life Center at our church in order to accommodate that many people. I failed to take any pictures, but I had a good time visiting with everyone, played Dirty Santa and won a Starbucks gift card.

Christmas morning was a little more exciting this year since Blake seemed to understand that there were (presents) new books for him to look at and read.

Two hours later he eventually tore off the wrapping paper on the box which is next to him on the couch :) I look forward to him comprehending more and being more involved as he gets older.

My sister and I along with our families went over to my parent's house for Christmas lunch and more presents. Yet again, I did a poor job remembering to take pictures, but here is a nice Christmas picture of my sister and me plus the hubbies and children.

 I really try to not make a habit of showing off my presents on the Internet, but at least this isn't on Facebook. Here is an unexpected gift from my hubby: A Snow White Cookie Jar. She is simply gorgeous! Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs has to be one of my favorite classic Disney animated films. I also have a ceramic figurine set that I hope to display in a china  cabinet one day. For now I will just have to settle for staring at this gorgeous piece every day in my kitchen.

That has been most of our activities thus far for the Christmas season. We still have more relatives to visit and presents to give which will probably leak over into the new year. For now I am probably signing off for the remainder of 2013. Happy New Year and God bless!

Snow day fun

In Oklahoma a snow day doesn't necessarily mean the ground is covered in snow. Rather, snow fell from the sky and the roads have become an icy mess which are undesirable to use for traveling in a car. None the less our church cancelled services this morning and we got to stay inside our cozy house all day.

I didn't think much of our activities from today until I saw a friend post on Facebook that they had used their snow day to bake cookies. We spent some time in our kitchen too. Actually it went something like this:

I made pumpkin spice waffles for breakfast.
My husband brewed a small batch of beer.
I made Hawaiian Roll Ham and Swiss sliders for lunch.
I made pumpkin cookies with cream cheese frosting.
My husband made pepperoni rolls for dinner.
I made pumpkin dip for a potluck for Bob's work tomorrow.
And Bob browned some hamburger meat to get ready for the taco soup he's taking to work in the morning.

Whew!!! I guess we both don't mind spending time in the kitchen. At least that's what we chose to do with our lazy day we had ahead of us.

What do you enjoy doing when you're stuck in the house on a "snow day"?

Containment

Ever since our little boy has become mobile there has been an ever increasing effort to keep him contained within a room and not be able to escape (get into things he shouldn't be getting into). We felt comfortable having the kitchen completely closed off and letting him have free reign over the living room and dining room area...until recently. The other night I posted this picture on Facebook.

Here is what prompted that set up.

  

 Keeping the chairs pushed in did not help at all. He would just crawl under the table, push the chair out, climb into the chair, and then climb on top of the table! When I first caught him I just thought he was having a good ole time pushing the chairs around in the kitchen and I went in there to check and there he was on top of the table. Our sweet monkey boy just wants to climb everything. Now it is just a matter of training mom and dad with the new system. One of us forgot to replace our chair after a meal and he promptly went over to climb in it.

Happy 1st Birthday!

Labor Day weekend we celebrated Blake's first birthday. It has been an incredible year of changes and firsts.

For his birthday we did another photo session at JCP and purchased the CD this time, so I can legally share the pictures here on the blog.

Here is a collage I had them make up. It's only 9 pictures. The first two rows are 1-6 months and the bottom row is 8, 11, and 12. I think 5 months old is the chunkiest he's ever been because he's always been so tall. Once he would start to get chunky he would grow some more in length :( We have tall baby problems over here at our house. Also, his jersey for his 12 month picture actually has a 12 on it. That was a lucky coincidence.

 And here is a new born picture just to compare some more.

 We invited both sides of our families over to eat lunch and watch a ceremonial cake smashing and present opening event. We opted for a banana pudding cupcake from a bakery in More called Baked! Bananas seemed safe since he likes eating them and anything super sweet he really doesn't care for and we were wanting a guaranteed cake smashing  to go down. And our little boy delivered.

It has been such a busy year. We can't believe our baby is one year old already. Happy birthday Mr. Blake!

From today's walk

On most days when the weather is cooperating I usually go on a walk in our neighborhood with my little man in his stroller. It has been a nice little routine that usually induces a nap for him during and afterward.

Today I went around noon and it was a very unseasonably cool August afternoon in Oklahoma. I noticed some girls at the end of our block playing in the front yard. What caught my attention was their art work of sidewalk chalk all over their sidewalk and driveway. I asked them if I could take a picture of it and assured them I was trying to not be a creeper, but I really did liked their pictures. Tomorrow will be their first day of a new school year. They seemed to be soaking up the last few hours of summer. They were really sweet and asked about my baby and I asked them if they had art class at their school (no, they don't...for shame MPS). I know they were just drawing doodles, but I thought the pictures were pretty good, cute at least.

Yes, that would be Ariel, the mermaid and a Canadian flag. They also had a British flag on the sidewalk and lots more drawings, but I was trying to not come across as a creeper, so I did not get an incredible look at all of it.

Speaking of walks. Our little man is taking a few more by himself these days: from couch to couch, and across the room. Here is our best video of him walking from the couch to the rocking chair. This was taken on Tuesday and he has even gotten better since then.