Preschool Pictures

I am soooooo beyond happy with Ayden and Rylee's first ever school pictures! Seriously, I am so in love...

Rylee with her scrunched up nose and Ayden with his goofy little smile. I can't stop looking at these pictures. They are just so dang CUTE!

First School Field Trip

The kids had their first class field trip last week to the pumpkin patch! All but three of the kids in their school had at least one parent with them. I'm so glad I got to tag along, and can't help but be sad that I probably won't get to in the future, when I go back to work in a year or two. 

This was Ayden and Rylee's second trip to a pumpkin patch this year, as we went to a different one as a family the weekend before. They were just as excited this time around as they were when it was just the four of us.

Hay ride to the pumpkin field.

They both picked out a pumpkin fairly quick once we got to the pumpkin field, but quickly decided it was too heavy and downgraded. Ayden didn't like how "pokey" the stems were on the pumpkins, but eventually found one without a stem that he fell in love with. Rylee basically looked for the smallest pumpkin she could find, and ended up with a gourd! hahaha

The first pumpkin he picked out.

The first pumpkin she picked out.

She was so tickled to have found a gourd!

While out in the pumpkin field, it started raining pretty hard. Thankfully, it was a covered hayride and we didn't get too soaked on the ride back. After lunch, we actually had blue sky and we were able to have a little more fun!

My lil' apples.

They loved their pumpkins so much, that they had to sleep with them that first night!

She fell asleep with her gourd tucked inside her shirt! 😂

Microblog Monday: A Night Away

I got to escape for a night away with a group of infertility sisters on Saturday. This is an amazing and strong group of ladies, that I am so blessed to have gotten to know. I've actually met (in person) most of them only one other time, a year ago. Two of the gals I met for the very first time this weekend. However, I've been a part of their Oregon based Facebook group for several years now. The majority of the group all met years ago through RESOLVE, long before I was ever introduced to them.

One of the gals has a family vacation house on the coast, that she grew up going to as a child. She invited us all for a moms night away, and it was wonderful! It's always nice to connect with other moms, without kids in tow every once in awhile! I don't get that opportunity very often, or hardly ever!

It's really quite an intimidating group of ladies. There are two doctors, two lawyers (and I'm talking big time lawyers. One of them is a defense attorney and worked a murder trial for Pete's sake!), a veterinarian, and a retired police officer (she stepped away when she had her twins). One gal is a fire investigator that is currently being offered a fire chief position. There's also a dietician and a few teachers. As I said, it's quite the line up of intimidating, strong ladies! But they are all so kind, with big hearts, and real life problems, just like the everyone else.

The weekend was just what I needed, to be able to take a deep breath and tackle motherhood and grab life by the horns.

Taking a nice walk on the beach. Our group had the entire beach to ourselves!

We had a nice break in the rain, but it was very windy!

Can you see the heart in the middle?

If you'd like to read more #MicroblogMonday posts from other bloggers, or maybe even participate yourself, please click here.

Happy Birthday to Me

Weeelllllllll, turns out I was wrong. Last night I posted that I had been 21 days late. I had trouble establishing what I thought was "full flow" because it was so light. I had a few days of spotting, and then it was a little heavier, but still very light. With my period being so late, I just attributed it to being really weird and wonky. I've been known to have super light periods over the years, but didn't think too much about it.

This morning there has been no question about having reached full flow! Happy birthday to me! If I go by this and consider full flow day one of my cycle, it's officially 25 days late and not 21. So crazy that I basically just skipped a full cycle.

Anywayyyyy, is it weird that I'm writing about all this? Probably. But there has to be other people that go through these things too, right? RIGHT? I question whether this is even worthy of writing about, but then I think about how so many of us did nothing BUT blog about our cycles for so many years while we trying to have our babies and going through infertility treatments. Now it's just onto a new stage...

In other news, today is my birthday!!! I am now 43 years old. It's really hard to fathom that being reality. But here I am, entering this next phase of life.

I haven't had a lot of things to feel good about myself recently. I'm 60 lbs overweight. I have very few clothes that fit, and those that do are tight. I am starting to get wrinkles around my eyes, and also have bags under my eyes. I have lots of sun spots, and have been dealing with acne. I never had acne when I was younger, but boy do I get it now! I struggle with being tolerant and patient with my kiddos and question if I am a good mommy daily.

But! I got a haircut on Monday and I love it! It feels so nice to have something to finally feel good about myself for. I've gone back and forth over the years of growing my hair out and then chopping it off, repeat, repeat, repeat. I think I'm done growing it out though. I'm tired of having long hair that I only EVER put in a messy bun because I can't stand it around my face and sitting on my neck. I think my new do is here to stay!

My new haircut 

21 Days

In August, I wrote about how my period was 10 days late and how I played mind games with myself over that. Well, guess what? This last cycle I was 21 days late!! 21! This time around, however, I did not even entertain the idea that I could possibly be pregnant. Nope. I'm just coming to the realization that I'm getting old. I mean, tomorrow IS my birthday after all.

So apparently, this blog has gone through being about infertility, and then the early days of parenthood, and now is turning into a blog about menopause. Just kidding. Kind of. I'll try not to bore you with that. Although, I suppose in a way it's all relative, since my lack of egg production and infertility directly correlates with me being perimenopausal.

Day in the Life: Fall 2017

I missed doing the summer link up for a DITL post because we were in the middle of buying our house and moving. I'm so excited to get back on board and get it done this time around. I enjoy going back and reading my past DITL posts and comparing how much life has changed through the past couple years.

If you'd like to be involved in this DITL link up, please visit Liz on her blog at Ellie and Addie.

Welcome to our Day in the Life, from October 11th, 2017...

Tony: 44 years old
Me: 42 years old (till next week!)
Rylee: 3.5 years old
Ayden: 3.5 years old

2:00am - Ayden wakes up crying for the second time tonight because he peed the bed. The first time was at 10:15, right before Tony was about to go in and take him potty. I get him cleaned up and in new pajamas, then strip his bed and throw on a blanket on top of the mattress protector. Grab a fresh blanket to cover him up with.

2:09 - I crawl back into bed and wonder if I'm going to actually be able to go back to sleep with Tony snoring away right next to me. Thankfully I do fall asleep rather quickly.

6:10 - Tony's alarm goes off and he presses snooze. He proceeds to press snooze two more times.

6:56 - I nudge Tony and tell him he'd better get up.

7:00 - He rolls out of bed and I scroll Facebook for a few minutes.

7:05 - I get up and get myself dressed and ready for the day.

7:15 - I hear Rylee call out to Ayden. It's time to wake them up anyway. I go into each of their rooms and open the blinds to let light in. I'm surprised to see Rylee still in her bed, as I had thought she was hollering to Ayden from their connected bathroom. While they are getting themselves out of bed, I go to the laundry room to put Ayden's wet blankets into the washer. Then I go into my own bathroom to take care of business. Ayden comes in saying he has to go potty and proceeds to throw his first fit of the day when I tell him to go into his own bathroom. Why can't a mom just poop in peace??? I finish up and Ayden happily pees in our bathroom toilet. eye roll

Then I get him dressed for the day in his beloved "fuzzy pants" and new-to-him Spiderman shirt that I had found at the consignment sale a few weeks ago. While I'm getting him dressed, I tell Rylee to go in and go potty. On her way into the bathroom she tells me "I didn't pee in my panties," which is code for the fact that she DID pee in there panties. This is the third morning in a row she has woken up and chosen to pee in her pants instead of going into the bathroom. I put her (toy) horses up in the closet for time out and she said, "for 5 days." I guess she knows the drill by now. lol. This is only the third time we've ever put a toy in time out. Both times so far have worked to get her back on track peeing in the toilet, but then she ends up regressing again a month or two down the road... Eventually it will just stick, right? 

Tony comes upstairs at this exact moment to say goodbye to the kids and I tell him not to walk on Ayden's bedroom carpet with his shoes on (one of only two rooms in our house that has carpet). WHY does he not care about preserving the carpet? He gets mad and stomps off. Ayden gets upset because Daddy is now leaving without saying goodbye and runs out of his room to go get his kisses and hugs. Rylee runs bare butt out to get her hugs and kisses, too.

I know. Not our finest moments, but this is real life, right?

Tony leaves and I give Rylee a wipe down and finish getting them both dressed. Rylee requests "ponytail braids" and I oblige.

7:45 - We go downstairs for breakfast. I ask them if they want Kix or Corn Pops and they say they want both, so both it is! Rylee doesn't want milk in her cereal, but Ayden does. They sit down to eat and I get them some juice (1/4 prune juice, 3/4 water). Rylee gets a 1/4 dose Miralax in hers. Once they finish their cereal, I give them each a probiotic.

Rylee was mad she "wasn't ready" for the first picture, so she wanted me to take another. This is the smile she gave me. haha! She's such a stinker.

I've really been trying to work on making healthy habits. My focus this week is on drinking more water, with a goal of 100 oz. So far I've been doing pretty good.

The goal is to drink 3 of these every day.

8:00 - Everyone goes potty, then we put on our shoes and raincoats, and we are out the door.

8:15 - We're all loaded in the car and I pull out of the driveway.

8:19 - Pull into the preschool parking lot and get them inside. I help them put their backpacks and coats in their cubbies and remind them they need to go wash their hands (a school rule to help prevent passing sickness). I talk to the head teacher a few minutes.

8:27 - Back home. Eat a few slices of ham. Run upstairs to put Ayden's blankets in the dryer, only to discover that the clothes in the dryer from the night before are still wet. I turn the dryer on and go back downstairs to look at the pics I'd taken already today. I update my notes for this blog post.

9:00 - I get on Facebook for a bit.

9:12 - I swap the laundry out of the washer and dryer and put another load in. Then I fold and put away the clean clothes. After that, I sweep and mop both upstairs bathrooms. I feel a little motivated and even wipe down the baseboard moldings.

9:45 - Eat a Zone bar and scroll Facebook.

10:00 - I get dinner going in the crockpot. It's cream cheese chicken taquitos for dinner tonight. I have to search a few boxes in the garage for the hand mixer that still hadn't been unpacked from our move yet. Thankfully I had a general idea of where it was.

10:25 - Finished loading the dishwasher and got it started.

10:30 - Cleaned the downstairs half bathroom.

10:45 - Switched the laundry around and put in another load.

11:00 - Left to go pick up the kids from school.

11:16 - Back home with the kids.

He apparently colored on himself at school today :)

We are in the house for literally less than a minute and Rylee says, "I didn't pee in my pants" and crawled on the couch. OMG this girl! I hustle her into the bathroom and she had dribbled just a tiny bit, not even worthy of changing her undies. However, had I let her continue to sit on the couch, she most likely would have had a bigger "accident." shaking my head

We had a little talk about how potty needs to go in the toilet.

11:25 - A friend told me about a show on Netflix called Room on the Broom, which there's apparently also a book. The kids are really into Halloween this year, so I thought it could be a good one for them to watch. I turned it on for them while I made lunch. They were engrossed. Rylee especially loved the show.

11:50 - Turn the tv off, wash hands, and sit down for lunch: ham and cheese sandwiches with green beans and grapes on the side.

12:20 - Ayden finishes his lunch and brings his plate to the sink. I wash him up and he goes upstairs to play.

12:23 - Despite saying he was going upstairs to play, turns out he was just going to get some cars to bring downstairs. He asks me to play with him, so we play for a bit, until he tells me his toenails are long. They aren't too long, but he did have a snag on one, so I trim them up for him.

Flying his airplanes while I played with the cars.

She'll finish her lunch eventually....

12:40 - Rylee finally finishes her lunch. She's the slowest eater ever! Since I have the clippers out anyway, I give Rylee's fingernails a little trim. While I'm doing that, Ayden runs upstairs to find Rylee's pink matchbox car for her. They are playing so nicely together and actually sharing, so I give them a few minutes before herding them upstairs for nap/rest time.

12:58 - Upstairs, I swap the laundry out, throwing the clean load on my bed. They pick up all the cars dumped out in Ayden's room. Then we get their teeth brushed and I tuck them into bed for naps. Whether they sleep or not is debatable, but we do "quiet" time regardless. I go into my room and fold the laundry on my bed.

1:20 - Back downstairs, I finish my first 34 oz of water for the day and refill my water bottle. I then settle onto the couch to snack on Pirate Booty, catch up on Facebook, and start this blog post.

1:30 - I have to run upstairs to ask Ayden to stop kicking his wall. Sigh. I'm pretty sure Rylee has gone to sleep. I head back downstairs.

1:45 - I hear a door open up into their shared bathroom. I hope it's Ayden just going potty and he'll go back to bed. Pretty soon I hear them both playing. I hear them shut/slam their doors and run back to their their beds as I head up the stairs once again. Our stairs are creaky and they can hear me coming. Turns out that Rylee HAD been asleep, but Ayden found one of her stuffed animals in his room and just HAD to return it. They make me laugh and pull my hair out all at the same time! lol. I get them both tucked back into their beds.

2:30 - Starts pouring down rain, then hailing, and then comes the thunder and lightening. We are a part of a Nature Mamas/Kids group, and we are all scheduled to go on a nature walk this afternoon. I check in with the other moms to see what the plan is since it's storming outside. Nobody wants to cancel, so we decide to check back in at 3:00, hoping that it will pass. I'm also half expecting one of the kids to come out of their rooms to ask what the noise is outside, but neither one of them do.

2:55 - I hear a toilet flush upstairs. It's time to go get them up.

3:00 - The weather has calmed down considerably, so our nature walk is still on as scheduled. I help get Rylee changed into play clothes and pack some spare clothes and their rain suits. I give them both a kids Clif bar for a snack.

3:20 - Leave for our nature walk at Perkins Peninsula.

3:28 - We are the last ones to arrive in our group. I quickly get the kids into their rain suits and then we are off to play and explore.

Fall leaves

It's a reservoir, and the water level has drastically gone down for the winter during the last month, leaving the "beach" nice and muddy.

He fell in the mud so his hands were a little lot dirty.

My blue eyed babies!

5:00 - I've got us all loaded back in the car and we are on our way home. Once we arrive home, I get everything unloaded from the car, change out of my muddy jeans, and turn on another new Netflix show (Ghost Patrol) for them to watch while I worked on dinner. They snack on raisons and crackers.

6:10 - I finish my second water bottle for the day and am now at 68 oz.

6:15 - Take dinner out of the oven.

6:25 - Sit down to dinner.

6:30 - Tony is home and joins us for dinner.

6:40 - Ayden finishes his dinner

6:50 - Rylee finishes her dinner. I give them both a multi vitamin.

6:53 - We head upstairs for a bath. While they play in the tub a bit, I get Ayden's bed made with fresh sheets and mattress protectors. Tony usually does bath time, but he is battling a gout flare up and can't kneel at the tub to wash the kids.

7:05 - Get them washed up and out of the tub. Both of them put their pajamas on all by themselves. Rylee is Miss Independent and mastered doing this quite awhile ago. Ayden doesn't take as much interest in doing things himself yet; tonight is the first night he has been able to get his pj top on all by himself! Once they are dressed, we get their teeth brushed.

Brushing his teeth

7:24 - It's Ayden's turn to pick a book tonight for story time. He chooses See Inside Your Body, a great little book that they have learned so much from! They know the difference between bones and muscles, can point out where the heart, lungs, kidneys, and bladder, and they know the difference between the wind pipe and food pipe! Their favorite part of the book is the path that food takes from your mouth, to your stomach, and then coming out as waste. I mean, who doesn't love a good poop story!

7:45 - They go potty one last time before bed and we say our goodnight prayers. They give each other hugs and kisses. Tony says his goodnights to Rylee in her room, while I say my goodnights to Ayden. Then we switch. Ayden requires a big hug and then upside down tickles from me. Then he ushers me out of his room and waits for Daddy at his bedroom door. With Rylee, I lay down in her bed with her. There's a few tickles and we sing a few songs. Tonight she only wants me to sing her one song and then wants to sing made up songs all by herself. When I try to give her one last kiss, she decides she has to go potty one more time. Once we're done in the bathroom, I give her one more hug and kiss and get her tucked back into bed.

8:04 - I leave her room and lay on my bed, going through all my pictures from the day while I wait for them to go to sleep. Ayden is quiet and most likely is already asleep or close to it.

8:14 - I hear Rylee get out of bed. She's playing in her room and talking to herself.

8:27 - Rylee is quiet again. I think she is asleep.

8:37 - Tony comes upstairs and lays down on the bed bedside me, elevating his foot for the gout. He forgot the ice pack for it downstairs.

8:50 - I run downstairs and grab the ice pack for him. I take it upstairs to him and then return downstairs to put the leftover dinner away. Then I get to work on this blog post.

10:10 - I take Ayden potty. He barely wakes up. Once he's back in bed, I head downstairs to snack on some sweet potato chips and catch up on social media.

11:12 - I finish my third water bottle of the day to complete my 100 oz. Then I head to bed. Before going to sleep, I sync my Fitbit to my phone. It was a pretty active day!

20th Anniversary

September 13th was our 20th wedding anniversary! And as of September 26th, we have been together for 25 years. A quarter of a century! We didn't do anything special on our actual anniversary, since it landed in the middle of the week. We actually had to wait until just this past weekend, because that was the weekend that his parents were available to watch the kids for us.

For the first time in since the kids have been born, we had our first weekend sans kids. In fact, the last time we spent a weekend away was exactly 4 years ago, when we celebrated our anniversary at the coast, while I was pregnant with the twins.

4 years ago

Tony's parents took the kids to their house in Washington, where they had a blast playing with their cousins. We had debated spending our anniversary weekend in Portland, going out to a fancy dinner and going to a comedy club, but in the end, we opted for a more relaxing weekend at the coast. We stayed at the Inn at Spanish Head, which is a hotel I've driven by many times and always wanted to stay at but never actually thought we would. We had a wonderful ocean view room, and we kept the sliding glass door cracked open all weekend so we could hear the sound of the ocean and feel the cool breeze. We took a few nice long walks on the beach and watched the sunset both nights. The first night there was hardly a cloud in the sky. The weather was perfect, with barely any wind at all. If you've been to the Oregon coast before, you know that is rare!

We weren't sure we would actually be able to see the sunset on the second night, because there were definite storm clouds on the horizon, but the sun came down at just the right spot to peek through the clouds. We both agreed that the clouds made the sunset even more spectacular.

Just a short walk down the beach was a little bay that had well over a hundred harbor seals on the other side. We enjoyed watching them lounge along the shore line and take turns dipping into the water to go fishing. The kids would have LOVED to see the "silly seals." We took a picture for them instead :)

The seals

We played a million games of Yatzee in our room. It was not a good weekend for me, as luck was NOT on my side. At one point, I had only won one game to his eleven. eye roll. I did turn it around and win a few games before heading home though. As Tony always says, "you're only as good as your last game." A quote he annoyingly always says when it's to HIS advantage. another eye roll. He always comes up with some reason why that saying doesn't apply when it's anyone else that wins the last game. haha

We had a visitor on our balcony.

We took a trip down memory lane and found a miniature golf place that we had been to when we were dating many years ago. Way back then, they had all the visitors sign their names on the wall, but they have since painted over those walls. There were a few names still visible, but not many. We played a few rounds of mini golf and a few games of Ms. Pacman. For anyone keeping track, I won the first round of golf and he won the second. He needed to redeem himself, because it had been awhile since he'd beaten me at mini golf, lol. I used to be completely unbeatable at Ms. Pacman. I mean, I was ridiculously good and he could never beat me (one of very few games I was actually better at than him), when we were younger. Well, he managed to beat me our first game of Ms. Pacman, but I came back and dominated after that. We aren't competitive at all. wink, wink.

It was a fantastic, relaxing weekend of reconnecting and focusing just on US. Of course we missed the kids and thought of them a million times, but it was soooooo nice being able to just do what we wanted for a few days. We could go to bed when we wanted, wake up when we wanted, and eat when we wanted, without being responsible for the demands and needs of two little people. We used to play games together ALL. THE. TIME. We were able to eat at a restaurant without having to make a million trips to the bathroom. It was so nice to do all of that again.

As we were driving home to pick up the kids from their grandparents, Tony made the comment that he didn't want to wait another four years before doing this again. We need to make time for ourselves at least once a year, twice if we can afford it. Ahhhhhhhh.... I can't wait until next time!