Confession Number 74: I'm Speed Cleaning

We got a call from a great friend of Dustin's family last night saying that he was in the area and wanted to come up and see us.  We love Mike dearly and miss seeing him even more since he and his wife Janie made like geese and migrated toward the warmer weather, and their kids, in south Texas.  Dustin told him to get his butt up here and Mike said, "Great!  I'll be there around 11 tomorrow". 

Thankfully the house wasn't horrible.  Not great, but not horrible.  So, I'm in speed cleaning mode this morning because the problem with having a brand new house is that everyone wants the grand tour.  It is amazing what making the beds and sweeping the floors can do for a house.  I can't spend much more time here this morning, because I still need to get my Cinderella on, but I'm dying to know, what is your "clean house in a hurry" trick?  I think I'll need to resort to them more and more once Baby Brother comes and deep cleaning gets pushed to the back burner.

Who am I kidding?  Deep cleaning is ALWAYS pushed to my back burner!

Confession Number 73: I'm Getting Ready

This week marks the last week of my second trimester of this pregnancy.   In some ways the time has flown by and in other ways it has seemed to crawl.

Now I find myself faced with the long list of "must get dones" before Baby Brother makes his appearance.  To me, this is the fun part.  The part where we begin decorating the nursery, hanging the baby clothes in the closet and getting everything else done around the house.  I've been lost in baby mode for the last few days: checking out swatches of fabric online, thinking about buying KJ new furniture, and going through a tub of hand me downs from a friend. 

We, somewhat easily, agreed on a nursery theme.  We are doing vintage sports with the whole room being built around a jersey of Dustin's and a jersey of Papa Jerry's from long ago.  Each will be framed and hung on the wall.  Papa Lynn already gave Baby Brother his "first baseball" for display and I'm sure we won't have a hard time finding some old footballs and basketballs to put here and there. 

I'm loving shopping on Etsy this time around, which is where I found the main fabric for his room....

Hopefully I can talk Mimi into making his crib skirt.  There are also coordinating fabrics we can use for his curtains, blankets, etc.  And I'm infatuated with this custom made crib mobile on Etsy...

Which she will make in any fabric to match his bedding. 

There are so many things I want to get accomplished around the house before he gets here.  Finish the guest room, trying to make it as nice and comfy as possible for, what I'm sure will be, Weezie's extended stay.  Finish (or at least start) decorating our bathroom.  Reorganize and repurpose the upstairs playroom for two kids and to sleep an extra guest or two.  Find Dustin a desk for his office and, most importantly, get Baby Brother's room all ready for his big arrival.  That is a lot to get done!  I'm sure it won't all happen, but everything will be perfect, just because he will be here! 

Confession Number 72: January Isn't My Favorite

Brrrr.  It's cold here in our neck of the woods this morning and it looks like it is only going to get worse.  I've never been a big fan of winter.  I was an educator for Pete's sake.  What teacher says, "oh, I just LOVE January!"?  None.  Not one.  We LOVE June and July and some of us even like August.  But January?  Ummm.  Not so much.

Our first true taste of cold winter weather is moving in this week, complete with a dusting of snow, and I have to say, I'm not too excited about it.  I have things to do, people to see and a kid to take to preschool.  I'd really rather not do it with morning lows hovering around 9 degrees!! 

In the spirit of not being totally pessimistic on this Monday morning, I will admit that, yes, there is something magical about getting in some snuggle time with your significant other or little one in front of the fire, watching a movie, drinking something warm and frothy as the first snowflakes cover the ground.  I do love watching Kennedy's face as we play in the fluffy white stuff.  And it is pretty as it is falling on the trees and covering the grass.  I guess it isn't so bad, after all. 

Confesion Number 71: A Deja Vu Kind of Morning

A few months ago Dustin and I decided to buy up some of the lots surrounding our house.  They were a great investment for Dustin and for me they were insurance that we were going to have some physical space around our home. 

Fast forward a month or so later and some good friends of ours approached us about wanting to build a house in the neighborhood.  As soon as Dustin mentioned it to me, the first words out of my mouth were, "I want them to buy the lot next door!".  Dustin agreed and after a night of visiting the decision was made.  It was official.  They were joining, what I lovingly refer to as, "the curve". 

You see, we live along the back street of our neighborhood, smack dab in the middle of a big U in the street.  All but two houses that surround us have small kids. Maybe I should rephrase that.  All but two houses that surround us have small GIRLS.  Ten girls in five houses.  LOTS of young estrogen on our street.  To say that our street is girly is an understatement.  This past summer the girls across the street were having, what I thought was a lemonade stand over the 4th of July.  Um, no.  It was a makeover stand.  See what I mean???

We've become more and more excited about the neighbors moving in and building because of many reasons, but one is that they are adding three kids to the mix, two of which are boys.  While I feel somewhat sad that Jackson (the 5 yr old) is destined to a life of princess dresses and makeover stands, I'm super excited for Sam (the 5 month old) and Baby Brother to have each other to help fight off all of the girlyness around here.  I can't wait for the path to form between our back doors and for the joint parties I'm sure that will be taking place. 

Here was the scene outside our upstairs window this morning....

It brought back tons of memories of our own building experience.  We are on almost exactly the same timeline as them (you can read about our own building experience here, then follow the "I'm Getting Excited" series).  We know their anticipation, frustration and excitement.  Hopefully we can be a good source for them to vent it all!  Happy Building Morrow Family!  And welcome to the neighborhood!

Confession Number 70: Sometimes 'Crummy' Won't Cut It

I'm not a potty mouth.  I'm really not.  Excessive cussing really drives me up the wall. However, I do strongly believe that sometimes "shoot", "fiddle", "dang", or in the words of my mother, "fooey dooey" just won't cut it. 

Sometimes you need to drop a word for effect.  I *might* have whispered in a few teenage ears, "if you don't stop acting like an a*s I'm going to make your life miserable".  Normally that got a chuckle and their behavior turned on a dime.  Yes, I have great classroom management skills.  I might just write a book on it someday.  And I might have just ruined my chances of ever getting a job in education again.  Another of a million reasons why I like big kids, not little ones. 

Sometimes a certain word makes physical pain a little easier to bear.  Wanna know the first time I EVER dropped the f-bomb?  I ran, shin first, into the point on a marble top coffee table in my parents house at night.  Unfortunately, I was a teenager and mom and dad were in the room.  I think they laughed.  I have a permanent dent in my shin bone from that damn coffee table. 

Sometimes you just can't do justice in explaining your day to people without using a specific word.  For instance, Mom called the other day.  It was a little after noon and I was trying to get the house ready for company and a New Year's Eve gathering.  The conversation went something like this....

Mom:  So, what are you up to?
Me:  Oh, just trying to get things done around here.  It's kind of been a sh*tty day.
Mom:  (Giggles)  Well, okay.
Me:  Literally.  A sh*tty, sh*tty day.

Let me explain.  We've had issues with KJ and her, um, bowl movements (not sure why I'm being so politically correct all of a sudden) for a while.  You may have read about some of our issues here, here or here.  I guess I really like to write about poop.  Anyway, I knew she needed to go, so I sat her on the potty.  And left her there.  For like 20+ minutes.  Before you go calling DHS on me, I didn't LEAVE, but I knew she wouldn't go with me sitting there, staring at her, getting us both more frustrated by the minute.  So, I went in the baby's room, which connects to the bathroom and would check on her every couple of minutes. 
Well, I guess she had gone a little bit, but not enough for it to fall into the potty and when she squirmed around her seat it got all over her and the toilet.  Great.  Clean up job number one.  Yes, I said number one.  I clean her enough to get her into the tub, then proceed to clean her bathroom from top to bottom.  While I'm at it I might as well, right? 
After I was finished she still wanted to play a bit, so I told her I was going to go move the laundry over and I'd be back and we would get out.  Fast forward all of about 2 minutes.  I turn to corner into the living room and meet her, soaking wet, with brown hands.
 
KJ:  Mommy, mommy, I went poo poo in the potty!
Me:  Greeeeaaaattttt.

I guess what she meant to say was that she went poop, but didn't quite make it to the potty, so she picked it up and put it in the potty, but it was on her hands, so she proceeded to try to get it off of her hands by wiping them all over the potty, then tried to clean herself up by crawling back in the bathtub.  So, I cleaned her bathroom from top to bottom for the second time and moved her to my bathtub where I bathed her for the second time in like, 10 minutes.

Crummy, poopy, messy.  Nope.  None of them cut it.  It was just a sh*tty day. 

Picture of the Week

I've decided to share a special picture with you each week.  It might be a new one, it might be from the "archives", but needless, it will be one that is special to my heart.  Without delay the very first Picture of the Week.....

Ahhh.  My heart is happy.

Confession Number 69: The Tale of Two Christmases

Christmas, for us, is a whirlwind time with family that we don't get to see often enough.  Some years we have  spent more time on the road than we do actually relaxing around the Christmas tree, but we love every minute of it.  The last few years we have settled into a Christmas routine that, for right now, is working for everyone involved.  We leave on the 23rd to travel to see my sisters in Enid.  My mom comes up on the 24th.  After opening presents on Christmas morning we drive to Texas to see Dustin's folks and spend Christmas evening, again, opening presents.  The drive is a bit long, but as long as there isn't a snow and ice storm that gets in our way, it is a welcome break between the sessions of tearing open gifts and allows KJ (and whoever is the privileged passenger) to take a much needed nap. 

The two experiences couldn't be further apart from each other in how they are handled and it is really quite nice that they each have their traditions and nuances.  On my side, Kennedy is the 8th of 9 grandchildren for my mom.  We don't see all of them each year, and their ages range from 17 to 3, but anytime you get a group of kids together you are going to have a bit of chaos.....

Kennedy is the only grandchild on Dustin's side (for a few more months) so, there, things are a tad calmer....

Because of it being Christmas morning and the arrival of Santa, things are off to an early start in Enid....

I have to say, this year wasn't so bad.  It was a little after 7:30 when everyone woke up for good.  Notice our nephew, Justus, sleeping in the chair in the background.  I think he moved in to check his loot around 2 am.  In years past the kids (our nieces and nephews) would wake us up in the 6ish range.  I have a feeling those years are in our near future with Miss Kennedy. 

The Matthews celebration happens much later in the evening, after a yummy Mexican dinner.  Usually with the sights and sounds of a football game in the background...

With so many kids, once we start opening presents, the wrapping paper starts flying and parents are doing well to know what their kids received until they start yelling that something isn't being packed up for the trip home.  Thank yous are yelled out across the room and one present might not have all the tape ripped off before they start digging in to the next one.  Again, this has gotten much better in recent years, as the other kids have gotten older.  Finally, once clean up begins, Kennedy gets to play with a present or two before they are packed up and sent to the car....

Later that night is much more calm and organized.  Aunt Mallory, as Santa's helper, makes each person a stack and we take turns opening gifts and offering proper gratitude....

Needless to say, each experience is totally it's own.  And it is perfect.  Kennedy spends the first couple of days of our vacation playing hard and going fast.  She has so much to do and so many people to command around it isn't even funny.  Then the last couple of days she gets to rest, have some KJ time (which she needs) and gets the undivided attention of her Texas family.  The first is hectic and a ton of fun, the second is relaxing and restfull.  It is the perfect combination and I wouldn't change it for the world!