Holiday stuff.

I have figured out that the holiday season gets harder as the kids get older. Every year I say I am not acting crazy, I WILL remember the reason for the season.  Every year I have one or maybe two moments where I feel like curling up in the middle of  Target and crying.  I usually have a few events that drain my Christmas spirit.  Here is the list  for Christmas....buy gifts for family, teachers, Sunday school teachers, bus drivers, guitar teachers.  There are holiday parties, both friends and work,school Christmas programs, making Christmas cards, mailing Christmas cards, angel trees at church. Choir performances,  pictures with Santa, show and tell.  Tree decorating, cookie making, caroling, gift wrapping, being room mom, class parties.  I am sure I am forgetting a few things.  I LOVE each and every one of these items on my list, it is sometimes they all attack at once and I am left to assume that 3 ghosts will visit me at night to improve my "spirit".

This is where a 4 year old comes in.  If you do not have one of these amazing things, please go borrow one, at least for the holiday season.

I love my nine year old just as much as my 4 year old, but at 4 the perspective on the world is AMAZING.  My 9 year old was just as wide-eyed with the world at 4, now she is a wise and sometimes cynical tween.
Here are conversations I have had with L (my 4 year old) in the past week, yes I have been writing these down.

I asked her if she had any preference on tennis shoes I would be getting her.
"Yes mom, it should have a sparkly Eiffel tower, a big unicorn and a flower on it"

From the backseat of my car. L told me the Christmas story. She talked of donkeys, and baby Jesus being born. Mary, Joseph and a few more details. She added in her own touch by telling me that Mary and the wisemen fly at the end and then the pilgrims come too.

" Mom did you know that God has a beard, I like beards, I think it is a good idea"

We were in the car for 30 minutes and here was the path of our conversation ..all lead by L. I am just writing her side of the conversation

• Mom, do you remember when I fished with papaw and he didn't catch anything, and I did. maybe he wants to borrow my fishing pole.
• Remember when I went to snoopy land with aunt Lara, I love that. Is kings Island open? why not? when will it be open? how long away is that? 
• I loved Disney world, will we fly on a plane again like we did for Disney world?
• I love pulling weeds. When can I pull weeds again?
• I hope the apple seed grows that I planted in the yard, I love apples. How many trees are going to grow?
• Can I plant more?
• I think my bear is a princess bear.  
• mom start counting.....WHEW!!! DO you know what I did while you were counting, I held my breath, can you count again?
• Is our car going as fast as a Cheetah? I have seen a real cheetah before. Do you think we are going faster now?  
• Mom, I love you.
• When I turn 5, I want to have a party. I want a cake with a unicorn on it. Can there be a princess riding the unicorn?
• (singing) bird, bird, bird's the word.

Now lets pretend you have not spent much time with a 4 year old. You are probably wanting me to take mine to the Dr. for an evaluation. Nope, this is just what 4 is. I LOVE it. LOOOOOOOOVE it.  I am sure that the Christmas spirit I have left is due to that blue-eyed funny kid!!  

High speed parenting...

Hello friends,
I am going to tell you about my morning.  Most of the time I don't think you would be interested....but....today was different.  This day and blog post is almost a response to a blog I read yesterday.  Here is the link- http://toholdyoudear.wordpress.com/
It is written by my cousin's cousin.  (Doesn't that sound like we are related?? :) I am a cousin on her dad's side and this amazing writer and mom is a cousin on her mom's side.  clear??  Onward.

The last week I have woke up and felt like I didn't even sleep. Not sure why, but it just is.  My alarm goes off at 7:00.  Very rarely do I use this alarm, as my dogs and kids are needy at all hours!  This morning was no exception. My little dog wanted to go out at 6am. done. I am standing outside with both dogs and my 4 year old is now up.  She wants to watch the Grinch.  Lets just say it is her FAVORITE movie ever. EVER. I allow her to watch it ONLY in December.  For her health  and mine you can only watch so much Grinch   I looked at the clock. SCORE! If we run to the basement she can watch the Grinch and I can sleep for another 45 minutes. GO!!! My 9 year old comes down to watch the Grinch too.  So now both kids, both dogs, and myself are piled on the couch.  Here is where it all turns....My alarm on my phone was under the blanket so I didn't here it. It is 7:10.  My 9 year old screams...MOM TODAY IS MATH TEAM TRY-OUTS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Now the try-outs are BEFORE school. This is when our house looked like a track and field meet. My nine year old and I are running, my 4 year old is screaming because we have interrupted her 400th viewing of the Grinch  I am making oatmeal at neck-breaking speeds.  My 9 year old is frantically getting dressed with whatever clothes she can find. The 4 year old is now running too. I think she just didn't know what else to do.  The kids are shoveling oatmeal down as the 9 year old updates us every 30 seconds.."8 MINUTES UNTIL WE NEED TO LEAVE"  7 MINUTES UNTIL WE NEED TO LEAVE!!!!....and so on. Just in case I have to get out of the car, I run upstairs to put some clothes on and maybe some "drive-by" makeup.  My husband is JUST NOW GETTING IN THE SHOWER.  In his defense, he has no idea all of this is happening, last thing her knew was that our dog needed to go to the bathroom.   I throw on clothes, swipe on lipstick and run downstairs, both girls are already in the car and ready.  I can still hear the Grinch's heart growing 3 sizes down in the basement. No time to even put the dogs in the laundry room....It's go time :)  (Mind you the dogs act like ...well animals...if left to have the run of the house..)  We made it to school. I didn't have to get out of the car, and I am assuming she made it to try-outs as I saw her disappear into her school.  I came home, turned off the TV, cleaned up the messes my animals made in the 7 minutes I was gone, had coffee, brushed my hair, made lunch for my 4 year old, packed her bag,  and helped her find a show and tell.  yep. Rocked out the mom thing this morning. sigh.

The above posted blog, that I linked you to, is so amazing and I felt myself having a conversation WITH Kelsey.  So here is really the only valid point I can add to such a well written blog. Karma. Motherhood has been a lesson in karma.  I found in the "kidless" world  that karma happened, but much slower. I get a good dose of karma DAILY as a mom. Examples....As soon as I am(internally) a little cocky that I have pulled it together, I am quickly remided that I am falling apart.  Sometimes I internally judge other moms, or sometimes how their kids act. (You know you do it too, stop judging, my judging.)  When I look at a child and think, I am so glad my kid would never act like that, usually that day they will do something JUST like that or worse.

My 9 year old is VERY into soccer, and I am at the fields often. I will usually see the same moms there.  One one particular day, I had on a cute outfit, I was on time, we had all neccesary items for soccer, I had rocked it out. I was feeling pretty proud. I looked to my left and a mom was walking up and seemed to have a beam of light around her. She must have just left her professional modeling job to bring her child to practice. She sat a few feet from me. I was blinded by her long perfectly curled blonde hair.  I looked down and noticed a big streak of yogurt on my coat, courtesy of my 4 year old.  I almost cried. really. I judged her, I thought, it must be nice to show up for soccer and look like you are walking slow motion in a Hollywood film at all times, I felt jealous.  The next week, she was there again,   again she looked amazing....like REALLY amazing. This happened a few weeks in a row.  I then had a practice that I couldn't be at, my husband took over that night. I won't lie, I was a little relieved.  He called on the way home to let me know they had left practice and his voice was obviously different. I asked what was wrong and he said we will talk about it later. hmmm?
When he got home he told me that there was a dad at practice that stopped practice to confront his child. This dad felt like his child was not doing well and trying hard enough. Mark said this man was humiliating his child and everyone was so uncomfortable. Mark was telling me how this child looked like she wanted to dig a hole and hide and her mom/this man's wife looked broken hearted.  I asked him if she had long blond hair. She did.  I was smacked with karma. I am a mom, and I have no idea what other moms are doing or how they are living.

Kelsey is so right, we just need to be the best mom that we can be, for our life that we have. Today I was that mom, I did approximately 30 things in 10 minutes.It wasn't perfect but all goals were met.  By telling the last story, I am really  throwing myself under the bus. I am a pretty good person and do love most people I meet, but by letting you into my internal dialog, I let you learn a lesson at my expense  We are all fighting a battle, and you don't know what that perfect mom has going on.  I am praying to be a more supportive mom, even internally where no one else can hear.

Happy Friday to you all!!

Happy Birthday to ME!!!

I mentioned it on facebook and here on my blog. I recently turned 36. Not the most exciting birthday, but a birthday none the less. I am so blessed to have been given one more.  This year I decided to to "The birthday project" this is where we do one random act of kindness for every year I've been here.

For those of you that are not familiar with the " Lindsay way of doing things".....I tend to have a great idea, get excited about it, get everyone on board.....and then only do half of it.  At that point I have only had 30 better ideas and started 30 new projects that I may get half way finished. I am pretty sure my husband bites his tongue until almost bleeding when he hears me say..." I have this great idea".  I was determined to finish this one and it is still in process but will. I say WILL be done soon.  :) 

One of my favorite things is how my girls were SOOO into it. They worked so hard thinking of the ideas and the sparkle in their eye when we did it was amazing.  Julia would come home from school with things that she did that day to add to our list! Our random acts of kindness are as follows.  

1. I left a card  on my kids beds telling them how glad I was to be their mom.

2. I purposely left the change in the pop machine for the next person

3. Mark and the girls gave the waitress a large tip and told her to have lunch on them.

4. Julia let a friend in line ahead of her to get on the bus for a field trip, when everyone was pushing and shoving.

5. Julia tried to pay for a friends lunch at school when he realized he forgot his lunch on the counter at home.

6.Julia let others be the quarterback in gym when she was the team captain and really wanted to be :) 

7  I let someone go ahead of me at a stop sign.  (Julia made me write this one, I think it was kind of a stretch! :) 

8-12.  This is the second year that we have delivered Thanksgiving meals to families in our town thru our church.  It is one of my favorite things we do as a family and it was on my birthday. I feel like I can count each one as a separate act of kindness because each family was such a different experience.  The first family thanked us for the blessing.  She saw my kids walking up with things too. She thanked me for teaching my kids to give back. I was so humbled by her and her spirit. It was one of the many times I was moved to tears that day.  The family I cannot get out of my head, was going thru a situation similar to one my husband went thru as a teenager, losing a parent.  I sobbed from their house to my car.  It struck a chord with me, that everyone's life can change at any given moment. I was also so moved by her attitude. After talking with the mom for about 20 minutes, all she could speak of is how God was in control of their life and situation. Amazing. Praying for her strength thru the holidays.

13-18  Sending notes.  I think I am not alone in this, but I often think good things about people and almost NEVER tell them my thoughts.  I tried to pay attention to my thoughts the couple of weeks before doing this project and sent notes to people telling them how I was impressed by them.  This is one I will be trying to keep up.  It was a little scary to send the messages as I didn't want them to think I was crazy! I am SOOOO glad that I did! 

19. put random carts away at the grocery

20. This was one of my favorites. I bought a Starbucks gift card at the store and then the kids and I waited at Starbucks to give it to the next people that walked in. It was a couple that looked to be in their late 50's/early60's  Julia ran over to the wife and said "This is for you." The woman looked at me and said " I think your daughter thinks I dropped this??" I explained what we were doing, and her response was "but I don't know you..."  I said that is the point. She and her husband hugged all three of us. We cause quite a scene in Starbucks. Julia looked at me and said...MOM I feel like Ellen! :) 

21. We wrote about 20 post it notes with nice things on it and before we went out to eat, we put them on cars...here is some photo proof! :) 

My 9 year old got very creative with her notes!!!

22-24  We made a TON of cookies and delivered them to 2 fire stations and a police station in our town.  The Westfield fire fighter that answered the door, gave the girls the royal treatment.  We got to tour the whole fire house and let them sit  in the truck and ambulance.  Libby is STILL talking about it!! Here is more photo proof!!  

25. The kids made our bed....without being asked to

26. The kids cleaned our bathroom without being asked to.....

27  I left a dollar bill under a payday candy bar at Walmart

28.  I stopped a lady at church and told her how well behaved her kids were during mass. She literally looked at me like I was talking Chinese.  Not sure if she believed me or not.. :) 

29.  I put a dollar bill for someone to find under a bag of water softener salt. 

30. I obnoxiously let cars out at a shopping center. There was no one behind me so it was a win/win. I felt like this one had to be obnoxious to count! :) 

This is the point that I have to say To be continued.  We had a large and AMAZING group at our house for Thanksgiving and we have yet to do the last 6....BUT WE WILL....promise!! 

I asked friends to also do random acts of kindness in honor of my birthday, and quite a few did!! I was so humbled! I will post those when I post the last 6 that we do!  Until then have a GREAT day and much love to all of you!!! 

Good evening friends!!
Well it's November.  What does this mean?  It means that in a few days I will be 36. sigh. 
Can I just take you back to my weekend?  I went to see my niece for her birthday, she is a member of the sorority that I was in in college. I pulled up to the house in a minivan. MY SORORITY....in a MINIVAN. This is not in all caps because I shouldn't be driving a minivan, I should.
 It was odd because I felt like I lived there 10 minutes ago, and here I am in a minivan with an amazing husband and 2 perfectly squirrely kids! I am very blessed, but realize that time goes so fast. (I will leave out any Ferris Bueller quotes you might be expecting) 

So in light of that, even though 36 is not that exciting of a birthday, I am going to make it count.
I saw this on pinterest (along with 5,000 other things) It is called the birthday project. I will be doing 36 random acts of kindness with my family in honor of my birthday.  We have started ahead of time, because that is alot to do in one day! Here is the link with alot of cool ideas http://mixmingleglow.com/blog/?p=1358#comment-246015

I will often do random acts of kindness, but do not mention it. This is not because I don't want applause ( I don't), I think it takes away from the kindness if you tell people.  The idea is that you do it with the thought that you will not get anything in return, including recognition.  SOOOO.....even posting this makes me feel weird, but I am very ready to do this as a birthday present to me.  Stay tuned for the actual birthday post to be coming mid month.  Until then just keep in mind, if you wish me a happy birthday on facebook I will be asking you to do a random act of kindness for my birthday. I will then add those add those to the acts of kindness on my blog.  You have been warned (in a nice way, in all lower case letters...) !
Peace to you all! L

Good evening everyone! Sooooo, it's been awhile since I blogged, you know, only a year. (give or take)  I was thinking about how my girls might think its neat to read what I was thinking as a mom, when it is their turn for this crazy adventure! 

I will start with the art end of life.  I am slowly getting up and running after we moved into a new home.  I figured that my sanity was important so I took an art break while my house was on the market.  I recently finished a mural that was the largest that I have ever done before.  It was such an honor to take part in the room a wonderful new baby will live in.  While I was painting I had alot of time alone to think.  This is a rare thing.  I had a thought that almost knocked me off of my ladder. "Whatever made me think I could do this?"  I was not doubting my talent, nor taking claim to it. God gave me this talent, it is just my job to figure out what to do with it.  I just wandered where did I ever get the nerve to take a large brush and paint HUGE on someone's wall?  I know President Obama has taken alot of heat for his "you didn't build this" comments lately.  I can see how some people could be offended by that. I am not. My parents told me that I could do anything I wanted to do.  More importantly they told me and showed me that it is not enough to dream big, but you have to work hard to get it.  My parents smiled and kept their mouths shut when I am sure they were wondering what  in blue blazes I was doing.  I can only hope that I can give my girls the huge gift my parents gave me of knowing that life is open to you.  Thank you mom and dad!!!
Another thing that gave me the confidence is shows on PBS. I know that sounds ridiculous but very true. I watched drawing and painting shows and practiced along with them.  We did not have cable as a kid (I know it is a MIRACLE I survived). I was a total PBS nerd. I still am. I love Charlie Rose. LOVE!! comander Mark was my favorite! I love NPR,  love Garrison Keilor, fresh air, and the rest of it. I am letting it be known in writing that instead of flowers at my funeral, I want donations made to PBS. I feel like it really had a huge part in who I am today. 

Next topic. Pinterest.  HELLO?? I can't get enough. I won't lie or pretend, I do and make ALOT of the things I pin.  I don't mention it much because most of them are total flops.  I will help you all from following down the path that I did. Recently we did..... Glow in the dark bubbles=didn't work  Star stencils for the yard using flour= FAIL   Baking soda on a splinter= success!!  We did kind of like the Ivory soap in the microwave. I was going to take pictures of it while we were doing it (like all the cool blog moms do) The girls were fighting over who got the biggest piece then  I looked over to see Libby rubbing her eye, then hitting the ground screaming.  "I have soap in my eye!!!" she laid on the ground and moved her legs like she was running, which made her spin so fast it was  like she was about to take flight.  I stood back for a second drinking my coffee thinking I should take a picture of this,  and say "somtimes this is what the cute, crafty mom days turn into."  I didn't take a picture and  helped her with her eye and we went back to the playing with the soap.  I will continue to enlighten you all on what works and what doesn't on pinterest. yes, you are welcome. (photos may or may not be included)

School is about to start soon.  My oldest is starting a new school and is pretty nervous about it. I know her well enough to know that she will do just fine. As a kid though it is hard to know that until she is there. She is 9 and already starting to give me the "Mom I am pretty sure you have no clue what you are talking about" look.  I know this look will grow in frequency and intensity so I am doing my best to soak up 9!  The youngest is headed to her last year of preschool. Yeah, I said it. I will be a blubbering mess the last day of her class. You have been warned. I love her preschool.  My oldest went there too and I can't imagine not having a kid there.  I am trying to totally enjoy each stage and I know very quickly I will be a mom with 2 kids in school. sigh. 

This blog has been all over the place but I am out of practice, so stick with me and I might get better.