Mother's Day Weekend

Did you all have a nice weekend? Ours was pretty good if I do say so myself. I got to spend lots of time with all the mothers in my life (although I forgot my camera for half of it, as I tend to do). We had an amazing mother's day dinner Friday night for my mom with lots of picnic-style food. My stepdad grilled ribs, I made homemade potato salad and Abby made a cherry pie. Saturday Abby, Marisa and I took Patty out for a belated birthday/mother's day tea at the Ritz. We've been lots of times before, but it's always a good time and always such a treat to get dressed up and have a super girly morning together. After that we swung by my grandparent's house to visit with my grandma and stuff oursleves on more sweets (as we also tend to do). Wes picked a little bouqet of lily-of-the-valley and took it with us for my grandmother. So, so sweet! Then saturday night we got to try a new mexican place in north canton for a big mother's day celebration for Josh's mom. Again, I forgot my camera. But the food was delicious and Oren was cracking up the staff in his superhero cape and practicing all his best ninja moves on the cardboard cut out of the Dos Equis guy in the lobby.

 

Then Sunday, well, Josh had all the best intentions, but sometimes, kids will be kids. Neither one of the boys wanted to get a picture with me sunday morning. Then at brunch Wes spilled not one, but two glasses of water within the first 2 minutes of us sitting down. Oren refused to stay in his high chair and frankly, we couldn't get out of there fast enough. Oren was in rare form all weekend long actually. Do you remember in Father of the Bride part II where George and Nina are driving home from the doctor's office after just finding out they're pregnant? Nina is all happy and teary-eyed looking out her window at the left hand side of the street where all the moms are walking with their sweet little kids picking flowers and skipping down the street. And then there's George looking out his window on the right hand side of the street where all the kids are crying and throwing tanturms and running away from their parents....well, Oren was a right hand side of the street kind of kid all weekend long. And that's just reality and that's just another day of being a mom in case you happened to forget up there on your special mother's day pedestal. And by you, I mean me.

 

After brunch the day started looking up when we took the boys to the McKinley Museum and they got to do science experiments and run off some of their crazy boy energy. The best part was hiking the stairs up to the monument and then teaching the boys how to roll back down the hills. Can you believe they actually did not know how to roll down a hill?! This is something that they literally needed to be taught. So I showed them the ropes and ended up with grass clippings all over my clothes and hair. But it the name of life lessons, it was worth it. So that's how we spent our weekend. How did you celebrate yours? Do you have any yearly traditions? I'd love to hear!

A Mother's Day Photoshoot

 

A little while back I got an email from local photographer, Lauren Parker of Lauren Grayson Photography.  She kindly offered to do a little mother's day photoshoot for me and my boys and I jumped at the offer (I mean, duh!) All she asked was that I bring along a few of the boys favorite toys and books to incorporate into our shoot for a more authentic and natural feel. Although she did have plenty of extra things for them to play with too (plus apple juice and popcorn for the boys?! What a pro!) It was the perfect set up for photographing little kids and I just loved the cute pretend glasses Wes picked out of her stash and was wearing around! She even managed to keep Oren entertained long enough to get some good shots of him, which is no easy task. (She also has a two year old boy, so yeah, she gets it ;) And when all Oren wanted to do was push his cars down the sidewalk, she just rolled with it and got down on the sidewalk with us for some pretty sweet shots of the moment. Totally authentic and unplanned and I love that about her work. There were no overly staged, stiff studio-style poses. She just let the boys play and be themselves and captured them just the way they are. And really, what more could you ask for than that? Below are just a few of my favorite shots from the day.

 

If you're looking for a great mother's day gift and live in the northeast Ohio area, a sweet little shoot like this one for the moms and kids in your life would be a pretty priceless gift, don't you think?

 

Thank you, Lauren!!!

 

 

An Update on Life Lately + Pictures From my Phone

Josh has been in Chicago the past four days and is currently on a plane returning to us now. (Praise the lord!) I can't wait for him to get back so I can say "your turn" for the next week straight when someone needs a diaper change or wants to play zombies/army/batman/pirates/etctetcetc. Work has been crazy, house stuff has been crazy, weaning has been crazy. It's all crazy. (But then I remember what sweet Audra's month looks like and I want to slap myself upside the head for even complaining. Seriously, girlfriend is superwoman.) I'll get to the down and dirty details momentarily, but first, pictures...

1. House Stuff. 

I never, ever, EVER plan on moving again once this is all over, and from what I gather we haven't even had it that bad, which is insane. It's all just such a ridiculously asinine process. You negotiate and negotiate and finally sign a contract (or two) and you think you're more or less good to go, but you're not. You're not even close. We had inspections on both houses which led to more negotiations (still ongoing as we speak) and then we found out that our current house tested positive for radon (great!) and so you think you could just give the buyers some cash so they can take care of it when they move in? But oh no, their loan is FHA and it can't even be approved until the radon is mitigated. Which means we have to deal with getting that whole system installed which in turn means everything is on hold until then. Perfect.

Cut to our new house where we had to wait THREE WEEKS to get the appraisal back. Three weeks, people. It was overdue by a week and the appraiser was no where to be found. Wasn't returning phone calls, emails, nothing. So we just waited in limbo wondering if this appraiser ever actually even existed and if maybe someone shouldn't be filing a missing person's report? Finally, just this morning the appraisal magically came through with no explanation for the delay or lack of communication. Whatever, it appraised and that's all that matters. I guess.

So, we're back to re-negotiating everything based on all the new information from the inspections and also back to getting new quotes and more house repairs done. It's just like two months ago all over again!

2. Weaning. 

I officially ended nursing on the 1st of this month. So, we're a week strong tomorrow. It wasn't planned, I was just waiting for the right moment. That morning when Oren woke up wanting to nurse I just didn't really feel like it, so I figured I'd try to get him to go the whole day without. It wasn't easy, but we did it. So the next day I did the same and the next and the next, and now it looks like we're really doing this thing. I'm relieved and elated that it's going so well and that neither of us has been too emotional over it. I'm also glad that I didn't pre-determine the exact day I was going to stop so I didn't make too big of a deal over our last time. Sometimes, for me, it's easier that way. I didn't know it would be our last time, so in my head I didn't make it more sad or more difficult than it needed to be.  So yes, overall, it's going well. Does Oren still ask to nurse? Yes. Does he still wake up at 4am everyday? Yes. But now the lack of nursing just gets him all pissed off and worked up so instead of nursing for an hour our two every morning we now come downstairs to the living room, cuddle on the couch and watch batman. I've also found that spoonfuls of peanut butter right out of the jar and a sippy cup of milk with a squirt or two of Hershey's extra dark syrup seems to do the trick when times are tough. I have no idea how long this will go on, but one day I'll sleep again. At least that's what I'm telling myself.

3. The Rest

As I mentioned before, work's crazy busy. It's a good problem to have and seeing all my hard work come to fruition is extremely satisfying, but I'm feeling a little burned out none the less. There's not much I can do about this, it's not like we can exactly turn away clients, so we're busy until...indefinitely, I suppose. It is what it is, but man I could use a vacation. (94 days and counting!) 

In good news, Abby's birthday is today! Happy birthday Abbysnail, you're the best sister in the whole wide world and I love you soooo much!

Also, those would be her birthday dinner pics above. I mostly just threw those in as an excuse to include the picture of my dad in his old eagle scout uniform that we dug out and made him try on while we were there the other night. Fun fact: My father, a life long liberal, once had an NRA membership and a badge in marksmanship?! What? Who would have guessed?! Of course, that was before the NRA was a bunch of right wing lobbyists as he puts it (and I may or may not be leaving out a few other adjectives). To which I say, ok dad, whatever helps you sleep at night ;)

Beyond that, just living the single mom life the last few days as I've already mentioned. Thankfully there has been nice weather, plenty of ice cream to go around and hours upon hours logged at the park the past few days. I'm hoping May settles down a bit from here on out, but let's get real, it's only going to get worse before it gets better. Let's not forget that whole packing and actually moving to an entirely new house thing coming down the pike. 

So, um, I guess wish me luck if you'd be so kind and go easy on me if the blog posts aren't quite so plentiful, ok? As for me I'm off to bed since it's after midnight and 4am is just around the corner...what can I say? I'm livin' the dream ;)