Oh hey!

Oh hey everyone! (or anyone? hm...) Look at what I found? The password to my account! The beauty of the internet is that it never dies!

Yesterday was my 39th birthday, which I always thought would be/feel like a big deal. And (not) surprisingly, it wasn't. But next year is 40... so woo hoo!

Huge and I went to Smyth for dinner and it was amazing and beautiful! A fun way to kick of the year.

School Pictures

I always say how different my kids' personalities are... and it's never been more apparent than in pictures. Take their school pictures for example.

This one, cheesy, but adorable...

And then this one. Ya, she's not having it...

Dear Nora...

Dear Nora...
You are THREE years old... what the heck. You are a bonna fide kid now. You don't fit into the toddler category anymore. What can I say about you that sums up the little bundle of personality you are.... You are funny... you do things for a laugh. You tell terrible jokes (your favorite knock, knock jokes don't make any sense), laugh at yourself, make ridiculously funny faces and even foray into physical comedy when you launch yourself on to the floor pretending to fall (or your latest, "oh, I die", which technically isn't as funny, but I'm going to let it slide since you really have no idea what that means). You love and adore your brother (thankfully he feels the same way about you) and when you're not completely annoying him (and bullying him, by sitting on him, kicking him, messing up his legos/games, etc), you mimic him and play with him and love doing what he's doing. I call you a copy cat, but you claim you're a copy dog. You guys will play legos, dolls, "mcdonalds", store, "cooker" (restaurant) and super heroes together all the time. You also love your snacks. You don't necessarily have a sweet tooth, in fact I'd say you favor more on the salty, but you love to graze. All day long you want a snack and you'll tell me how you're "SOOO hungry". We haven't done your 3 year old doctor's appointment, but I'm pretty sure you weigh more than your brother (or close to it). I feel every pound of it when I'm forced to lug you up and down the stairs, neighborhood, etc. We went on vacation in February with nana, papa, Uncle Matt, Ming Nat, Noah, baby Liam and Uncle Dave and we decided not to bring a stroller for you, but I had the baby carrier and wore you around the airport and a few places in Puerto Rico... and yah, that might be the last time...

What else... you're pretty much potty trained although still wear a pull up at night. You still are in a crib and want to get bunk beds with Callan, but don't want to get rid of your crib. You're excited to go to school next year (fingers crossed CPS gets its act together) and you love to snuggle, although you like to wipe my kisses off (you find it funny). You love your dolls, stuffed animals and blankets. Oh and how could I forget, you LOVE bags... doesn't matter what kind, it could be a purse, backpack, Ziploc even grocery bag, but you are a bag lady. You stuff everything into bags and lug them around the house, the car, everywhere. I usually try to convince you to leave it in the car because when we get wherever we're going you don't actually want to hold the bag, but up until that point it's the most important thing to you. If things don't work out in the future, you'll make a lovely bag lady. You also have an impressive rock collection. Not so much in the diversity or beauty of the rocks you collect, but in your commitment to picking up loose gravel and declaring it something special.
You're a stereotypical girl in your love for princesses, dolls, etc, but I also love that you play super heroes and wear Callan's clothes and do other not so girly things. You are your own person and that's what makes you so fun and unique. You'll watch "scary" shows/movies and will tell me you won't be scared and will be brave, and will ask Callan (or someone) to hold your hand through it. And I think that's so important... you need to be brave and willing to be your own person, but know that someone will be there to support you and help you through... Nora bug, you are such a joy (well, except for when you're being a pain), and there are so many new amazing adventures we're going to go on together. I can't wait to see where those take us.

Love,
Mama

It's 2016!

Wow, that's the first time I've typed that (correction, that was 5 days ago, I've obviously written it since, I just haven't published this until now)... hard to believe it's 2016. There's a lot that's been going on and I hope to one day catch up, but for now, we'll start fresh -isn't that what new year's are all about?

For the first post of the year, let's do New Year's resolutions! The last set I have on the blog are from 2012 - guess if one of them was to blog about new year's resolutions, I failed! Anyway, let's see how many of these I'm going to recycle!

2012, I mean 2016 resolutions:

1. Work out! Or get back to running. Or just try to be healthier.
My goal is to run this year. I've talked about it a lot, but this is the year I actually do it. I'm not sure if this means running a 10k, or a 10 miler or a half marathon, but I will do some race... I figure this is the year I decide truly whether running is for me. I figure if I don't do it this year, then I can cross it off my list. No pressure, just reality. There are other ways to be active and stay fit (I think). My diet could also use some cleaning up. I'm back to eating too much processed food, drinking too much diet soda and booze. I know I'm not giving it up (ever), but I could probably clean it up a wee bit.

2. Organize my house! Or finally start living like an adult. 
(This one is straight up being recycled from 2012... I clearly am still failing at this!)
This is the term, "live like an adult", that I use when I'm complaining to Huge about the state of our house -we need to start living like adults. I shouldn't have to step over a pile of laundry to get to the bathroom (not that I do now...) but we need to seriously purge and organize our house. An organized house leads to an organized life. I figure to truly do this I need to get Huge on board... any suggestions? I threatened just throwing all his stuff out, but he would just go and buy new stuff. Hm... I guess I'll have to look at taking away all of his credit cards as well. Ha

2a. Finally do stuff to the house.
I've been putting off doing stuff or updating stuff, but there are things I want to do and this is the year I'm going to do it. First on the list, buy a rug for the living room. It drives me insane that the rug we have in there is too small for the space. We (ahem, Huge) bought it on a whim and it just doesn't fit. And it annoys me ALL.THE.TIME. But I always had "better" things to spend my money on... but I realized it's not that expensive to replace and it will make me less annoyed. Win-win! So small improvements that will make me less stabb-y (yes, I realize this makes it seem like my priorities are all warped, but indulge me in my hyperbole), are worth doing. I've already ordered the rug so we're on our way!

3. Read 25 books this year.
I had a goal last year to read 20 and I made it to 22 (very proud of myself), so I do believe it's doable, I just need to make more of an effort to read instead of spending time on the inter webs.

4. I had a goal in 2012 about work -it was something along the lines of work less, stress less (If I wasn't so lazy I would look up the exact wording). I'm in a new job (as of 8 days ago), so I can't comment on the workload (expected or self-imposed) will be,but I think my goal for work is to stay out of my comfort zone. I have a feeling that there will be a lot of opportunities for stretch assignments and growth if I'm willing to take them and ask for them. So my goal is to be aware that sometimes I don't like being out of my comfort zone and to do it. Prime example, I'm blindly setting up meet and greets with department heads -something I would never do before. I literally have no idea what they do or how we'll be working together so not having a fixed "agenda" is scary. But it's been met positively and I think is a valuable foundation to build these work relationships. I'm the new person, something I haven't been in a long time.

5. Be more present and as I like to say "just be". I find myself on my phone or not really being engaged as much as I should be... this happens at work and at home and I'm doing everyone a disservice. So it's cliche, but it's a reminder to be more content and to be more present.

6. Get back on track financially.
Don't worry dad (if you're reading this), we're not in the poor house (yet), but we're not as financially secure as I'd be comfortable with. I'd like to have more liquid savings, I'd like to have more in the retirement and kids' accounts and I'd like to have more money to spend on things I deem important. Again, nothing crazy, but I'd like to just feel more "adult" about my life. Maybe that's the theme for 2016.

7. Blog more!
Pretty self explanatory, but I have not documented Nora's life nearly as much as Callan's and there are so many things to remember that I've already forgotten. And she is a she-devil, but she's funny! And Callan is turning into this actual little boy! It's crazy how that works :) But, I'm forgetting all these things and there are so many people who want to know about the nuanced monotony of their day-to-day that they're missing out on... so as a service to them (and me), I want to blog more. Get back into it because it is fun to go back down memory lane.

That ended up being more than I thought I would have, but I think that's it. Oh ya, there is this, my favorite resolution of all.

2016, bring it on -I have a feeling it's going to be a good one.

Pumpkins in the Park 2015

Oh hey guys, Happy Monday! Guess what I did this weekend? Well, one of the things I did. I went for a run! Ha, it probably doesn't seem so newsworthy, but this was the first organized run I've done in a long time. It was only a 5k, but considering I haven't run in forever, this seemed like a big accomplishment. I was never concerned about not finishing, but considering it was the most I had run this month I'm pretty proud of myself -although slightly concerned about how my quads still hurt today. Anywho... it was a lovely day for a run and I got to it with some lovely ladies. The best part was probably the (pre and) post race drinks and going out to a bar on a Saturday night in running wear (so comfy)! I may even be crazy enough to do it again... although next time I do think I'll train (or you know, do a few laps before the run).

In other weekend news, the kiddos test drove their Halloween costumes and their trick-or-treating skills at the Halloween event on Southport. It was a gorgeous day and the kids loved seeing all the fun costumes. Huge is gone for actual Halloween so it was nice to do a little holiday stuff as a family.

Um... hello?

*taps mic* so... ya... this is awkward... it's been a looong time... so, um, hi there! I feel like I should just jump back in, but it's been soo incredibly long that it might seem odd that I don't mention that... but then again, does anyone really care?

Well, it's now 2015... and this blog hasn't seen action since the spring of 2014... wrap your head around that one. I, also, do not know where the time has gone. I can't pretend to say nothing has happened, because that clearly is a big fat lie, but at the same time nothing is ridiculously different. 

My brother-in-law and sister-in-law, along with their darling 7 month old twin girls were here visiting us and we got to talking about the blog and she asked if I still wrote on it. I told her I hadn't kept up with it although I have lots of posts in draft form, but never bothered to finish and publish them. Anyway, we started looking through my (limited) archives and I realized how great the blog really is/was. There were many things I had already forgotten and seeing pictures and reliving it was a lot of fun. And, I always gripe about not having any (productive) hobbies... so maybe this can count as one. Wow... that is a very long intro to say, hey guys, I'm back!

And to kick it off... here's a picture of the 2 muchkins that have been keeping me busy these past few months.