My First "Wedding"

I use the word "wedding" loosely, but if that is what you call getting legally married, then that is what we had four years ago today.

A little background for those that don't know: Patrick is my highschool sweetheart. We started dating in January 2004 when I was a Junior, and he had already graduated in 2003 {thus, I am not HIS high school sweetheart}. Things were great for a couple months, and I was smitten. Then we hit some rough patches and were off and on for several years. Sometimes we were together, and I attended a couple graduations of various Army schools. For some others, we weren't on speaking terms. We danced at his mom's wedding in 2006, and I remember him asking me if I would still marry him one day even if he reenlisted, because he was about to re-up for six more years.

Anyway, after all this back and forth, we finally decided to put a stop to it in April 2008. I was still in school at OSU, and Patrick was in Washington. We rekindled our relationship over the phone, and he deployed just three days after I had reached out to him after over a year of not speaking. We made plans for me to come visit him during his leave that July, and booked our wedding venue for June 13, 2009. I counted down the days til I could see him again, and July finally arrived. I flew to Washington, and we had planned for me to stay until early August, then I would go back for my fall semester at OSU. Patrick had talked about maybe buying a house, but he would be deploying again in just six months and didn't want to have a house sitting unoccupied while he was gone. I suggested having a courthouse wedding just to get the extra BAH so we could buy a house, then even suggested that I could just stay here and live in it.

We looked into the courthouse thing, I even got a cute little white dress, but someone told me it wasn't as romantic as it is in the movies. They said you are just in line at the courthouse with the criminals waiting to hear there charges or go before the judge or whatever. That didn't sound very appealing to me...We talked it over, and Patrick didn't want to do anything ceremonious since we were having our wedding in the Church the next summer. I looked up people who could perform marriages near us, and found a pastor who actually lived in an apartment complex down the street. Awesome! So we make arrangements, and had the most un-ceremonious wedding in the history of weddings.

On a Thursday night, we  knock on the door and no one answers for a little while. We almost chicken out because it was a pretty sketchy apartment complex and we were thinking "wow, THIS is where we are about to get married..." And just as we are going to turn and walk away, a man with spiky hair, horn rimmed glasses, and huge holes in his ears answers the door. Obviously we are pretty surprised by his appearance, given the fact that he was a pastor. After making sure he was indeed able to marry us, and have it count, we go inside. We signed our lives away on a little piece of paper on his small, round bar table with his wife and our roommate at the time as witnesses. His wife was equally "colorful" with retro glasses, pink hair and tattoos. If you would've asked me at any point in my life before this night if I would ever get married by a punk preacher and his punk wife, I would have laughed. But that is what happened!


We did go on to have a beautiful "real" ceremony at St. Patrick's Church in New Orleans the next year to make our marriage official before God. I will write another post about that later, maybe on our next 4th anniversary (June 13, 2013).

I feel so blessed that he is still my best friend, with whom I am very much in love four years later. That's like 20 years in nowadays terms with people divorcing left and right. And I consider our marriage to be in great shape, as our only arguments seem to center around taste in decor, and sometimes my (lack of) housekeeping. I'd say after having two kids in two years, if those are our only problems we are doing pretty ok! Patrick is a great husband, and a great father, and I am so lucky to share my life with such a wonderful man.


And now I will leave you with some photos taken roughly around our anniversary each year, except for the ones, which were taken a couple months after we got married the first time.

This was in November 2008. This is a candid shot that I think is hilarious, I was complaining about being cold, and Patrick was talking to my dad.

This one is better. Oh to be young and thin again. Maybe one day. (Just thin though, obviously I can't go back in time and be young again.)

This was right after our ceremony, we took a horse carriage ride around New Orleans on the way to our reception site. June 13, 2009.

This was taken as we left the hospital with our daughter, on June 27th 2010, a month before our 2nd anniversary, or two weeks after our first, depending on which one you use. Confused yet?

Here is our little family in July 2011. Abigail had just turned one, we had our 2nd and 3rd anniversaries, and I was about 14 weeks into cooking little Patrick, Jr.

And here is our little family's most recent picture, from June 2012.

Pumpkin Pie

Something really exciting happened in my house today. My Bubba ate solids!! This might not sound like a big deal, since he is going to be 6 months old in a couple days, and that's the recommended time to start your baby on solids. Well, Abigail didn't eat solids until she was 10 months old. I waited until 6 months with her like I was supposed to, then spent four more anxious months worrying about her development as she continued to push every.single.thing. out of her mouth. I even took her to an occupational therapist to see if we could pinpoint the problem. Bam. She ate like a champ at the appointment, like she had been eating solid food her whole life. Of course. So I feel ridiculous even being there, but the OT was very nice about it and gave me lots of helpful information about what, and how much I should expect her to be eating. Anyway, on with the story.

I wanted something sweet today with lunch, and also needed some fiber (TMI? it happens.) so I made myself some pumpkin pie in a bowl. {A can of plain pumpkin, generous amounts of pumpkin pie spice(nutmeg, allspice, ginger), cinnamon, a little butter, and a little brown sugar, in the microwave for a minute and a half to melt the butter and sugar, relatively delicious.} I gave some to Abigail first, because she always wants to eat the same thing I am eating. Then Patrick ate like half of it, and finally I get around to eating some myself, and I think "hmm I wonder if Bubba would eat this."

There was probably 1/2 a cup left at this point, and I gave him a bite to taste. I noticed that he closed his mouth around the spoon, and REALLY thought about it. (Let me first say that I have tried solids only a handful of times, we've tried apples and sweet potatoes from the jar, both with not much luck). After he tasted it, I gave him another bite. He actually closed his mouth around the spoon on purpose! With the other foods, I've just kind of wiped the food on the roof of his mouth, pretty much forcing him to eat it. Or spit it out. He did a little of both. But today!! He loved it! He would get so excited when I brought the spoon to his mouth. After a while he had probably eaten a good 1/3 of a cup! That is a lot for a baby who's never eaten anything but milk before!

I am so very excited about this development. I guess he just needed to eat something yummy instead of nasty baby food jars. I guess it's time to bust out the Baby Bullet and make my boy some food! Now I just have to figure out how to keep Abigail from getting upset when she can't have what he is having. Oh well, we'll see. 

And now, here is an adorable sequence of photos I like to call "the story of a bite." Enjoy :-)

Catch Up Again!

So I am a little behind on posting projects and such because we took a week to visit family back home in Louisiana and to get T Patrick baptized in the same church we got married in, and his sister was baptized in (St. Patrick's in New Orleans). I have read on blog land that you are not supposed to announce that you are leaving your house unattended for a week to the entire world via internet, so I didn't say anything here :-) I am still photography-shy from a childhood full of camera abuse by my mother, so sadly, I didn't bother people for too many pictures. But here are some that I did manage to take:

Here is four generations, Patrick, his grandmother holding little Patrick, and his mom, post baptism. 

Our family with Tpat's God parents, Patrick's little sister Jolie, and his cousin Mathew. 

Abigail and Patrick's cousin Stephen having fun in the pool! She LOVED the pool! She is totally fearless and walked right out to the edge of the diving board at the deep end several times (way to give momma a heart attack Abigial!). She jumped off the side of the pool into my arms for like 10 minutes, loved it when I lifted her up out the water and splashed her back down under it...she was like a fish! 

Overall we had a great trip and the kids did really well flying all day both times. It was nice to get to see family, and to be able to have our little boy baptized into the Church! 

In project news, I have started the tile around our bathtub and it looks awesome! I am so excited! Here is a sneak peak:

This picture was taken with my phone, so the quality's not great. Not that I make great photos with my fancy camera yet either! lol

That is just the back wall, obviously, and I have now done the same thing to the two side walls. All that is left to do is rent a wet saw on the next sunny day to cut down the pieces I need for the corners and edges, and then grout. Yay! This was actually a pretty quick and easy project. So far, anyway...we'll see how my attempt at using the wet saw goes. I made sure to take lots of step-by-step photos and will do a detailed post of how easy it is to do this very soon. 

Today, Patrick is off work and we are taking Abigail to an indoor bouncy house place for her birthday! I am so excited, she LOVES bouncy houses! She had her two year check up at the doctor yesterday, and is 26lbs and 34in tall. To put that in perspective, she weighs only 6lbs more than her 19 months younger brother. He is such a chunky monkey! We also discussed her lack of quality sleep with the doctor, and have an appointment this morning for an Xray of the soft tissue of her neck to see if anything is going on there, maybe causing sleep apnea or something. I am hoping for some answers so I can have my sweet little girl back, instead of this cranky super-tired toddler that drives me crazy!

That is about all the updates I have for now. Stay tuned for more progress on the tile, as well as a revelation I had about painting cabinets, AND some new bathroom storage. Exciting stuff, I know!!

Catching Up

Last weekend I was lucky enough to talk Patrick into going to the peninsula for a quick hike. We went to Lake Cushman and walked around an "easy" trail that still kicked my butt since I was carrying 18lbs of Bubba in a ring sling. {I dug through the attic to find my mei tai, but it wasn't in any of the boxes I looked in, so ring sling it was...Patrick needed the Ergobaby for Abigail.} Anyway, I survived, but my back may never be the same! We walked about a mile to a rock river bed where Patrick stopped to let Abigail play for a while. The rock bed was at the bottom of a 5ish foot mud cliff...like, almost vertical mud straight down. Not the kind of thing I wanted to slide down with Bubba and not be able to get back up. Ring slings aren't exactly made for scaling muddy cliffs. {If you're completely lost and wondering what a ring sling is, here is Abigail in the same sling-in-question as a teeny baby: https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=785081443502&set=a.785081288812.2367144.17112016&type=3&theater} Here is a great one from Maya Wrap, but you can find them cheaper on Etsy:

Anyway, Patrick walked out about half a football field away from me, and started unbuckling the Ergobaby. Well, he unbuckled the waistband FIRST (???) and when he moved his arms to unbuckle the straps Abigail fell straight down onto the river rocks. Poor baby wasn't happy. I screamed like a crazy person when I saw her fall, and then I was so sad when she was crying and I couldn't go make her feel better! I eventually did make my way down there though, and snapped some pictures of Abigail spending some quality time with her dad. Here he is teaching her how to throw rocks with proper form:

 And here she is giving him some smooches:

{OK, so she missed during this particular shot, but she usually gets him right on the lips!}

And here is a picture I really like, even though I didn't really get Abigail in focus, and she's not looking at the camera...

On our walk back from the river bed, we encountered this little guy:

Yep that's right, folks. That there is a slug that someone used as an ashtray. Please forgive the lack of focus on the actual slug, I was in a hurry and forgot I had switched to manual focus while taking pictures of Abigail. Anyway, this poor little slug was just making his way across the path and I have to say it was one of the strangest things I've happened upon in my life. I yelled for Patrick to come back {he is the world's fastest walker, so naturally he was several yards ahead of me} and he actually plucked the cigarette butt out of it's head. It must have been there a while, because there was lots of slug goo that came out stuck to the tip, like it had been healing around the cigarette. It really makes me lose faith in humanity in general to find things like this. Why would you put your cigarette out on a poor little slug? Sigh. 

On a lighter note...

Another bright idea I had recently was to make some homemade playdoh. I got a wild hair up my you-know-what a couple weeks ago and decided to make playdoh with Abigail. I made a special trip to the store to get flour, since we don't keep it in the house {we try to keep a "paleo" pantry so I am not tempted to do things like make a random cake or batch of cookies and eat it all the same day...not that I do that...}. I ended up picking a recipe that needed to be made in a a pot on the stove, so I made it while she was napping and planned for her to help me knead in the food coloring to color the dough. She was a little less than impressed. I should have known, this girl got a tiny tub of playdoh when she was trick or treating and I was so excited to play with it with her when we got home, but she cared more about the container than playing with the squishy good stuff. I guess we are still a ways off from enjoying "bigger" little kid activities like this. I think I've decided I would be OK with just skipping this second year. Nothing good happens during year 2, they throw tantrums, they can't play "for real" yet, you have to potty train...what a bummer! Come on, THREE! Oh wait, she's not even two yet...sigh. I hope this year goes fast. Anywho, here is the best picture I could get while she was pushing a cookie cutter into the dough:

{notice that she is still not looking at me?}

 One "bigger" little kid thing she does like to do is play with puzzles. My mom sent this alphabet puzzle recently and she tried to play with it, but once she took out ALL the letters, she got a little frustrated!

And now, my first DIY project to post on here! We got this pine computer desk from one of my favorite local furniture stores, The Woodshed. They sell unfinished wood furniture. It's super solid and a great little desk. I stained it black, because at the time we were loving espresso colored furniture. {My tastes have since changed, and I am slowly but surely trying to get our furniture to be lighter, and airier (??) feeling} I decided I wanted to paint this desk a fun color and put it in Abigail's room as a nightstand and also for future schoolwork, since we plan to homeschool. Below is a photo of the desk after I sanded it to get it ready to be primed:

So there you have it! That is all that we've been up to lately. I will post a reveal tomorrow to show the finished product of the desk, so stay tuned!

New Wheels

We have two beasty vehicles. We had a bouncing baby girl in June of 2010, and quickly figured out that having her in her carseat in the back of my beautiful 2-door brand new Accord would not be fun. Keeping in mind the fact that we want about 4 kids, we went out and bought the biggest vehicle we could find after selling my Accord. We found my 2006 Expedition all the way in Aberdeen, took it home and have had a love/hate relationship with it ever since. I loved having an Expedition, but this particular one came with some problems that we didn't see before purchasing, like a stupid air conditioner that according to Patrick only has two settings, "off and hurricane." And a power window motor about to poop out any second on the driver's side window. I go on Ft. Lewis a lot, so a working driver's side window is a must! And last but not least, the GAS. We have two gas guzzling vehicles, one of which is driving 18 miles to Fort Lewis and 18 miles home every.single.day. Well, except weekends. Most of the time. Anyway, with gas being over $4/gallon, we decided it was time to get something smaller and spend less money on gas since we don't have enough kids to necessitate our actually having the Expedition. I did lots of shopping around online, and settled on the Ford Escape/Mercury Mariner (same car). We finally came home with this lovely 2009 Mariner with only 39,000 miles (as opposed to my 85,500 mile Expedition!):

 

The power windows work great, and it has FOUR actual air conditioning settings that do indeed each feel different! It's a 4cyl so we are hoping to cut our gas bill down significantly!

Some day down the road, when I am knocked up with baby number 4, this snazzy little number will join our family: 

The redesigned Nissan Quest is the first minivan I have seen that has a body style that is somewhat acceptable to me, and has all the convenience and functionality of a minivan! I am not gonna lie, I'm kind of excited about it....Does that make me a loser? A mom? A little of both? I never in my life thought I would be excited about a minivan...

Big Steps!

Well, my little Abigail has officially started sleeping in a big girl toddler bed! It all started with her asking to get on our bed and get "under the covers" a lot recently. She really seemed to like pretending to sleep like a big girl! Then I saw a friend post a funny picture of where her son {who is a couple months younger than Abigail} wound up during a nap. It made me start to wonder if it was time to transition to a toddler bed, although I had previously thought I would keep her in her crib til she was like five so I wouldn't have to deal with anything that comes with not having your child contained in a baby jail!

(This was the best I could get before she got up!)

So Tuesday night we hung out upstairs while I took one side off of her crib. We don't have a guard rail or anything, but her crib is like, 6 inches off the ground so I think she would be OK if she fell out. Anyway, we started bedtime like usual, reading a couple books in the rocking chair, then I put her in her bed. She cried and reached out for me with her little sad face and said "yeeesss???" over and over, which is what she does when she is sad and wants to be held. I sat down next to the bed to try to read her another story with her IN the bed to make her feel better, but she climbed out into my lap. We read a couple more books, she calmed down and I put her back in bed and told her she needed to stay in her bed like a big girl. She cried a little more as I was walking out of her room, but she finished fussing after about 10 minutes. {I had the monitor on so I could hear if she got up and did anything} She woke up briefly one time around 4am, cried some, and went back to sleep. This wasn't too out of the ordinary, she would wake up and cry every once in a while before this. She sleeps terribly, like her daddy.

When I went to get her the next morning, she had a baby doll in her bed that I am pret-ty sure I didn't put in her bed the night before. I know she had her stuffed lamb, and her stuffed moose, but I think she must've gotten up and gotten her baby at some point!

The true challenge came at naptime, I ended up having to do a similar routine to our bedtime routine. Before, whenever she got sleepy enough, I would just take her upstairs and put her in the crib. Sometimes she would protest, but she would go to sleep really quickly because there really wasn't anything else to do in the crib! Now it is a little trickier, because she can get up and shake the door knob and yell "momma??" Breaks my heart! I thought maybe she would just play a bit, realize she was tired and couldn't get out of her room, and crawl in her bed and go to sleep. Negative! So after two rounds of her calling down to me, I read her some books in my lap next to her bed like we did the night before. I put her back in her bed and told her to stay there, and she cried again, but was done by the time I got downstairs. All this crying makes a mommy sad! But I know I will thank myself down the road when she's not trying to spend every night in OUR bed. {I really need my space when I'm sleeping, so it's hard enough already sharing my bed with my giant husband who has no awareness that I am even in the bed once he's sleeping!} I love co-sleeping with my babies, but at the same time I am counting down the days til I will night-wean my little Bubba and I can sleep on my own again!

So that's our experience so far, and it has been pretty manageable! Much easier than I thought it would be, actually! Anyone else transitioning now, or in the near future? Or have any fun stories from when you transitioned your kid?

P.S. I have made a tiny bit of progress on the website, updating a couple of the graphics, but I still have a long ways to go!