conversation with the boy

So I often give Jackson choices when asking him to do something or when we are trying to figure out what we want to do. Lately these choices come after he has requested to do something and I say "no" but you can do this, this, or this. He has started giving me choices back. So today it went something like this...............

Jack- Mom can I play computer?

Me- No not right now but you can play Lego's, or miniatures, or color, or play with playdoh, or do puzzles....

Jack- Mom, I can either play computer, or star wars miniatures, or go outside, those are my choices.....those are the things that Jesus told me to do so I need to do them.

Me- How about miniatures

Jack- miniatures or legos

He ended up playing with legos.

The things that 3 year olds come up with are so cute. Sometimes when he gives me his choices he calls them rules and if he can't do them he gets very upset because those are the rules. He sure is a silly boy!!

9 months

weight - 19.16 lbs - 57.25%

height - 28.07 in - 69.11%

head - 18 in - 91.08%

Not such a baby anymore

Dutch became an expert crawler about a week after she started crawling and now she is always pulling herself up on anything and everything. Half of the time she is going for something that doesn't have enough weight to back her up. So her and lets say the empty laundry basket both come tumbling down.

Speaking of empty laundry baskets that doesn't happen often in this house. Especially right now! The kids and I went out of town last week and my husband and sister stayed home. I left a couple of baskets of clean clothes behind and very little dirty clothes. I didn't do laundry while I was gone and neither did the fam left behind. I came home to a mound of dirty clothes with a trash bag in my arms full of more. So since I have been home I have been trying to get a hold on all of the dirty laundry. I have been washing and drying like crazy but NOT folding. I literally have a playpen FULL of clean laundry. I had to keep the laundry moving through and I didn't have the time or the patience to sit and fold. So what do you do when all of your baskets are full? I say ya start dumping them into the playpen. Hey a playpen looks just like an over sized laundry basket right? Good thing it was set up in my bedroom and not in the living room.

I thought I would throw in a couple pictures of Dutch in her cute hoodie and spare you all the picture of my giant laundry pile!

projects,goals, and sanity

First of all I am trying to be healthier. I am just not a very healthy person! I eat almost NO vegetables and I NEVER workout. Yes I chase around my extra busy 3 year old but I never really workout. And having my husband gone for almost every meal doesn't encourage the best menu for the fam. I usually ended up making Jackson kid food(hot dogs, pb and j, you get the idea) and later making me something just as easy. With Jackson I do usually add in fruits and veggies but when making my own not so much. I just don't like most vegetables and never have. The motto in my house growing up was you have to eat everything on your plate, but you also got to pick EVERYTHING on your plate. So back to my goal....I want to be HEALTHIER. And I have started at the veggies. Most I couldn't even remember trying. So I have started the trying and here are the results (keep in mind these are just the NEW ones, there are already a few veggies that I love).........

Peppers -really good

Peas -yuck

Broccoli(raw) -yuck

Broccoli(steamed with cheese) -yuck

Green beans - do-able

Mushrooms - not so good but if I can't taste or feel them then I can eat them

That is as brave as I get for now but I am going to continue to try and try everything. I am finding fun and yummy ways to incorporate these new things into my diet. Thus the picture of the BBQ'ed skewers above. I am lucky that I LOVE fruit(besides bananas - yuck). I am even eating yogurt for breakfast when I really never ate breakfast and am not hungry in the mornings. I actually gagged on it the first couple of times but have pushed past and can get a whole container down. I haven't started working out yet but it will come. Baby steps right?

OK so I live in a basement apartment facing the north. My carpet is really dark and so is a lot of my furniture. It is always dark in my house and it was really starting to get to me. My old pillows were getting disgusting and torn up soooooooooooo with help of my lovely sister in law Mo we picked out some brighter colors and made covers. They turned out great! And after getting home and putting them on my couches I was inspired to rearrange my whole living room. It feels soooooooo much better. I have the same amount of furniture but it feels so much more open. I also got a little rug from target that was clearanced down to $6. I haven't framed the pictures I want to yet and I haven't moved the old ones and so they aren't centered with my furniture. But after I finish everything I will post more pictures. I hope that this post wasn't to boring. I just feels good document my goals for my own sanity.