Changes, changes...

I have reached a point in my life where I can't find time to get my roots done so, in an attempt to avoid very Britney Spears level roots for the foreseeable future, I am back to natural. Not a big deal, except that I have been blonde for a while! My own mom was a little shocked when she saw it. Will told me, "Mom, you look like a different kind of mommy. You are still my mommy, but you look like a different kind of mom." What does that mean I ask you? Exactly what KIND of mommy do I now look like? I am a little freaked out about it for now but I will get used to it I think. We shall see how it grows back in. I am hoping a little lighter than this but I am not holding my breath!

After my very dramatic hair transformation, Will begins asking again for me to cut his hair "like daddy's". Well, if you know Jeff, you know that "like daddy" means not a lot of hair. Jeff's is buzzed these days to keep the attention away from the fact that there is much less there than there used to be. But Will has beautiful blonde curls! Like most things in world of Will, I am constantly on prevention mode. I am trying to always stay a step ahead of him because I am scared of what happens if I don't. So I am thinking, if he keeps asking and I keep saying no, one day he is going to grab a pair of scissors and do it himself. If I know my child, he will probably do it the day before Courtney's wedding in May. So, I decide if it is going to happen, I am going to control it, do it myself now so that it has time to grow out before the wedding.

So, I did it. It is cute, but makes me want to cry because he looks like such a big boy. I miss the adorable blonde curls. But, he thinks he looks cool and in Will's world, cool is all that matters. Luckily, Jake said before his haircut, "I do not want you to cut my hair like Will's". Jake lives to make me happy - thank goodness because I think Will lives to remind me that God has a sense of humor and gets a kick out of watching Will humble me each and every day!

Things I should be doing...

1. Laundry
2. Finishing the agenda for Sunday's meeting
3. Unloading the dishwasher
4. Sleeping because there are no children awake

But alas, I am doing none of these. I felt the need to chronicle my day because I have this feeling that one day about 5 years from now, I will wake up and go, wait a minute, I'm 26, not 36 right? Where did 2004 - 2015 go?

Since I am trying to save more and spend less, I have become an official crazy coupon lady. Today was my first experience with couponing on Super Doubles Day at Harris Teeter and I've got to tell you, I am hooked. I am in love with the website www.southernsavers.com. This week, I have officially bought 3 weeks of groceries plus a stock pile of various bath / medicine cabinet products for $150! For a family that spends WAY too much on food normally, that is pretty darn good! My goal is to cut our grocery budget in half this year and I am well on my way! Just to brag a little... I bought $100 of groceries today for $25.

So, my morning started with a 6:30am trip to the grocery store because with all of this coupon madness, it is too hard to go with the kids since I need to pay attention to what I am buying. Once back home and a quick shower, I got Will to school but had to come back home because he forgot his hat & gloves and they were going outside! I finally made it to work at 9:30 where I got much less done than I would have hoped. We have an important meeting this weekend I need to get things together for. After lunch with Will, Courtney, MM and Natalie all I had time to do was run home, feed Maddie May, change her diaper and it was time to get in carpool line!

It was not until I was on my way home from school at 2:30 that I remembered I DIDN'T BUY THE INGREDIENTS FOR THE CAKES!!! Clark, our fabulous youth pastor and I alternate months taking youth to the homeless shelter each month. We take dessert & coffee for 15-30 homeless men & women. We offer a short devotion time, accept prayer reguests, and we pray with them. They enjoy the dessert and warm coffee and we are blessed by the opportunity to serve. Last time I was there, a sweet man asked, can you make Pineapple Upsidedown Cake? To which I replied, because that's what I do, "I never have but I'm sure I can. I will make sure you have it next time!" Ahhhh the ambition that seems like such a good idea at the time. So, since I was vehemently opposed to taking all 3 kids to the grocery store again (I did that yesterday and had enough fun for the week) I called my mom, the saint, and asked her to stop for me on her way to my house.

I am realizing now that I actually have no clue where the time went between 2:40 & 4:00. So... it is now almost 4:00, Jake has just read me the VERY cute book Small Pig, MM is napping, halleluia, and Will is off to spend the night with MiMi and I have 1 hour & 45 min to get these cakes ready before I need to be at church for choir... Easy right? Well, Maddie May wakes up with no plans to let me bake if that means she sits in her chair alone so I am making Pineapple Upsidedown Cake one handed. Anyone who has or has ever had little kids knows that anything you try to do takes about 3x as long as it should so when Jeff walked in the door at 5:45, I practically tossed Maddie May to him as I pulled the last cake out, dumped it on a plate, and walked out the door to pass the cakes off to Clark to take to Bethesda. Whew!

After that, it is all pretty tame... I planned to work in my office on the Sunday meeting info while Jake was at shoir because I had the night off from Middle & High School bible study but because I work in a church with people I love so much, I kept getting distracted by friends walking by who came in to chat. By the time Jake finished choir, I was really no closer to finished with my agenda, but I was smiling because I got to talk to Bob Gammon (one of my favorite people ever) and the sweet Kristen & Shelby.

I came home to remember what a mess I had left in the kitchen and after reading with Jake again and getting Maddie May back to bed, I tackled the mess that was the kitchen. I still have about 100 lbs of laundry to fold since even though it goes against everything I believe in I took 2 loads of laundry out today and left them in baskets instead of folding them right away. I couldn't help it... it was one of those days that laundry just gets done between other things or else no one will have clean underwear and Maddie May will have no clean diapers in the morning!

So here I am, chronicalling my day so one day I will remember what it was like when they were little. When days were a blur of feeding little people, trying to work when I possible, and cleaning the ever present mess all over my house! As I think back over my day, the one thing that made it chaotic was baking the cakes and there is no way I would change doing that. I'm not even sure if the man that asked for it was there tonight since I didn't go, but if baking a cake could have brightened one person's cold (very cold) day, then it was all worth it. I have been so very blessed, the least I can do is share something I love to do with those who need something to est!

A New Project

So I have decided to write a cookbook... just for fun. I just think it would be something I would enjoy doing. I have thought about it for years and now I have an idea. You see, it seems that cooking is a dying art for so many in my generation. I have oodles of friends who do not cook, AT ALL. I find myself pondering that idea all the time and I truly have trouble understanding. I ask women I meet who say they don't cook, "So what do you eat? What do you feed your kids?" I can't comprehend it. Much of my day revolves around cooking. It is not just the cooking itself, but the planning of meals, shopping for food, and prep for meals that occupy my thoughts. I LOVE to cook. I adore food.

This year, Jeff and I are undergoing a complete finance makeover. We will spend less, save more, blah blah blah (thank you very much Dave Ramsey), and I am really excited about the challenge of shopping with coupons. I am going to try to maintain the level of cooking and meals we are used to while cutting our grocery budget dramatically. We shall see where we wind up but we are going to try! So, I have been thinking a lot about meal planning and what we will eat.

This morning as I was preparing the traditional New Years Day meal of greens, hoppin' John, & pork roast I decided, I should make my own cook book because I almost never follow a recipe as it is written. I should write an easy to follow, fun cookbook that chronicles what I cook for my family in 2010. I cook almost every night so there will be plenty of material. I will start each week with a grocery trip and details in the cookbook about what I spent and how much each meal costs per person. I can offer tips for where to buy what and how to save. Then, at the end of the year, I can give it to my non-cooking friends hopefully as inspiration to start cooking! Anyone can cook if you just have some inspiration and easy to follow instructions.

It makes me sad to think there are so many kids growing up in a house where all they eat is frozen pizza, nuggets, and take-out. Some of my best memories are of cooking as a little girl with my mom or my grandmother. Cooking is one of those generational links that can link a little girl with a grown woman or a single mom with a grandmother of 10. I just heard MeMaw say to Maddie May on Christmas, "are watching to learn what ladies do in a kitches?" It struck something in me to hear that. I want her to love cooking as much as I do. I want her to never feel she has to cook because her husband expects it, but rather she cooks because she loves it. I know men can (and should) cook as well, but for me it is a privilege to be able to cook for my family each night. It is a way to show them I love them.

Now just to be clear... I am totally aware that there is a place for frozen pizza and nuggets and I have been rescued by a box of Kraft Mac N Cheese more than once. I just wish there were fewer moms who simply say, "I don't cook" becuse that means there will be a generation of kids who become adults who have never been cooked for and will not know how either. I also know it doesn't mean you love your kids any more or less. In fact I know some who say they don't cook BECAUSE they love their kids! But, anyone can cook and I want to help more women discover the absolute joy making something from scratch that makes your husband smile and your kids know that not all chicken comes in chunks from the freezer. I'm teaching the boys to cook already. They might need that skill one day if they marry the daughter of an "I dont cook" mom.

Wish me luck - it should be fun. Happy 2010!

Making Mom's Rum Cake

For as long as I can remember, my mom’s kitchen has been filled with the delicious smell of Rum cake throughout the month of December. She has always baked and baked all month long. We took cakes to our teachers who looked forward to the cake year after year. Everyone knew about Sheila’s rum cake. I have always loved eating it for breakfast, lunch, dinner or just because I walked by and thought I needed another bite. But, I never truly appreciated the labor of loved involved in this baking tradition.

There were 3 of us with teachers to bake cakes for plus my dad’s customers who grew accustomed to receiving the delectable gift each year. We all three were involved in every club, sport, and church activity imaginable. Mom worked full time and always managed to get us where we were supposed to be. She was involved at church and always volunteered at our schools. STILL she baked tons of cakes every December! As a side note, this is where everyone who knows me now lets out a collective, “Oh, now I see why she thinks she has to do everything and seem to do it with ease!”

So, this is the year I am finally carrying on the tradition. Jake started kindergarten this year and I felt the need to make something for his teachers and couldn’t imagine making anything but my mom’s rum cake. I have had the best intentions all week of getting it done but alas, it is 10:38pm the night before I need to take them to school and I just now have my first 2 cakes in the oven. I am genuinely perplexed at how in the heck she did it year after year? Between getting everyone to and from school each day, diffusing the ever present potential time bomb that is Will, and stopping whatever I am doing every 3 hours to feed Maddie May, I can hardly find time to do the normal things that need to happen to keep my house from collapsing around me much less bake cakes. This week alone, we were at church for 8 hours on Sunday, we had a 2 hour delay from school Monday for FOG (I know, astounding), Maddie May had a doctor’s appointment complete with shots and Will being traumatized by watching, Jeff’s company Christmas party in Greensboro, my church staff lunch, tomorrow night we get to go to Courtney’s nursing graduation (yippee for her!), and I had my normal work of getting stuff together for Sunday night youth, going to Wed night bible study, and planning both Winter retreats. Did I mention I also have 4 full baskets of folded laundry upstairs that I need to put away? And I only work part time – mom worked full time!

So, I am typing between cakes, being grateful that God gave me the baking gene (poor Courtney did not get it) and thinking, I should have helped mom a little more back then because even now, when I asked her for the recipe, she practically insisted that I let her do it for me because she knows I have too much to do. The woman has something like 50 cakes to bake this week alone and she still works full time and has Will spending the night with her tonight, but she wanted to bake them for me! She is a saint.

No, I am baking them myself. It is a right of passage that I need to figure out because if she could do it so can I. Tomorrow, I will pop Maddie May into her sling, tote these loaves of buttery, nutty, did I mention rum soaked goodness into school where I get to be a mom in class for Polar Express day while Will spends the morning with Pop. I’ll probably barely make it on time, will likely not get a shower before hand, but I’ll waltz in there like it is nothing and continue my act that I have it all together and this whole mom extraordinaire thing is really nothing. But, if you have any children at all, much less 3 or more, you know I am nothing more that a good actress who loves my kids and wants more than anything to be as good of a mom and mine is. My life would not exist as I know it without her. Thanks mom for making me a better person, for teaching me the importance of doing for your kids, for honestly believing you invented being a grandma and for the gift of baking. My kitchen smells delicious now…

Bernie Madoff

The things Will says...

So since I happen to have a friend who was intricately involved in the arrest of Bernie Madoff, Will heard us talking about it since Jake was taking his FBI hat to school for show & tell. Jake wanted to know who he was and why he was a bad guy so I explained that he stole lots of money from lots of people but he is in jail now for a very long time.

And now Will, who remembers EVERYTHING he hears, is obsessed with Bernie Madoff. He kept asking people this afternoon if they know about Bernie Madoff. He then proceeded to tell me, "If Bernie Madoff breaks into our house and steals my money, because I have lots of cash in my spiderman wallet you know, I will punch him in the face and kick him in the butt." (to which I naturally responded that 3 year olds do not say "butt") When I reiterated that he is in jail it went on..."Well if he breaks out of jail and comes to steal my cash (for some reason he specifies cash because to him change is money, bills are cash, bills are not money) then I will do my moves on him (imagine said moves being shown to be as he spoke) and punch him like this." At this point I played along because the conversation seemed to be one that was not going to end soon. I told him I hope he doesn't break into our house, I would be scared. To which he replied, "Mom, don't worry, I'm a good fighter. I have told you before I'm a good fighter. I'm not like the best fighter in the world, I can't defeat all bad guys but I am a really good fighter. Don't worry mom."

Ahh, I am safe, I can rest easy tonight protected by a 32 lb skater with "dude pants" and awesome hair!

Because I need something else to do in my "spare time"...

I truly can't believe I am starting a blog because as anyone who knows me is aware, I run around like a chicken with my head cut off most of the time and the last thing I need is something else to keep me from sleeping. I have the 2 best jobs I could ask for. I am mostly home with my kids but I work part time with the Youth at my church as well. God has blessed us with so much and has given us opportunities that just 3 years ago I would not have imagined possible. I feel so lucky to be able to work in youth ministry. So, between the kids, my job, and keeping my house (sort of) in order, it gets a little nuts sometimes. But, I really want somewhere to document the things that happen my life, the hilarious things my kids say, and the moments I am sure to forget one day if I don't write them down somewhere. No one may ever read this but it will be fun and I can get out my thoughts (Lord knows I have tons of them!)

So, here goes... my first BLOG!

My life is run by 3 small people who are all at once endearing, hilarious, and utterly frustrating but are the loves of my life. Jake, who is 5, is a curly headed sweetheart who loves all things superhero and passionately hates the color pink. In fact he once said he wants to be a superhero who will "rid the world of the color pink". He constantly amazes me with his grown up vocabulary (when he was 4 he told me he was a little apprehensive to go to a new school) and an imagination that is sure to one day get him in trouble or make him famous. He is the most kind hearted child I have ever known and is a great big brother. Jake started kindergarten this year and thinks it is the greatest thing he has ever done. I can only wish to love each day as much as he does.

Will is my 3 year old and as I have told many people, Will is God's way of keeping me humble. As we made it through 2 years with Jake, I think we were getting a little too cocky with the idea that we must be good parents. He was potty trained at 18 months, slept great, spoke very clearly, very early, never pitched a tantrum, and for the most part had really good manners, and would eat anything we put in front of him. Certainly it was our exemplary parenting that made him such a good kid... WRONG!!! Will Prince came out with a bang. He came out not breathing and had to be really coerced into taking that first breath (a certain first sign of the stubbornness to come). The poor baby was colicky, had reflux, and needed 2 eye sergeries in his first year - none his fault, just examples of how his life was going in the begining. I don't think he slept until he was 2 and he cried most of the 1st 2 years if he was not attached to me. You see a common theme with both boys was it it didn't breathe and produce milk, they were not interested in it so instead of a lovie or some stuffed animal, I was their comfort object! At 2 Will finally figured out sleeping but somewhere between 2 and 3, he also discovered his attitude and it is something to behold. He can be the funniest, most hug your neck and kiss you child and in the next breath push you off a building. I think he might have split personalities. He is obsessed with shoes, thinks he is a skater (even though he has never been on a skateboard in his life), and loves to choose his own clothes as you will see in pictures. He declared when he was 2 1/2 that, "I don't eat green things" so we are working on his diet. If it were up to him he would eat pancakes and oatmeal for every meal, every day. I love him with all of my heart and I am trying to understand him more. As a middle child, I am trying to figure out how to love him best so he can make it to his teens. God made Will cute for a reason.

Maddie May is the newest little addition to my heart and I am so in love with her right now I can't believe it myself. I never thought I wanted a girl. I always felt like I would just have boys and I really enjoyed being a boy mom. But, when it finally sunk in I was having a girl there was no turning back. I am ready for baby dolls and reading Fancy Nancy books (I have had quite enough of Alien Invasions and the History of Wolverine which coincidentally I read for the 875th time tonight). I love putting her in little monogrammed bloomers and tiny Lilly Pulitzer dresses (who even knew they made those?). She is my little mini me and I am having so much fun seeing her little personality come out each day.

My husband, Jeff, is the most incredible husband and father and he makes all the craziness and chaos bearable. We started dating when we were 16 and just yesterday celebrated our 9th wedding anniversary. He is a computer super dork & fascinates me with the things he can do! Thank heavens there are people in the world like him because just thinking about things like "writing code" makes my head hurt. He can make me laugh like no one else, works hard so I can be home with our kids, and makes me happy I married him every day of my life.

I am a 31 year old former neat freak, turned desperately trying to keep my house from swallowing me mom. I love to cook, and sew though the sewing happens almost never these days. I'm obsessed with vacuuming and I use too many paper towels. People watching is one of my favorite past times and I am guilty of wondering why people who don't do things like I would do them are so nuts. I love my friends and my family with a passion, I can be a little obsessive and I could not survive life without my sister or my parents. To summarize me, Jeff and I joke that I am a walking contradiction because of my seemingly "hippiness" with my babies. I walk to my gas guzzling Yukon XL carrying my breast fed, cloth diapered baby in a pouch sling, while wearing designer jeans, carrying a pink leather purse. I am only a hippie about my kids, my dad and grandfather have an angus farm for heavens sake! I think the cloth diapers should off-set the environmental impact of my Yukon, right?

I am amazed each and every day by God's grace. I can't believe that such an imperfect person can be blessed with such gifts as I have been given in my friends and my family.