One Hot Mess – It’s a Jungle Out There

Posted on June 21, 2014June 21, 2014 by Amy

Admit it. Sometimes you just like to see other people’s messy. Or to drop your own out there and just laugh at it as others gasp and try not to stare. . .

Right? Yeah, me too. So that’s why I love Blythe’s One Hot Mess link up. Lots of train wrecks every week. I can’t look away.

This is the first week I’ve had photos and a post ready to link up (where was this link up over the winter when I was posting every other day about the flu or puking or pink eye??? Hmmm?). Today I’m excited to share about. . .

Wait for it. . .

My weeds.

The same thing happens every year. I start out gung-ho, determined that this will be the year that I will keep the weeds under control. I pull some every day. Things aren’t looking too bad. Then we go away for a couple of weeks in the early summer and come back to this:

And so I go straight back to furiously pulling weeds. And pulling. And pulling. And getting my kids to do their share of the work.

And it seems like we’re making some progress, until I get to this:

I just. . . I don’t even know what to do with that hot mess of vegetation. Where do I even start? Some of those are plants that are actually supposed to be there. Just maybe not quite so. . . abundantly. i’m not sure if I need to sort through and find only the weeds, or thin out the intentional plants, or just yank it all up and start over.

I end up just standing and staring at it, pulling a few obvious weeds, and then throwing up my hands and going to play on the slide with my kids.

Except:

The weeds have taken over back there too.

I know. Weeds have nothing on Blythe’s Hot Mess post about paying to camp on someone’s gravel driveway. But it’s what I’ve got.

Check out more messy posts HERE.

A Mother’s Day Stay-cation Extravaganza

Posted on May 13, 2014 by Amy

I had a nice Mother’s Day. It’s lovely to go to Mass and see my children present flowers to Mary, to listen to the men’s choir sing some special songs honoring mothers, and then receive a special mother’s blessing from our priest. It’s nice to get lovely cards from my husband and kids, to (try to) take a nap, and have my husband happily cook dinner (even though he was grilling in a torrential downpour).

I don’t need fancy presents or a big to-do for Mother’s Day, but these little things are special each year.

This year, however, I felt like I got a super-bonus week-long Mother’s Day extravaganza. My husband was on vacation last week and we decided not to travel, but to have a stay-cation instead. He was home all week and it was wonderful.

In addition to the fun of spending tons of quality time with my man, he was very invested in making the week a little vay-cay for me too. I got to run errands whenever I wanted. I went to the library, to my favorite Catholic store, to Target. I was fairly skipping around town, reveling in the ease of running multiple errands in one day. In-and-out, and in-and-out, and in-and-out of the car like it was nothing.

I had a fabulous mid-week playdate with Super Friend while our husbands went fishing together. I had lunch with The Godmother.

We hung out outside as a family, planted our garden, and played and played. Hubby and I had beers by our fire pit one night.

I could have even slept in every day if I had wanted to, though my 5:30 am waking time is just too much of a habit to break now. Quiet coffee and Bible-reading and writing time was too alluring for me to stay in bed. But I could have if I had wanted to.

And one day? Oh my goodness, one day: I got up at 5:30, drank my warm coffee in the quiet, read my Bible, said my prayers, spent some time on my computer. Then the girls and my husband got up, and he noticed that I looked tired. I hadn’t slept well because of a little cold.

He said, “Why don’t you go back to bed for a bit?”

I thought What?!?!? Really?!?!? Oh my gosh, oh my gosh, oh my gosh.

I said, “Are you sure?”

He was. I did. For two hours. It was awesome. I got to have my early morning quiet and to sleep in. True luxury.

It was a delightful week. I think I’m in love with the stay-cation. I hope you all had a lovely Mother’s Day too.

One Wonderful Guy

Posted on April 13, 2012 by Amy

I’m enjoying having my husband home this week. We have been relaxing and he’s helping me get as much rest as I can. Other than the days Miss went to school, he’s been letting me sleep in, which is such a wonderful luxury. I slept until 9:30 one day! It was amazing. He’s been outside with Miss and Lass a lot too, which they love. They’re working on getting our garden planted.

The girls helped him plant some veggies in these boxes today.

Then he opened the sandbox for them.

Oh, how they enjoyed the sandbox. This was Lass’s first experience with it.

I must admit, I’m usually not a great lover of the sandbox. But I think my lack of enthusiasm comes from having Miss in it last year in the middle of summer when she was hot and sweaty and sunscreened and it was nearly impossible to get the sand unstuck from her. Today, it was no prob. Brushed right off.

Miss found a worm. She didn’t want anything to do with it.

But Lass thought it was pretty darned cool.

It was a great day for lots of playing outside.

I love looking out the window while cooking dinner and seeing my husband chasing my girls around the backyard, playing “Monster,” or teaching them to kick a ball. Sometimes I glance up and see them all just lying in the grass chatting and snuggling. It warms my heart. He is such a great girl daddy. He is so thoroughly outnumbered, and I think he loves it.

I’m taking advantage of having my husband home this week and trying to spend some good one on one time with each of my girls. My older girls have been such troopers through the whole adjustment to having Baby Sis home. Miss loves to help with her, but I’m trying to give her some special attention all of her own too.

When I first brought Sis home, I was worried that Lass might get lost in the shuffle. Miss was so interested in Sis and wanted to hold her and help with her all the time, and Sis of course just needs lots of attention and time. I felt nervous that Lass might get left out. So I have made a special point of trying to make sure that doesn’t happen. She’s such a little lover that it hasn’t been hard to get in lots of extra snuggles with her and give her some special time.

I am not going to make the mistake I made with Lass of not introducing her to a bottle until she was five or six weeks old, at which point she flat out refused it, and continued to do so until I gave up trying to get her to take one. Sis isn’t necessarily loving the bottle yet, but she has done pretty well taking it both from her daddy and from me this week. I’m trying out a few different bottles to see which one she likes best. I have just about every type of bottle ever made from my attempts with Lass, so she has lots of choices.

She is such an amazingly easy baby so far. I’m finding it so easy to just soak up the sweet moments with her.

Unfortunately my sweet littlest one has had a little tendency to scratch the heck out of her face. Poor baby.

You would think, this being my third time doing this, that I would have mastered the art of cutting newborn fingernails by now. No. I suck at it. I tried three times yesterday to get those suckers trimmed and she was so squirmy I couldn’t get them done. I know. I’m a total wuss. Today I finally wised up and cut them while she was sleeping. Mission accomplished. Why didn’t I think of that before?

I’m loving having three precious girls. And one wonderful guy.

Spring is Coming!!!

Posted on March 13, 2011 by Amy

Spring is on the way. You might not know it, since we woke to this the other day. . .

and since it was overcast and windy and barely above freezing today. But, the snow is slowly melting and today we saw the robins. Lots of them. And also today, my hubby and Miss started our garden.