Note to mommy

Note to self: Try and do hair every day, it will make you feel good about yourself. 

When Ellee was born, I struggled the first couple months with all the new things, but then I fell into an easy pattern and I did well. I had time to get ready most days, and put on a real pair of pants, shirt or shorts. But when Peyton was born, it was winter so there wasn't much going out anyways, and there were two of them so it was difficult to find time to do anything but the 2 minutes of teeth brushing. Now with them being so active and it being winter again, let me be honest,I sleep in the yoga pants from the day before and rarely get out of them until afternoon nap the next day. 

It makes me recognize moms in the grocery stores with their kids. It's easy to tell the moms apart. 

A first time mom is a mom that I think any mom of more than one could recognize at the grocery store. She has a shopping cart cover with a child sitting happily in a perfectly cute outfit, maybe a bib on to stop any mild drools or spits. She has her hair and make up done and is dressed in a fitting outfit. She has a massive diaper bag filled with absolutely everything needed to tackle an apocalypse with a baby. She is smiling and enjoying her time waltzing around the store with toys to keep the sweet baby entertained. People notice her and the child and many will ask about the baby and she'll happy tell the age of baby and make him smile or coo for the interested party. 

The mom of more then 1 has a kid plopped in the cart and one in the seat. The kids are in comfy clothes, sweat pants and regular tees. If the younger spits the shirt she is wearing will suffice as a bib. She has a purse with a bag of Cheerios , one diaper for each kid and a small pack of wipes. She has comfy pants and slip on shoes or boots on and hair up out of the way. Maybe even glasses on still. She is too busy focussing on her list and getting in and out of the store in the quickest amount of time without any meltdowns, she doesn't recognize people taking interest in her children. 

Does anyone agree? Well if not i can say this is me.

 This is the difference in my Walmart shopping trips from a year and a half ago to today.

Maybe it will change over the next year and half, but for now, I just need to try and do my hair everyday. It really does make me feel motivated for the rest of my day! 

Snowboards and snowmobiles and lots of smiles

This past weekend matt and I headed to Madison to visit family and really just get some us time. Our awesome family said they'd watch the girls while we took time to enjoy our favorite sport season. We went snowmobiling through Madison area. It was a lot of fun!
I never grew up with snowmobiling but matt is very used to them. I am do hesitant about them. We went snowmobiling in new Hampshire 2 years ago and I actually lost control after being cut off by someone on the trail.  It was one a curve and he was hugging to far to my right resulting in me over turning and then going major left into the ditch. I bailed, yes jumped off, which turned out perfect because the snowmobile shutoff and ended up sticking straight up in the ditch.  Matt came around the corner to see just the snowmobile. He was a little panicked and helped pull me out of the 5 feet of snow after her found me unharmed. Fast forward to this weekend I just started out going really slow. Matt called it grandma speed. Then things got better and we had a lot of fun. It was fairly straight trails and there wasn't many people on them. :)
We also went to cascade mountain north of Madison and did some snowboarding. I love snowboarding.  I hate riding chairlifts though. Ugh. Snowboarding down the hill you don't notice any cold. But the chairlifts are like throwing yourself in a freezer and you just sit there and endure. By the time I get off my face feels frostbite. All in all a great snowboarding trip. Except I majorly wiped out getting off the lift and ended up on top of some dudes skies. Opps. I apologized from in between his skies...embarrassing!  Matt stood off in the distance not claiming to know me. Thank goodness for goggles, helmets and masks!
Peyton and Ellee quite enjoyed their time playing with cousins but as usually it's always nice to get home.
Ellee has been quite enjoying the box house I made her. It's so cute she takes her leap pad in there and plays some games and of course mr.bear joins her in there as well!

Could have went the rest of my life without reading that...

As mom, I have struggled day to day. Some would probably look at my life and say I have the luxury of sitting at home and doing nothing. No, I don't. I can choose to sit and do nothing. But myself, am just not programmed that way. I am sitting her blogging and thinking about all the things that I need to accomplish. Just finished dinner prep, the dishes need to be done and loaded, theres a couple loads of laundry I need to tackle, bills need to be paid, I have schoolwork to complete and yada yada yada.

And here's the generic answer of  "I love being a stay at home mom". And yes, it is hard at times, and yes it is magnificently rewarding as well.

I read an article once about when you get married you don't marry that man for yourself. You marry him for him. And it never really occurred to me that I did do that. I married Matt because I loved him and I wanted to make him happy. Of course he makes me happy, but I do truly love to make him happy. I think I could say the same for him. We put our selfishness aside for another person.

When we had kids, they were planned and blessed to us by God. We hadn't planned to have kids then but God had. And we consider ourselves blessed all the more because of them. Its not hard either, for us to see how they have made us even a little more selfless. 

Now...Monday I started my day off by reading a blog post. Ugh. Just ugh.

http://thoughtcatalog.com/amy-glass/2014/01/i-look-down-on-young-women-with-husbands-and-kids-and-im-not-sorry/ 

I was angry. Furious maybe even. Why shouldn't I be? This article was basically written to me. The girl who got married at 19, had a baby at 21, and another at 23. It baffles me that someone wrote this. That this person thinks that the most important things in life are jobs, travel, money, and having kids and getting married are absolutely absurd and unacceptable.

But today, I am not furious. Not upset. I am not even mad at her anymore. I have pity for the author. I think it very unfortunate if she will live her entire life through with no kids and no spouse, but she may be the biggest lawyer, the best doctor, or traveled the whole world.  It doesn't sound like she knows the love of God either, so really she will have nothing. How unfortunate for her. 

But, maybe she will still have her mother around (the woman who birthed her, raised her, probably had a baby shower for her) to talk to and share some quality time with.

So after starting my Monday morning with "I could have went the rest of my life without reading this post", I now have great pity and sympathy for this poor woman who maybe is just so unhappy with her selfish life she has no other outlet then to blog about how Mom's and Wives are ruining the female gender in society. 

I now have the privilege of PRAYING for her.

Now my laundry may not seem important, and the dishes may seem insignificant but they are all tasks that come together in raising my children. They show cleanliness, hygiene, and responsibility among many other things to them. I don't know what kind of daughters I am raising; nurses, teachers, mechanics, business women, missionaries, or MOMS. But I know I will raise them in the fear of the Lord and show them by my example necessary characteristics for life. 

I am blessed to say I am a mom.

I am blessed to say I have a husband. 

Polar Vortex

 

Baby its COLD. OUT. SIDE! 

 So we've been using the printer as an alternative source of entertainment! Yay! 

Seriously though. Highlight of her day right here. She was extremely enthralled with the fact that the paper would come. She'd hear it start up and exclaim "Here it comes! Here it comes!"
That spent up most of the afternoon yesterday. As is standard in the Dudgeon home these days, the printer is actually broken and will not print any black ink.
Know what this means?
No coupons....
No savings...
I am so sad. I need to print a some coupons so I can make 50 cents on 3 children's advils!

But these 2 don't care for now.
How cute are they??!!

  

While it's been polar vortex-ing out, Peyton has been indulging on some good old ice cream. She seems completely unaffected by the cold temps and has not changed her eating habits to keep herself warm. But really, of course the 14 month old isn't going to turn down a warm brownie and vanilla ice cream!  

It: amazes me at the intricate way shes made. So perfect, and soft. Look at the perfectness of her lips.

"Fearfully and wonderfully made"Ps.139:14  is for sure 

 Each of her facial features are really captured in this picture. I love it sooo much I need to get it on canvas I think! 

Alfredo for one

Because sometimes it's really cold outside. And you crave something delicious.  

This is super simple and super easy.

Cook your favorite pasta. 

Meantime, melt 1 Tbsp of butter.

Add 1 finely chopped green onion. About 1 Tbsp I would say.

1 finely chopped small clove of garlic.

Saute in small saucepan till they're softened and there's a good aroma :)

Then add 1/3 cup of heavy cream.

Stirring bring to a boil.

Turn down heat. 

Then add a bunch of Parmesan cheese. 

(I kinda just dumped some in) 

Preferably you should use shredded but, will work with grated, you'll just get a little bit more gritty texture of the Alfredo and may need to cook longer to melt better. 

This turned out great! I would totally add some chicken or some bacon next time, 

EVERYTHING  is better with bacon! 

And its super quick. I made this in the time it took to cook the pasta. So it's totally SAHM worthy :)

This Big girl Business

"Ellee, you're a big girl!  Peyton is a baby."
"Peyton big girl. Ellee a baby."

This is a frequent conversation as of late. Ellee has even gone as far as rush me to Peyton's side when she's pooping and insist Peyton needs to get to the potty. Oh Ellee.
I've  even trying to reiterate to Ellee that she is a big girl now and so entails big girl responsibilities; like using the potty, and staying in bed.
We tried the toddler bed deal about 6 months ago or so. It did not go well. At all. Matt woke with a start and a shout when his 2 year old daughter was looking him dead in the eye at 3 am and poking his arm saying "Matt. MATTTTT." I think we actually converted her bed back to a crib at 3 am that night.
Two afternoons ago matt and I were around the house when we both heard a scream. The girls were taking naps. We thought it was Peyton and decided to give her some time to figure out if she wanted to go back to sleep. And then it changed, to this blood curdling cry. I bolted to the rooms and it was Ellee screaming. I knew something was wrong. I walked in to a room with Ellee's body outside the crib and her head stuck inside the crib.  She had managed to wiggle her body under the opening between the mattress and edge of the crib. Oh Ellee. I yelled for matt and he lifted the entire crib up to get her out. This was then followed by his words, "it's time". Oh yes it is.
There is some sort of security of keeping my wild child in a crib. So really it's about control for me. Maybe this is the first step for me in a long awaited list of things I'll need to give over to God. I can't control Ellee. I need to raise her in the fear of the Lord and to make decisions that will help her control her self.
Disciplining her has been difficult for a long time. I never am sure if we're making progress or not. But the toddler bed thing has been working. And it's finally a point where I am thinking "Hey maybe she's getting it...finally." She definitely is understanding repercussions for actions.
The first night I instructed her that she needed to stay in her bed and she needed to let me know when she was "all done". If she got out of bed she would be disciplined.  And it's worked. Her bear fell out of the bed and she had a near panic attack until I came in the room picked him off the floor and handed him too her from 9 inches down.
But I'll retrieve the bear at each bedtime if it means the security of her staying in bed.

Sick read (may contain too much information)

This past week was quite possibly the most sickness I've ever seen.  There was way too much you know what happening and being a mama means being in the middle of it all.  Thank goodness papa was willing to try. 
Let me explain try.  When I met matt I didn't know if his stomach was tough or not.  Not till we were married did I find out how weak it is.  Actually,  when we had our first baby.  The weird thing is I didn't change a single diaper in the hospital.  I was so ill post birth that he was the one doing all that.    But new mom's  know,   those first diapers aren't really bad if you're nursing.  It's when real food starts. 
I remember coming home one day from work and matt had picked up ellee at the sitters house, she was probably 6 months. I walked in the door and he was standing there with this look on his face.  All he said was I got sick.  And I threw her clothes out. 
If I recall,   I laughed in disbelief. 
Fast forward to last Wednesday when ellee emptied the contents of her post dinner stomach all over the car.  Oh. My. Goodness.
The first thoughts of my mind were,  "I am in this by myself". So I voiced them and like any Dudgeon it became a challenge to him. And I am so grateful for his efforts.  But then he emptied the contents of his stomach. Is this TMI?  (too much information) I'll add a disclaimer to the title.
However,  the closest facilities for him happened to be....my washer. Ugh. Don't worry. I ran it like 5 times and then a bleach cycle. Yuck.
So this was last Wednesday.  Ellee seemed to be back to her normal self Thursday night. By Friday at noon both matt and I were feeling pretty sick. What I don't get, is how we both weren't better till basically Monday night/ Tuesday morning and she conquered it so quickly?! Oh well.
With how crummy I was feeling I'm glad it was me not her. I just wish it was staggered on matt and I so we both didn't have it the same time.
But alas, Such Is life. And we lived and are well :)