Endless Pursuit for Mom of the Year

Remember kid, there's heroes and there's legends. Heroes get remembered but legends never die, follow your heart kid, and you'll never go wrong. ~ "The Babe" from The Sandlot ------------------------------------------- Daughter of the year #2 has turned two.  Enough said!  She is so smart, funny and absorbs absolutely everything around her.  I love how she makes us appreciate the humor in life and not to take things too seriously. Around Christmastime, we begin using the term "You're killin' me smalls."  We both love the movie The Sandlot.  It's so fitting for her so we kept saying it well afterwards.  We must use it a lot. She is also potty training.  Ugh.  I can't complain, as she's been fairly easy given the number of times her sister has traipsed her into the bathroom to give her the step by step process of going potty.  She really looks up to her big sister.  It just adds a whole other element to our life, which means askin...

Before I was married, I had a hundred theories about raising children and no children. Now, I have three children and no theories. ~ John Wilmot ------------------------------- Remember the days before kids, or as dad of the year and I refer to it, BK?  Not that I don't absolutely love my girls, but come on, what couple doesn't admit that things change when you have kids.  Valentine's day is a perfect example of this.  After kids, or AK, changes things.  In the days before kids, dad of the year and I would wake that morning with lots of hugs and kisses and professions of how much we loved each other.  We'd share breakfast, read the paper, and then shuffle off to work, but not without one last kiss.  We'd plan an extravagant night out.  It would involve a restaurant with cloth tablecloths and no crayons.  We'd have drinks and eat ourselves stuffed.  We always had dessert.  I'd dress nice and wear heels.  Neither of us woul...

True love comes quietly, without banners or flashing lights. If you hear bells, get your ears checked.  ~ Erich Segal ------------------------------------ HELLO-O-O-O-O!!!  Once again, I have failed you.  You can see in that little bar on the right hand side of this blog, I've had pretty much no activity for some time now.  It's wrong...just wrong I tell you!  But, what can I say, life got in the way.  So, since it is Valentine's Day, I thought I'd hop on the Internets and spread some love.  Roses.  Cliche, I know.  Many men would call this holiday worthless.  It's simply a reason to open their wallets and spend exorbitant amounts of money on something you could grow in your backyard.  Yet, I find my husband, year after year, not planting a thing in our yard except a lawn chair and a cold beer.  Last I checked, that did not a rose make.  I used to be really into Valentine's Day.  I guess in some ways, I'm a hope...

The car has become a secular sanctuary for the individual, his shrine to the self, his mobile Walden Pond.  ~ Edward McDonagh ----------------------------- I remember the days dad of the year and I refer to as BK (before kids) when we shared a bathroom, were responsible for getting only ourselves ready, watched a little television...shared our morning rush. Back then, we also only had one car. We'd drive to work together listening to hair bands and enjoying the morning. Yeah, things have changed. My Yukon has been on the fritz lately, choosing when to start and when not to. It's agonizing! Plus, an unreliable vehicle makes me nervous with two kids. It recently went on the fritz again. What started as some fun carpooling time ended in something completely different. I enjoy my morning time. I don't commute and I rather like it that way. So, my morning time is far less than it had been with a commute and no children. Still, I enjoy my few minutes in the car to myself....

You can learn many things from children. How much patience you have, for instance. ~ Franklin P. Jones ---------------------------------------------- What a way to start a post, right?  With a photo of my toilet.  Trust me, I went back and forth but there was no better image than what I'd been looking at for the better part of the day. Daughter of the year #2 has started potty training.  There's nothing really fun about potty training except that you get to quit buying diapers, which is a nice addition to your budget.  We have her sister to thank for most of this who countless times paraded her into the bathroom and told her step by step what you do as she went potty.  Honestly, it's pretty much been easy thus far.   So, while it still seems too early, we thought we'd give things a try this weekend with full-blown potty training.  Now, I'm not talking Pull-Ups (people, they are just glorified diapers).  I'm ...

“I made no resolutions for the New Year. The habit of making plans, of criticizing, sanctioning and molding my life, is too much of a daily event for me.   ~ Anais Nin   ----------------------------   First and foremost, I love how you can time my blog posts right along with how busy my life might be at the time.  No posts, no time.  I definitely need to work on that because all work and no blogging makes for an unbalanced mommy.    So, it's New Year's Eve and in perfect mom of the year fashion, I thought maybe I should make some resolutions.  Therefore, I got out my trusty pen and a notepad and went straight to work.  Yep!  That's as far as I got.   Sure, I could put down to exercise more.  Drink less Starbucks.  Work less and play more.  I could do all of those things.  However, aren't resolutions, when intended to make us better, really just tiny boxes we try to fit ourselves into?  In my experience, no ...

Give the world the best you have and the best will come back to you. ~ Madeline Bridge ----------------------------------- I received my Christmas gift early this year.  A gift so precious and kind that it made me wonder, have I really been holding the award I've been chasing the entire time?  Every student in daughter of the year #1's class got a dollar a few weeks ago.  The lesson was to talk about what you could buy with a dollar.  The students found that wasn't very much.  Then, they talked about what they could buy if the put all of their money together for a total of $21.00.  There was much more they could buy with that amount of money.  Then, their teacher explained to them they could buy a flock of chicks for a poor family with that money.  It was then discussed what these chicks could do for this family and that they could also have more chicks and give those away to another poor family.  It was the ultimate lesson in payin...