I have to say I am excited about this project and I know, I know, it is only the first week. The excitement will wear off. And there will be days where this is hard. But right now it is fun and I am going to focus on enjoying that. So here is our week and I learned my first valuable lesson: My children will not cooperate. WILL NOT. So I am going to need to be creative on how I bribe them (which doesn’t always work). So, on to the photos…
We kicked off the New Year at Nana and Papa’s house and Nana decided it would be fun to sing Happy Birthday to the New Year and light candles on the pumpkin pie. Clearly Gavin has not been to enough birthday parties as he tried to put the candle out with his mouth. Thankfully all the shouts of “NOOOO!” stopped him from going any further – I really didn’t want to go to the ER on New Years day.
Then we have the joys of potty training – Gavin keeps shedding all his clothes, running around in just a pull up and the other day he wanted me to wrap him up in a blanket for dinner time. The problem was he chose a small baby blanket to wrap up in and it kept falling off, so I secured it around him like a bath towel. Now he keeps asking, “Wrap me up like a towel?”
Decorations have all been put away and I found my kitchen counters once again. Then I decided deep cleaning is in order. Until I blew up water and vinegar in the microwave that then seeped down and shorted out the oven underneath *sigh* … I am so glad I married an electrical engineer.
The boys get one hour of video game screen time a day – a half hour playing the xbox game of their choice and a half hour of games on a tablet. I told Carter the only way he got his half hour playing the xbox is if he let me practice shooting with a remote flash (this would be one of those photography things I am trying to tackle within this project – where we live it is d.a.r.k. in the winter).
Our garbage disposal hasn’t worked in awhile. Jeremy finally remembered to order a new one. One that is “top of the line and the quietest out there” (he continued to inform me of this multiple times over the next few days). The name cracked me up and sadly in this married life, I was excited to have a working AND quiet garbage disposal again. Poor Jeremy has had a productive week with fixing things.
Carter makes everything into a gun to shoot the bad guys with. There were storm troopers behind me that he was aiming for who had made it past the locked door into the bonus room.
We attended a beautiful memorial service for Jeremy’s Uncle Tom on Whidbey Island over the weekend. He passed away shortly after Christmas and I am so thankful that I was able to spend some time with he and our family at Twin Lakes over the summer. Jeremy and I had some precious grown-up time to talk on the car ride without the kids. We reflected on what wonderful parents and people Uncle Tom and Aunt Sherry are, their amazing children and grandchildren, and their generous gift of love and acceptance they give to everyone. We needed that drive to reflect on our own lives and choices we have made and will make going forward as both parents and individuals. We couldn’t have had a more beautiful day to have that conversation – this shot is the Skagit Valley with Mount Baker standing proud in the distance. In the Spring, there would be rows and rows of tulips in the field.
And there you go, Week One done. Next week I will try to keep my comments shorter, but in the meantime, I hope you enjoyed!
