A Raleigh, North Carolina mom capturing the everyday
Yep, I’ll be back later this week with another post but today I’ve got two things going on that I just wanted to share!
First, head over to Momcomm where I’m spilling the beans about what I’ve been so stoked about lately! Hint: it’s a new gig. But you won’t believe where!
Second, I’m hanging out at Natalie’s blog Mommy of a Monster today sharing my Mommy Moment. And I somehow managed to mention 90s rap songs.
Enjoy!
Why, hello again.
I’ve been giving a lot of thought to my life lately since my father died. I’ve thought about the time I spend on things and where I can cut back. Big things. Little things. All sorts of things in between. I have a full post coming up next week about my One Word for 2012, which will explain my one word a little more.
All that to say, I’ve decided not to continue with the Capture the Everyday weekly meme. I know we have some devoted peeps (and I love you for it!) but in order to focus on some of my goals for next year, I need to limit my weekly commitments.
This blog is always about Capturing the Everyday though! And Adventuroo is going NO WHERE!
I will definitely continue writing posts about motherhood, how to capture everyday moments, the outdoors and all that stuff. I may even do Capture the Everyday link-ups on special occasions.
I hope you’ll continue to hang around because I’m not going anywhere really. Just changing things up a bit!
If you’ve seen the tweets, you know that my dad is very ill. He moved back to Costa Rica (where he’s from) last fall after living in the U.S. since the 70s.
My family and I were 8 hours from home when we found out (on Thanksgiving/my birthday actually) and so we drove home yesterday. I have spent today making flight arrangements, packing and all that stuff you do when you’re leaving your husband and kids for a week. Tough.
For those of you who saw my tweets, I got a small blessing and found a more recent passport than the first one I found. It’s current so I don’t have to get an emergency passport, but my sisters still do.
Anyway, I fly out of the U.S. on Sunday morning. As you can guess, there will be no posts on here or Momcomm for the week and maybe part of the following week. I’m sure you understand but feel better just writing a quick post to let you know.
Keep us in your thoughts and prayers.
Seriously. I’m tired beyond belief. I’ve got so much going on lately that I haven’t slept much (but at least when I sleep, I sleep HARD). Week in My Life is definitely a lot of work but I’m happy to be capturing decent shots. Just glad we only have two more days of documenting and posting!
Funny thing is, even though I’m exhausted, today wasn’t half bad.
Little Roo woke me up at 4 am with massive coughing fits but he managed to go back to sleep. He hardly coughed at all once he was awake for the day!
The kids start the morning with a little TV. Little Roo doesn’t really watch it for long but Big Roo would watch for hours if we let him. They were watching Thomas the Train from Netflix streaming on the Roku. I think it’s ironic the character is taking a picture, don’t ya think?
Probably the most frustrating part of the day (besides not getting my iPhone) was getting to preschool. Daddy Roo took Big Roo back from soccer yesterday and forgot to put the booster back in my car. This happens almost EVERY SINGLE TIME the seat goes in there. We both forget to grab it. We used to have seats in BOTH cars but since I don’t work FT anymore, I drive the kids around mostly.
What did I do? Little Roo is still only 20 lbs. Guess who rode in the infant carrier? Putting that sucker back into my car was a beeyotch though. I may or may not have cried. Big Roo said “I love you mom” to make me feel better. For him, I turned around Little Roo’s Marathon and he rode in that. Not ideal for either of them but at least we got to school.
Tuesdays and Fridays the kids eat lunch with me. Today we chowed down while I jotted grocery items down in Cozi on my iPhone.
Then… THEN I bolted straight up during lunch and suddenly remembered Big Roo had an appointment for his flu vaccine. ZOMG! I never ever miss a doctor appointment. I tried to call the doctor office to see if they’d still see us but my dumb phone wouldn’t dial out (one of the reasons I NEED my new phone… on Verizon because I’m SO done with AT&T).
We live like two minutes from the doctor. I was 30 minutes late (GAH). But they took him and we were in and out in about 5 minutes! He got the Flu-mist thingy. She told him it was like water. Once we got to the car, his nose was tickling him. Here’s what he said:
“Water made my boogies wet and they’re all coming out!” Hysterical, this kid.
I’m desperately trying to get my crafty mojo back so I found this easy bat template to put across the door. Big Roo helped me put them up with Little Roo played “drums.”
And then they waved and yelled “hello!” at kids like four houses down. Heh.
Can’t say they always get along though. Big Roo wasn’t sharing something and Little Roo wasn’t happy in the least.
We try to hit the playground once a week at least. Weather hasn’t been especially nice to us but we finally had a beautiful day. We headed to a nearby park, where Big Roo likes to race his cars down the twisty slide and see who wins.
This has to be the only place with a merry-go-round too. Does your park have one? Little Roo ALWAYS wants to sit on it. But he also enjoys the tunnel and I got some pretty awesomesauce shots of him.
Oh and he climbs too! I have to watch him cause he wants to do things the bigger kids do.
We headed home and met Daddy Roo, who had left work a bit early to go get his iPhone 4s! He previously had a 3s. I have a 4 but AT&T service simply doesn’t work. Every single call I dial out from home fails at least once. And when it does connect, it usually drops a call. I use Skype for business calls and have just been hanging on til the new phones came out. Even AT&T told me they couldn’t fix my issue so they’re letting me out of contract. That’s why I was especially bummed when he got one and I didn’t!
I did get to play with Siri though why we drove to pick up dinner. You ask her stuff and she answers. She’s honestly not impressing me too much yet but she has a sense of humor.
I’ve heard she also answers 42 (you fellow nerds will know what that means).
I haven’t really been able to do any good documentation of our evenings until tonight. Every couple of weeks or so, we eat take-out at our coffee table and watch a movie. Our rug is gross anyway so it hardly matters. Tonight with sushi and Japanese food. Kids loved the noodles and the tofu (yes, I know, they actually eat it).
Look at that noodle!
Bedtime!
Bedtime is pretty routine for Little Roo. Change to jammies. Read a book or two (on the floor since I don’t like our rocker). Brush teeth. Put out his nightlight (it’s from OXO if you’re wondering- found it on eBay) then put him to bed. After MONTHS of torturing us as a baby, he’s really easy to put to bed now.
Tonight I pretended to toss him in bed. He gets a big kick out of that (and out of the self-timer).
After finishing the movie (we watched Up by the way), it was Big Roo’s turn. His routine is similar. Read two books, brush teeth, potty, do his reward badges, then one final book. Tonight we just did one book instead tonight since he watched the movie.
One thing he and I do is read books with our legs up the wall. We don’t do it every night (and reading more than one book that way hurts your arms) but we do it weekly. Daddy Roo took this shot.
Big Roo gets into our pics. He asked me to take this over again. I did three takes I think. (He’s had a decent week badge wise. Last week? Not so much.)
For Big Roo, I DO actually throw him in bed… just a tad. For this shot, he BEGGED me to get one of him in the air. This was the closest I could get. If you want to see Big Roo’s room in full, I did a photo tour of it last year.
And then he got silly.
Finally, poor Trajan needs some more lovin so I was sure to get him a good pet tonight. I’d say he enjoyed it.
Notes about the ProcessAt this point I’m just tired and ready for the weekend. Just two more days, you troopers! I’ll announce the giveaway winner on Tuesday. If you’re interested in doing my weekly Capture the Everyday meme (you get an assignment each week so it’s 1000 times simpler than this), we’re moving to Tuesdays and the first one will be Tuesday, October 25! The next assignment is in this post.
Week in My Life is sponsored by ThisLife, a new app that gathers your scattered “moments” from your online world (Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Picasa, Shutterfly, Smugmug and more) and organizes them in one place. The ThisLife app is in beta right now but if you just head to their website and enter your email, you’ll be added to the invite list.
ThisLife has generously donated a BEAUTIFUL camera bag from Cheeky Lime for me to give away this week! You can pick either this green or a nice red too.
If you don’t have a DSLR camera, you can: store your point-and-shoot, video camera and other electronics in here OR use this as a perfect way to convince your significant other that now is the time to upgrade, baby!
To enter the giveaway, all you need to do is link up your post to any day during the Week in My Life Project. If you do all seven days? You get seven entries! Just a few more things to know:
Yep, it’s a mostly staycation for me this week.
While we’ll get heading somewhere later this week, I’m using part of this week to regroup, refresh and catch up on a few other things. Plus, writing and launching an eBook will make ya tired. 🙂
If you’re new here, sorry I’m gone for the week. BUT I’ll leave you with three of my most popular posts evah:
What About the Boys? (thoughts on raising gentlemen)
Joy in the Ordinary, the Everyday and the Milk Stains on My Shirt (about capturing those everyday moments)
The Secret to Great Photos (how to get the best photos you’ll ever take)
Yep, I forgot to give your next assignment (even though it won’t go up until September 9). Thanks to my awesome Everyday-ers who gave me SO many fun ideas for future assignments. In fact, the next one is from Jules at Lucid Lotus Life…
What’s in Your Fridge?!!
Is that a great one or what? You have almost two weeks to strategize what food you want to show the world- hehe.
No, not you. But those evil people who like to tell you about things I’d rather not get into.
Another reason for taking a break this week is my spam on this blog is OUT OF CONTROL, y’all! While Akismet is catching most of them, there’s just something not normal about getting 500 in three days!
So, I tried Kludgy Mom’s great post about blocking IP addresses. It’s caught 200 in the past 3 days but there are just too many IP addresses to flag them all. SO I installed G.A.S.P. (from the same guy who does Comment Luv). It makes people check that they aren’t a spammer and is supposed to catch what Akismet can’t. It’s already been an hour and NO SPAM!
I’m hoping that keeping it up for a week with make those spam bots go elsewhere then I can turn it out (hate having to make people check they aren’t spam). But I may have to leave it up for a while if this next week doesn’t work enough magic. If so, it’ll only ask you ONCE so there’s a YAY for that.
Well, that’s my many updates! Have a great week and enjoy your Labor Day weekend!