A day (or two or three) in the life of...

2013 was beautifully exhausting. Joaquin went through some tough times, which led to us going through some tough times. It beat us to a pulp at times and forced us to rebuild. Repeatedly. Our little man is now growing and smiling more. Running all through the house (usually with items he aquires by stealing from Izzy when she's not looking and having her chase him for them), eating everything in sight and giggling at the mere threat of tickling coming his way. Izzy went through some pretty epic tantrums and meltdowns and flipped our world, as we knew it, upside down. She reminded us that little people (well, people in general) are ever changing and if we think we know what the next action/reaction will be, we got another thing coming. She is also becoming one of the most loving, attentive, brilliant and unavoidably beautiful little girls in the world. Every day she humbles me and reminds me about how perfectly pure human nature is w/out life's jading. Every single day she m...

Even though time is flying by like crazy, I feel like this Christmas season has been the longest in ages. Probably because it hasn't been a very joyous one so far. Stress makes time slow, right when you want to just close your eyes and be past the stress hump. Ah well. In the meantime, on our to do list is: Pack us all up for Okahooooooma trip! Eeep! I'm of the school of packing more than you need so that you don't need. Cowboy is a minimalist. This will be an interesting process. At least with Izzy mostly potty trained, we won't have to pack up a ton of diapers.  So there's that. With Cowboy's impending layoff on the horizon, we're not really doing Christmas in a gift sense this year. We're not even really in the spirit for sending Christmas cards so it's just not feeling so exciting this year. Don't get me wrong, I'm not all about the gifts but I feel uncomfortable not gifting those we love and who we want to bring a smile to. SO, w...

Ooof, it's been a while!I keep meaning to pick it back up here but then I just don't. Joaquin is now going on 14 months, walking all over the place, screeching at a whim and getting into EVERYTHING. Holy crap, I forgot how exhausting THIS stage is when they don't have any scruples about what they get into because EVERYTHING (except simple toys) is fascinating and new and since he can get himself around so quickly, it's all fair game! So, there's a lot of "No es para ti, Joaquin" being repeated every day and a lot of redirection. He got a big fat knot and bruise on his forehead yesterday because he banged it really good against the edge of a bookcase at daycare. Whoops! Apparently the chicks dig it so he's sporting a mohawk and a bruised noggin today. Oh Toddlers.... Izzy is an interesting little creature. A lot of talking. A lot of asking "what's this?" and a lot of "I need ____". And plenty of "NO!", to which ...

This little buddy of ours has aged us a bit in this past year. Between his newborn reflux and perpetual teething, he's been a hot mess and has overdeveloped his lungs and perfected his screams of torture (torture that he feels, torture that he divies out, you name it). He's also smiled, squealed and giggled his days away much of the time and shoved his coy self into so many hearts along the way. I love my evening time of putting him to bed. He drinks his bottle, grabs his paci to plug away at and snuggles into my shoulder. He'll play for a little bit and sometimes just lean back and play with my face and give me his coy smile and then buries deep for snuggles and falls asleep on me. Ideally we put him to sleep in his crib awake so that he can self soothe but sometimes I can't help but enjoy the feeling of peace as he conks out on me and I just rock in the chair with him for 15-20 minutes. It helps me with perspective. 3.5 weeks till he's a whole year old. Wow. ...

Cowboy was sick yesterday. Him and Izzy both had fevers of almost 102. It was more apparent in Cowboy though. Thank goodness, Izzy took it all in stride. Joaquin seems to have recouped but is still painfully teething... FOREVER. He hides it well sometimes. ...

Dude, we're potty training! Hurrah! It's been disgusting at times but it's now working! Everytime Izzy pees or takes a grotesque adult sized poo in the potty, she gets up excitedly, points excitedly at her potty seat and yells "I did it! I did it! MAMA, I DID IT!". It's awesome, hilarious and surreal. It's taking a lot of energy, time and focus but it's starting to pay off. Sometimes, she'll just mosey herself over to the potty and go w/out our prompting. That's the best. There may have been an occurrence of her pooping on the shag rug, my panicking to take her over to her potty and by then, Joaquin trampling over to smear through the poop. holyshitthatwasdisgusting. Teething is still happening in full effect. I must have killed a village full of innocent families in my previous lifetime because this punishment is just bad for all of us. very very bad. still. And of course, in front of others, he makes total liars out of us so, it's weird...

I feel like there's change all around me in so many lives. It's mostly good change and opportunity for shifts in outlooks, moods, environments, etc... I like it. Last night was a Full Blue Moon. The gals and I all took pics from where we were at 9:45 and shared. Here's our four Blue Moons: Mikey's moving back to VA this coming weekend! Wonderful that we'll get to see him more often and he's rebuilding a life in a different direction. Excited for him. Nervous for him too though because he's starting from scratch and getting around peeps again after lots of down time. Ch... ch... changes! Jems and Ronnie are coming to visit us this weekend too! They're coming in on Saturday and we're hoping to do a good 'ol Shrimp Boil to celebrate. One Girlfriend just adopted her perfect baby girl after many years of trying, waiting, heartache, and moments of questioning it all. I couldn't be more thrilled for her. She's waited for this moment for...

 I've been crappy at updating this blog but I figure if I just go ahead and start back up again it will be less intimidating to go ahead and post some quick post here and there, right? There's too much fun adorableness, quirkiness and craziness happening in our life to not keep it documented so that we can look back on and laugh, cry or shake our heads.  So at this point Joaquin is now 10 months and is he is 27 months! Joaquin is on the brink of walking and took his first steps yesterday. Izzy is changing every day and I can't say enough how much I'm loving this age. Seeing all her development in physical, emotional, mental and vocal are just mind blowing!  My only challenge at this point is remembering to keep on working on myself and my relationships and not just obsess over these two little people that are all-consuming at this point in life.  Ok here are a bunch of my current favorite pics.  My perfect little bathing beauty at the pool thi...

I have been sleeping on my blog! Life feels crazy busy here. I can't seem to get a good feeling of getting my head above water. Making plans feels tough. I just focus on getting through the day to day. I love our little people but MAN do they take all the energy I have! Still trying to focus on me and my health/fitness/peace. Sometimes it works out, sometimes, not so much. Izzy's 2nd birthday is coming up! This freaking Friday. Whoa! I'm going to have a 2 year old! She feels like a 3+ year old already. Her ability to empathize, relay her needs/feelings, be self-sufficient. I *love* this age. It seriously is the best. I'm trying to appreciate Joaquin's sweet baby moments but am also really looking forward to him getting to her age. Here are their school pics. They're hilarious and cute to me!  Here's my favorite which we bought a small handful of prints of: Life right now feels crazy to me. I can't seem to put my fi...

We gave Izzy Raspberries w/her breakfast. She ran around w/them on her fingers. Coolest girl in the world. Hands (w/raspberries on fingertips) down. Cowboy and I are having an adult hookie day. These days are the best ever. Happy.

Well, it turns out I had nothing to fear. I ran the 10 miler on Sunday and beat my goal pace time. It's not like it was a super fast pace but for me it was really good for a long distance run. And I went back to compare my time from this year to my time when I ran in 2006 and I shaved off a few seconds off my pace as well. Hurrah! It was perfect weather and a perfect opportunity for me to just run and do some good reflecting on life. I swear I could figure out the answer to world peace while running. I feel like I can think through and solve any problems of mine when I run. We are now on day three of our cleanse and I definitely miss the foods that I'm not supposed to eat. On the bright side Izzy is enjoying our meals. We're having a lot of vegetables, fruit, whole grains, water, teas and nuts and seeds. I'm really hoping this helps shed a couple pounds along the way as well as helping us revisit our diet and introduce foods back in that are good for us. This really i...