11 Years

For the past 11 years, I have spent my life with my soulmate. 11 years ago today marks the anniversary of us becoming an official couple. I remember those first feelings of being together like they were yesterday. The excitement, the butterflies, the anxiety of living every day with anticipation of what's going to happen next. 11 years later, here we are. Happily married in a wonderful home with 2 beautiful and healthy children.

I was just 15 when we met. He was 16. It's so fun to look back and remember those times. I remember the first time we "met", the first time we held hands, the first time we kissed. I remember when he asked me "out". I remember falling crazy in love. I remember when he would be "on his way" to pick me up, I would sit at my window in my bedroom and watch for his car to turn down our street and pull into our driveway. I remember watching him walk up to our front door and I would greet him, always with a smile and he would shine a smile in return. I remember going on dates, hanging out at my parents house, him leaving at 12:47am every night to make 1am curfew. I remember being in school together, he would always walk me to class and meet me in the halls afterwards. I remember his graduation and how sad I was when he was going to be gone and starting college. I remember my graduation and how excited I was to have more freedom to see him. I remember the night he asked me to marry him. I remember all the times we spent together in his dorm and his apartment at college. I remember his college graduation and how proud I was of him, and how I still am proud of him. I remember our wedding day. I remember when we moved into our house in Cottage Grove. I remember the day we had Evan and the day we had Mason. I remember this morning when there was a ring at my door, and it was 4 dozen roses. He remembers too.

I love him. I love being with him. I love knowing that he's my husband and the father to our children. I love knowing that we can spend each and every day together in the comfort of each other's company. I love knowing that I get to sleep next to him every night. I love the excitement, the butterflies and the anxiety of living every day in anticipation of what's going to happen next. He is my soulmate, my best friend and my husband.

I want to send a special thank you to my cousin for setting us up when I was 15. She's the one responsible for making me the happy person I am today. Thank you!!! :)

Crazy Cat

The weirdest thing happened earlier today. Zoe and Tucker, our cats, were running around playing and spying on each other...you know, they typical pounce and paw at each other attacks cats do. Well, they were in the kitchen, Tucker was under the highchair and Zoe was standing next to the dining room table. All of a sudden, her back arched, in a playful manner, and she slid across the floor. Literally slid, it was almost like someone was dragging her forward. Then she took off and Tucker took off after her. It was very creepy and I have no idea how she accomplished sliding like that. She slid for about a foot. So weird. Maybe she has magical powers...

King of the Throne

We are now 9 days and no accidents with Evan! It has been so wonderful! Go Evan!!!

One thing that cracks us up though, is that he is now obsessed with going poo. Every time he needs to use the bathroom, he states "Evan try to poop too", and he does. Ok, keep in mind that he uses the bathroom about 10 + times a day. Is this normal??? I don't know. But he normally does poo every time. It's amazing how much he can go, I don't really understand the whole concept of pooping approximately 10 times a day. How can that little almost 3 year old body do that? I guess we'll have to change his nickname from Monkey to Sir-Poops-Alot.

Update on weight - I am now down a little over 25 pounds! Woohoo!!! Now I just have to keep losing and keep it off! I'm going to be a part of 2 weddings next year, February and May, so I really need to lose this weight! Actually, I went bridesmaid dress shopping on Saturday and I bought a dress in the size that I need to get too - now if that isn't motivation, I don't know what is! It'll fit, I'm not worried, but I really need to bust butt working out since the dress is a strapless dress. It's absolutely gorgeous and I'm so excited about it! Hmmmm, now I need to get through the holidays! Yikes!

Well that's about it for today, nothing else too overly exciting going on. Oh, except that we're having pork chops for dinner tonight.....mmmmmm....pork chops.....

Brian and I went to O'Malley's Irish Pub in Woodbury last night for a great night of Karaoke! Our good friend Dennis is the KJ there and it is a BLAST!!! We drank, well I just had a diet coke - but still, we sang and had a wonderful time! It was so fun to go out together, we need to do that more! It was really weird to go out on a week night, bless you Mom! Fun times, fun times!

Well, we are now 4 days with no accidents! Evan is doing so great with using the toilet now, it's been so worth the effort! Yay Evan!!!

On my weight loss update - I am down 3 pounds from Monday! Woohoo!!! Tracking my points has been difficult, but I can already tell it's getting easier. Seeing that weight loss on the scale really helped motivate me...I think I really needed that! I bought some new jeans a while ago and I cannot wait to get into them! Hopefully it'll be soon.

Well I should sign out now, I'm tired and have laundry going and mommy stuff to do! I wish I could lay down and take a nap for a while! Maybe I could...watching a couple episodes of Caillou wouldn't be that....would it?!?

I think he gets it!

As we've been struggling with potty and poopy training, I think Evan has finally gotten it. It has been such a long and grueling past couple months, but it's so worth it! NO MORE DIAPERS!!! What a money saver! Woohoo!!! HE GETS IT!!!

With Evan expressing his new adventures of being independent, I am now starting to ween Mason. Not totally by choice, which sucks. Although, I feel bad because I enjoy it and I know Mason does too. But I know I will feel good when I'm done...a little bit more freedom for myself! Now when I go to Applebee's I can get my strawberry perfect margarita with dinner which I'm excited about. I figure when I'm done, I'll have nursed him for about 7 months. We tried rice cerael with him a few nights ago, and he hated it. He gagged and gagged. The poor kid. So we thought we'd add flavor to it by adding vegetables....more gagging. I don't quite think he's ready for the whole food experience yet. He's getting closer and closer to crawling, he gets up on all 4's and rocks away. Other than that, he's carpet swimming and he can roll and scoot himself anywhere he wants to be. He's such a happy kid, except for when Brian and I want to go out on a date and he screams for the babysitter.....poor Chad and Amy, Grandma, Scott - and whoever else he has screamed and cried for. I'm sorry. I really am truly sorry. Maybe that'll change once he's exclusively on bottles. We'll see.

I went to my Weight Watchers weigh-in last night (couldn't go to the meeting because I had Mason in toe) and I gained about 2 pounds. Oops. I am now back on track today on the regular points system, no more nursing mom's program (yikes). So I no longer have my 10 extra daily points. I hope I can do this. I am hungry and I am trying so hard. I CAN do this, I just have to be good for a couple days and then I'll get right back on track with no problems. This starting part is the hardest. Ok, enough rambling. More to come later -I'll try and be better about blogging, I usually always have something to share!

Peace out!

I have no idea why I just typed that. Oh well. I suppose.....

We survived Halloween! Yay!!! Only approximately 10 little candy bars made it to my belly, so that's not too bad...at least I think it's not too bad! Trick-or-treating was a blast! Evan got to go with his 2 cousins, and his little brother slept in the stroller most of the time. It was so much fun to watch him actually understanding it this year - going house to house, ringing the door bell, saying trick-or-treat and getting candy. It brought back so many memories of being a kid! I always remember how much fun it was to go out...and cold! The poor kiddos were so cold, I felt so bad! Evan was so cold he could hardly speak. I didn't realize how cold it actually was until we came in and my hands went numb!

Our haunted house was great this year! Brian estimated that we had approximately 225 kids, well I should say people since adults like our haunted house too! Our haunted house keeps growing every year and getting better and better. It was really great this year with our butcher room, coffin, bridge, chainsaw attacks, the scary clown - thank you Scott -, and also thank you to everyone else who participated in our haunting fun - it was wonderful and the costumes were fantastic! Very scary and very fun! It's such a hectic couple days preparing our haunted house that consumes our driveway and garage, but it's so much fun and I love when everyone comes over and we can go trick-or-treating together - mommy's jobs - and hang out back at the house, eating food and candy and letting the kids play! They had a blast!

Happy November! Wow, what?!? I can't believe it's November. How nuts is that. Well I should sign out, I have cookies to bake for a bake sale at church, kids to take care of, cartoons to watch, books to read, cleaning up our leftover Halloween *stuff*, make an attempt at getting a shower in today, changing diapers, taking Evan to the potty, taking care of our dog - whose I'm sure tummy is upset from treats yesterday, try to avoid our leftover Halloween candy, eat healthy today - back on track, do the dishes, organize the toy chest, make the bed, wash Evan's sheets, do more laundry, clean the kitchen...I guess I have my day taken care of! Have a good day and thanks again to everyone who helped with our haunted house and came over! I really enjoy the company!