Code Orange Revival & What Lives Under My Bed

How's that for a post title?

First things first.  Well, actually, no let's go with second things first because they are less important and quicker. Quicker?  More quick?  Hmm...either way.  The second (first) thing is just a quick declutter update.  When I looked at this week's activities, I was already dreading today's - clean out under the bed.  Not so much because I store so much under my bed, but it is a king size bed, so technically I could store a lot under that bed.  There were, and are mostly suitcases, hanging bags, and backpacks.  Plus the TV stand for our TV before we mounted it on that wall [maybe more on that later how I always said I would never have a TV in my bedroom and now have a huge one - don't worry, one month's challenge this year is no TV in the bedroom for a month at night].  But I digress.  Back to what other things are under our bed.  That TV stand, a guitar case, and some nun-chucks.  Yes.  Nun-chucks.  You should all rest better now knowing how safe I am with my husband beside me and those nun-chucks within constant reach - see?

Haha.  Oh my husband, how could you not love him?  

(He got them at a flea market for $2 in Asheville with this crazy crew and is proficient with them - my protector!)

All that to say, there isn't much under my bed, so it wasn't that terrible - though there was dust, lots of dust.  So, it wasn't what was under my bed that was making me anticipate this task...rather, what has been under my bed.  Don't know what has been under my bed?  Go ahead and amuse yourself with my trauma by catching up on the following links:  here, here,and here. (Sorry those are sort of in backwards order and don't give the whole story - but you'll get the gist when you read these and find out that that THING was actually living in the boxsprings of our bed.)  Thankfully there was none of that under the bed tonight when I cleaned out. That, and I haven't been missing any underwear recently.  But I did feel anxiety when I flashed the flashlight around under there.  

Now for thing number two, which is really thing number one.  Our church is doing an amazing 12 day revival called Code Orange Revival.  For more info on the revival and why it is called Code Orange, etc go here.  Tonight was the kick off night, and it was awesome.  I didn't get to go but it is all being streamed live online, so I hooked the computer up to the TV and enjoyed it all from my sofa.  It was awesome to have the worship streamed online and get to be a part of it that way.  It starts online every night at 6:12, and then re-broadcasts online for the next 24 hours at 10:12pm, 3:12am, and 12:12pm before the next one begins.  There are amazing speakers lined up, and we can't wait to be a part of it for the next 12 nights.  Now, go be a part of it also and get online and watch tonight's, and tomorrow nights, and the next.  You get the point. d

Life with Two

For the past week, we have gotten to 'try on' life with two kids as full time working parents.  A little skewed because it was our nephew and he and Emerson are close in age and Luke is so easy...but then again so is Emerson, so here's hoping that we'll do it right and God doesn't have other plans for us with our own #2 also and we can keep saying that the next time around.  I didn't know what Emerson would think of having someone  else in her house and playing with her things from Monday - Sunday, but they really played so well together and especially for the last 3 days had a total blast together.  I think she was sad to see him leave tonight!  Here are some quick snippits of our week together.

After several fun picnic meals on our front porch because the weather was so amazing this weekend, we braved going out to dinner one night and the kids had a great time chowing down at the new Chipotle close to our house.  This could be dangerous because we love Chipotle and now it is even closer to home - yum. It cooled off for the rest of the weekend, and in celebration of Luke's parents being in Colorado skiing, we had s'mores in the backyard over the firepit.  This was a first for both kids and they both loved it.  And yes, I did put a pair of Emerson's pajamas on Luke since I knew their pjs would smell like campfire so I could throw them in the laundry and put on new ones before bed!  Emerson loved them, as you can tell by the pictures below.

 (Oh dear...we need to manage these curls a little better...this is why there's always a bow or pigtails keeping this curls out of her eyes - especially this big one right in the front!)

Emerson has been getting more sugar in the past few weeks than she has ever had before. We potty trained a few weeks ago, and she has done amazing with very few accidents only in the early days.  She gets 1 jelly bean or one Reeses pieces when she pees and well, we tried lots of different high value prizes for pooping (sorry, TMI?) but she just wasn't motivated. "No fanks!, Hold me mommy," was always the response. It has been no big deal because she regularly goes during nap or right before bed when she has her diaper on - but I don't want her to be a kid that always just goes in her diaper.  So we bought these individual ice cream containers at the grocery store and those have been the new prize.  And today, it worked.  And...well, let's just say she probably lost a few pounds when she went to the bathroom so I didn't mind that she ate the whole little container of icecream!  Actually it was frozen yogurt...maybe a little better?  Here she is enjoying herself in bed with her icecream (oh yeah, the prize was ice cream and a video - which is a big prize and not the norm at our house).  Here's to hoping that this was a breakthrough and we can just keep going from here!

In other January news, Declutter 2012 has been going well - probably because the first week's activities have been pretty simple and not ones that I dread or avoid - for example, dust the top of your cabinets, clear off a storage shelf, clean out old food from the freezer, throw out expired spices, organize canned food.  Well, I don't have many cabinets, definitely don't have many storage shelves, did throw out some things from the freezer, use my spices too frequently to have expired ones, and have 1/4 of one shelf in one cabinet dedicated to cans - sigh, no pantry.  So far so good.  And I think that if this is how my house looks before I go to bed Sunday night from just normal clean up after a week with two 2 year olds and 30 people at my house Friday night for John's 30th birthday, I think I'm off to a good start! (Sorry, these are cell phone pictures and pretty dark)

 And yeah, maybe the side of my refrigerator needs to be on the declutter list.  But here, you can see (from left to right, top to bottom): Terry's brothers and sister-in-laws after our rehearsal dinner, [on the magnet clip:] pictures from a photo booth at a recent wedding, things Em has made from church and who knows what else), side by side pictures of my mom and I at Easter as 3 year olds where we look incredibly alike, Terry and I in highschool before I knew how much I would love this man, me with Salem as puppy, one corner of Emerson's head in a picture from her dedication, the Walgreens clip holds the declutter calendar that I have been marking out, Beth's family, the group at Emerson's dedication including: Beth & Dean, Molly & Bella, us, Laura, Mom & Rebecca; a picture of me kissing Terry on the cheek after my grad school graduation covered by some recent cut and paste crafts Emerson has made, and Terry and I in January 2005 (or was it 2004?) before we were dating but probably the trip that I thought the most about maybe dating him :)  See - who would want to declutter any of that?!

Declutter 2012

Happy New Year - are you surprised to find me here?  After a weekend spent with my dad, brother, sister-in-law and precious nephew, I spent a really exciting New Year's Eve...alone in my bed, asleep before the ball dropped.  And, I didn't care one bit.  I am officially old.  Our family loved all of our time together over the holidays even though we didn't have that much actual time off work.  It was sad to think of coming back this week with no big holidays or short work weeks to look forward to.  Thankfully, there is plenty to look forward to this year!

I know some of you have laughed that one of the things I am looking forward to and I am excited about is this calendar that I found on Pinterest.

I know that my house is clean.  Relatively.   Cleaner than most.  Yes.  More organized than many.  Maybe.  But that doesn't mean that there isn't clutter.  It doesn't mean that I don't have 3 junk drawers that I have no idea what is in.  It certainly doesn't mean that my attic space doesn't have things thrown in there - like a laundry basket full of shoes that are never worn and should be given away.  Most dreadfully, it unfortunately doesn't mean that the inside of my refrigerator doesn't have sticky goo inside the drawers and little pieces of old parsley, cilantro, kale, and other green things flaked off in the vegetable drawer.  Because my house does have all of those things.  And dog hair.  Lots and lots of dog hair.  And, just ask my poor husband - as clean as my house may be, I always want it to be cleaner and more organized.  But when I think of decluttering, I want to do it all and then it is overwhelming for everyone and I get stressed...and maybe a little grumpy.  Maybe even a lot grumpy.  So I am decluttering little by little thanks to this calendar.  I hope it feels manageable, and I hope I can keep up with it.  I need accountability and someone to commiserate with, so thankfully, Kristi says she is going to do it with me.  Anyone else want to join in?

A client's mom told me that instead of New Year's resolutions last year, she picked one thing a month and tried to stick with it every day of that month.  Six months were things to remove from her life and six were things to add to it.  If it stuck by the end of the month then it got added into her regular routine, and if it didn't, then it didn't and at least she could say she tried.  For example, when she told me about this it was October, and she walked their dog everyday in February.  She also said she felt pretty sure the poor dog hadn't been walked again since then.  I loved this idea (not the not walking the dog for 8 month idea) - the one thing a month idea.  So I'm going to give it a try this year - I have a list...but only 9 things on it so far. I need one more thing to add to my life and two more things to remove - it's a work in progress.  But I am starting with January - remove clutter - and I hope that it will stick and I can keep with this calendar!

I hope that one of the tasks on this calendar includes: buy yourself a new wardrobe for all of the clothes I will have decluttered.  And another has a magic wand attached to make my dog stop shedding.  And another one is definitely going to say something about throwing away all of those pictures in my attic from highschool that I thought I would definitely want to keep...and now can't declutter fast enough!

Year in Review

Happy Birthday to me and welcome back to the 21st Century, we have the internet back in our house.  I will actually say that it was a mostly welcome relief to be unplugged from the internet at home this year, thanks to having internet on my phone for looking up take-out orders, directions, and last minute necessities.  But, I have not enjoyed being so far behind on storing and organizing (nevermind printing!) pictures of Emerson - and I know some of you haven't either based on the hard time(s) you have given me.  So I'll recap the last 6 months with my favorite pictures of the month and remain for now, unpromising of what next year will look like on this blog.  

June: Emerson loves baking/cooking; we went to the Asheboro zoo on our way to cousin Caleb's party where Emerson spent the day in the baby pool; and Carver came to visit and even spend the night!

July: This was a FUN month - Emerson and I spent part of a week at Windy Gap with Molly and Bella, and we were all in Emory with my family for the 4th of July (please don't miss the collision that happened on the

slip and slide!

August: Played outside naked in the water lots as all children should in the summer; saw Bella again and spent a lot of the weekend playing in a fort; had a day at the lake and birthday celebration with and for cousins; and even wore pigtails for the first time!

September: As if we weren't having enough fun...we spent the day at a local petting zoo, and Terry and I got to go to our first Red Sox game at Fenway on the 4th row with Kat and spend a long weekend with Terry's family in Boston.  We got to cross a big something off our bucket list with that trip to Fenway.

October: We had the cutest cupcake ever for Halloween - who is clearly a blast and a trip; hung out around the house some more to enjoy family time (whilst wearing Mr Potato Head's glasses upside down, frequently); said goodbye to Dave & Natalie as they moved back to Hawaii; and enjoyed some festivals around Charlotte thanks to the view from Terry's shoulders.

November: Unfortunately, I don't have a lot of pictures from November - but we did celebrate Emerson's 2nd birthday, dedication at church and spent great time with family for Thanksgiving.  You can read more about those things here, here, and here.  Otherwise - here is how we celebrated her birthday at home, thanks to a fun idea (God bless you, Pinterest) to decorate her floor in balloons when she woke up, which was maybe her favorite thing in her life to date.

December thus far: We got our Christmas tree the day after Thanksgiving and Em had a fun time decorating with us.  We have snuggled around the house lots reading books and the best part is that Emerson can pretty much recite the Christmas story/birth of Jesus with a few prompts which is really sweet.  This morning we went to Lowes where they had a kids' celebration including Santa!

Happy 2011, here's to coming back in 2012!

Mama

Usually I am the one behind the camera at our house as I am sure you can tell because there are very few pictures that have me in them.  I got this cute wooden camera before Em was born, as inspired by who other than Tara Whitney when I had seen it on her blog a long time ago.  I loved it, and in general love wooden toys.  This sits on Emerson's bookshelf beside her rocker where we read stories every night, and after stories, Emerson practices saying 'cheese' while Terry takes her picture with her camera, and then she turns it around on him and practices taking his picture.  She loves looking through the hole and pressing the little 'shutter' button. 

Last weekend, Rebecca was in town Friday night and she had her real camera with her during bedtime routine and story time.  She snapped this cute picture of Em taking her picture as well as the next one of story time.  Her cute little tongue has been sticking out of her mouth a lot recently while she is concentrating or really enjoying something.  It is hilarious.  And I L-O-V-E story time with this girl.  She is so snuggly and so smart, if I do say so myself.

On our normal Saturday morning trip to Owen's Bagels, I even got to be in front of the camera for a quick snap of a picture with my favorite little girl.  Even though she isn't smiling, I just love this picture of her with her big eyes and gorgeous curls.  I never knew I'd have a little one with blonde hair, blue eyes, and big curls, but I sure do love her this way, and I am more than proud to be her mama - even if it is not well documented in photographs!  As her mama, I am super looking forward to a long weekend off of work with her - happy Memorial Day weekend!

Concert on the Green

Another one of our favorite things around Charlotte in the summer is the Symphony's "Pops in the Park" series which is a huge event.  So much fun is had at the huge outdoor ampitheatre where you go early in the morning to stake your claim to a spot, lay out your tarp/blanket and come back later that night with a picnic dinner and drinks packed and sit around with friends in the scorching heat :)  I'm sure there have been pictures from Pops on the blog in summers before.  A few weekends ago, we headed to Davidson with Beth's family and some of their friends for Davidson's concert series which is very similar.  Emerson got to stay up past her bedtime and had fun being the life of the party while also taking some breaks for sticker decorating, toe nail painting, dancing, and trying on other women's jewelry. 

She was quite proud of her accessories, and accessories isn't something that she has had much of a chance to get into at our house.  I wear the same necklace every single day, watch and my wedding ring and somedays I might try to make it exciting with one of my 3 pairs of earrings.  So this was a great treat to her.  It is so funny how she has intrinsically taken to maternal and girly things like this.  She loves a race car for sure as well, but mostly she loves playing tea, playing with her dolls, doing the laundry and unloading the dishwasher with me. 

Em and Beth danced to some good beach music (while Beth whispered sweet nothings into her ear!) by Band of Oz and then she enjoyed her view from above perched on Terry's shoulders watching everyone else dance.  The most exciting part of the night for her was probably the firetrucks that zoomed by on the street right in front of where we were sitting.  Please note Terry's face in the picture below is staged to look like Emerson's expression, and while a little more zoned, it again amazes me how they can look so alike.

You will also see though that they can both quickly go from being zoned to their same wild and crazy selves.  While she enjoys girly things, Emerson is far from prissy and loves being thrown around.  Not gently tossed, but thrown!  Crashing onto the bed, pillow fights, being thrown high up in the air, etc.  This is the same throwing game that you saw in the last post from Midwood Mania - Emerson loves this trick, and judging by his expression, I'd say Terry thinks it is a pretty great time also.

We had a great time enjoying the music and food, and mostly the company on this fun night in Davidson before the heat of summer came on full force.  Emerson was sleepy by the time we left and changed into her pajamas before hopping in the car and was snoozing hard by the time we got home.  Thanks Williams family for a fun night out with you all, we love you!

(This dress is one that my grandmother made that I wore as a little girl also - it is so sweet on her!!!)

Midwood Maynia

One of our favorite times in our neighborhood is Midwood Maynia.  It's the kind of thing that makes you proud to live where you live, have the neigbors that you do ... and never want to have to move to suburbia.

We know it might happen one day, but this is just one of the reasons that we would really mourn Plaza Midwood.  When we first moved to Charlotte, I dreaded the stereotypical Charlotte lifestyle - but our neighborhood was such a great breath of the fresh air we both hoped to find in a place we wanted to live - a neighborhood, but not one with a club house and HOA fees.  Neighbors that you can borrow butter or a cup of sugar from, but not neighbors that live so close to you that they could toss that stick of butter to you from the front porch.  And the two most important parts are: neigbors that don't look just alike, and in fact, all look quite different; and neighbors whose houses don't look just alike...but you wish your house looked like all the parts of lots of them (does this make sense?).

During Midwood Maynia, the day starts out with a Pet Parade - which is hilarious and we gave Salem our own "best behaved" dog award for herself.  Not necessarily the best behaved dog during the parade, but the best year she has ever had in the parade 4 years running - BY FAR.  The pet parade (led by the local highschool band) - the schools not being something we love about our neighborhood - ends in the park where there are festivities that last all day long: balloons, face painting, free give aways, bounce houses, ice cream, bands, food, beer, vendors, lots of people and lots of fun.  Emerson loves to be around lots of people and take it all in, and she was so excited.  She really wanted to get to go in the bounce house, but was too small - so Terry gave Emerson a bounce house of her own.  He tossed her up in the air and caught her down low, and she cracked up every time - clearly, so did he.  I love this picture of Terry & Em - don't you see what a great dad he is and how much they love each other?  It's priceless.

All of that throwing around wore everybody out, and Emerson was rewarded with one of her favorite things - ice.  But even better, shaved, flavored ice.  We tried to let her eat mostly off the top and let Terry drink all the syrup out of the bottom of the cup...but she is a smart girl, and she wanted that sugary syrup! She loved this icee!

...can you tell?

After we walked around and picked up some 'loot' and Terry guessed how many dog bones were in a jar (and came in 3rd place and won us 3 free nights for Salem of boarding!) we went and listened to the bands where Em and I danced and then we shared some food.  Emerson tried so shredded pork tacos with Terry for the first time - and loved them, but can you see who really wishes that they were getting in on the pork taco action in the photo below?  Unfortunately it was not her lucky day, she had eaten one too many board books this week...

Em

Emerson made quick friends with our neighbors at the pavillion while we listened to the bands and fell in love with a dog who was sitting in his own chair.  She would walk over and pet the dog, or just point at it and crack up laughing - she thought it was hilarious to see the dog get in and out of the chair and she just laughed and laughed every time she looked at it.  Too cute. 

Oh Plaza Midwood, how we love you and hope we do not have to leave you too soon...

Here's to more neighborhood fun times, icees, and days outside at the park!