our dog izzy...

this is our dog izzy... she's a pain in my patootie. i was totally out of my mind to think it would be easy peasy to care for a dog and a baby and go to school and run a house. BUT - whatever, she's ours now and she's starting to grow on me - a little. 

when she gets riled up she's like a 3 year old on sugar crack. and she digs holes. lots of them. 

 like this one...

 and this one...

 and here are two of her IN the act of digging up our yard

normally it's just really annoying, but today her digging yielded treasure! and i don't mean the sort of treasure that gramps calls what nuggie puts in a poopie diaper.

a blue marble! wish she'd dig up someone's old diamond jewelry or a stashed box full of cash. i guess a blue marble will just have to do.

rain, rain - go away...

while bub is out i told him i'd mow the lawn. well, it's been icky and rainy for days now and i haven't had a chance to do it yet and it doesn't look like i will anytime soon since it's rainy again today. the grass is starting to look like a jungle! gramps is coming to hang out with us till bub gets back, so maybe i can get him to help? even just to watch nuggie so i can do it? we also really need to weed-eat around the flower beds and such. i haven't ever used that particular lawn tool yet, anyone have advice??

so it's no secret that our house is infested with poison deadly scary bad brown recluse spiders. we've gotten them under control and thankfully don't often see them anymore. but when it's boiling hot outside, like it has been, they rush into the house again because - well, i don't know why - they just do it. i was getting ready to hop in the shower this morning and i lifted nuggie's bath seat up out of the tub and there hiding under it was a huge one! it was about the size of a silver dollar. eeeecccckkkkkk!!! and since i'm playing house all alone this week, i had to hike up my big girl panties and kill the darn thing myself. the old me would have put a cup over it and waited for bub to come home and kill it. i am so so so so SO scared of spiders! but, i had no choice, i had to kill it. so i squashed that bad boy and flicked him outside off the end of the fly swatter. ick, ick, ick!


shannon blogged the other day about 16 and pregnant. last night i totally got sucked in by it! everything she said in her blog was so true. but it's so like a train wreck - i can't NOT watch. it totally broke my heart. seeing a 16 or 17 year old girl handling such a huge responsibility is tough. the episode i watched last night was involving a girl who's dad had kicked her out when he found out she was pregnant and her mom lived in new jersey, so she had to move in with her boyfriend's family. the boy's mom was a spazz addicted to drugs and was just hateful to the poor girl. when the girl's mom showed up to see the new baby it was like looking at another teen mom - she was a wreck herself. this poor girl had no one. in the end she and boy of course broke up and she went to live with a friend. i'm so thankful every single day that bub and i waited to have our little family.

i also totally got sucked into 19 kids and counting last night. i know they're sort of different and old fashioned, but i LOVE them. they just seem so loving and sweet and all those kids seem so well behaved and mature. i want to be friends with them. then mrs duggar can teach me to make my own soap and how to actually get little kids to do chores around the house. 

only the lonely

the hubs is taking off for a work adventure tomorrow morning and won't be back till sunday :-( i really am so excited for him - he's going to be traveling alot the next few months. no out of the country trips make me feel a little better. but i'm really gonna miss him! he's my better half, i rely on him so much! and i don't know about you other mommas out there, but from about 3:30 till whenever gets home, like 5ish, i'm a little frazzled, the babes is always whiny then, the dog is driving me bonkers, i'm trying to make dinner, get the nugg fed and winding down and oh, he's like a knight in shining armor when he walks through that door at the end of the day. even just having him there so i have someone to vent to is amazing. but he's really good about helping and will take the dog and babes on a walk or help fix dinner and i'm so much calmer after that. i'm gonna miss my man :-(

i'm not going to miss what he's done to his head. he asked me not to post a pic, but let me paint you a picture. gone are his thick lovely locks of hair and instead, it's about 1/4 of an inch and buzzed all over. at least he has a lovely round noggin. he tried to tell me some hulabaloo about all the men on his spartan race team looking the same and that's why he committed hair graffiti. crap is what i call it. i guess we're even though - i chopped my hair off and he did the same. we can now both commiserate our short 'dos. i can't wait for mine to grow back out! i can't wait for his grow either :-)

i've got another micro exam tomorrow. let's hope i do better this week! last week was disastrous. i've studied my face off for this one. i. am.ready! i can't believe we're already a month into this thing.

tomorrow starts C25K week 3 and it has me running 5 min segments. holy flying thigh masters - i'm not sure i can handle this! it's a gajillion degrees and casey is gonna kick my saddle bagged behind. if you find me gasping for air in the ditch tomorrow, kindly toss me an inhaler.

jinx, you owe me a coke

yeah, i should have known better than to blog about how great everyone was sleeping in our house... the last two nights have been rough! sweet nuggie knew i blogged and said, oh yeah mom, i'll show you! and she's decided not to nap or sleep at ALL! well, ok, that's a little dramatic. but the napping part is the whole truth. she's just cried and cried through nap time. then she's dog tired by 5pm. but that's so early to put her down. so she'd sleep till like 8 and then was ready to party... last night was a little a better. daddy kept her up and happy till 7 and she only got up once. from now on i just can't blog about how great she's sleeping...

sweet cakes turned 8 months old on wednesday - i promised a photo... here she is :-) she was very serious when i was taking her pics and this was the closest thing to a smile i could get.

it's father's day weekend! i want to treat the hubs to a wonderful first daddy's day... i've got some special little things planned. i think gramps is going to be with us as well, so i'll have two dads to celebrate. i'll be thinking of my own dad this weekend too. he wasn't much for presents or fuss or anything, but you could always give him sweets! if he was still with us i'd probably give him a big bag full of peanut butter cups, reecie peice's and starbursts. he would have loved nuggie so much, i'm so sad he never got to meet her. hug your dad's this weekend if you can friends...

8 months old!

our sweet little nuggie is 8 months old today! how is this possible??? she's still snoozing away, but when she's up and i've had a chance to take her pics i'll be sure to post them. she's getting so big! and, i've been hesitant to post this b/c i don't want to jinx things - but... she's sleeping through the night AND napping in her crib!!! things were getting so tough around here with her starting to only want to sleep if i was holding her and no one was getting much sleep. so we did a little work, set up a good routine and presto - the little sweetie is sleeping like a dream! you know those last couple of months in your pregnancy you don't really sleep well and then 8 months of having a baby who doesn't sleep - well, 10 months later, we're ALL getting some good rest around here! sleep, i've missed you! it's so nice to get reacquainted!

class is chugging along. we're about a month in now. it's a really hard class - microbiology. i'm not doing too well if i'm gonna be honest. i need to study more. it's such an interesting course, i do enjoy the material, i'm just finding the pace of it and the amount of info we have to know to be a little overwhelming.

the couch to 5k is coming along well. i started week three yesterday. it has me running in 3 min intervals now. that is the longest i've ever run, EVER. it's so hard, but such a great feeling to be working towards something like this. not really losing any weight yet :-( but life has been really crazy, hectic and stressful the last few weeks, so i'm guessing that may have something to do with it? i'm going to keep at it - weight loss or not, i'm loving learning to run. i ran with miss casey again yesterday - such a great cheerleader!!!

well, i best take advantage of my sleeping babe and fit some study time in!

pics!

 gramps helped us out this week! he watched nuggie while i had class since miss d was out of town. nuggie adores her grandpa and they had a wonderful time together this week :-)

 nuggie helped daddy clean out his car. she's really close to pulling herself up on things in the house and grabbed the steering wheel and pulled herself up on that! she's such a big girl!

 nuggie had a soap suds goatee last night in the tub!! she's been doing this thing where she leans forward and dunks her nose in the water. she usually snorts and gets water up her nose... i'm not sure why the heck she finds this so fun!

the super generous miss claire passed along to us her baby bouncer. nuggie LOVES it!

happy friday everyone! bub and i have a very rare date night planned for this evening. we had a living social deal for movie tickets we needed to use up - so we're going to see that new steven spielberg movie - super 8. sweet miss kate is coming to watch the bambino - woot!!

sleeping beauty

well, we had a much better night last night. only one wake up from miss nuggie and she went right back to sleep after having a little bottle. it's amazing how much better you feel after 6 hours of sleep!

gramps and i are taking the nugster to the farmer's market today for lunch. bub is gonna meet us there since it's so close to his work. after lunch i think we'll wander around a little and check out what sort of goodies we might be able to find there.

is anyone watching the bachelorette? i don't normally find myself getting sucked in to this particular reality tv show, but there is nothing else on this summer, so i got hooked. i'm awful though and already went to www.realitysteve.com and found out how it ends. what is my deal? i can't help myself! it's like when i read a book - i've got to know how it ends before i start it.

couch - 5k week 2 day 2 was today. i went alone since grampy is here and could watch the nugg. i'm slower when i'm alone, but i did about 2 miles with a 12 min/mile avg when i was jogging. i'm trying to get my average down 10 min/mile.

it's another hot hot hot day - stay cool my lovelies.

seriously!

i have NOTHING of any sort of anything to write. i couldn't even think of a title for this pitiful blog. but i want to keep up with this. so ok - let's see, what's going on?

we decided to stop doing the CSA. we have not been happy at all with what we've been getting. i know others of you have also joined - what are your thoughts?? we just found we were spending quite a bit more per week on groceries then before. i thought we could have enough food in our box each week to use for dinners but that was just not the case when you get a pitiful "steak trimmings" package and three giant heads of lettuce. SO, now i feel like i'm back to square one trying to plan organic meals for our family. a sweet friend suggested i check out trader joe's as a cheaper alternative to say, whole foods. nuggie and i wandered all around the store for about an hour this week and while their prices were good, most of their products are not organic and do not say where they are from. i did some googling when i got home and found that trader joe's has a lot of unfavorable press out there and it all looked to be true. so erase them from my list of options. so here's the new plan - the farmer's market. i'm hoping i can plan our menu and buy only what we really need. with the CSA box we were getting alot of stuff we don't like. like beets, radishes, cabbage and kholrabi. maybe if i can plan and buy at the farmer's market only what we need, i can stick to our budget but still get locally grown, organic stuff? or maybe i should just say f#*! it and just buy kroger brand everything?? is it really worth all this headache?

nuggie has been a little nightmare at bedtime again. she's doing this super fun thing now where she does NOT want to be put down, AT ALL and if you dare try (even if she's totally sound asleep in your arms) she'll wake instantly and scream like a rapid monkey. she's nearly 8 months old - i've got to help her learn to sleep. so we've been doing a little bit more and more of letting her cry. we've got a sweet little night, night routine we stick to just the same every night - supper, bath, jammies, quiet play and then rock for a little bit while she has her last bottle and then lay her down. we were up last night from 10-12:30 and 3-3:45, but she did put herself back to sleep eventually. oh. my.gosh! is she totally strong willed or what?!? i am taking responsibility for her sleep habits. but now they've got to change... i hope. it is so so so so hard to hear her cry. i'm not good at letting her fuss. i know when she can be a little more independent we'll all sleep better.

the jogging is coming along well. my sweet friend casey met me monday morning for a run date. she kept pace with me, which i'm sure was stinkin' slow but she was an awesome cheerleader! i'm gonna kick that 5k's booty!

my sweet babes

my sweet little baby is 33 weeks old today! how is that possible? she'll be 8 months old on the 15th!

sweet nuggie - the littlest love of my life :-)

she's growing like a weed and is just about moved out of her 9 month clothes already. what a little personality - she's such a goof ball. she squeals and laughs and flaps her little arms. she is trying so hard to crawl and is just starting to try to pull up on things. she loves being outside and will happily go anywhere in her stroller. she's still not too excited about "real" food - but will nibble on tiny bits of bread and cheese. nuggie is still not a very good sleeper, but we do have her taking two or three naps a day now - though still in her swing, but hey, at least she's napping and she sleeps through the night about every 3 days. nuggie loves her kitty cat olive (though ollie isn't to excited about her), splashing in the bath and "drinking" from a big cup (while most of it runs down her chin!). she's teaching me so much and makes me want to be a better mommy every day. though this journey of motherhood hasn't gone exactly how i thought it would - i wouldn't change a single thing. the Lord knew exactly what sort of little angel to send to us.  i love my sweet babycakes!

oh hell...

i signed up for a simple little 5k last week. it gives me a goal. something to work towards. it holds me accountable to really make sure i can run 3 miles.

then bub said, hey, let's do a warrior dash - see here. and i said, ok. and then he signed us up - like 30 seconds later. and i said, well, crap. i was only half serious.

guess i'll be setting up mud pits, fire walls and rows of tires in our backyard to practice.

someone shoot me now please.

summer school

i have two "co-req" classes left to take for the nursing program. one of them is microbiology and the other is ethics. well, i'm taking micro this summer. whew - a whole, TOUGH, course in 8 weeks... we're only two weeks in and i'm already feeling a little overwhelmed. it's so interesting and feels like a class that will have real world applications when i graduate, but it goes so fast! this thursday in lab we'll be handling live e. coli and staph cells. i get to wear a lab coat. as in MY lab coat. i'll be like a mad scientist :-)

the other class - eithics - is gonna have to wait for a bit. i think i'll be taking that later? i've heard that class is hard too, but i survived theology so i think i can handle ethics.

this post is boring. it feels boring anyhow. i am sort of at a loss for what to write today. nugg slept well last night. i think it's because we wore her out before bed last night. we kept her up a little later and kept her busy and the little stinker slept from 8 till 7 and only got up once for a bottle. ahh - momma is feeling better today!

we went for a run this morning. my first without bub cheering me on. i'm considerably slower with out my man coaching me - BUT, i did it! woot! nuggie rode along in the stroller - she's my little baby cheerleader :-)