The Life of a Beard

At some point this winter, Jayson stopped shaving his beard. I am a fan of facial hair, and I liked it. At first, the girls didn't, especially Charlie, who told him flat out, "I hate it." They warmed up to it, though. Especially when he curled it.

He wasn't sure how long he was going to keep it, until this weekend when the weather started to warm up. He told me yesterday that he wasn't going to last much longer. Then today, he told me he couldn't last another day. He came outside and we took the "before" picture:

 The girls wanted to kiss his beard goodbye.

He started with just the mustache because he said he wanted to look Amish.

He let the girls help him with the rest.

And then it was gone!

The Latest Funny

My mom came to visit this weekend and she turns 60 next week. The girls were singing "Grandma is 59 going on 60," to the tune of 'Sixteen Going on Seventeen,' from The Sound of Music. Then they got silly and sang things like, "Grandma is 59 going on 100," and "Grandma is 59 going on 0," and then Audrey chimed in with, "Grandma is 59 going on DEAD." 

Jayson, "My mistake."

Charlie, "NO! I'ts NAM-a-STAY, Daddy!"

Audrey, "We got new groups in math."

Me, "What does that mean?"

Audrey, "I'm in the rhombus group."

Me, "But what does that mean?"

Audrey, "It's for kids who need a challenge. We're the only ones who use the tens rods. It's not even a challenge. Mrs. Boyd said, 'Paige has three snowballs and Audrey has five.' She said my NAME, Mommy. My NAME!" 

Snow Day! (Actually, Cold Day)

The girls and I did not have school today or yesterday due to extremely cold temperatures. We were in the negative teens and with windchill, we got close to negative 50 degrees. Too cold to go outside! The schools called off Monday on Friday afternoon and on Monday afternoon, they called off Tuesday as well. It was nice to have some notice.

I feel like these two days were such a nice surprise even though we just had winter break. We had winter break very planned out, with things to do every day, so it was nice to just be stuck at home and get to spend time together. The girls are at an age where they play together beautifully and it was so fun hearing them play and acting out whatever imaginary situation they were in. I think my favorite was when they were playing with their legos and that somehow turned into them pretending to be on talk shows and sharing their lego creations with the host.

So, what else did we do?

Lydia did an experiment where she put a temperature gauge in a cup of water and put the water outside and took measurements.

We knew we would go crazy if we didn't get some energy out. Luckily, Jayson and I have an elliptical in the basement. Jayson also has a 7-minute workout app he does with Charlie, so we all did it, and the girls got yoga mats and videos for Christmas so we did yoga too.

Of course we had to have hot chocolate.

And more experiments! We of course had to do the hot water thrown into the air, and we also froze a T-shirt.

Charlie got a slow start to yoga on the second day.

The girls also played games, we did manicures, watched movies, etc. It really was kind of a magical couple of days where Jayson and I both got work done, the girls played together without fighting (too much) or making a mess (too much), and everybody was happy. Just the rejuvenation we needed!

2014

I'm not usually one for New Year's resolutions. I've always been more of a "if you want to make a positive change, do it, and it doesn't have to be January 1st" kind of person. But, I had a hard time making positive changes this year. This has been by far my most difficult school year so far, with many added stresses this year and diminishing support. It has made it hard to focus on me and it has made it really hard to focus on my family. So, I've been mulling over a few resolutions and here is what I came up with:

1) More meaningful activities at night. Usually as soon as the girls are in bed, I do school work, and then I let myself go online until I fall asleep. I don't do any of my hobbies any more, like knitting, I haven't read a book since the summer, and I really have fallen into the habit of doing mindless things. It's a nice release, but it also makes me feel like I'm not spending my time as positively as I could. But, I also get anxiety about starting something I won't have time to finish. So, I'm going to make time. That also includes time for blogging.

2) Get to a yoga class at least once a week. I used to do yoga a little more frequently, but then started to focus much more on running. I got more concerned with how much I could sweat, how sore I could get, how far/fast I could run, and even, sadly, how many calories I could burn. With the added stress this year, Jayson really encouraged me to get back to my yoga practice, and I feel like I am benefiting from it much more than I ever did before. I do feel the change in my body, and I also feel that it puts me in a very good place mentally and spiritually. So, that's going to continue to happen on a more frequent basis.

3) Fewer chemicals. We have already moved to being more natural in what we clean with, what we eat, and what products we use. This is something I would also like to ramp up, especially with food. I think we often choose something that is low fat or fat free over something that is natural, and I'm going to work on choosing more natural. Too often the ingredients that are altered to make foods lower in fat are replaced with things that I can't even pronounce. That's not to say I'm cutting out junk food. It just means being a little more conscious of what's in our food and making a better choice when we can.

Also, I hate it when people get all public about how healthy they are and how what they do to stay healthy is the right thing for everybody, so I pretty much hate this post. But, I felt a need to write it all out and put it somewhere that will make me feel a little more responsible for sticking to it. So, sorry. More blogging about my crazy kids will happen soon. When I finish my game of Candy Crush and put down these Cheetos.

Lunchtime Limits

Jayson tries to pack cold lunches for the girls every day. The hot lunches at our school are great, but just a little bit less healthy than how we eat at home. Jayson packed Lydia a tuna salad wrap on Wednesday. She decided at school that she did not like it, so she bought hot lunch. We explained to her that she can't do that because it's a waste of money and she would take that same tuna salad wrap the next day (which she loved, by the way). That night, after Jayson was gone, I told Lydia that I was going to "freeze her lunch account" and she would not be allowed to buy anything except for milk, so she shouldn't even try to.

On Friday, we were in desperate need of groceries, so Jayson decided to let the girls have hot lunch. He called me at school.

Jayson: Hi. Lydia is going to have hot lunch today, so she insisted I call you to have you unfreeze her account.
Me: Oh. Yeah. That was big fat lie.
Jayson: Yes, I understand that. But, that doesn't change the fact that I have to call you and have you unfreeze her account.
Me: Oooooooh! Yeah! Beep Beep Boop Beep. I just pushed the unfreeze button!
Jayson: Thank you.
Me: You're welcome.

Raising Strong Girls

In October of 2011, I ran the Milwaukee Marathon. I followed a training schedule and made sure I would be prepared for it. That meant giving up several long mornings to fit in 20-mile runs, which also left me pretty exhausted for the rest of the day. It was difficult balancing my family with my training. Months of preparation, both physically and mentally went into the run and I felt like it was a huge accomplishment. I was proud of myself. However, what made me the proudest was not that I finished for myself, or my husband, or the friends and kids on my cross country came who watched me run. It was seeing my three girls as I ran that last leg to the finish that brought tears to my eyes. Knowing that they saw their mom do something that a lot of people can't do and something that took determination and goals and literal blood, sweat and tears to do, made me feel like I accomplished something huge as a mom.

I often try to show my girls that women can do anything. I tell them they can be anything they want to be. They can be a doctor, a teacher, a firefighter, a waitress, or even the president. I make sure they know that I can do stuff around the house just like Daddy can and even though Daddy can run and bike faster than me, I still run and bike the hardest I can. This past week, I built a small brick wall by our patio and I had to chisel two bricks in half to complete it and Lydia told me there's no way I could cut a brick in half, but I made sure that once I did, she saw it and she knew that something she thought was impossible actually wasn't.

I let them choose to wear whatever they want. Audrey is a huge fan of dresses and skirts. For her birthday, she wanted a Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle T-shirt. When the grandma of one of the kids who came to Audrey's birthday party asked me for some gift ideas, I listed a bunch of things and kind of threw that in as an afterthought, "Oh, you know what else? She said she wants a Ninja Turtle T-shirt." I'm so glad that grandma got Audrey not one but TWO Ninja Turtle T-shirts that Audrey just loves to wear. Often with skirts.

I know it's not a new idea to try to raise strong girls, but I feel like I didn't become a very strong person until later in life. Not any fault of my own mother, but I was just a very quiet kid and not very outgoing. I was very self-conscious.  Team sports embarrassed me because I was never as good as the other kids on the team. Individual sports were absolutely terrifying. I rarely spoke up for myself and was fine not rocking the boat. That's not how my girls are, and I hope they continue to be strong in whatever they do. And I hope that years down the road, they will be grateful for my role in what they became. 

Latest Interviews

I like to interview the girls a couple of times a year just to document what's going on in their lives and what they're like. So, here are today's interviews. My favorite is the last one, which is Lydia interviewing Audrey while Charlie behaves like... well, Charlie.

Lydia's interview:

Audrey's interview:

Charlie's interview:

Lydia interviewing Audrey: