Play

I have been trying to spend more time playing with my kids.
This is easier said than done. In fact it's more difficult than I would have thought.

What's so difficult about spending more time playing, you ask?

It's frustrating to lay on the ground and drive cars on the carpet, or make snakes out of playdough when there are hundreds of photo's to be edited and mountains of laundry taller than I am, just waiting to be washed, dried, folded and returned to their homes in the drawers.
And endless amounts of other chores nagging to be done.

So, it's not without effort that I have been ignoring or delaying some of these household obligations to give my offspring more of my time to do whatever their little hearts desire at that moment.
We've been making paper airplanes, rolling with Madee, having more dance parties, and spending hours on the floor playing action figures and trucks.

And my house is undeniably messier.

I do not (by any means) consider myself a neat person, but it does make me anxious when there are more dirty dishes than clean ones, or I could feed a third world country with the crumbs that have accumulated on my kitchen floor.

I'm working on establishing some sort of balance. There has to be a way of keeping my house acceptable and still giving my kids more of myself (perhaps less time blogging or perusing pinterest???).

Either way, I worry that if I don't start giving my children more of my time, that they will grow up while I'm busy dusting and cleaning toilets.

And I want them to know how important they are to me. What better way to show them that, than to give them my time? Because, as we all know, time is rather important to adults.

You know who is the best example to me in this area?

The husband.

He is fantastic. He comes home from a full day of work and rolls around on the ground with the kids. He turns up the music to extreme volumes and gets the boys jumping and moving to the beat. He is a human jungle gym. He tickles and laughs and plays. He watches cartoons and makes silly faces in the mirror. As a Mom, there's nothing sweeter than watching the love of my life (cheesy cliche but accurate) play with my kids. And sometimes, I can't help myself. I have to get my camera and capture it all, so I can keep those moments forever .

It's easy to see how happy he makes these kids of ours, and I hope I can be more like him, find some balance, and make my priorities consistent with the way I spend my time.

27

Happy Birthday to
the love of my life,
the father of my (adorable) children,
my best friend,
and my ridiculously handsome husband!

I Love you.

Ten and Thirty

Ten years ago Tim walked through my front door.

I was wearing a grey hoodie, and I sported a pony-tail, braces, and an epic amount of eyeliner.

I was hot.

Tim's arm was bleeding because his brother, Ed, stabbed him with the car keys.
He was devilishly handsome in his No Fear T-shirt and baggy jeans. 

Tim had tagged along with said brother to visit a girl he liked, on her birthday.

The girl being my sister, Jessica.

Things didn't work out for Jessica and Ed.

But they did for us.

*********

Happy 30th Birthday Jess!

Sorry I married your ex-boyfriend's brother!

(... actually I'm not.)

I hope you had a lovely birthday!

Jessi and her cute family.

Jessi's husband, Isaac, hacked into her blog and wrote her a very sweet blog post.

You can read it here.

Nocturnal No More

I realize that I slept alone for the first 19 years of my life,
But when Tim went to a graveyard shift, I never got used to it.
I was anxious.
I was lonely...even if one of my babies usually joined me at some point during the night.
I hated just about everything about him working nights.
Especially when he was in school.
His schedule looked like this:
       Come home from work early in the morning
       Eat something.
       Go to school.
       Come home and eat something.
       Go to sleep.
       Wake up and go to work again.
What a life eh!?
There was a reason my neighbors jokingly referred to me as a single mom, or a widow.
I was usually alone with my boys.
When he graduated, it was much more bearable.
I could sometimes pretend he worked a normal daytime shift,
because he was home (and awake) in the evenings.
But please imagine for a moment trying to keep two little boys quiet during the day.
Did you imagine it?
Yep, impossible, am I right?
Tim learned to sleep through a lot.
Not to mention trying to plan around his sleep on the weekends was rather frustrating.
 Before he worked during the night, he worked from 3pm - 11pm which wasn't much better.
But, finally after almost 5 years of working odd hours, Tim has switched to a normal daytime shift!
He is no longer a creature of the night.
I can't express how nice it is to have him home at night.
To not sleep alone....
it's delightful.

That Husband of Mine is pretty Amazing.

It wasn't until after we picked out the colors kitchen cupboards and flooring that we realized how terrible our kitchen table was going to look in there. We looked into getting a new table, but decided against it. Our kids haven't exactly been easy on our table, and we didn't want to put out the money to replace it, while our kids were still little. So we decided to upgrade the look of our current table. Following some of the advice we found here and here, we repainted it (by we, I mean Tim). 

I didn't think to take a "before " picture until after Tim had started, so these were just some extra chairs we borrowed from my parents while ours were being painted. 

I think it turned out better than we both hoped. We originally planned on painting the top red, but it just didn't look right, and Tim found this green color that we were both really happy with. 

Since the table was such a success we decided to try painting Madelinn's dresser. This was my dresser when I was little, and it's since been used by several other people. It still functions just fine, it's just a little bit run down and let's be honest.. unattractive. Poor little dresser. 

Once again, I didn't take a before picture until after we had started. 

I looked into buying replacement knobs, but I didn't want to spend any unnecessary money, and I thought the current knobs were kind of cool. We weren't sure how well it would work to paint them, but we decided to give it a whirl.

Once again, I think it turned out better than we expected. Tim did a really good job.

Now I'm wondering what else I can get the husband to paint....

Growing Old Together

The other day, I came across a CD Tim had made for me when we were in high school. I popped it in the CD player and this was the first song that came on.

If I have to get old,

I'm sure glad I'm going to get there with Tim.

Happy Father's Day!

My boys are big fans of their Dad.

(And he's rather fond of them as well)

They are so lucky to have such a dedicated Dad.

I couldn't ask for a better father to my children.

***

But let's not forget my own Dad!

As far as Dad's go, mine is pretty darn fantastic.

Happy Dad's Day! 

(as Tyler calls it)

V-Day

In junior high, I desperately wanted a rose on Valentines day.
On the days surrounding Valentines day you could buy a rose and have it delivered to someone during class. I wanted to get  a rose more than anything. Every time a rose deliverer would come into one of my classes, my hopes would soar- only to be let down again.

But alas, I never did get a rose. I'm not sure who I expected to send me one. Some secret admirer I suppose. I even secretly thought about sending one to myself, but who does that? Not I.

Now I am married and I have my very own permanent Valentine. I don't have to wonder who will be my date (well unless, like previous years, he works, but I have two little gentlemen to fill in for him).

Did I get roses this year?
No.
Did I get even ONE rose this year?
No.
Did I get anything at all???
No. No, I did not.

Now, now calm down. Before you decide that Tim is the worst Valentine ever, let me explain.
First of all, did I get him anything?.....no. I didn't.
And not because we don't believe in Valentines day or because we haven't in past years.
We just decided not to buy anything this year.
We've got a lot going on right now.
Big changes are going on at the Morgan household.

So what did we do on the lovers holiday?
Well... we put the kids to bed.
We ate homemade pizza.
We talked about our future plans....
And that was it.
Tim went to work, and I went to bed.
But in the morning, I woke up to Tim cleaning the kitchen.
That is not to say he never cleans the kitchen.
In fact lately, he cleans it often.
But it still made me feel loved.

And now (that I am not 13 with a bad hair cut and a flat chest), I would take a clean kitchen over a rose any day.

Happy Birthday Husband...

I'm glad you were born.

Dear Husband....

I just wanted to let you know that you make me happy.

That's all.

Love,

Your (lovely) wife

Tired Tim

Dear Husband,

By the time you finally crash tomorrow,

 You'll have been awake at least forty hours!

FORTY!!!

I know you are tired....

Or should I say completely exhausted?

But I am thankful that you were here for us today.

 Your little boy needed his Dad.

 I'm sorry it cost you your "night"'s sleep.

I don't know what I would do without you.

I love your face.

Love,

Your wife.

Fathers Day

Tyler and Jaxen are so blessed to have Tim as their Dad.

He’s hard working, intelligent, silly, generous, entertaining, honest, and fun.

Plus he can juggle.

He’s a fantastic Dad.

I couldn’t ask for a better father for my children.

(Not to mention they inherited his good looks....)  

Oh, how I love those boys!

Happy Father's Day!

PS. How could I blog on Father's Day without mentioning my own awesome Dad?

Happy Father's Day Dad! You're the best! I love you!

five

Today is mine and Tim's fifth wedding anniversary.

We've been through quite a lot in the last five years.

But we still like each other....

At least  little bit.

Happy Anniversary Babe.

I love you.

PS. I love the flowers.

My Weekend Consisted of this:

I spent the majority of the weekend with my sisters and mom.

I planted a garden at my grandparents house.

I went to IKEA with my sisters (and only spent $13!).

We made s'mores--More than once.
We laughed hysterically. 

We listened to the Glee Soundtrack (at deafening volumes).

And, our kids were filthy by the end of every day.

It was glorious.

Unfortunately, my weekend consisted of far too little of this handsome man:

This semester is a killer, and is taking all of Tim's spare time.

Although he was the hero that got the fire started tonight... after two others failed...

We won't name any names.....