A Boy, His Dad and the Ball

I forgot to mention that it was my big man's birthday last Friday.
We spent the day apart...like you do on your 34th birthday.

I love him so much and I can not imagine my life without him.
Happy Birthday sweet husband.

Gone and Done It

I left camp yesterday and to buy a Flip Video Camera.
Have you seen these things? Amazing. AMAZING.

If you have kids and a nice camera that doesn't video, this is a must have. Also, it comes with a million accessories like underwater case, a helmet case, a bike mount. The list goes on and on. Get ready for a video bonanza.

So I have already been videoing up a storm. Starting last night at club and this morning with this.

You're welcome.


Anybody else's husband know how to do the Single Ladies dance AND move like that? I didn't think so.

Good Days and Bad Days

We've had a couple of really good days with Asher since I last posted. Which is really nice. I think that we may have hit the bottom, which is what I am praying for.

We made it through another Day 4, pictures to follow-trust me on this one-they are cute as they can be.

But in the middle of the day yesterday, Matt had to lay down to take a nap. Uh-oh. There has been the plague going around camp and it visited our room yesterday.

By dinner, Matt had to excuse himself from the all camp sing-along (yes, we do that) and see the doctor. Who asked him, "How's this ear feeling?" Turns out Matt has a sinus infection AND an ear infection. Just like a 4 year old. Amazing.

Somehow, he was able to host the rest of dinner, the carnival, the Opera, AND the dance. After that, he made it through the afterparty and then crashed.

In the middle of this, Lucy started getting very upset over the program and MAD as a hornet at the bad guy threatening to burn down camp. So mad that she was shaking all over and her bottom lip was in full effect.
She was upset through the whole opera and wanted to go the whole time. Afterwards, I put the kids in bed around 10:30pm and when I saw Asher as usual around 7:15am I could see that all was well with him. But Lucy did not wake up until 10:30. AM.

Then she wanted to go back to bed at 2pm for nap. Until 5:30pm. That would be 15 and half hours of sleep TODAY. Then she was running a low grade fever. Awesome.

We are all hoping that this washes away with the 2 inches of rain that we have experienced today.

Because you ask for these things

Lucy tries to get in on the action. But well...it's a tough act to get in on.
And I am always BEHIND the camera.
Good face though Lu.

Seven Years Ago

I agreed to accept Matt Sloan as my husband for the rest of my life. Little did I know what I was agreeing to.

Some of those things might be:
-peeing outside at any opportunity. Even though we have three bathrooms INSIDE of our house.
-hunting, killing and skinning animals that he expects me to be delighted at eating.
-playing random instruments like the clarinet, the trumpet and the melodica in our garage without knowing how to play any of the instruments.
-wearing women's XL Liz Lange maternity gauchos for an entire month to make high school kids laugh so Jesus can invade their hearts.

Over the years, the things that made me crazy when we were dating, making me crazy now. I knew EXACTLY who I was marrying, I just chose to believe that those things might change. Nope. They are still around. But I think that I have changed because now, those are some of the things that I love the best despite how they might drive me up a wall.

I am grateful that this man is my husband. He prays for me. He prays for our kids. He loves me. He loves our kids. I can not wait to grow old all the days of my life with him, as long as the Lord lets me.


Seven years. Over a quarter of my life has been spent with Matt Sloan. Since I have dated him since I was 21, nearly a THIRD of my life really.

This is how you know that we are becoming one. Matt LOVES to make fractions at any opportunity. Just last night, our friends Jed and Becca celebrated their one month anniversary and Matt told them they would have to do that 84 more time to catch up with us.


Seriously.

We're back!

We are back from our vacation at the beach! It was a great week and I have uploaded a lot of the pictures to my flickr account and they are all tagged as "beach". If you want to take a look, just click on my flickr ad on the right!

Since we are back, I wanted to share what we learned this week:

1. Try to travel when your kids normally nap. Sounds like a good idea, except if it makes you hit 5pm traffic in Atlanta.

2. Bring a portable DVD player. It is a wonderful invention. Use it and then turn it off. Ours broke on the way home and we had to do the whole six hour drive without it. I almost cried, but then it turned out to be great family time--but believe me when I say, it was work to make it home.

3. The beach is WAY more fun when it is 80 degrees out. But a 20-month old will still love the beach no matter the temperature outside. He will even get naked when it is 55 degrees outside.

4. Always take grandparents with you for at least part of your "family vacation". They will give you a much needed break when you are out of 1) energy and 2) ideas. It is even better to bring both sets of grandparents with you!

5. Bubbles are the best toy ever.

6. All Asher ever needs to have fun is bubbles, ball and rocks to throw.

7. Lucy cutting teeth at the beach is not fun.

8. Paying someone to clean the house once you leave is a wise investment, as is using the wash and fold option at the laundromat so you come home with all clean laundry.

9. It is amazing how many times you have to go the grocery store during seven days at the beach.

10. All you need to redeem a rainy, freezing week at the beach is several hours of 80 degree, sunny weather. It wipes away the crappy days in a matter of minutes.

I will let you fill in the gaps and figure out how our week went! We are so glad to be home and it is even better to return home and still have a whole weekend to enjoy here!

Sweet Pic of the Day

For those of you who miss Windy Gap:

Puke

So I ended up puking my brains out late last night. I felt fine and then all of the sudden--WHAMMO-I was throwing up. Violently. So hard that I threw my back out. Like an old woman. I was in pain and felt terrible all night long. Thankfully, Matt stayed home to take care of the kiddos. I don't know what I would do without him, I mean...I wouldn't have kids to take care of. But that's besides the point. I hate being sick. I am actually feeling better right now and hope that this virus will leave my system quickly. Sorry to Becca and Robin if you get sick.

Happy Birthday Big Man

Today is my Big Man's birthday! Count 'em, 31 big ones! We have been talking about how in the last two years, both of us became grown ups. We have two kids, own a house, jobs that are professional (not starter jobs) and we are married.

On one hand, you can see that as a sad thing (to be a grown up) because you miss out on all of the sponteneity and freedom that you had as an adolescent. But more and more, I think that we are enjoying being grown ups. Because there is freedom in not having to fall for every trend, or to keep up with who knows what. We can just learn to grow closer together, to our kids and form our own lives that are not determined by outside forces, but just with each other.

I love that I am married to Matt Sloan and that six years ago, we were just two months away from getting married. I love that so much has changed between us in six years. I love that I have known him for ten years. I love that he has known me for ten years. I hope that I get to spend every birthday with him for the rest of our lives.

I am so grateful for him and his love for me. I am so glad that he has turned another year older because it means that we have made it one more year with each other. The Lord has shined his face upon me because Matt is in my life, has been in my life and will be (Lord willing) for many more birthdays.

There is nothing quite as strong for love as seeing your husband reach out and love your children well. Matt is an amazing father (with his faults and I have mine) and I love that we are learning to be parents together. I love that he puts me before our kids and that I put him before the kids. We are together in this thing and I love that. He is the man that I always dreamed of as my husband.

I love you!

Happy Birthday Old Man.

Last Night

Okay, so I now might have a sense of humor about what transpired at my house last night to actually talk about it.

Matt and I are redoing our bathroom and so he has been working like a dog on it. And the bathroom is looking so good. I love it! We are painting it a really nice creamy green and putting down ceramic tile. So, Matt was painting last night so that we could begin to put down the tile this week. I was trying to get Lucy to sleep (which is still a challenge without the swaddle) when Matt finished painting. I could hear him cleaning everything up when Lucy started crying and I had to go into her room to put the pacifier back in her mouth (for the 28th time). Matt walked into the living room and peeked into her room to see how I was doing. As I came out of her room, I saw paint-GREEN FREAKING PAINT dripping from the bottom of the grocery store bag that he put the wet paint pan into and it was a steady stream all over the carpet. It was leaving a trail like Hansel and Gretal throughout our house.

I yelled out to him, "Aghhh, get out of the house! You're dripping paint!" Which then woke Lucy up for the 29th time.

When he came back inside, he set about cleaning up the paint by rubbing it into the carpet. I quickly put a stop to that and got him some Woolite carpet cleaner and sprayed all of the paint that I could see. Then I had to get Lucy, because she was still awake from my earlier outburst and I had to feed her. Matt started to clean again, but this time with a clean cloth and was dabbing at the spots, but quickly moved to a frantic rubdown. He was making some progress, but eventually (in the worst area) he got most of the paint up, but it also tinted the area green. It was also making so much noise that Lucy could not settle down to eat. I asked Matt to take a break until I could get her asleep.

After Lucy fell asleep, we searched the internet and many sites suggested just using lukewarm water, dishwashing soap and a nail brush. I got to work with that method and it worked remarkably well. The only problem was that as I started cleaning up, I noticed that the work area about quadrupled because apparently my husband was doing laps while carrying wet paint around in our house! I was so mad, I couldn't even talk. Matt knew that I was beyond angry because he kept saying, "I triple bagged it. I triple bagged it!" Which really only served to make me more mad because; 1) Why wasn't he using a regular garbage bag instead of the grocery bags? I don't even trust dog poop in those things. Why trust WET FREAKIN' PAINT?
2) Why are you even moving wet paint? We aren't using that bathroom. It easily could have sat until tomorrow. Ughh.

The whole time I was cleaning, I was trying to tell myself to have a sense of humor about this and to relax. I mean, it was coming up and it was alright. But I was having a really hard time laughing. It simply was not funny at the time. But looking back, I mean after the day that I had with Asher throwing up at least ten times, his diarrhea, Lucy crying endlessly and Matt was gone all morning while I dealt with it and then, right when we were feeling good about the bathroom and everything...BAM it all blows up again. That's funny. The key to comedy is timing and boy, was it hitting last night!

So we cleaned and got a significant amount of the paint up by around 1am. Then Matt decided he wanted to go and check on Asher because he had been asleep since 6pm. About ten minutes later, Asher and Matt both came upstairs. Strike 2. It turned out that Asher had a messy diaper and Matt changed it and of couse, Asher woke up. He was super thirsty from having thrown up all day and so we gave him a little bit of water. He threw that up in about three minutes. So we gave him more phinergan and Matt settled in for an all-nighter of watching the Wiggles.

I gave Matt a Happy St. Patrick's Day and thanks for painting-the-carpet-green kiss and went to bed.
The carpet looks fine today and once we steam clean the carpets (which we have to do because of all of the puke) you won't be able to tell there was ever a problem. But, I am pretty sure that we all learned a lesson. Don't move wet paint. Don't trust grocery store bags. Give your children phinergan every night.