Tuesday, October 27, 2009

Deadline

Remember when you were in school, and you had something due, say reading, due tomorrow? If you were anything like me, you waited until the day before the assignment was due, and just got crammed until it was finished. Well, Vampire Academy is due back at the library tomorrow! Eeep! No renewals either, because it's a hot item. So guess what I'll be doing into the late night hours? Cramming, finishing the book before it's due back at the library.

Monday, October 26, 2009

Do you ever...

...look at your child/children and think how did we get so lucky? I had a rough weekend, being sick, coughing, and Barry was studying for a huge Cardiology test. The boys were remarkably well behaved, almost as though they knew I couldn't handle much.

After being cooped up Friday, and Saturday, I decided that we should go leaf hunting. Around here there aren't many colorful leaves (in the complex) so we drove out to Adel, which is the cutest city ever, and hunted for leaves.

Yesterday, I picked Gabriel up. When I did, he made a kissing sound, and it totally melted me. I started thinking, how can I ever think about having another one? My boys are amazingly sweet, will another one work? We're not TTC, but thinking about thinking about TTC.

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This picture impresses me. I was holding Julian above my head in a tree with one hand, somehow managed to focus and take the picture with the other!

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This picture I like to call, Christmas Miracle. Both of my kids are looking at the camera, Julian is smiling, and they're not fighting. Definitely a Christmas Miracle.

Thursday, October 22, 2009

Five Whole Years...

...Five years ago I started this lifelong/eternal journey called marriage. Five years ago I had no idea we'd be living in Iowa, away from all of our friends and family. Five years ago I had no clue I'd be blessed with the most adorable, sweet, and curious boys ever. Five years ago I had no idea how incredibly lucky I was to be marrying Barry Palizzi, my first and only love. OK maybe I had some idea about how lucky I was.

Five years ago the weather was shoddy, not entirely unexpected in Washington, in late October. Barry had skipped school, for probably the first time ever.

We were sealed by a Palizzi family friend, and it was amazing to be surrounded by so many loving people. Here we are on the temple grounds...the rain held out just so...
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I really loved my dress
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Our reception was the following day. I'd always dreamt of having my reception at the Japanese pagoda in the Point Defiance Park. It was available for the day we wanted.

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I've been so lucky over the past 5 years to have such an amazing, supportive and caring husband. He is the best dad to our crazy, cute boys. And we are all so lucky to have him. I'm so lucky to have found someone that doesn't just put up with my crazy, he actually likes it!

Who knows where the next 5, 10, or 50 years will take us. All I know is that as long as I'm with him, we'll be perfectly fine.


Then...high school sweethearts
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And a little more recent, Christmas last year (Taken by the most talented photographer I know, Stacy Jacobsen)
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Tuesday, October 13, 2009

We're on a break...

...Me & Hulu that is.

Let me give you a little history. I used to LOVE Buffy the Vampire Slayer. LOVE. (My dork is showing, I know this) I also used to LOVE Angel from Buffy. So, I'm sure you can guess how excited I was when I found out the first season of Angel was on Hulu. Our love affair was glorious, wonderful, and completely perfect...until they took off all but the first 5 episodes. :( Now I'm waiting on Netflix to send me the next disc of Angel Season one. Oh Hulu, you have broken my heart.

In other news, we went to the World Food Festival on Saturday with some folks from SOS. It was really fun, and we had some yummy eggrolls. Not so much fun was the barely above freezing temperatures, plus my two whiny children. Ok, I take that back, Gabe didn't whine. He slept pretty much the whole time. Julian? Whine City and he's the mayor. Julian was mostly excited about the Asian food market we met up in front of. He got some M&Ms minis. Yep. That's what he chose at the Asian food market.

We also went to Smash and got Barry an early birthday present, and my dad's Christmas present! SO excited. Seriously, check out their site. The most clever and fun Tshirts ever!

All in all it was a fun day. I'm still in denial that it's Tuesday already. I spent the majority of yesterday engrossed in a book. Not one from my list. One that my friend Jenn has written and is now editing. I can't wait for it to come out. I will share when it does!

Here are some pictures from this weekend.

1. Julian and Gabriel both looking at the camera. They were about to go outside and play. For those that think Gabe is huge, I'll have you know he's wearing his 18 month snow pants for year #2.
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2. Julian now thinks it's Christmas time. And is curious as to when we'll put up our tree. We keep explaining that it's still fall time, and we have to have Halloween before we can even think about putting up our tree.
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3. When the whining started. Notice he didn't have his coat on. Bad mommy moment.
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4. How Gabriel spent our time at the Food Festival. Seriously, he didn't eat anything! I know, I was shocked too.
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5. See how Julian's much happier, wearing his JACKET? Yeah filed that little snippit away for the next snowy day.
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Saturday, October 10, 2009

I said I loved fall....

...NOT WINTER!

This, is what I woke up to this morning.

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So I realize that it's not much. Barely any accumulation, but really? Snow? In October? Not pleased. Not pleased.

Also, I raved about my new laptop cord, and how much of a blessing it was. How happy it made me.

Exhibit A.
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Exhibit B.
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This is my beloved laptop cord. The cord that got me hooked back into the blogging community. (Right now I'm blogging from our ancient {5 ears old!!!} desktop computer. It's slow, and takes forever to do anything.

Last night, I was minding my own business, wasting time on the interwebz, when Julian tripped over said laptop cord. Gabe was standing precariously close to said outlet, and cord starts sparking. Like sparking. Julian didn't pull the cord, I think realistically he tried to jump over the cord, and fell. I was freaked thinking Gabriel was electrocuted, he wasn't. But laptop cord is going back to Amazon, and we are ordering a genuine HP laptop cord. No more of this saving $30. Not pleased about this. The cord was less than a week old, and we're SO lucky that nobody, my precious baby, didn't get hurt. SO lucky.

So I think I'm going to stop posting about things I love, or like even. Because it seems that as soon as I do that, the opposite happens :)

Friday, October 9, 2009

The Casualty of Fall

I like fall. I really love the colors. The earthy, warm tones. Kind of funny that the colors are so warm, considering the weather gets considerably colder. The one big downfall to fall? Illness. It's pretty much inevitable. Julian's been in school now for over a month, and guess what? He's not been sick yet! That in itself is a miracle. Gabriel however, snotty mess. ME? Same. There are a million things I want to do today. Pumpkin Patch for "Fun Friday" YES! A visit to Michael's for some fun Glow in the Dark yarn. YES! 9,000,000 loads of laundry? YES! {OK I don't really WANT to do laundry, it's a need to do thing} What I will most likely end up doing? Lazing on my couch, knitting, wiping my nose 23847203 times. Oh, maybe I'll watch Angel on my computer. Yes I have high ambitions for myself today.

We have a busy-ish weekend planned. Saturday, the spouse's club I'm a part of, SOS is having an outing. We're visiting the Des Moines World Food Festival! YUM! I'm excited, since I do love food so much! That should be fu, and delicious. Hopefully I'll be able to trick Julian into eating something healthy, maybe.

I have so many books to read. For a while I was on a reading hiatus. I didn't read anything, I literally just knit. And watched Bones. One of my BFF, Carly, recommended the Mortal Instruments series by Cassandra Clare. I read the first book in like 2 days. So good. A little sci-fi, as in vampires, werewolves, etc. But really, really, really good. I got the 2nd book earlier this week, and REALLY want to read it, but I know that if I start it, I will be consumed for approximately 2 days. I just don't have time for that. I also have, upon recommendation from one of my other BFF, Ginger, Twenties Girl, by one of my favorite authors, Sophie Kinsella. She wrote the Shopaholic series, which is hilarious, as well as a few other books that are definitely worth reading. Then, Becky recommended the Vampire Academy. So I've got that as well. And one more book to round out my reading, another recommendation from Carly. I really trust her opinions on books, we're pretty much twins. The Five Love Languages by Gary Chapman. I'm really excited to read it. I think soon, I will be getting the Sookie Stackhouse books, from my other BFF Barb! I'm so excited for those! Love me some vampire books! It all started with Buffy & Angel so many years ago.

Thursday, October 8, 2009

Life...

...is always passing me by. It's been almost a month since I've posted something. I don't know how or why that happened, it just did. I fail at blogging. But the best part? My blog always takes me back, despite my failure at keeping good records of my life, my blog is always there for me, with open arms for when I do have time to start posting again.

We've been sort of busy, getting into J's school groove, adjusting to Julian no longer taking naps {I seriously cry about this almost daily, lol!} and Gabriel being a full fledged big boy. No more baby in that boy.

I figured I should explain a bit about my pictures from Wordless Wednesday. Some of them are a little silly.

1. I had turned off our desktop, while my laptop was cordless in Des Moines. We took forever in ordering a replacement, so I was without my beloved laptop for over a month...{hmmmm there may be some REASON to my blogging fail...no laptop, no blog?} Anyway, I turned off the desktop so I could get some chores done. After I'd finished my chores, I turned on the computer. The boys came to play in the {clean} laundry that was sitting next to the dryer, waiting for me to fold it. A few minutes had gone by, when I hear this faint metal-y knocking sound. I looked over at the dryer, and both boys had disappeared. I freaked out. I had no idea where they were. I heard the knocking again, and realized it was coming from inside the dryer!! Seriously. I opened the dryer, was instantly relieved to see them safe, and then grabbed my camera for photographic proof of this happening. Julian calls that game, "Neighbors" He's a little crazy.

2. I don't remember Julian going through this, at this age, but at 19 months Gabriel has become VERY opinionated about what he wears. Seriously. I tried to put jeans on him the other day, he went and grabbed some knitted pants, longies, and cried for me to put them on. I laughed. This particular day, he wanted to wear his jacket, sans shirt, longies and Julian's crocs. The crocs are a size 12, which is at least one size to big for Julian, thus making them at least 5 sizes to big for Gabriel! OY! He loves those crocs though. His favorite pair of shoes, is currently a size 9 pair of black Pumas we got from my friend Julee. They're only two sizes too big, but he can walk in them, so I let him wear them.

3. Julian wanted to go leaf hunting. Currently there aren't many leaves on the ground just yet. This was one of the only leaves we found.

4. Just a cute picture of J's shoes. And his jeans. That he ripped. He initially had a cool 'distressed' patch there. Distressed for real, those were brand new jeans when we got them. He wore them to school on Tuesday, and when I picked him up, Miss Sarah told me that he'd been picking at the strings! Ugh!

5. Barry! In his uniform! Hot! Leaving for school. Part of ASR is wearing your uniform once a week to school. He's basically a student recruiter for the Army National Guard.

6. TROUBLE. T.R.O.U.B.L.E. That's really all the two of them are. They're BFF, partners in crime, all that jazz. Julian loves his baby 'brover' and Gabriel adores his big bro. The fight sometimes, but usually they get along pretty well. Every morning, Julian climbs into Gabe's crib, after throwing EVERY.SINGLE.BLANKET.TOY.AND.PILLOW. into the crib. And they play. What better sound is there than listening to your two children giggle. That beats an alarm clock ANY DAY!

Wednesday, October 7, 2009