Happy Father's Day

Dear handsome Husband,

I wanted to do something special for you this fathers day, but I'm not very good at thinking of special things. I decided I would just write you this letter. I used to write you letters all the time. It doesn't seem like it was that long ago, but here we are. Both in our late twenties, with two amazing boys.
If someone could have told me 8 years ago that we would be where we are now, with our beautiful boys and our jobs and our home, I would have told them "Well, yeah! Of course!"
I knew from the moment I met you that we were supposed to be forever. I always knew that we would have this family. I knew we could do anything we wanted if we were together. I knew you were not only the husband I had always wanted, but the husband that God had always wanted for me.
This past year has been life-altering. In good ways and in bad. I believe though, with all of my heart, that we are coming out stronger because of it. I know that you and I can handle anything, because we really have handled so much already.
I am looking forward to taking on the rest of this life with you . I know there will be other hard times and I know there will be much much better times. God is good to us.
I want you to know that I am here to support you in every decision that you make as a father, a husband and in your career. We're a team and like I said before, together we can do anything.
I want you to know that I have a lot of respect for you. You are a hard worker and a caring human being. You put everything you have into your job and our boys. You play with them, you talk to them, you make time for them. They will always remember that. I am so grateful every day that my boys have such a amamzing father and that I have such an amazing husband and best friend.
You are the rock in this family. You are our support and our shelter. You are our everything and we love you more than anything.

Happy Fathers Day Ace 
Love, Andrea.

Adventures! Sort of.

Dear Internet,

After work today I went to Walmart. I know! Action! Adventure! I have no life! I have no idea what my original reason was for going there except that I needed to get out of the house. I neeeeeeeeeeded to get out. By the end of the week I'm beyond stir-crazy and even grocery shopping seems like a fabulous vacation from my routine.
I ended up getting a few great ideas for Christmas gifts for the boys. ZK and CJ were so good! I was bracing myself the entire time for some big meltdown or for something to get broken or someone to need a diaper change mid-shop, but no! They were perfect angels. I needed that today and they totally delivered.

ZK has a habit of asking "Mama can I have this?" as he points at Every. Single. Item. In. The. Store. Today was no different. He made me laugh though, as we were walking through the toy section he looked up at me and said "Mama, I fink I jus need everysing" in his lispy little toddler voice with a serious look in his eyes. I couldn't help but hug him right there because boy do I ever remember that feeling. The feeling of wanting all of the toys in the store and asking for each and every one in hope of getting just at least one thing before we went home ohpleasepleasepleasemompleeeease???

And so, I left Walmart with two tiny stuffed reindeer, a tiny wooden airplane and a couple of things for Ace's birthday tomorrow.
Oh yes! Did I mention that tomorrow is Ace's birthday? Because it is. I have fabulous plans for a really fun cake and we'll be having dinner at one of our absolute favorite restaurants with the whole family. Ace is off all day and I look forward to all of us being able to have a Saturday together again. We all enjoy our together time so much, no matter what we're doing. We like us, you know?

Huh?

You say I'm supposed to POST on this thing????
That's hilarious!

Some day, when the dishes are done, the laundry is folded and the guys are fed to full I will perhaps have the time to sit down and post a really good entry here. That is my goal that will probably be accomplished on the twelfth of NEVER.

All is as usual in my world. Busy and active and noisy and hectic and wonderful all at the same time. I'm feeling a teensy bit better today than normal, and I'm hoping that maybe this might be the start to the end of all of the nausea??? Please?? And the exhaustion?? Maybe?? I guess I'll find out soon enough.
I'm 13weeks as of tomorrow and so far I have gained a total of 1 pound. Woo hoo!
Why then, I wonder, have my thighs and shins developed a serious case of hail damage? I'm drinking tons of water and stuff... but the dimples seem to be multiplying at an alarming rate. Especially on my upper thighs. UCK. 'Tis EW.
Makes the nausea return just thinking about it.
Ace and I are pretty excited, as our stupid stimulus payment arrived recently and we are FINALLY able to pay some bills ahead and get some of the things we need. He's been spending most of this week off of work completing a pretty hefty "Honey DO" list I left on the fridge for him on Sunday. Funny thing is, he got almost all of it done on the first day! Even funnier though? He totally paid people to come do it for him. We had a large old apple tree in the back yard that had
cracked in half and he was supposed to get rid of the rest of it because I was worried about any of the larger limbs falling, possibly on any of the children while they played out there. So, at about 12:30 central time (NAP TIME in my little world) I heard the sounds of growling chainsaws just outside our back door. Exactly 10 feet from where my toddlers were napping.
Needless to say, my husband came in with his tail between his legs and widened his eyes apologetically as I gestured wildly and gave him "I will kill you if they wake up from this" glares. None of them ended up being disturbed, thankfully, and I watched in amazement as the tree disappeared in a matter of 90 minutes. Sweet!
He also managed to both pay someone to fix the garage door and force himself to organize his disastrous tool bench mess. All in one day!


***Oh, I know this is off-topic, but by any chance does anyone out there know what to do when your 2 1/2 year old decides to wake up at 3am
every morning for a week straight?!?! If anyone out there has any ideas I sure would appreciate hearing them. We've tried putting him to bed earlier, later, shortening his nap, checking the temp of his room etc.... I AM EXHAUSTED. It is not working. Killmenow. kthxbye.

Thank God for him.

Ace isn't perfect, not by a long shot.
BUT... that's one of the reasons I love him so very much. The man works his tail off every day, and then never hesitates to give me a hand when he comes in the door. He plays with his son for hours. He talks to me about what scares him and he includes me in every decision he makes. He values my opinion, and he actually takes some of my advice. Not only that, but he always remembers to give me a hug and a kiss when he walks in the door.. even if I'm an emotional MESS from the pregnancy hormones and I'm probably already nagging his ears off before he's even set his keys down.

You'r probably getting all gaggy and eye-rolly by now, wondering what gives with the sappy little love letter post. Hmm?
Well, I was running around yesterday trying to clean up the aftermath of another day with four 2 year-olds loose in my home and I came upon Ace's MP3 player sitting on our bedroom dresser amongst a pile of clean socks and car keys. I put the little earbuds in my ears and turned it on. There were a few Bone Thugs in Harmony songs which I quickly flipped past (ugh) and I came upon a song that Ace played for me shortly after our son was born. He told me it's our song and I have yet to listen to it all the way through without bawling my eyes out.
The song is called "Things We Didn't Know" by Rodney Carrington.


We were young when we first met,
And I won’t ever forget the way you made me feel that night back then,
Little did I know my life had change forever
inside of you my angel had appeared
All at once the baby came along,
everything was moving fast
but nothing seemed wrong

Chorus
Thank god for that
Things we didn’t know
Thank God for that
If we did we might turn back
Thank God for that
He must have known that we weren’t through
God gave me all I need
He gave me you

We struggled the first few years
There was laughter
There were tears
Through it all somehow we made it work,
Our babies brought us joy
Held us close together,
what we didn’t have we made with love,
Sacrifice you gave when I was gone
Dreams you let me follow
always brought me home

Chorus
Thank god for that
Things we didn’t know
Thank God for that
If we did we might turn back
Thank God for that
He must have known that we weren’t through
God gave me all I need
He gave me you

Everything we have been through
Will bind our love forever
Not a day will ever pass
that we won’t be together
here we are much stronger than we've ever been before
Our souls are sown together and our hearts forever more
I look forward to our future
And what our days shall be
Our kids our life our love are all we’ll ever need
The mother that you are is made me proud
And the wife that you have been
I am so glad I found

Chorus
Thank god for that
Things we didn’t know
Thank God for that
If we did we might turn back
Thank God for that
He must have known that we weren’t through
God gave me all I need
when he gave me you

God gave me all I need cause he gave
He gave me you
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
SO! My husband? he is perfect. I lied. And he's mine, and you can't have him because I will never ever EVER let go.

Screamin' Aces

Some of you may already know this and some of you may not, but my husband is quite the character. He comes across to most people as a friendly and laid back personality. Those who know him personally though, will give a much different description.

Ace is goal oriented, driven, honest, giving and incredibly tolerant of my many neurotic tendencies (many many.... like, you have NO idea) .

Most of all though? My dear husband is a KING SMART-ASS. It has taken more than 6 years together and countless lost arguments for me to even begin to train my ear and my brain to pick up on the intricacies of his keen sarcasm.... He's the only person I know who is capable of getting me so angry so quickly.

Now, I will be the first one to admit that I have quite the potty-mouth. I use profanity to convey anger more often than anyone ever should. This along with hurling heavy objects, had always been my way of venting my anger toward my dear husband. That is, until ZK came along.

You should know that as a child and all through my life, I was unwillingly exposed to an unholy amount of physical and verbal violence. I witnessed things in my home that no child should ever ever have to see or know about. To this day, I'm still trying to pick up all of those pieces. I always swore that when the time came for me to have children of my own I would do whatever it would take to protect them from those things. I would NEVER fight in front of them.

All of those things that I promised myself though, came before I ever met said King smart-ass. I don't know if anyone else has ever had this type of problem with their husband before, but mine makes pushing my buttons into his own entertaining past-time. He will find just the right moment to (with a smile!) say the one thing that will send me over the edge, and then once I'm knocked off balance he will push and push and push and..... @#$%&^**!!!!!!!!!!!! &$*%$@!)**!!!!!

And then I've lost it. I've thrown a cell phone or a skillet or a can of coke and I've screamed things that would make Captain Blackbeard blush and hide his face. My man is talented like that.

So now, I have this 2 1/2 year old. He's pretty smart! He knows when mama's getting irritated, and he knows when I'm sad or stressed. I've had to get pretty creative in my efforts to not argue in front of him. Another reason for that is because he is like this little tape recorder. He can repeat things I say! Even bad words!!! Imagine that! One day as I accidentally started to scream in front of the boy after one of Ace's cute little remarks I called him an "uh..ACE-HOLE!!!" To which my husband responded with a smirk. For the rest of the day, he was "Ace". When we would have friends over after that and he would begin to bother me, I would "Hey, Ace, can you please grab me another glass of wine?", and he would get the idea and sort of try to stop.

And there you have it! The name? It suits him well. Not only for his bad attitude but for all of his good traits. He's my number one. He's Ace.

"THOU SHALT POST OFTEN"

I KNOW I know. I just started the stupid blog and already I'm neglecting it. That is so like me. Well, I have no excuse except that THE KIDS- THEY ARE KILLING ME DEAD.

Don't get me wrong, I totally love them. They are squishy and giggly and lovey and inquisitive and adventurous and... and ACTIVE. So active, in fact, that I am at this very moment sweating my 140 pound ass off... The moving around and the cleaning up messes and lifting little 20-30lb bodies up to the changing table all day is something I hadn't put much thought into I guess. So now? Mah back! It hurts! I know that in a few weeks I'll be used to all of it. I am pretty young after all and really pretty resilient. But for now? I need a massage and a glass of WINE!

On a completely unrelated subject- My husband has expressed an extreme dislike for his blog nickname. Our conversation 2 nights ago:



ME: Take a look at my blog! I'm so excited about finally starting one!



S: looks pretty g.... HEY! How come I have to be "S"?



ME: What? What are you talking about? "S" is totally appropriate!



S: Yeah but in your aunt's blog, she calls her husband "Big Daddy" or "Big Daddy T"! How come I have to just be "S"? I want a "Big Daddy" name!!



Me: I do have another appropriate nickname I could use.... right Ace?!



Ace: ....



Me: (Raising one eyebrow)



Ace: You don't love me.



SO! From here on out my husband will be known as Ace. The end.



What's that you say? Where did the name come from? That my friends, is for a whole other entry. :)