Lame.

That’s how I feel when I try to justify why it is that it has been MONTHS since I spent time reading the bible or simply being with God.  The excuses are numerous. “Psh! What time?”;  “The kids always interupt.” “I don’t think it’s possible in this season of my life with 3 small kids.”

Yet, I find time to maintain a blog, clear out my google reader of at least 80 posts a day, check and respond to emails, IM, Facebook, Myspace, and chat on a number of various other forums.

So I realize I do have the time, I’m just spending it on the internet instead.

For the next 40 days I am giving up the internet.

I know, I know, it was hard for me to wrap my brain around it too!  I thought I’d pass out thinking about the babies that will be born that I won’t hear about, the crafty goodness  I’ll miss, the buzz in the celeb world….there is no way I’ll be able to catch up on everyone’s blog after 40 days. I’ll be missing at least three thousand and twenty posts!

Oh, but the gain :)  I am so excited about all the extra time to journal, pray, read, and study  the scriptures in depth.  I’m stoked  to strengthen my inner life. It’s going to be like spiritual boot camp!

Sad isn’t it…the first thought I had when I realized I was going to do this was “Oh man, I totally have to blog this”….oh wait that requires the internet. DOH!

So, I’m signing off until after Easter.  I can’t wait to chat with you about all I experience offline!

Dustin and I generally, jeer, scoff and roll our eyes at the fabricated Valentines Day holiday. This year was no different.

No way would you find us sending gooey love notes to one another, or having a singing telegram delivered to work. We are so above balloons, roses and chocolates.

So what did we do this year? Nothing. It’s just another day right?

Of course, I’ve been planning this normal day for over a week.

I spent most of today in our backyard surrounded by the gorgeous 60 degree weather and two very eager landscape helpers. All day I was smiling to myself thinking about how I was getting the backyard prepared for tonight’s “no big deal, definitely not valentines” date.

Tonight after we had put the kids to bed, Dustin made us a romantic “so glad we don’t get suckered into the Valentine’s propaganda” dinner. We then headed out to the backyard for my “no big deal” surprise.

The tree in our backyard was lit up with tiny, glowing, paper lanterns.  Underneath the lights was a cozy blanket with candles all around. Of course the candles were red, and of course the candles spelled out “heart U” ….but that in no way is giving in to this cheesy romantic holiday.

It was amazing to lay underneath the twinkling lights with Dustin and talk without interruption. Well, besides that is, our dog tipping over our glasses of wine and ruffling our feathered ladies…but hey, no sippy cups had to be filled!

After we were nice and rested we came inside to warm up and definitely not have Valentine’s fun.

See…Valentines can be so over rated. I’m glad we didn’t celebrate it.

Helpful tips:
1. Prepare breakfast sippy cups the night before. This is huge! As soon as the kids wake up they all seem to want something and yesterday!. If I can promptly fill their demanding mouths with some milk I can buy myself some sanity while I prepare breakfast. Who am I kidding..more importantly, my coffee!
2. Color code. Each of the kids have an assigned color on our growth tree. To keep track of whose sippy cup is who’s, what plate and utensil set is for today, who’s dinner napkin belong to who…each person has a color that matches their color on the growth tree. Everything that is Maddies is pink, Christian is blue, I’m orange,and so forth.
3. Rewash dishes. Use one set of utensils, bowl and cup per person all day and rewash after each meal. As the kids get older their responsibility will be to clear their set and wash it after each meal. That way I’m not cleaning up all day, they are learning responsibility and we are cutting down on the times the dishwasher has to be run. D and I are planning on taking each kid on a date so they can make and decorate their own plate at As You Wish. I think they’ll enjoy having their plates as momentos when they get older.
4. Use a Toy Box. I know this is pretty much a childhood staple, but we didn’t have one and were using a different system that proved to be much more work! I had a bookshelf with about 8 different baskets that I would sort and store the toys in each night. Cars go in the car box, doll stuff in the doll box…you get the idea. Their room always seemed to be out of control because I just didn’t have the energy to spend time sorting each night. One day Dustin just grabbed a big Tupperware storage container and threw all the toys in it. It was done in under a minute. The kids didn’t care that the toys weren’t organized. Why didn’t I think of that sooner? I swear sometimes I miss the most obvious things.

I’m down to 2 kids in diapers now!!! Maddie potty trained herself!

On a Saturday, about three weeks ago, I was lazy and didn’t chase down Maddie after she ran away naked after a diaper change. Dustin took a look at her and asked “What’s going on here?”. Rather than admit my laziness, I opted for something more heroic. “She’s potty training today. We are all done with diapers.” Thankfully, us girls stick together and Maddie just went with it. I have no idea how, but all that day she started telling me when she had to go potty. I think the crazy-mommy-potty-dance was an incentive. So now, she’s in cute little panties and I am loving it!

I think Christian is somewhat of a genius. Seriously. He is only a year and a half and says the ABC’s, counts, carries on full conversations, sings several different songs and plays make believe. I think we have our retirement funds taken care of with him.

Lindy is fully living up to her middle name. Joy. Complete and udder joy. She is rolling over (only to the right ), responds to every glance with a huge smile and never. ever. cries. I’m so glad we didn’t have her first, I would have thought that how good she is has something to do with my parenting

I have the baby urge again (I know, I know) but whenever I leave the house with the kids and try to safely keep them all in check…that urge is quickly snuffed out. As long as God allows us, I’d like to wait until Lindy is 2 years old until having more babies. Having three this close together is great, but I don’t think I can handle any more. Hear that God?
How would I go anywhere? I can’t imagine pushing two double strollers.

My love spoke and said to me, “arise; my darling; my beautiful one, and come with me”.
See! The winter is past; the rains are over and gone.
Flowers appear on the earth; the season of singing has come, the cooing of doves is heard in our land.
The fig tree forms its early fruit; the blossoing vines spread their fragrance.
Arise, come my darling; my beautiful, come with me.

From Mary to Dustin 2001; written in our journal to one another; quote from the Bible
Picture courtesy of mandj98’s photostream

Hey Gary, remember that lady that locked her kids in her car? Look! She’s here!

Oh yeah, I remember, we loaded her groceries and joked about how surprised we were the cop didn’t eat her donuts.

So much for “It happens all the time.”.

Evidently Beyonce and I have more in common than just junk in our trunk.

Thanks Ally, this was fun!  I think yours are way more accurate though.

So now the secret is out…I have absolutely no idea what I’m doing when it comes to computers. Whew..the secret has been a burden Want to know another secret? Of course you do. I’ve been bitten by an anlligator before. But back to the subject at hand, my complete lack of computer know how.

Being that I don’t know much about getting around on this high falootin thing they call a computer AND the fact that easy tutorials for Linux systems are few and far between, I have a difficult time doing things that I see others do.

Take photoshop for instance. First of all, I wouldn’t know what to do once I was in photoshop. Secondly, I don’t have photoshop. I have a program appropriately called GIMP.

Nonetheless, I am determined to make my photos look really cool. Thus I present to you, my first attempt at photo alteration. I call it: Lindy eye pop ( I only worked on her eyes. Clever title, I know)

Before:

After alteration to the eyes:

What do you think? Is it too unnatural?

After playing with photos I got creative and made this

Mmmm. I love me some Jack Baeur

So now, without further ado, I present to you my first photography assignment:

“Take pictures of your favorite things in the house”…Dustin

Do you have an assignment for me?