Who let the water beads out?

I get a text from Michael this morning while I was at work saying something along the lines of, " We broke out the water beads, and I didn't know I wasn't supposed to do the whole bag." Side note, that bag had 2,000 water beads! 2,000 water beads that we now have to handle and take care of. He then said that multiple of our dishes and Tupperware are homes for these 2,000 little babies. Unfortunately one of the tall Tupperware tipped over, so now we have a nice water bead floor.

Thankfully they are only an outside toy, (lets hope it stays that way) and so we are enjoying our last few days of good autumn weather before the cold hits our city of St. Louis. Any moms out there that need to find ideas of how to entertain their kids during the "witching hour" of the days, whip these babies out and it is hardly any prep or stress on you! I love how they really make no mess, except for maybe the clean up, but we haven't gotten that far in our experience yet. We will let you know how it goes! 

Also here is the picture of Richard on the top shelf of our closet trying to get the candy from the last post. 

The Climber

Richard is a climber. We think he could climb a ladder before he could walk. Tonight, we put his Halloween candy on the top shelf of our closet, and he saw us put it there but we didn't think anything would come of it. We go upstairs to start dinner, and Richard runs downstairs and is very quiet. 2 things are wrong in this picture, Richard rarely goes downstairs by himself to play because he usually tries to drag one of us down there with him, 2. he was quiet. Nothing good comes when a toddler is quiet and by themselves. Michael runs downstairs to see that Richard has climbed to the top shelf  of our closet, and is hanging trying to get up there to get the bin of candy.  Determined kid we have. Made us laugh pretty hard and he thought he was pretty funny. We praised the determination, but unfortunately he didn't get his candy of the day until after dinner time. I swear we were the worst parents ever in his eyes. ;) Whenever he sees the candy that he wants, he always says mom what is that doing here as he tries to eat a piece and give me the smirk smile. Or he will try and offer it to us and then when we don't want it, he will stuff it in his mouth as fast as we could say no thank you. He is extremely smart and a little business man at heart.

Mental Wellness Challenge Day 2!

I have seen something going around the internet about a 20 day mental wellness challenge, and as the days get colder, and Rico and I tend to spend more time inside, I am trying to get a start to not get the "winter blues". I am only on day 2 and day 1 was go to bed an hour earlier, and so you can say I am basically crushing this challenge. ;) Today's challenge is to right 10 things that you are grateful for in your journal, and considering that my journal is in a storage unit with boxes completely surrounding it, along with 95% of our other belongings except for the same 5 shirts I got out and have worn for 3 months, I thought I would write them on here.
1. Obviously the most obvious, Richard. Holy cow this kid is a gem, and I may just be saying that because he is my child and every mom thinks that, but he has been the biggest blessing ever. He seriously is hilarious and will say the most funny things at random times to us. I am soo bad at writing things that he says or does down, and  I am realizing that all of the gems are being forgotten. So I am hoping to write more on this blog about random day to day experiences.
2. Michael. Michael is the hardest working person I know, and he is married to someone that could sit around and watch The Office all day with a big bowl of ice cream. When we bought our second house, it was because his funding was supposed to be ending after his 4th year, and he wanted to spend more time with Richard and being at home, rather than trying to find a job to do on top of schooling. So, we bought a fixer upper, and are renting out our house to amazing tenants. He would rather spend all of his energy working on that house, and having the flexibility so that I can go to work, and watch Richard.
3. Our short term rental. When the tenants moved in, we thought we would be done with the renovations on the new house (at least enough to move in), but we are 4 months, later we have moved 4 times and we are still continuing to work on our house. We found a short term rental that has been an absolute blessing so that we don't have to live in a house with no running water, and no kitchen.
4. My friends. The friends here in St. Louis have been the biggest blessings to Richard and me. It has also been extremely hard because we have made a lot of friendships, and then the friends leave to pursue jobs or further education, and we stay here. Friends make it so much easier to parent during hard times, because they validate, and I feel like that is the secret that every mom wants is validation that they aren't alone, or that they are doing the right things.
5. Our vehicles
6. Holidays! I told Michael yesterday that I could not live in a world without holidays.
7. Dr. Pepper, so silly, but Dr. Pepper gets me through the hard mothering days.
8. Electronics that I can video message and speak to  my family thousands miles away. If it weren't for skype, marco polo etc. I don't know how  I could handle living so far away from everyone.
9. My Job. I am a firm believer in that every mom needs something for them every day or something once a week whatever time, they need something continual. I work to keep my sanity, and it also makes me 100% better mom. My boss has been a huge blessing and has given me the freedom that we need so that I can be with Richard when I need to.
10. Seasons. Our street is currently lined with bright yellow, red and orange leaves, and it brings such a refreshing feel to everything. I love seasons, I love the changing of weather and the feeling to kind of start new again.
Wow if you guys made it this far, good for you!!! I will hopefully be updating short little moments that Richard and I have to hopefully keep others informed about things, and hopefully make this a my "journal"!

Our First Home Master Bathroom Renovation

Instead of putting all of the before and afters in one post, I thought that I will bunch them up into categories. I thought I would hit it off with one of the biggest transformations of the house- the bathroom. This bathroom was scary. No other words could describe it. I never knew that green counter tops, showers and walls were a thing until I saw this house. We wore flip flops every single day that we showered because no matter how much you cleaned it, you just couldn't get the beginning scaring condition out from your mind. Its funny how you get used to things, and you don't see it for how it actually is. We got used to the bathroom, and it didn't bother us. It was when people came to visit that made us remember that we have to fix this situation now. I think my mom begged us several times to get started on the bathroom. Let this be known that we started this renovation when Richard was just over a year. This whole renovation took almost a year from starting to complete finish. It was the very last thing that Michael did the day that the tenants came to move in. It was quite a project, but I couldn't be more proud of Michael.
To start it off, I knew we needed that jetted tub out, and that I wanted a double vanity. In order to do that, we had to move the shower over to where the tub was, and move the toilet across the room to where the shower was. Michael moved all of the plumbing himself and it was kinda tricky. The wall inbetween the tub and the shower needed to be moved back but that was the only thing that really needed to be structurally done. Basically all new dry wall throughout the room, added recessed lighting throughout, and new lighting on the wall of the vanity. New mirrors, flooring, and of course my favorite vanity ever from costco. All new baseboards and crown molding as well. It was super hard to move away from my dream bathroom, but it is all worth it in the end. Hope you enjoy the before and afters!

My Cracker Loving Boy

I have a 1 year old cracker loving boy. He loves to move and explore. He loves anything he isn't supposed to get into and loves his mommy and daddy more than anything. Separation anxiety is hitting hard to our cracker loving boy. He is persistent with his emotions and feelings which makes me dream of him as an older man with thick curly long locks, using that same persistence and drive in his life to do good. My cracker loving boy loves to explore. He loves to go into every space he can and pull and rip anything he can. He is an energetic boy. He has a heart of gold. I didn't think that one year old's could have such sweet genuine emotion to them and show it towards other people, but he does. He loves his stuffed animals and puts them right in his face and gives them "kisses". Now and again though I do find some animals along with mommies kitchen utensils down the empty air vent in the kitchen so we may have to work on that a little more :) We can count on him standing in the same area of his crib, beaming ear to ear when we first make eye contact after a good nights rest. He loves dogs, but is scared by them too. My cracker loving boy is not a snuggler unless there is a nightly bottle insight. The food that he loves most is crackers. He knows where I put them in the cupboard and he will go right to that one and reach on his tippy tippy toes to get them. I have not seen him sit down and work on something longer than he does trying to get crackers out of the sleeve. He loves to stick different objects in holes (hence the animals in the vent). He clenches his fists and screams of excitement when he sees any food he wants especially a pouch.
We love our cracker loving boy and am so grateful for the stress and the growth that he has brought us, but also the exuberant amount of love and happiness that he brings to us everyday. Michael and I sometimes just sit and watch this cracker loving boy and just laugh at the things, noises, faces that he pulls. (Yes such an only child thing to do)
We have loved this 13 months of being with this boy and look forward to the many many many more years of him teaching us life long lessons.

Tired

The 9 months of not getting very good sleep has really been hitting me the last 2 weeks. Richard has always generally been a good sleeper. He wses up about once a night, but that once a night is killing me. I usually get up early, go to work feel good and motivated and then once i come home and 1-4 pm  hits i am exhausted. Anyone else feel this? I have tried to take naps, but napping usually makes me more tired and grouchy. The horrid time hits and I have no energy to do anything. I want to sleep, but I know it will be worse when I wake up. Our meals have been slacking, I try and do chores and I get them halfway done and can't finish. I think the answer to all of this is just going to bed earlier. Anyone else have good advice?!