30.

Today is my thirtieth birthday.

The other day we were hanging out with a family that had a 15 year old. I kept looking at him and thinking to myself, I am twice your age. Crazy. I don't feel twice of what I was when I was 15. Yet, I have done a lot of growing up since then. Thankfully I no longer have braces (but have the straight teeth to show for them!) and I have my drivers license now. Not being 15 isn't so bad after all!

In honor of my 30th birthday, I thought I would show you a picture of me when I was young.

You know...


back


when


I


was


29.

Okay, so the picture was from when we were camping this week. But still, I was much younger back then...all those days ago. And the most adorable 17 month old ever just had to join me in the picture. He makes every picture cuter though.

In all honesty, I don't feel sad or weird about turning 30. I thought about it a couple weeks ago. I realized people usually feel sad about hitting a milestone year because they haven't done all the things they wanted to. The thing is, I have done a freaking lot of things in my 30 years. And, I have a wonderful husband, adorable son and great friends all over the world to show for it. No sadness or regret here. 

Plus, people always think I am in my early 20's, so I know I still look young. I just hope it isn't the way I act that makes people thing I am much younger than I really am.

Pardon My Absence...

But we're camping.

Imagine a really cute picture of Connor by the campfire. Unfortunately I'm not smart enough to figure out how to upload a picture from my phone.

Changes

There has been a lot going on in my end of the world lately. Stuff I really haven't been sharing...until now. For some reason, I always feel like if I talk about things, then they won't happen. Or really not so much not happen, as something might go wrong and then I have to explain to people why something didn't happen. Does my craziness make sense to you? Anyway, here is what is going down in my world.

We are in escrow on a house! We are a couple weeks into escrow. Three weeks to be exact. As long as everything goes well, we will get the keys mid-May. The home inspection, pest and roof inspections all came back well. The house appraised (a huge hurtle). So, really all we have left is to wait. Wait about a month. Fun times! The house is a 3 bedroom, 2 bathroom house built in 1950. It even has the original wood floors throughout the house and they are in great condition. It really is a cute home and I am excited to make it ours...and to finally see what was so worth keeping in storage for all those years!

I am almost 16 weeks pregnant with baby #2. And, we couldn't be more excited about this. Connor certainly doesn't know what is coming, but Ian and I are excited. Baby #2 is due October 10th. So far, all is looking good for it. Yep, we don't know what "it" is and aren't sure if we are going to find out. I kind of want to know, but Ian doesn't want to. Since we don't really care either way, I am thinking it may be fun to make it a surprise again. We (really Ian) were able to resist finding out at our last appointment when the tech and then doctor offered to tell us. Just one more ultrasound to resist the temptation and we should be home free.

Knowing about this baby and not talking about it for so long has made it hard for me to blog. Baby is always on the brain! And, we kept it a secret until 2 weeks ago when we told our families. Maybe now I will get back to some regular blogging. Of course it will be all about boring baby stuff! You know, stuff like how my belly is SO MUCH BIGGER than last time or my doctor freaking out because I have gained 2 less pounds than I should have. Fun stuff.

And just for fun, a picture of the most adorable little legs:

Yeah, so that's it. Now much going on in our world! I am excited at the thought of getting settled into a house of our own, giving Connor an awesome room and being able to decorate a baby room however I want. I'm also excited to unpack and live in a home full of our own furniture, dishes and decorations. It's been years since I've had a luxury like that.

Food...if you can call it that

Yesterday, my parents were heading out of town. My dad grabbed some smacks for them to eat on the road. I saw some beef jerky in his hands and grabbed the pack, wanting some. Immediately I noticed something different. This beef jerky (if you could even call it that) looked like cut up slim jims. Not the most appetizing thing in the world.

Then I turned it over and read the ingredients. The first ingredient was pork heart. No joke. How freaking gross is that?!? The best part was, my dad still wanted to eat them. I said no and grabbed the pack. As I was walking back in the house, my mom yelled out the window, "Give them to your brother. He will eat them." Nice.

And in case you were wondering, apparently someone gave this beef jerky/mystery meat to my parents. Makes me feel a little bit better that they didn't actually buy it.

The Weekend

The Good:

We pulled our camping gear out of storage for our camping trip in a week.

I killed it with coupons at the grocery store. Go me.

Connor got himself some sunglasses.

The Better:

Connor got to attend his first ever birthday party. 

He didn't care that it was for a girl & was a gymnastics class.

Starbucks. Need I say more?

Ian worked his last Saturday for a while (hopefully).

The Best:

A family walk, enjoying the beautiful spring weather.

For the first time ever, Connor reached over and held my hand. 

Made this mama's heart melt all over the place.

Seriously?

Everyone around me knows my disdain for talking on the phone while driving, and yet my son does this blatantly in front of me...

Oh Connor, mama has a lot left to teach you.

A First for Connor

This weekend was a birthday party for my uncle. At it, my aunt did an easter egg hunt for all the kids. This was Connor's first easter egg hunt. He was not interested in holding the easter egg basket at all. So, being the good mom that I am, I held it for him. When we got outside, I had to direct him to all the eggs. As soon as I pointed them out though, he would pick them up.

With the first two, he didn't want to put them in the basket. He just wanted to hold them. I had to semi force him to put them in the basket.

The third egg, he tried shoving inside a bird house...that didn't work.

And, I once again forced it into the basket. After a few eggs, Connor completely lost interest and starting running around the yard.

That is, until all the kids sat on the grass and started opening their eggs. He then wanted to steal other kids eggs. Which, I have to admit was rather entertaining to watch. Watching kids navigate situations like an egg theft is intriguing and funny to me.

Once all the eggs were opened, I was amazed how Connor instantly knew which things were candy and wanted those packages opened. How does he know it is something he wants to eat?!? That smart little boy! He was capped at one little pack of candy...I am such a generous mom!

After this experience, I can't wait for Connor to have another easter egg hunt in a few short weeks.

Kids and Church

When Connor was a newborn, I had a hard time motivating myself to go to church. Part of this was the sheer act of getting both of us ready and out of the house at an early hour seemed next to impossible. The other part was, I spent all my time sitting in a crying room nursing him and really not paying much attention to the sermon. In those first few months, church seemed pointless to me.

As Connor got older, going to church got easier. In Scotland, kids can't go to the nursery until they are 9 months old. But, the crying room was outfitted like a nursery. So, I just had to stick him in one of the various bouncy toys and I could happily listen to the sermon...or talk to other moms in there.

Once Connor graduated to the nursery, my nerves got the best of me. I would sit in service and wait for them to bring him up to me. Yep, in our church, they bring your screaming child into the service to you. Fun times. And Sunday after Sunday it happened. But people told me to be persistent and he would eventually get it. And he did. After about 3 months, he no longer had to be brought up to me.

Then we moved. The church we go to has a strict policy about sick kids in the nursery, which I understand. However, every kid out there always seems to have a cough or runny nose or something. And because I am scared of the wrath of the nursery workers, I seem to stay home from church more than I would like. And the thing is, Connor has never even had to be on antibiotics. Sure, he picked up hand, foot & mouth disease at one point, but that has been it. But with every drip of the nose or slight cough, I scare myself into staying home from church.

Its just the phase of life I am in, I realize. But sometimes, just sometimes, it seems having kids makes going to church difficult. All the sickness and no real options for when they are only slightly sick, plus the kicking and screaming every week when I take Connor to the nursery makes church going hard. And I know, its a phase. But I too like to have my tank filled up (so to speak) and these days i find myself not getting it at much as I would like.


** On a side note, it always is nice to talk to other moms and realize I am not the only one out there that struggles with these things. 

Shower Time

When Connor was a newborn, I was lucky if I even took a shower. Many days, I took a shower and got dressed right before Ian got home from work, just so he wouldn't think I was a slob. As I learned and adapted to motherhood, my shower time changed as well...or really, I began to shower again.

My first solution was to move the swing into the bathroom for Connor to chill in while I was showering and getting ready. Then, came the walker. Connor could move around the bathroom, beat on the toilet seat, but not do much else. When we moved from Scotland, the walker went with the movers. Thus came a new, and very exciting time in motherhood...

Toddler freedom in the bathroom.

Connor has free reign of the bathroom when I am in the shower. And even though he knows how to open doors, he has yet to master the lock, so for now he is locked in there with me. Now don't get all worried, there are no cleaning supplies or anything dangerous like that in there. Just toilet paper to unroll, makeup to scatter about, q-tips to play with, you get the picture. Well, just looking at the picture helps you get it!

Now I realize all this could be solved by me getting up a little earlier and showering before Connor wakes up. But, let me be honest here, I love my sleep. And really, it is fun watching Connor explore. Like just this morning, he discovered how to pull out the floss and kept pulling, and pulling, and pulling...

Stuff from Scotland

Our stuff finally arrived from Scotland...4 months after it was packed up and sent away. We were told 2-3 months, but I was prepared for the wait this time. When we moved to Scotland, it took 3 months for our stuff to get to us. Because of this, I was prepared for the wait. And anything we had to have, we brought with us or mailed...hence the reason we had 9 bags to check on the way home and 3 boxes we mailed to ourselves. This really was a smart move. It made the wait so much easier. We haven't even opened our boxes yet. We will this weekend. Even at that, we will probably only unpack a few things and keep everything else packed until we move into a place of our own.

A little interesting tid-bit about bringing our stuff back into America. I was oh-so-frightened that we would be smacked with customs charges that could go into the thousands. Plus, we have to pay for boarder patrol to inspect our stuff. And if there is a wait and they have to put it in storage, they charge for the storage! Thankfully for us, our stuff only needed to be x-rayed so we only had to ante up $156. I am SO GLAD our stuff didn't look shady and need to be unpacked as that costs into the thousands! Kind of weird how we have to pay the government to do their job. Oh well.