Back in Time...To Hawaii!

I'm waiting on cousin Desiree for Christmas photos (both my camera and phone were dead!) So I thought I would catch up on sorting through some old photos on my phone. I just love this one of Anabelle, she looks like a little Buddah baby! So glad we decided to take the munchkins. That being said, the next trip will definitely be sans ninas for sure. Gotta have some quality adult time, and poor jeff had to miss out on all the California fun!

5 of 5

Today, is shift 5 of 5 for me, my longest stretch of work ever. I have never done more than 3 in a row since I became a nurse (and raaarreellyy did even that!) And it wasn't too bad either, other than the fact that I miss my babies. 5 
12.5 hour shifts in a row do not leave much time for hanging out with the family. But now I get a little stretch off, and I get to go to California for Christmas with the girls- yeaaa!!! Sadly Jeff can't join us but I am really looking forward to being down South for the holidays :-)

in this skin

Lately, I have been reflecting a lot on my life. Maybe it is that, in another year and a half my twenties will be ending. Or it could be recent events such as my high school reunion or having to start over at a new job. I'm not sure about this, but here is what I do know for sure:

I love being in the 25-29 age bracket. My nanny asked me if I felt old, which seems crazy to me- twenties isn't old!-but I am glad I am not 18. Don't get me wrong, I had some fun, and some great experiences, but nobody takes you seriously, and why should they? YOU don't even really know yourself yet; why should they? Late 20s is good- old enough to know what's up, young enough to have energy!

Being a mom is crazy, incredible, and challenging. Some days I want to tear my hair out. Others, I am just so thankful for these beautiful girls. I am so blessed to be their mommy- Aili is constantly amazing me with her empathy, passion, sassyness, and silliness. And Anabelle is just the sweetest thing (most of the time!)

I have never felt so comfortable in my own skin. Yes, I might have some changes I would like to make, but all in all, I am just so glad to be ME. I spent my early twenties not loving myself very much, not feeling good enough, or deserving enough. We all have a choice on who we want to be. If you don't like yourself....change it. If you're not confident in yourself how the heck can you expect someone else to love you? After years of pain over not being what someone else wanted me to be, I can say now that I am at peace with the fact that at least I am what I want to be. I know who I am, and I know where I am going. I'm not always sure of how to get there, but I am working on it.

I have so much love in my life, and not just from my immediate family. I'm gonna paraphrase the last line from sex and the city here....something along the lines of, The most amazing, challenging, and adventurous relationship you have is with yourself. And if you can find someone that loves the you that you love, well, that's just great. 

Even when I am stressed, (and I have got way too much going on right now!) and occasionally get nervous that I'm not doing a good enough job at something, I remember this. Because I have never been so happy to be exactly who I am.

 

Bounce!

A Clean Slate (and plate!)

That's better babes :-) To all of us such as myself in the current still-haven't-lost-the-weight-after-the-last-baby, it really is quite simple isn't it? There is no big mystery... Eat less, eat clean, and move. A lot. Done. Now, back to losing those stubborn 20 pounds that never did come off after baby. We will be working on the healthy life together, and eating a lot of those bad boys pictured above :-)

The US Obesity Epidemic

Maybe- just maybe- it's the actions like the one of this naughty mama that are allowing our kiddos to get too chubs. But I've never seen anyone look better shoveling a hamburger into their face :-)

The Good Life

Glad to see she knows what's important in life. She is my daughter, for sure. And here I thought this sweet little blonde-ish, blue eyed easy going babe took after her daddy. :-)

To My OTHER Friend Kristin

You are one of the most beautiful, strong women I know. I love you, and I am so very glad you are my friend. I hope you feel peace at this time. Your mom's service was beautiful, and I know she is watching over you from above. As Kevan said, we'll see you when we get there, Brenda.

Ps- if you are over 40 or 50, please get your mammograms and colonoscopies. Because this was truly a tragedy. I can't wait to see the day when this kind if thing is no longer a death sentence. Just over a month between diagnosis and leaving this earth. So very, very sad.

If life hands you a broom...ride it!

I may be biased, but I think I had a pretty cute little witch and piggie. Yes...piggie. I did not pick her costume, someone by the name of Jeff did, but she was still pretty darn cute. Mostly because I upped the cutie factor with a pink tutu and a bow to add to her pig costume. She can be something more girly next year I guess, and frankly, I was pretty glad I convinced Aili to be something other than a princess, because the last thing I want her to have is that annoying princess/diva complex, and we've already got enough of that going on in her room. 'Cuz we all know that when we grow up, we don't wear glass slippers or go to fancy balls or live happily ever after in a perfect castle with a perfect, gorgeous, and always-chivalrous prince, right? Oh wait...sometimes I think that I got pretty close :-) Buuuuttt then I go to work, and get blood, puke, or pee on me, and I come crashing back down to reality. Anyway, enough about THAT, and back to what is really important, which is....Halloween!!! Aili wasn't quite as into trick-or-treating as she was last year, but we still had fun.

...all girl piggies need a tutu and a bow.

 

My lil' piggie and cute (not scary!) witch. Isn't it just so cute how Andie is so entertained by Aili? Now if we could just get Aili to stop messing with her all the time.........

All in all, a great Halloween at my dad's. So glad I got the night off work!!!

Reunited and it feels so good...!!!!

Had our 10 year reunion last week in Seattle- so much fun seeing everyone! Things like facebook make it easier to stay in contact but it's no substitute for actually seeing people and hanging out. There were a few people I wanted to see who couldn't make it, but all in all, it was awesome!

An Oldie-But-Goodie

It's beginning to feel a lot like....OCTOBER

 

What the fall?!  Can't believe it is fall already; we never had a summer! Oh well I'm over it. Bring on the pumpkin patches, boots, warm soup, and changing leaves. Speaking of changing leaves, after we took this photo we went to Lake Padden, one of our favorite places to walk/jog- isn't it just delightful in the fall? You know Miss L, if you were to come back here to live you could go with us ;-)

Oh and another thing my sassy girl said to me? When we got there she looks in the back and says, "Mom, you forgot my bike"

I said: "Well you're just gonna run with me and then you can get in the jogging stroller with baby if you want."

Aili: (pause) "Mom I can't even believe this" 

Hmmm.... kinda funny (made me laugh anyway) but boy oh boy I hope I don't have a little diva/sass-pot on my hands. Can you imagine the teenage years?! I'm shuddering already.

Out of the Mouth of Babes...

Aili was complaining about her tummy hurting tonight (probably because she ate too much!)and I offer to rub it for her. Her response: "No you'd better take me to the doctor so I can get a shot."
Funny child.

It's Called Creativity, People

Oh, the places she has slept since she's been born. Hopefully I am raising the kid who can sleep ANYWHERE!

Miss Personality

Andie's new thing: When she gets frustrated, she throws her head down on the ground (or in this case, the toy) and cries. It is actually really cute I confess :-)
The girls had their doctor's appointments yesterday (Aili's 4 year and Andie's 1 year) and here are the stats: Aili is 94% height and 83% weight so about the same. Andie has made big strides with weight to a whopping 7.4%!!! A chunky 18lbs. Before she was off the charts skinny no matter how much milk I gave her (no it's not a supply issue- we have GALLONS of my breatsmilk in the freezer- anybody need any??? Seriously? It will go bad before we use it all and it will probably go past due before I can donate it to the milk bank) For length she dropped to 50%. funny huh my near-100% baby at birth- so unfair I had to push out a big girl who got small! For head circ she is 75%. And they got 9 shits between them. Poor little girls :-( Aili did great though she is our daughter! After she was giving shots to her bear. Oh and apparently, according to the doctor's test, Aili is actually quite smart. We'll still probably have her start kindergarten later (she's on the border of the cut-off) due to what we'll call ADD/ADHD tendencies. My gosh I hope she outgrows that she has good potential!

"Excuse me is that your baby stuck under my bike?"

I quite often have stories that just might qualify me for Mom of the Year. Here is one from the other day.
We were taking a family jog (well, Jeff and I were jogging, Anabelle was in the jogger stroller, and Aili was on her bike) when we came upon a hill. Charging up that hill were a group of ambitious bikers. Down the hill: Aili, flying at mock speed and wobbling like crazy. I ran back to try and steer her out of the way but wound up making her crash with her bike on top of her. As she is crying, Jeff runs up with the jogger and says "honey you have to be careful!" ummmm duh. Anyway, as he is masking his embarrassment by mildly scolding me, neither of us notice the baby jogger, with baby, is continuing on it's solo journey down the hill, and quite fast I might add. So we have 2 embarrassed parents kneeling over a crashed bike, a Preschooler crying, and a baby flying down the hill, unnoticed. Nice.
(oh and in case you were wondering, NO, no bicyclists could be bothered to stop long enough to see if we were ok. Uncool! The reason she crashed was because I was trying to get her out of their way, afterall)

She's Got This Down

She sure did love the boogie-boarding (or "buggy boarding" I believe she said). I didn't think she would "get it," but clearly I was wrong! Another first of the trip: My first time eating sushi and enjoying it! That has been one of my goals, to try sushi and like it, because so far, no dice. We had success at the Hanalei Dolphin, where the fish was superfresh (as in, caught that day) and I quite enjoyed my spicy ahi rolls and Tahitian cerviche. Yum!

The Aloha Bucket

The Lesson here is a simple one: Never make fun of someone for requesting an Aloha Bucket "just in case," lest you NEED IT YOURSELF. (ahem. JEFF. HAHAHA)

Aloha from the Na Pali Coast

Next up: The Aloha Bucket. Stay tuned.

I may never come back...

We are having such a good time- The weather is awesome, the beaches are great, the food is fantastic. Reminds me why I love Hawaii so much! The kiddos seem to be having a good time as well.

Ahhh.....Kaua'i

So glad that we could meet again :-)

wish I looked this good with curlers in!

I think she liked that first cupcake...

a birthday party

I can't believe it...4 and 1. Really?!

Sweet Torture

Sometimes, it feels like working a 0.9 (37.5 hour per week) night shift is a really bizzare form of torture- I'm tired, groggy, my sleep cycle is totally messed up on my days off, and making it through the night sans-sleep and being a fully functioning and capable nurse seems like a joke. 
Which is not to say I am not grateful.
Having just switched jobs in an effort to be closer to home and have more time with my family, I am well aware that I am Low Gal on the Totem Pole. In fact, since labor is a "desirable/popular" specialty, and is hard to get into, most people who get a job here seem to be internal transfers, meaning, people who worked in another department in the hospital and were able to get in here finally. Sooo I have the least seniority, since that is based not on how long you've been with the department but rather the organization as a whole. According to stats I found, so far this year there have been 4,617 applications for RN jobs, and so far just over 100 actual hires. I feel grateful and blessed to be able to be here and help people.
A few weeks after I started, emails started circulating warning us of lay-offs, and now it is confirmed that 150-175 jobs will be lost. Bummer. I just came here from a place where I had a good amount of seniority. I hope I did not make the wrong decision. I think we can all say that we are well and sick of the current economic climate; it's getting to the point where it is like Washington in the summertime: How often do you have to say 'this year is especially bad' before you can say that it is just the "new normal??" It seems like our country is no longer just in a slump, but rather this is just the way it is. This isn't meant to be a "political" post...I'm just so tired of things being so down. It's so sad that so many have lost their livelihood and are struggling. As I work hard to make it through these next few challenging months, I hope I can remember this. Even though I'm working more hours than I want to. Even though I think it would be "better" for my family if I was a part-time working mom (isn't it funny how they won't let me do this, even though they are implementing lay-offs? Maybe I should double check on that...) Even though I hate the fact that I have to work with very little sleep. I hope I am helping people. Ultimately, that is why I am doing this, and that is what gets me up and gets me to work for these lovely 12.5 hour night shifts :-) Here's to hoping I don't get laid off before this all pays off and becomes worth it! 

Reason # 100,0000,000 Why I Got Married

There are the obvious reasons: love, compatibility, friendship, family, and common interests. And then there is the Division of Labor, or, the ways in which we complement one another. For example: I can cook and put a room together, and I do research on child development so we don't mess up our kiddos too badly (There has got to be more than that I an good at right?!) Jeff is good at so many stinkin' things, one of them being putting things together like furniture and wood working. I mean, I barely know the difference between a washer a nut, and the only 'hammering' I have done with any regularity is knocking back jello shots (and that doesn't happen often either). Well, my first solo furniture project was these chairs. I was so so proud of myself too. Jeff laughed at mr when I told him it was the first thing I'd put together myself, like, EVER. And he was afraid to sit in it. Rightly so, I messed it up. I wound up with extra screws and washers. How I managed to do that is beyond me, I picked the easiest possible thing to put together outside of the legoes in the toddler aisle. I did finally figure it out, although did you know it can be very difficult to get screws lined up perfectly so they go in right? Ugh. I worked on it until 2AM last night and then finally called it quits with 1 chair left (just 2 screws on that one I could not for the life of me get to go in) it is almost 11pm now here's Hoping I finish before 2. Jeff obviously offered to do it but I WILL get this done. Wish me luck! ( sorry about the typos by the way. I am on my phone and way too lazy to go back and fix them!)

A Princess Starbuckista

She picked out the outfit obviously. And who was I to argue? Naturally a princess needs a coffee and cake pop too. More funny things my child says: Stephanie took her to meet up with me after she had watched her the night before and Aili requested a 'coffee' Aka kids steamed drink from Starbucks. Steph obliged (is my child spoiled??)
The lady at the counter asked how she was doing that morning and this was Aili's response:
"(yawn) I'm tired I need my coffee!"
Funny child. Clearly, she is my daughter.

The Lioness

Sometimes, I think my little human baby is really a lion cub. Her newest thing is to growl like a lion. Doesn't she just look so scary? We growl at her, and she growls back. It's a fun game. Next week: ABC's and other human utterances.

A Little Preschooler

Can't hardly believe it. Do I really have a Preschooler?! Lucky for me her birthday is right after the Washington state school cut-off of August 27, so I have 2 years of preschool before I have to adjust to the idea of kindergarden! So even though she turned 4 before school started she is in the 3 year old class. Funny how these things work! Better to be older than younger though right?

4

4 years ago, I looked like THIS:

 On my due date and miggghhhtyy uncomfortable. Sorry, I don't have any photos from the day I went into labor/gave birth since it happened so darn quick. (Annnddd....no matter what you say, unless you have experienced a less than 3 hour birth with tetanic contractions, consider yourself not qualified to say that superquick births are 'easy.' It is like running a hard, painful marathon with no warm-up. My longer labor- 3.5 hours- was easier, which leads me to think that a 4-5 hour labor is perfect. But I digress)

Just 3 days after this photo my life was changed forever. I got the chance to be a MOM, and to the most wonderful, beautiful, sweet girl anyone could ask for. I KNOW she is going to make this world a better place. She is just a happy, funny, sassy, sweet girl who already cares about other people. They say kids her age are egocentric and not capable of being empathetic, well...SHE IS. She can be difficult and tiring but her heart is in the right place, and she truly enjoys life. 

A Wee One!

Aili, you are so so special to me. I know you are gonna be my best bud when you are older. (Right now I am your MOM first, let's be sure to clarify that! ;-))
I wish you the happiest birthday (I know it was the 11th...sorry, I worked that night!) You have brought so much love to so many people's lives, you make me know for sure that someone above knew what he was doing when he gave me an oopsie pregnancy while I was still in nursing school. I sure do love you!

Such a happy girl!

When it Rains...it POURS

This is a hard week.
I really just feel like a dump truck released it's load on me...I'm not sure if I want to cry, get anxious, or spend a lot more time at church praying for everything in my life to sort itself out. Nothing is going so terribly "wrong," I have healthy kids, a roof over our heads, and food to eat, but there has been a constant parade through my life of various other stressors that have been testing me.
Really, I should just have more faith. It seems as though most things in my life thus far have happened for a reason...I don't always know why at the time, but later it reveals itself to me. Isn't it this way for most people? You pray for something to happen (or NOT happen) and it doesn't work out the way you wanted, and you are angry, anxious, or depressed. Only later, you realize that things worked out exactly how they were supposed to.  Now don't get me wrong, I do not have all the answers. I am still waiting for the reasons for certain things in my past to be revealed to me: painful experiences, lost loved ones, missed opportunities, major screw-ups. And I don't believe everyone always gets the answers they were looking for. I think that it is possible that sometimes, things just happen. And this is what scares me.
I just hope that this time, for this period in my life, things work out they way they are supposed to. Whatever that might be.

How 'Medical Nerds' Get Their Kicks in the Middle of the Night...

That's my co-workers arm, what a lucky lady :-)
When I heard she was a hard stick I naturally had to stick her, right? Got that in by having her hold her hand down (gravity is our friend here)
and I got it in with her arm dangling finally. She was NOT easy! Don't you
just wish you were a nurse too? Because then you could come play with us at
3am. As you can see we are lots of fun.(yeah I know that is a messy stick. After my victory I took a picture before cleaning it up. What can I say, I didn't start it on a table or anything and it bled like stink, it takes longer to hook up the line when you're starting
it in the air!)

We Call Him Juan Pablo (yes I know I spelled that wrong...what IS the traditional spelling?!)

What's going on at Chez Sluys:

Pickled beans from the garden and pickled asparagus with jalepenos, garlic, and red pepper flakes

Who says you can't get something for nothing? Blackberry jam/pie filling from berries growing in the wild by our house. No effort on my part to keep 'em alive.

A new recipe, Chunky Chipotle-Peach Spread. So unbelievably delish. Like, I actually licked the leftovers out of the pan, for real. 

That there pickling cucumber should make some good pickles

I'm gonna throw some beauty bark in there. I finally planted husband planted the area above the rock wall: Lavender, landscape roses, azaela and rhodie, rose of sharon, boxwood, and mini-spruce thing. Who was I kidding? I laid out all the plants where I wanted them, and husband dug some holes. A LOT of holes. I still owe him "wifely duties" for that one

The garden looks much better with grass in it

Still can't believe husband moved all those rocks (and a lot more in back too) by hand. Whatta stud.

Who says you can't make a gingerbread house in August?

A lot of canning has been going on. 'Tis the season after all. You can share the goodness with me, 'cuz if you know me, you probably will be getting a lot of my canned goodies to share. I like to spread the love. My ladies are laying fairly consistently now, usually 2 eggs per day, but then they went on a strike and laid only 1 per day for a couple of days (1 egg for the 4 hens). Such slackers. I fed them some popcorn and weeds, and they showed their appreciation by laying 4 eggs the last 2 days. My hens don't have a name- I can't tell them apart- but I did finally name my rooster: Juan Pablo. 'Cuz he is Spanish (Araucana). Miss Aili is starting preschool next week, can you believe it? Sigh. My big girl. Welllll husband's not home, so on that note, I think I'll go grab my iphone and do a little booty-shakin.' Because when husband is away, the Sluys girls like to dance. That's just how we roll ;-)

              

Another Pic of My Sweetie Pie!