Learning never ends for me!

I have recently been introduced to a book call Connected Child.  And so today, I not only ordered a copy of the book but I also signed up for one of their conferences coming to Nashville.  In case you are not aware, and the reason I am interested in going to this, I am a Licensed Counselor and at times I work with kids and parents are just struggling with life.  I am hoping to find some more ways to help my clients (as the title alludes to) connect with their kids.  So hopefully my book comes in the mail soon so I can read it before I head to the conference!  Check out the video about it yourself.  You might find it interesting too! Their website has some good info also.

Love me a great deal!

So one new new thing in my life is coupons.  I am slowly learning the game of getting the most out of using coupons.  I do not want to do the extreme couponing thing.  That is just insane.  And to be honest, I am not detailed enough and to highly distracted to be that dedicated.  You have got to admit...people who save 80%-90% on the grocery trip are detailed and focused.  Two things that no one can say about me!  And I am fine with that.

So today I ran into a great deal for those who love to shop at Whole Foods and yet find that it can be a little expensive (like myself, they sell pudding that Alex can eat!)!  Living Social has great deal, buy a coupon for $20 worth of groceries and only pay $10!  Here is that link https://livingsocial.com/deals/123805?ref=conf-jp&rpi=27000249 check it out!  It is only good today so act quick!

Yes, here is our house! I have a love/hate relationship with this house.

We bought this house four and half years ago. We loved this house, it represented something that we both wanted for our family. You see...both my husband and I grew up in the same house throughout our childhood.  There was safety, security, comfort and family to never moving.  You to always coming home to the same house and family.  Buying this house was our step toward doing the same for our growing family.  We moved in with one kid and quickly started talking about our second.  This was were we were going to raise our family.

And yet here we are four years later, living in another state, in a borrowed and smaller place.  I love how God give us the room to learn and grow.  My picture of how to provide a safe and secure childhood for my kids is definitely evolving.  I have two boys who love where they live and why?  Because it is were their mom and dad are!  They find this "thorn in my side" apartment a place of security and love.  Ohhh how I have gotten caught up in the American dream of I' have not arrived since I do not own a house" (or in my situation, live in house).  Providing a secure and safe childhood for my kids to more then raising them in the same house their whole life.  

So if I could do the past three years over again.  They only thing I would do is not see my currently living place as temporary.  I have missed our on making this place a home for our family.  After three years of trying to convince myself that it would be useless to make this place work for us because we are going to move, I am going to make our place a functional place for our family.  I hope to post some pics of different projects I am going to do to help this family of four live and function in 800-900 square feet!  I am open to suggestions!

I had dreams of my family playing in the backyard.
 It has been a long journey giving those dreams to God.

Swimming with the Manatees!

Fred stopped washing the glass for a pic.

One of my boys favorite places to go in the sumer time is the zoo.  It is wonderful to live so close to the Columbus Zoo and Aquarium.  I can not tell you how many times we have headed there in the morning, seen a few animals, ate a picnic lunch and were back home in time for naps in the afternoon.  The boys were happy because they saw animals and Mommy was happy because she got a nap!

I think he watch the video on this about 20 time!

This past week we saw a surprise animal in the Manatee tank. We watch our friend, Fred Durant, clean the Manatee tank. It is funny how there are things you never really think happen even though they have to happen! Like cleaning the Manatee tank. But there our friend was with a buffer/sander thing taking all the slung off the bottom of the tank. I think my boys thought other things were much more interesting. Eli spent his time playing on the boat and Alex chased fish up and down the tank. 

Alex's running partner.

What I find funny is that I do not have a single picture of a manatee!  They are huge..how do I not get a picture of at least one!

A Good Night

 Something our boys love to do before they go to bed is read a book!  Each boy picks out one book, we climb into bed and read.  The other night Dave snapped these pics to capture the moment.  So sweet!  I love looking at pictures like these.  They remind me of the importance of enjoying the chapter of life that I am in.  Maybe that is way I am not blogging much...I am much to busy enjoying the moment!!!  OK, maybe that is not true, but wouldn't it be great if it was.

P.S. Do you like Eli's head board?  The boys have a fireplace in their room with a Gas line in it.  So to keep them out of it, I have taped this classy and stylish piece of cardboard over the hole.  Only a veteran interior designer would to do this!  OK, once again, that is not true.  The veteran interior designer part, the cardboard idea was of course my idea!

JOY

I need to slow down and enjoy

moments like this!

They called for Snow

And snow is what we got!  So after dinner and before clean up, we went out to played in the snow!  It was nice that Dave was with me because it allowed me to take a few pictures!  Alex was specially excited about going out to play because it allowed for him to use his Christmas present that he asked for for Christmas.  If you remember this picture from the Christmas Post.......  He was most excited to get out there and try out his new shovel!  We did have to go out and stop Mr. Al from using his favorite toy (the snow blower).  I should have gotten a picture of Mr Al, but I was so busy tracking down all the pieces of clothing my boys needed before going out into the snow.  Mr. Al graciously left some shoveling for Alex!  The thing I love about having snow and kids, I have an excuse to do some sled ridding too!  Here are some more pictures of our out door adventure in the snow!

Road Trip

So yesterday...we load up a van with Kids, Parents and Grandparents and head up to the glorious town of Sebring Ohio.  I know, pretty amazing that I know someone who lives in Sebring Ohio!  Since moving back to Ohio 2 1/2 years ago and have yet to make a trip to Sebring Ohio.  And I think everyone in Ohio should make a trip to Sebring Ohio and stop by and say "Hi" to my Grandparents!  They are great people, who love people.  Growing up, I never feared my Doctor because my Doctor was my Grandpa...how cool is that!  And he took good care of me!  I know that even today they take care of me through their prayers.  Through my Grandpa may not be looking after my physical health he is looking after my Spiritual Health.  He wants to send me a Daily Devotional that goes deeper than your standard Daily Bread (though there is nothing wrong with Daily Bread).  They are just good people!!  Here is some pics that I took and my son took (can you tell?)

Here is my Grandma and my Dad trying to figure out how to play with the boys toys! I had brought some toys from home for the boys and Eli had gotten out some threading beads by Haba.   I did some research.  Grandma and Dad, you put the string in the slot on the stick to help string the clothes on the rope easier!  Sometime kids toys are to complicated for adults!  I had been using the stick to keep the clothes from falling off the other end of the rope. Here is the link for the threading beads so you can see for yourself

Eli wanted me to take a picture of him in front of his favorite thing.  I remember when my grandparents bought this.  It plays several Christmas songs and as it plays, Mickey, Pluto, Goofy and Donald Duck pop out of the houses and sing.  And the boys loved it!!!  I believe it can be hung on your Christmas tree but my Grandparents have decided to leave it in the original packaging!  It works....kids love it.  Alex is sitting next to be as I type telling me "I want one of those!" I would give you a link so you can see for yourself, but I can not find them anywhere.

What a great pic of my Mom!

Very artsy!

I love these backpacks the boys got for Christmas.  I through in a snack, diaper and some car activities and off we went.  No more diaper bag for me.  They can carry their own stuff!

And what family gathering is complete without a sleeping Grandpa!

Merry Christmas!

 Christmas was full of some great family time and exciting gift opening up times!  My parents came up to spend the day with us which makes the gift opening experience even better for the kids.  More adults present the more presents there are, right? It was great having them here with us.  We started the morning with smell of cinnamon rolls in the oven and the hope for a good cup of coffee with peppermint mocha creamer.  But some how the coffee never happened, but the cinnamon rolls did!  Here are some highlights that I captured with camera.....

This year Alex asked for a snow shovel for Christmas.....Now it just needs to snow so he can us it!

Alex enjoyed passing out gifts, but we need to teach him the important life lesson to let others open their own gifts.  It is so hard to resist that shiny paper!

We got the boys Steelers T-Shirts.  Alex had out grown all his Steelers stuff.  I am not sure who was more excited about the t-shirts...Dad or the boys!  But has soon has Eli pulled this T-shirt out, he yelled "Go Steelers!" 

***P.S Eli was there Christmas morning, I just did not like any of the pics I took of him.  Most of the pics were of the back of his head!  But the last pic of him is just so cute it makes up for only having pic in this post!!!  Oh  and yes, I cut off his curls.  And yes, the curls will come back this summer, I promise!

Is was a cold night!

One of my new favorite things about Christmas time is going to the Columbus Zoo to see the Wildlights.  Eli joins me in this love of the zoo, but he is more excited about the Polar Bears.  He loves to carry our zoo passes around the house saying “Go to the Zoo.  Polar Bear! Parakeets! and Penguins!” over and over again!  We are a little disappointed, the Polar bears where laying around behind some rocks napping while we were there.  But we got to see the Brown Bears up close!  So here are some pics from our visits. I did not get pics of any animals....they are apparently not very active when it is cold!

Alex found a steel bear trap that he played in.  I think it was it favorite thing

While Alex was playing in the bear trap, Eli was running around asking me to take his picture and then he would run to me to see the picture.  What about the cool lights? 

Maybe the lights are more for the parents then the kids?!

A selfish Christmas!

It is amazing what can change in a year in the life of a kid.  Alex is so excited about Christmas this year!  Last year, he did not show much excited until Christmas morning when he saw all the gifts he was getting!  He keeps asking me if it is Christmas and the boys are always pointing out Christmas lights when we drive around at night!  This is the first year that we have been faced with how to help Alex not be so selfish.  Getting him thinking about others during the Christmas season and not just what he is getting under the tree.  How does one get a four year old to think outside of himself.  I do not believe that I am the first mom to ponder this question!  

I have come to the conclusion that I am the biggest hurdle to help my kids think unselfishly.  Not only does it take some brain work to think about Christmas season differently, but to follow through with it....I have found this to be an important step!

I had this great idea of counting down the 25 days of Christmas with Alex and everyday we would do something for Christmas.  Encouraging counting and making Christmas more then just presents!  What a great idea (not my own idea, I stole it from a blog I enjoy reading, Frugal Granola!)  So I make 25 pieces of papers and I made a list of 25 things we could do

1. Color a Christmas picture and give it to someone
2. Make Christmas cookies
3. Read the Christmas story
4. Watch a Christmas movie

You get the point.  

I think we make it to day 17 and I think we only did the first 3 things.  I have done nothing since!!!  So please pray for my children....let us hope they are more organized and undistracted then their mom!

A family hobby

So this past year, we have been working on a little surprise!  We have been taking lessons as a family and have gotten quite good.  Click here and check us out!

Thinking about Christmas!

I love Christmas time!  And one of my favorite things about Christmas is sending and receiving Christmas Cards.  It is that one time of year that we get lots of fun things in the mail!  So this year I have decided to do my card through Shutterfly.  I loved the photo book that my brother and sister in law made for the grandparents  a few Christmas ago.  You can not beat getting a Christmas present full of pictures of one of your grandsons!  Dave and I made a calendar for the grandparents full of pictures of Alex’s first year of life, once again, can not beat it!  I think  it would be cool just to have some personalized stationary for myself to use with pics of my family (maybe a gift hint?) I have gotten my photographs printed by Shutterfly and since those have turned out great, I figured my Christmas cards will too.  So the other night I got the boys to bed and spent some time picking out my card!  It was a harder then I thought it would be, they has so many great layouts to pick from.  The layout has now been chosen and now I have to pick the pictures.  An even harder thing to do!   

The thing I am most excited about is getting 50 of my card free!!!  And you can to!  Shutterfly is having a deal for all bloggers out there.  So if you are a blogger and want 50 free Shutterfly cards click here http://blog.shutterfly.com/5358/holiday2010-blog-submission-form/

Our Thanksgiving sleep depravation

This year we headed down to Kentucky for Thanksgiving with my parents!  Since we do not get down there often, we decided to go a few days early.  So we hit the road on Tuesday!  The Natives got a little restless by the end of the trip but we made it down there with no major problems! We made a trip to a park before dinner and enjoyed a great evening with Grandma and Grandpa.   But then Tuesday night happened.  

We were finishing up a movie and Alex got that look in his eyes and dinner came back to visit!  Poor kid....from then on  every 1-2 hours he was up and puking until 7 the next morning  We made him a bed on the floor of the bathroom we I could see him from the bed!  So needless to say....I did not get much sleep!  We had a great day hanging around the house the next day.  My dad and Dave went Disc Golfing (If you need ideas for Dave for Christmas, the man is crazy about disc golf right now.  Yes even now while it is cold, Dave will still go and play!)

Dave and I were hoping to go out on a date after the boys went to bed to take advantage of the free babysitting.  Alex went down like butter....Eli on the other hand....not so much.  We finally got him asleep on our bedroom floor at 11pm.  So, as you can guess, the date ever happened!  I crawled into bed at that time and feel asleep until 2am rolled around and Eli work up and freaked out and started crying and running around the room.  Around 5:00 we got him settle down again and asleep. This time I stayed on the floor with him. 

 When Eli woke up at the right time in the morning I looked at the clock to see that it was 8am and my dad and i need to leave soon.  We decided to run the Throwbread Turkey Run at 9am.  So I jump off the floor, sent the kids out to get breakfast and threw on my running outfit.  On a positive note, it was 50 degrees outside that morning.  A great day for a run.  Needless to say, after two sleepless night, my time was horrible.  I did finish the race and ran the whole time! 

My mom made a wonderful Thanksgiving meal that included buttery rolls that did not have butter in them and a turkey that was perfectly cooked!  That night both boys feel asleep and did not awake up until 8 the next morning!  How wonderful was that!!! Grandma and Grandpa house is fun....but we were all looking forward to getting home!!!  And now that it is all behind me, I do treasure this past Thanksgiving because that is just the chapter that our family is in right now!   

I will leave you with two pictures that I took on the way home.  Yes, it was 50 degrees on Thanksgiving morning and the next morning we woke up to snow!   What a great way to start off the Christmas Season!

What is a trip to Lexington without a pic of horses 

Not a lot of people on the road but the outlet mall we passed had a packed parking lot!

Pumpkin Carving

This year I was finally brave enough to do some pumpkin carving with the boys!  So Dave was informed that when he come home that night, a pumpkin had to come home with him.  So after dinner was eaten and cleaned up, we dug in!  Oh wait a minute, Mommy dug in.  Neither boy wanted to touch to touch in insides of the pumpkin.  I was not surprised that Alex did not but Eli....that I was surprised at!  After Mommy was done cleaning it out....Daddy stepped in with the knife.  Alex helped pick out a face and Daddy cut it out.  The boys loved it!   They were excited to show it off on Trick or Treat night. 

We did our annual free hot dogs with candy for our neighbors on Trick or Treat night.  We have done it 3 years now and it has been fun to see some of the same people back each year!  Alex enjoyed passing out candy.  He was excited every time we got "new customers."

Our first born

Our oldest is now 3 1/2 years old!  I can not believe I have been doing this mommy thing for over three years!  If you are a friend of my husband's on facebook (if you are not...feel free to request him), you have been able to read all the great conversations we have had with him in the past few months.

I am sure that everyone has been checking this blog everyday waiting for an update on this guy, so let me do a top 10 list (not in particular order) to bring you up to speed. 

1. Alexander's vocabulary has tripled in the last three months.  It has been amazing.  I feel like he went from one-two word sentence and only understanding him 50% of the time to full sentences and understanding him 95% of the time.  He is still getting speech therapy (and loves going to Miss Jenny's) and she has been excited to the the progress he is making.  I love to listen to him use words that he has heard but is not sure how to us it.

2. We have offically entered the potty training era!  Can I just tell you how hard it can be.  And I am not finding the needing to ask him if has to got potty the hard part.  It is the teasing.  You think you have a great way to get them to use the potty and you are all excited....and then it does not work.  They use the potty and you think they have it....and they don't.  My emotions are totally being played with!!!

3.  Thomas the Train is an everyday part of our life.  Need I day anymore!

4.  Alex loves to sleep in his big boy bed, except for the nights that he crawls into our bed!

5.  Being a big brother just comes natural for Alex!  He has this amazing gift of knowing what his brother wants before his brother says anything (of course the only words his brother has is "yeah").  We can be sitting at the table eating lunch and Alex tells me that Eli is done eating and wants to watch a video (This of course is after Alex has asked me if he can watch a video and I tell him that he needs to wait until Eli is done eating).  Wow, what a gift!

6.  Just the other day, Alex figured out how to spell his name!  That was one of those moments that I realized that he will not be little forever. 

7.  People say the emotions of a teenager are crazy....well I say that the emotions of a three year old are insane!  Alex can be so upset about not watching a video one minute and then the next minute he is busy giving a tickle party to his brother.  Once again....just playing with my emotions! 

8.  Alex has kind of started Preschool.  Because of the delays he has had, he was eligable for free preschool through the Delaware Schools.  Now, I have nothing against sending our kids to preschool, for it works for many family!  I just did not feel it would work for Alex.  One reason is that if he started this year, he would be in preschool for three year.  Preschool is 4 days a week, and he has only been out of the house once a week for bible study.  I also feel I have a lot still to offer him.  And last but not least, I enjoying having him around.  Someday I will not be his world, so I want to advantage of the time I have!   So since I have not sending him to preschool, they are sending a teacher to me.  So, Miss Kelly comes to our house once a week for an hour for school.  Alex really enjoys his time with Miss Kelly.  I believe it is a highlight of the week for him. 

9.  He lives on hotdogs, chicken nuggets, and chips (sometimes I get peas in there too!).

10.  The afternoon nap has disappared!  Sometime last summer/fall I noticed that every time he WOULD fall asleep in the afternoon, going to bed was a fight until about 9 or 10 o'clock.  The afternoons he would not fall asleep, going to bed was still a fight but only until 8 or 8:30.   So after a few weeks of fighting it, I threw up the white flag and let him drop the nap.  Now he just plays in his room during nap time for mommy still needs some time to herself!

Well there you go, the simple life of Alex Pacheco!

A Buyer Wanted:

How about an update on our house and yes coming in March I will have lived in our current apartment for the same amount of time that I lived in my house!  And yet the crazy part is how much our small little apartment just feels like home.  I have a hard time imagining my family living in a bigger place! (and maybe it is a sign that I have lived here to long and am finally going crazy!).  I am wondering how does one keep tract of two kids in a bigger space.  Wouldn't there just be more places and things for kids to get into?  They are never to far out of my reach right now!!  And that is a good thing.  It is amazing how you will make any space you live in work for your family.

Anyways, our house has not sold yet.  We have found a wonderful couple who are currently house sitting for us, therefore the house has not be standing vacant this whole time.  He has also done some small projects for us and that has been very helpful!  The reason I wanted to post about this today is because we have two showing tomorrow (Sunday)!  No one has looked at our since last November, so we are excited to have two showing on Sunday.  Please pray that God brings the right buyers to our house!  It is a great house in a great location, but our difficulty is that we are having a hard time competing with a plethora of foreclosures and short sales in the Chicago market.  Houses are going cheap!   The other day I found a townhouse for sale we almost put a bid on four yeasr ago. Then it was going for about 200,000.  now I found it for around 130,000!

Off to the Races

It is official, on May 15th I am going to run my first 5K!  I have planned on running several races throughout the past 10 years and never followed through.  I am planning on following through with this one (though I do believe that I planned on following through with the other ones also!), but I mean it this time!  What makes this one different?  Well let me bring you up to speed.  Bear with me for I have to go back about a year.

Last March I was in Indiana visiting family and hanging out with my cousin Kandice.  I knew that I wanted to spend some time with you because, one I love spending time with my cousin and two she was going to be leaving in a few days for a month of training before heading to the mission field.  Not even two week later i can not call from my mom that the Doctors think that she has breast cancer.  If my memory serves me right, by the end April my Cousin was diagnosed with Inflammatory Breast Cancer. Today, she continues to battle her  cancer and if you want to read more about her story you can go to her Caring Bridge page www.caringbridge.org/visit/rrobinson .  As I have watched her battle this past year I have been left with a feeling need to do something.  So when family stated talking about participating in the Race for the Cure in the Spring, I said “You Bet!”  Though I can not fight her battle for her, what I can do is do what i need to do to make myself healthier and raise money for cancer research.  If you are interested in helping to fight breast cancer, check out my page and join Team Robinson or donate (or just check out the page) I want to get a icon for this blog on my side bar so you can get to the page from this blog.  I have never done this before, so if any one out there knows how...let me know!!!

So I will be keeping you updated as I prepare to the race, I may need the accountability (for reasons previously stated!).  You may see some more info about  breast cancer in general in the future also.  I the best way to fight cancer is through education.  So do not be surprised if I educate you a little!!! 

Bringing compassion (eleos) to our fine city!

Welcome back to our blog for those who gave up checking it since I took some personal time away from the blogging world.  You know the usual stuff; getting through the first year of a baby life, moving two states away, trying to sell a house two states away, job change and anything else that was an adjustment! (Thanks Miraim for being faithful!) I know, poor Eli!  He just did not get the posts that Alex got when he was a baby.  Being a second child myself....I am sure that he will survive!  And I promise, he will get his time now (and I will not forget about Alex either!)

So what has happened in our lives since July (that was one of my last posts!)?  I would say one of the biggest is the start of my own counseling practice!  Yes, that is right!  I am an proud owner of my own practice.  Last summer, I started looking around to see if I could find a group of counselors to join and work just a few hours or even a christian counselor.  I could not find one.  I just started calling people in the telephone book to see if anyone was interested in bringing me on and my second phone call was to my currently landlord.  She does not have group but she rents out office space (and she has a part time office with room for me)  After some prayer and conversations with my husband, I decided to to fill the void for christians counselors and make the big step!  With much prayer and hard work..Eleos Counseling officalily opened it's chair in September 2009!  And as of today, I am busy with clients!  (Oh, by the way Eleos means mercy/compassion in greek!)

I have enjoyed getting back into counseling again.  So you might be wondering what happens to my boys while I am at work...well right now Dave and I have quite the system.  The two days that Dave has off, I work!  And one of the great thing about it being my practice is the flexibility.  There are times that duty calls for Dave and therefore I can just plan to not see clients that day.  And I love that Dave has them while I am at work because then I do not have to get the kids ready to go day care and get myself ready in the morning.  I just get up and go!  And I know that Dave will take wonderful care of them (in fact today then when out to eat for lunch)! 

Winter Wonderland

Well it is Winter time! I know it has been winter time for quite some time, but the difference now is not only does it feel like winter, it looks like winter! And when we had our first big snow fall that we were home for, we had to take the boys out to have some fun. I am not sure how much fun that had at least at first. Not quite sure about the fall snow!

Neither one wanted to walk in the snow. So they waited and watched from the garage while daddy cleared the driveway.

You can see him in the back ground using our landlord’s beast of a snow blower. My husband was enjoying every minute of it!

They slowly ventured out, only exploring the areas that were clear.

Then Alex got a hold of the snow shovel. He was taking snow from one side of the driveway.......

to the other.

Now he to was enjoying every minute of it!

They crazy part is that since we took these pics, it has snowed two more times and snow is still in the forecast! I love to look out my front window and see the ground covered in beautiful white snow.