Out of Sync

Do you ever have times where you are just off? Maybe I am looking at it wrong, but I feel sort of out of sync or one beat off.

I think it started last week. The kids went to visit their Grandpa in Modesto to spend some time with Travis' family. (He is still in Iraq.) Jason and I try to take advantage of our time without the kids to just be a couple. My mom agreed to watch Ashlyn for the weekend so we could spend some time together and go skiing. I'm not a great skier but we had so much fun when we went last year, that we were looking forward to going again.

I talked to my mom after the big kids left and she sounded sick. She said she wasn't feeling great but she could still watch the baby. I know my mom well enough to know that she would do anything for her kids. So, I told her I wasn't sure if we were still planning on going and I would let her know. We decided to just hang out and see how she was feeling later on in the evening. She still sounded pretty worn out. We talked about getting a babysitter and still heading up the mountain in the morning, but our regular babysitter was out of town for Christmas. We decided to call one of our other babysitters for the night and just go out around here. It was nice to go out with just the two of us, but we were a little bummed we weren't going out of town for the weekend.

On Saturday, we put Ashlyn down for a nap at my mom's and went out to lunch and did a little shopping. Our friends called and invited us to come up to their cabin in Shaver for the night and hang out with them and another family. We were enjoying just spending time with each other and decided to hang out a little longer and then go home and pack up. When we started packing, we realized that it was a lot of stuff to pack up for one night. We decided to just go up and hang out for the night and come home when everyone was going to sleep and let Ashlyn sleep in her own bed.

We got to the cabin just as Matt and Margaret were already heading out! The roads were icy and she didn't want to be driving late at night. We were bummed that they were leaving, but we were happy to be up there and hang out with Aaron and Haley.

Jason at the cabin

The kids came home Sunday. The next few days are sort of a blur. Jason took the kids to the ranch, but the house was demanding my attention so I stayed home. I thought I would put away Christmas before New Year's Eve, but laundry seemed to be never ending and I am still trying to find homes for the wonderful toys we all got for Christmas. The kids had fun with friends and LOTS of sleepovers.

On one of my trips up the stairs, I noticed spots on the carpet on almost every step. At first, I thought it was chocolate that someone must have stepped in, but then it looked more like jelly and when I last checked, the kitchen was clean. I started to call up to the kids to check their feet, but when I reached the top of the stairs I saw this laying in the carpet.

Ashlyn loves to get into my makeup! I found her covered in lipstick! She had tried to put it on and then stuck her fingers in it! The spots on the stairs were from her coming down to tell me! Once again, the cleaning solution that Jason teased me for buying from a door to door salesman came to the rescue! It got the crayon out of my laundry and now lipstick out of carpet! Totally worth every penny. I just looked at the name and it is called Clean & Simple, for any of you that wanted to know!

I was too afraid of the mess spreading to take any pictures, but here is the little stinker all cleaned up after the lipstick mess. Good thing she is cute huh?

Thanks Aunt Danale for the cute outfit!

One of those nights, like I said- it's all kind of a blur, we were in a small car accident. Jason and I were on our way home from dropping Lauren off at a friends house. We only had Ashlyn with us and we were hit by another car when we were stopped at a stop sign! I was twisted around, trying to hand something to the baby when we were hit. I was pretty sore for a few days, but Jason and Ashlyn seemed to be fine. Our car wasn't hurt , but our trailer hitch went right through the other car's front bumper! Their car was pretty beat up. The guy felt really bad. He was probably 20 and driving his parents BMW! It was pretty foggy and he said he had been driving all day. Poor guy. He was pretty shook up.

Then it was New Year's Eve. We didn't really have plans this year. Riley, our babysitter, was coming over early so Jason and I could go out, but she was going to the New Year's Eve Dance at the church later that night. As we were leaving to meet up with my parents and my brother, Sterling, and his wife, Katie, who were in town, we got a call from our friends who were getting together that night, staying at the cabin and going skiing the next day. Fun!

My mom offered to take the kids over night after we were done eating and I lined up a babysitter for the next day. After dinner, went home and packed up and met up with our friends. They were all talking about the "Fear Factor" challenge they had just done. Lynette put together a bunch of crazy looking stuff to eat for a prize. It sounded really disgusting! It was fun to hang out and bring in the New Year with friends that we love.

We got back to the cabin and ended up staying up until around 4AM! We love to sit around and talk, but we couldn't believe it got so late! I think we would have stayed up all night if Margaret hadn't reminded us that someone had to get up with the kids. Ours weren't there, but we knew the morning would come early!

We were pretty tired the next day and went in circles in the morning about going skiing or not. We finally decided that we were all too tired and our friends would probably miss the cut off time to put their kids in ski school anyway. We decided to hang out around the cabin and go to a near by snow park with the kids and go skiing the next day. Bummer. We didn't bring the kids up the night before because the girls haven't shown any interest in skiing and I wasn't sure I was ready to shell out the money if they didn't care. Austin learned how to snow board, but we thought it would be fun this time to just be us and not be parents for a minute. BUT, I would feel awful playing in the snow without the kids because I know they would love that! I love to watch them when they are excited and happy! Those are the best moments of being a mom.

SO, we decided to head back down the mountain and get the kids. When we got there, we had to pack a million things! Sleeping bags, clothes, snow clothes, diapers and everything that has to come with a babies, get a babysitter for the next day, food for the kids while we were skiing, etc. It was a little crazy and we hadn't had much sleep. We made it back up the mountain just as everyone was getting back to the cabin from playing at the snow park. Our timing had been awesome the last few days! Yes, that was sarcastic. See what I mean? Just one beat off...

The kids still played in the snow around the cabin and couldn't stop saying how beautiful the snow was. It was fun to watch them play, but I felt bad it was already so late and they wouldn't be able to go sledding with their friends.

Jessica

Lauren

Jessica and Lauren

Little Lauren Lou

Austin

I promised them I would bring them back another day. We hung out and looked at pictures from their day at the snow park and watched old episodes old The Office! Jason took some fun pictures of everyone hanging out, but Aaron said he didn't want to be on any one's blog and he is in most of them! :-)Angie, Mike and Matt

The kids had fun playing around the cabin with their friends, but I'm not sure if I was just tired or if the kids were all really crazy! I think some combinations of kids play off of each other. The kids were too rowdy for me to let Ashlyn run around. She was frustrated because she wanted to get down and play, but when I would put her down, another toddler who is going through a phase, would run up and hit her in the face. I was starting to feel a little stuck and I was worried about leaving them with a babysitter so we could go skiing the next day. By bedtime, I was really tired and starting to feel sick. (It had been running through my family all week.) Ashlyn was having a hard time falling asleep with us in the same room and before we knew it, I was arguing with Jason!

Jason teases that we only fight after midnight. He's pretty accurate. Although it wasn't quite midnight this time, but if you figure we only had about 3 hours of sleep the night before... We don't fight very often, but when we do, we are usually both pretty tired and I am usually the grumpy one who starts it. Sorry Honey! Good thing he loves me! Anyway, we decided we really needed to sleep and skiing just wasn't really going to work out-again! So, we packed up and went home. We stayed up way too late making up, but luckily Ashlyn let us sleep in a little the next day.

So how is that for ringing in the New Year!?