The Not so Sappy Valentine's Day Post and the Time Where I May or May Not Have Almost Started the House on Fire

I'm a sucker for the holidays (Christmas in particular). There's something about a holiday that makes me feel extra cheery and puts me in the mood for some messy crafts and good old fashion cut out cookies. I love giving my kids little trinkets and treats that they look forward to opening on that special day, and raising them with an appreciation for a good old celebration doesn't hurt. Since my kids have been itty bitty, I have tried to make a big deal about holidays, but I know that I haven't done as much as I would like to. Some of that is because of lack of finances or the fact that procrastination is my middle name, and by the time I would like to do fun things, the opportunity is long gone. In other words, my holiday freak flag is raised high around the holidays.

Valentine's Day was never one of my favorites growing up. While I will cry at a good chick flick and was raised on Disney movies as a little girl, sappy has never described me. I get really awkward and sweat starts to drip from my forehead when there is anything more than a quick peck or hand holding by couples in public. It makes me feel weird. At home, I love a good romantic moment where my husband says something sweet or brings me flowers, but in general, sappy and me just equal awkward.

Now that I have kids however, I relish in the fact that I get to make holidays, birthdays, and get togethers into grand celebrations and use them as an excuse to raise my holiday freak flag even higher. Valentine's Day to me doesn't mean sappy or romance. To me it means, I get to spend another day showing my kids how much I love them. And I love them so much it hurts. Here are a few things that we've done to get into the mood for loooove.

On Monday, I ran to Fareway to grab a few last minute supplies. The kids wanted to make cupcakes and cookies, and being the Betty Homemaker I am, I decided to go all out and make homemade buttercream frosting. Delish! We had a lot of fun making and eating the mess!

                                    They are a lot like their mama. We are suckers for batter and dough.

 Once we had all this yummy, sugary deliciousness made, it was clear it needed to be given away or it would take 1,000 zumba classes to work off what I would have put in my  mouth. We ended up taking a plate of goodies over to my brother's house and Sawyer got to take a plate to share with his daycare friends. Win-Win

 

The true procrastinator that I am decided to put up all the Valentine's decor up on Monday. Yep. Three days before the big day. Oh well. I suppose we will enjoy it through February. A little love never hurt anyone. We finished the evening off with baths and a Charlie Brown Valentine's Day special. Can't go wrong with that!

 

Today, being the amazing parents we are (insert sarcasm here), Dan and I decided to surprise the kids with their favorite breakfast: triple cheesy scrambled eggs and pancakes (double bonus if they are heart shaped and pink). They were super excited. I believe the words "you're the best parents ever" and "I love you. I love you. I love you" and "WOO HOO" were uttered a couple million times. Score one for us. It wouldn't however be good Wolfswinkel fashion if the morning didn't go down without a few kinks. And by kinks I mean I may or may not have almost started the house on fire with some tissue paper and a candle. No worries. I'm a fire fighter's wife. (Oh wait...the last time I heard those words I was on my rear at the bottom of a fireman's pole with a shattered ankle.) Nevertheless, no harm, no foul.

Tip number #3508: Do NOT put a candle on the same table where you are going to let your children open up presents. For the record, tissue paper will go up in flames in .3 seconds and that baby will take out the entire table's worth of cargo if you don't throw it on the linoleum (risking your own hand) and spray it with the sink hose until there is a lake in your kitchen. The evidence was minor.

I will finish off my Valentine's Day with some zumba and the traditional Thursday night girls' night out at Langers. I gotta show my ladies some love too. :) And THAT my friends...is how we do Valentine's Day!

Reflecting and Enjoying......

"Enjoying the small things" has always been my motto, my mantra if you will. It's something I've intentionally tried to keep at the forefront of my priority list, especially in the midst of much sadness and tragedy over the course of the last few months. From the heart breaking shootings in Conneticut, to losing loved ones to cancer, new cancer diagnosises, car accidents where families are torn apart, and one near and dear to my heart right now-- a good friend and co-worker who lost her 26 year old husband to altitude sickness almost two weeks ago. Watching a 22 year old widow grieve the loss of her husband is sobering and gut-wrenching to say the least. It's in the midst of these moments whereI find that I am the most introspective and reflective about life and faith and tend to question "What is this life all about" more frequently. What I've discovered is that the only thing I can do is live my one wild and precious life to the fullest capability I can. And I tend to do so as fully as I can before I am called to my heavenly home.

In order to live my own wild and precious life, I need to grasp those things that wouldn't be newsworthy events or even things that you would talk about at family get-togethers, necessarily. Heck, these things wouldn't probably be on many facebook walls either (except for mine...you will definitely find them on mine). But I crave these moments...these little things..because I find them daily. The more I find them, the more blessed and happy I feel. I crave these little moments that make my day more fulfilled. I hope one day my kids will learn to find happiness in these little things themselves. Being happy is contagious, and I plan to pass along my "sickness" to as many people as I can. :)

Here are some things I'm enjoying right now:

Trying out Bantu curls from Pinterest

Remember all those epic fail pictures on pinterest. Yep....that's us. You live and you learn. Next time we will make sure it dries all day first. Still good quality bonding time was had.

Birthday celebrations where you get to talk in British accents and spend 5 hours laughing with your best friends while your husbands stare at you from the other side of the table wondering whether to claim you or just ignore you. They chose the latter. (But they didn't threaten to leave us there without rides. That's true love.)

February camp-outs in your bedroom are a must when you can't go outside!

Doggy piles--'nuff said

Real pedicures even when you can't wear flip flops. The snowflakes are a nice touch.

Spa a la Wolfswinkel. The perk about winter is that you don't take off your socks as often making it perfect for painting little boys toenails pink, purple and blue. :)

It has been a tradition since summer to head to Langer's every Thursday night after zumba. There's something about girl time that is so good for the soul. It makes me a better mom, a better wife, and makes me appreciate these awesome women in my life. Even when we can't all make it every week, when we can, we make the most of it. We laugh, we cry, we dream, we plan, we enjoy.

Right now the sun comes up at exactly the perfect time--right on my way to work. It's a shame that it's always at my back, and being that it's Iowa, seeing a sunrise can be few and far between the cloudy yucky days. But when it's there, Oh lawd have mercy...it's gorgeous. I have to pull over sometimes just to admire it's beauty. It's the small things people.

Tiny 1 lb 6 oz puppies that make my chubby 20 pound puppy run for cover. She's just the cutest thing I've ever seen and can entertain the children for days. Too cute.

And just in case you don't believe in rainbows and unicorns yet......Here is a little extra ooomph to scoot you along. And when chocolate says it....it's true.

Happy Weekend to you!

Loving Ordinary

It doesn't take much for me to complain about the mundane of a typical day in the Wolfswinkel household. Anyone who knows me well enough knows that our mornings almost ALWAYS go to crap starting at about 6:47 a.m. beginning with kids who don't want to get up or conveniently forget the rule about no TV until after EVERYTHING is done, or decide they NOW want breakfast exactly 4.5 minutes before we are supposed to walk out the door. Yep. That's us. It is usually followed by regrettable yelling and screaming in the car about how I'm going to wake everyone up at least 30 minutes earlier and how I'm going to start taking bedtimes away in 15 minute increments if they don't get their crap together. And yes. Sometimes I accidentally say crap in the heat of the moment. They are never some of my proudest moments, and I always promise myself I'll try harder to be more patient the next morning. Being a working mom has it's perks (paychecks, getting out of the house, living the dream), but it also has it's downfalls (constant busy-ness, messy houses, never home, endless to do lists). I'm a whiner by nature. I hate to admit this because it's one of the qualities that on occasion make me want to stick a Free-to-a-good-home sign on my kiddos and set them on the curb, but I guess the apples don't far from this mama's tree.

Anywho, this is where I'm going with this story. I complain a lot about the normal things in my average, mundane, ordinary life. But lately, I've really tried to find the sliver of sunshine in an otherwise normal 24 hour period. I've vastly improved my patience level in the mornings over the course of the last week and a half, and it really does make my mornings go much smoother. I find that my attitude goes down in the dumps quickly during these cold winter months, and I thought I'd share some of the things that I'm loving about ordinary right now.

Sawyer comes and cuddles with me in the mornings for exactly 3 minutes when he wakes up. They are the most glorious 3 minutes of my entire day!

The sunrises in the morning on my way to work have been the most gorgeous things to witness lately. This picture doesn't do it justice, but man I'm so in love.

I have the best job ever. I was never meant to be a stay at home mom, but this right here tops the cake. I love coming to school every day doing what I love!! It hardly feels like work.

The icing on the cake is that I get to see my dad every single day I go to work. Talk about blessed.

On the rare occasions we don't have much to do at night or even if we have a few free moments right after school, I swallow up these moments of lounging on the couch cuddling with my littles.

He's the best cuddler there is.

Two days a week I get to shake my groove thing with my besties at zumba. It hardly feels like a workout and we have so much fun!

Bedtime routines at our house are a blast. Who doesn't love shadow puppets?!

I can hardly believe he's reading all by himself. It makes me one proud mama.

As I look back over this list, I realize how blessed I am and all that I have to be grateful for. Will I still complain? Probably. Will we still have crappy mornings rushing out the door to barely get to school on time. Definitely. But I am looking at my ordinary days with a different lens. A lens of gratitude and thankfulness and the realization that my littles won't be littles for very long. Sunrises won't come up at the exact same time I'm leaving for work pretty soon so I'm soaking it in. Bedtime routines will change because they will get older and shadow puppets won't be so cool anymore. But no matter what changes or what stays the same, I will enjoy these fleeting moments and grab tight. I will put these memories in a lock box and hang on to them tight. What are you loving about your ordinary life right now???
 

Impromptu is Our Middle Name

Spur of the moment, last minute, procrastinator, impromptu...all of these words vividly describe my personality, and typically, there is a negative connotation behind all of them. Take for example that my son will be done with wrestling after this weekend and I have yet to fill out the paper work and pay for him to participate. Thankfully, my dear cousin Heidi knows me and hasn't kicked us to the curb...yet. However, this weekend, we took impromptu to a whole new level. Like let's-get-away-for-the-weekend-and-leave-in-an-hour type of impromptu. Did I mention my hubby is a bit nuts? Because he is. And I love it. (Most of the time) So we left the dishes in the sink, the laundry overflowing baskets in our bedroom, messy bedrooms with unmade beds and toilets that needed scrubbing, and we high-tailed it out of town for a 24 hour getaway (Not unlike the small Minneapolis Getaway of October 2012 ;) ) The kids were all sorts of excited about thehotel....it's all we heard every five seconds the whole way down.

She looks so excited. Can you tell she's almost a tween. GAH!

 

 

 

 

And while it was a short trip. It was oh so memorable. It wasn't without it's flaws, like let's say for example forgetting to take your son's medication makes for a VERY excited little boy who can't contain his enthusiasm and requires at least 5 reminders for every task. Dad was super impressed. (Not so much)
The kids were mesmerized by the view from our hotel. I'd have to say, mom and dad were a bit too. This is how the rest of our Saturday commenced: window peeking, swimming, hot tubbing, jumping on beds, and giggling until our sides hurt.

Watch me Dad!

Taking a little break from getting jammies on by jumping on the bed. No harm, no foul.

"I is so cold mommy"

We enjoyed the sleeping in and the long showers and the care free attitude because we had nowhere we had to be at that very moment. Note to self- when you take away a schedule, life it so.much.better. So a trip to Denny's and a hop, skip and a jump later, we were at the Mall of America ready to get our rides on. As much as I hate to see my kids growing up so fast, it has been so much fun to be able to do things as a family unit more and more. As Sawyer gets older and taller, his affinity for adventure does too. He was all in for this trip. Nothing scared him! Here are a few of our favorite moments from the day.

Waiting in line for Diego's bus!

Daddy and Sawyer waiting for the log ride!

First ride of the day- Ferris wheel. CHECK He loved waiting for Dan, Jaedyn and Carter to get into view and frantically wave, "Hi guys!!"

Sawyer building a HUGE tower with dad at Legoland

One of the few attitudeless pictures with my first born

Waiting for a table at Kokomo's. First off---wrong genders maybe? Secondly, this place does wonders to make your mind take you to a tropical place, especially an hour before you brave the -35 degree windchill on the way home.

We found the old home plate for the Twin's Stadium. My dad always has such fond memories. It was fun to be able to capture a snapshot of something that was so important to his childhood.

I promised him this would be the best ride the whole day. You wouldn't believe me by the looks of this picture, but I promise he told me it was his favorite.

I believe he's saying, "NO DADDY NO"

Bumper cars were a hit!

The only family picture we got, but it will do!

Minus a few bumps in the road like a daughter who acts like she's 16 once in awhile, repeating directions a million times, leaving a pillow at the hotel, and a hubby with a nasty migraine headache who wore headaches to drown out my singing the whole way home, I would say this impromptu getaway was a success.

So for us today, impromptu is positive. Impromptu means living in the moment. Impromptu means memory making with the people you love. Thank you John and Jean for the free passes. You helped us make some memories this weekend. Happy Monday!

October Happenings

I'd have to say that most of you who read this blog probably also have me on Facebook, so catching up on my life is probably pretty easy. I need to remember that this blog is a creative outlet for me and my family, a way to look back on "yesterday" and relive it all over again. With that being said, I apologize for repeating things you maybe already know! Over the last 5 months (since I've written last--OOPS), things have gotten 100 times better. I went from a scooter, to a walking boot, to my very own healed ankle! Who would have thought I'd be so excited to clean again! Without my amazing physical therapy team, I would NOT be where I am today. Thanks Steve, Kristi, Kristy, Julie, and the rest of  the team! I finally graduated right before January, and I'm enjoying the extra "free" time.

One of the things I promised my kids is that when I was boot free, we would do a short family get away that would have to compensate for no summer vacation. In October, we took a very impromptu trip to Minneapolis to the Waterpark of America. (And by impromptu, I mean, Dan called me Friday at 1:00 and said, "Come straight home after school, we are headed to Minneapolis tonight.") Usually, this would have thrown me for a loop. No time to get my ducks in a row, but oh how fun it was! We didn't get to Minneapolis until 9:00, but we got to our hotel, threw on our swimming suits and headed straight for the pool. Dan can be kind of a wuss ( ;) totally kidding if you are reading this dear!!), and decided the water was FAR too cold to actually get into, and since there was no hot tub, he would cheerfully sit on the side and cheer on cannonballs and judge breath holding contests and best splashes from the sidelines. One bonus of our little hotel stay was that they screwed up our room, so we were treated to complimentary nachos and drinks while we cozied up in bed to watch some late night TV. The kids were THRILLED we let them stay up until 11:30!

The Waterpark was SO amazing. Next time, we will plan ahead and make sure to get a room at the hotel it's connected at as well. Lucky for us, we have a fearless 3 year old who loves water slides and pretty much anything the big kids do. We spent a WONDERFUL day, going up and down waterslides. Our favorite? The family tube that shot all 5 of us down an exciting, screamtastic waterslide. It was so worth the 30 minute wait! Dan and Jaedyn tried out the bodyboarding pad. It was such a hoot to watch. I apparently don't have the camera skills my husband wishes I had, however. I was scolded horribly for not putting the video in the highest resolution, so it was a dud I was told. We hot tubbed, rode the waves and the lazy river and just enjoyed, for the first time in a long time, a weekend away. Just us. The icing on the cake was a trip to The Rainforest Cafe in the Mall of America- a place Dan and I have been to numerous times, but the kids loved the atmosphere, the jungle sounds, the fake thunderstorms with lightning to boot. It was so memorable. I enjoyed every minute!! And while it was a trip lasting almost exactly 24 hours, it was exactly what we needed to recharge our batteries!

This is really the only good picture I got on this trip. The one downfall of impromptu is that you forget things. :/

A few weeks later, Dan and I headed our itty bittys to Omaha for none other than the Red Hot Chili Pepper concert. We had planned this back in May for our October date night, and it aligned very nicely with Dan's birthday so with hugs and kisses and see you soons, we headed out, ready for a weekend where we could recharge OUR batteries. It had been such a long summer and we were so bummed about missing Cancun and all the summery goodness that we missed, we were ecstatic to be spending the weekend away doing some Christmas shopping (in October!! WHAT?), an outing to the comedy club for some laughs, some chocolate and champagne, sleeping in and playing RACKO in bed with our Starbuck's White Chocolate Mochas and not having to hurry...a bit.

I'm sorry sir...This is not a parking spot. And here's your sign.

YUMMY!

Totally worth the splurge to be able to watch reruns of The Big Bang Theory in your bathtub. Yes please :)

Enjoying a night out in the Old Market

Racko and A White Chocolate Mocha....Heaven

Red Hot Chili Peppers

To top the weekend off, we screamed our lungs out with a bestie and her hubby and her friend and sang along to some of the greatest rock music ever made (in my humble opinion). And even though we didn't get home until 2 in the morning, it was so worth the half of a personal day I had to take to capture some new memories and rekindle some flames in a fire that was being smothered by broken ankles and back to school and the never ending list of to-do's that all too often never get done. And that my friends is how we do October.

Pre-voice losing

And for those of you thinking....uh Mandi...it's January 14...I know. But in good Mandi fashion, if it's not late, then it's not me. :) So with that, I will continue to catch up on November and December later, but for now...Peace out. Enjoy this cold day doing something warm and fuzzy or if nothing else wearing something warm and fuzzy!