It was bound to happen eventually....

Sydney had her first fender bender. Unfortunately (or fortunately from an insurance perspective) the car she hit was mine. She was pulling in to the spot next to me and scraped along the side of my car. The damage looks fairly minimal, but we haven't taken it in yet to be sure.

I forget sometimes how much she has going on this year.  She's working and swimming and still getting straight A's. The night in question, she was leaving the district swim meet to rush to her choir concert. She was trying to get there on time because she had a solo and wanted time to warm up. She also was taking the PSAT the next morning. No pressure, right?

I think we handled it okay. We still try to impart the importance of driving safely, but we've all made silly mistakes behind the wheel. Our saving grace is that we have more experience and can often times recover before it's too late.

I'm pretty confident she will be a lot more careful from now on. She was pretty darn freaked out!

Unfortunately, while this was her first accident, it may not be her last. Hopefully if it does happen again, it will be equally as minor. 

For now, she's just having to deal with a whole lot of teasing...and a lot of parking practice!

Humble Pie

Last week, I posted the following image on Facebook:

And then, a few days later I read about the gorilla that had to be put down because a young boy fell into the zoo enclosure.

We were driving to visit Marks parents and we had quite a discussion on the irresponsible parents who would let that happen to their child.

I am embarrassed to admit that it took me over 24 hours to realize what an a-hole I am.

I read one comment that by 4 a child should have been taught about rules and that they are more than capable of following those rules. Truth.

HOWEVER...

4 year olds are not known for their excellent decision making skills. They are also known rule breakers. They are fast, and wily and completely predictable in the the sense that they are TOTALLY unpredictable.

If you have kids, think back...have you ever turned your back for 2 LITERAL seconds, only to turn back around and have your child nowhere in sight? 

Peyton fell off a picnic table bench when she was 15 months. It was probably 2 feet off the ground. I was sitting right there. She didn't cry, nor act like anything was wrong. Her arm was broken.

Another instance...Sydney was probably 3. The girls were up at zero dark thirty, Mark was out of town. I went into the restroom and I heard "Three little monkeys jumping on the ---" and then a thump and a short cry. And then, the silence...which if you are a parent, you KNOW is that 2 seconds before the real cry. I didn't even have time to say "No jumping on the bed!" before she crashed. ER visit, nursemaids elbow.

Or the time Peyton was riding her new bike...in a parking lot with the only vehicle being Mark's parked pickup. She went right for it. The only obstacle in the entire parking lot and she hit it before we could stop her.

Those are but a few of the many times that my kids got hurt with me right there. We won't even talk about the times that I wasn't.

Things can happen in the time it takes you to look at a text, tie your shoe, tend to a sibling, get your camera to take a photo of your amazing kid. 

None of us can say for sure that this, or something equally as awful couldn't have happened to us. Accidents happen. Most parents are doing the best they can.

This situation is terrible for everyone involved. Do we really have to make it worse by pretending that we are above such an occurrence?

I did that. And I'm sorry.

Impulsive? Depends on who you ask...

Am I impulsive?

Nah, I'm just a good, quick decision maker. Really. You should totally ask my husband. Lololol.

If my children have any impulsivity control, I'm afraid I know exactly which parent that comes from.

We have very different decision making styles at our house. Mark thinks about things from all angles. Me? Noooot exactly my jam. This was first very evident to Mark about 5 months after we got married. I decided it was time for us to have a baby. Guess who celebrated their 6 month anniversary expecting a little bundle of joy? Good thing we were serious!

Mark often laments that hopefully I don't view husbands like I view vehicles. First sign of trouble, I decide we should start "thinking about" looking for a new car. I always swear I won't come home with something new. I do mean it when I say it. Really!

Thankfully, I DO NOT consider trading him in at the first sign of trouble. I mean even if I were to consider it, I wouldn't actually do it.

This brings me to the latest thing that I thought we should start "thinking about."

My new couch!

Special thanks to my sister-in-law Julie.  We have an agreement that husbands can be lent for furniture moving pretty much any time.  ;-)  Oh, and also, Chris and Tils should get some credit.  LOL

Our old couch came with us from our last house. It was super comfy, but not all that practical. It was light beige...almost off white. What were we thinking? It also doesn't have arm rests which makes it very difficult for some of our extended family members to get up.

I'm sure Mark knew as soon as I said I was thinking about it, we would have a new couch. I can't help it! I get obsessed with finding the right one. (Whatever the "one du jour" happens to be.) It haunts me...for real!  And that's not to say I'm anything but frugal. Which is probably part of the reason Mark rarely balks at anything. He knows I'm all about getting a good deal!

So, I started looking. And I really was just looking. But then I found what I wanted. It checked all the boxes. So, why not get it?? I'm sure Mark could offer some reasons, but I think he has a headache.

Me, as they were still unpacking and setting up the rest of the pieces.

Clearly, I am the poster child for delayed gratification.

Surprise! Surprise that we finally got something done, that is...

So Syd had a birthday...7 months ago. One of her gifts was a re-do of her room. Mark and I finally got around to the paint update this weekend. The girls were gone the whole weekend so we definitely walked on the wild side. Ha to the ha ha.

Here is the before picture:

As you can probably tell, Syd got to pick her room color when we moved to the new house. It really is as obnoxious as it looks. In fact, more than once, I've walked by thinking she left the light on when in fact, it's just the loud paint.

Sydney has had trouble sleeping for the last few years. It finally dawned on me that maybe her wall color had something to do with it? So, we researched the best wall color to help sleep. And we came up with blue.

Unfortunately, we had a little bit too much "BSU" coloring around the house for a couple hours. Thankfully, we survived the embarrassment...

Here are a few "action" shots:

Impressive, huh?

Macie was really curious what we were doing too.

Mark and I are not the cleanest painters...

This doesn't even show when I bumped the wall with my entire arm. Oops.

Here is a "final" picture. We are still trying to decide what she wants on the sign I'm going to make for above her bed.

It's difficult to tell the color from my awesome photography. But here is the swatch:

She was pretty surprised when she got home. I imagine that is mainly due to the fact that her parents are totally unreliable dolts. I also think that if she wasn't so completely exhausted, she would have been really excited. She did thank us several times. So, there is that. Parenting win? Probably...if we weren't closer to her next birthday than the last.

Lazy or Life Hack?

So, for the last few years, I've been much more of an online shopper than brick and mortar store shopper. Probably since I went back to work and my daytime hours became more limited.

Recently, I've taken it to a new low. I ordered products from Walgreens.com. I needed a certain shampoo for the girls that they don't carry in the store. When you order, if you spend $35 you get free shipping. So, I added things like deodorant, chapstick, and contact solution.

And I created a monster. I'm on my 3rd shipment. Part of me feels guilty for being lazy. But another part of me feels a bit liberated. Besides, it shows up in 2 days! Right to my office! And, I had to order the shampoo for the princesses online anyway.

We're going to go with life hack on this one.

Setting Goals

We recently had a goal-setting session at work. Historically, I'm not much of a goal-setter. I am a planner, but I don't think these are necessarily synonymous. I have definitely not EVER been a "5 year plan" type of person. This fact is super annoying  impressive to my husband. I'm sure you can imagine.

But, I wonder if we're doing the girls a disservice by not teaching them these skills. I thought parenting would get easier as they get older, but well, I was SO wrong!

It seems like time is slipping away so quickly, and there is so much we still need to teach them about being adults. And then, I realize that I'm a sucky adult sometimes. So, what the heck am I doing teaching them anything?

I wonder if I could suggest a class to the colleges "Adulting...all the things your parents should have taught you but didn't." My girls know the basics, how to do laundry, feed themselves, change a tire, etc. But what about things like doing taxes? Mark joked that they would actually have to be motivated enough to make some money before they have to worry about taxes. What about budgeting? Right now, we have a "family account" with each girl having a debit card. However, our great intentions of this teaching them about managing an account flew out the window. Basically, it is now me just putting money in there on an alarmingly frequent basis. So, high five, right?

But in all seriousness, there are a lot of things that we don't even know they don't know! How do you plan for that?

So, maybe I should become a goal-setter type of person. My first goal can be to figure out what the girls should know before they leave for college. My second can be to find someone to teach them these things that they will actually listen to.

Someone adultier than me.

I saw this on the internet and it seemed fitting...

Lessons Learned.

So, we know our 16 year-old is smart. What we don't always remember is that she is pretty wise too. We have had some pretty deep conversations with her recently.

One of the things that she mentioned is we've probably been putting a bit too much pressure on them lately. She said that when we compliment them we say things like "Wow, good job getting 9 out of 10 on that quiz, but what happened with the last question?" Or "Nice race Syd, but looks like you had some trouble with that turn." It's all about the "but".

Looking back on these conversations, I realize that what she is saying is true. I know neither Mark or I is trying to be critical. We just know they have huge potential and the "but" is our way of trying to see what we can do to help. That's how we see it. Obviously, they see it differently. And how they see it is what matters.

One of the other things that came up is what we expect from them. We try to be pretty "Free Range" in our parenting. (You can read more about that here.) But, we forget sometimes that they still need us to guide them. There seems to be a fine line between too little and too much. I'm not sure we will ever strike the right balance. But, we will keep trying.

For now, George-o (because I know you're reading this) just know that we heard you. We listened. And we will keep trying. Because we weren't lying when we said all we want is for you to try your hardest. And the best way to show you that is for us to do the same. Always.

XOXO

Why do they insist on dinner EVERY night?!?

It's no secret that I am not now, nor have I ever been known as a "foodie". I could eat a bowl of cereal at night and call it good. (And have on many occasions!) I don't really care that much about food. I'm not adventurous in what I eat. Although I am very thankful I can eat gluten again because no gluten = hell as far as I'm concerned. For real.

But, I have other people in my house. People who are growing into adults. Therefore, they need actual food. With a balance of protein, veggies, carbs...and whatever else makes a balanced diet. Clearly, cereal doesn't exactly fit the criteria.
 

With Sydney having swim practice every night, I knew we needed to come up with some way to feed her a good meal. Plus, we really try to have dinner as a family every night if possible. We have about 40 minutes from the time we pull in the driveway to get dinner on the table, eat, and be out the door to take her to practice.

Oh, and have I mentioned that I don't really like to cook? Yeah, I'm super awesome like that.

BUT!!!

I found a great solution that has been working really well for our family. It's this! And it's fantastic!

Photo courtesy of iamthatlady.com website.

You can read about it/find it here.

I will, however, give you my opinion anyway. You're welcome. :-)

The beauty of this plan for us is that you take something out of the freezer the night before, put it in the fridge overnight and then throw it in the crock-pot on low in the morning. When we get home from work...dinner! Seriously, it's that easy. 
 
I am usually very skeptical when it comes to things like this. For one, I wasn't sure what an ALDI was. But it's just a supermarket chain. Secondly, we have a few (3 out of 4, ahem.) people in our house that are picky.


I was concerned about the prep time to create the meals. But, they make it so simple! The download comes complete with a printable shopping list. Plus, it has a pantry list, detailed preparation instructions, a blank calendar and recipe cards for all the recipes. I loved that the recipe cards had cooking instructions PLUS suggestions on what to serve with each meal.
 
Since we don't have ALDI here, I went to our trusty Winco. Syd and I did all the shopping in about an hour. Our total came to $168.74. For 20 meals! That's less than $8.50 for a meal for 4 people. I'm sure with a little preparation and planning, I could get it to less than that, but I was pretty happy with our total.

Mark and I put the meals together in about an hour as well. Everything just goes in a freezer bag. Very little prep work, which is excellent from my point of view. It was actually a little bit fun to work together like that.


The preparation instructions were super easy to follow. Here is an example:

Photo courtesy of iamthatlady.com website.

I was also nervous that we would have things that we didn't love. Not the case at all! I was especially leery of the rib recipe, since I don't really actually like ribs, but even it was great. Go figure.


Go check out the website. Really, I don't think you will be disappointed.

I mean, if I'd rather eat this than cereal, you know it must be good!

Also, I must add, if you don't use these, you are crazy. Seriously.

As I was driving to work the other morning, I felt like the grown-uppest grown-up ever! If only there were a plan like this for the rest of the areas in my life.  Ha!

20 Slow Cooker Dump Recipes Aldi Meal Plan #8

A Leap of Faith

Last year, Mark and I took on the task of cooking for the High School youth group at our church. For those of you that know me well, you know that cooking for a group was actually a leap of faith of epic proportions! I don't like to cook, nor do I think I'm very good at it.

This year, I've taken an even bigger leap. And without my safety net (Mark). I decided to become one of the group leaders for the teens. So, instead of hiding behind the food table, I will be interacting with them on a much more personal level. It's still a small cog in the very big wheel, but so not the norm of what I tend to gravitate toward.

This means a lot of "out-of-my-comfort-zone" activities. Like speaking in front of a large group. And helping plan activities that won't bore the heck out of teens. And helping to lead small group discussions. And sharing personal experiences. And now, my palms are sweating...

I'm not sure what pushed me to take this on. I think partly it was the girls. They are both involved in the group. They actually want to hang out with me. Or it may just be that I'm crazy?

This quote kind of summed up my feelings:

The only difference between fear and excitement is your attitude. 

I'm going to go with excitement!

That's not to say that I'm not terrified! The feelings of self doubt creep in. What if I'm terrible? What if I have nothing of value to offer?

What if...?

If a tree falls in the forest, and there's no one there to hear it...

Or, if it falls in the canal and your husband isn't home to lumberjack it...

We have a huge, huge tree on our property. Sometime during one of the last storms, we lost a branch.  Not just a "branch", more like a small tree attached to the big tree. Of course it had to fall in the canal and block things up. That's just how we roll...

And naturally, I had to go take pictures. And, as usual, every time I take a picture, someone in my family has to ask "Are you going to put that on the blog?" Yes, always yes.

You can see our house in the bottom right of this shot...

 It's hard to get an idea of how big the branch actually is. I tried to get some perspective by using my hand, but how do YOU know I don't just have tiny hands?!? Plus, this was a piece from about mid-length of the branch. The part that was attached to the tree was even bigger.












So, since Mark was out of town, and we have no free time in the evenings...I made the executive (and unpopular with my husband) decision and called someone to come take care of it for us. So, that was expensive.





But! Here is the finished product...

It's just too bad that the street side of the tree is so bare. Poor guy! Kind of makes me think of someone wearing a hospital gown that opens in the back.

I'm also pretty sure Mark has forgiven me. Mostly...

'Fraidy cat...

I have this fear of snakes. I know it's irrational, I know none of the snakes on our property can harm me. I get it.

But this is me, rain or shine, any time I have to go to the back part of the property...

Yes, I'm wearing rubber boots with my skirt. Don't judge.

I've been spending some time contemplating projects for all of the wood I've been hoarding. I think I'm ready to get started on a few things. It's just that every time I think I want to work on something, I have to go back to snakeville!  

Thankfully, I generally have Syd around. She is more than willing to protect me from the snakes. She's definitely my favorite at those times. LOL.

Low maintenance? Or Giving up? You be the judge.

First off, let me just say that what I'm about to reveal is in NO WAY indicative of what the girls normally eat. It really is just to tide them over until after swim practice...

I came out of my room this morning to see them happily munching away on pop-tarts. And then, I realized they were uncooked (unheated?) pop-tarts. Because apparently, heating them up is way too much trouble?

I mean, we are trying to raise low maintenance kids...basically, the complete opposite of their mother. But, this may be taking it to a new low. Even for us.

Really, this is just a public service announcement to let you know that as bad as you think your parenting is, the Tverdys have got you beat. 

You're welcome.

Parenting is hard y'all.

I'm sitting here at 3 AM contemplating our parenting fail tonight. We sucked. Badly.

Everyone knows that having a baby, or a toddler is hard. You think it should get easier when your kids get bigger. And it does. But also, it doesn't. Certain aspects become even more difficult.

Usually, we have good cop/bad cop. Tonight we had bad cop/worse cop. Peyton made a mistake on her online class. It wasn't the end of the world. Her attitude is what got her in trouble. Did her bad attitude warrant the amount of yelling we did? Nope, not even close. But, that's what happened. Did the yelling make the situation at all better? Again, nope. But, that's what happened.

Us yelling at her only made the situation worse. As I sit here and think about what made us handle it the way we did, I think it comes down to insecurity. By her screwing up, we feel like we failed. And maybe we did. This is her first online class. We let her handle it herself. That was probably a mistake as we most likely didn't teach her the skills to navigate something like this.

It's tough to step back in the heat of the moment. Last night, we didn't do that. Hopefully next time, we can be better. Are we horrible parents? Probably not. Do we feel horrible? Yep. But that's not the end of the world either.

All we can do at this point is learn from our mistakes and try to do better. And remind ourselves that parenting isn't always easy but we have be the grown-ups and model the behavior we expect to see from our kids. Now that is hard...

Every day is Mother's day

Mother's day was pretty uneventful for us. Honestly, this is exactly how I like it. It's great to have a day to honor hard-working moms (so just moms really), but even if they don't realize it, my people show me how much I mean to them often.

When I'm sitting next to my 16 year-old at church and she leans her head on my shoulder. (In public!) When my 13 year old sits sooooo close to me when we are in a restaurant booth. (So close that it can be difficult to get my food in my mouth.) When my husband brings me coffee in bed every morning. (For real.)

 But, it's more than that. Our goal as parents is to put ourselves out of a job, right? So, even as they are asking me questions about certain things (laundry, chores, what to wear, etc.) they are getting to the point where they are actually listening to me. Not all the time. But, I can see it starting to transition.

They are pretty self-sufficient. They have good morals. They make relatively sound decisions. They are so, so much better than I could ever hope to be. And I had a part in that. We set the expectations. I helped give them the tools. But, let's be honest. They chose how to utilize those tools.

And that is my greatest accomplishment. And the best gift of all.

What we have here, is a failure to communicate.

Marriage is hard folks. For real.

Over our several years of being parenting/marriage experts (Just kidding), we have realized time and again that we do not communicate the same. Such a revelation, huh?

Case in point, we have these outbuildings on the property. They have lots of cool treasures inside, left by the previous owners. They also have super cool, weathered wood. And amazing corrugated metal. And rustic windows and doors.

They are coming down so Mark can build his shop. Our disagreement comes with what to do with all these items.

My take is:

Mark has a different opinion:

So, we are going to be mature adults and compromise. By keeping all the stuff. Clearly you can see who the adult is at our house. And who is better at compromising. 

Syd took these pictures from the house. They made me laugh because you can almost see the tension! Truthfully, this was after he agreed we could keep everything we hadn't already promised to our nephew. And poor Mark looks so resigned to his fate in the middle one. The third almost looks like we like each other. We do, I promise. And honestly, our property doesn't look as terrible as it does in these photos. The building in the photo looks much worse than it did before he tore down the front part. I will admit that we won't be winning any landscape awards with the state of things currently.


We've had many people over the years offer to help tear down our barn and the other buildings in exchange for the wood. Below is me on these occasions:

I'm SO mature. Whatever. I'm keeping my stuff...

I'm that mom...

You know, the one who cussed in front of the kids at youth group?  Yeah, that was me.

We were doing an exercise with them the other night.  We broke up into small groups and walked the mile and a half or so to the grocery store.  Each team had $20 to spend and were trying to get the most food/meals for the money.  All the items were then donated to the foodbank.

So, a positive experience, right?  Yay teens!  And then, right there in the aisle, I said a curse word.  Surprisingly, if you know me, it wasn't the Big Dog Daddy. 

It was in reference to buying ramen.  Seems legit, right?  I simply meant to say that it was worth throwing some in our basket since it was an inexpensive item and we had a little bit of money left over to get close to $20.  One of the kids had joked that ramen could be a "meal itself" and I replied "Maybe, but it sure is a crappy one."  Only I didn't say crappy.  Oops.

Peyton was in my group, so I know I didn't shock her...she's probably definitely heard worse from me.  And I know at least one other kid whose mom cusses like me.  Especially evident after she and I sat together at a baseball game.  So, he's probably not scarred for life. The other two might have been a little more shocked.  And thankfully, it was the High School kids and not the Jr. High.

Mark and I keep talking about how maybe we aren't cut out for being youth leaders.  I think he's just lumping himself in with me so he doesn't hurt my feelings. And it's always good to have something to work on to improve yourself, right?