my favorite things

i have a few items i've been either using for years

or just recently found, that i feel the need to share.

you guys, they are

l i f e   c h a n g i n g.

first, i have to let you know about a brush.

i know you're thinking i'm crazy but

we have labled this "the magic brush" in 

our house because that's how i feel about it.

please, if you have long hair or little kids that

hate having their hair brushed out please do yourself

a favor and immediately go buy yourself a

goody's ouchless brush.

it's the best thing that's happened to me in the last 6 months.

there are two items to my make-up bag i've

added in the last year, that i also love.

first, is the NYX wonder stick.

if you're a reader of the daybook, then

you might already know about this.

i heard about it through her and decided to give it a try.

i really like that it lets me try contouring in

the most basic and easy way.

draw your lines, blend and you're done.

i buy the "universal" color but they also have

light, medium and dark as options.

and the second is an eyebrow pencil.

i'm probably the last person on earth who

still chose to ignore their eyebrows. 

i never get them waxed, i semi-regularly pluck them,

but nothing fancy.

i decided to try to actually care for them and 

even, gasp, buy an eyebrow pencil.

since i'm new to this, you might have better suggestions for me

but right now i'm digging the 

l'oreal definer brow liner.

i get the dark brunette color.

i'm telling you - filling your brows changes your whole look.

it's like mascara to me now and i

don't leave home without it.

in the summer the girls and i are running

in and out all the time so i like to find easy

shoes that we can take on and off really quickly.

and i like them to be where the girls can put them on themselves.

for the girls, my go-to is always old navy jelly sandals.

they're on sale right now. go get a pair.

for me, i just bought myself some birkenstocks.

can you believe they're back in style?

only took 15 years.

but they really are comfortable and 

i can throw them on in 2 seconds.

another thing that has made my life so easy

are ready-made salad bags.

i know i've written about these before, but

i always have one in my fridge.

they're so good and you can have a 

"veggie" ready in less than 5 minutes.

and last, but not least are kitchen scissors.

this might have been the thing that changed my life the most.

do you have a pair with your knife set?

are they just sitting there getting old and dirty?

if you have kids, bust them out and USE THEM.

every food your kid eats normally has to be cut up and

hello, scissors make the job so much faster and easier.

pizza, waffles, hamburgers, sasuage, hot dogs, grapes.

i literally have two pair because if one is dirty, i

feel lost without it.

for all those moms with toddlers, meet your new best friend-

kitchen scissors.

who knew.

i hope you found something useful in this list.

and if you have any suggestions for me,

send them my way.

i'm always looking for the next great thing to

make life a little bit easier.

the last two weeks

i never got around to my weekly recap.

probably because i spend most of my time

thinking about how much i need to get done in the

next two weeks before my full-time gig starts.

blah.

but we've actually had a fun few weeks over here.

1- garth brooks concert.

2- campering down in bennett springs.

3- brette's field trip to deanna rose.

4- finishing the mud bench! (finally)

5- mother's day at my grandma's farm.

6- starting on outdoor house projects.

here's a little run down...

1- garth was amazing. 

literally the best. concert. ever.

i went with my besties, just like we did 10 years ago.

we might have drank too much, but

i'm pretty sure that's whats supposed to happen when

a group of 30-something moms go out for the night.

(raise the roof)

and 10 years ago...

2- we plan a little weekend trip down to bennett a few months

ago with the turnbow's.

we used to do a lot more with them when they lived in lee's summit,

so it was nice to spend a few days together with our girls.

bennett was really pretty and i'd love to go back next year,

but maybe stay inside the park next time.

brette loved going fishing and reid basically tried to play

in the river the whole time, but still... good times.

3- brette had her end of the year field trip to deanna rose.

i didn't get to go this time because it fell on a friday.

i was a little sad to miss it, but brette came home really

excited about getting to ride the bus.

i really think the school could just rent a bus, take her 

for a spin and she'd think it was the best day ever.
summer session starts on june 2nd and that's
when both girls will be going together.
i can't believe i'm going to be taking a "first day of preschool"
picture of reid in a few weeks. 

4- ronnie finished the mud bench.

i know.

i can't believe it either.

i think he was shooting for mother's day. (eye roll)

but it was still missing hooks until just a few days ago.

i haven't "styled" it yet, but it's definitely already being used.
(and by styled, i mean, add bins to the top shelf.  but let's be honest,
it's mostly going to consist of pink bags and coats.)

i really love it and i think it will make grabbing everything i need 

 to get out the door a lot easier in the mornings.

ronnie's just glad to get it over with.

remember before? ew.

5- obviously it was mother's day last sunday and we managed

to swing by my grandma's on our way home from bennett.

i didn't think we'd make it, but we left town earlier than i thought.

we've been doing this the last few years and i really love that i can

be with my kids, my mom and she can be with her mom all 

at the same time.

i'm pretty sure it's the perfect mother's day recipe.

6- and finally, since our mud bench is DONE,

we can now focus some of our free time on the outside.

last week i painted our adirondack chairs, so we

could actually use them and not be embarrassed.

we've had them for a long time and we've only

painted them once.

they were looking really grungy.

my next project is to stain our railing and deck.

it desperately needs some loving.

our deck looks gross. 

we haven't treated it since we've lived here and i don't

think it has been done in awhile.

it's going to suck, but it's at the top of my list.
i'll get some before and after pictures when its all done.

we also had another tree fall down this week from

a big storm that blew through.

we've started cutting it up, but its a long way from finished.

we had originally planned to take a weekend and do a
bunch of these projects all at once.

like staining and white wash our brick, but now
that i don't have as much

time with the girls, i don't know if i still want to send them 

to mimi and papa's for the weekend.

that might get postponed again. 

ronnie wanted to cut down a few more trees too, but

i don't really know what his plans are for how and when

that's all getting done.

we have a busy summer coming up with lots of little

weekend trips away, so i know we won't get as much 

done as we think we can.

somehow the time slips away and our list keeps growing.

i'm sure everyone is gearing up for summer and 

getting ready for lots of outdoor time.

now we just need a little bit warmer weather...

oh and one last picture.

i forgot to mention, i had my brother's girls for 

the day last weekend and that's always a good time. 

exciting devastating news

i accepted a job on tuesday night

doing marketing for a local builder.

a full-time.

5 days a week.

40 hours. 

J O B.

i'm really excited to be moving towards

a career in my field.

after leaving my job at umkc back in 2012,

i definitely didn't think it would take me this long

to get back to it.

marketing and public relations is where 

i've always seen myself ending up, but since i 

was "out of the game" for so long, i did have some 

concerns that it would be hard to find someone willing 

to give me a chance to do it again. 

i left umkc because i was super unhappy with

my manager and totally fed up with 

the way things were going.

i somehow managed to convince ronnie that

i should quit and take a job at a little bank in town.

then i got pregnant with brette and quit again to be 

a stay-at-home mom. (best year ever).

i was lucky enough that my friend/boss at the bank

offered me a part time job when brette was one year old.

i started working monday and fridays.

it was the perfect amount of time at home and

then a break to be with other adults.

i would have been happy do that for years.

but ronnie always wanted me to go back.

cue reid.

there didn't seem to be any point trying to find something full-time

since i was starting over with a new little baby.

 so i kept my amazing schedule.

ronnie and i both decided that the best time for me to go back  

would be the summer of 2018.

brette would be enrolling in kindergarten and reid would be

starting preschool. perfect, right?

but life happens - - this job came up and it seemed like

such a good fit for me.

marketing?

in lee's summit?

flexible schedule?

it's just a year earlier than i had hoped. 

i was afraid if i didn't apply then i'd miss out on

something that wouldn't be available next year.

i REALLY wanted to work close to home.

i thought, what's that harm in applying?

i don't have to take it.

and they probably won't even offer it to me.

but then they did.

so as of yesterday, i enrolled both my babies in preschool FULL-TIME.

and then i cried. 

i will always be so grateful for the years i had at home with my girls. 

i'm literally so sad to give it up. 

i'm trying to focus on how lucky i was that i got as much time as i did

AND how lucky i am to find a job that is just what i wanted.

but still, i'm a little sad.

a little bit heartbroken and

completely scared for june.

pray for my little ones.

they have big changes heading their way.

adventures in potty training

we've been doing a little thing called 

potty training around here and i have

not changed my mind since doing this with brette.

it is still the worst thing ever.

i really hate it.

like, really hate it.

but it IS worth it, so

i continue to be a believer that at the age of 21 months

you can do the 3 day potty training miracle plan.

we decided not to go down to the lake 

last weekend because all its been doing

in missouri lately is raining.

it really ruined our weekend.

so instead we stayed home and potty trained reid.

ew.

ronnie was basically in charge of keeping brette 

occupied and out of the house so i could focus

on running reid to the bathroom and mopping my floors.

i have to say, i think ronnie had a nice weekend.

he took brette and went with a friend shopping, 

then out to lunch.  

he came home in time to take a nap and eat dinner.

meanwhile, my youngest child is giving me a run for my money.

saturday actually wasn't too awful.

i set the timer for every 15-30 minutes and made her try to go potty.

we had probably a half a dozen accidents.

sunday though.

sunday was a nightmare.

she literally had accident after accident after accident.

i pretty much thought she was never going to get this and 

decided i would give it one more day and if she hadn't 

caught on by day 3, then i would scratch my plan and

try again in august.

the third day was a monday, so my parents had her and

they said she did great.

only one accident the whole day.
say whaaaa?

so i kept with it.

since then, day 4, 5, and 6, she has also had only one accident a day.

we have yet to have a completely successful day, but

she is doing a lot better.

most of her "accidents" are the number 2 kind.

i cannot get her to go poop in the toilet.

she'll tell me and i'll rush her to the toilet, but 

then she won't do anything.

she's not very patient so she won't just sit there and wait it out.

instead, she demands to get off the pot and then 5 minutes later,

she has a mess in her pants.

it's so disgusting.
you try to slowly remove shitty underwear from a one year old
that won't stay still.
it. gets. everywhere.

but on the positive side,

she did run errands with me and we never had a problem.
(thank god, because carset clean-up is also on the top of
my list as one of the worst things that can happen while potty training.)

ronnie also took her out to dinner and 

she made it through completely dry.

tomorrow is friday so she goes to her sitter and i'm packing

pull-ups, which i totally don't believe in using, but i don't 

want her sitter to have to clean up any messes and i'm 

not 100% confident in her skills yet.

so three days and totally trained???
eh, kind of.
but we'll get there.

ps- for anyone wanting to try this, 

i put a diaper on her at nap and she's never been wet,

so i think i could cut this out.

i also put a diaper on her at bedtime and she always wakes up wet,

so just like brette, i'm pretty sure her nighttime diaper

isn't going away anytime soon.

want a little comparison shot of my girls?!
little wedgies, lol!

brette

reid