When it was me

Okay, so some might consider this my "selfish" post. Keep in mind that I'm not trying to be self-centered here, but the other day, I got to thinking about how odd it is (and yet NOT odd really) that almost ALL my blog posts are about my kids, and NOT about anything else. Then I got to thinking about how strange and wonderful it is, that when you have kids, they really become your entire life. And any dreams and aspirations you had as a singleton, or a young married woman, do in fact, get put on hold. And rightly so! But, I've decided to try and make more of an effort to post a few more personal entries, which tell my few readers more about ME. (The photo is of me on my honeymoon in Deadwood, SD. ... when it was still just me in my life...me and a brand new hubby!)
So without further adu: Here are some things you may or may not want to know about Katrina!
My favortie color: Pink
Favorite faraway place I've visited: Rome. I'm super excited for the upcoming trip my hubby and I are taking for our 5th anniversary -- we'll get to see it again!
Favorite author/poet: Carl Sandburg -- Chicago Poems
Biggest pet peaves: 1) When you're the only one in a huge bathroom with a million stalls and someone comes in and goes into the stall right next to yours. 2) When people have their windshield wipers on and it's not raining, and they start to make that aggrevating, high-pitch squeaking noise on the glass. ARGGHH!! :)
Favorite band/song lyrics: I love Dave Matthews, and they haven't let me down yet. One of my favorite lyrics by Dave? "The first time I kissed you I lost my legs..." (Old Dirt Hill (song)-- Stand up (CD))
Favorite way to exercise: Lately it's pilates/yoga. I look pretty hilarious trying to balance in precarious positions such as "downward facing dog" and "plank." But hey, I do it when no one else is home, so nobody can laugh as I stumble gracelessly through the air while in "warrior" pose!
How I got my name: My mother came up with it in a dream.
Actor/Actress who stars in most of the movies I own: Marilyn Monroe, followed closely by Mel Gibson and Tom Hanks.
Favorite food: Crab legs. KING crab legs! I love it when my honey makes me a ginormous pot of crab legs ... with hot drawn butter for dipping. HEAAAAVEN!!
Person I'd be happy to become: My grandma. She had a wonderful love of God, family, and all the wonderful, fine things that grow out of the ground! :)
Person I'd most like to trip while they were running: Regis Philbin. I don't know why.
What I would have been, if I hadn't been a journalist: Anthropologist.

Well that's just a little bit of useless Katrina trivia. Hey, if you respond to this email with a comment, feel free to fill in your own answers to some of these questions too! I often wonder how my friends and family would respond to these kinds of "quizzes."

Over the rainbow

We had a gorgeous rainbow tonight. I called from work to tell my boys to look out the window, and Nathan said Gabriel was so excited and happy to see it. He gave a little gasp of surprise and said "Ooohh! A rainbow!" Very sweet. I wonder if we all secretely think these words when we see rainbows -- the little kid in all of us marveling at the sky. For me, it was a nice reminder of the "finer" things in life. And I had a nice little moment while looking out the window -- remembering a specific time in my childhood when a friend and I went looking for the end of a rainbow, to find the promised pot of gold. We never did find it of course, but it must've been a fun adventure anyhow, for me to have remembered it so many years later. It just goes to show that the journey is often just as important as the destination!

Finding Asher's Giggle Button

Click on this audio post and you'll be amazed at the belly laughs coming out of Asher! (don't be alarmed by the sort of "screaching" noise he uses to start out his laughter ... he does that all the time!!) I found his "Giggle Button" today. Apparently, he is helpless when you tickle his chubby thighs -- erupting in helpless gales of laughter and grins. What a great time we had today, laughing and playing! On a separate note, I was in the middle of making dinner tonight, when Asher got fussy. So Gabriel is happy to announce that he fed Asher most of his Gerber Apple/Banana dessert while mama kept one eye on him, and the other eye on a pot full of parbroiling brats'n beer. Gabe was so proud of himself! Everyday it seems, he takes his role of big brother more and more to heart!

Swimming boys

Here are some photos of my boys swimming in Gabe's new paddle pool in our backyard yesterday morning. Nate had just finished mowing the lawn, and surprised Gabriel by jumping into the pool with him! They had some fun splashing each other and pouring buckets of water on each other as they slid down the inflatable slide. Asher and I watched from afar, and took pictures! What a fun afternoon!

All that Yucky Love stuff...

So I had a much-needed chat with one of my gal-pal coworkers yesterday, all about the merits of what we leave behind when we go off to work everyday. Lately, I've been having a tough time with this, as I'm sure, do many women across America who decide to take it upon themselves to be a wife, mother AND full-time worker. We can do it all, gosh darn it! Or at least, it certainly feels that way. But for me, lately, the stress of what I'm leaving behind everyday, has started to grind me down. Luckily, I get to be with my sons all day long. Buy my husband is a different story, and we've been "two ships passing in the night" so to speak, for quite awhile now. I work nights, and he works days. We see eachother for about 30 minutes at the "changing of the guard" when he comes home from work to take care of the boys and I dash madly to the car with my briefcase in one hand and my coffee in the other. "Hi honey! Bye honey! See ya tomorrow!" For us, that is sadly, quite often the case, as he is soundly asleep when I get home, and the day is over with us having spent all of 20 minutes or so together. To put it mildly, it stinks. We both think so, but there's not much that can be done about it at this point.
These are some of my favorite pictures of us. The black and white photo was taken one evening last summer, when we were camping at the base of Devil's Tower in Wyoming. The sunset photo was taken while we were still dating, on a trip to Door County/Cana Island in winter. We had just broken through the foliage of the island and this spectacular sight was what met our eyes. Nate rolled up a snowball, put his camera on top of it and ... walllah! One of our first, most romantic spots of memory was ours on film forever!
So to all the women in my life, friends and family alike, go home and kiss your husbands when you see them. Because not everyone is so lucky to spend time together everyday, and you never know when hectic, crazy schedules may change on a dime! Appreciate one another, as well as the simple joys in life, like sharing dinner around the table at night. Those are the things that some of us miss mightily!

Bathtubs and hanging out

Well, as you can see from the photo, Gabriel and Ash had their first bath together yesterday! It was one of those nights where my husband and I decided at the last minute to go out to dinner somewhere nice, so I had 30 minutes to get both boys washed, dressed and "shoed" (the most painstaking part of the process due to the fact that Gabriel takes 8 years to find his various footwear and then decide which pair to wear, and THEN put them on himself!!) oh, and I had to get myself ready as well. So both boys got a bath together. Asher wasn't too happy about it, as you can see from his face. I made the mistake of turning the water on while he was in the tub and he FLIPPED out! He's ususally such a happy baby that this was quite an impressive show of anger and just plain ticked-off frowns and yells! Wow! Meanwhile, Gabe had a fun time showing Asher all of his tub toys and introducing him to the joys to be found in splashing mom and the rest of the bathroom, while getting clean!
The other photos show my boys hanging out yesterday. It was a long day, with just the three of us, as my husband was shooting a wedding. (FYI: He's a photographer, not a big game hunter...) Gabe sat with me on our swing in the backyard, and Asher crashed out on the couch surrounded by pillows, in the unlikely event that he decided to roll. I love his position here .... he looks as though he's quite had enough. Check out the hair! It was all sweaty, because he actually fell asleep on top of me first, while I was relaxing on the couch, and got all warm ... and then his hair started sticking up in the front like some sort of crazy flock of seagulls doo from the 80s. Very fun.

Last day of School

Today is Gabe's last day of school in the 3K program at Trinity Lutheran here in town. I can NOT believe that an entire school year has already gone by since that first day when we drove him to class and I cried all the way out of the school building. My little man is just growing like a weed! What a big boy he is now! Next year it's 4K and in the blink of an eye, he'll be graduating college. Wow. How the time does fly! We took this photo a few hours ago, as Nathan was getting ready to take Gabriel to school.

Photo Shoot attempts

So I decided to do a photo shoot of my boys yesterday afternoon, and I quickly discovered why I am NOT the photographer in our family! I don't have the patience OR the talent for it!! So without further adu, here are some photos from my clumsy attempt at pretending to be Annie Leibovitz for a day. I think I'll leave it to Nathan from now on!

Serenade

Gabriel made my day yesterday when he told me to sit on the porch swing in our backyard. He then proceeded to serenade me by singing James Blunt's "You're Beautiful" at the top of his lungs, with his head flung back and his little voice warbling and shaking as he belted out "You're beautiful! You're beautiful! You're beautiful, it's true! I saw your face, in a -------(missing words here due to the fact that he's not really sure what the words are, even though it's supposed to be "crowded place") and I don't know what to do! Cause I'll never be with you!"
But you don't need me to tell you how it sounded. Check out this audio post!! Gabriel was kind enough to perform his tune once again today, for the benefit of "audioblogger" so you could all enjoy it!

Photos of the boys

Here are some pictures I took of the boys yesterday morning! I had great fun styling Asher's hair into a spiked, cupie-doll sort of thing -- he seemed to enjoy it too! Meanwhile, Gabe was taking it easy sitting with Roxy and watching Bob the Builder after school got out.