Two little monkeys.

I have a confession to make....

I let Gracie jump on her bed.

I even let Gracie's little friends jump on her bed too. Subsequently, anytime Harrison, Brady or Ava comes over this is the first thing they ask to do. Today we watched Brady our neighbor and

guess what they wanted to do. How can I say no? They love it, see...

They are best buds.

I am going to show this picture at their wedding.....

The last 4 years

Yesterday, my cousin Jen posted her last decade and all the important things she did throughout the decade as her facebook status. She asked what anyone else did during the decade so I started to reply. It didn't take me long to realize that I accomplished a TON in the past 4 years. I remember telling people that I turned 21, got engaged, got married, graduated college, got a full time job and had my first child all in the same year.



After that year, everything else seems pretty easy and slow moving. Since then I bought a house and had my second child, but nothing will ever compare to the year when I was 21. Not to mention I could finally drink alcohol!



I know it seems like a lot (and I am sure it was) but when you take it one day at a time, it didn't seem to overwhelming. It all seemed like the right things to do and that it was all suppose to happen. I definitely couldn't have done it with out all the love and support I had from my friends and family. Doing all of those things that young and that fast doesn't just affect you, it affects everyone around you.

People thought we were crazy, but I think it definitely worked out in the end. I couldn't picture my life any other way. I wouldn't WANT my life to be any other way. I have a beautiful family, healthy kids, a house and a job, what else could I ask for?



So thanks to everyone that helped me through the past 4 years of my life and I am excited to enjoy the next decade with everyone! Let's make it the most memorable decade yet!

Champion

We did it we survived our first Christmas as a family of four!

While it was so fun to watch Gracie open way to many gifts and Noey eat the paper it was very stress full for me. I was constantly talking my self down from a panic attack saying, "its OK Joanna no kid ever died from not going to bed on time or eating just sugar for dinner."

You see I run this house on a very strict schedule. People make fun of me all the time but it works for us and if a schedule got your kids to sleep 12hrs every night wouldn't you follow it too? Anyway, during these last few days their has been no schedule. it makes cringe just typing that!!! So as much as I enjoyed having Corey home from work spending time with family and over eating, I am positively giddy to be back to our routine today. I think Gracie is glad too she just told me she wanted to stay home today and eat chicken nuggets. SO that is what we will be doing today watching the Disney channel and eating chicken nuggets. Sounds like a perfect Monday to me...

Thankful

This was going to be a post about how much I detest wrapping gifts. Since it is the week of Christmas their is a ton of wrapping to be had. However, as I was taking pictures of the piles of gifts I started to think....Man I am so blessed that I have all these things to give! Then I started to think of all the things I am thankful for this year. Here are a few things that I would like to thank little 8lb baby Jesus for.....

• My Husband, Corey.
• My Gracie
• My Noah
• My parents and brothers and sister
• My in-laws
• That my Grandma and Grandpa are here to celebrate with us, and that we get to spend as much time as we do with them
• Andrea
• My great house (not to mention cool neighbors)
• That Corey and I both have jobs

This list could go on and on and on but you get the idea I have got it pretty good.

Merry Christmas!!!

Mr. Mom

Some Saturday's Joanna goes to work as a hairdresser at Lasting Image Salon. It has been off and on since she graduated. She started in 2006 and then got pregnant with Grace and became very sick, so she stopped shortly after graduating. Then she tried starting back up a few months after Grace was born. She mainly does friends and family. She doesn't do much promoting and is fine with the clients she has (I always give her a hard time about this, even though I don't mean it). When she started back up working, she was only working one day a week on Saturday's. So this day became my one day alone with Grace. As a first time Dad, it was a little scary. I think most dads can understand me when I say this. It isn't that I didn't love spending time with Grace, it was the fact that all the other times, I could have fun with her and then when she cried or needed to eat, I could give her back to Joanna.

Well this is what led me to my blog post. As you already know, we now have two kids. And yes, Joanna is back working again. Although it has seemed to slow down a little, some Saturday's are packed with people. Obviously since the Holidays are here, everyone needed something done this past Saturday. So this left me home alone now with TWO kids! I have been home alone before with them both, but it is usually for only 2 or 3 hours. Joanna was gone for 6 hours yesterday! Having nothing planned and the weather as cold as it was, we were pretty much stranded. I think I did a great job entertaining them, feeding them, playing with them and keeping the house in order. But I definitely got a look into what Joanna goes through (and all stay at home moms or single parents) on a day to day basis. Even though I had a blast and it was nothing like my work, it still was a tough job.

Out of the three of us, I think it was hardest on Noah though. He hasn't been away from his mom for that long ever (no exaggeration). When Joanna came back after being gone for those 6 hours, he couldn't help himself but smile and laugh. It obviously made him so excited to see her again, but I think it made Joanna even happier to be home.

Luckily she doesn't have to do that everyday or even once a week. I think we are both glad we have each other and very thankful that we have the two best kids.

MY life in sweats

Hey its me, Joanna!

I guess I will tell the story behind the title of the blog, since my co-blogger told his. It really isn't that interesting or funny like Corey's,but here goes...

Basically I rarely wear anything but sweatpants. In fact I am wearing my faves right now. If you are a mom you will understand that is is pointless to wear anything that has any value when you have young children. For the simple fact that, by the end of the day you are covered in snot, spit up, droll etc.... One day when my kids are in school(makes me sad just to type that) and I sleep through the night and get to drink my coffee in the morning, I will maybe put on jeans or heaven forbid a DRESS! As for right now, $5.00 sweats from the Gap Outlet is about as fancy as it gets.

Speaking of my kids, this is my daughter Gracie

or shall i say "Sportacus."

Gracie is really into this show on Nickjr called Lazy Town. The star of the show is Sportacus and Gracie thinks he is the coolest thing since sliced bread. So she has subsequently changed her name until further notice to Sportacus. Every time I say, "hey Gracie...." she replies I said my name is SPORTACUS!! Oh well I guess it could be worse she could have changed her name to Hannah Montana. That would have been fitting though since she does do a mean rendition of Party in the USA!!

MY life in sweatpants

"MY life in sweatpants" this is what I wanted the blog to be called, since I never say sweats. We found this name to be fitting for both of us, but I will give the credit to my wife for coming up with the name. I will leave it up to her to tell you why it is so fitting for herself, but I wanted to say why I thought it was a perfect name for me.

If you know me AT ALL, well I should say, if you KNEW me at all, you would know that I love(d) wearing sweatpants. I wore them anywhere and anytime. Believe me when I say anywhere. Joanna always gives me crap about this one time. I was in college and I was of course wearing sweatpants (Joanna will recall me saying that it was my "nicest sweatsuit"). A group of my friends were heading out to Metropolis, the club (which I do not enjoy), and I didn't think anything of it until we got there and someone decided to tell me that sweatpants were "frowned upon". I thought I looked better than most people with my matching puma pants and puma jacket and looked pretty harmless. Needless to say, they didn't let me in. I guess I wasn't fancy enough for them, or they thought I might start trouble, because I did notice them not letting people in with hats or big chains, you know, my type of people. It was their loss because they obviously didn't get my money and they didn't get to see me light up the dance floor.

That was my most memorable night with the sweatpants, I had never caused any trouble with them before so that will always stick out in my mind. That and the fact that Joanna will never let me forget it and tells anyone that hasn't heard the story yet.


(a picture with me in sweatpants, if you have any better ones, please share. I couldn't find any besides this one. Sheesh, look at that hair ... that is for another post some other day)

I also remember when I decided to stop wearing sweatpants out all the time and started wearing jeans. People were caught off guard and it took them a long time to get use to me not in sweatpants. I remember Nick Dunaway saying that I was one of the only ones that could pull off sweatpants and a collared shirt (Thanks Nick!).

I honestly believe if all my puma sweatpants didn't either get ink spilled on them, or holes in the knees, I would probably still be wearing them. Why not? They are amazingly comfortable and they look even better : D ... maybe I will bust some of them back out. I know I have at least one pair left.

But that is why when Joanna said the blog title, I said, "That's perfect!" I will be interested to hear why she thought of it for herself though ... I guess we shall see. Until next time.

Corey

Bing Bang Dingy Dingy Dong

Here we are again. It is a weeknight and it is time for Grace and I to hang out in the basement and whined down before going to bed. I decided to design Joanna a blog, but I thought it might be fun to have a family blog so both of us could write our thoughts and it wouldn’t be a one man job. I think that way people wouldn’t have to go to two different blogs and they could just read everything on our one site. We will see what Joanna thinks about that idea and about this design. If she doesn’t like it, I will just tweak it and make it my own. I have thought about doing a blog for awhile, but thought of making it a secret. I never have been great with words and tend to ramble, so I didn’t think it would be a good thing for a blog. So at least even if I didn’t tell anyone, I would still have all my thoughts down on paper to read in the future. I always loved going back through my grade school journals and seeing what I was thinking about. I think it will be cool to look back years from now to see what was going on in my mind during this crazy part of my life.

Well, hopefully Joanna likes the design and I will be able to blog more often.

I don’t really know how to end a blog since it is like talking to yourself, and I don’t really ever say bye to myself. Maybe I will come up with some silly tag line ... I know Joanna will find it dumb, but that’s normal for me :D ... Until next time.

Corey