i am a blessed woman.

warning: this post is much more sentimental than other posts. caution: if you read this, you might realize i'm slightly more substantial than my random, frivolous posts would imply. READER BE WARNED.


it's true. i am so very blessed. i have been absent from this space because i've actually been socializing with real people and doing real things. (not all the time. i've also wasted my fare share of time online, but been too soggy-brained to write.)

i am blessed to live really close to my arnold family. if i really, really needed them, i would have at least two brothers, a couple of sisters, and maybe even a strapping, handsome nephew at my side at a moments notice. i can literally look out my back door (like i am right now) and see my beloved oldest brother's (and godfather-a role we take VERY seriously in our family) house. inside it are some of those wonderful nephews and one of the loveliest sisters. they are the best neighbors i could ask for.

arnold can be a strange breed of people at times, but i really do have the best family in the world-for me.

i am blessed to be part of the woodburn family. so welcoming and fun loving. i feel so blessed when friends muse (or vent) about their in-laws. heck, sometimes i like tim's parents more than i like him. i don't like to call tim's mom my mother-in-law because that so often has an unpleasant association. so i call her tim's mom. (not to her face obviously.)

i am blessed to have a man who is a fantastic daddy. upstairs, wrangling max and building yegos with ben. the dialogue i am listening to has my heart a practically explodin'. (i'm just trying to not think about the fact that max has eight lego helmets in his mouth. fortunately he doesn't swallow, just packs and hoards.)(cancel that. they came down, and he only had one very small wooden bead in his mouth.)

i am blessed to have a man who knows that i need some quiet alone time, and makes me have it, even when i don't know-or won't admit, that i need it.

i am blessed to have two incredibly hard, intense, beautiful little boys. they bring me so much joy and fill me with such awe and wonder. i marvel at God's creation through them.

i am blessed to have good friends who share pretty much all my important beliefs. because i need that sense of understanding and agreement.

i'm also blessed to have just a couple, maybe even just one, who doesn't agree with me. and it makes me crazy. but i love him. and it's good for me. until he comes around, finds the truth, and oh what a world it will be then.

these blessings are so above and beyond...true gifts from the Creator.

but some of them have also been conscious decisions and have resulted from hard work. tim and i chose to raise our family close to our own families and in the Diocese of Wichita. we opened ourselves to His will and have been gifted our boys as a result. my ancestors and my parents worked VERY hard to give me this family and to preserve the Faith. and marriage...oh marriage. i know i can get an amen to how much work it is. and sometimes it is so not fun and romantic and not what our world tells us it should be. but when it is the sacred, the sacrament, what it is truly meant to be, it is so good.


so there it is. this is meant to balance all of my whining. and my whining about whining. don't say i didn't warn you. my time is up. and no pics, because i just can't find the time to upload, position, and write.

and the winner is....

monica. yes, monica, you are the official winner of my "i'm trying to buy your love" drawing. if you could send me your real live postal address and then check your mail in 6-8 weeks, you will find a surprise. to everyone else, hang in there. maybe someday you to can be as lucky as monica.

no pictures tonight. i'm tired and going to bed. i just tried to conquer the toy takeover that has become of our house, but i don't feel like i made much progress. ugh, tooo much STUFF. every time i get our house cleaned out, more STUFF seeps in to clutter my world. my fantasy these days is to live in a clutter free house for one whole magical day. (okay, if i'm fantasizing it would also involve a cook, a maid, quiet children....oh i better just stop thinking.) the crazy thing about the toy takeover is that we don't buy the boys toys.

okay so....

so i feel bad. i had no intention of leading all you (because sooo many people read this. but those that do are important.) dear readers on that something big and beautiful was going to happen around here. i'm not a tease. really, i'm not. i'm so not a tease that for every holiday, the day i buy tim's present and try to tease him about it, i usually give it to him. in the four years of our marriage and even when dating, i don't think we have EVER made it to the actual holiday without already giving the present. by december 15th, 2007 i had already received my christmas, anniversary, and birthday presents. this is probably indicative of many other things, but i state this to prove that i don't like to tease or be teased.

so when i first mentioned that i was going to do something different blog-wise, i really thought i was going to---like the next day. but it wasn't all dependant on me. it also involved another person. that was the idea-me and another person, who shall remain anonymous, were going to do a blog together. i was excited, they were excited, and i let that excitement get ahead of me. well, we did a test run, but their enthusiasm faded, or maybe the timing isn't right, so i don't think it's going to happen. i know this is a lengthy explanation and not really that big of a deal, but i thought i owed it to you....because i'm sure it was hard for you to continue on with life with so much suspense built up. to make it up to you, anyone who leaves a comment by next monday will be entered to win a prize. don't ask what it is. but you'll love it. and it will make you forgive me and return me to favorable status.

in other news and to explain my absence....meet sawesome. (as in awesome, with an "s".)

yep. we got a dog. i'm not really an animal person, but my guys are. i really like her though. she's a great dog and a very good fit for our family. i can honestly say she's already enriched our lives. she's also made me do things i swore i would never do, and in the first day of having her no less.

she likes to chew things. like the trees i had trimmed.

she's also peace loving, destroying these weapons in an effort to make our yard a safer place.

and oh does she like to dig. but apparently doesn't like for other people to dig, thus the need to destroy these sand box toys.

she's also gone through two leashes in one week. between her and max, it's a dangerous place around here.

i now have the all-american life. two kids. a dog. heck, we even have a bit of white fence by our front gate, although not picket. the rest is just gravy.

ready for my audition.

so, we may need to forget that i ever said anything about changing this blog. maybe. i know, i'm obnoxious.

in other news, this is how we've been entertaining ourselves lately. we tell ben repeatedly that he is only supposed to draw on paper. not on max, not on himself, not on the walls of our home, furniture, etc. and then we go and do this. our parenting style can be summed up as "mixed messages".

it was actually one of my sweetie nephews that helped me with this project. tim is innocent. i don't know if i even told him about this.

ben was patient. for the most part. he got tired of it after awhile and then we had to bribe him to finish the project. ahh, bribery. what would i do without you? it is AMAZING what can be accomplished with a few teddy grahams! ben calls them piggies. cute.

what a pose.

i love this little crazy.

that's about all i have to say.

important breaking news

i found SANTA!!!! or at least ben's playmobil wiseman that he calls santa. and in his defense, it was probably not him who misplaced it (she said sheepishly). i may have thrown it in a bag with a bunch of other random toys as i was cleaning up and then thrown said bag upstairs to be forgotten. i can only hope that you have the same luck finding farmer, monica. and oh erin, i hadn't even thought about puzzles. yikes!

right now i'm typing on our old beastie computer. tim takes the laptop to work and i decided to do some computing because.....the clouds parted and God's golden rays shone down upon me. which means, both of my boys are sleeping at the same time. yes, it's a beautiful and glorious thing. and i using this time wisely. no. moving on.

so typing on the computer, i feel like a 1990s era hacker. the sound the keys makes is so very odd and my fingers are a bit fatigued from the stiff keyboard. i'm very particular about the sound of typing. i love the sound laptop keys make. i guess i just like the sound of typing in general. there that's my confession for the day.

no pics today. beastie does not like pictures.

if i were a good mother i would brag that max has started pulling himself up on things, like us, by our ears. or share some recent ben insanity. but i won't. because this is about me gosh darn it.

in other news, this might be the end of practical strawberry. what, you say? gasp. a life cut so short. well, as i teased before i'm working on something else and i think it's just about ready. or maybe i'll just keeping dragging this out to see how much attention i can get. hmmmm.

just keep waiting. just keep waiting.

i goofed a bit and forgot to make a crucial step that would allow me to move forward with the aforementioned "bigger better blog" so i'll have to entertain you with some random blathering. but just to tease you a bit more, just think...my brilliant commentary, plus someone else as equally entertaining and neurotic...and it's not tim. at least not yet.



in the mean time, go to playmobil and enjoy the visual feast and childish lust that will surely ensue. there are about a million things there that i want. we have tim's firetruck from when he was a wee lad and a dear friend gave ben the nativity set for christmas. i'm so protective of the pieces that it's a bit ridiculous, but ben honestly can't be trusted with something so awesome. i'm still mourning one of the wisemen that ben calls santa and get very frustrated when he flippantly states, "we'll find him someday."



i was always a bit of a toy hoarder.

rolling. not newsworthy, or new for that matter. just cute.

since i've been gone...

okay, i'm back. please excuse my absence-i was really busy being lazy. i've been oh so tired lately because my dear boys don't value sleep in the same way that i do. and i knew that if i blogged, i would go to bed way later than i should.

so instead i wasted time do other things, like reading magazines. oh how i love magazines. working at my dad's office was a dream job in that i basically got to read magazines all day long. whatever came in the door, i read-national geographic, parents, time...even the occasional field and stream or ebony. oh how my teen heart fluttered when seventeen found it's way in. and since my dad thought most of them were trash, which they were, he would throw them away. and then i would have to rescue them from the trash, making sure they hadn't landed on anything to terrible. i still remember on one particularly slow afternoon learning how to properly call a turkey and breastfeed with ease. and boy did that knowledge come in handy.

(that was quite the digression i just took you poor fools along on. )

the other reason i have been absent is because i've been scheming an even bigger, better blog. how is this possible? well, you'll just have to wait and see. you're dying from the suspense aren't you.

oh how i love this power. and the picture at top has nothing to do with anything, so don't try to figure it out.