as a mom...

As a mom I know all the words to the silly little songs they sing at library hour, and have them humming through my head all day long.

As a mom I have wiped way to many butts than I would care to, if I had a choice.

As a mom I have rocked my babies while covered in there throw-up and not cared, to much.

As a mom I have gotten down and dirty in pudding finger painting with my kids.

As a mom I have recieved an infinite amount of kisses and hugs.

As a mom I have become a healer with just a kiss.

As a mom I have become a referee in a never ending game of full contact football.

As a mom I have stood outside the bathroom door and prayed that Jesus would help my little guy poop, so we could finally make it over our potty training hurdle. and it worked.

As a mom I got to sleep in till almost 9 am this morning cuddled up to my two favorite little men.
I guess I would'nt trade my job for another right now... ..

we heart the beach (rain or shine)

I love the beach. I will never be able to live somewhere that is not within driving distance to the ocean. I spent a season in Denver and actually felt land locked. I remember driving out to some lakes with friends, but they were murky and the "beach" of the lakes were all filled with goose poop. I need live by very large bodies of water!

We rented a yurt in southbeach, it was so fun, even if we had a huge thunder and lightning storm. Even if my fun morning plans were ruined by down pours. Some how the rain just does not ruin my time at the beach. I was not exactly prepared for as much rain as we had, but we made it work!

Mo's is one of my fondest memories from growing up. Being from a big family, we didn't go on big trips, but we almost always spent a week a year at the beach. The big dinner out was always gallucias pizza in lincoln city, and Mo's chowder house. I remember getting a couple of big family style buckets of clam chowder, and we paired up in two's and shared a shrimp salad. It was always so much fun. I want my boys to have the same memories! Because of the rain, we ended up at mo's for lunch both days. I didn't mind at all.

I was really stoked to visit the Oregon Coast Aquarium, amazingly I don't think I have been to the one in Newport. It was fun, Ollie is obsessed with sharks and fish so the trip was mostly for him. He liked it, but was not as impressed with the "passages to the deep" exhibit as I thought he would be, I could have spent all day in the glass tunnels. Oh well.

So the rain changed our plans slightly. The rain did let up enough to allow us to have a campfire and roast dogs and mallows, play on the beach, enjoy the rolling sound of the ocean waves, collect shells, explore the rocks, and fly kites.

We are already planning our next trip for mid-October. There is a campground with yurts closer to P-town. So I think we will try that next.

Oh and Aunt Jo is back in P-town for the year...Yeah.....

freakin AT&T

my phone is not working!

don't they now as a stay-at-home mom, that is one of my only links to the outside world!

I guess a tower is out and has been out since 8 this morning... don't you think they could let us know this (maybe on there website, that I spent the whole morning looking for a freakin contact number, or send me an e-mail you send me enough spam). I had to load the kids into the car and lug them down to the AT&T store, because I thought it had something to do with recently upgrading my phone. There was group of people outside the store and more just kept driving up as we were leaving, a poor employee was standing outside telling everyone over, and over..."No it isn't your phone, a tower is down, sorry for the inconvenience." I packed the kids back up and went and got a coffee!

I recently ordered a new phone online, it was time for our upgrade and really, I am not much of a gadget person. All I need in a phone is that it calls people, allows me to text, and takes a pic every once and awhile to send to the grandmas. I don't NEED anything other than that.

So me being the miss-know-it-all that I am, made a quick decision and ordered up the first phone that looked okay and did the things I needed it too. It was a Nokia. I made fun of B as he has spent the last couple of days researching phones, looking at other peoples, and wanting to go into the store and look at them in person... Yes, I made fun of him, told him he was being ridiculous, it is just a phone.

Well I got mine in the mail and hate it! yes, Hate It! it is shiny black and uncomfortable to hold. so now who is the jackass, whining about her new stupid phone... yes that is me!

so now I have to eat my words, I could have gone in this morning and looked around and maybe exchanged it. But the large group of unhappy customers and my two little men running around sucked all my energy right out of me. Maybe tomorrow?

totally unrelated photo's.....

also unrelated to my AT&T saga, I am sitting at the computer watching ollie dig in the dirt in the backyard, seems his pants and undies were in the way. So now all I see is a little white, white, bare butt sticking up in the air... funny boys.

Major Accomplishments of a 3 year old...

It is an end of an era here in the Raetz house. Ollie is pretty much potty trained. I decided at the beginning of the week we were done with pull-ups. I put them away and only gave him the option of underwear. We had some good days, and some bad days. But, today as I was cooking away in the kitchen, Ollie went and pooped on the big potty all by himself, with no probing or help from me. He came running into the kitchen holding his undies and told me he pooped and needed m and m's (our potty training treat). We went to the potty to make sure he actually poo'ed, the major evidence had been flushed, but sure enough a little evidence was there, as was a very large pile of torn up toilet tissue.... Good Job little Man!!!! We than had to call daddy and all the grandma's to share the good news.... My little man is growing up, it is making me kind of sad.

interuppting the peace.

I cherise the time I get to spend at the gym. I especially cherish my yoga class. One whole hour to concentrate on nothing but my breath, reconnecting with my after-baby body, and seeing how far I can push it. I have always enjoyed yoga. Yesterday I dropped the kids off in the daycare like normal, and high tailed it to class. I got in the groove, my blood started boiling, oh how I love sun salutations. As we start into balance strength poses the daycare lady appears at the door... crap... I run out with my bag thinking it must be a poopy diaper. No max is crying... why? no-one knows. I get to the daycare area and max doesn't really seem upset... so I sit with him a minute, the nursery worker starts blowing bubbles and I make my exit. Get back to class and we start on inversion poses (which I don't really like, just because I am not very good at them, by the time I get my body all contorted and upside down, my cleavage is pushed up almost to my nose and I can't breath.... I am to round still for some of this stuff...heeh) right as we are working on the stupid head stand, whatever with your elbows on your knees, I see the girl again. COME ON... it is only an hour, can't they at least try to entertain him. I make my way to the nursery again, max is crying, pulling at his bracelet and asking to go to mommy's car. Well at that point there was only 15 minutes left of class.. So I went back to class just to grab my stuff, loaded up the boys and came home. I was SO cranky. The best part of yoga is laying on the floor at the end and just letting everything stop. your mind, your body, it is my favorite part... and I missed it, jerked out of my peace and back to the craziness of my life with 2 little men...

I guess it helps that they are cute, but still, come on... it is only an hour a day I ask for... I am just hoping this is not a trend, I will let you know how the gym goes today..

A little side note, you know the local bread daves killer bread .. I think Dave is in the yoga class I take... the dude looks like the drawing and a daves killer bread honda passport is always in the parking lot on yoga day... I might work up the nerve to ask him.... haaaa... it is kind of funny.

B's company picnic.... lame-o

So I am not in love with B's job, yes I should be thankful, it pays us enough for me to stay home, and for that I should be grateful. so I will shut-up about it! Okay back to the picnic, it was up at Mt. Hood "Adventure Park"... so lame.

it is really like a backwoods country amusement park. I was not impressed. We got there late (imagine that, my family late..ha) so we missed out on the BBQ... but the event was scheduled at 3:00 pm... hello, it takes an hour to get there and that is right at the end of naptime. Ollie is not one to be awokin from a nap early, he is almost impossible to deal with, so when he sleeps you let him wake up on his own...period.

so yeah, we were late. It was hot, the boys were to small to really enjoy any of the few rides they did have. Ollie and I took the chair lift up and slid down a cement alpine slide, that was okay, but pretty anti-climatic. I was looking at the brochure and it is $20 bucks a person for that place... LAME.

Anyway the best part of the day was stopping at Tollgate campground, and hitting the DQ on the way back. I camped at tollgate a long time ago and remember it being really pretty. So we stopped and checked it out with the boys. I think we will try to get up there for a night of camping before the summer is over.

This is B trying to give me a heart attack. He walked out on fallen tree trunks over the river, than took ollie out with him. This is not the swimming type of river, it is freezing and moves pretty fast, I kept seeing ollie and max being swept down stream. so B safely returned the boys to the rocks, not dangling out over the water... They thought dad was pretty cool though, and mom was a party pooper.. Well boys, your still alive, so I did my job well.

Garden Update..

My Garden is doing lovely! I planted way to much lettuce and forgot to plant the zucchini. But did plant butternut squash and eggplant so that is cool. I also planted beets I think, I planted them right next to the Kale and can't really tell what is the beets and what is just kale greens, oh well I will figure it out when the little tops of beets start sticking out. I was late planting my peas and green beans, but they will grow, we will just have them later this summer. My tomatoes are popping out little green balls all over the place, I can't wait till they start turning yellow and red, there is nothing better than tomatoes right off the vine. We also planted some broccoli late, the boys for some reason love to water that little planter the most, so our broccoli stays well watered, it is still growing though, so whatever. I try to have them help me allot in the garden, I think it is great for them! Yes, stressful at times for me, but the good out weighs the bad.

I love being able to go out in the back yard and pick out veggies for dinner, we love kale, so our little kale patch is a gem. I can't wait for the rest of the veggies to come in!