The Frumpness

 
Me as a 14 year old:
"I'm so never gonna be like those frumpy Mom's. Don't they know you can wear cute clothes for cheap?"

Me now:
"I'm a frumpy Mom."

Big News: I have found the source/sources of much frumpiness!

I used to think that frumpy-looking Mom's just didn't care enough about their looks, or clothes or something. Now I know better.
As most of you can attest, I always had a flare for style. Not necessarily trendy styles, but my own variety of styles. I LOVE TO SHOP!!! It was almost an addiction for me to buy clothes at a bargain. Then came the credit card debt, which I then vowed I would never do again. Now I am proud to say I have only 1 credit card to be used in emergencies.
But now I don't work, I'm a stay at home Mom with a husband that goes to school and works so that we can pay the bills. ***By the way, he is awesome! I love him!*** Not really much left over for clothes when everything seems to go to rent and groceries. We like to eat.
But wait, didn't I once say that I could buy cute clothes cheap? Oh yes, that is true. I sure could do that...but there are a couple things in my way. I am sure these are the causes of many a frumpy lady:
1. Yes, I could've gone to Plato's Closet (it's like an exchange store) and buy lots of cute stylish clothes, but not now. Once upon a time I was such a cute little size Medium (in juniors) that I could wear a lot and look good. Now I'm a Large in ladies (or maternity, currently) and since that is the average size for women there's not a lot on the rack because everyone has already bought the cute stuff. But there is some stuff and I should at least try and go buy some, right? Maybe I could, but... (see reason number 2)
2. Feeling guilty buying myself things when we barely have money to get the bills paid. I think this is the biggest factor. Most young families start out poor students or something similar. Then come the beautiful babies; the bigger hips; the not as stylish clothes to fit the bigger hips/tummy; no time to do your hair 'cause you're just so tired you'd rather sleep than get up early...= a frump.

You may think I'm complaining. It's hard to tell the tone of voice while reading text. Let me clarify, I am NOT complaining. I LOVE MY LIFE!!! This is more like an event formula I've discovered. Maybe even an "If/then" situation. Even as things have gotten harder and harder, I have been blessed to be able to find all the blessings I've been given even through these rough patches. I know this time is preparing me to be a better person for when my children are bigger and will really be watching me.

Plus, the Lord is helping me to know what is really important. Going to the mall once a week? Or learning to be frugal, and spending more time being with my family? It's helping me to put importance on the kind of spiritual home I wanna have, instead of the splendor of my clothes.
I still like to look nice, what woman doesn't? This isn't an excuse for looking homeless, just not "as" cute all the time.

So, to the women I used to judge:
I'm sorry. I hastily put importance on your presentation of appearance, when I should've been admiring you for the beautiful spirits you kept close watch over; the long hours you put in your kitchen providing love and home cooked meals; the spirituality you taught that warmed your home and the hearts in it. You knew you were putting importance on the right things of life: Your family.
Now I'm trying to be just like you :)

~Crystal

Strange things are happening...

Something strange has been going on.

I'm craving a lot of these (especially cut into triangles).

Lately my body's been sore and tired.

I'm clumsy and forgetful...extra forgetful! And I keep losing things.

Watching Disney movies and Minute to Win It seems to make me cry every time. 

Also, smelling things like this make me want to pull out a doggie-bag.

So, I went to get things checked out and surprise!

We're expecting!!! 

I'm about 13 weeks along now.

Due around July 16th, which is Ben's brother Bremen's birthday :)

We're so excited for Rowan to have a little sibling, and for another baby of our own!

Ready or not, here I come....found you!

I feel like I've been playing "hide-and-seek" with blogging for a while now. It's been...phew, too long! I kept thinking that if I wrote on my blog that'd mean that I would have to read up on all the blogs I follow, and that would be THOUSANDS of new posts. Not gonna happen. I think I'll just go see what a few people have been up to and keep it simple. K, blogger, you found me, and I'm back ;)

SO, what have we been up to for the last month or two? Well the big news is that we now have a 1 year old child in the house. Yep, Rowan had a birthday! First here's some of her one-year pictures we had taken by our friend Leigh Root. If you need a good photographer give her a call, she's amazing and affordable too :)

And here's some of her birthday pictures. We didn't really take any good pictures, sorry. We were just too busy enjoying the moment. AND we forgot to take pictures of Dad, Mom and Tiffani. They were so incredibly awesome to come out and celebrate with us. Love you!

Rowan's first birthday cake! I'm pretty proud of how it turned out :)

I made her 'smash' cake too. Perfect size for her.

 At first she just took a crumb at a time (such a lady ;) 

Later she started taking chunks.

That's my happy birthday girl!

On the left she's getting washed off after all the cake. 

On the right is the next day (her actual birthday) unwrapping presents! She was good at it.

Other than that, there's not much happening with us. Ben started school, and is working. I'm a stay-at-home Mama that's just wondering why no one warned me about the Terrible One's? Or maybe Rowan's one of those kids that likes to act older than her age and we just shot straight to the Terrible Two's? Who knows. But she's still a lot of fun.

Just so that I can remember these things later I'm gonna list some of her traits and skills she has right now:

• Rowan talks A LOT! But we have no idea what she's saying. She talks with all sorts of intonations, and sometimes I think she believes that she's really talking with me, but I usually just say "Yeah, really?"
• On her actual birthday (Sept. 5) Rowan stood up and stayed standing on her own for the first time without anything to balance her.
• Maybe a week or two before her birthday she started walking/running/leaping from Ben to me and back.
• Just today she started to walk across the room with no viewable objective in sight, just walking to walk. She went pretty far, steadied herself, then walked a little more and fell over. (she might've just sat down on purpose)
• She does the sign language sign for "more," and she shakes her head for "no."
• She also understands sign language for "changing diaper" and the international sign for "no" wagging my finger ;)
• She understands quite a bit of Spanish too. Words like, 'quieres', 'mas', 'besito', 'vente'.
• She crawls on anything she can.
• She will thoroughly examine something new by flipping it over and over, and checking it all out before it goes in her mouth. 
• She currently has a taste for wood and cardboard. Which we're trying to discourage.
• She's not very picky. She'll taste anything and usually eat it. Especially if we're eating it then she really wants some. 
• She loves the water.
• She loves dirt. Water is much better after the dirt ;)
• When music plays on some of her toys she'll try to hum with it. So cute!
• She likes to get into trouble too.
• She's very sociable. She LOVES playing with other children. The other day she was playing with the neighbor boy (that's her age) and he was walk/running around our apartment and she was chasing him while 'monkey crawling'. They were both laughing a lot, it was so precious. :)
• She's a Daddy's girl. She gets so excited and squeals when Daddy comes home, and always wants him to hold her and feed her. :)

Love that girl!

Was I in the Twilight Zone?

I just have to tell somebody about what happened today, it was so weird. K, not that weird, but it was weird enough that I have to tell someone, or think that I've gone crazy!

I was driving home from taking Ben to work. I got to an intersection where I have to turn left. There's almost a full "non-lane" between me and the cars about to go straight so I don't really know if there's any there. I'm not really looking. And I'm waiting 'cause it's red.

Then the light turns green and there's no cars in the intersection. So, naturally I pull forward a bit into the middle of the intersection waiting for the cars coming towards me to go ahead, then I'll turn left after they all go. 'Cause as we all know, if my light is green so is their's. That's how it usually works in this intersection that I drive through about 10 times a week. Then after the light turns back to red I have a green arrow. BUT....

there I am, the ONLY CAR in the intersection. No cars are moving, going. I look to my right and notice one car that would be turning left and cutting right in front of me, but they're not really in the intersection, just kind of. So I start to back up a little 'cause I'm freaked out that no cars are going. I double check the light....yeah it's green! So why is no one moving?!?! So, after a few seconds I decided that the cars THAT SHOULD be coming towards me have seen me and will probably not try to run into me if I take my chance and make my turn. So I did. There.... all was well again. But what the heck happened???

It was like the Twilight Zone. I seriously thought for a moment everyone had frozen in time but me! Or, what else? I do not know. Weird, weird voodoo I'm sure.

That's my story.

Invictus

Out of the night that covers me,
Black as the pit from pole to pole,
I thank whatever gods may be
For my unconquerable soul.

In the fell clutch of circumstance
I have not winced nor cried aloud.
Under the bludgeonings of chance
My head is bloody, but unbowed.

Beyond this place of wrath and tears
Looms but the Horror of the shade,
And yet the menace of the years
Finds and shall find me unafraid.

It matters not how strait the gate,
How charged with punishments the scroll,
I am the master of my fate:
I am the captain of my soul.

-William Ernest Henley


I need to remember this.

I don't wanna grow up...

Let me guess what just came in your head... "I'm a Toys R Us kid!" 

Am I right?

Well, guess what? I'm still a Toys R Us kid!

I think I've gotten a little lost in this grown-up world. Trying to figure out who I'm supposed to be.

I'm supposed to like certain kinds of elegant decor. 

I'm supposed to act like a very grown-up, put-together Mother.

I'm supposed to put away my funky, fun clothes and buy cardigans and slacks.

No one really says these things, but they're implied. In blogs, magazines, shows, even church and grocery stores sometimes. I'm not saying cardigans and slacks are a bad thing, I like them too. 

But when is it that we put away our childish ruffles, and colorful pictures?

Why can't we dance all day if we want to? Sing and climb trees? 

Of course we can! And I'm going to!

If you've known me for quite a while, you know that I used to be crazy and spontaneous.
 I've been a little less lately...but no longer. I'm getting my "Muchness" back. (see the new Alice in Wonderland for reference)

"Never lose your childish innocence. It's the most important thing. "

-Under the Tuscan Sun (great movie!)

This was always one of my favorite quotes to live by.

I realized that I'd lost my childish enthusiasm/innocence at some point in the last few years. 

This wonderful, colorful blog helped inspire me to get it back!

Colormekatie.blogspot.com

Katie is a freelance photographer in Brooklyn. And she is insanely creative!

Check out her pictures in her blog. Everything is so colorful.

I've been in this rut about our apartment we live in 'cause I don't know how I want to decorate it. It doesn't really feel like a complete home. It's more like storage with a few pictures up. I've been stuck on mostly black/brown furniture 'cause it goes with a lot...well, that was my theory. And it's grow-up colors. But I think it gets boring in our home. 

Then I found Katie's blog, and looking at her apartment it's so full of life and color! If you've taken a look... can you just imagine growing up in a place like that? How magical it would be??

When I saw it, I immediately thought "That's exactly what I want to do!"

And maybe some of you reading this are thinking I'm crazy for loving it, but that's ok. I'm just so glad that I found it!

And next time you come to my apartment it will be lit up with color!

(don't worry, I'll be posting pictures)

 And I've been inspired to take more pictures too. And wear more color ;)

For a long time I thought that I shouldn't want to be in lots of pictures, or ask people to take them of me, 'cause they'd think I was being vain or something. But Katie takes a lot of pictures of herself for fun, and it's not vain at ALL! So, I figure it's okay if I take them of myself to :)

And I like her concept of using pictures to portray how she feels.

So, from one kid to another...don't grow up. Not all the way. ;)

And thanks Katie! You've been an incredible creative inspiration, more than you could know.

***

Also, if you wanna know more about the green shrug I'm wearing in that picture above. Just go to Crafty-Mamacita.

So, the other day Ben asked me...

"Did you blog about California yet?" I guess he's getting in on the bloggness (new word, try it ;)

So obviously I need to blog about California! I totally forgot. I forget a lot of things these days...more than you could know.

The Friday before Memorial Day we drove to California and spent time with Ben's family. Can you believe they put up with us for a whole week?! I know. They're awesome. We had so much fun.

Some of our adventures included a girl's night to go and see "Letters to Juliet". It was really cute. Yeah, kinda cheesy, but still pretty cute. Then Rebecca (Ben's younger sister), Dione (niece ((and I hope I spelled that right))), and I went thrift shopping. It was a first time for the girls, and they loved it! I couldn't believe they'd never been before! We found all sorts of treasures, and had a blast trying on cute clothes and some really silly outfits. Hahaha.

One day we drove up to Atwater, which is about 3 hours north of Rosamond, to see Ben's Grandma.

We had a really good time chatting and catching up. It was the first time she met Rowan, and she said that Rowan had "the most perfectly shaped head". We think so too. We also saw Ben's uncle Aaron while we were up there, and he took Rebecca on her first ride on a motorcycle. I think she may be hooked now.
Oh, and something really funny...well, we didn't bring anything for Rowan to take a nap in while we were there (like a pac n'play). And we couldn't put her on the bed, 'cause she'd crawl off. So, we made a little fort of pillows with no roof, in the study. It was next to the corner of a sectional couch, so two sides were couch, and two were layered pillows, then one little pillow in a corner to secure it. Well, she cried for a little while after we put her down in her "fort". Then she was quiet. We went in the kitchen to eat lunch, then suddenly the door to the study starts opening. Rowan, on hands and knees, peeks out all timid, like she's trying to be sneaky and got caught. Lol! We looked at the little fort, and she had kicked out that little corner pillow and snuck through the crack. Silly girl.

Most of the time we were there Ben and his brother Joe worked on making a recut trailer for IT the movie. Wow, we got so sick of hearing the theme music they were using, over and over and over...and over again. But it really turned out great! If you've ever seen the movie IT, you'll think it's funny. If you haven't seen the movie, watch the trailer anyway, it may just make you wanna watch the movie. WARNING: Don't. It's scary.

Here's the trailer they made:



Gotta love clowns.

Also, while we were in California we also got to see Bremen and Andrea, and their kids! They've been living near the East coast for years now, and the last time we saw them was at our wedding. So, they met Rowan for the first time, and we got to meet Van for the first time. Van is their baby that is a few weeks younger than Rowan. We sure had a good time. And we're SO glad they've moved back to California!
What else happened out there? Oh yes, Joe took us down "The musical road", it felt like we were in the Wizard of Oz or something. Check it out:



We also had a nice talent show on Sunday night. With skits, songs, dancing, etc. Here's a few videos for you to enjoy, we sure did!

"What's More American?" song:



Tongue Tied kids:



Joe's own composition, played with just two pencils! Sorry it's not the whole song, and in two parts, but my camera was dying...then died.








Obviously we had a great time.
Rebecca and I also spent time refashioning some clothes that she had. And who didn't take any pictures? Me. Yup. Oops, sorry. Still, we had a good time.

We had such a blast. Well, sorry for the novel. Hopefully the awesome videos made up for the increased length. ;)