7 Quick Takes

The blog has been pretty quiet recently. I've found lots of things I'd love to write about, but I just haven't had time. Since we returned from our anniversary getaway, life has been crazy. And next week looks even crazier. So I had to take a break from all the craziness today and share my seven quick takes. I apologize in advance for the photo bombing that's about to begin.

1. Matthew has outgrown his toddler bed, and Noah has almost outgrown his crib. So we had some major decisions to make about the bed situation. We plan on moving in the spring and buying a house (God willing), but until then, we will need to set them up in this house for sleeping. After a lot of research and discussion, we decided to go with bunk beds. This means that Noah will completely skip the toddler bed phase, and I am okay with this. We found a black wooden bunk bed frame from IKEA, and we will add a bed rail to the bottom bunk to keep Noah safe. I had so much fun ordering the kids bedding this week, and I have been picking up wall decorations when I see them to redecorate their new room. Goodbye, Elmo and Pooh. Hello, Steelers! :) It is going to be great. :)

 

2. Matthew's first preschool pictures came in this week, and they are adorable! I love the group picture the most. The picture is adorable and so funny. I love how Mary is behind them all. It's awesome.

3. I am obsessed with Sara Evans' new video, Slow Me Down. She is by far my all time favorite singer. I have met her twice and seen her in concert numerous times. She is one of my idols, and it has been three years since she put out new music! That's too long. Take a second to check it out. You will be happy you did. :)

Me and Sara Evans in August of 2004....wow I'm old!

4. I made some time this week to bake for my dad's company's Cash Bash fundraiser tonight. They do a dinner buffet and dessert table and are always looking for donations for the dessert table. Since I love to bake and inherited my grandma Kay's baking skills, I always volunteer. This time around, I came up with the cupcakes below. Seriously, they were soooooo easy to make. And they're cute. 

5. Brian gave me the sweetest, most romantic anniversary card ever last week. Most of it will remain private, but I just had to share the fact that inside the card he taped two tickets to a football game we had attended 6 days into our relationship. Later that day, we prayed together for the first time and later that night, we said I love you for the first time. It is a day I will never forget....and apparently Brian didn't either. I didn't even know he still had the tickets. It really made my anniversary. 

6. Matthew gave one of his closest friends a birthday gift this week. He loved the entire process of gift giving. He had such a blast picking out the present, wrapping it, decorating the card, and then finally presenting the gift. It was so cute to see how much joy he had in the whole process. At the end, he totally attacked his friend with a hug. He's a little more of a hug person than she is apparently, but it was still cute. If only arranged marriages were still the in thing....

7. This picture pretty much sums it all up. This is my goal at the end of the day. I fail almost daily and sometimes hourly at doing this, but I am trying. And I saw this graphic on facebook a few days ago and just really liked it. I think we will be using it in our talk on NFP. It says it better than I ever could.

Have a fantastic last weekend of October! Time is truly flying by! :)

He Loves Me, He Loves Me Not

From our first Christmas "In Love"

Six years ago today, Brian and I said "I love you" to each other for the very first time. We had been dating for five days and had know each other 17 days. Some of you may be saying, "Wow. That was fast." I'm pretty sure it gave my parents heart attacks (and when Matthew announces that he and his girlfriend of a week have said those words to each other, I may have a total internal melt down), but for us, it was totally perfect. Part of it had to do with the fact that we met online. Those first six emails we exchanged were long and in depth and took hours to write. We learned a lot about each other right from the start. But we also spent our first two dates talking for hours and hours. We loved learning about each other and did it pretty quickly. It wasn't hard to fall totally in love with each other. And I can't even pinpoint the moment I realized I loved Brian. At some point, it just felt natural to think of him and feel "in love" all at the same time. Neither of us hesitated the first time we said those three little words either. There was no awkward pause. It just flowed naturally. That same night we both discussed marriage and decided at that point that that was where our relationship was ultimately headed. It was a night of revelations. And it's one we always look back at fondly.

All that being said, I had never said "I love you" to anyone outside of my family before Brian came along. At sixteen, I had discerned my vocation was to be a wife and mother, so I never wasted my time dating the guys at high school (pretty sure they weren't interested in the crazy Catholic girl either.) I had been interested in several guys in college and had gone on a handful of dates, but the relationships never progressed past "friendship" (some never even got to that level!). All of that also meant that I'd never waste those three precious words on anyone else. I wanted to say them to my future husband and to him only. They were words meant just for him and give them away to someone else would somehow cheapen their meaning in my mind.

I can't say what a HUGE blessing that has been for our relationship and marriage. I got to discover what love is and how it works with Brian. I had no one before him to discover that amazing adventure with, and because of that, Brian and I are even more bonded to each other than we would be otherwise. I didn't have a fear telling him I loved him because I knew I was meant to marry him and that meant that he'd never break my heart. I wasn't scared to put it all out on the line because having never done it before, I didn't even think that it may backfire at some point. My future spouse would never hurt me, and so I need not worry that the love I felt for him wouldn't be returned. It wasn't stressful or scary to say "I love you" the first time.

Having saved those words for Brian has also made him realize what an incredible he was getting to be the one to hear me say them for the first time. I remember how beautiful and innocent he found the whole scene. And how touched he was that he was the one God had chosen to hear those three precious words. He felt honored and took the job of protecting my heart and treating it delicately very serious right from the start.

To me, it made sense to save "I love you" for my future husband. First and foremost, I didn't want my future husband out there running around and telling some other girl that he loved her. So why would my future husband want me out there telling some other guy I loved him even if it wasn't really love? That thought just hurt my heart (and honestly, it was something I had to work hard to overcome in our relationship. Even Brian will say when he said those words before he never truly  knew what it meant to be in love until he met me, and that helps a bit.) I have never been one to believe that you can be "in love" multiple times throughout life. Love means sacrificing yourself for the good of your beloved. That kind of love is not found in teenage relationships. (Of course, there's always exceptions to the rule.) It's not found in the flirtatious college relationships where you wouldn't dare bring the other half of the relationship home to mom. Love is deep and intimate. You can't be deep and intimate with more than one person in a lifetime. Or at least I can't. God forbid something ever happen to Brian, I'm pretty sure I couldn't remarry simply because I'd always be in love with him. I'm pretty certain I could never love again. (And I get some people do remarry and love again, but for me, emotionally, it just wouldn't work.)

I can only hope and pray that I somehow pass on this idea and sentiment to our children. I'm not sure how to do that, and I'm not really sure how my parents passed on such an idea to me without me knowing they were doing it. I hope one day I get them to understand that words are powerful, especially love. Love means so much more than being giddy and happy and just attracted to another person. It means be willing to sacrifice EVERYTHING to make the other person happy. Love doesn't contain the selfish idea of "I." It is all about someone else. I hope to teach them that love is what they see on the cross. And until they are willing to totally give their life for the other person, those three words have no business in their relationships with the opposite sex. Ultimately, though, I hope they can look at Brian and I and see how very much in love we are still are and think, "I want that." And realize that the only way to get "that" is to play their cards like we did. I pray they love their future spouses enough to save everything for them, including three of the most important and unfortunately, overused words in the English language.

To end, I love you, Brian. I have since six years ago, and I always will. Thank you for loving me like you do. :)

Friday Quick Takes

Just because I couldn't let a Friday go by without chiming in with my 7 Quick Takes!

1. A woman after Mass yesterday morning asked me if I am pregnant because I look like it. First, the answer is no, and second, how rude! I have been working my butt off at the gym every day of the week and to be told I look pregnant is just not cool. The woman isn't ancient either, so it's not like I can write it off as just a little old lady being confused. And honestly, did this women never learn that the last thing you ever ask a woman is if she's expecting? I was hurt, but then Brian pointed out that with the ages of our kids, people are starting to think we'll be expecting soon. Which I guess makes sense. Even my trainer is baffled. Come on, people! I just bought size six jeans last Friday night. There's no way my pregnant self could ever fit in those. Ugh.

2. Last night I had a night off from tutoring and both my dad and Brian were working late, so my mom and I took both boys to the mall. I know the mall sounds boring, but my kids LOVE it. They love playing in the toy store and fountain. Eating in the food court is seriously the best thing ever in their minds. And it get us out of the house and burns off some energy. My mom and I had a blast! We hadn't taken the kids anywhere just us for a while, and it was nice to spend the evening with my best friend. We laughed a lot. Good times for all.

3.

This picture speaks for itself....Matthew is officially ready for preschool this coming Tuesday! It will be a big deal for sure in our house. I am so proud of my little guy, and he is so ready for school. I can't imagine keeping him home any longer. He is ready to learn, and yes, I'm a teacher. But I could NEVER teach my own kids. I prefer to let someone else tackled that hurdle. :)

4. Do parents ever get to sleep through the night? I mean, my kids are pretty well sleep trained, but if I have to wipe another nose, untangle another blanket, or find another binky tonight, I will lose it. The wake ups only last for two minutes at most, but it takes me FOREVER to go back to sleep. This Mommy is so very tired. I know it could be worse, but I am so looking forward to coming home from Rascal Flatts next Friday night and sleeping into noon the next day since the kids will be at my parents house. A full night's sleep will be AMAZING.

5.

 

Business is good....very good! It just suddenly started expanding last week as many of the public districts started back to school. I actually have more students than time slots at this point. I'm not sure what the solution is to that, but I'm sure I will come up with something. I am feeling a bit overwhelmed with all the hours I'll be gone each evening, but I also feel incredibly blessed. I can stay home with my kids and still help make ends meet. God is good.

6. My Countdown App says that there are only 48 days, 23 hours, and 53 minutes until mine and Brian's anniversary trip to Wine Country in Erie. We leave on our anniversary (a Friday) at noon and return the following Sunday at noon. We will get to Erie in time to visit one or two wineries on Friday before a romantic dinner that Brian is arranging. And we will have ALL day Saturday to go wine tasting. We even plan on venturing into New York and visiting some of the wineries there. It will be a great getaway. I simply cannot wait. Plus, we have the nicest room in the B&B and it has a fireplace as well as its own, private entrance. We won't have to see another soul that weekend, and that's awesome. October 18 cannot come fast enough!

7. Sara Evans is my favorite singer ever. Love her and every single song she has ever written and performed. Her song, Perfect, is great. And you can jam to it...I do it every day on the treadmill. It breaks up the boy band play list nicely. :) Enjoy!

Happy Weekend!

I Don't Even Know My Last Name

Last night Brian and I gave our NFP talk at the Engaged Encounter Retreat in Pittsburgh. Many of you who know me well enough know that I have a slight obsession with NFP. I love the subject, and I consider myself pretty well versed in using it. So, I have been dying to share this passion and knowledge on such an important topic for a while. However, somehow last night the nerves kicked into high gear. I may have actually been shaking when we started our introduction. But in the end, I have to say that it went very, very well. Better than we both could have hoped for.

We arrived while the couples were having dinner and that was great because it gave us time for a little prayer time in the chapel, which was desperately needed. The weekend was a small one, with only 10 couples attending. I think that made it easier in some ways and harder in others. The couples who were there seemed to really be taking things seriously and trying to get something out of the weekend. It was certainly easier to get to know something about all of them since there weren't that many in attendance. But when it came time to actually give our talk, having that few people all focused on us was a bit intimidating. And that's from someone who LOVES being the center of attention. As an only child, I quite enjoy and am used to having all eyes on me, but this was way different.

Our talk, however, went really well. The couples all listened attentively, and I didn't even catch one eye roll from anyone! That's got to be a first during a talk on NFP. I think what made it so successful was the fact that we made our talk really personal. We talked about how NFP has worked in our marriage and what a great blessing it has been to us. We also were brutally honest and said that sometimes it's just plain hard and really stinks. I think the couples appreciated that view of it the most. We didn't just stand up there and sing the praises of NFP....we talked about the reality of it. And let's face it. Sometimes that reality of abstinence is super hard!

Once our talk was over, we were invited by the hosting couple to stay for the Discussion Group. During the Discussion Group, everyone sits in a circle and drinks a glass of wine while pulling questions that the couples have written over the weekend from the Question Box. Once the question is read, it's fair game for anyone to answer. Questions last night ranged from how to compromise to who balances the check book. It was great to get to participate in those discussions and offer our perspective as a married couple.

One of the questions that came up in the Discussion Group was whether or not to change your last name. Some women said they were considering not doing so because they were older and had written publications or created art work in their maiden names. One woman blatantly just said she wasn't going to change her name because she was the last of seven girls to get married and wanted to keep her father's name. I have to say that I was shocked to even hear the discussion occurring!

For me, I couldn't drop my maiden name fast enough. I came back from my honeymoon and actually left work early the first day back so that I could visit the Social Security Office and apply to have my name changed. Within a week, my maiden name had been completely erased. And I was glad to see it go.

It wasn't just the fact that I was finally getting a royal title as a last name (I had considered myself a Princess for years at that point! ;)), but I truly felt that in the two becoming one, part of that was changing my last name and taking on my husband's. I felt that if I didn't change my last name, it would be a huge slap in the face to Brian although he had never expressed such feelings. I just envisioned keeping my maiden name as ultra feminist (and I am the furthest thing from a feminist. Yes, I enjoy equal pay and the right to vote, but I never bargained for being able to stay at home with  my children being so difficult to do financially! Seriously, things have gotten out of hand with that movement!). I would never disrespect Brian by not taking his last name. I saw it as a very loving and trusting gesture on my part. And I'm pretty sure he saw it the same way.

Maybe it's just that Brian and I are pretty traditional in many ways. I always felt he should lead our family and be the head. He should be the bread winner. And although there are many times when we both are in control together, for the most part, I try very hard to take a back seat and let him lead us where we need to go. (I'm sure he'd laugh at that since giving up control is not my best character trait!) But seriously, part of having a traditional marriage meant giving up my last name.

I understand every woman is different, but it never crossed my mind that women actually debate changing their last name after marriage. For me it was so natural. So last night was a bit eye opening in that way. I am so proud to have Brian's last name, and quite honestly, I am honored that he chose me to share it with. Being a Prince is pretty darn cool.