Last Day of Class

Wednesday was Phil's last class of his Law School Career!

So we celebrated...

Popcorn and a movie!

We saw "The Blind Side" and we loved it. You should see it.

Sugar Mama Update 1

Day 9

I have not had any sweets since last Wednesday when we (Phil and I) finished off the ice cream. I thought is was best to remove the temptation completely. The thing is we had pretty much already finished off most of our Easter candy and other sweet treats anyways. Thankfully.

I must say that I have done very well. I am not the kind of gal that likes to do without so this has been a bit of a challenge for me. Though I AM the kind of gal that likes a challenge...

I have learned some things about myself:

1. I probably had a slight addiction to the sugary treats...the first step is admitting the problem

2. I LOVE fresh rosemary on my eggs
3. I switched my breakfast menu from Mutli-Grain Cheerios with milk to 2 eggs
4. I feel like I have more energy!
5. I discovered this tasty snack:

This is sugar free bread spread with almond butter and fresh strawberries!

So divine, especially when you have not had sugar for 9 days.

You should try it (the snack) sometime.

The best part is I tried my goal skirt on this morning and I manged to close it! It does not look good yet but progress none the less!

Tent Action

Luke got a tent for his 2nd birthday from Uncle Robbie and Aunt Tiffany. We have had such beautiful weather so I decided that we should try setting it up. It is a really nice tent and Luke loves to zip and unzip the door.

Luke and daddy had a picnic lunch in the tent...

and look who else likes the tent?
Baby Micah!

The first of many tent adventures for the boys!

Sugar Mama

In January, about a week before Micah was born, I got a great deal on a new denim skirt at Old Navy. It made me feel good at the time to buy something in a "normal" size. It gave me hope. I thought that I would easily fit into it by graduation (May 8)

As you can see, It is not even close to fitting. There is absolutely no way to get it buttoned. So nothing for me to get too upset about...I did have a baby 11 weeks ago and I am feeling good about how I feel and how most of my clothes are fitting. But I am a goal oriented person and I did set this silly goal of graduation and that is 3 weeks from today. Can I do it?

Luke also wanted his photo taken with his beads on in front of the door just like mommy!

So starting yesterday I have been going without sweets. I am a full time breastfeeding mom so dieting would really be a bad idea right now. I NEED the calories. Have you seen my baby lately? He is hungry and I feed him about every 3 hours. So the only thing that I feel comfortable cutting out is the extra sugar and sweets that have so easily become a part of my daily routine.

It is funny because yesterday was kind of rough. I had only been up for a few hours before I started to tell Phil that I needed something sweet! I couldn't believe it! Could I possibly be addicted to sugar? Luckily we have a bunch of apples on hand because when I start to think that I need a sweet I just have an apple. So far crisis averted. Can I keep this up until graduation?

Luke and I did a happy dance!

I am hoping to button this skirt by May 8th! Check back here to see if it can be done!

Bigger

Baby Micah just keeps growing and getting bigger. Check out his strength...

...and rolls!

Grandma and Aunt Linda

Grandma Wagler is a teacher and last week was her Spring Break! We were excited to have Grandma and her sister Aunt Linda stay with us for a few days. Nashville Indiana is a neat artist town that is only about 30 minutes west of Bloomington. Tuesday was a beautiful day so we decided to head over to Nashville and do some shopping.

Here is Aunt Linda, Luke, and Grandma Wagler waiting in line for homemade ice cream. I think that this might have been my favorite part of the day!

It got really hot that day. 80 +
Baby Micah did really well. He mostly slept...

Here is Luke with his ice cream cone. His favorite part of the day too.

Luke loves to draw with the chalk.

We were so happy to have such wonderful visitors!

Clear Out the Clutter

Organizing does not come naturally to me. In fact I am quite messy. Ask any of my former roommates. I was always the student with the locker that never closed. I would start out the year with folders and notebooks for each class and lots of good intentions to use them. By the end of the year I would avoid opening my locker at all because if I did everything would come tumbling out on top of me! How embarrassing to even share that (don't tell Phil). Being organized is the MOST important thing to him. I learned that at a marriage conference in the fall.I mean I knew that he was organized but it really is the most important thing to him. It's official and now I have no excuse to ignore it. What was the most important thing to me: Inspiring others. For the record, we are on completely opposite sides of the spectrum but it is pretty obvious and you probably already knew that about us?!

Anyways, it seems that almost every blog that I frequent recently has posts about living more simply/eliminating the clutter/organizing/managing the home etc. Maybe it is has to do with spring cleaning or maybe it is because there is a "simplicity" movement happening before our very eyes. I find it invigorating. So many in my generation are ready to ditch the "stuff" and focus energy and time on the things that really matter like family and relationships. I LOVE it and if anything can inspire me to get organized it is realizing that in this fast paced world TIME can be rediscovered.

In the process of packing I have actually found myself getting angry about all of our stuff. Packing for a move can bring out that emotion in people. And Like Dave Ramsey says it takes getting angry to take action and get motivated. We have moved multiple times since getting married and I find myself packing up some of the same things over and over and guess what? Some of it was packed up in Mishawaka and is still packed. That means that in four years those items where never needed. And it gets worse because since those items were packed away I didn't know they existed and they have been replaced with bright shiny new items! Because of my disorganization we have multiples and it disgusts me.

One of the trouble spots for us has been our gift wrap organization system or lack-there-of. When we opened all of our wonderful wedding gifts I saved a lot of the bows, tissue paper etc and stashed them all in a large storage tub. I thought that I would save us some money and reuse the good stuff. So 6 years later I have been using this same system where I stuff a bow into that box and close the lid. As this happens the bows in the bottom just keep getting more squashed and wrinkled. This week I finally went through our gift wrap box and threw all of this away:

VICTORY!

And now my overgrown box of smashed bows looks like this:

I didn't take a before photo because it was just that embarrassing. But the after photo makes me want to sing! Look at all of that EXTRA space in there! I think that I can get used to this.

I have a love for grosgrain ribbon. I feel compelled to save every little (or large) cheery piece. Even a smallish piece tied on a gift bag can really be festive. I didn't even know what I had though because they were like spaghetti noodles in our box before. Now I have them separated in Ziploc bags for easy access.

So this was the tipping point for me. I took on a small organizing project and it was a success! Now on to bigger and better projects. And by the way I still have dreams where I forget my locker combination and have to go to the office and get it from the secretary. I don't even know if I had to do that in real life? So my disorganization is giving me nightmares...Help me! What should I tackle next? Do you have any ideas or tips for me as I am new at this?

Little Photog

Luke has a camera fascination. After almost every photo we take Luke says "I wanna look." What did we ever do before we could preview each photo immediately after it is taken? I have gotten so used to the immediate gratification.

Luke got a hold of the camera one day so Phil showed him how to use it! Here are his photos:

Phil's so photogenic

Even his hand!

Artsy

I didn't know he was taking my picture! At least you can see my less than pregnant belly.

Sanibel is used to posing

Luke Goes to the Dentist

On March 8th daddy took Luke to the dentist. Luke was not very happy about sitting in the chair - he wanted to stay close to Daddy. Luke went in the chair on his own first, but that did not go so well, so Daddy sat in the chair with him for a while, and then he could do it on his own.

The pediatric dentist office has the BEST paintings. The last time I was there I saw that one of the murals was signed by the mother of the faux painter that I used for many a job down here in Bloomington! She is quite talented!

This particular visit was a routine check. So far she has just looked inside his mouth and "counted" his teeth. No cleaning yet. Luke has been to the dentist 3 times! This was the first time that he was sad about it. It helped that he got to hold the little mirror!

Any Ft. Wayners out there have a good pediatric dentist recommendation? This is turning out to be our messiest move yet! New everything...

Luke

I sometimes forget he was ever this little!

My Boys

Seeds!

My seeds have sprung!

Last B-town Easter

Happy Easter! What a glorious day!

Little Beefcake Baby

Today was Micah's 2 month well visit at the doctors office. For the occasion, I dressed him in his "Hungry" dog onesie! He is actually almost busting out of it and it is for a 6 month baby. It cracks me up! He is pretty much always hungry. When the doctor was showing us how to rub Micah's eye to remedy a blocked tear duct Micah started rooting around! The doctor started laughing and said that he had never elicited a hunger reaction by rubbing an eye before! Haha! Yep, that is our beefcake baby! So let's get to the stats:

Weight: 16 lbs. 8 oz. >95%

Height: 23 3/4" (75%)
and
Head: 38 1/2 cm (10-25%) so no matter how big our boys are they have small heads!

He is right on target developmentally. Some of his new tricks include: smiling, controlling his head, squealing and cooing, and sleeping a 5 1/2 hour stretch at night. He is so fun right now but I love every stage! Don't you? What is your favorite stage?

Engagement Anniversary

Seven years ago today Phil proposed to me and I said YES! I will never forget the date because it all occurred on April 2nd (the day AFTER April Fools Day!) I remember that when Phil called his mom to tell her that he was engaged she said "Is this an April Fools joke?!" I might have thought that too except before he proposed he said

"Do you know that I love you?"

At that point I was overjoyed you see because it was the FIRST time ever that he told me that he loved me! And I knew what was coming next because we had decided about 7 months into our relationship that we would not tell each other the big "I love you" until we were engaged to be married IF that was where our relationship was headed. I did not want to hear that phrase from a man unless he was the man that I was going to marry! I am all about guarding your heart.

The very coolest part (beside the fact that we dated 2 1/2 years before saying "I love you") is that Phil had NEVER dated any other girl before me! That's right. He had never even asked a girl out on a date. I had no clue about that at the time. He was so smooth using such lines as "So Fishbaugh, (my maiden name) is that German?" and "Would you like to go eat lobster with me?" Not the typical pick up lines but hey they must have worked! We had so much fun together and we laughed and laughed some more. We still do! Phil makes me laugh more than anyone else in the world. He says that I pretty much laugh at anything, which is partially true, but Phil really has the most perfect sense of humor! Anyways...

I guess what I am getting at is that I consider myself a lucky girl! Although, I sometimes wonder if luck is really the right word? I had spent many hours praying for the "right" guy to come along and sweep me to the altar! Every girl dreams of that perfect guy that is "saving" themselves for you. I was no different. On top of that I had high standards and I was not willing to compromise. If that meant waiting forever then I would period. I remember sitting with my gal pals from high school and making them promise me that they would never settle. Because of both of our commitments to not compromise our beliefs we have gotten to share so many "firsts" together. There are more to talk about but I will save that for another post at a later date. I don't want to cross that TMI (too much information) line.

But I DO want to inspire you that there are some pretty amazing guys (and gals) out there that still believe in chivalry and respect. Waiting is a lost discipline. So many things and experiences in life are worth waiting for; like saving your money to buy your first "real" bicycle or maybe it was car! My mom was just sharing with us about how she saved up her money for her first camera! Doesn't it just feel so much sweeter when you have sacrificed and then gotten the long awaited reward? So now I will ask YOU to share your "waiting" experience!