Thankful for..

everything i have and don't have. i feel like such a little brat, complaining and hating my job when there are SO many people out there with so much less than i have. so many people are out of work, unable to support and feed their family and i'm complaining about my job!! i have so much guilt around this but i'll save that for another post.. maybe.

for now, today, i'm thankful for all that God has blessed me with; the breath the life, legs that keep me mobile, [relatively] good health that keeps me productive and makes it possible for me to care for my child and go to work every day to help support my family. there's so much to be thankful for and though you don't hear it often in my posts, i am aware of my blessings everyday.

so cheers to this day and everyday that God gives us <3


*hubbs recently taught Luke how to toast on command. yep, our very own trained monkey :/

oh and p.s. in case you've noticed.. my kid is ALWAYS in pj's, ALWAYS! i'm almost embarrassed but honestly, if i could live in pj's i would, too ;) we only dress him in "street clothes" (hehe) if we go out in public. so the daily trips to grandmas' house, yep, in pj's!

Pretty Pathetic

i haven't blogged since halloween-ish! here it is thanksgiving already, and christmas before we know it and no updates from me!! i want to dedicate an entire post to luke (he's grown so much developmentally this past month!) so for now i'll just share a few pics.. from about a month ago! noticing a trend here?!

about a month ago he just learned to clap. it was about the time that we noticed he really started following directions (we almost have him doing laundry and cleaning the kitchen!). he was so proud of himself when he realized we were actually cheering him on for something he could control. he walked around all night just clapping away! we're noticing that he's a little late to the party but when he arrives, man! he arrives!

i enjoyed the first 30 mins or so of him clapping away, then i grabbed the camera :) and this will be the last time i excuse my crummy quality since i love in a cave, have no available light, and am too lazy to attache and turn on my speedlite, i end up with out of focus, dark grainy photos. oh well, i caught the excitement regardless.

oh and please excuse the mess in the background, yep, that's how i live! i ask other families to clean up their homes for "child safety" and here my own child lives in a pig-sty! please don't report me (i already have nightmares of how the social worker would come out and document our living environment! nightmares!!!)

this is me chasing luke down for the photo op, and him slamming the door in my face!










and this is luke with hubbs' call of duty head phones, well, really head phones for pse3 but since cod is his game of choice.. luke loves these and will actually keep them on his head! so cute my baby boy!!


i'll try to post with a luke update in a few days. here's a quick ME update - i HATE my job these days :( counting down the days until my maternity leave already and i'm not even pregnant!!! i've been wondering lately.. what the HELL was i thinking?! working full-time to put myself through school full-time for 10 years!! (yeah, i know you couldn't tell with this grammar!) so i could get a job that i HATE?! doesn't that seem wrong, so backwards?! i thought that the whole purpose of a higher education was to get a job that i could be happy with and fulfilled in, a job i actually looked FORWARD to?! i've had a really HARD couple of weeks. some sick, heavy disclosures that i wouldn't wish on my worst enemy (not that i'm aware i have any of those ;) it seems to me, already, that those HARD days are also the days i feel most fulfilled, like i really might've made a difference. hmmm, need to process that a little more. i'm grateful and blessed every.single.day that i get to come home to my beautiful family; some families don't have that. i'm trying to stay, ok, become positive but this is seriously the HARDest thing i've ever done in my life! i don't even want to be STRONG anymore. i just want to not have nightmares fill my daily thoughts! if you're the praying type, please do pray for me. please pray that i'm able to get out of my own head and hear God's plan for me. i wonder if this is what i'm called to do or what i *think* i should be doing.. i'm not a quitter. i've never quit anything, ever. i want to quit my job every.single.day. i don't even know why i stay (hubbs might say the money but really, we'll be ok, i can find another job and i don't think that's MY reason anyway). i'm sorry for the vent, it's not what i intended this blog to be for. maybe i need to start a new, private one so at least i can get this crap out. photography has become my therapy. prayer helps but i need to DO something. talking makes it hurt more. i've never been so sad in my life. sorry to end on a depressing note. i wish i could say that at least i feel better :(

Halloween at the In-laws - pic overload

my husband and his family LOVE halloween. every year my brother in law goes crazy decorating my mother in law's house to scary trick-or-treaters on halloween. he probably spends a good month working on the setup, every year putting more and more time and love into getting every detail right. i feel bad for hubbs because i'm not really into halloween at.all. my idea of a perfect halloween is putting out a few pumpkins, pulling out my cat ears and tail, painting on whiskers and a nose, and passing out candy all night long, oohing and awing over all the cute little trick-or-treaters.

this year i felt a little more push to do something since this would be Luke's first "real" halloween. it was also nice that it came on the weekend. hubbs, for the first time, participated in the halloween festivities and the in-laws. he dressed up and manned his station, waiting for the unspecting tots to cross him so he could scare the living day lights out of them! i didn't want to have no real part of that since i don't like that the little kids end up crying and practically peeing their pants so i, along with luke in his lion costume and wagon, hung out by the candy bowl, passing out candy.

i was in plain clothes (i know, bah humbug!) and hadn't planned on staying long since luke had to be in bed shortly after sunset. i'm now really bummed that i didn't stay longer to try and capture some cool nighttime shots, but this is what i did manage to get while i wasn't chasing after my little 14-month old tot.

luke and his g'ma. nice, right?!
























he wasn't scared at all, promise!

For Me...

i have to write this. i have to get it out, off my chest out of my heart (as if that's even possible!). this is a work-related post, for me, so please skip out now if you're not interested. this post is for me. the 45 minutes of non-stop crying just isn't enough. i want to scream at the world, hit something so hard that i break my hands and feet. i want to throw glass so it shatters into a million teeny tiny pieces because life.just.sucks sometimes. i believe in God, i pray many times throughout the day and really leave it up to Him... i don't even want to go there with this post but today i heard things from a child that will leave permanent scars, i'm sure. at the end of it all i'm confused by how all this is possible; how a young child wakes every morning like millions of other children; brushes her teeth, combs her hair, packs her backpack for school; does so many everyday things just like the girl sitting next to her in math class. the only difference is this child has a secret. one so big and so bad that even a 30-year woman has a hard time hearing the vaguest of details. how does a child walk around for over two years with this big dark cloud hovering over her head, not able to escape it or allow anyone else underneath it to help absorb the pain.

this is the first real day i'm having feelings of uncertainty, thinking i can't do this job, that this job will suck up any happiness of my life, of my being, because you just can't forget the awful, horrifying things you hear and pretend you've never heard them. crying for 20 minutes in the shower is just not enough (especially when i think about her, and how much she's had to endure... for so long) and now, after all that, now i'm supposed to go to bed???

Luke is 14-months!

I just can't believe it! Where does the time go?! It's getting a lot harder to take pictures of him now that he's running, but I still have to try, of course. It's fun watching the hubbs chase after him, and Luke pushing him away when the hubbs tries to cut him off (from running in the poop, lake, off the curb, you understand). I love how Luke can be so independent, trying to discover the world in his own way, on his own terms free from me and hubbs but yet, clings to us when he's tried, demands that we hold him in the mornings when he wakes. I love that he loves to be held but also loves to run free, I feel like we get the best of both worlds.

Here's what Luke is doing at 14 months old.

- at 13.5 months: 25.6 lbs, 30.5"
- Sleeping habits are, for the most part, consistent. He goes to bed, still, at 8 pm and wakes about 7 - 7:30 am. He rarely wakes during the middle of the night, if he does it takes a few minutes for us to rick him back to bed (yeah, we're still doing that, don't judge!).
- He still eats like it's been days since his last meal. Seriously, we wonder when this will change, as we've heard it does at some point but at the rate Luke's going, I think he has enough reserve to get him through Winter!
- His behavior - eh! He needs to start talking because I'm over the whining, quite frankly. He points to what he wants and grunts, it bugs me. I don't know why, really, but it does. When we tell him no and/or take something away from him, he runs in the opposite direction, throwing a fit. It's funny so I laugh (to myself, of course, I'm not that mean!).
- He points and pushes his highchair towards me when he's hungry and I'm in the kitchen cooking. It's funny until he runs over my toes.
- He's really great about following directions: Luke, throw your diaper away, Luke, put that back, Luke, shut the door, Luke, go get daddy, Luke, drink your milk, Luke, bring mommy her shoes (lol).
- He still loves his burp cloths, at bedtime and anytime he gets sleepy. He still loves rolling around in laundry, clean or dirty, he doesn't care (gross I know. Hubbs says that he can't wait to share this with Luke's girlfriend in 20 years, lol).
- He's into bubble baths. Loves eating the bubbles and drinking the dirty water (eww!).
- He loves laying in bed with mommy and daddy on weekend mornings, watching cartoons. During the week he points to the bed and will cry if we don't let him lay on it for a few minutes to get his fix.
- Aside from the whining and throwing a fit when he doesn't get his way, we're really loving this stage. We love how he opens his cute little mouth when we ask for a kiss. Or when he roams around the house looking for the other one of us. Or how he pushes himself between me and the counter when I'm preparing his meals. How he runs to the bathroom when we say it's bath time. How he shrugs his shoulders up to his ears and grins in excitement when he sees one of us coming towards him.

Here are a few pictures I snapped tonight, playing with my new lens <3 href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/mrsxoxo1598/5149875653/" title="IMG_4132 by mrsxoxo1598, on Flickr">

he saw, and wanted, this puppy sooo bad!


completely in awe of the dog.


<3 href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/mrsxoxo1598/5149876277/" title="IMG_4154 by mrsxoxo1598, on Flickr">

hubbs has to do this to crack a smile. jeesh, Luke is definitely stingy with smiles when the camera comes out.




and i just love the warmth of these last two, taken as the sun was setting.