Easy like Sunday...around 3:45 in the afternoon...

It's a beautiful Sunday today. I know that's not a huge surprise because there's something beautiful and peaceful about ALL Sundays...but this one is pretty darn amazing.

The sun's out. The windows are open. We're wearing flipflops and shorts. We're living the life...

It's been a great week around here. P coached our friend LT to an amazing victory at the Legacy Fighting Championship 18 and we got to watch it at home on AXS tv. We screamed our heads off like maniacs whenever his image came up. Hers, too, obviously...but something about seeing your daddy in HD just makes kids go bananas.

The kids were driving us bonkers with their inside/outside dance so when they finally came in, I put them to work at the table with markers, crayons, and watercolors. They love art. And McK loves to splash the water everywhere and drive her brothers ba-nay-nays.

This week we also worked on a couple of fairy gardens. We were potting the plants anyway, so why not just welcome the nisse and leprechauns with a fancy place to hang out?

Hope Spring is fantastic wherever you are!

I Love Lent and I'm Pretty Sure I Love You, Too

I just don't always show it. Or know it.

I love the season of Lent. In the past, I've written about how in my younger, wilder days, I'd give up booze for a week or two and feel pretty sanctimonious about it. I got older and fatter and thought those coffees I gave up were not only trimming my waist, they were earning me direct communion with the Almighty.

I was a pretty silly rabbit, wasn't I?

I love Lent because it means simplicity. It means reflection and observing our rhythms and habits and assessing the ones that work, don't work, and the ones that just downright hinder us. (I have a heap o' those, I'm afraid.)

Around this time each year, I get addicted to Facebook. In previous years, it was because I was in Alaska and the winter days made getting out impossible. Lately, it's because I'm not working and being home with the tinies makes me nearly insane with isolation and facebook seems a cheap, easy substitute. Except that it's not. Too much facebook makes me competitive, judgmental  and dismissive of others. It also makes me self obsessed, but I'm pretty sure I'm wired that way... air can make me self obsessed in the right conditions. That part's true.

I love Lent because we focus on God. Our family. Church. Traditions. Prayer. Spring. Being together. You know, those things...

And I love Lent because I always step away from social networks and realize how I abuse them. I stalk people. Mock people. Compare myself to them and let jealousy rear it's ugly head. But during Lent, I have 40 days to remember that we're all part of the human experience no matter how emo our FB posts are or how annoying all those self portraits really get. Forty days away gives me perspective on the ones that matter (the ones who live here with me) and the ones who don't. (Funny how I always clear out my friends list after the hiatus...at this rate I'll be the one person on FB with twelve friends...ha!)

The kids and I will go to Shrove Tuesday Pancake night at our church and talk about what we're going to do for Lent. I think Boy Wonder is giving up computer time. I'll talk about Facebook and being online in general. We'll talk about how we'll do good deeds for others and we'll map out just what that will look like. We'll decide (or I'll decide for them, hahaha) that the television will get turned off at a certain time each night and we'll read, or draw, or paint, or play games together. They'll fuss at first, but then they'll love it. They always do.

I'll wonder what my friends are up to online, but then I'll get into our new routines and habits and I'll hope they're all doing well and I'll pray for good things to happen for them this year. And then I won't miss Facebook so much.

I'll pray for productivity and focus this season. I'll pray to honor the time...all the glorious, maddening, exhausting, exhilarating time I get with these tiny humans and be grateful. I'll work hard to be a better person. In general. Overall.

And I'll probably give up coffee, too. Just to be sure Jesus know's I'm serrrrrious about it all. :)

I love my kids, I hate my blog, and I miss carbs!

I love my kids

Wow. I really do. The transition to four kids now that we're full strength (Boy Wonder came home last week!) wasn't really as hard as I thought it would be.


Sure, sometimes I think all I EVER say is "Get off that!" or "Leave your brother alone!" or "We don't put dirty underwear on our sister's head!" but really, my house is a safe haven of order and calm. HA!

This week was the first week of third grade for our Boy Wonder. It was hard to watch him walk into the new school knowing how nervous he was about being the new kid. He came home that first day a little bummed that he didn't make a friend, but by Tuesday afternoon he'd not only ridden the bus for the first time (dubbed "Best. Experience. Ever" by the kid himself), but he'd made a few classroom friends. Life in third grade is good, folks, life is good.

First day of third grade and a happy little brother.

The younger ones and I alternate between local parks and the two libraries in town. Boo still insists he's big enough to ride the bus to school and that he's deserving of a class of his own, but with enough promises of slides and swings, he relents and let's his big brother go. He's too eager to grow up.

The girls? Well, they're angels. No, it's true. McK is a champ at dinner and eats enough to get her power lifting career off and running in the near future and Riley Roo sleeps. A lot. Like, all the time. I guess I would too if given the chance.

I hate my blog

OMG. I really do. I changed it a few months back when I was wallowing in the dark of Alaska and all I could think about was lemons (I still don't own my own damn lemon tree) and sunshine. Now? Well, I just don't connect with it or the design scheme. It drives me crazy, really, and is a big reason I don't update it often. (The other four BIG reasons being the minions I live with who treat me like their personal pack mule and cleaning lady).

That said, it's being updated AGAIN this week. Can you forgive me? I hate cleaning and remodeling as much as the next person, but when you just don't jive with the name or the look of your very own sacred space (Ok, it's just a blog, but whatever!!), nothing feels right.

I spent about an entire week agonizing over the name. I finally remembered my favorite Shel Silverstein poem and BOOM! Life was magical again. Updates soon.

I miss carbs

I made the mistake of looking at myself in the mirror last week. Not that I was expecting Elle Macpherson to be staring back from the foggy glass or anything, but after three kids in four years, my body just seemed to give up and say "@#$K it!"  And I'm only 34!!!!

It was a sort of galvanizing moment, I guess. I had an image of myself carting around these same 30 pounds and being miserable while my kids grew. No energy to get through the long, beautiful days that come with the territory when you have four children. No love for myself. Fear of mirrors and any sort of pant WITHOUT an elastic waist. I mean, really, what sort of life is that?

So this week I started a process I like to call the 60 Day Gutcheck. I'm not great at struggle or discipline, but after I took my "day one" photo on Monday, I'm pretty sure I'd be willing to eat dirt for two months to get a fire started under my ass.

Because money is tight and personal trainers and diet programs aren't cheap, I'm sort of mish-mashing a few programs together and hoping for success. I have a copy of Bob Harper's Skinny Rules that gives me a few guidelines to follow when it comes to my awful eating habits (is "crap off your kids' plates" a viable food group??) The rules are pretty strict and I'm eating pretty bland, colorless (read it: carbless!) food...but seriously, ya'll...have you SEEN my "day one" photo?? Taste is obviously overrated.

From Weight Watchers, I'm stealing the journaling concept. I've read too many articles that state people who write down what they eat lose more weight than those who don't. Not saying I don't groan each time I have to write down "four bites of Boo's chocolate chip cookie," but the point is that I'm owning that shame, sir!

And workouts? Well, gym time is a commodity I'm not really afforded right now so I snagged P's Insanity set and you'll find me every afternoon cursing out Shawn T. and his brigade of skinny, ab-crazy devotees. When I can't take all the bouncing and jumping, I have a couple Yoga and Pilates dvds to torture myself with.

I promise to share the progress photos. Eventually. Like when I'm already Kate Moss-skinny and am allowed within ten feet of a baked good again.

I'll be sure to update the 60 day progress once a week or so if you promise to send carbs. Lots of carbs. Ok, forget that last part.

Hope your week is great!

Life in L&D

Hello, world. I sit here writing this with a cup of cold hospital coffee next to my laptop, a ginormous scar across my abdomen that I refuse to look at for fear of vomiting, and the 2012 Olympics casting a nice light from across the room while the neat little soundbox is perched next to me. (Don't those things smack of the drive in speaker boxes that you'd hang on your door? Yes, I went to drive ins a time or two before they went extinct!)

Here I sit. Thinking about how our family is now a family of six. How our newest little girl, Riley Makaila, made her entrance yesterday via C-section and is doing wonderful. How she's the exact spitting image of her older brother, Boo, as a newborn. (It's kinda crazy how identical they look!)

My delivery story with Riley is so very different from her siblings. I was scared the entire week leading up to the surgery and had a hard time hiding it the past few days. She was breech and refused to turn the past few weeks and, so, the section was inevitable.

We arrived Tuesday (July 31, a wonderful day to have a birthday!) morning and I was all smiles and chatty until they started poking me with needles and talking spinal blocks. Barf. Our doc was in a particular rush to get the surgery underway, so they sort of rushed P and I through all the paperwork and medications and clothes changing until POOF!...I'm sitting on the OR table leaning on a stranger while the anesthesiologist is drilling for oil in my spine. (I was actually really upset that they made P wait outside during that part...I'm particularly terrified of needles in my vertebrae and do better when he's with me!)

The minute the numbing medication is in place, you have to lie down immediately and that sense of immediacy must have made me panic, because I started to hyperventilate, cry, and get sick from the rush of medication. Let's just say I was a little less than dignified those first few moments. Barfing up the nasty medicine shots they had me take before the OR room. Crying because I couldn't move enough to NOT panic (see of that makes sense...it sure doesn't to me now that I look back!) and the general feeling that my heart was beating so fast it was going to explode in my chest. It was hell.

The doc must have felt sorry for me or was sick of hearing me and my wailing death keen, because he knocked me clean off my butt with some wonder drug and the next thing I know, I feel a huge weight lifted up and off my chest (eww!) and then there was Riley. And she came out swinging and squalling and telling all those doctors and nurses all about themselves. Honestly, she's scored the highest on the Apgar test of all our babies and I think it was based purely on the loud trash-talking she was delivering. It was great!

I slept for the next 13 hours, I'm pretty sure. P said I was in a zombie-like state and that basically sums it up. I remember itching a lot because of the morphine and I was a sweaty sort of mess in the afternoon. But that's about it. Oh, and I was hungry. Damn hungry and resentful that they somehow though lime gelatin and chicken broth was anything less than an insult to a formerly pregnant chick who hadn't eaten in 17 hours. Really, people??

But day two? Well, it's much better. The whole "sawed in half" thing really makes hopping out of bed and dancing the can-can difficult, but I'm working on it. I love laying in my hospital bed on my butt (until my butt goes numb and I have to try to move without activating the deactivated core muscles) waiting for the next food tray. (Yes, I had chicken fried steak tonight. Woo hoo!)

There's hope I can go home early tomorrow and get back to my beloved, busy life with my beloved, busy family. I truly hope so. Riley's siblings are impatient to have her home and I'm impatient to be home with P and the minions.


Hope everyone is enjoying the rest of their summer!

Get Your Flying Machines at the Ready

Nothing like a balmy 49 degrees to inspire some kite flying, right? We got ourselves a couple drug store specials and waited until it was nice and gusty this afternoon to take the boys flying. Boy Wonder was just about Boo's age when he first met a kite, so I suppose it was about time.

But it wouldn't be our family without a few broken strings, a kite-eating tree, and an emergency potty break. Go figure.

Read on, friend...read on.

1. Picture it. Anchorage, 2012. Still snow on the ground, but not for the weather's lack of trying. Go, weather, go.

2. The boys and their pre-flight instructions. "Hang on tight. Stay away from each other. Hit me, your mother, or your sister with a kite and I'm knocking you out when you're 16. Got it?"

Notice the tree. In about three minutes, said tree is going to try to EAT Boy Wonder's stealth bomber kite. Thanks to dad, it fails. But it was sure close...

3. This is Boo and his bug kite. Have you ever tried to teach him anything? You can't. You can hint, cajole, and express concern that maybe he might want to hold on tight to his string or his kite will fly away.

Guess what?

His kite flew straight over those buildings in the distance. Guess who jogged down there (six months pregnant and all!) and yanked it free when it finally made its suicidal jump off the roof on the other side? Yep. Me. Super Mom. You'd have done the same thing if you heard the heart-breaking shrieks of agony from said know-it-all when the wind yanked the string from his hands and liberated the kite.

4. This kid's kind of a natural at this game. And oh my goodness, I just love that he still wears puddle boots proudly. I can hardly believe he's 8-years-old. Where did the time go? I wonder what sort of young man he's going to grow into...a scholar? A ladies man? Am I rambling? My bad. I get caught up when I start thinking about how quickly this one's growing. Great kite flyer, isn't he?

5. This is the point in the story where the Boo man noticed a fly near him. This is his scaredy-man freak out dance. He hates flies. And bugs. And especially spiders. I think the fly was traumatized after all the noise he made. Is it ironic that he picked out the bug kite himself? Just when we thought it was safe to return to the skies...

6. The second freakout of the half hour involved an exploding (or about-to-explode) bladder. Daddy had to convince him that boys do, in fact, pee outside from time to time. Boo was uncertain at first but now I wonder if he'll ever use the toilet again...

7. I love kites. Have you picked up on that? Oh, and can we have a moment of silence for the bug kite? A slip of Daddy's wrist while in flight and the thing shattered into three or four plastic, buggy pieces. You'll be missed fearless building-jumping bug kite. Go to glory, friend.

Have a blessed week!

A Few Days With a New Camera

Our new Olympus arrived in the mail a few days ago and I am having So. Much. Fun. A few shots from around our house, and even a house cleaning tip for you. Enjoy your Sunday!

1. A rock animal bird monster thing that our Boo created over the weekend. We had to buy the rock, of course. Alaska's rocks have 89 feet of snow still on them. Grumble....

2. Me and the minions. They're cute, aren't they?

3. That's her mad face. I think it's awfully cute.

4. I've noticed lately my "citrus cleaner" smells like chemi-lemon and it CREEPS ME OUT. Lucky for me, Vanessa (a friend from high school who has got to be the craftiest creature alive) recently posted this citrus cleaner recipe on her blog, Tried and True. I love that girl. I love her blog, too. Most of all? I think I'm going to love a lemon cleaner based on real lemons.

Here's hoping your week is a great one!

Crowded Kitchen: Nanny's Ginger Crinkles

My trip to Texas this month was better than I could have imagined. Good times with my dad and my son. Good food. Hella sunshine. A chance to spend time with my Donna Lynn after a five year absence. Sleeping in my old bed.

And note cards? Recipe cards to be exact.

This year I've slowly become fascinated with cooking. And baking, though the results are mixed and vary, depending on whether I accidentally skip over the "baking soda" line in the ingredients.

In my dad's house, I was pawing through the old bookshelf and stumbled across three recipe boxes FULL of my mom's recipes, handwritten on index cards. Here's the thing about finding these...for years, my mom had the most beautiful handwriting. She had such pride in it, that she did her best to pass it on to me, even if it meant making me re-do my sloppy homework. (Oh, how I cursed her then!)

In recent years, since her diagnosis of the brain disease, her ability to write in the neatly rounded print has dwindled, and often times, when she's quickly jotting notes, I have a hard time reading it. But these recipe cards, well, they tell a story. Not only do the contain all the things I grew up eating, they show the progression of a brain disease of sorts, along with highlighting my mother's fascinations--cranberries, biscottis, cranberry biscotti. You see where I am going.

To make a good find even BETTER, one of the boxes I found had a different penmanship all together. Can you tell where this is going? Oh yes, the motherlode of all recipe boxes...my grandmother, Margaret. Nanny is a woman after my own heart. She devotes precious little space to nonesense like main dishes and vegetables. No, my grandmother gets down with the baking. Muffins. Breads. Biscuits. Cookies. Candy. Pies.

I sat on the phone with my mom on a recent Sunday afternoon reading off the recipes and getting whatever stories went with them. Hermits are Pop's favorite cookies. Penuche is Nanny's favorite candy. Anything with raisins in the recipe was definitely made for Pop. The god-awful sounding things in there like "Cabbage Casserole" and "Minced Clam Lunch" were from an era when Nanny was religiously shedding pounds with Weight Watchers. (Phew!)

Nanny's penmanship is classic cursive they must have taught back in school. It's slanted. It's tightly spaced and feminine. Her s's are perfect. Her f's are elegant. And her recipes? Fantastic.

My mom has made ginger crinkles before. I remember them well, so when I found Nanny's recipe...well, I had to. Consider these my new favorite cookies. And they went well with the boys, too, so I can talk myself into them more often. After all, molasses has a lot of iron, right?

The magic thing about this is that I never grew up close to Nanny. She and Pop always lived on the opposite coast as me, but something happened during that first attempt to cook from her recipe. I learned to trust.

I squinted at the recipe card a few times when I didn't see butter. I saw a whole lot of oil. A lot of the recipes were different than what I'm used to out of today's magazines and recipe Web sites.

"Are you sure?" I asked nobody in particular.

The card was stained and worn. It had obviously been used before, and obviously the results were good if the baker came back to the card time and time again. So I trusted. And I used the nearly one cup of oil. And it was good. Earthy and spicy and crunchy and sweet. So good, I wanted to share Nanny's recipe.

This discovery lit a fire under my butt. I wanted more family recipes. I want them in a book. I want Pam's buckeyes and Dee's peanut butter cookies. I want Cheryl's pie recipes, instructions for my mom's rustic apple tarts, and I want the stories that go with them before nobody wants to tell them anymore. I want my kids and Jeff's kids and Brandy's kids and Justin's kids and Carissa's kids to have this piece of our far-flung, odd, and beautiful family, too.

And I'm working on it, people. :)

Ginger Crinkles

2/3 cup vegetable oil
1 cup sugar
1 egg
4 T molasses
2 cups flour
2 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp salt
1 tsp cinnamon
1 tsp ginger
1/4 cup sugar for coating

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.

Mix oil and sugar thoroughly in large bowl. Add egg and beat well. Stir in molasses. Sift dry ingredients to oil mixture. Make walnut-sized balls and cover in sugar. Put on ungreased cookie sheet and bake for 15 minutes. Do not overbake. Cool on rack. Store cookies in tightly covered container. Makes about 3 dozen.

It's Time to Admit Defeat: New Tactics and the Picky Eater in My House

Folks, it's war.

I've known it for a while...a simmer that's slowly built up to a boil as I've watched Boy Wonder leave more and more food on his plate, immediately asking for snacks after meals, hording food in his bedroom, stealing my cans of diet soda when I'm not looking (he really does...I went back to finish one last night and the damn can was empty...and I'd just opened it!)

Whether Boy Wonder is truly a picky eater (could be, could be) or whether he's just darn lazy (another great possibility), there's a war brewing in our home and the refrigerator stands at ground zero.

P's been on to Boy Wonder for a few months now, but has given the kid space to change his ways. This morning, all heck broke loose when I went to change out his backpack before school and took out yesterday's lunchbox (yes, I forgot to last night.) Inside, I saw his lunch that I packed him--still intact 24 hours later. Oh sure, half the ham sandwich was gone and so was the juice box, but still...EVERYTHING else remained there. Untouched.

I panicked. I did a mental tally of all the things I saw him eat throughout the day (and yes, this is where my own "mea culpa" comes into the picture. The following list is shocking, sickening, and I'm taking full responsibility for it's ick-factor):

* a bowl of Lucky Charms, a half glass of Orange Juice for breakfast

* sent him to school with a lunch he didn't eat besides the juice box and the half sandwich

*once home, he snacked on pretzels while watching TV (this is also where he stole my soda)

*for dinner I made him a plate and all he ate was the corndog and two bites of applesauce

If I am lucky ( and I mean with a capital L-U-C-K-Y), he ingested what? a total of 800 grams of sugar and about 700 calories of crap??? And if you know Boy Wonder (or have eyes in your head and have seen a picture of him recently), you know he's a skinny little man. It's something I assume he'll grow out of (definitely not a trait he gets from me!), but not with the way he's currently eating.

I stood in shock for about two minutes this morning when I came to that conclusion. Thankfully P was sympathetic and kind, but I could tell he was relieved that I finally "got it." (He walks a fine line between being a parental figure and trying not to be an overbearing step-dad...of which he does a MIGHTY fine job, I must say).

We mutally decided on a "no snack" policy for the forseeable future, as Boy Wonder lives, breaths, and dwells on snacks. He'll ask for snacks directly after dinner. (Say whaaaaaaat?) I'm throwing out all pretzels, chips, and "snacky crap" when I get home. (Sorry, P! Hiden those goodies on the top shelf of the cabinet before I get home!!)

I went out and bought that "hide good crap in your kid's food book" (aka "Deceptively Delicous") and while I tried FOREVER to avoid her hype and buying in to it, it's a pretty brilliant idea. I've already put sticky notes on several of the recipes I want to try and I'll post a few and how they turned out.

I also did some research on "picky eaters" and it seems to be a phenomenon.

I, personally, don't remember being given the option of being picky...but that was back in the 80s...when kids didn't wear seatbelts, car seats hadn't been invented, and the only nutritional advice Hulk Hogan offered us was to eat our vitamins and say our prayers. (Check and check.) My mom would have knocked me out of my chair if I'd refused to eat and THEN asked for some pretzels. I'm a softie, I admit it.

I found a PBS entire Web section called The Science of Picky Eaters.

Psychology Today (one of my all time favorite magazines that has a Web site so rad and true to their print version that I rarely buy the hard copy anymore) has this article: "Picky Eaters."

And finally, the Mayo Clinic has "10 Tips for Picky Eaters" in their Children's Nutrition section.

We have a lot of work ahead of us. A long, uphill battle where we have to be bad guys (I HATE being the bad guy), we have to make rules and stick to them (not so great at that, either), and we have to set a good example (BOOO!)

But as small of a consolation as it is...I get to make broccoli puree and find a way to sneak it into his chocolate chip pancakes...suhweeet. A little something I like to call "Mama's Revenge."

When the World is Trying to Tell You Something

For the first time in years, Boy Wonder and I clashed tonight. Nothing major...just a version of grating each others nerves from the moment I got home from work all the way through dinner (he chose to eat his pizza in his room, thankee verra much) and into our "art" time. Getting said Boy Wonder to complete a bookmark for a library contest was a real treat, please believe.

Add to the bad vibes one baby who learned a new trick: jamming your fingers down your throat makes you gag. And gagging is a really neat noise. So you should do it a lot. Like, constantly. In your high chair, on the floor, in the bath, during your dinner. Gag, gag, gag. And scream bloody murder when your mother yanks your dirty little fingies from your maw. And slap at her face with your free hand. She loves that.

I digress. Two angry boys. One pissy mom. Betcha wish you were in town visiting us right now, eh?

Anyhoo...

I get all parties (minus me) into bed. Boy Wonder made up about eleventy-seven reasons to leave his bed, the last being he couldn't find "Marvin." (His stuffed dog.)

Exhausted, exasperated, tired, frustrated, hungry, stressed, pitiful wreck that I was, I stormed into his room and found the damn dog...under his pillow. Mad as all hell at his refusal to go to bed, I threatened to give all his toys to the neighbor's dog (hey, I was caught off guard) if he didn't stay in bed. He said I was mean. I said I'm allowed to be. He said I should be nice. I said I was going to tell his teacher what a naughty boy he's being. He caved.

Victorious, I stomped back to the kitchen where I found his "reading packet" for the night (which we forgot to do and will have to read at breakfast.). Do you know what book I found staring up at me from the backpack? A g-damned mirror, that's what I found. Here, judge for yourself:



Ok, ok, world. I get it. Grumpy elephant= me. Ha ha...very funny.

At last...

Picture it...Eagle River, Alaska. Winter 2009. A beautiful young peasant girl walks down the aisle....

Ok, ok, no more nods to Sophia Patrillo or the Golden girls.

I don't sing like Etta James (more like Bartles and James), but, if you could, please imagine that song playing in the background. It sets the mood of sorts for this post.

I know all brides think their wedding was amazing, and I'm no different.

It was a-m-a-z-i-n-g.

Our church had dim lighting and candles. And fall decorations. And bridesmaids in beautiful black dresses. And groomsmen in dapper black suits. And guests in lots of pretty party clothes. And P. And me. P had hemmed up pants. We bought a new shirt/tie combo for Boy Wonder and subsequently lost the NEW TIE moments before the ceremony. (I'm awesome like that.) Boo had a nice new shirt and some brown pants. (He looked great!) And I had a fancy hairdo AND a bouquet. (That I made a few hours before the ceremony with some roses and some ribbon. Martha Stewart can kick rocks...I didn't even need You Tube.)

The day was a blur. I had to coach Boy Wonder's basketball game at noon. P had a huge math exam at 10...so we crammed a day's worth of errands and prep into a couple hours. (Yes, I panicked and went crazy a few hours before...but I was chained to a stylist chair for two hours while the girl curling ironed my hair into oblivion, so I couldn't really unleash the true Bridezilla, scales and all. The hair was a really pretty oblivion, btw.)

Anyhoo...I just remember 7 p.m. arrived and there Boy Wonder and I were. Standing at the door of the church. And all of our friends stood and looked straight at us and I stared at the floor the entire walk. :) Stage fright, anyone?

I'll admit it. I was incredibly nervous and overwhelmed, but despite risking sounding like an absolute cheeseball, I looked to P when I got really antsy and he calmed me down. Talk about a rock...I'd look at him and the world sort of just disappeared and narrowed in on the two of us and Fr. Greg. (He did an amazing job and delivered a beautiful sermon that I can't really remember all that well now. But I do remember him saying that this is one of those moments that defines your life as "before" and "after." So true, so true.) And when it was just the three of us, I could focus. And I could say my lines without sounding robotic or like Optimus Prime. ("Autobots...let's transform...and ROLLOUT!")

Before we knew it, the rings were blessed and we were married. Amazing how time crawls like molasses in the church library before the ceremony and how it absolutely FLEW to the "Hey, you're married now" part. We had a few desserts with everyone and went home to tuck our boys into bed, then we were off to the hotel and after party.

Our first dance (to the best of my recollection) was to Sean Kingston's "Fire Burning." Hey, don't judge. Our first date soundtrack will forever be Soldier Boy's "You" song. We're not big on sentimentality around the Applegate house.

So we made it to the fairytale beginning and now it's back to reality. Like the electricity disconnect notice I have staring at me on the counter. (Why you gotta bust balls, Matanuska Electric Association?)

Thanks to every single one of our friends and families for the well wishes and the support. Lots of love to everyone!