It's SO quiet around here...

Good Morning!  Happy New Year!  Merry Christmas! (It's been awhile since I've blogged, hasn't it?)
My boys (and John, my third boy) all headed back to school and work after two weeks of being home. It's SO quiet here this morning.  It's great!  I have to admit, while the second week of vacation was WONDERFUL, the first week was a bit not.  I yelled.  A lot.  At the boys (not John so much!)  The week before Christmas.  ugh.  I didn't want to be so stressed, and really, I wanted to enjoy having everyone all together, but it was crazy the week before Christmas.   We were able to really relax and enjoy ourselves the second week.  Maybe playing wii together helped...I rock at archery!  And we went sledding!   Even me.  And even though we didn't go anywhere (not the norm here in our small coastal town) I know the boys had a great break. (I only know this for sure because they actually told me!)  So apparently memories of Mommy yelling have gone to the wayside. But it did happen.

And then we have this morning.  I wanted so badly to have everything all organized for them to head back to school (John is on his own on this one!)  I put their snow stuff in the dryer so it would be ready for the morning (you know, one less thing to worry about, yay me), made sure everyone had school appropriate clothing to put on (dress code) and went to bed.  Only to be woken this morning by "Sweetie, what time do you get the boys up?"  "Um, 6:30, why?"  "it's 7:06"  "Oh, S%#@"  NOT the way I like to start my morning!!!  So much for a stress free first day back. I did manage to get the 2 very tired boys off to school on time and they were even fed and had their hair brushed (phew) and once more I am SO wishing their school had a chef.  Packing lunches is really the bane of my existence. (I love this phrase!  My great friend W used to say it all the time)  And I did remember to restart the dryer, so they were able to head out in warmed up winter gear. ;) (muttering the whole time about how they don't really like school all that much and they want to stay home, C even started to play the I don't feel well card, but I think realized that wasn't going to get him anywhere!)

Can you tell I'm trying to be a bit more real here this year?  I do love to cook, bake, craft, decorate etc.  But I also oversleep, yell and tell my boys to stay in the playroom while I work on other things.  And while I do think our boys are cute and all around good kids, we certainly have our issues. Maybe this all leads to some of my goals for this year...(in no particular order, blogging is certainly NOT my top priority!)

Be more real here
Yell less
Excercise more (more is used loosely here, it's been a while since I exercised AT ALL)
Be more present with J and C (and not just for the great blog photo opps!)
Listen more

I think that is enough for now, don't you??  I'm off to attempt to "CVS" (you know, get $200 worth of items for $2.00 - I'll let you know how successful I am!)

xoxoxo