year 4

  Early in our marriage we were given all these marriage books. When people saw what a trainwreck our dating life was, they said a prayer and bought us something by Dennis Rainey.

  One of these books basically stated, in chapter 1 mind you, that Matt & I had a 400% chance of divorce...or something like that. Kid before marriage, both from broken homes, Matt in law enforcement...yada yada yada, we were doomed. So we stopped reading those books and picked up some on warfare. Seriously. How to fight for each other in a bloody battlefield of dysfunctional behavior.

   Year 4 was not to dissapoint in terms of adventure. We built a new home, Matt made the jump from patrol into School Resource Officer, and we became pregnant with Aden. Happy times, right?

   I think we were trying to outrun life. There was finally enough money to pay the bills, a beautiful new house to decorate, and another baby on the way. All that young and broke stuff was a thing of the past.

   Well, not really. The clouds started to gather and a depression set in. One day I will write about it. It was from this dark place that Matt learned to say to me "I'll die on this hill." He is assuring me that this is his fight, to the end. For my heart. For our family. I think back on it and it seems to me, that was the beginning of our marriage right there. For better or worse, Babe.

(so a quick note on the photos: 1-we can discuss my hair in the comment section, if you would like ;)
2-they do not always go with the exact year I am covering because 3-it's really hard to find pics without little people crawling all over us!)

blackberry cobbler y'all

   About this time of year, I turn into a freegan. If it can be foraged, I am all over it. It must be the long days of summer filled with, "Mooooom, I'm huuuuuunnnnnnngry." Well, Seattle provides, friends. All along our neighborhood alleyways are bushes heavy with perfect blackberries. Sweet and free for the picking.

  After we pick, I freeze half (for gray February mornings that beg for blackberry syrup on warm pancakes) then we usually make crepes with this lady's recipe. The boys asked for cobbler this time, though. I used this recipe. Easy, quick, delicious and all with stuff I had already.

Remember the berry post from last year? Well, the same circus act discussion came up again this year, too funny.

instagram round up

Featuring a creepy cat poster, bowling, cupboard organizing, and bedhead! (bedhead is just something I have had to accept in our house, but my mom? That lady will hog tie the boys and slick every last hair down to their head. True story.)

Have you noticed a jump in my blogging frequency? Jayna wrote a lovely post of why blogging matters here, you go girl! Write, write, write! Tell your story, it'll get weird but honestly, that is what I want to read about. All the messy bits that make it real.

Mawwiage

  I will keep going with the marriage series I've started, but I thought I would pop in real quick for today. It is 12 years since I walked down the aisle to marry my love. I was never so happy my stepdad is such a big guy, I clung to his arm as I made my way down the pews of a packed out church. We invited 175 and 250 showed up. It was just after high school so a lot of people grabbed a friend and headed to our Friday night weddin'. All those faces staring back at me and then, his. Matt's smile, ear to ear, the only way he knows how. 

  And here we are today. I am treating my athlete's foot as I type this, Matt is working overtime this weekend, and one of our boys is pouting in the basement. Glamourous eh? All the better that I have such a great partner to weather the storms with. Matt is the fuel in the tank. His enthusiasm for life drives Team Archuleta. I love him. Happy Anniversary ( again ), Babe!

eyebrow update and my quotable Collin

 Of first importance, I have dealt with my crazy Brooke Shields eyebrow sitch. I tried threading! Have you heard of this? Well it was awkward and that is why I am now telling the interwebs all about it. The place I went was a kiosk in the mall. Yes, I  totally trusted a pop up stand outside Abercrombie & Finch with MY FACE. So there are people walking by, uhhh "Hi?" I wanted to get my money's worth, ($15) so I had let them go for like a month. There is hair flying and it is ei-yi-yi, very painful. Then the lady smiles at my, admiring her handiwork and hands me a mirror. Wowza! I can see again! Also I resemble a cavewoman less.

Okay, onto the less awkward. Collin is cute. He still says everyday words in super adorable ways so I am recording them here:
"Lish-shush" (Delicious)
"Plause" (Pause)
"I AM DOOR!" (I am Thor! And sometimes when he is feeling extra awesome it sounds like "I am Dork!)
"American Wheel" (Ferris Wheel)
"Tangle this for me? (Tie this together)
"E-leb-bum E-leb-bum" (7-11)
I speak fluent Collin and love it, best of luck to his Kindergarten teacher, though :/

post in which I admit to being incontinent

  I don't know why I do these things. I decided of my many to dos, I would tackle the downstairs bathroom. It is tucked away in the corner of the basement and mostly Parker uses it. Okay, well that's a half-truth. I often times am running in there after underestimating my bladder after having 4 children.

  Anyhoo, I have noticed I will do this in a house. When the projects start to stack, I will pick the worst one or the one with the least pay out straight away. This does a nice job of lowering my expectations for the whole house. Everything else is looking awesome after painting over generations of someone else's basement bathroom funk. ( ewww. ) 

  I started in by painting one wall like this:

You know, because nothing says boys basement bathroom like pink and purple. Also, it looked reminiscent of Ikat fabric to me. Great for my creativity freak out but it was soon coated with a nice ecru color. Not lacking any creative freakiness, though.

 Yep, that is me. Marcela had a picture from our bowling going away party made into a poster. It says, "Be yourself, everyone else is already taken." It hangs above the toilet :)

If you are facing the other wall, you'll see these chalkboard frames. My mission in my home is that every surface be chalkboard or corkboard or whiteboard, really, it's gotten obsessive. So that's it, the BBB now only contains our funk and I occasionally pee myself.

year three

  Family of four. Matt tackled the toddler stage with ease and I doted on newborn Kaleb. That meant for most pictures, there are children sandwiched between Matt and I. The boys were only 19 months apart and our relationship had to form more of a partnership to get it all done.

Year three Matt started his career in law enforcement. A fun time of dreams becoming reality. And I traded that slicked ponytail for a rockin' soccer mom 'do! ( I think this whole series will just end up being about my hair.)

birthday post

  Lots o' fun celebrating Kaleb's birthday last week. We tried a new restaurant chain called Bahama Breeze, hit up a free Vicci Martinez concert (she was Cee-Lo's winner from the 1st season of the Voice), & pizza partied with neighborhood friends. Kaleb wanted a Krispy Kreme doughnut cake & he has asked for a mini fridge for cold soda pop in his room. This boy shares his Mama's sweet tooth!

going to the chapel

   On one of our recon trips to Seattle before the big move, Matt met a young man named Justin. They instantly connected and Matt soon heard all about Emily, whom Justin was smitten with. We've all gotten to know Justin in Emily and had the pleasure of attending their wedding last weekend. Matt and I went to the reception together, kind of like a date. Then the boys joined us for the reception. Our boys love weddings. Food, dancing, photo booths...what is not to love? Congrats J & E, and here's to the wild ride called marriage!

I love a happy ending

This one is hard to write. We had to adopt out our family dog of almost 7 years. 

 Jake became part of the Archuleta circus when we lived on the farm in Weiser. She roamed the countryside for the first two years of her life. (Yes, HER name is Jake. It's weird, whatever.)

 Our life in the city for the past 5 years has been a stretch for her country girl ways. We would frequently have to address fencing issues after coming home to yet another escape.

When this all got too overwhelming for us- still trying to recover from the months of unemployment, moving into the new house, the boys getting back into sports, & her looking at me with those sad, sad eyes... we had to accept we were not the pet owners we wanted to be.

 

The idea of losing a her sent the whole family into a panic. Devastating to a few family members.

 But Jake had a happy ending. And that makes us happy, too. She was adopted by the most perfect couple. Their dogs are their kids. They live in the country and have a dog pool. And! They have welcomed our family to come visit Jake whenever.

 I swear she was smiling when they drove off. She will have the country life she loves and another dog to grow old with.

So much that I could say about this experience. So much I learned from that sweet mutt. This was not our plan, and letting go of our plan was difficult. Letting go is hard but sometimes holding on is harder, or like this quote I found on Oprah.com:

"Holding on is believing that there's only a past; letting go is knowing that there's a future."-Daphne Rose Kingma