Picking up the Pieces

I finished my thesis!! I submitted my paper last Thursday and felt like a huge weight had been lifted. It is now in the hands of my first and second readers--so more revisions may be on the way, but it is written!
The hard part is now picking up everything I have neglected over the past few months in the process of writing this paper. Oh, the mountains of laundry, the paperwork and just general mess that has been piling up is overwhelming!
I think I have my tax stuff in order--good thing, since we need to get our taxes done BEFORE baby comes. Hopefully our accountant thinks they are in order too!
And....being done with this, means no more excuses! I no longer have a reason to sit with the laptop all evening and ignore the mess around me. I no longer can justify an entire naptime spent on the computer. I cannot use school as an excuse for slacking at home--and I will confess that I have used it as an excuse. Back to the housework plan--and ready to get things in order!!

Testing Limits

For the last few days, I have felt like I've been on an episode of Supernanny. You know how they have the massive time out battles, where they have to keep putting the kid back in time out? Yeah, that was us yesterday. He thought it was so funny, and spankings were not changing his mind about staying in time out. I finally won the battle, and he did his time out, but is it really a victory when you are SO exhausted by the end??
Ryan is pushing every boundary and testing every limit. Seriously, this kid is wearing me out! I got a much needed nap today (and so did Ryan), which really helped my physical and mental state of mind.
We are really working on teaching him that no is not negotiable and that throwing tantrums or whining will not change our minds! Now--this has always been the case, but it seems like he needs to get the picture again.
And you just want to hit your head against the wall, when Ryan tells me, "It makes God sad when I disobey?" And you tell him yes, and then he goes and disobeys again not one second later! I'm sure that God gets just as frustrated with me when I sin and continually fail to listen to Him. This is just one more instance where parenthood has made me even more thankful for God's love and patience.
We are praying for wisdom in this situation and for God's direction in raising this little boy. Because we definitely can't do it on our own!

Getting out!

We enjoyed the sunshine today and Ryan rode his bike for about an hour. We were out so long, that it got pretty late and I had nothing ready for dinner.
So, we decided to go out and we had a gift card which ended up being enough for our entire dinner, which was really nice!

Anyway, we were leaving the restaurant and a car backing up almost hit us. Seriously, it just kept backing up--(way farther than it needed to) and we had to hop onto the curb! I think I said, "Are you kidding?"
Now, the lady was VERY apologetic once she realized what she was doing. But, as we are walking away, Ryan says, "Are you kidding lady?"
The lady did not hear--she had driven away by this point (thank goodness!) Just another reminder for me to be careful about what I say!

Freaking Out (Just a little!)

Well, I am still plugging away on my thesis and thought I should clarify with my adviser about when I am scheduled to present. The date he gave me is 9 days after my due date! I'm not thinking that would go well....hmm...let's put a sleep deprived new mommy in front of a bunch of professors and grad students and expect her to speak coherently about a topic she can't even remember because all she can think about is feedings, diaper changes and sleeping. Anyone think that sounds like a good idea?
So, I asked if I might be able to present with the first group in March. I got a yes....providing that my thesis is done by the 22nd at the VERY latest. Okay, but that seems to be coming up pretty soon, considering this all happened today! I was originally going to be finished by March 15th--so a month early?? No problem, right?
I canceled my women's retreat registration--I'm bummed, but know that even if I am finished in time, I'm probably just going to want to crash and put the shambles of my house back together. I've also canceled just about every commitment for the next two weeks. I really just need to focus and get it done.
I think I can, I think I can, I think I can...

Tummy picture!

Oh--is that not what you all have been wanting to see??

Ryan likes to pretend that there is a baby in his tummy too, and he put his basketball in his shirt!

Chocolate Pizza!

When Ryan pretends that we are going to the store or to Costco, I ask him what we are going to buy. He usually tells me that we are going to buy bananas or chocolate pizza. Now, I have no idea where he came up with the chocolate pizza thing, but he has been saying that for probably 4 months now!

So, I figured, maybe we should make a chocolate pizza! Ryan "helped" me to make it, and he was so excited!

Chocolate Cookie Pizza

The recipe:

1 tube of peanut butter cookie dough

12 oz. cream cheese (softened)

1 small package chocolate pudding

1 3/4 cup milk

Whipped cream (no idea how much I actually made!)

Chocolate chips

Roll out the peanut butter cookie dough onto a pizza pan and bake for approximately 15 minutes or until golden brown. Let cool.

Whip cream cheese until fluffy and smooth and spread over cooled crust.

Mix pudding mix with 1 3/4 cup milk and mix for approx. 3 minutes.

Spread pudding over top of cream cheese. Refrigerate and let set for 20 minutes.

Top pizza with whipped cream and sprinkle chocolate chips on the top.

(Note: the recipe orignally called for cool whip, but since I'm opposed to hydrogenated oils, I used real whipped cream. I just whipped the entire pint of cream with a little powdered sugar. But, if you use whipped cream, I would top each individual slice, not the entire pizza--unless it will be consumed all in one evening! Sometimes, the whipped cream gets soft and doesn't hold up as well when it is on the pizza.)