20 Questions Part 4 of 4

There was a blog floating around Pinterest where a list of questions were compiled so that you and your husband (significant other) could get to know each other a little better. Like the author of this blog, I thought it would be neat to answer them so that my children could get a little insight about their momma! So that is what I have done. It was originally 30 questions, but I have pared it down for myself. I hope you enjoy following along with me

This is part four of four

I hope you have enjoyed following along with me! If you happen to do a 20 questions (or 30) rendition on your blog, I'd love to read about it! Post your link in the comments section if you do!

-Describe a typical day in your current life.

*I wake up when the girls wake up. Usually about 7:30 or 8. I get dressed and then make breakfast for the girls. While they are eating, I usually have about 15 glorious minutes alone in the bathroom to do whatever the heck I please. After the girls eat, I get to eat. While I eat, they start to make a mess (play) in their room. I check Facebook, Pinterest and my blog for a few minutes before I clear away any dishes from breakfast or the remainders from last night’s dinner. We play until lunch time, eat a sandwich and then they play until I have cleared everything away. By 12:30 or 1, I try to start getting Natalee sleepy for her nap. Riley plays or watches a video in bed until Nat is asleep. Then, I start getting Riley ready to take her nap. If I am lucky and both girls’ naps overlap at one point, I will turn Pandora on and bring laundry into the living room to fold or put on hangers. If I have a little more time, I lay on the couch for a few minutes until Nat usually wakes up ready to play (go figure!) I get her settled in the living room with a few toys and a drink and I move on to something else that needs my attention. Riley usually wakes up a half hour later and I get snacks ready. Sometimes we go to the neighborhood park after snack or the girls go back to playing in their rooms depending on the weather. I start thinking about dinner so that it is ready to eat soon after Matt gets home. When he does get home, I quickly do a spot check of the living room, move the far couch over and vacuum quickly so that we can do our workout. While we work out, the girls are playing. After our workout, dinner is usually ready. I add the finishing touches to our meal while Matt showers. We eat as a family, then I shower while Matt gets Riley ready for bed. After I get out of the shower, we sit up with Natalee and watch a show on Redbox just till Natalee is ready to fall asleep. If not, we go to bed and put Natalee between us so we can get some rest while Natalee is trying to fall asleep. Matt is usually asleep as soon as his head hits the pillow. Mine, not so much. When I know Natalee is asleep, I move her to her crib and I go back to bed.

-If you were an animal, what would you be and why?

*I would be a bird, penguin, or dolphin! I would be a bird so I could fly. A penguin so I could withstand cold, and slide on ice on my tummy. A dolphin so I can swim all day and be in the sun and jump high and do summersaults!

- What is the thing you most wish you were great at?

*I would love to be able to sing well. Not even great. I’d just love to be able to sing well enough to not hurt others’ ears! Ha!

- If you could live anywhere, where would it be and why?

*Anywhere near water. I just want to be able to walk out my back door and hear the sound of rushing water. I don’t care if it is a creek or the ocean, just as long as it is a natural water source.

 -Describe 3 significant memories from your childhood.

*My dad flies remote controlled model airplanes. Several of my greatest memories have been when I was able to go fly with him. I knew how to fly at a very early age. I get tickled every time he tells people when he used to hand me the controls and take over flying when I was about 4 or 5. I get so proud of myself when he tells those stories. I also remember falling to a fit of giggles whenever my dad used to do loops or rolls way up high in the sky. That was the funniest thing in the world to me!

*I remember Kyle and I used to have “plans.” Like, we were 7-12 years old, and during the summer, we would create these super secret missions for SUPER early in the morning. Our best one was one summer when we had one of those big plastic pools that was about a foot and a half deep. We had made a plan to wake up at 6:30, before mom and dad were awake, and sneak outside to go swim! The water was sooooo cold, we didn’t stay long, ha ha! 

*Another Kyle memory, One Christmas as a little kid, we woke up around 2AM hoping to catch Santa. Well, he had already been to our house, so we were kind of bummed. Kyle had the genius idea to JUST open one gift each. We saw that several of the packages were identical for each of us so we picked one that looked the same and was smaller than the others so Mom and Dad wouldn’t be TOO mad at us. We hurried back to my room to open it. We got SAFETY PADS! What on Earth did we need safety pads for? We definitely went back to bed all sorts of confused! The next morning, Mom and Dad didn’t seem too out of sorts that we were out of bed in the middle of the night opening gifts, but were pleased to see us disappointed in our gift selection, ha! We did figure out why we got safety pads, though. One of our other identical gifts was ROLLER BLADES! SCORE!

- If you could have one superpower, what would it be and what would you do with it first?

*Flying. Duh! I just want to be able to fly way up high and go anywhere and do anything. I just want to fly!

- Where do you see yourself in 5 years? 10 years? 15 years?

*In 5 years, I will be 30. I hope by then I will be graduated and teaching for real.

*In 10 years, I will be 35 and I hope that we are living well. Not extravagantly, but comfortably. I hope we don’t have to struggle financially forever.

*When I am 40, Riley will be 18 and most likely graduated from high school. I see us sending our first born off to college to do great things for herself. I hope that we are able to provide for her to go to whatever school she wants to go to! 40 will be the start of something new for me (and Matt). Just a few years later, Natalee will be graduating and going off into the world, too. Then we would be empty nesters. I am all excited, sad and fearful of this time. I am excited because this will be the first time Matt and I would be alone. Ever. I would be sad, because my girls are growing up (and right now while they are babies, it is hard to believe this will all be happening in 15-17 years! Too fast!) I am also fearful because this WILL be the first time Matt and I are alone. We never really “dated.” I pray that we will have grown together in our relationship and our marriage and our relationship with God that we continue to make it all work and work well for us.

- List your top 5 hobbies and why you love them.

*I don’t really have hobbies. Taking care of my kids is my job and hobby, I suppose. I have had several hobbies that were started, but never really finished, though:

**R/C trucks. I have a TRAXXAS T-maxx (2.3) that looks absolutely awesome and runs great, but it hasn’t been run in maybe 2 or 3 years now. Sad face. That has always been my favorite hobby. Not many girls are into this kind of stuff and it made me just a *little* smug to know I loved it. Now, I just don’t have time to get it out. Matt has one also (but a 3.3) as well as an E-Revo and a car, too. He can run them pretty much whenever, but I never have the time.

**Shotguns. I have an Iver Johnson .16 shotgun that I inherited from my granddaddy. It was given to him on his wedding day! It is a beautiful gun and I love to shoot it. It has a very hard kick, and your shoulder will be in pain after a few shots, but I’m so proud of that gun! You see, about 20 years ago, it was stolen out of our home by a burglar, lost forever. Several years later, my dad was browsing in a pawn shop and SAW IT! He was able to prove it was his gun, because when you take the stock off, there are some numbers that are scratched into the wood. When he told the owner to open it up, the numbers matched my daddy’s dog tag numbers. I love that story. My dad tells it better than I do, of course. When he tells it, I get chills sometimes. I also have a Browning .12 shotgun that I bought myself. I bought it because my husband (at the time boyfriend, maybe just friend…) had taken me out with his friends on several occasions to shoot skeet. On one of the times, he MADE me try it. Like my hiney was glued to the tailgate and I was NOT getting up. Well, there was one other girl out there that day and her boyfriend was able to get her to try. She did well. She hit 1 out of 5 clays. So, Matt asked me one more time if I wanted to try. The other girl said it wasn’t bad and she kind of liked it. So I gave in. Matt handed me his Remington .12 and explained how the clays would be thrown. Well, let me tell you! I hit all five clays! Matt reloaded for me and I hit the next five! Some of the other guys asked if I had ever done it before and of course I had not! (It’s funny to me, because a lot of the guys were missing targets occasionally.) I was just naturally good at it! So a few weeks later I was able to purchase my Browning. My dad went with me to a range to test fire it. He shot it a few times just to make sure it worked well. Then it was my turn. I fired it at nothing in particular, just to get a feel for it. It was great! Hardly any kick and easy to handle! My dad decided to throw some clays for me, and again, I hit EVERY. SINGLE. ONE! Dad was pretty thrilled :) But of course, a few weeks later I found out Riley was coming along and I had to put that hobby down. Actually, we both put that hobby on hold. I don’t think either one of us has shot our shotguns ever since. Right now we are looking into purchasing pistols. Mostly for protection, but I would love to get into sporting with them. I think it would be a fun discipline.

**Riding lessons. Ever since I was little, I would beg to have horse riding lessons. I was never able to have regular lessons, because my parents had other priorities (you know, like feeding us, keeping a roof over our heads, etc..) I understood, but was always pretty bummed that horses weren’t permanently in my life. I usually got to ride a family friend’s horse a few times during the summer. Once I exchanged mucking stalls for riding lessons. That lasted a few months during the summer. Occasional birthdays I got to have a trial lesson, but those were never truly fun. Since I was new to the barn, the instructor would put me on a slow-poke beginner’s lesson horse and it wouldn’t want to GO. The instructor would feel bad and tell me, “Next time we’ll put you on So-and-So that way you’ll get more out of the lesson…” but there was never usually and “next time.” I’d give anything to be able to take riding lessons. I can’t remember a time when horses WEREN’T on my brain…

-If you could have dinner with anyone in history, who would it be and what would you eat?

*I’d want to have dinner with Jesus. I have a million and one questions for him, but I don’t have any idea where I’d start. I’d probably fix him a steak dinner or anything really. It wouldn’t matter; I’d either talk so much I couldn’t get a bite in or just sit there in a quiet awe and never want to take a bite.

-What is your favorite part of your body and why?

*I love my eyes. They are brown, but when the sunlight hits them just right, you can see these gorgeous golden or greenish flecks sprinkled about my iris. I love doing eye makeup on me too. I love trying new tricks to make them stand out.

-What is your love language?

*My love language is a tie between Quality Time and Acts of Service. I wish we had more time to be together without the girls. I love my girls to pieces, but we never really had a chance to be ourselves, together, without children. Sometimes it feels like we just co-exist, but aren’t actually married, and that scares me. When we do get rare evenings to ourselves without the girls, I’m in Heaven. Or even if the girls are home with us, I like it when he actually talks with me. I hate when I’m in the kitchen making dinner or doing laundry and his butt is glued to the couch with his phone, mouse, or xbox controller in hand. Sometimes he does come in the room with me, it’s not often, but I love it. Even if he wasn’t helping me and was just in the same room with me to talk would be perfect. My other love language is acts of service. I like when Matt (rarely) cleans the kitchen for me or starts a load of laundry. It really helps me out and makes me feel good.

- What do you think people misunderstand most about you?

*I’m a very quiet person. I just don’t have much to say. I think people mistake my quietness for boredom, sadness or anger. I always get, “are you ok?” or “what’s wrong?” and I’m just like, “LEAVE ME ALONE!” I’m fine, ok? Drives me nuts! When in the car, I like to just look out the window and admire the scenery or listen to music. If someone is with me, I still do that. I can sit in a comfortable silence. My husband has had to learn this about me. But he’s used to it now. Other people seem to have a hard time with it.