Hey Keith Urban - Thanks for singing our song!

"Along comes a baby girl
 And suddenly my little world
Just got a whole lot bigger, yes it did
And people that I barely knew
Love me cause I'm part of you
Man, it's tough to figure."

The Way Things Are

Every morning, like clockwork, I wake up at 6:10.

The alarm hasn't gone off yet. The baby is still sleeping. The puppy hasn't started barking to go outside. Both boys are still enjoying the company of their pillows. This time of year I am able to take in the sound of the creek rushing, brids singing, and the sunshine peaking in through our window. I get a solid 20 minutes of snuggling my sleeping baby and not having to do ANYTHING.

It's sheer bliss.

Today is Saturday. This means that I left Josh and the baby at home while I came to work. Ike is hanging out with Grandma Sue. Saturday's are quiet at the salon --- which is evident by the fact that I'm writing on this blog rather than spray painting customers. :)

When I walked in this morning I couldn't help but take notice of Karla's shampoos and other hair products. They are lined up so nice & neat. Of course they are --- it's a salon.

But what gets me ... is how all the pumps work.

You know what I'm talking about, right? These kind of pump bottles:

It makes me feel incredibly stupid when I see other people using these types of bottles without any issues. Our household has a serious pump bottle problem. At least 3 out of 5 pump bottles in our house have never worked. Not even once. Seriously --- never dispensed so much as a drop of whatever product the pump belongs to. Instead of being able to quickly get a squirt or two of lotion I have to pull the whole thing out of the bottle and wipe the lotion off the tube that runs into the bottle. Baby shampoo, lotion, my shampoo. These things are broken in our house at the moment. The two that happen to work properly? The hand sanitizer and the ketchup. Lame. Maybe someday we'll figure it out.

Speaking of 'figuring it out' ... Let me share some of my recent learnings with you.

1. If your nephew's basketball team makes it to state and you decide to paint your windows with his jersey number (and a big orange "GO HUSKIES!") .... be sure you don't use acrylic paint. It will take you 4 months and no less than 3 gallons of mineral spirits to get it off. Even then, you will find flakes of orange in your truck for the rest of your life.

2. If you call the appointment desk at Billings Clinic, they wil likely tell you that the doctor you need an appointment with is booked out several weeks. However, if you call and ask to speak to a nurse in the office of the doctor you are trying to get in to see ... and if you are extremely nice to her .... she will likely be able to squeeze you in much, much sooner. :)

And finally ...

3. If you run a Google image search for: "love nurse" & then spend several minutes looking at the results ... the word nurse will start to look very strange. You will likely try saying it outloud only to find out it sounds even stranger by the 15th or 20th time you say it. Emphasizing the sounds and making your mouth big really only makes it worse.

Yea, clearly Saturdays are slow here. Ha. I think I'll go home & kick Father's Day of early. Since I have the computer and I know there is no danger of Josh seeing this post until at least Monday, I will let you all in on a little secret. Isaac got a new bike for Christmas so ... I'm using Father's Day as an excuse to surprise him (and me!) with new bikes too.



And of course, thanks to The Ronning Family:



There appears to be a little bit of sunshine today --- I hope you all have a chance to get out in it! Happy Father's day! 

A little update on the fam

A little update for our family and friends in far away places:

Yes, we ARE as tired as we look.

 But we're loving every second of it.

Anna-Kate has become a very real part of our family & although we sometimes feel like we're flailing, we are all very much in love with her.

AK still spends most of her time sleeping but when she is awake she love to be in the water. Baths, showers... even the rainstorm we got caught in last week made her grin. She's a big fan of anything outdoors. When my baby cries the easiest way to calm her is to step out on the deck. Something about being outside instantly calms her --- thank  goodness its summer!

We have been lucky with her night time routine --- she has been sleeping through the night since about 4 weeks. Currently she sleeps from about 9 pm until 7 am.

This has been her M.O. for a few weeks now --- hooray for a good night's sleep!

Isaac is settling into summer just fine. He started golf lessons this morning and has been in Vacation Bible School all this week. When the weather is nice you can usually find him fishing, riding his bike, or jumping on the trampoline.

His little heart is still hurting a bit over the loss of his friend, Oliver.

But, always a suvivor, Ike is moving forward with the help of his new friend: Daisy.

Josh is still working away at the insurance agency. He allegedly has football obligations twice a week ... hopefully we have finally gotten a grip on life-with-a-newborn so he can start committing to it again.

I have been leaning on him pretty heavily the last few weeks but I think we're finally at a point where we both can start being involved in things outside out home life again!

I took a hiatus from spray tanning for a few weeks after the baby but am back to it full swing. The shop is open (201 S Broadway Suite B -- Red Lodge) & business is boomning. I'm helping out with Vacation Bible School this week but other than that, I plan to spend as much time with my babies as possible this summer.

There ya' have it --- our life in a nutshell.

I feel like I've been neglecting the blog a bit. But now that things are settling down for us, perhaps I'll manage to come back and post from time to time.

In the meantime -- I hope all is well in your world's! Be well!

Sound > Noise

Some of my favorite sounds:

1. The belly-laughter that fills the living room when my guys are wrestling.
2. The half gulp - half cry noise my daughter makes when she finally latches on for a meal.
3. The words, "I love you, mama."
4. The funny little [[whistle-snort-sigh]] the puppy makes when she's sleeping.
5. The sounds of my sleeping house at 3 a.m. when I've just finished nursing the baby to back to dreamland.
6. Whispered pillow talk. The kind that says, "How was your day?" & "Goodnight, friend."
7. The croaking of frogs/rushing of Red Lodge Creek outside of my bedroom at night.

... & after a busy, noisy day like today I am pleased to be home soaking up a few of these sounds. The boys are [[in fact]] wrestling in the living room. The baby, who just finished eating, is passed out cold in her swing. The puppy is asleep in the chair with me & all is right in the world.

The cast of characters in my world is pretty great. And the plot just seems to get better each & every day.

This is my life. THIS IS MY LIFE. This. Is. My. Life.

I'm a spray tan girl. I'm a friend. I'm a niece and a cousin. I'm an auntie. I'm a distributor. I'm part of a social circle. I'm a member of a church. I'm several things ...

... but mostly I'm a wife & a mother. How incredible is that? When I look at the faces of these people I share my home with ... it hits me: this is my identity. This is what I was born to do. To love. To give. To share this journey with these little people & my partner.

What's great is that at the end of each day, none of the noise matters. The hustle & bustle of everyday life ... the garbage that filters through our world on a day to day basis [[VIA tv, internet, telephone, & even human contact]] ...  these things that sound like real life in an instant ... they suddenly don't compare to the sounds of real life.


So, no real point to this post I suppose. I'm just feeling incredibly blessed tonight & wanted to put that out into the world.

Goodnight for now.
xo - n

4/30

Day 4: Your favorite photograph of your best friend.

To the un-trained eye there is nothing special about this picture. But I know differently. Let me tell you why this is my favorite picture of my best friend.

On a random April night I was out & about with a girlfriend of mine in Billings. Her name was Jessie. I don't remember the night being anything special. But I remember we went to Denny's for 'breakfast' when the night ended.

Walking in the door, we ran into Josh & Tobin. At this point, I knew of Josh but I honestly don't know if we had ever spoken a word to eachother. I had my eye on Tobin. (Yea ... true story.) So, the 4 of us had breakfast together & a pretty decent time ta-boot. After breakfast we drove the boys to their hotel. (They had walked from the convention center --- how responsible of them! ;] )

Jessie had spent the entire meal making googly eyes at Josh & I ended the evening by kissing Tobin good night. Then the girls & boys parted ways. On the way home, I kept thinking about how adorable I thought Josh was. I don't know what it was about him ... but I suddenly couldn't get his handsome face out of my head.

The next morning I woke up and told Jessie, "I'm sorry about your luck --- but that O'Shea boy is going to be mine."  And, later that day, I told my friend Kris, "I met the man I'm going to marry last night."

It seems extreme, I'm sure. But it was more than attraction. I had never spoken to someone as genuine, kind, and funny as Josh. There was something very honest in his eyes & I knew right away there was something special about him. He made a hell of an impression.

The next few weeks were busy for me with work & Isaac. I didn't do a whole lot of socializing. But I did, on occassion, let myself wonder how I was going to 'bump into' Josh again.

The morning of May 12th I called my friend, Kelli. "I'm on a mission to find this man. Wanna make a trip to Red Lodge with me tonight? Dinner @ The Griz & then a night on the town ... my treat?"

Thankfully she said yes.

I was bummed when we got to The Griz and didn't run into Josh. I thought for sure fate would have him behind the bar ... or -  hell, at least bellied up to the bar. But no such luck. Kelli actually told me at one point, "The bartender is cute ... we should just stay here and hit on him tonight." The thought crossed my mind briefly --- but I was determined.

So, to Red Lodge we went.

After 3 hours of visiting with people I wasn't interested in visiting with ... I told Kelli, "This sucks. Lets go home."

We walked out of The Blue & ran directly into Josh & Billy. I couldn't stop smiling. And I was way past the point of willing to be subtle. I told him I had been waiting for him all night long & it was RUDE to keep a girl waiting. Since he had no idea what I was talking about he just laughed and bought me a beer.

We sat on the bench out front for 2 hours while he tried to convince me that nothing could EVER happen between us.

"I work for your uncle. You're Bub's little cousin. I'm just coming out of a serious relationship. No way. This is never going to happen." Blah, blah, blah.

... & then there was this moment. We were alone on the bench & neither of us said a word. Something happened. Something that happens everyday to every person I know. A 'something' that is usually mundane & un-important. I'm not going to tell you what it was --- because as ordinary of an event as it usually is, in that particular instant it was personal. The second it happened I watched the look on his face & I knew he changed his mind.

Shortly after that I snapped this picture of us. Our first picture & the first time my lips ever kissed those cheeks.

The rest, as they say,  went down in history. I love this picture because it is the first picture of us together & it reminds me of the night my life changed forever.

A funny little side note ... the "cute bartneder" from The Griz ... turned out to be Josh's roommate, Steve. He's now married to Josh's cousin. Small world, I tell ya. :)

I used to roll my eyes when people would refer to their significant other as "their best friend". It seemed so cliche and lame to me. But the truth is, I get it now. I won't bore you with all the sappy sentiments I feel when I contemplate this reality. But, I will say that without him standing by my side, my life would feel incomplete. If I had a glass in my hand right now, I would raise it to the comfort & joy that comes from living life with your bestie right next to you.

Happy Saturday, ya'll.