Author Archives: Heather Shoberg

About Heather Shoberg

I'm many things... I'm a wife, a mother, a book lover, a movie lover, a photography lover, a music lover, a coffee lover, and a chocolate lover. I have cute aggression and I'm an introvert. I love mangoes and my favorite flower is the sunflower. I got married in Converse sneakers and love fairy lights. I love the mountains and when I was little I wanted to be an astronaut.

Tutus and Trucks

I have been ridiculously productive lately and it’s kind of glorious. Did you know painting really isn’t all that bad? Okay, I’m not a perfect painter and the guest room really needs one more coat of paint (but I ran out and meh), but I love how much brighter it is in there now. Granted, mostly it’ll be used for work, but now it makes me want to repaint everything downstairs… especially the cave where my actual office resides. The previous owners really, really loved dark colors, which also means it takes like 3-4 coats of paint to cover up. I’ve been moving things around and making lists of other projects around the house which means I’ve taken hardly any pictures. I think that also just means I’ve been enjoying our downtime and haven’t felt the need to document. Maybe I’m just at a new point in my life.

Phoebe is pretty happy with allowing me to take pictures, but Enzo has decided he mostly wants no pictures taken, so there you go. I’m not going to fight him on that (until our family photos next month). I don’t really see things slowing down in the future, so most likely I won’t be posting as often either… or perhaps they’ll just be short snippets so I can continue to keep track of what’s happening.

I never thought I’d say that I wish these kids would stop growing so fast, but lately I don’t mind as much. Enzo’s imagination gets bigger and bigger and Phoebe is right behind him. Their personalities are fantastic and not a day goes by that one of them doesn’t say or do something that makes us laugh either because it’s just plain funny or ridiculously clever.

Phoebe is my go-to for hanging out still. If the boys don’t want to go anywhere on the weekend, chances are good that Phoebe will want to come with. She always wants to go shopping and will often respond with, “Goin’ to Target?” Why, yes, yes we are. Don’t even think about going to Target without looking in her section, though. I wasn’t allowed to look at cute tops when we were there, but you better believe she was adamant that we stop in the Toddler area. Granted, she’ll happily look in every section and likes to hit EVERY aisle. We’re probably going to need to discuss budgeting sooner rather than later with her.

This photo is out of focus, but I love it because it’s just so HER.

On that note, I’m off… to the Cat Video Festival, no less. I’ll be Snapchatting (@dinosandbunnies) periodically if you want to check it out.

The Wheels on the bus go round and round…

Or rather the wheels in my brain go round and round and really haven’t ceased turning. It seems like we’ve been busy, but also not… I can’t seem to keep up on all the things that need doing and yet at the same time I can’t seem to figure out what exactly has been keeping me so busy. Josh is mending, so that’s good. It means we can settle back into a routine with the kids, which is definitely good. I have been doing some rearranging downstairs due to my business venture, so I suppose that’s where some of my time has gone. It’s exciting, but also nerve-wracking. I’ve been sleeping so-so and decided to crash early last night. Phoebe has been a very active sleeper lately, which wouldn’t matter except she has taken to crawling into bed next to me around 10-11 every night. Between her and Uzi I get minimal space to sleep in and haven’t felt super rested.

She’s sassy, and we’re still working through various sibling growing pains. Enzo has been doing good at preschool, though, which is huge. I’m not sure if it has to do with one of his preschool teachers leaving or not, but he’s had a pretty good week or so. I think that means he’s been saving it up for home, however. I get it, we’re his safe place, I think we just all need to practice some calming breaths now and then. Things should be back to normal soon, so we just need to make do and in the meantime I’m going to take the kids for ice cream tonight. It’s Friday night and it feels like the right thing to do.

I haven’t even picked up my camera much lately just because I’ve been so preoccupied with other things. Such is life, right?

The Oregon Trail – Card Game

Apparently we were one of the fortunate ones who were able to grab The Oregon Trail card game this week. Suddenly it is ridiculously hard to find and people are buying multiple copies and reselling for $40, which is crazy.

We opened it up as soon as we got it home and decided to take some quick phone pics and I figured I’d write up a quick review. The game itself is small (as you can see) and well worth the $10 it cost us. We seriously lucked out and were able to not only buy the game a day early (someone whoopsied), but it was also on sale. I chose names for us based on immature nostalgia because who didn’t pick silly names when playing the computer version?

There isn’t a lot of game setup, and the rules weren’t terribly lengthy, but a tad confusing at times and also left a few things up in the air so we just went with what felt right when those situations arose.

Thankfully our table appeared to be the recommended 3 feet need to complete the game… that is if anyone in our party actually survived the journey. Considering there were only two of us, this seemed highly unlikely.

While there is no hunting to be had, you still get to experience things like Extreme Cold and the other various illnesses that always popped up during the game, as well as broken wagon tongues and arms.

I, of course pulled the Cholera card on what might have been my second turn. Thankfully I had medicine in my supplies, but I also had a Town card and was able to get more medicine in the supply store. Phew!

However, nothing could save me from Dysentery. It was up to Josh to try and make it to Oregon.

Alas, he forded a river only to succumb to a Snake Bite. Our dreams of a brighter future out West were dashed to pieces and left to rot with the remains of our wagon in a desolate wilderness.

Despite the game only lasting maybe 10 minutes, it was fun to play and definitely a good one to have on the shelf. Sometimes you just need a quick game that doesn’t take forever to set up and since it fits in a small box it’ll travel well too. While fun, I really don’t recommend that people pay $40 on eBay for it. I have a feeling they’ll produce more and everyone who spent that much will feel pretty silly considering the game is really only worth the $10-$12 it’s sold for in stores.

Currently!

I seriously love Fridays. I wish I could bottle the way I feel on Fridays and hand it out to people who are feeling blah.

Reading

The Name of the Wind by Patrick Rothfuss. I can’t believe I didn’t pick this up sooner. I’m not very far into yet, but the writing is really good so far.

Watching

Just finished Stranger Things and want more so badly! We’ll just have to continue watching Supernatural, I guess. I’m also watching The Great British Bake-Off because it is my absolute favorite. I’ve also been watching the second season of Jane the Virgin as well.

Loving

The feeling of anticipation I have for things to come. I want it now! Ha ha. I’m also really looking forward to Monday because I’m taking the day off and treating myself to a little something. It shall be glorious!

Planning

How to cram so many things into the last days of summer. How is it almost August already? Before we know it the State Fair and Renaissance Festival will be upon us and then fall and suddenly we don’t have nearly enough time on our hands for anything!

Wishing

For my phone to ring! I don’t think I’ve ever been so anxious and impatient in my life.

Eating

Stress and sales at Target made me cave and I bought all of the ice cream and then proceeded to eat it all. I’m bloated and sad now. I don’t think it was worth it. Now that that’s out of my system, it’s time to find other ways to deal with stress… wine? Sure, if you insist!

Organizing

My business space at home. It’s definitely a work in progress, but I’m excited to get things ready for my inventory when it comes. The hard part will be not keeping everything that’s in my size. Ha ha.

Happy Friday! I hope your weekend is amazing!

Just Keep Swimming…

I probably should be repeating this over and over this week. I figure it’s fitting since we just watched Finding Dory and this week has been a rough one, so I should probably remind myself to breathe more and Let It Go. If Josh was here he’d probably help me with more Disney puns. It’s been a stressful past week and the kids were thrown off by a few things, as well as Josh and I. I think we all just want everything to get back to normal.

Two weekends ago we pulled the bouncy house outside, which thrilled the kids for about 15 minutes. It was pretty hot, though, so I’m not surprised they didn’t last too long. I wish all days they could play as well together, but they have two very different personalities and they’re each going through various developmental stages.

Quite often there is fussing and whining and “Enzo hit me” or “Phoebe took my toy” which is what I’m guessing he’s saying since really all I hear is high-pitched screaming. We’re really working on the yelling/screaming lately. Enzo’s first response to frustration or outrage or embarrassment is to scream and yell and now Phoebe is starting to do the same. There are some days when I think my ear drums will burst.

His moods are rather like the tide. He’ll have several good days or a great week and then suddenly something sets him off and it can be hard to get through the rough days and back on track. Phoebe’s shenanigans are no help either as she’ll do things that are naughty and laugh at the negative reaction (like her brother freaking out). Parenting is so exhausting.

There are some days where we are able to just laugh the chaos off because some things are just so absurd and ridiculous and exasperating and I’m trying more and more to laugh rather than cry. I don’t know if I’ve told this story yet… but Phoebe can’t be trusted to be left alone – at all. I left her in the bathroom on the toilet for maybe 15 seconds and came back to find that she had unrolled half the roll of toilet paper. There was just this massive pile of toilet paper on the ground. I got her off and then Enzo came in saying he needed to pee, so I got her out of there and told Enzo if he needed toilet paper to just grab some from the pile since I needed a minute. Well… I walk back in to find him with the huge wad of toilet paper in his hand blotting himself and not stopping him in time before he dropped it all into the toilet. I was pretty much speechless… it had been a long day and Josh legitimately thought I had lost my mind when I walked out of the bathroom and just threw my hands up in the air and started laughing hysterically.

They do have moments of sweetness, which are so hard to remember during those rough times when they try your patience and push every single button they can. I’m trying to really respond to these moments, though. Josh spent two nights in the hospital and Enzo cleaned up his floor a bit without asking for which I praised him greatly and he told me he’d take keep me safe while Josh was gone.

I guess we’ll just have to keep each other safe and do our best to get through each day. I call a do-over on this past week, and the great thing is that like I tell Enzo we can choose to start-over and try to have a better day. We choose how we react and we can choose to be mad/sad/frustrated all day or we can choose to accept that what’s done is done. I may have “failed” in my mind as a parent this week, but I can do my best to turn that around. I always make sure that I tell my kids I love them and apologize when I make a mistake as a parent. Tonight my plan is to start over.

Dino and Bunnies

Every day adventures