house 4 sale.

this blog still lives. barely. but it lives. and after a dumpster of a day...i felt compelled to dance my fingertips around a keyboard for some therapeutic reflection... add a glass of wine and some motivation to finally catch up after what seems like 2 years (since blogging) and here ya go folks.

so here's a quick recap since january post. i didn't send out a christmas/holiday/new years or even april fools day card... life just doesn't allow these days. so here goes:

gus turned three (and by the way...oliver is 5 - five! one two three four five!)... oye! and "the bus" is 3 and it's surreal. my babies are slowly slipping from my fingers and i have little men on my hands. and while most of their conversations currently involve talking about buttcracks and farting, i hold strong that they are the brightest cutest little boys ever. in. the. world. oliver is actually wrapping up his year in preschool & will move on to kindergarten next year. gus could attend preschool next year, but i'm not allowing myself to think about that probability right now, so let's move on. and ringo (child #3)... more on him later, but i'm just hoping he doesn't gain another 20 lbs & chew up the vacuum cord again.

mike signed on with the volunteer fire department here in holstein & is loving it. i'm sure most of you reading this are shocked right now to read mike & fire in the same sentence. he has passed his firefighter I & II tests and looks forward to helping out this wonderful community with their firefighting needs. god willing it's not b/c i started dinner on fire! i'm not promising it won't happen, but at least i know i'm in well-trained hands. and when he's not fighting fires...

we bought a zoo... no, wait! we currently manage a zoo... we bought a new house! we're in transition and currently have a house for sale! feel free to put the word out (yep, that was a shameless plug).  turns out, adding a rambunctious puppy dog into our small space was enough to put us over to edge. and either it was mommy is moving to the MHI or we need a bigger house. so we will soon be moving into a spacious (fixer-upper might i add) home! eat your heart out chip & joanna gaines (hgtv fans, you know). just kidding, our Fixer-Upper is more like all the outtakes that don't make tv where chip & joanna argue about who's the carpenter/who's the designer multiple times a day. get excited for before/after photos... which i'll probably end up posting about 5 years down the road so stay tuned.

next. ringo had cancer. (i use past tense, b/c we want to be positive that it won't return).  our little (not so, he's like 55 lbs) rescue pup had a small bump under his fur that we noticed in random passing. looked like a wart. and then it grew. and grew. to the point where it was a giant disturbing growth protruding out of his forearm. the vet proceeded with a biopsy to find that it was an abnormal cell growth that would not heal unless removed. bad cancer in other words. the prognosis also indicated that it would/has not likely spread given it's characteristics. enter fingers crossed. he had it removed via laser last wednesday. it is sealed with staples that can be removed in about a week. he bounced back well from the surgery and once we can remove staples, bandage & cone... he'll be good to go. in the meantime, the boys have styled up his cone w/ puppy stickers. claiming they're "ringo's friends to keep him happy".

the first 5 days of 2015.

i'm amazed that i even remember how to use blogspot. goodness. so this post is going to recap the first 5 days of the new year. in a nutshell, they've been less than stellar. the italics will help you through my thought processes. which, by my calculations have gone off the reservation.

the ball dropped for 2015. we celebrated with friends at our house and it was low key and nice.

day one. jan 1. early aM.
i went into the boys' room to see a wet spot... who did this? what happened? where's the dog? as gus and olly both start pointing fingers in the opposite direction, i decided to conclude that the one w/out any clothes and undies on was the guilty one. oliver matthew schweitzberger. and after admittance, i really didn't know what to do. he's old enough to know better! what the hell?! why would he pee on the floor?! is this a precursor? so WE cleaned up the mess, threw clothes on his naughty butt and moved forward. i grabbed gus to get him ready for the day, changing diaper......... wait? why are you looking at me like that gus? that is not a good face?! i know that face! oh shhhiii#%.... i hoisted him up and then it came... puke. puke puke puke. all over me. all over the carpet. all over him. lot's of fresh morning puke. perfect. not even 9aM and it was already a doozy of a day. why wouldn't this be how our first day of 2015 sorted itself out?! and so continued the shuffle of clean up and laundry and change of clothes and clean up and bath and new clothes and clean up and gatorade and clean up and munching soda crackers and throw up and laundry and then... at some quiet point of the day, i randomly picked up a piece of string that i had noticed on the carpet. only it wasn't a string. ewww. it stuck to my finger and then a flashback from yesterday when oliver asked 'what's on ringo's butt'... and i looked at it & it only looked like a string but when i went to grab it, it was gone, so i shrugged it off... and now it had come full circle. i'm pretty sure our dog had an issue! with worms! ewwww. ewwww. eww. google! petmd.com! bing! help! mike contacted the rescue and gave them the details. text message diagnosis: tapeworms. great! so ringo went immediately into puppy jail and i started sanitizing everything in the house. another gus puke. and bedtime.

day two.
a 2aM gus puke & then i went to the store to pick up every sanitizing/disinfecting cleaner i could find and spent the whole day cleaning the entire house to the best of my ability and washed everything we owned. like twice. the shuffle to keep ringo in his kennel was hard. he couldn't quite understand why he had to now be confined to his "sleeping space" all day long now. sad. i washed my hands like 96 times that day.

day three.
the man-flu hit. mike had gone down. which was really a rare occasion and i'll spare you the not-so similar details to gus's symptoms. we didn't see much of mikey that day. he was in bed-jail. and ringo was in dog-jail. and gus puked for the last time of his run. four days of that little guy losing his guts. he literally has lost all of his baby weight. i don't know where it all came from. we managed to keep him hydrated enough and by day three, he decided he'd eat food again. and the dog puked twice on the carpet on his short walk from the door to his kennel. wtf?!

day four.
the man-flu was gone - thank goodness for the 24-hour bug! but i had gone to sleep the night before feeling queasy. i chalked it up to witnessing and cleaning up disgusting bodily grossness of everyone else for the past three days. but i had fallen victim myself. queasy stomach and horrible body aches from head to toe. i stayed in bed all day. which i thank god that mike was able to run the shiz show for the day or else i don't know what we would have done.

day five.
i woke up to mike letting me know that oliver sounded horrible and was sick. perfect! but undeniable. i had absolutely no energy from not eating or drinking any water the day before. the body aches were gone but i was running on a like a 1 energy level (from a scale from 0-10).  that commercial of the dad telling his kid he was gonna take a sick day flashed into my head. it's funny because that's what every parent wishes could happen but could never ever in a world. i peeled myself out of bed, ate a pb toast and some water and checked the clock. this was also the magic day ringo could get into the vet, his appointment was at 1:30 (the soonest we could get him in after finding out parasites were invading his insides and our happy home). 1:30 could not come soon enough today. he's back home, and will have to spend 2 more days in puppy jail after his treatment. but it's going to take me a lot longer to be comfortable integrating him back into our spaces. i'm going to constantly be checking his butt for worms, not going to lie. ugh - how awful! but here's hoping that his situation clears up and we will move on from these first 5 days of hell and have a wonderful, amazing & magical 2015!

cheers to you all!

ps...no pics for this post. you wouldn't want them.

the holidays, the ringo & the new year.

i find myself able to blog again for the year, so hello. hello to nesting at home because illness has once again settled in. it's times like the past 5 days that really start to melt my sanity down into nothing. but first, i should reflect on how grateful i was to experience such a great holiday season with all three of my boys this year + one (but more on that in a bit). this holiday was significantly different than how we spent them just one year ago. my heart was overfilled with joy! moving forward as a family has proven to be very successful, even so much that we decided to expand our little family. enter ringo.

back up the bus to thanksgiving this past november. we spent a long weekend up in sioux falls visiting mike's family. and upon our time there, we became aware of a rescue team that was going into an indian reservation to extract dogs that had (and still continue to) become overpopulated and unsafe. as the story unfolded and the photos started to appear of these dogs/puppies being rescued... we became more curious. we soon started thinking that we could provide a loving home to one of these rescue pups. and how excited to boys would be to have a 4-legged friend to call their own. so, the day we were heading back home, we made an hour detour up to minnesota, to the farm where the 9 rescue pups were being held until they were adopted/fostered. i was so pleasantly surprised upon our first impression of these dogs. with only 4 days out of the reservation, and in the loving care of the Tracy Area Animal Rescue (TAAR), one would have never thought they were fighting for their lives. they had clearly gone from "rescue mode" to gentle domestic beasts in a very short time. and to me, this was a good sign that this would be a good fit for us. we let the boys wander and meet the puppies... and our focus started to migrate to the slightly "larger" puppy, 3 months old, half german shepard/half black lab... calmy chewing on a rawhide bone on the blanket. he wasn't jumping up on us or the boys, just minding his own business (now we refer to this as his secret plot for good behavior to be "the chosen one"). he was loving and sweet and we had no other choice... he would be ours. we were able to take him home that day. so we all piled into the truck and headed home. so that was the story of our ringo. the animal rescue gave him the name and it fit too perfect due to the white ring of fur around his snout. ringo it was. and ringo it would be. and honestly, if you have never experienced adopting a rescue pup/dog, i strongly urge you to. i never imagined that this would be how we would include our first domestic beast into our family, but i couldn't imagine it any other way. you must adopt!

so moving forward through the season. our new pup has proven to be very smart and it required very little time (in my mind) to get him house-trained and integrated into our home and lifestyle. christmas was spent here in holstein and it was a very relaxing and wondrous time. we hosted my family christmas eve and spent christmas day at my parents'. the next day, we drove up to sioux falls to celebrate with the schweitzbergers. other than losing my wallet in the parking lot (so i believe) of target, it was an amazing short trip and we loved seeing everyone again. yes... my entire wallet! for those of you that thought i wasn't going to dwell on that little detail a little bit more, you were wrong. losing your wallet is like a small part of your body being lopped off. ugh! made me sick, still makes me sick. what do you do?! i took care of the necessary steps to cancel/replace everything and now i'm just moving on. blah! please check out my next post on the first 5 days of 2015. it's a lot less cookie cutter and rainbows and sunshines. of course =)


PS - visit TAAR's website or FB page!
http://www.tracyareaanimalrescue.com/home.html
https://www.facebook.com/pages/Tracy-Area-Animal-Rescue

little artist.

i'm not even mad at all...

happy little artist...happy little naked artist. 

you had a vision when you ripped all of the giant pieces of paper out of the neatly organized giant pad of paper. you had a vision to make little crayon marks on each little piece (and some on the wall for good measure). you had a creative revelation to scatter them wildly across the floor. who am i to get mad at you for your creative vision???

happy little naked artist.

mission blue eyes.

so i'm going to make it my mission to capture an undefined amount of photos of our boys' baby blues this year. they both have the most amazing blue eyes...good job us! i'm not going to set parameters or deadlines or any goals or promises on the frequency of these photos. because, well, i suck at setting photo goals. i've done it in the past and failed. i've longed to complete, do, follow through with a photo a week or a 365-project. someday. someday. i've found that this year, i'm going to set goals that are reasonably easier for me to conquer - that's not cheating! it's just learning from your failed photo project promises in the past and realizing that unless you have a maid, a chef, a buyer for all the things you need bought, a quiet office space and a regularly scheduled cocktail hour everyday...it's just not going to happen. i'll raise the bar some day...when the before-mentioned things have all been met.

mostly you're probably going to see a lot of failed attempts...like today. the only creative "escape" i've been able to have the past 4 days is grabbing my camera & shooting anything & everything. i thought about taking a photo of every thing in our home and posting it. i won't. that's annoying. anyway, i've been at home with the boys for 3 straight days now. influenza a (hole). and not a lot of free time. i've been putting up with requests from oliver like "mom, can you go get me something?" "yeah, what do you need oliver" "i'm not going to tell you, you can just go get me something"....really? like what? a cracker? a glass of water? a small sedative? my patience hit the road like 17 and a half hours ago, so you're going to have to be a little bit more specific when you ask me to go get you something.

but back to the mission at hand:

oliver watching he-man episodes 1 & 2 and guarding his the legos (in a kitchen strainer) from his brother.

welcome to our home - where the clothes get folded 3 different times and we walk around pretending we're puppies.

separation anxiety.

i'll be honest, i go through bouts of guilt for not keeping my blog up to date, however, it usually doesn't get me in front of my blog any more frequent. i feel like i've robbed august the same early years documenting that i gave oliver. the photos are still there...and when i say "there", i mean on a hard drive, not yet incorporated into a post of any kind. but i can't even get started on the hot mess i've turned my hard drive into. ugh. it's on the list of resolutions.

i've felt compelled to begin posting again. i find mucho inspiration, daily, through the blogs that i follow. so, lately, i have found myself sitting in bed composing a clever blog post. if only 'they' would have invented a thought translator already...i mean, c'mon people, i need that! my daily accomplishments are relying on this mystical piece of awesome-ness i just thought up. i'll post my favorites below...i actually access them all through a nifty site Bloglovin'. you can actually search babyschweitzberger.blogspot.com and follow my posts through the site!

i wanted to take a moment to update the past couple of months of the happenings behind the scenes with michael + leyna = michaeleyna. in fact, michael + leyna did not equal michaeleyna at all. a couple of weeks before christmas, a lot of ongoing turmoil came to a head. somewhere in the mass chaos of babies and moving and jobs and balancing of life the previous four years, michael & i had been on downhill spiral of doom. we lacked the healthy building blocks of a relationship to keep michaeleyna afloat. our communication was horrendous, our priorities were skewed and reality was easier avoided than faced. michael made the tough decision to separate from me. this is something that i shared with only family and very close friends. and even as i write this now, it's cloudy and confusing to recall and gives me a bit of anxiety. but i will share on. in all honesty, it broke my heart into a million little pieces. i was lost. and i just wished that someone would have shaken me & shouted 'leyna! straighten up or he will leave you'. but, unfortunately, i did not get this wake up call. i had to stay strong and focused for the boys. everything that i had relied on, been comforted by and took for granted walked out the door with his bags packed and tearful eyes. so how did i survive? i wrote a lot. i set aside a space for me to reflect and question and vent and try to comb through what little i felt i had left. a big part of my heart was missing. we made a verbal agreement to share our time with the boys. a week on and a week off. things were so unknown at this point. the future seemed like an unbearable waiting period for me. i wanted to fast forward and numb myself of the devastation. during my week on, i learned to stay organized, strong and focused. my week off, i was lost. for the first time in 4 years, i didn't have a little person/people to care for. to answer to. to take to daycare or give orange juice to. i stayed at my parents house, which was a great support system. but just two houses south...were my boys. the boys i couldn't go home to or snuggle or give baths to. and to honor our agreement, i had to overcome these urges.  we also agreed to work on our 'selves'.

this gave me the best opportunity to take time for myself. i felt guilty in doing so previous to this experience. if i took time for me. if i made plans to be away from the house. if i stayed late at work. i just hadn't realized the importance of taking time for myself and also how important it was for me to not feel guilt because i did. i called my therapist (yes, i have one of those) and began a fascinating therapy called Life Span Integration. a compelling and powerful treatment...seriously, it blew my mind the first session i had. i also revisited my previous plan for combating my depression. after my psychologist (yes, i have one of those too) diagnosed me with major depression, it was like a baseball bat to the frontal lobe. long story short, through the discovery of cognitive behavioral therapy and mindfulness, i've completely taken a daily anti-depressant out of my life! i contribute this to reading the book peaceful mind.

shortly after our new transition...and things began to feel a little more tolerable (a little tolerable, it still sucked big time)...we made the decision to forge through our difficulties, support each other and contribute to each others needs in the relationship. we lost track of all of that in the past four years. we agreed that we had so much invested and both really loved each other. it's been a blessing, in retrospect, for our separation to happen. if you asked me during the split, i would not have ever admitted it, but it was. we needed a giant adult time out. to reflect, to refocus and to realize how we loved each other. changes needed to be made. and although changes don't always happen over night, small steps, deep breaths and a better outlook on life...we will get there. we call it out 'starting over'. which is a little deceiving, b/c we still have a house and kids and lives that are already interwoven...but it's a new start to building a strong foundation for which we can stand on. and grow old together.

one of the other activities i did on my off weeks, was look through this blog. and my posts. and i soon discovered how happy i was, even though the storms we had gone through. so, i want to continue documenting...i promise it won't (more than likely) get this deep. but i had to get that off my shoulders and move forward. thank you for your support & i have so much more to share!

and this was the first photo i shared on my very first blog post!

here's my bloglovin' read list:

abeautifulmess.com - a lot of diy and design
joannagoddard.blogspot.com - fun lifestyle, ideas and websites shared!
dooce.com - have read this one for a couple years now! still makes me pee my pants laughing!
ohhappyday.com - diy and party ideas...plus it's just a fun title =)
bleubirdblog.com - cool fashion, products and photography, she does a weekly post of her kiddos (i maybe really need to try & catch up & continue this for 2014)
dashandbella.blogspot.com - recent find...b/c i loved this post
katiespencilbox.com - love the lighting
smileandwave.typepad.com/blog - lots of kiddo stuff and fun giveaways
thebandwifeblog.com - creative gal!
and last but not least...
weseekjoy.blogspot.se - for her 'babies ruin bodies' post... b/c they do, but it's sooooo worth it  ;)


and now that i've taken some time to compose this...the house looks like a tornado went through a pixie stix factory and spewed 500 toys all over the living room. ps, i'm home with the boys, influenza a, that's a whole notha post.

merry + happy

the 2013 holidays in review...

from papa hanny + his grand kiddos to gavin's frog legs...enjoy!

crabcake.

the boys & i have spent 4 days now within the confines of our boogie infested home. it's getting a little wacky in here. we're all talking with croaky voices, i'm a little confused on what day it is & i'm almost certain that i've worn the same pants for 3 of the days. crabcakes for everyone!

crabcake. from leyna on Vimeo.

oliver & august january 2013.

oliver matthew - - ---

age - three years & 3 months.

nickname - olly bagolly

favorites - watching frankenweenie & coraline (apparently he's a big tim burton fan), playing the ipod, eating gummy snacks & gumballs

newest word/phrase - "answer my question!"

milestones - first successful somersault

doctors visits - none, managed to get through january w/out any, some children's mucinex, but no doctor visits

special trips/visitors - spent time hanging out with aunt britter over at grandma & grandpa's while she recovered from some surgery for 2 weeks

new toy/movie - frankenweenie (this is a strange one!), star wars angry birds & endless abc's on the ipod

august michael - - ---

age - 11 months.

nickname - gussy goo goo

favorites - cheerios, yogurt bites, running naked when getting his diaper changed, playing "sparkle paint" on the ipod & watching the fish swim in the tank

newest word/phrase - i'm pretty sure he said "crabcake" today (i'm trying to post a video, but blogger video loader takes forever!), "lindsay" & "baba"

milestones - pulling himself up to standing position & assisted walking with walking toys, 3 teeth (2 bottom & finally one up top), last month of formula & making "fishy faces"

doctors visits - yes, yesterday. he was starting to come down with the sniffles, then the coughing, then a fever...long story short after visiting the doctor, we found that he was showing first signs of bronchitis with an irritated throat, crackly lungs & ear infection starting. so, we are back on an antibiotic, benedryl & neb treatments daily.

special trips/visitors - same as olly, getting to spend some extra time with aunt brittany while she was in town for a couple of weeks.

new toy - recycling some of oliver's 1st toys, especially ones that involve standing & walking & he always has my phone =)

you are my wild.

click the link - - ---

new project begins