for evan

We mailed off a care package yesterday for our little friend a couple of states away who has to spend some time in the hospital... we included a few pictures so he can connect faces with the treats, we decorated a pillow case with some sunshine to cheer him up in his hospital room and threw together some goodies to help keep him (and his mommy and daddy) as happy as can be expected living in a hospital for another week.














Wish we could come give you big hugs Evan!
We love you so much and hope you feel so better so soon!!
I hope you know we are praying for God's goodness and sunshine and healing for you. ♥

"... and for you who honor my name, goodness will shine on you like the sun with healing in it's rays."

Malachi 4:2

it's raining

...it's pouring.
It's not really pouring, I just have a hard time saying "it's raining" without sing-songing the "it's pooouuuring" afterwards. :)

But it is raining pretty good.
I always feel a little embarrassed/second guessish as a mom to my elementary kids when it's raining like this on school mornings. The other kids at our bus stop don't stand out in the rain... two get a "ride" to the bus stop and sit in their warm, dry cars at the curb until the bus pulls up. The other one gets a ride to school whenever a) they've not quite gotten up in time -which is every other day-, or b) it's raining.
Now, our bus comes a good 35+ minutes before school starts and we only live five, maybe ten minutes away from the school, so I understand if those extra twenty or so minutes of morning are important to you and you drive your kid there (even though the bus stops at your door step!) later. But for the rain??

My kids?
They stand out there in their raincoats. And if it's really raining; with umbrellas.
I don't even (gasp!) stand out there hovering over them with a golf umbrella. I have faith they can handle their own umbrellas. I stay warm and cozy in my dry house. :)
Hey, I served my time standing at bus stops in the rain! I grew up in Oregon. ;)
But seriously, they're standing two houses down the street here, I can see them from my front door, and they're not going to melt in the rain.

But morning after morning I do feel guilty; either that I'm not out there waiting for the bus with them (as the other parents do, rain or shine, like kids can't stand out at the bus stop -the bus stop that we can all see from our houses- on their own.), or especially when it's rainy weather and my kids are the lone two souls standing out there looking pathetic in the rain.
Only looking pathetic mind you, because they're seeing their fellow busees in their cars and trying to convince me to pull our car out and let them sit in it at the curb. I'm sorry, but I'm not going to start the car, back out of the driveway, pull two driveways down, park and sit there with the car running, only to have you arguing in my backseat rather than outside, two doors down, where I don't have to hear you to keep you warm and dry for an extra five minutes, wave you off on the bus and pull back into my garage.

But I do feel like the other parents feel bad for my kids? Or they look at my kids and think I'm a thoughtless mother and I don't care as much as they obviously do because they can't bear to let their children stand out in the morning rain (drizzle, usually) for a few minutes.

Tell me, do you see suburban kids waiting out at the bus stops? In the rain? Do I just need to get with the program and accept the fact that this isn't twenty-five years ago and parents are a staple at the bus stop nowadays? That parents drive their kids to bus stops now? That kids aren't expected to be dealing with the cold or the rain? Do I need to get over the fact that my bus stop growing up was never within eyeshot of my house and I never once had a parent there, got a ride there, let alone a ride to school just because of the weather. Usually my bus stop was around the corner and two or three "blocks" away. And let me tell you from experience, you get wet from the walking to the bus stop more than the standing at the bus stop.
We're talking I walked a mile, uphill both ways, in the snow, mind you. ;)

But seriously, my kids live the furthest from our bus stop and we're only two houses away and across the street.

Maybe it's just different here. It doesn't rain that often. And sometimes when it does it's often stormy, I'll grant that. But not usually in the morning. At bus time. I'm obviously not sending them out in a thunderstorm or a monsoon.

What about your kids and the bus? Your neighborhood kids?
Did you ride the bus as a kid? Do you have any bus stop stories to bust out??

smiley faces

Quiet.
It's been a long week and half since I've had a quiet house. And a quiet house to myself at that.

It was a good weekend. Ryan and I were going over it last night in bed, a "what was your favorite part" kind of rehashing we usually do, and while I was just "meh" because I was just tired and had a headache and was feeling blech, Ryan listed off the whole slew of good things we had this weekend...

A zoo trip with an extra kid tagging along and perfectly beautiful weather. : )
A birthday party Friday night, had a great time hanging out with our friends and their family and randomly met another family who live very close to us, just moved here three years ago from Oregon and turns out the guy graduated high school the same year as Ryan, played soccer and ran in essentially the same circles as us. Crazy! : )
Saturday morning, a perfect day for soccer games and the kids were awesome; Savannah scored a goal!!! That's huge news people! : )
And Sawyer scored four, but that's pretty typical. ; )
Lunch at Costco. That's always a favorite weekend activity for us. ; )
And we came home from Costco with a pumpkin cheesecake. : ) : ) : )
The Ducks won. : )
We have enough of a lawn now that Ryan actually mowed it. : )
I finally finished recovering our ten-year-old diy storage ottoman. : )
Our house is clean. : )
I made cookies. : )
Ryan made some progress on Operation 4Runner. : )
We had friends over for dinner. Always love that. : )
I won when we all played Carcassonne. ; )
(okay, Ryan didn't list off that last one, but I threw in in there!)

We did finish off our fall break off with a bang... a description pretty accurate considering the volume of our house last night as we had our friends over for dinner and games. Friends with five kids... four of which are boys... the fifth of which is in fact a girl (Sawyer's best bud at school) but is as much of a loud rambunctious tomboy as any of her older brothers. Oh my loud and crazy. But fun. Really, really fun. : )

I went to bed with a headache after they left and it's still lingering this morning. Not. A. Fan. I'm heading over to the school in about an hour to do a pumpkin patch field trip with Sawyer's kindergarten class. Thankfully I'm not riding the bus with them ;)

My upcoming week consists of laundry, meal planning for our "gluten free" week next week (Ryan's mom is coming to stay with us), pulling out shoes from our bins of kids clothes in storage (Sawyer's doing a shoe donation drive in lieu of birthday presents at his hiking party. get it? hiking party? giving shoes to kids who need them? he -sort of- came up with that himself! i love it!), and making sure everything is in order for the big birthday party.

Also- I will snap some pictures and continue on with the big house tour. In fact, that's on the agenda as soon as I get back from the school today.

In the meantime, what made you smile this past weekend?

fall break

I'm still not too sure about this idea of "Fall Break" every year around here, but like it or not we have a week (plus a day) off and whad'ya know, our week is off to a great start!

This past weekend the Robertsons came to visit us and needless to say, that's always a good time. The kids always play so, so well together and we always treasure the time to catch up with David and Amie. Great weekend with them.

Yesterday, to officially kick off our no school week, we joined some friends (nineteen kids and six adults!) in a trek out to Fall Creek Falls for some picnicking and hiking. It's a two hour drive out there and we carpooled and I ended up copiloting in a van with a new friend that I only previously had met with a Hello here and there at church. Suddenly we had five kids and four hours in a van together to jump start an acquaintance... ;) It was actually a great drive; the kids all did well and I thoroughly enjoyed getting to know this new friend. All in all, a fun lunch and an enjoyable hike and a fabulous day. And I do mean Day. We left our house at 8am and pulled back into our driveway at 8pm. Full, fun day.

Today is forecasted to be cooler and really rainy (although this morning the sun is shining and it looks like a beautiful day!) so we're planning on hitting up the dollar theater -with some of the same friends from yesterday- to see the Smurf movie.

Not much for plans for the rest of the week so far... I promised the kids we'd get out the Halloween/Fall decorations and I need to finish up a few projects around here. I'm also thinking it'd be nice to get the kids out somewhere and try to take some formal-ish pictures. Maybe for Christmas cards?? Then I'm hoping to finish off the week with friends over for dinner and then carving pumpkins with our neighbors.

Much different than last year's Fall Break, when we were still getting settled into a new house and new school and filled up this whole week off with a last minute trip to Oregon. Then getting home, getting sick, getting Halloween done and jumping right into hosting a birthday party. That was a crazy few weeks! I'm thankful this year that we're feeling so much more settled, and have a much more laid back season. We're still busy (field trip and fall parties next week)(Ryan's parents arriving for a visit)(Halloween costumes are ready to go)(birthday party mostly prepped) but feeling settled in our home and not flying across the country make all the difference! ;)

Happy Fall Y'all!

well this day isn't turning out as planned

Savannah's class had a scheduled "Read-In" today, the last day of school before Fall Break... no work, just reading. They were able to bring sleeping bags, bean bags, stuffed animals, blankets, pillows, whatever they wanted to be comfy, snacks and lots and lots to read. She had her snuggie ready with her pillow and her favorite animal and we even picked out two new books for her at Costco this week to go with a whole other stack she had ready to go. Savannah had been looking forward to and waiting for this day for at least a month.
Here's the pile she set out yesterday:














And the more she talked about it, the more I thought a "Read-In" sounded like a great idea too... and that I'd join in. I had decided to get whatever projects, housekeeping, errands done that I needed to do this week during the first half of the week and then take today "off" and just read. Do nothing but read all day. It didn't hurt that the weather forecast called for rain all day. A perfect, curl up with a book kind of day. Savannah was excited we would be doing the same thing all day! I was actually so excited too!
Here's the pile I was looking forward to:

















And then 1 o'clock this morning rolls around.
Savannah comes into our room and tells me she can't sleep. I give her a hug and kiss and gently shoo her back to bed. I heard her go in and go to the bathroom. And then I heard her go back to her room.

And then I heard her start throwing up in the hallway.
Ugh.

This is where I'd like to point out that we had had spaghetti for dinner.
She ate a lot of it.
And threw up a lot of it.
She threw up in a big puddle right outside of her bedroom door.
And partially into a laundry basket full of yet-to-be-matched socks.

My kids tend to freak out a little when they throw up. Because they hardly ever throw up. I seriously can not remember the last time either of them were sick throwing up. I think it might have been actually over three years ago. Sawyer? Longer than that. So it freaks them out a little when it happens... like it's the first time ever.

We were up and down and up and down as she threw up five more times in the next four hours and then was finally able to get back to sleep at almost 6am.
Just in time for me to get up and get Sawyer ready for school and Ryan to get off to work!

Oh and fyi, cleaning spaghetti filled vomit out of carpet at 1:30 in the morning is not going on my list of things I like to do.

So instead of my relaxing, carefree, get lost in a book(s) day, I've been doing laundry, changing bedding, and washing down the kitchen where there were still dishes, pots and pans from dinner last night that still smelled like spaghetti, which to me now smells like vomit. Between that stuff, tending to a sickie and needing a nap myself, I'm ready to call a do over. What happened to my read-in?

Savannah's had a warm bath and is sleeping again now. I have dinner in the crockpot and have another load of laundry to change over. Maybe the afternoon will be more reading friendly and Sickie and I can curl up with our books together...

saturday, sunday, then comes monday

randoms...

I've been sleeping terribly. Really vivid dreams every night, with lots of tossing and turning. And waking up feeling like I really didn't sleep at all. Ugh.

Bought a dresser off of Craigslist yesterday. First step to our master bedroom re-do, yay!

Also finally got rid of the extra washing machine that's been sitting in our garage for the past year. And the extra vehicle. Towed it over to Ryan's friend's house where he's going to help him replace the transmission. They're manly excited about this project. I'm just excited that we have garage space back now. :)

I'm wading through some deskwork this morning... cleaning up and sorting files, pictures and making up birthday invitations. The view from our desk overlooks the front yard... and the street. As I'm working here all morning I'm watching and listening to the landscaping crews come and do everyone else's yard. And cleaning services come and clean everyone else's house. Sigh.
Have I mentioned we don't really fit in in this neighborhood?

We went for a little hike around a lake yesterday and collected hiking sticks. We'll clean them up and smooth them out and yay for free birthday party favors!!

The weather has been so amazing the past few weeks... typically perfect Tennessee fall weather I think. Daytime highs in the low 80's, nighttimes in the 50's, gorgeous sunny days and no rain at all. We've been trying to get to parks and playgrounds, -hence the hiking yesterday-, and go bike riding often, as I've been feeling bad that the kids can't take advantage of this beautiful weather and play in our yard. This is the time of year they should be out there all day long, but with our infant-stage lawns, trying to nurture new grass, we can't really use our yard this season. So frustrating. But hopefully it'll pay off with a beautifully soft green lawn next spring!
In the meantime, they hop the fence and play with the puppy next door!

singing

in the laundry room

{I'm doing a weekly "tour" of a room in our house in celebration of one year living here.

You can find previously showcased rooms here.}

Well, my plan was to go in a flow, through the house, so you would get a real idea of the layout as we went through the rooms. We started in the back corner of the house with the family room, came through the kitchen and right on into the dining room. Adjacent to the dining room is the front living room, but I kind of got stalled out there. I'm in the middle of recovering our ottoman and it's taking longer than I had hoped for. So we're interrupting our trip around the house and jumping back to the kitchen area where I just finished up a little re-do of the laundry
closet
room, located in between the kitchen and the garage.

In the laundry room we...
painted walls (leftover paint, Lowe's Valspar Cottage Linen)
painted cabinets (leftover paint, Lowe's Valspar Deep Turquoise)
changed out hardware (Walmart clearance, $4)
recovered linoleum (peel & stick vinyl "wood" tiles from Big Lots, $24)
added new rug (Target clearance $7.33)
added retractable clothesline ($8 online)
added homemade decor (address canvas, home definition printed and framed, and clothspin bag made out of a clearance apron found at Homegoods for $5 and a cheap tie hanger)(oh, and added a recycle symbol in vinyl to the recycle bin!)
and spray painted door hardware in Oil Rubbed Bronze (had on hand, free)

total spent: less than $50

Before:













































It was pretty much always a mess like this. I always kept the door closed because the floor and the whole room in general was so dingy and sad looking, I didn't want anyone seeing it anyway. And as long as the door always got shut, I didn't care what mess we had piled in there.

I'm happy to say since we've been finished in here (really only been a week) it's been kept nice and clean!! It's nice to have a little
closet
room that I actually like to look at now!

Now:
--first off, here's a shot of the doors in our kitchen for comparison sake. which one do you like better?






























And on into the laundry room...




















































































retractable clothesline w/ clothespin bag below it :)











































canvas hung with hinges so we can cover, but easily access, the breaker box


and one more time,
before/after:

















--By the way, the other little random room on the main floor is the half bathroom, which was actually the very first room we completely finished up and I shared way back last fall. You can see that here if you missed it.

what's on today

on the horizon this morning:














on the (late) breakfast menu:














on the (soon to be) lawn:















on the lunch date:





















on the radio:
















on the wall:

of soccer, hockey and football

I don't even know how it's Tuesday already. Weren't we just starting the weekend??

The weekend.
We had a nice, lazy-ish one. Saturday morning the kids had soccer. Sawyer scored three goals in his game and once Ryan told him that was called a Hat Trick, that's been his phrase of choice ever since. Three of anything and he thinks there's a hat trick going on. My title up there? ^ That would be a hat trick according to Sawyer. ;)

Saturday evening we were invited over for dinner at a co-workers place followed by a trip downtown for a hockey game. It was a good game. I'm a hockey fan. Problem is, I'm not becoming a fan of hockey here though and I'm struggling with that.

Don't get me wrong, I still really like hockey... it's probably my favorite sport as far as spectating goes... I just don't enjoy it here. It irks me beyond belief at how unsportsmanlike and just plain ugly the fans are here. I've been to a fair share of hockey games in my life; I grew up going to the Western Hockey League Winterhawks games often in Portland (and it being especially cool when I knew (of) guys on the team from my friends' high school!) and was secretly thrilled when we moved to a more "hockey country" state like Michigan and even Missouri where all the little boys grew up playing.

I loved that Sawyer loved it. We probably went to a dozen Blues games in the short time we lived in St Louis and it was always so fun. I've even been to a Rangers game in New York City. That was super fun.

So we've been to three games here now in the past year and honestly I just get a weird icky feeling here every time.
We're all for being Predator fans (although we'll still root for the Blues over them any day) since we're Nashvillians now. But the Preds' fans in the arena are making it really really hard for me to want to cheer for them/with them.
In all the hockey games, or any sports games for that matter, that I've been to, obviously there's some rivalry. Some good natured, and not-so-good natured taunting and/or booing of the other team, right? Well here it's all the time and it's just not fun for me. I honestly don't want my kids a part of it. I don't know if I can adequately explain it without you being there.

But you know I'll try anyway! ;)

For instance, when they're introducing the teams at the beginning of the game and they go through the line-up announcing the players? Of course the arena is cheering throughout the Preds' line-up, but then when the visiting team is announced? After each players name, "and for the Blues, number seventy five; Ryan Reaves!" where there should be at least polite clapping -or quiet maybe? The whole crowd yells "SUCKS" so as to make it sound like "....Ryan Reaves... (sucks!)".
That's throughout the whole opposing team's line-up... every name, followed by SUCKS. And when they get to the last name on the line-up they top it off with HE SUCKS TOO! Seriously. The whole crowd.

If the opposing team gets a penalty the crowd cheers like crazy, and I'm not talking about the normal cheering, but crazy. If Nashville gets a penalty it's booed harshly, even when warranted.
And then if, God forbid, the opposing team scores a goal, it's a crazy loud roar of booing. Loud as cheering booing.
Really? They scored a goal. That's the point of the game. A good game.
And then when the at-home Predators score a goal? They play that Rock and Roll song (otherwise known as the "Hey" song) and after the naah, naah, HEY! they add "YOU SUCK!" in the two beats after. Again, the whole arena. Yeah, it's lovely.

Anyway, all that to say, being there for a game actually makes me want to cheer for the visiting team here in Nashville. And it's making me think twice about bringing my kids to hockey games where it's just a poor example of enjoying the game and being a good sport, you know? And I don't really want my kids running around telling people they suck all the time.

Anyway. So that was our weekend.

And we're already into another week.
Speaking of spectating, instead of soccer practice we're going to a MTSU game this week with the kids' soccer teams. They're recognizing the team's involvement in Upward and youth sports in Middle Tennessee and the kids get to walk out on the field at halftime and get a certificate. It's a televised game (ESPNU), so we're setting our dvr! We thought it was a soccer game (hence, the soccer teams going together to watch) but it's actually a football game. Not something we'd normally do late on a school night when we could care less about these teams. We'll probably head home after half time.