everyday life

you're welcome

2012-02-01T09:45:00.000-06:00

Rainy Wednesday, totally lazy morning, got laundry going and sat down for some Pinterest time... I can always count on Pinterest to spur some creativity, highlight some good or funny quips, or show me some absolutely genius ideas. Love, love, love. Just a fun relaxing morning with me, my ~~coffee~~ hot chocolate and my pin boards.

Until.

I came across not one, not two, but eventually three of the most ick-inducing pins I've ever seen on those usually cheery and inspiring "most popular" boards.
And of course I have to share them because I don't want to be alone in having these images burned into my memory. I must share the sights I can't unsee.

May I present to you, three of the most disturbing images I came across on Pinterest this morning:

ew

ew

and ew

You are welcome.
And I'm sorry.

12 in 12: #1

2012-01-31T08:56:00.000-06:00

If you're not up on the [my] "12 in 12" lingo, I'm referring to the twelve dates I planned for Ryan and myself to treat ourselves to this year. It was his gift for Christmas.

So now that February is already closing in on us, we finally did our January date this past weekend (what?- we're nothing if not procrastinators around here!)...
and I'm happy to report had a very pleasant evening out.

We had somewhat of a "themed" evening and after hitting up a movie theater to see the second Sherlock Holmes installment (really good by the way!) we made our way downtown to a brand new bit of British hospitality; The Fleet Street Pub, Nashville's newest (and only) English-style pub.

And we loved it. They only just opened in November and I'd say it's a very promising little bar! Soccer on the "tele" and dartboards in the back, they had plenty of yummy beers on tap and the food (fish and chips of course!) was delicious... and pretty much everything on their menu sounded amazing. In a pub; I know, right?! We're definitely wanting to head down there again.

[sidenote: There used to actually be a pub called The Sherlock Holmes here in Nashville and while
planning this date night, knowing we were heading to see that movie, I was so bummed to find out that the pub had closed. And that it -at the time it closed- had been Nashville's last English-style pub. Fortunately I found went on to find this hidden (literally, it's tucked in Printer's Alley, underground!) gem and it made a very nice wrap up to our "English" evening!]

I'm already a fan of this Dating My Husband thing. Not that I'm surprised; I kinda like hanging out with the guy. But I also love the idea that we're getting out and finding new places and will maybe even find new things we like to do... together. In essence, making more dates for the future!

Plus, like I said, I kinda like hanging out with this guy. ;)

Can't wait for date #2!

p.s. check out other date ideas from around blogland ------------>

sj

2012-01-30T15:34:00.001-06:00

After I babbled on about Sawyer a couple months back, before the holidays... and was then distracted by our season of crazy... it's high time I moved on to the other child around here and bragged a bit about Savannah.

I've been trying to mentally compose this post for awhile and I have to admit it's been a bit of a struggle for me because we've been dealing with a lot of not-Savannah-like behaviors lately. Which I hope are not becoming Savannah-like. So it's good for me to really take some time and attention and focus on all of who our SJ is right now and not just what's been getting our attention lately...

Oh Savannah, where do I start?
She's reached that goofy older-elementary age... I get peeks of the awkward pre-teen years to come here and there, but mostly she's just goofy. She's tall and thin and a little lanky, but still petite at the same time. Sometimes I look at her and wonder "who are you?". Where did my baby girl go??
We had been hauling something in our vehicle and the seats had been all rearranged and we made a quick trip somewhere and let her just ride in the regular old seat/seatbelt... (the fact that I have a kid who's [almost] old enough to not need a child safety seat of any kind??? absurd!) and I couldn't stop glancing in the backseat at her. She looked entirely too grown up with her legs crossed, feet on the floor, her nose in a book, just riding along in the backseat.

Savannah still (will always??) loves school. She was stressed out about third grade all last summer; they start standardized state testing with third graders (way out in April) and they make it such a big deal that poor Savannah was stressing about it last April, as a second grader. She's such a performance based perfectionist, the idea of this huge week of Really Important Tests terrified her. She's seemed to have calmed down a lot as this school year has gotten underway, much thanks to her teacher who has helped them get used to the idea of the testing and is getting them very prepared with not only the learning, but the practicing of the test procedures waaaay ahead of time.
So she loves third grade.
She loves her teacher and she has lots of new friends at school this year. It's a smaller class and she is thriving in it. At our teacher conferences her teacher beamed about how ahead of the game she can be... she's the one who's on task, getting her work done right away. And she also marveled at how off task she can be... that she often has to shush her or separate her and a giggling girlfriend, but that Savannah still somehow always gets her work done right away.
I went along to a museum with her class last month and it was a trip for me to just stand back and watch SJ with her friends. To watch her in the world that we don't normally get to watch... to see her giggling with friends and listen to their inside jokes and watch her walk down the hallways of the museum sandwiched between two other girls, hands joined, swinging arms merrily. It really hit home how fast she's going to be her own person with her own life someday soon. And it really hit home how we're going to have to be so intentional about being a part of that world of hers. ;)

Our girl is cheering again this winter. She really loves this "sport" and we're all kind of bummed that we didn't pick the greatest spot to be in it... her squad is kind of lame. To say the least. She's asking about looking into other cheer programs around. I think we'll definitely be looking into it. It so fun to watch her be so confident in something... she -not knowing anyone else from this church team- is one of the loudest, most spirited, most confident cheerleader out there.
She's also really looking forward to trying out Softball in the spring. She's been talking about it since Sawyer played baseball last year so we have her all signed up and ready to go. I hope she likes it as much as she thinks she will.

Savannah's been volunteering to be involved in the kitchen duties around here a lot lately... inquiring ahead of time what is on the menu for dinner or offering up her own suggestions if I don't have one. And wanting to help and learn to get the meals prepared.
That might be directly related to the fact that Savannah is a planner. She likes her calendar and her lists and she really likes to know what's going on. She wants things written down and spelled out and she'll repeatedly ask about things as if to make sure she knows the ins and outs of what's happening when. She's a little uneasy when we don't have "a plan" or when we're trying to play it by ear.

Which leads to Savannah definitely acting the big sister part. She's a little on the bossy side; not usually in a mean way, but the orderly, this-is-what-everyone-should-be-doing-and-how-they-should-be-doing-it mindset is hard for her to stifle sometimes.
She's a caretaker. She's the one who's most attached to the puppy... she's on top of "does Clementine need to be let out? Has she eaten? Does she need this or that?" and she remembers everything we tell her about caring for and training a dog. Unfortunately she's also kind of a pushover when it comes to the puppy too. ;)
Clementine's favorite napping spot is on her pillow in front of the fire and nine times out of ten you'll find Savannah sitting right there with her (on the hearth's cold tile!) If Clementine was allowed upstairs or ever a sleep with her people kind of dog, SJ's room would be hers.
As it is, they like to enjoy the sunshine spots on the carpet together. :)

She has her dad's impatience and short temper, but is quick to worry if someone is sick or hurt.

She's a rule follower and a people pleaser.

She can be a worry wart and internalizes things so we need to be careful and be sure to talk certain things through with her.

She loves to watch the weather and know the forecast each day and especially keep track of storms.

She loves to laugh and especially loves making her brother laugh.

I love the little half moons her eyes still turn into when she laughs... that obnoxious, bubbly eight-year-old giggle that seems to never stop sometimes, but I love it all the same.

The single biggest descriptor that comes to my mind with Savannah is Creative.
She is a self-proclaimed (and accurately so) Artist.

She is forever making things... everything from stories and make-believe worlds to illustrations and frameable artwork. She loves doodling and her favorite time passing game is a drawing guessing game... like a made up pictionary of sorts. (I must add that she's better at Pictionary than the adults in the house too!) Magnadoodles, notebooks, chalkboards, construction paper and sketchpads... you name it, she'll fill it with pictures.

Savannah's a written word girl as well. Not just in loving to read, but she still loves to write. She journals and keeps up regularly with our "nighttime notebook"... where she leaves us notes when she goes to bed for us to answer questions and "sign in" when we check on her later as we go to bed ourselves. And we constantly find notes from her, left on our pillow or our bathroom counter... just little I love you's or Thank you's or whatever's on her mind. Love, love, love that.

Savannah is definitely still -and will always be- our Joy, just as we named her almost nine (!!?!?!!) years ago... even when she throws the "Terrible 8's" (as opposed to the Terrible Twos when she was actually a delightful toddler!) at us.

It's crazy to think about how she's grown up over the years... how much has changed and how much of who she is is still exactly the same. And the crazier thing is, I think we still have a whole lot to learn about this kid and I can't wait to see who she becomes as she moves into the "pre-tween" years!

week end

2012-01-27T12:55:00.001-06:00

I've not had the best week.
Just Off. In a funk. Bleh.

I'm feeling restless and unfocused. Unsettled with projects around here, unfinished housekeeping tasks all over, and just am not motivated and dragging my feet on all of it.
I've been rehashing situations from the past in trying to help out a friend going through the same and it's making me downhearted, wistful and feeling lonely.
We're stalled out in the Foster Care avenue (turns out this county is NOT the most efficient when it comes to home studies/licensing) and I'm short on patience with my own kids. Short on patience with the puppy too.
I feel like I was busy doing (or trying to do) a lot for other people and not so much for me. Which normally is great... normally being generous and there for others is good for me, energizes me. But this week I just feel drained.

Maybe it's this no carbs/no sugar thing. I did a lot of baking/cooking for other people this week and had none of the really good stuff myself. That could make one grumpy I think.
Or maybe it's the weather. It's been so rainy and blah here. I think maybe some snow would cheer me up. Or some springtime. :)

At least it's Friday.
I'm looking forward to the weekend.
(I've already decided I'm ditching the diet for the weekend, btw, so that's cheery already!)
It's been a long week and I feel like I haven't seen my husband much, or my kids, when really I have- I just haven't really been there. Or I've found myself more annoyed with their presence than enjoying it this week.

So I'm looking forward:
Ryan and I have a date Saturday and I'm really anxious for some one-on-one time to get out and just be with him.
On Sunday he's going to be off hanging with a friend all day, so it'll be just me and the kids. My first instinct is to groan with that... it's just the mood I'm in and to think about having to ~~keep them from killing each other~~ entertain them all day instead of whatever it is I'd rather do... when it comes to weekends, I normally borderline-dread any "extra" days I have the parent job all to myself.
But this time I'm trying to look forward to it. I want to really hang out with them, to enjoy each other and have some fun mommy-kid time. I want to choose to get out of this attitude and look forward to spending the whole day with my kids. They're good kids.
They are worth what I am doing here, they are worth watching, worth listening to, worth my attention, worth describing and remembering and liking.
(Loving, always, that goes without saying; liking is sometimes harder).

Speaking of- here are a couple of things SJ's left up around the house this week that are driving home that worth listening to, worth liking, worth remembering stuff... the stuff that makes me smile. :)

on the chalkboard wall:

and found posted on the stairway up to her room:

it's tuesday... ...right?!?

2012-01-24T09:31:00.001-06:00

I am so lost on my days lately, it's not even funny. Like right now; I swear it cannot only be Tuesday morning?!! I kept thinking yesterday was Wednesday. And that doesn't even make sense because we skipped out on church Sunday and had friends over kind of late that night so that entire day felt like it was a Saturday, so if anything yesterday should have been Sunday.

I'm blaming it on lack of sleep. I've been sleeping terribly and two out of three nights of 1am tornado sirens doesn't help that.

We have had CRAZY weather 'round here lately. Ever since Christmas. It's been crazy warm (like 65°) and rainy (inches at a time) or stupid cold (twenties) and bone dry; back and forth and back and forth almost every day. And a few of the days have been cold temps and the nights the warm temps --hence the storms. It was 30° the other day and then when we were wakened by the tornado sirens that night it was 65° outside at 12:30am! Crazy.

I need to get motivated today. My kitchen is a wreck. A Wreck. I did a bunch of freezer cooking yesterday (trying to get some better breakfast foods ready for the kids, quick and easy pre-prepped style because I just can't get my act that together at 6am every day) and so that combined with dinner last night, todays breakfast and packing lunches this morning, plus poms poms, waterbottles, dog chewies and other randoms dropped on the island, plus a bout of project brainstorming of mine may or may not be taking up a good chunk of counterspace as well = My poor kitchen.
But! Now the freezer is stocked with a few batches each of healthy Blueberry & Yogurt Multigrain Pancakes, Apple Cinnamon Oatmeal Pancakes and Bacon Egg and Cheese Breakfast Pockets. Mmmm, I'm hungry. ;)

I think I actually accomplished all that in avoidance of my living room. I was moving furniture so there are empty shelves and books, photo albums and knick knacks strewn all over the room. I'm at a loss on what to do with that room. I bought a chair at our ReStore yesterday morning and I was so excited because it was perfect. Until I got it in the room. And then I just felt like there was way too much furniture in there. So I spent the morning trying to rearrange the layout and try different things, and I don't know if it's just because I can't find the right arrangement, but I don't think it's going to work. So I don't know what I'm doing with the chair. I don't know if I should switch out the big storage ottoman that we have in there for the chair or if I should leave everything the way it was and resell the chair. Or try the chair in the family room. Or if I should go back to ReStore and buy the other (matching) chair and use them both in the family room -because they would look really nice in there- and then get rid of our big chair-and-a-half that we already have in there.
I know, I'm just confusing myself too. All I know is, something's not feeling right with me in the front living room, I've never been happy with it, and it's going to bother me until I get the room "right".

So I moved on to decimate the kitchen instead.
And cooked a million and one things that looked and smelled sooo good but that I can't eat.
Yes, I'm on my stupid "no carb/no sugar" diet again.
No I'm not happpy about it.
But Yes, I've lost about 8lbs in two weeks. Only 15 more to go.

So that's my morning in a nutshell...
How is your ~~Wednesday~~ ~~Monday~~ Tuesday morning going?

ten things this thursday

2012-01-19T08:47:00.000-06:00

House Stuff edition.

1. I've got most of the rest of the "house tour" written up, I just have to take all the rest of the pictures. But I'm also in the midst of rearranging the living room; having had to rearrange for the kid Christmas tree we had in there got my wheels spinning again. I seriously considered leaving that tree up all year. Valentine tree anyone? Because I like the way the rest of the room is, but now we [finally] took down the tree and I either need to move something back or find something else (new chair?) to fill that space.

2. And I'm excited to get on to redoing (actually just doing in the first place!) our master bedroom. So many ideas have been swirling around in my head -and on my pinterest boards- for so long now. We've slowly and Craigslistly replaced all the furniture in there sans our bed, and last week I finally found the last piece to the puzzle which was the project I was most excited about, so I'm hoping we can get that wrapped up soon. A few months back I finally found our duvet cover on Ebay... the one we saw in a store years ago and fell in love with and didn't buy and then it was discontinued so we were out of luck. So I have that, but I'm still hunting for the perfect quilt/throw/something and pillows to go with it and make a pretty bed. And drapes.

3. Also, my mantle is bare since I took down my Christmas Tree collection this year. I just haven't been wanting to put up the same old candles and stuff... I'm wanting it brightened up for spring already. I have a picture in my head, but I can't seem to find it/make it. So file that under the redecorating topic too I guess.

4. Speaking of decorating, can anyone tell me how to fit a giant metal dog crate into my decor?? We're about ready to move up to the bigger(biggest) crate for Tiny as she's been whacking her forehead on the doorway of the one we have (borrowed). So I'm looking for a new one (and I don't know if you've ever priced giant dog crates, but we're talking $200+. Ugh. Luckily I found one on Craigslist for $135 I think we can snag) and dreading having to find a spot for it. The one we have now is set up in the dining room and when we have people over and actually want to use the dining room for a nice dinner, we have moved her crate into the laundry room. But it takes up the entire space in the laundry room. So I don't know what the heck to do with an even gianter one. Yes, gianter is a word. When you're talking about a crate that's almost 5' by 3' by 4' high? That's gianter.

5. I'd actually really like to move the washer and dryer out to the garage and just have the laundry [closet]room be the dog's space, but Ryan's not too keen on that idea. What costs more, having the laundry hookups moved out two more walls or to buy a giant crate? A giant crate that we don't have a good out of the way place to put, I might add.

6. I don't really have ten things on the topic of house stuffs.

7. Unless you count laundry and dishes, in which case I have plenty to talk about.

8. Oh, remember those Nintendo chairs? Ryan really wants some. Problem is, most of them now are the new fandangled video game chairs with like speakers and game vibrations built in and such. Yuck. I just want nice, little, comfy, portable chairs. For cheap. So basically the actual old Nintendo rocker chairs. That are actually 20yrs old. And probably mauve. They'd be cheap!

9. Speaking of old, I've been obsessed with old stuff lately... not only Craigslist, but antique and junk stores. Since it's not really garage sale season. ;) I spent over an hour wandering an antique mall yesterday. I'm keeping my eye out for a bench, wood candlesticks, chairs to recover and metal, marquee-ish letters. I'm looking forward to heading to the fairgrounds in a couple weeks for a big flea market. Love that stuff!

10. I suppose I should stop dreaming about house stuff and actually go do something. Unfortunately, putting away laundry isn't nearly as fun as imagining new projects. Unless I can think up a way to convert an old dresser into a new laundry hamper system... ;)

[no] snow day

2012-01-13T12:13:00.004-06:00

School called a Snow Day today.
It snowed a bit yesterday afternoon... baaaarely enough for the kids to go out and scrape up a few snowballs after school:

(also: can you believe that puppy is only 16wks old?!?!!)

I believe it snowed a bit off and on overnight, but there was actually less snow on the ground this morning than when we went to bed. But I guess some lone road somewhere in our entire county has a bit of ice on it, so no school today. Meanwhile, our roads are dry as a bone. I won't go off on that tangent again.

So here we are today; a mom who had a kidless agenda in her head for the day, two antsy kids and an obnoxious puppy who I can't really send outside since it's all of about 18° outside.

I got all panicky about being cooped up today and wanted to get out and do something fun, but the kids shot down 99% of my ideas.
In the end, I called a Lazy Movie Day... and it's actually been nice. We've had Netflix on constant stream, pillow pets and blankets are strewn around the living room, we made pillsbury refrigerator biscuit mini-pizzas and popcorn and now brownies are in the oven.
Apparently I'm calling a Throw The Diet & Exercise Out The Window Day as well. ;)

gratuitous pictures of my kids' sports (and missing teeth)(and head wound)

2012-01-10T08:46:00.000-06:00

Whew boy, what a weekend!

Sawyer got into this G.O.A.L. (get out and learn) program that the Predators team offers for kids 5-8years old. It's basically a free(!!) four week session of learning to skate and hockey. It's awesome and Sawyer is absolutely loving it.

He was SO excited to get out there.

He's only skated once in his life... three or four years ago when he was pretty much a toddler! Needless to say, he started out literally flat on the ice. And by the end of that first night he was skating around taking shots with the puck. So fun to watch all those littles out there!!
You can see here some of the kids (Sawyer included; he's on the ground in the middle) sprawled out on the ice in the background... this is a "no skating experience necessary" class and they just padded the kids up and sent them out on the ice...

Hilarious. But awesome to watch them all gain their balance and their footing and figure out how to get themselves back up and moving.

I know Ryan got some good video of everything on ice, so I'll have to see if I can get it on here.

The kids both also had their first Upwards basketball/cheer games this weekend. This is Sawyer's first time playing organized basketball and he is really enjoying it. So fun to watch.

Savannah is a bit disappointed with the cheer squad... coming from the team she was with in STL, I can't say that I blame her. It's completely disorganized and the "coach" has never done it before and it's painfully obvious she doesn't have a clue... which, just the socializing and the "team experience" would be fine... but Savannah (and I) knows how fun and impressive it can be from her experience with her squad two years ago, and this jumbled mess of girls boringly shaking their pompoms on the sidelines during the game is just not.
It's laughable really. If I don't think about the money I spent for her to be doing this. :/

Savannah was one of the most spirited cheerleaders out there. :)
I forgot to get a picture of both the kids together at any point, so I need to try and snap that next week.

In other big news of the weekend, Sawyer finally lost his first tooth! Both his bottom ones have been loose for quite awhile, but the two new ones were coming in so far behind the first two that they weren't really motivated to fully evacuate. We finally decided to pull them Saturday night, and after a few string attempts that Ryan gave up on, I finally popped one out of there. And then Sawyer decided we'd save the other one for another time. ;)

You can see how much the permanent teeth have already grown in...

And lastly, with Sawyer apparently wanting to steal the spotlight all weekend, we had our first visit to urgent care for stitches on Sunday. Yes, he made it through six years of not a stitch or broken bone and now one of those is struck from his record. He was running around outside with some boys after church and somehow managed to run full speed, right into a thick metal window casing on the building. Ryan and I were standing in (separate areas of) the lobby visiting with people when Ryan said a kid came in and told him Sawyer was bleeding. Ryan kind of brushed him off and carried on his conversation thinking it was a scraped elbow or knee or something... and he's a tough kid. Until Sawyer came walking around the corner with blood running down his face. He scooped him up and carried him through the lobby full of people (trying not to get blood on anyone else in their Sunday best!) and into the bathroom. Savannah came running to get me, hysterical and crying and honestly so freaked out I could hardly understand her. She cried more and took ten times longer to calm down than Sawyer himself! Luckily our pastor's wife is a nurse and she came in to help us get him cleaned up and assess the gash in his head. We decided to take him in and they gave him a couple of stitches. It was deep enough and long enough and while it only took two stitches, I'm glad there's something holding his skull in now!
(this pic was from this morning... the swellings mostly gone now and it's much easier to look at!)

He was brave... didn't hardly cry except for the lidocaine shots... that's when he wanted to go home!
But then he was good as new, all smiles and ready to still head over to our friends' house for lunch and eager to show off his new stitches. (which I covered that day to keep from having to look at it!!)

just another manic monday

2012-01-09T09:06:00.000-06:00

I need a little kick in the butt. We had high hopes of getting lots done this weekend; I thought we were headed into a lazyish weekend with not much on our plate and plenty of time to get stuff done around the house. Turns out between hockey, basketball, cheerleading, the petstore, grocery shopping, toothpulling, church, urgent care for stitches, a friends' house for lunch and cooler,cloudy, just want to curl up and watch a movie weather,.... we didn't get much else done.
(pics and details of some of the above to come)

So.
Now I have a big To-Do list for the week.
Starting with today's:

Laundry. I'm so off on my laundry schedule it's not even funny.
Deep clean my kitchen. Which is mostly a finishing up task... I got a lot accomplished Friday; snack/pantry cupboards cleaned out (and vaccumed!), fridge cleaned out and finally all of our random Christmas/New Years Dinner dishes put away. I still need to clean the stove top, the oven and give everything a good wipedown, including the floor.
Pack up Christmas. Yes, we still have that stuff laying around. Still have the kids' tree up (but bare for a week now) and the nativities and the lights on the windows, wreath on the front door and garage. I will get all of that upstairs and put away today.
Take the dog to an actual park to walk. I'm tired of the hills around here.

Hello Monday. You'd better be productive!!

our gifts

2012-01-05T08:00:00.000-06:00

In the last few years, as we've been moving to more and more of a "handmade" Christmas, usually what happens is that by the time I get all our extended families' gifts done and shipped off, I'm so depleted of ideas and motivation that we here at home get the good old fashioned (ha!) consumerism Christmas... things I can pick off a list and go find at the store. :)
I did better this year though, at least doing one original, handmade gift for everyone here as well. Okay, honestly, the kids' didn't technically get done before Christmas, but I'm still counting them. Savannah's got done...

(extra wood from garage with a whitewashed coat of paint, scrapbook paper letters and a purple painted "you" to make a sign for her room)

And Sawyer's... well, I'll have to check back in for that one. Not quite finished yet. Thankfully, I don't think a six-year-old boy cares too awfully much. He was preoccupied with the new video games last week. ;)

I even made a gift for Clementine... a super cute name tag for the puppy with our contact info on the backside (with a silver bezel, our printer and 3D modge podge, it cost me all of ninety nine cents!)...
[picture coming... I really do think it's super cute!]

And Ryan's gift.
I love Ryan's gift.
I saw the idea on Pinterest (of course) and filed it away months ago. Filed it away a little too well actually, because I almost forgot that was the gift I wanted to do until the marvelous Katie reminded me of it as she was going about the same project. Came to find out a couple of other friends were planning the same thing as well. Which kind of made it even more fun. ;)
Anyway, I buckled down and spent the past month planning it out and here's what I came up with...

You see, Ryan and I have this problem.
We don't date.
We always say we'll be more intentional about it, and always in fact have the best of intentions.
But between moving to a new city with a shortage of familiar babysitters... and the fact that we like to be social, so the few times we do have a babysitter, we often end up doing things with other couples... and the fact that our kids have decently early bedtimes so we mostly feel like we have enough "us" time on a regular basis...
...actual, go out, just us date nights don't really happen.
And there's just something to be said about making the time and the effort and getting out and doing fun and different stuff together. Getting out of the routine and, whether it's doing old favorites or trying new things, getting out together.
So this box is full of those opportunities.

I made up a "check the box if you'll go out with me" note (folded it old school and everything) and modge-podged it onto the box top with scraps of other papers and pictures that have to do with what's in the box. Then, inside, I wrote a note explaining the gift and included twelve large envelopes: twelve dates... one for each month of this year. Each date is prepped and planned and already paid for (with gift cards, groupon printouts, or other necessities already inside each month's envelope). So all we have to do is pick a day, round up childcare of some sort [and a couple of them are in fact stay-in dates for at home after the kids are in bed, but with an actual plan that doesn't involve us sitting in front of our laptops and/or watching sitcoms on tv] and we're set for a date. I prepaid for everything that I could because -aside from the fact that I grabbed some great "groupon-ish" deals- that way we have to go do it... if it were just a plan, it might be too easy to just skip it, or just get busy and never get to it. But since it's money already spent, we will actually be sure to go eat at that restaurant or go see that show or go do that activity, you know?
The dates are sealed up in the envelopes and, except for a picture or clue on the front, are meant to be a surprise for Ryan to open each month. Here's a peek:

So I won't share what's inside all the date envelopes yet,
but here is the January envelope he opened already...

We're set to see the new Sherlock Holmes movie (the first of which we did actually attend on one of our rare date nights!) and then hang out at an English pub in the famous Printers Alley downtown ...somewhere us oldfolks don't normally hang out ;) .
Included with this note are credits for Fandango (movie) tickets and a gift certificate for the pub.

I'll try and record our dates here each month... in case anyone else is looking for ideas to date your spouse with as well!! I was thinking this might be a really fun thing to do every year... but trade off; as in next year Ryan plans the whole year for us! ;) hint, hint

He loved it by the way. I wasn't sure, as other "romantic"/creative things I've put together in the past haven't stirred much excitement, but he mentioned several times that this was his favorite gift this year and he was excited to see what these dates were all about. Yay!

here are links to the rest of the gifts we made/gave this year

gifts for kids this year

2012-01-05T07:30:00.000-06:00

I had really wanted (and meant) to post our homemade gift ideas this fall. Trouble is, fall always turns out to be waaaay busier than I anticipate. :/
And then our December. Oh, our December this year was insane.
So here we are already, after Christmas... and after New Years!
So better late than never, here are the handful of gifts we put together this year...

Kids Gifts up first:

If you're looking for more ideas, I did post all of our kids' gifts last year and the year before that we made the ABC books for a couple of kiddos, found in this post.

This year some newbies were...

Dream Pillows... I did make Sawyer one of these last year (seen in the post linked above) and it is still one of his favorite things. It was the kids' idea to make some for their cousins this year. We made a couple of moons; a couple of kitties, an owl and a heart. We also added good dream/sleep herbs to the stuffing. For most of the cousins, we matched them up to new pj's or bathrobes... outerspace jammies w/ the moon pillow, owl jammies w/ the owl pillow, etc.

Basic tutorial for pillows here.

Laptop Chalkboard...
My sister really likes "green", "natural" and imaginative toys so I was trying to come up with an idea along those lines. This is what we turned out:

Two boards, hinged together, I chalkboard painted a "screen" and vinyl cut a "keyboard" with my Silhouette. Ryan routed (routered??) out a touchpad shaped recess to hold chalk and a little sponge eraser. They're also Mac fans, so we added a little apple emblem as well. ;)

Car Caddy Bundle...

I whipped this up in about an hour with all leftover materials... and bought a few new matchbox cars to add to it. I perused a few 'roll-up car mats' online for ideas and then went from there and just winged my own version with the fabric I had:

Perfect to throw in a diaper bag or purse for waiting at the dr's office or in a restaurant, etc.
There are plenty of tutorials to go off of if you search for a roll-up car caddy! ;)

Part Two: Gifts for the Grown-Ups up next!

handmade gifts for guys and gals

2012-01-05T07:00:00.000-06:00

Oh, this one's a doozey.
I realized I never posted the gifts we did last year of the Non-Children Variety, so those are thrown in here first.
Let's get right down to business...

Last year we made:

Hospitality Canvas...
I just whipped up a "subway art" type arrangement of one of my favorite verses (another version of which I happen to have hanging in my kitchen), printed it out on iron-on printer paper and then ironed it onto canvas and hung with a ribbon.

(excuse the yellowness in the picture?)

Loved this one.

Jewelry...
I've had jewelry supplies laying around here for years so I thought I'd pull some of it out again. I made a bobbly necklace for my sister with her first initial on it:

(again, sorry for the bad photo, but you get the idea)

And a different one for my sis-in-law. She happened to have had a new baby last year and I put on a big baby blue pearl for baby boy, a smaller white pearl for his birthstone, and stamped a silver tag with his birthdate on it.

Wood Photo Boards...
Did these a couple of years ago for a friend and liked them so much that I did a couple of different family photo set for each of our parents. You can see better examples of this idea with a tad bit of instruction in this post.

Chalkboard Coasters...
Thirty cent tiles from Home Depot, spray-painted with chalkboard paint, backed with cork and wrapped up with a few sticks of chalk. Fun!

Holiday Cocktails Recipe Book...
(sorry, no picture)
I simply collected Holiday Drink Recipes, printed them out and prettied up with holiday paper, stickers and letters, and made it into a book with binder clips.

Cinnamon Drink Mix...
just filled a jar with this yummy recipe and added the mix directions and big pretty bow.

Homemade Coffee Creamers...
Did these for both our moms. Found a couple of sets of little jars at Homegoods and filled them with different homemade flavored coffee creamers. (recipe ideas here) Yum!

Kids' Self-Portrait Magnets...
We actually get these through our school, but I love this idea for grandparents and such! Kids' art turned into a great magnet!!

And now for this year's gifts....

Scarves...
This was my favorite gift to make as it was so quick, easy, fun and (whispers) *cheap*. I collected a dozen or so t-shirts from our local thrift store (on half-off day, so they were about fifty cents apiece!) and some cozy fleece and pieced them together, following this quick tutorial. Here are a couple...

One I made with a "US cities" theme:

It's for my sister who lived in Vegas for a few years.

And then I made this one which was by far the easiest and, I think, pretty cool looking. "Infinity" scarves are all the rage right now, right?!
Tutorial here.

Key Fobs...
I forgot to take pictures of mine, but they look just like these. (picture from this seller... I had actually planned on just ordering from her for simplicity's sake -and because hers are so stinkin' cute- but her mom passed away and she was not taking orders before Christmas. So I had to take matters into my own hands...)
I made two for two of my sisters... bought the clasps and jump rings from a seller on Etsy, and then used some cute coordinating fabric. I'm not a fan of my own handwriting when trying to make a gift look nice, so I did a cute "handwritten" font on the computer and just printed out quotes and the girls' names on some white cotton. Did you know you can print right on fabric?! I just taped some white cotton to a piece of printer paper and it ran right through!
Anyway, they turned out pretty cute. And I have supplies for about 13 more key fobs if anyone wants to buy one from me.... ;)
If you want to make your own, there are key fob tutorials all over the place, take your pick.

Family Tree Canvases...
I love this one too.

I slapped some background paint on a canvas, cut a tree out of brown patterned scrapbook paper, ran a few different patterned green papers through my Silhouette to make leaves and tada! I added ribbon, printed out a fitting bible verse and then used a set of alphabet stamps to "carve" our family names in the tree. My parents initials are in the heart.

This is a second one I did, totally copied the idea from one on Etsy, but obviously constructed ours with our own words and names. Then we simply had it printed as a photo image on canvas thru Costco for a great deal. :)
And last but not least, the biggest project (x3), but my absolute-favorite-I-wish-someone-would-make-one-for-me gift...
The Game Blanket.
Brilliant idea and step-by-step tutorial found here.

It's a picnic blanket with built in games... Bingo, Tic Tac Toe, and Checkers.
The backside is made from a vinyl tablecloth so it's waterproof
and the corners are sewn-in pockets to hold game pieces, cards, other kids' games, etc.

I made three of these babies... all in different colors. And I don't even really know how to sew, so you know they're totally doable. But being that I don't even really know how to sew, they all took me awhile. So worth it though. I loved them.

I love doing the homemade gifts and as overwhelmed as I felt this time (which really had nothing to do with the gifts themselves, but all the other crazy things we had going on in November and December!), I am aiming to do all handmade again next year. The only thing I struggle with is finding new ideas... and ideas for the guys are the hardest. And the fact that we have to ship most of our gifts. If I were doing gifts for locals, my idea list would be larger I think; not having to worry about size or weight or breakability!
The trick I realized this year, is to find a few great projects and do several of those... like the fact that we did pillows/pjs for all the kids, game blankets for all our married siblings, scarves for others, and family trees for our parents. This idea keeps things simple; you get good at making those few things, you can still personalize each one, but it's not a million supplies for a million different projects.

and new years

2012-01-03T15:27:00.000-06:00

The Laughlins made a trip to hang out with us for New Years and it was so good to see them and have a little time together. Kasey helped me out a ton getting ready for our New Years Dinner and we got to spend a couple of nights playing games and dancing (!!!) and just plain old catching up. Loved, loved, loved having them here this weekend.

As for New Years itself, I have to say that have begun to doubt that I want to continue this Dinner we have had going on for the past six years. Several friends who were unable to make it last year and had assured us this year would be the year... bowed out again. And three families we invited here declined to join us as well. I even invited friends we don't know well at all and whom we had never had over (but who we would love to have here and get to know better!)... but they were either out of town or not available(/not interested). Besides the Laughlins, the only friends coming for sure were our backdoor neighbors and I started to feel bad that Mike and Kasey were coming all this way for this Big Traditional Dinner... and it was turning out to be just us for dinner. (They had already met and hung out with J&K with us last time they were here in town)(and I know Laughlins weren't just coming for the dinner; I know that they want to come and visit and be here just because, but it was a big trip for them at a busy time and the dinner was the whole reason they were coming when they were coming.)

Anyway, the past few weeks leading into this, I was once again discouraged. And all my woe-is-me thoughts from last year came sneaking back in. And I pretty much decided I was done. I didn't want to have all these ideas for traditions and decorations and fun things to add to our New Years celebration... and be disappointed again and again when friends weren't coming back. Or coming at all. I tend to put a lot of (too much?) thought and effort into these dinners and I really don't want to get bummed out leading into it every year.
So honestly, I don't know where I stand for now.
I love doing this. I love having these traditions and wanting to include our friends. I love, love, love having people here to share in celebrating the year behind us and the new one ahead. I love having something for everyone to look forward to... and look forward to the same traditions every year. And we always do have a great time and I'm so thankful for the friends that join us.
But I don't like how I seem to be taking it so.... personally(?) when it seems hard to come by invitees each year now and that I get so frustrated not knowing who is coming year to year. I kept telling myself it would be better this year, feeling more settled, with more friends here. Or maybe it'll be better next year.
Or maybe I just need to get over myself...

But.
Anyway.
I am so happy we got to have the Laughlins here this year.
And J&K. They've been like a second family of sorts -our share a meal, wanna see a movie, play a card game, grab a beer go-to's- for us here next door and I'm so thankful they moved in behind us this past summer.
And the Harkins family ended up here again... you may remember they had joined us last year. Mindy finally came home from the hospital/rehab Thanksgiving weekend and this was the first time we've had the whole family over since her stroke last summer. We are so thankful she was able to be here and it was great to have them all join in the tradition again. (and Mindy's mom too!)

Here are some peeks at our dinner this year...
our table

our menu

(click on it to read
full sized)

our lucky stars
(sj wrote her own "fortunes" in them)

our resolutions

our traditional peppermint pig time after dinner

our desserts

and this year's whole gang

l to r:
Rhoda (Mindy's mom) holding Wesley 4mos, Mindy, Kevin holding Micah 2.5yrs, Evan 2.5yrs, Mike, Kyle 6yrs, Kasey holding Alex 7mos, Sawyer 6yrs, Ryan, Savannah 8.5yrs, Me, Kelly and Jason.

Thanks for bringing in the New Year with us, you guys! We loved celebrating with you!!

*****
p.s.
I wanted to say thanks, to the few of you who have commented, for the encouragement.
I feel I need to be sure it's known that I do not mean to insinuate that anyone is specifically "flaky"... or that I expect everyone who is invited to be here, or that once people are here I expect them to be locked in for life. ;) I understand things come up, travel is not always appealing, etc, etc.
I realize I often just need to adjust my expectations... I do need to remember that people have different priorities. Not having family close, friends are often our big priority. We enjoy traveling (heck, we didn't think twice about making a seven hour drive to be at our godson's 2nd birthday) and we enjoy creating traditions with people who are important to us. I need to keep sight of the fact that that is just not how everyone operates.
And I need to stop allowing myself those moments of losing sight of why we're wanting to do this... it's not about 'me and my party'-- but as these comments have so graciously reminded me, if I do this, I want to be focused on who is able to be at our table and we are able to share our meal and our new year with... and that I want each of them to know they are appreciated in our home. If that's not my focus, I have no reason to be hosting this dinner anyway.

chirstmas... only two(and almost a half) weeks late!

2012-01-03T13:43:00.000-06:00

Whew... I'm not even sure where to start, I feel like I'm so far behind in documenting around here!
I cannot believe we're already three days into the new year.
One more day til we're back to "normal". Ryan went back to work this morning, but the kids have one more day off. I think we might hit up the dollar movie theater again today.
I have lots to catch up on... Christmas and New Years and Year's End recaps and I want to document our gift projects this year and new projects I have in the works. But that's just blogwise. In "real life", after November being full of family in town and then December being full of holiday crazy, this house is a wreck. I mean, it's (for the most part) clean and tidy as we've been entertaining a lot and I'm actually caught up on laundry (for once!), but as far as our closets and closed bedroom doors and the storage attic space??... Scary. So I'm in need of some big time pull-everything-out-and-get-it-where-it-really-goes organizing.

But first things first... playing a little catch-up...
Christmas:
We had just a nice quiet Christmas here at home, just us. A lazy morning, taking our time enjoying presents, snacking all day on the candy, apples and oranges in our stocking, making our homemade donuts and our favorite leftover ham Kings Sandwiches.

And I snapped maybe a handful of pictures. And dark, grainy point and shoot pictures at that.
I suck.

in between

2011-12-29T15:13:00.002-06:00

Christmas lingers around our house.

It's always hard to say goodbye to the extra joys of the season. So we still have our tree up, still have our stockings (and goodies!) laying around and our new games in and out from under the tree. And we haven’t done much around here lately. Well, I take that back. We’ve done plenty of playing and lounging and snacking and laughing and napping and well, more playing. We've taken walks, we went to the movies, we took the kids swimming, we've had friends over to play. Ryan's worked on the 4Runner, I've run a few errands. We've just been enjoying our "in between" week.
I always feel a little out of sorts for the week between Christmas and New Years; like life isn’t quite normal until after that big ball drops. The kids are home, Ryan's usually home, and real life is just kind of on pause for this week.
So we're just enjoying our time.

And getting ready for the New Year... planning for the dinner party, excited for houseguests. :)

I do have pictures... and the deets of our gifts this year. I'm excited to share them.

Just maybe not till life gets back to "normal". ;)

christmas eve

2011-12-24T20:04:00.002-06:00

The thought that's been most running through my head all day?...
I cannot believe it's Christmas Eve already.
Seriously.

******
We are so blessed and as excited as we are for this beautiful holiday, as many times as my own kids have said today, "I cannot WAIT for tomorrow!"... other kids have been on my mind. Kids who may not be with their moms or dads this Christmas... who may not have a "family" or any kind of a Christmas at all. Kids in foster care, kids in orphanages, kids on the streets. Kids who don't know joy, or peace or happiness. My heart is full of prayer for them this weekend. Such a beautiful holiday for us, while for so many it may not be and it humbles me to think of them.

******
We did a little baking this week which resulted in lots of goodies ~~that we don't really need to actually consume around here~~. So we packaged some up tonight and piled into the car after dinner to deliver treats to various people... we ran some by Savannah's teacher's family who just moved into a new house around the corner from us, we went to two fire and police stations, dropped in a open all night gas station and gave some holiday cheer to the guy stuck working Christmas, and finally dropped our last package of goodies off with a corner Contributor guy.
I'd like to say it was a magical evening of glad tidings, comfort and joy, and that we were all uplifted, but in reality the time in between our stops was filled with siblings annoying each other in the car, fighting and a little parental yelling thrown in for good measure and I for one returned home feeling quite discouraged. I guess that's just the way it goes sometimes, you know?
Peace on earth, goodwill to men indeed.

******
I don't have a fabulously cute Christmas picture or an especially profound holiday sentiment to share, but here's the snapshot I slapped on our Christmas card and I will tell you that I am looking forward to these couple of days of nothing to do but Christmas... family time and new pj's and ham and fudge and donuts and gift giving and stocking stuffing and delivering more Christmas goodies to strangers and a twinkling tree and excited children and an obnoxious puppy and snuggles and new games and way, way, WAY too many cookies and The Christmas Story (no, not the movie) and the quiet peace of knowing the Real Reason for the season and relishing in the way that gift was given so many many years ago.

And we wish all the same for you and yours.
Merry Christmas!

this week's numbers

2011-12-22T11:17:00.004-06:00

number of Christmas cards received: 29
number of packages received: 2
number of packages shipped: 2
number of packages shipped late so they ~~may not~~ won't even make it before Christmas: 2
number of Christmas cards sent out: 62
number of Christmas cards still sitting on the table to address and send out and ~~may not~~ won't even make it before Christmas: 14
number of hours spent in class/on foster care homework and paperwork: 6
number of dollars spent at the grocery store: an absurd one
number of Christmas movies watched: 4
number of Christmas cookies made: 3 dozen plus a tray of bark
number of Christmas cookies still on the agenda to make: 5 dozen plus another tray of bark
number of pieces of Christmas bark I've eaten: 2 dozen. or so.
number of beds in front of the lit Christmas tree last night: 2
number of kids up at 4am this morning in front of the Christmas tree: 2 plus a puppy.
number of ibuprofen I took this morning: 4
number of projects I'd still like to ~~start~~ finish: 4
number of days before Christmas: 2

Why did it come so fast this year??

it's the most wonderful time of the year...

2011-12-14T08:48:00.006-06:00

Or the busiest.
I haven't meant to abandon ship over here... I've just been overwhelmed with life lately.
I'm not sure who's brilliant idea it was to do all homemade gifts this year.
And I'm also wondering who's brilliant idea it was to bring home a new puppy in what's turning out to be pretty much our busiest month ever.
Or who's even more brilliant idea it was to cram in the mass of our foster care training hours (and paperwork wrangling... never underestimate the paperwork wrangling!!) in December.

I REEEEAALLY need a pause button this week. Or an extra 48 hrs.
Between taking care of a new puppy, finishing up Christmas gifts to mail out, figuring out teacher/busdriver gifts, third grade homework, classroom activities -for both kids!- every single day this week, an extra baking project for school, holiday parties, assembling and mailing out Christmas cards, cheer practice, basketball practice, small group for church, and not one, not two, but THREE nights of foster care classes for us grown ups this week (plus a load of homework and a binder full of paperwork to complete!)...
I'm a little swamped.
And pooped.

The kids are done with school Friday morning.
I'm hoping I can breathe by then.

The good news is, if I survive this week, we should have all next week to relax.
And cram in all our Christmassy activities! Ryan and I have his work Christmas dinner to go to this weekend, and maybe Sunday we can do our annual Christmas light drive and donuts. Then I hope to spend the week ~~napping,~~ making cookies, do some good samaritan/holiday cheer type outings with the kids (take a salvation army bell ringer hot chocolate, tape change to a vending machine, christmas goodies to fire station, etc), build a recycled "gingerbread" village, finish up the kids' Christmas shopping/gift making, camp out in the family room and sleep by the twinkling Christmas tree lights and snuggle up to watch all the Christmas movies we have backlogged on our dvr.
I can't wait.

already one of the family

2011-12-05T13:18:00.006-06:00

Clementine joined right in our traditional Sunday evening family movie night.

She got herself right down in there on the ~~movie pillows~~ giant pillow pets the kids drag out for each movie and wasted no time getting comfy. She actually watched the movie (The Smurfs this week) right alongside the kids for awhile, but obviously didn't make it through. Sleepy baby!

Puppy definitely found a new favorite though... our Tiny girl loves SJ's giant kitty and has been trying to claim it for her own bed ever since, despite the comfy actual giant pillow of a dog bed we bought her. ;)

introductions please

2011-12-03T22:03:00.004-06:00

Everyone, meet Clementine...

Sweet Clementine.
Aka "Tiny"

Who is not really so tiny at 10 wks old and already 25 lbs.

The kids have been asking for a dog for three years straight and their wish finally came true today. They had no clue when we left the house this morning that they would be coming home with a new best friend.

(in the car on the (long) drive home... still a little shell-shocked)

We haven't yet known her 12 hrs and we love her already. :)
Welcome home sweet girl!

it's friday!

2011-12-02T14:58:00.003-06:00

This middle of the afternoon Friday I am:
feeling... so excited for this tomorrow and the surprise we have in store for the kids!!
wearing... jeans, white tank and dark gray sweater/shawl thing
wanting... Ryan to get home so we can go get our Christmas tree this evening
needing... to get off the computer and get out to meet the kids off the bus
eating... just polished off a rice krispie treat!
drinking... water
thinking... about how fun this weekend will be
loving... that it's December

How about you?

thanksgiving weekend

2011-11-26T15:39:00.002-06:00

a big house
family
the muppets
pumpkin donuts
parades
baking smells
turkey
fire in the fireplace
no school
cream cheese and butterscotch pumpkin pie
sunshine
grandparents
christmas lights
snuggling
games
stuffing
football
sisters
mashed potatoes
movies
naps
leftovers
more games
wine
pumpkin cheesecake
hot cider
sparkling cider
christmas music
serving
sharing
blessed
grateful
undeserving
overwhelmed

thankful doesn't even begin to hold enough meaning.

friday morning

2011-11-18T10:34:00.003-06:00

Where on earth did the week go and how is can it possibly be Friday already. Seriously.

I've been working my butt off all week getting Christmas gifts done.
I've discovered I'm much better off copying other people's work... when I'm trying to branch off and be creative on my own it takes up a lot of time. I'm slow. Good stuff, but lots of time!
At least it's (mostly) done. Just need to wrap it all up!

I had a few people ask and I had wanted to get a couple of posts together for homemade Christmas gift ideas... before Christmas!
I actually do have them mostly written up, I just have to find pictures/take pictures and get it organized. Maybe this weekend??
I also have more house pictures in the que.
And a post all about Savannah, which I'm trying to make time to finish off and maybe snap a few new pictures of her to go along with it.

My parents and sister arrive tomorrow.
Which means I should probably actually do some laundry and give a little attention to housekeeping around here rather than this blog stuff I'd like to do.

I need a few extra hours in my days and I certainly don't appreciate the speed at which this week has flown by.
Anyone else blink and feel like they missed the whole week??

monday morning

2011-11-14T07:40:00.000-06:00

Reeeeaallly rough morning around here.
Oh I'm really struggling with a certain eight year old lately.
And oh do I sometimes envy moms with just boys. Maybe it's just my boy, but compared to my girl... once they hit about the age of three or four?? One hundred and ten times easier.

So it's 7:41 am.
And I'm taking a deep breath and starting over.
I hope my kids can do the same once they walk into their classrooms.

We had a fun weekend with the Swinigans here. I so love that we have friends that make the drive and come spend time with us here. We had a great time just hanging out, catching up, went to the zoo on Saturday and just enjoyed all of each other's company for the couple of days.

After they left midday on Sunday Ryan took off to go work on the 4Runner at his friend's garage and I took the kids out to rent a movie and stop by our local thrift store which was having a 50% off the entire store sale. We collected twelve books (most of which were Little House books for SJ) and eleven mens t-shirts (for a project I'm tackling) all for $11.09. Score!
We came home and turned on the movie(this one; pretty cute by the way), had a mishmash of find whatever you want for dinner, and everyone went to bed nice and early last night.

Apparently even our early bedtimes didn't help our morning though. :/
Welcome to the new week.
I'm trying to compile a list of what I need to get done in the next five days. My parents and sister arrive on Saturday for a week. And then the kids only have a two day school week before Thanksgiving... so looking forward to having everybody home! It seems like this month has been crazy... on the tail end of just starting to feel like the chaos of fall/school starting was just calming down. I can't believe next week is Thanksgiving. And then we'll blink and it'll be Christmas!
This whole life thing really needs to slow the heck down.

happy [birthday] trails

2011-11-10T08:32:00.009-06:00

As seems the norm for Sawyer's birthday parties the last few years, I've concluded that the tiny bit of extra chaos in my head associated with having houseguests in town while planning, plotting and executing said birthday parties, leaves my pictorial documenting with some gaps. Never took a picture of this, never took a picture of that, etc. So you get what you get. I tried. And at least the party itself was a success, so there's that!

Sawyer actually wanted a repeat of his Camping Birthday party from last year again this year. And while that would have obviously been the easy way in party planning aspects, I nixed the repeat option. We did however come close in that the only substitute he was totally on board with was twisting the camping theme just a little bit... into a hiking theme!

A friend sent me a link to this party and I'm not embarrassed to say much of my brainstorming was lifted directly from these few inspirational pictures. Gotta love the blog world!!

We have a favorite State Park not too far from our house and with prayers going up for nice, warm weather (in November!) we decided to go ahead and gather a hiking party out there.
There's a great playground there with a huge wooden "ship" to climb in and under and all around, plus swings and a sandpit and lots of room to run and play. [no pictures of the whole playground :( ] And picnic tables perfect for hanging out with a birthday party.
As for the actual Hike part of the party, the trail around Couchville Lake is a beautiful two mile loop, but we opted to do a short 3/4 of a mile to a bridge and back with all the kids.

Here are the details of the party...

Using a "logger" font, I recreated our own simple version of an invitation, printed out on the kids' construction paper. I used that same font to make up a party banner & water bottle labels and my kids worked with me to create a "hiking journal" of sorts for the kiddos to use while on our trek.

Savannah and Sawyer drew the pictures for our scavenger hunt list...

and I labeled pages for the kids to draw in their own pictures of things they saw and even added a little hiking themed word search (Sawyer's big on word searches right now!).

These journals and the fun little compasses we ordered were the only "party favors" we had.

Oh and hiking sticks that we had gathered on previous park trips... Sawyer painted them up to decorate for his fellow hikers.

I made a version of these S'more Cupcakes... I used her idea of a graham cracker crust, filled it up with a boxed mix chocolate cake and simply topped it with a jumbo marshmallow. I put them under the broiler to brown and puff the marshmallow... just like a real s'more! They were yummy!!

We filled our picnic table with various other camping hiking snacks [again- no picture!]... trail mix, pigs in a blanket, apples and oranges and my favorite "s'mores on a stick"! (large pretzel rods with a chocolate covered marshmallow on the end)

And of course, must have water for a hike!

Sawyer opted to forego gifts at this party and instead asked his friends to bring a pair of shoes to donate to Shoes4Souls for kids who need shoes on their feet.

We thought that giving shoes tied in rather nicely with our hiking party theme. ;)

We all had a blast. I feel like I say this almost every time, but I think this was the funnest party yet. It was so stinkin' easy to put together, we had absolutely perfect weather, and a fabulous time celebrating with such a gorgeous setting. We saw deer and cranes and even a skunk (yikes!). The kids were so excited and were phenomenal on the hike, taking "field notes" and checking their compasses, and they could have run around the playground together all evening. Sawyer had so much fun... besides us, Ryan's parents, and a friend of Savannah's, we had four families join us for a total of eighteen kids ranging in age from 2 to 14! So much fun. And we were a sight to see, all trekking around the lake together. :)

More pics:

Happy Trails!

and more sawyer

2011-11-09T07:55:00.013-06:00

It's been a long, long while since I've done any recording, recapping, updating, etc. specifically on the kids. On who they are really right now.
Things they're saying, loving, doing.
It's high time I take some time for that.

I'll start with the little one.
Who's not so little anymore.
Having just had another birthday doesn't help that fact.

(his requested Jello cake on the special occasion)

You guys. He just turned SIX. HOW did that happen?

Six years already with this kid. It doesn't seem possible...

Sawyer loves school. I wondered how this whole Starting (full day) Kindergarten would go because he is SO not the "academic" type. He's about as far on the other side of the spectrum as he can get from where his older sister was at this age when it comes to an interest in reading/writing/all things schoolwork and learning related. He doesn't even like coloring or painting.
But he loves school. He loves his kindergarten teacher, he loves all of his "specials" classes (p.e., music, art, spanish, and technology each week), he loves the rules and routines of the school day and he actually loves learning all the stuff he's learning. He's writing and drawing so! much! more! -and on his own time!- and is actually excited about reading now. This is sooo nice, because at home? He's spent the last couple of years fighting me tooth and nail when it came to anything in the "school" realm at all. I don't know if it's maturity, if it's cuz 'all the other kids are doing it' or maybe it's just good for him that he's accountable to and learning from another adult besides his mom all day, but I love that he's loving it now.
He just turned in a giant feather they are donning a school hallway turkey with; it was a homework project and they were supposed to decorate each of their feathers with what they were most thankful for. He was set on making his all about being thankful for his teachers and their "great school". :)

Sawyer is still all about sports though. His biggest love is baseball (oddly, since that's the sport the rest of us in the house care about the least). Ever since he played baseball last spring (and I guess realized he was so good at it as well) he can't get enough. He's constantly asking someone to go out and pitch to him in the backyard and upon returning inside always recounts for me how he "smoked it" over the fence or "smashed it' or whatever his latest terminology is. We didn't have him play Fall Baseball however, as he's still interested in soccer so he just finished up his soccer season with an Upward team again. And he has said he definitely also wants to play basketball, which he's never "officially" tried before, so he'll do that this winter. And then we'll be back to spring baseball, I'm sure. I'm guessing Sawyer'll be one of those kids who plays a different sport each season... not sure if he'll ever narrow it down to just one he loves. We may have friends handing us down a set of Sawyer-sized golf clubs too (left-handed, which has been hard to come by!) so he's super excited about that. You name it, he'll play it. And well, I might add. ;)

He's a player when it comes to games in general as well. Pool (beware the pint-sized pool shark when you come to our house), card games, dice, board games, it doesn't matter, he's more than up for it. I scored a bunch of classic games at a thrift store awhile back and it renewed his habit... we've been playing Battleship, Pictionary, Rack-O, Triominos, and Life like crazy. Oh and Fargo/Farkle/Ziltch/Whatever you call that dice game in your neck of the woods. Loves that one. He got the game Mousetrap for his birthday and I think we've played it every single day since.

And yes, video games. Of course. They're restricted to weekends only now, and only about an hour then, but he takes full advantage. MarioKart on the Wii is his favorite (or maybe now the new Mario SuperSluggers he just got for his birthday), but he honestly can't get enough of the classics... he and Savannah spend most of their time lately playing old school (we're talking original Nintendo) SuperMarioBrothers, Ms. PacMan, Donkey Kong and Chip 'n Dale's Rescue Rangers. :)

Maybe Sawyer's just an old soul.
He's still drawn to older kids and things that typically seem older than he should be. In our church small group there are a handful of kids that are kindergarten to third grade aged -including Savannah- who color and play games (tag, hide&seek) inside and out while us grown ups hang out. And on the flipside, there are two handfuls of kids (all boys) that are sixth-ish grade and up... they spend their time during small group zooming around on Ripstiks and playing dodgeball and basketball. Guess which group you'll find Sawyer in? And the crazy thing is, he fits in. They actually play with him, include him and lookout for him and he pretty much holds his own with them. He is thisclose to having the Ripstik conquered.
I swear, someone needs to tell Sawyer he's only half the age he thinks he is.

Let's see... what else about Sawyer lately?
Oh, he's big on his faux-hawk these days.

I personally hope it's a short lived phase (although it's already lasted throughout most of the summer and fall) because I love his simple "mussed" up quick, usual hair do, but he's all about the faux-hawk for now. He won't let me or Ryan touch his hair, and while he doesn't usually do this for school (he's still half asleep by the time our early bus comes this year), anytime he does actually "do" his hair, for church or other outings, a faux-hawk it is.

He's definitely a one of a kind kid. So stereotypical boy in all he does and yet so specifically Sawyer...
At his six-year-old check up he was 46.5 inches tall and weighed 46.5 pounds. A perfectly well-rounded kid. ;)
He loves to laugh and is all about getting you to crack up as well.
He's still a snuggler and his affections often bubble over into random hugs at any time.
He signs I love you to me from across the room when I'm helping out in his classroom.
The first thing out of his mouth, same every day, when his dad gets home from work is a big cheery "Hi Dad! Welcome home!"
He loves to bug his sister but she's his best friend.
I think the majority of his elementary school already knows who he is just because he's about the friendliest kid around. I hear a big chorus of 'Bye Sawyer's through the open bus windows when he gets off in the afternoon.
He's not a big complainer and is still one of the most laid back kids I know.

Although he's got a surprisingly strong stubborn steak. That rears it head most often it comes to meals... regularly taking an hour to take the required one bite of everything on his plate with lots of attempted (and rejected) negotiations on his part... only to finally taste whatever it is and eventually declare it just might be his new favorite food.

He's got a one track mind... when he has something he wants to do or something that he's trying to change your mind about, he will. not. drop. it.
For instance, wanting a puppy.
For the last two years.

I just can't believe he's six already.

I look at him these days and can scarcely see the little boy he used to be anymore... he's turned into this lean, lanky kid who is trading baseball and Pokemon cards with his friends on the bus and talking about crushing his grandpa in a game of pool and learning to play Chess and wanting to pack his own lunches.

And although I miss my baby, he's a perfect six-year-old.
Only problem is, I'm just not totally okay with that six-year-old part of it yet. :/

sawyer at six

2011-11-07T17:29:00.006-06:00

It seems I skipped a year, but here's our (trying to be)yearly birthday boy interview.
I can't seem to find his two year old video, but three year old answers here, four year old here.
Oh, and I bet you can't figure out what his latest obsession is...

Here's what our boy has to say at SIX:

When I get home, the first thing I like to do is... trade Pokemon cards.

Some words that describe me would be... he likes to trade Pokemon cards. Or he's funny.

The best thing about being a kid is... getting more Pokemon cards.

The best thing about being Six Years Old is... being old.

The very best dinner would be... macaroni and cheese. and sausage and crackers.

Some of my favorite songs are... This Is The Day That The Lord Has Made and Jesus Loves Me.

When I grow up I want to be... a police officer
Why? because if someone breaks the law I need to arrest them

One thing I like about having a sister is... taking care of her

One thing I don't like about having a sister is... that she hits me sometimes

My dad is... great.
What does he look like? good.

My mom is... funny and great.
What does she look like? huggish.

When I am a dad I will... take care of my kids.

*********
And SJ wanted me to do her too. Since I only half the time get around to these anywhere near their birthdays and I don't think I even got a seven-year-old one done for her...
Here's Savannah at 8.5:

When I get home, the first thing I like to do is... watch tv

Some words that describe me would be... funny, artist, loves to swim, loves school

The best thing about being a kid is... being active

The best thing about being Eight Years Old is... being in third grade

The very best dinner would be... macaroni and cheese with birthday cake on the side

Some of my favorite songs are... Silent Night, 12 Days of Christmas and anything from Fundamental Elements

When I grow up I want to be... a hairdresser/artist
Why? because my friend Jea and I are planning it; I'm a good artist so we'll do hair together and I'll hang my art in the salon

One thing I like about having a brother is... having someone who likes to swim with me

One thing I don't like about having a brother is... he gets annoying

My dad is... a fan of the Ducks
What does he look like? brownish-blackish hair, brown eyes and always wears Ducks shirts

My mom is... great and nice
What does she look like? brown hair, blue eyes, and wears earrings

When I am a mom I will... be kind

second verse, same as the first

2011-11-01T21:21:00.011-05:00

Happy Halloween!

I feel like I'm repeating the same thing year after year around here... quick slap up the kids' Halloween stuff while we're busy with family here visiting and a birthday to cover tomorrow followed by the actual birthday party later this week. Exactly the same, every year. :)

So as per the norm, here are a few quick pics of the kids' Halloween adventures.
Sidenote: Halloween is when I find myself missing our old neighborhood the most. Halloween is not a holiday that ranks very high on my list, but our previous neighborhood converted me. The good old fashioned fun spirit of being creative and dressing up and making the night all about fun for the kids and the whole community enjoying each other out on a (usually) beautiful fall evening with not only candy but surprise treats and firebowls and fun kiddie haunted houses and donuts and hot cider and cold beers and friends passing by and neighbors mingling in the streets and kids just having so much fun... it was the best.
It's just [so far] not the same here. :/

Anyway. We of course won't let that stop us from having fun. And we did see a few people (kids from school) that we knew out and about. And Savannah went to a schoolmate's Halloween party and had a blast. Didn't hurt that she brought home a trophy for Best Costume!
Her plan for Halloween was to be a paper doll and she was super excited about that one. However, she was concerned about her (posterboard) costume getting ruined at a party full of third and fourth graders with games and food. So she last minute thought up (herself) an alternate costume; a granny. I slipped out and grabbed her a dollar pair of glasses and a pair of knee high panty hose from the Dollar Tree and we tossed a little baby powder in her hair and she was ready to go!

Then for actual Halloween, she was the Paper Doll she had set her heart on....

And everyone loved her costume.
Even Ryan...

And of course, we can't leave out Savannah's faithful sidekick; Frankenstein...

Handsomest
Frankenstein
I've ever seen. ;)

And that concludes our yearly speed version of a Halloween Holiday recap in the midst of houseguests and birthday prep. Oh, and NaBloPoMo too! haha!!

Hope your Halloween was Happy!

for evan

2011-10-28T08:48:00.009-05:00

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

2011-10-28T07:45:00.010-05:00

...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

2011-10-24T07:47:00.004-05:00

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

2011-10-18T07:53:00.002-05:00

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

2011-10-13T11:21:00.009-05:00

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

2011-10-10T11:09:00.006-05:00

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

2011-10-10T07:40:00.001-05:00

in the laundry room

2011-10-06T08:48:00.024-05:00

{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

2011-10-05T15:00:00.004-05:00

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

2011-10-04T07:46:00.006-05:00

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.

of caricatures, vinyl and doorknobs

2011-09-30T12:52:00.009-05:00

Those three things don't really have anything in common, but I'm throwing them together anyway.
I'm just plugging away at my to-do list around here today... trying to get the house in order before the weekend is officially here so we can spend most of it just relaxing.

We finished painting the laundry ~~closet~~ room yesterday, and I spent my morning laying down a new stick-on vinyl tile floor in there. The majority of our main floor is maple hardwood and the bathrooms are tile, but for some reason the laundry room, which adjoins the hardwood floored kitchen, was done in cheap white linoleum. It's bugged me from day one as it's visible from the main part of our home and butts right up against the hardwood making the cheap dingyness even more obvious. Knowing we were painting in there I decided to change it up while we had the washer and dryer out of the way. I grabbed a few boxes of stick on vinyl tiles in a "wood" finish with a herringbone-ish pattern. Yes it's obvious it's not real wood, but at least it's the same color and finish as the adjoining real wood floor. Much better I think!

I'm also spending my day spray painting doorknobs and hinges. :) We have the cheapo brass knobs on our all doors and while we replaced all the exterior locks ( and knobs) when we moved in and put in nice, solid, oil rubbed bronze handles on those doors, these few more shiny brassy ones have been taunting me ever since. I did the hinges in the laundry room on the garage door because that doorknob had been changed and the hinges had previously been painted over and looked terrible. A quick spray of oil rubbed bronze spraypaint worked wonders. Once I did those and realized how simple it was, I did the laundry room-to-kitchen door. And that leaves only three more doors in our main floor so those doorknobs will all get a turn with the can of spray paint today. I'm not tackling the upstairs doors today... or anytime soon. There are 12 doorknobs (making that 36 hinges) up there, so that'll be a job. But I'm excited about the difference this one little thing makes. I know, I'm crazy. :)

And last but not least, the Caricatures. Just wanted to share these real quick 'cuz they make me smile. Our closest Chik-fil-A restaurant has family night every Tuesday (with free kids meals and free ice cream!) and each week they have a fun entertainer/activity for the kids (also for free!). Usually it's face painting or airbrush tatoos or balloon animals (and the balloon guy is AMAZING!). There has also been a singer and a comedian/entertainer. This last week there was a guy doing Caricatures. He asked the kids what they wanted to be when they grow up/in the picture and here's what our kids came back to our table with:
(you can click on them to see them larger)

Love them! I was watching Sawyer sit for his and this guy caught the exact sideways half-smirk Sawyer had on his face.
I told Savannah she looks like Brooke Shields in hers. ;)

Happy Friday all!

ten things for thursday

2011-09-29T09:50:00.001-05:00

1. I slept over nine hours last night. Crazy. But good. :)

2. Feeling much better today.

3. And much more accomplished... I trimmed all the bushes in the front yard, watered, and got back inside and painted all the trim in the laundry room already.

4. It's not even 10am yet!

5. I cannot wait for the weekend. It's been one of those weeks where we have had something going on every single evening and feels like we haven't been home at all. We still have soccer tonight, a seminar at church plus a birthday party Friday evening and then soccer first thing Saturday morning, but then nothing else planned the whole entire weekend. So looking forward to that!

6. I broke out a little fall decor this week. I'm usually not one to sweep summer under the rug too quickly and don't normally break out the real fall-ishness around here until October, but despite our sunny almost eighty degree days, the mornings and evenings have been cool and crisp and very fall like and I've just been feeling ready for the season change lately. I bought mums for the front steps and put an autumny wreath by the front door. Starting slow. :)

7. Speaking of October, how on earth can it be here this week already!??!

8. Which means I really need to get on the ball with the kids and their Halloween costumes.

9. And a six year old birthday party.

10. And Christmas gifts. ;)

What are ten things that come to your mind this Thursday?

wed nes day

2011-09-28T16:32:00.002-05:00

What I wanted to get done today:

walk with friend
paint trim in laundry room
paint walls in laundry room
lay new floor in laundry room
clean kitchen
make dinner

What I actually got done today:

walked with friend
stopped by Lowe's to get a new sprinkler
spent a total of about three hours methodically watering our whole yard (we had all the lawn in our front, back and side yards killed off, raked up, aerated and seeded so now we need to keep it damp but not too wet with a gentle sprinkling and no pooling.)(of course we've had a surprising amount of rain in the last few weeks, but now we get our seed down and have eighty degree days with no rain in sight. suffice to say, it's not a quick or easy job keeping a decent sized yard -which is basically just dirt, hence mud- damp but not too wet on a sunny day.)(I am now taking donations for an in-ground irrigation system.)
cleaned laundry room baseboards, doors and floor. took much longer than anticipated.
tried to take a 40 minute nap in efforts to get rid of this ugly headache I've already had all day before the kids got off the bus.

Now kids are home, they haven't stopped bickering since they walked in the door, the house is a wreck and I'm thinking take-out sounds reeeeallly good.
In short, this Wednesday day has left me daunted by our mudpit of a yard, discouraged with the lack of progress on painting, perturbed by the mess my house is in, irritated with this stupid headache I can't get rid of and with not much patience left for my kids.
I wouldn't mind ending this day already.
Maybe I'll send Ryan to our small group meeting with the kids without me and I'll just take a hot bath and go to bed.

Happy Hump Day... weekend, come quickly. Please

in the dining room

2011-09-26T09:30:00.029-05:00

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

You can find looks at our family room here, and the kitchen here.}

In the dining room we have...
painted (same paint as in part of kitchen, had to buy second gallon, Lowe's Valspar Cottage Linen $30)
replaced chandelier (Lighting Direct= $34)(yes, $34!!!) and added a simple medallion ($15?).
new window treatments (existing wood blinds, existing rods spray painted black, curtains from Target: $30 for pair)
added new cabinet (Craigslist $30, painted with Lowe's Valspar English Bulldog from past projects, new knobs $2.50 x 4, ~~new feet constructed by Ryan appr. $6 x 4~~)
~~removed wimpy beadboard and replaced with board and batten~~
all decor (including area rug) was owned previously: table runner and plate collection from Dayspring (no longer sold) I bought long before we moved but saved to put in the new house and mixed with (the white plates) other goodwill/Homegoods
scores here and there.

total: $160

Stepping back and looking at it, I feel like maybe our dining room is a little boring. Don't get me wrong, I really really like it... I think it's big and bright and cheery. It's just that other than slapping some paint on the walls, there's not much here saying it's us who live here. I'm thinking about how to change that since I do actually spend a lot of time in here, as it is my "craft room" as well. I like the simplicity of the room, but I feel like it's just missing something.

I had wanted to take off the beadboard with the too short chair rail and replace it with nice, big, chunky faux board & batten, like this transformation here. (and that's why you may notice my candle sconces are hung too high... I was planning ahead for the taller board & batten. Which Ryan has pish-poshed for the past year.)
I did refinish a little "sewing cabinet" that with it's plantation shutter type doors mimics the big china cabinet in the room. I still want Ryan to help me add some "feet" to it as then it will look more like the furniture goes together and they will be exactly the same height as the bulk of the big cabinet (minus the hutch) balancing out the room a little more.

Pictures:

Before:

listing pic
(can you believe how dark this room is? whole house, I'm telling you...
whole. house.)

and empty (this is looking into the dining room from the front living room)

check out this chandelier that was in here... it was huge and dark (the dark shades over the lightbulbs did not help) and it was a no-go from the start.

Also, again with the is-this-supposed-to-be-yellow? dingy paint color and the dark heavy drapes.

And our dining room now:
please excuse the slightly different tones in color... I took these some of these on different days (sunny vs. dark & rainy)

before and after of my sewing cabinet...
(this houses my sewing machine, fabric, etc.)

and the light...

and of course I have to highlight my most favorite piece of furniture ever,
my ~~china~~ craft cabinet and all it's glory...

So there you have it.
What do you think? Taller board & batten in the dining room, Yay or Nay??

weekended

2011-09-25T19:23:00.002-05:00

I am so exhausted.
I may just sleep all day tomorrow while everyone else in my house is gone.

It was a long (rough) week and a long (great) weekend. And I'm pooped.
I spent last Tuesday in the ER with severe back (kidney) pain. After xrays and a CT scan; kidney stone diagnosed. Sent home with painkillers and anti-nausea meds. Layed low for a few days.
Skipping ahead to Friday and Saturday, Ryan and I spent all day attending an amazing conference here in Nashville and while we absolutely loved the time we spent listening and learning, they were two long days with a lot of heavy stuff being thrown at us. Wonderful but exhausting. I want to share more thoughts here about the conference later for sure. After I've processed a little more. And had some sleep. :)

Friday evening after our sessions, we went out to dinner with the friends who were helping us with the kids for these two days and got home pretty late. Saturday after the conference we rushed home, picked up the kids and had our neighbors and a friend over for dinner and the Oregon/Arizona (some of these friends are from AZ) football game. Of course, being a west coast game it was super late, with the last of our visitors leaving after midnight. Then for some crazy reason (or, likely, way too much going on in my brain) I could not fall asleep. I know I didn't actually get to sleep until after 3am. And we were up at 7 this morning. Not a great idea.

We went to church this morning and then joined some church friends for an early lunch -including grilled salmon caught by one of the friends on his trip this summer to Alaska! YUM!!- which turned into a several hours of visiting and games before we finally headed home after 3 o'clock.
We immediately set to work in the backyard as we're having a guy come tomorrow to work more on our lawn and Ryan had to dig out five or six concrete post bases left in the ground by one of our neighbors who redid and moved one side of our fence before we moved in. Ugh.

In the midst of that, our backyard neighbors invited us to share braughts and mac&cheese with them for dinner.

Ryan's currently cutting Sawyer's hair and after I throw him in the shower and then tuck both kids in, I'm planning on flopping immediately into bed myself!

That's our week/weekend in a nutshell.
How was yours?

hello fall

2011-09-23T07:33:00.003-05:00

Today, as fall starts, I am...
wearing: white tank, silver, light, wrap/drapey sweater thing, cuffed jean capris and flats
playing: lots of the new fall tv on the dvr

wanting: a maid

needing: to get walking more again

eating:fruity cheerios

drinking:lots and lots of lemonade

enjoying: the cooler, rainy "fall-like" weather

not enjoying: the sun setting so much earlier

daydreaming: of the nice lawn we'll have next summer as we're in the middle of completely killing off our current ~~weedbed~~ lawn and reseeding the entire thing

anticipating: the adoption/foster care conference we're attending today. :)

Hello First Day of Fall...

what are you up to? :)

i've discovered one perk of moving a lot

2011-09-22T09:52:00.009-05:00

... is that it makes for pretty fun art:

These are all the addresses we've had together in our 9.5 years of marriage.
--current addy blocked out, obv.--

(and that's not counting the two apartments Ryan had in Nashville last year!)
Couldn't really make cool, personal art like this if we'd only have lived in one or two houses, right? ;)

I've been wanting to make some sort of canvas to hang over the big breaker box that's smack dab in the middle of our laundry room wall. I had decided to hang a canvas over it with hinges so we can hide the box and still have it easily accessible, but I couldn't decide what to paint on it for the longest time...
I have a "home sweet home" sign I kind of wanted to hang in there alongside it, so I finally threw together my love for subway art style words, and the fact that we've been around the block with addresses so to speak, and ta-da... A graphic statement of us being the nomads that we have been our whole married life!

(project note: doing vinyl letter "stencils" is much easier using a wood board rather than canvas. The flatter surface works better for less bleeding with the paint. I needed to use canvas because I needed a lightweight and open in the back piece here, however, for any future subway word art, I'm sticking with wood!)

So all I did was type up all of our past addresses in my Silhouette program (or you can use Word or any other graphic/photoshop program), size them and stretch them to fit into my puzzle, and then sent it through the machine using regular, cheap old contact paper. (no way was I going to waste my good vinyl for such a big piece!) That all took me about an hour.

Getting the letters on the canvas, straight and spaced right? That was a whole nother challenge. Contact paper doesn't stick too well to canvas. *see note above! Getting the letters and numbers situated took me probably two hours.

I gave it all a quick spray with white spray paint to try and get the letters "sealed" into place and prevent bleeding.

Then I used some leftover wall paint and went to town covering the whole thing.

Then.
I peeled some vinyl off.
And the paint had bled so badly. So, so badly. Ugh.
I tried painting the letters back in with white paint, but it looked horrible.
So. Frustrating.
Meanwhile I tried spray painting over the top few lines that I hadn't painted yet, to see how that would turn out. It worked like a charm.
I don't know why I didn't just spray paint to begin with. Well, I do know, it's because I wanted it that dark orange color. :(
But, brown (spray paint on hand) it shall be.
So. I removed all the letters, sprayed it all down white again, printed out the letters again, put them all on again (which was much easier and faster this time because I could see where they had been before!) and then painted it all with my dark brown spray paint...

After a few coats of spray paint and a few minutes drying time, I simply peeled off all my letters & numbers and...
Finally.

Okay, so if I hadn't basically had to do it twice? It was a super easy project (with the vinyl cutter!) and I absolutely LOVE the piece. We're painting the laundry room (and cabinets!)(and hopefully putting in a new floor!) this weekend, and I can't wait to show you it in it's place!!

weekend in st louie

2011-09-22T08:47:00.004-05:00

Our weekend:

-Picnic dinner w/ the Malones + some visiting time w/ the Mohrs at the Balloon Festival.
-French toast, bacon and kids' soccer in the park w/ the Malones, followed by lunch w/ the Coxes, the Morts and the Lowers at Red Robin.
-A drive through the old neighborhood w/ some quick chat time w/ neighbors.
-Chili night w/ the Malones followed by a football game for the boys and a movie in the park for the girls.
-A morning tour through Malone's new start-up charter school before heading over to have lunch and hang out time with the Swinigans and then a long, rainy drive home.

in the kitchen

2011-09-15T13:12:00.020-05:00

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

You can find last week's look at the family room here.}

In the kitchen we have...
replaced hardware ($1/handle on ebay= $30)
replaced faucet (Lowes= $218) and garbage disposal (Lowes=$?)
framed out windows (used 1 1/4" molding, about $4 each, four pieces total= $16)
replaced blinds (Lowe's= $30 x 3= $90)
painted walls (two walls Lowe's Valspar Green Apple $30gallon, two walls Lowe's Valspar Cottage Linen $30gallon)
painted all the trim (paint leftover in garage= free)
[still need to] paint doors (free)
tiled the backsplash (3 boxes of special order subway tile @ Home Depot= $150)(we have leftovers)(we also already had all other supplies from previous tile job)
replaced light over eating area (Menards= $110)
covered side cabinet w/ sheet metal -we wanted a magnetic space since the fridge is stainless steel- painted w/chalkboard paint (sheet from local metal place= $40, paint on hand)
other decor:
barstools (Ikea, off of Craigslist=$25 for both)
new extra large canisters (Target= $50)(but I used birthday money for that, so I'm not counting it in the total)
new phone holder/cabinet thingie (Home Goods= $12)
all other furniture and/or decor was previously owned or made from stuff on hand (free!)

total: just over $700

This is definitely the most money spent on any room. It's a big kitchen and it was so blah, and kitchen stuff= $. But at least we didn't have big stuff to do like counters or cabinets (although someday...) or appliances.
Still want to add under cabinet (and maybe above cabinets) lights and I would love to remove the microwave from above the stovetop with and put in a nice hood and replace one of the wall ovens with a microwave there. But for now, this is our kitchen!

Before:

(listing picture)

Our kitchen is kind of dark since there are no real exterior windows due to the sunroom/florida/our pool table room added on the back of the house. The walls were the same dreary dull yellowish as the rest of the house and while the cabinets (maple), counters (corian) and appliances (stainless) were nice and beautiful, with the dreary wall color, no backsplash, oddly out of place cheap fixtures and details and the kitchen was just dim and blah.

And Now:

here's a shot of the big window before we put our fake trim "casing" on it. also notice how the lighting in there made everything so yellow! (nighttime pic too, so it's even worse, but still!)

and after

before, with no backsplash...

during

and after

the original faucet and the much more appropriately proportionate one we switched it out for

what's on this week

2011-09-14T19:27:00.000-05:00

on the shelf:

on the playground:

on the bench:

on pandora radio:

on the table:

on sale: (already?!??!!)

i'm good with the random lately...

2011-09-13T12:26:00.006-05:00

So we'll just roll with that. ;)

Warm banana bread just out of the oven, applesauce in the crockpot, smells so good in here. :)

******
I don't know how I had an even halfway decently cleaned house with kids home all day... cleaning this place has turned into a full-time job lately. Free time? What free time??

******
I finally got some things hung in Sawyer's room yesterday (his walls have basically been bare for this past year). I put up his storypeople print (that had to be reframed after getting peed on. don't ask.), a painting of Savannah's we framed and a Sawyer version of the collage that I finally got around to doing for him. As I was tucking him in last night he gave me an extra hug and said, "Mom, thanks for making my room look so nice."
This was from a five year old.
Boy.
Love that kid.
:)

******

Speaking of Sawyer, I overheard him telling someone at church the other day that he was allergic to lions. I asked him later why he said that and his reply?
"Well, mom, I'm allergic to cats and lions are a type of cat. I think it's much cooler to say I'm allergic to lions than to dumb little cats, so from now on I'm saying I'm allergic to lions."

******

I'm not sure how our weekends get filled up so easily. For one thing, we have soccer every Saturday morning into November, but this weekend marks the start to a few extra crazy busy ones. We're headed up to STL to keep our tradition of attending the Forest Park Balloon Race/Nightglow. The kids are so looking forward to it! And seeing friends!
The following weekend Ryan and I are attending an adoption/foster care connection conference here in Brentwood for two days. The next weekend we have a weekend thing for church. By then October will be well underway!! And I really, really, really want to go camping before it gets too cold.

Man, just thinking about all that makes me think Christmas is going to be here before we know it.

Meaning, I need to get started on planning and making my gifts... Yay!

friday question: three things

2011-09-09T07:44:00.009-05:00

IIf there's a blog that makes me laugh out loud equally as much as it makes me really stop and think, or can put the exact right words to my thoughts in either the funny life (mom) situations or the deep, real (spiritual) things going on in my heart, it's gotta be Sara's. I'm regularly reading snippets of her blogging out loud to Ryan to share a chuckle or bookmarking a post or a phrase that I want to reflect on again later.
This morning her post was neither especially sidesplitting nor scarily deep (for me anyway), but it did get me thinking. Go ahead, go over and read it. And then come back. ;)

What would your three things be?
I asked myself that question, in light of what Sara wrote, and honestly I am coming up blank.
How sad is that?

I mean, sure I can come up with three things at first thought...

Hello, my name is Heather, I have two kids, I've lived in four states in the past five years and... um.... uh, maybe I can't even think of three.

Really? That's it? Is that me?
Do I even have any interesting things that define me?

I like to bake.
I want to become a foster parent.
I"ll spray paint anything.
I have an almost-phobia of the telephone.
I love to plan and celebrate get-togethers and holidays.
I have a habit of getting things thisclose to where they're supposed to be, but not really putting them away.
I love crossword puzzles and Scrabble.
I am a champion procrastinator.
I like to organize things. (notice I didn't say BE organized)
I have a weak spot for thrift/antique/secondhand stores.
I have to rub my foot on the sheets to fall asleep.
I love to send cards and give gifts.

But is any of that different than anyone else?
Do any of those really say something about me?
Is there nothing that is uniquely me?

I think I need to find that.

Do you have things that define you?
Things that are interesting and point to who you are as a person?
What would your three things be??

anniversary house tour: in the family room

2011-09-08T15:19:00.011-05:00

***In celebration of exactly ONE YEAR in this house
--well, truth be told, officially we have owned this house for one year and five days, but our household goods and furniture didn't arrive until this date, so that's what I'm sticking with :)
and in celebration of the fact that we are thisclose to having completed everything we wanted to do with the majority of these rooms (minus our in-our-dreams or if-we-win-the-lottery list), I wanted to [finally] give a bloggy photo house tour. Complete with Changes We Made narration.
I'm thinking I'll dissect a room a week. That'll give me time to finish up any loose ends and possibly get the one lone remaining undecorated and not even completely furnished room done (our master bedroom, isn't that always the case?) by the time I get around to posting all the rooms. ;)***

And we'll start things off in the family room. Mostly because tropical storm Lee and the nonstop rain for four days brought up some water leakage issues and we'll most likely be repairing walls and ceiling in there in the coming weeks, so you gotta see it while it looks good.

So.
Let's get this party started!

In the family room...
We have:
painted walls and (vaulted, ugh) ceiling (walls are Lowe's Valspar Stone Taupe $30gallon)
painted all trim, fireplace surround and back door (leftover paint in garage)
replaced ceiling fan (Lowes=$169)
new window treatments (existing wood blinds, existing rods spray painted antique bronze, 1 pair Ikea curtains cut in half to make 2 pair= $29)
revamped a dresser for storage (Craigslist $30, painted Lowe's Valspar Deep Turquoise $15/quart, new knobs Target= $8)
bought a new tv stand (Big Lots= $120)
lamps (already owned, new lampshades Walmart= $12/each)
rugs (already owned large carpet, new throw rug by door Target=$20)
toy/blanket basket (already owned, spray painted dark brown)
frame collection (already owned, star from BigLots $3, bought 2 M's on clearance at Hobby Lobby for less than $1 each and one is just chipboard)
mirror above fireplace (Tuesday Morning= $24)
patterned squares wall decor (wood at Lowe's= $15, scrapbook paper from my stash, modge podge and painted edges)
all other decor previously owned, repurposed and/or created

total $ spent: 489.00

The big tv and the even bigger couch are from our basement in our old house, the chair-and-a-half + ottoman were in our family room there. The area rug is from two houses ago and isn't really the right size for this room, but hey, whad'ya gonna do... free is free! I still would like to make/find some brighter colored throw pillows for the big couch. And I think eventually we'll make a coffee table (like the one in this post), but for now I'm liking the big open space.

So without further ado, pictures...

Before:

Nice, big, open room, but with thick, heavy dark drapery on the two small windows which made it quite dark. Also, I wish I would have taken a picture of the ceiling fan... big, dark, overly ornamental and kinda scary. We replaced it toot sweet. You may also notice a dingy dirty (and brass trimmed!) gas fireplace. Walls (as in the whole house) were a dreary not quite yellow not quite beige.

And the now:

ten things on thursday

2011-09-08T08:59:00.003-05:00

1. I'm wearing THE most comfortable pants today. Just bought them yesterday. Yoga/workout pants for $12 at Walmart. And I may just wear these every single day for the rest of my life.
Or maybe I should go back for more.

2. Ryan passed his cold/sore throat on to me.

3. I ran out of orange juice at 7:10 this morning.

4. It's a good thing it's a perfect cool fall morning for a warm cup of Milk Tea! Ah, soothing.

5. Speaking of cool, fall morning; we've been feeling quite at home with this weather Nashville's seen lately. Thanks to the tropical storm moving through the country this week, we had almost four full days of rain... real rain. As in, good old rainy days like back in Oregon, where it just rains all day. That doesn't happen often around here. Usually it rains a bit and clears up or, more likely, downpours for fifteen minutes and then dries up and gets right back up to ninety degrees. But we've had cool, rainy days, for the last several, not seeing the sun at all until today and this will actually be the first time we've been above 70° since Sunday. (but keep in mind Saturday was 101°!) We've been dipping into the actual low fifty degree range at night and it's felt oh so good! And our lawn actually greened up a bit!

6. Our home alarm system (that's not even really hooked up) has been chirping at me non-stop. I don't know what that means.

7. We also have a smoke detector that eats through batteries. And then chirps at us every other day.

8. Also? New house phone. It also apparently hates me, as it's lighting up every thirty seconds telling me there's an incoming call but with incomplete data... when there is no incoming call.

9. Technology is not my friend today.

10. These pants are. :)