Days like this

make me feel so grateful

that I get to stay at home 

with my little ones.

And some days

we don't get a thing done

like at all.

We spend our day

reading

and playing

and reading some more

and making messes 

and maybe even leaving it there
and staying in jammies
all day

and making silly faces

and taking pictures of them

and then editing them

and then collaging them

and then blogging them

and snuggling

but just for a minute

and then naptime.

because some days

you just gotta slow down

and enjoy.

The view from here. 2.6.12

It's such a beautiful morning today! Everything is sparkly white, the sun is shining, and there's no wind. It's COLD still but it's beautiful. So I snapped a few cell phone pics while I was out taking Eli down to the bus stop this morning.

Carter's been walking great today! Walking more than crawling and that's HUGE for him since he fractured his leg!  He goes in spurts though. He may walk great today and then go back to completely crawling for the next two days. He's getting there though, and that's exciting to me!

Today I've been busting through my cleaning schedule, and it feels awesome! Here I created a new cleaning schedule at the beginning of the week and then had the busiest week EVER and completely couldn't stick to it at all.  But having the check-lists is helping me tremendously and keeps my focus instead of feeling overwhelmed at the whole house! Next week it'll hopefully be more manageable as I do some every day instead of all in one day as I feel I am doing today! As for the chart itself, I'll post more about it soon!

We have had a FABULOUS winter here thus far, but tomorrow we may actually be getting dumped with some snow. It's okay though. I truly cannot complain.

Unless it's still bad Sunday, in which I'll complain because that's when we're scheduled to have Hannah and Carter's birthday party! And we want our families to get here, thankyouverymuch!

Playing guitar at church and for the first time leading a song. Quite nervous about it!  When I watch other people play guitar, then I makes me suddenly feel like I don't even know how to play it at all. Which is not entirely true, but it's how I feel anyway.

AND... I'm off to go make puppy chow for girls night tonight! Then back to scraping food off the dining room floor!

Have a great week, ya'lls!!!

White Pizza

... is my FAVORITE and it's so so so easy to make! And that makes me love it even more!

But, truth, I'm so not into making my own crust. So skip ahead to instructions after you buy a pre-made crust.  =)

To make EITHER Spinach Pizza OR Margherita Pizza

Brush the crust with olive oil.
Sprinkle mozzarella cheese over crust mostly covering it.
Lay on torn up pieces of fresh spinach (or pieces of fresh basil and tomato slices).
Sprinkle with a little more mozzarella cheese.
Add some feta cheese or ricotta cheese. (or neither)
Sprinkle a pretty heavy amount of garlic powder (and some dried basil if doing spinach pizza) over all of the pizza.
Bake about 10 minutes at 425, til melted.

ENJOY!

IN the picture. In the MOMENT. {Month 2}

I posted the first of this "series" a month ago, so maybe going monthly is a little more realistic vs trying every week! 

This has been a C.r.A.Z.y week schedule-wise. Just unreal. All good stuff, but just not our normal! ANYWAY, here's the story of today's pictures...

Every afternoon I put Carter down for nap first, then read a couple books with Hannah or do schoolwork with her, and then I let her "hook on" my back and carry her upstairs for her nap or rest time or whatever she ends up doing. Just depends on the day whether she actually falls asleep or not. When I was bending down to let her hook on my back today, I thought it would be a cute picture, so I got back up and grabbed my camera and we repeated for a few snaps.

Can you believe this sweet girl is going to be FOUR in 12 days???

Sunday Psalm

Psalm 47

Clap your hands, all you nations;

shout to God with cries of joy.

How awesome is the Lord Most High,

the great King over all the earth!

He subdued nations under us,

peoples under our feet.

He chose our inheritance for us,

the pride of Jacob, whome he loved.

God has ascended amid shouts of joy,

the Lord amid the sounding of trumpets.

Sing praises to God, sing praises.

For God is the King of all the earth;

sing to him a psalm of praise.

God reigns over the nations;

God is seated on his holy throne.

The nobles of the nations assemble

as the people of the God of Abramam,

for the kings of the earth belong to God;

he is greatly exalted.

8 random things about this moment in time.

I know I said I was going to be off the blog this week but here I am. Just wanted to share a few things real quick...

1. Kevin has been cleaning and reorganizing our storage things in the basement. We discovered that some of my boxes of photos waiting to be scrapbooked got a little water damage. The pictures themselves are all fine thank goodness, but some of the other papers and ticket stubs and so forth might not be keepable. This is suddenly motivating me to get these trips scrapbooked before I lose it all. So today I'm going through my box of Europe things from my trip in 2004. I can't believe it's been 8 years, and I also can't believe how little I can remember. Even reading my notes hardly trigger any memories! It's sad! I'm not doing anything fancy with the scrapbook so I'm hoping it's a relatively short project. We were required to keep a journal throughout the month, so I'm currently typing it into a Word document so that each entry can be included in the scrapbook.

2. I got my hair cut again and colored yesterday. Here's my new "do". I love it.

3. I really need to make a new blog header with updated pictures! Coming... sometime...

4. I love Pinterest. This is one of the projects I want to try soon. Like tomorrow maybe. If you follow the link, the demo is done with a gray shirt, and I think that looks great for this time of year. But this white one would especially be nice in the summer, in my opinion.

5. Eli is now brought home by a school van in the afternoon, instead of riding the bus. The school was trying to shorten the route for some of the kids who were having to ride for quite awhile. Today the superintendent was the driver of the van, and I just think that's impressive. He's very PRESENT, and smiley, and on our level, not just the HEAD of the school. It's a good school, and all of this year I've been very pleased.

6. I've been having a pretty good week with the kids this week. Much more patient and less yelling and frustration, and they've been nicer with each other. Now I'm feeling really blah about the way I keep the home, so I'm rethinking how I can stay on top of things better. Really gonna focus on keeping to my schedule I created awhile ago.

7. Carter was actually standing on his leg a little bit today. Like actually bearing weight on it from what it looked like. And then I even got him to limp across the room with assistance. That's sort of walking, and definitely a tiny bit of progress!

8. Kara got to go home last night! AMAZING! I'm planning on going up to visit on Sunday afternoon. Hoping my kids aren't maniacs!

Alright, signing off now!! Have a great rest of the week!

{untitled}

Sometimes I just want to curl up in a ball and hide from this internet world. Sometimes I blab too much about my feelings. I find myself just becoming extremely defensive and I hate it. I hate that I don't have the answers. I hate that I'm so insecure in my path. I'm hate that I'm so full of anger as I try to train these children just right. I hate that DOING is so much harder than knowing. I hate that I'm such a walking contradiction, as I yell angrily at the kids "YOU HAVE TO DO IT WITH A HAPPY HEART!" So this week I'm just going to be quiet here on the blog. Not that that alone is instantly going to change ANYTHING. But I want to spend more time focusing on what's HERE in my actual home. Get off my lazy butt, go over to my squabbling children, put a gentle hand on each of them, and quietly remind them to choose love. 

We'll see how THAT goes!

Prayer Update

I just wanted to give you all a quick update about Kara...  A few days ago the Dr's starting turning down her sedatives and paralyzing medicines, and soon after she was wonderfully responsive, correctly answering hand squeeze commands, opening her eyes partway, trying to talk even with the ventilator tube still in, and moving her arms and legs. What an answer to prayer!  And she continues to AMAZE us with daily improvement! Now she is off the ventilator, her speech is getting more and more understandable and lucid, though she does still have some confusion, and she's able to stand with assistance. She's not been able to sleep really at all and she keeps trying to get out of bed to go home, so stopping her escape attempts all through the night is probably tedious. She will be moved out of ICU very soon, like today maybe. There have been many friends and family helping with night shift so Ward and Linda can take turns going back home to sleep. Kara still has a ways to go but it appears she is making a near full recovery! It's INCREDIBLE and we are sooo thankful!!

Thank you for your prayers and support!!

{Sewing Tutorial} From scrap to valance!

After Christmas we got new curtains for our living room. The previous ones were beige, probably original to the house.

 But some of the curtains needed altered to hang above our radiators. So I cut and re-hemmed them. (Because doing that was easier than trying to find just the right sizes in the store. I really wanted to SEE the curtain fabric in person instead of ordering online. Browns come in so many different shades!! This is not a bedroom so they didn't need to be black-out curtains.)

 And this is the scrap that I cut off.

 But turn it around and that's going to be a valance for the upstairs bathroom!

 This is what the bottom (soon to be top) of the scrap looks like.

 It's sewn shut along the edge.

 So using my seam ripper, I gently pulled out those stitches, so it's open again for a curtain rod to go through.

 Now, the dashed lines indicate where you need to sew.

Now to sew that top dashed line... I'm just sewing straight through the hole, so that instead of the curtain hanging straight down from the curtain rod, it will have a little ruffle ABOVE the rod. The guide lines on my sewing machine are too close to the edge of my fabric. I want a larger ruffle, so I use masking tape to mark my line. I used to draw a pencil line ON my fabric but using the tape was way easier and saved time. So instead of your eyes looking at where the needle is going up and down and making sure you're sewing on a pencil line, your eyes look at the edge of the fabric and the edge of the tape and as long as that is lined up, you'll be sewing straight.

The top ruffle should be done now and the curtain rod can pass through. Now hem the bottom and the curtain will be done. So double-fold over the bottom of the fabric, pin, and iron (I like ironing before sewing, it helps the fabric lay flatter and not shift so much as I go along.)

 Then sew as close to the fold line as possible.

 All done and ready to hang!  (this is the back view of the valance)

 To make valance look bunchy instead of just flat across the window, make TWO panels following these directions. Here is the bathroom before...

 And now...

 Closer view

They're really basic, but it's better than the NOTHING we had there. And better than the lacy thing that used to be there when we moved in. And I'd rather be resourceful than continue searching for THE perfect fabric. (our colors in there are brown, purple, and green, and I just wasn't finding anything. Not to mention we don't really even live anywhere near fabric stores like that.) So wa-lah! Project complete!!