Still here

Hi friends. I am still here.  Been busy and when I'm not, I'm lazy as all get out and enjoying the break.

Today is one of those days. Showered and got back into comfy clothes. Eli's off school today, so we're staying in. Trying to save gas, no place to go, so I let the kids wear shorts. Why not? 

I started a new project. Found an old desk FREE on the sidewalk, so I rearranged the back of our car and threw it in. Brought it home and am now currently working on turning it into a nightstand for our bedroom. It's fun to have my own project. To get out the tools and work 'em myself and prove to myself I do know a thing or two!  Can't wait to see how it turns out and hoping to win the approval of Kevin who was skeptical of my project idea!

I did a newborn photoshoot last weekend and am done finishing up the last of the pictures. Will post some of them here soon for you to see!  =)  It's been since Fall since I've done any photoshoots. I was so nervous. I'm still trying to do decide what exactly I want to do with photography, or IF I want to do anything at all! 

In a couple weeks I'll be headed to Chicago for a girls weekend with my college friends! I'll trek across Iowa, pick up three friends there, and we'll continue on to the city! SO EXCITED!!!  Then the week after that is my birthday and I get to celebrate with my friends here, as well as my own family.  So many great things coming up!

I have an idea for Kevin's family, and the more I think about it, the more excited I get.  It's pretty expensive, but it could be wonderful. It's a secret though, so I'll leave it at that.  =)

Life has been pretty great lately. For the most part. I'm finally feeling more settled here, forming a regular circle of friends, finding more ways to help at church and serve family and local friends in their individual needs. Continuing to grow new friendships, particularly with other COUPLES, and trying to utilize the most of the times when the kids are gone somewhere (ie AWANA, or school). Week by week the calendar has been filling up, and that's fun to me. The house may be a wreck at times, but at least I'm happy, we're happy. 

Alright, better sign off now but wanted to say hello!!  Have a great weekend!

Overthinking it!!

Valentine's Day is coming up. While I don't go crazy about what to do for my husband this single DAY of the year (we have no plans or gifts or cards whatsoever), I do hope to make it a little something special for the kids. Using some ideas from Pinterest I want to...

make heart shaped muffins or pancakes for breakfast (it's also Hannah's birthday)

fill out one of these for each of the kids:

maybe have these for lunch:

hot dogs + spaghetti noodle + cheese

And that's about it. Now, this is where the trouble begins, both {big} kids have Valentines parties at school. Hannah and I {and Eli} have already made her valentines box, decoupaging scraps of construction paper to a shoe box. It now looks like pink and purple and white camouflage and was actually really fun (and EASY) for kids to do (we are DEFINITELY gonna do more crafts like that!!). But now I'm STILL debating on what to do for their Valentines!  

Last year Eli hand painted his own. He was the only one in his preschool class to bring handmade cards. This year I looked at store bought cards, but almost ALL of them say ridiculous things like "You're Mine" "Be Mine" "We'll be friends forever" or they were too princessy with messages about fairy tales OR they were animated skull and crossbones!!!  I'm sorry, but these are just KIDS. They DON'T have a lover. They WON'T be friends forever probably. Life isn't a fairytale. And I probably will never approve images of skulls and crossbones!  I don't want to be crude, but I do like to stay in reality and these messages start young.

I'm looking for something that simply says "Happy Valentine's Day" or "So glad you're my friend" or "You're the best!" Really. Why can't it be that simple?

I don't really want to spend forever MAKING something, but do I want to use up all the printer ink using printable cards with more appropriate messages?? Or am I totally overthinking this and should just get generic cards, knowing the kids don't actually care about the cards or take them personally???

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!