TGIF

Yay! We made it through the first week of school starting! Everyone got to bed on time and got up on time. No one missed a bus or was late. Every child survived and parents are both still alive. All accomplishments in our house :). It's been so yucky today and it's grocery day so pardon the pics are few and kinda boring : 

New store for groceries! Best produce selection hands down! They had all sorts of eggplants - pardon my Pinterest boards being bombarded with eggant ideas- and other weird produce like bittermelon. 

Yuck- blah- dreary- sad- yuck 

A friend told me today that miss e's smile made her morning this morning. I couldn't agree more. My children all have special qualities that add so much to my life, I can't imagine how boring it would be without them. Sometimes I need to focus on this fact more than how clean my house is (or isn't). 

Happy Friday Everyone!!

Sunday Funday

Loving the warmer weather today!!!

We love the park!!!

A huge Happy Birthday to my little man- who is officially 13 today! Birthday party is this weekend and it should be interesting. 

Is it finally done?

We were blessed at Christmas with gift cards galore to Home Depot and Lowes. We have been wanting to replace lots of "things" around the house to make it more like our home and not the previous owners home. But like many, we don't have hundreds of dollars each month to decide what to replace. So with our gift cards in mind we came up with a master plan of what we wanted to do to our house. From there we decided to do those things that would most impact the house without blowing the whole card on one item. After what feels like was months of our house being in pure chaos, here is all that we did:

Replaced a ceiling fan and chandelier 

 Repainted our kitchen from red to green, replaced drawer pulls all over the house, hung new lights over the bar, and sanded down/restained our cabinets

Repainted both the guest and kids bathrooms. Put all new light fixtures in all the bathrooms. Bought a new shower curtain and new mats for kids' bathroom. 

Hung new lights in the hallway

And I am proud to say that we are done for this phase. I am so happy with all the updates and know that there are many more to come! Thank you to all who donated to our new house, we are very blessed to have such supportive parents and grandparents!!

Here are some other pics from this past week:

Basketball started, yay!! 

Enjoying cookie dough after making cookies ;)

Hope everyone has a great hump day!!

Sick :(

Let the sickness spreading begin, again. Momma is down for the count. Let's hope no one else gets it!! 

She loves doing puzzles and we do a lot daily!

Before the sore throat really set in, I organized. Is it coincidence that I did housework and now I'm sick- I think not. 

Today were spending some snuggle time on the couch. Letting mom rest and Ava is loving the occasional teddy graham drop. 

Saturday

Crazy day of trying to get lots of lights installed all over the house. 

Yay! So excited our house is becoming more our house. 

We had yummy lunch out today 

And yummy date night dinner

Mmmmm mole chicken with black beans and salad..... Mmmmmmm

The girls and I made a pie for dessert

Super day today and better yet, we still have Sunday to relax and play!!

Resolutions - no, Promises - yea I like that

I have had many a new year that began with those dreaded resolutions: lose weight, get healthy, exercise more, wear a swimsuit without cringing, be a more involved mom, be a more "there" mom, be a better wife, be more this and be more that. And we all know how those damn resolutions work out - they don't! Recently, I saw a post about promises instead of reso-lose control of your mind- tions.

 I can do promises. 

I understand those terms and do already make promises. Every day I want to make a promise and then follow through with it, really. Maybe I need to promise myself to practice patience or promise my girls more one on one time or maybe I need to just promise myself that I am enough for all those who need me. 

One promise I loved reading today was a 365 day project for family. This project was a promise from a photographer mom to pick up a camera every day and take a picture of life. Her families life. And it didn't matter the camera- phone, point and click, or her big camera. Then she can go back next January and see 365 photos of her family and all they did. Love. It's simple and documents our life, sounds like a perfect promise to make for our family. How many times over this past year did I turn to Ryan and say "I really should write this down" or " I really need to remember this moment". Well guess what I didn't and now I can't remember!

So I'm a few days late on starting this project, that's ok. Here it goes :

Oh miss Ella. My sweet big girl. She started back to school today. She was so excited that she bound out of the van right into a huge pile of snow! I was really hoping she would jump over it. She had a fabulous day and is ready to go back.

Sweet little K. You and I finally had some alone time today! Took total advantage of your snuggly capabilities and might have taken a little cat nap in the process. You also took advantage of having no one in the house and played like no one was watching. 

I have a feeling we have an architect on our hands. Forts are a permanent fixture now! This is what our living room looks like 9 times out of 10. 

 

Here's to the promise of a new day tomorrow to document our life , because it is a beautiful one!!