Loving Life

...having your son volunteer to bring cookies to the end of season cross country party, and then making them all by himself without any help or reminding from me.  Aren't these beautiful?  They tasted delicious too! David's cross country season is now officially over.  He is sad.  He loved it so very much.  Now it's the long wait until track season starts. Soon the high school cross country season will be over too and then Aaron will join him in that sadness and anticipation of track season.  Districts are this week and state is the next weekend.  The nice thing about CC being over is that I'll get to see my husband a little more in the evenings as he won't be at practice or meets anymore. Happiness is also cleaning your grimy windows.  I try to get my windows clean before winter sets in and I'm stuck inside looking out more and more each day.  Today, I tackled my kitchen windows.  They are so clean and shiny now - it makes...

Abby had a fever yesterday and stayed home from school. She didn't feel good at all. Thankfully, she had a huge bear to lay on top of her and help her feel better The bear also makes a good snuggling and sleeping partner and pillow. Today, she is feeling a bit better, but still staying home to make sure the fever doesn't come back later on in the day. This morning, David came to me and said, "Dad commited one of the classic dishwashing blunders last night."  Just what is this "classic dishwashing blunder," you ask?  Leaving the dish water in a sink full of dishes. To his defense, he was happily washing dishes for me when he got interrupted by a phone call and forgot what he was doing before the phone call.  But the family knows that there is nothing I detest more than fishing my hand down to the bottom of a sink full of cold, dirty dishwater to let it drain out.  No, I exaggerate. I detest large spiders and centipedes more than cold, di...

Whew! It's hard to believe it's already August.  Time sure is flying by. I've kept myself quite busy the past few weeks. School will be starting soon and so that means last minute summer projects are underway!  Here are just a few things I've been up to lately: 1. Cleaning out the girls' room.  Things got quite a bit out of control up there. We were waiting for some cooler days to venture into the room to clean it out before school starts, as their room gets to be stifling in the heat of the summer. Yesterday and today were the days to get it done.  We sorted and cleaned and ended up with two trash bags of clothes to pass on to a friend (we have a great source of hand-me-downs for which I am super thankful!).  We also got rid of three trash bags of "stuff" to lighten up their room.  It feels so good to have that done.  A special thanks to my MIL for her help on the morning of Day One - it got us much farther along in the process than i...

We've had a busy last week or so.  Here's some big news in Abby's life.  She lost her two front teeth. They came out about four days apart.  She truly lost the second tooth and wasn't able to put it under her pillow for the tooth fairy.  The tooth fairy apparently isn't as vigiliant about leaving money when there is no actual tooth to collect.  But after a few days, our tooth fairy remembered and finally slipped some money under Abby's pillow along with an extra quarter for having to wait so long for her to decide to show up.  At the same time, David had a tooth under his pillow for about three weeks waiting for the tooth fairy.  The tooth fairy finally had to visit during the day when he wasn't in his room, when she finally remembered to pick up the tooth.  It's hard on the tooth fairy to show up when David stays up later than the tooth fairy does these days.  Here's Abby's new look: She's also delighted with the fact that she doesn't ha...

I was reminded last night by some friends that I have not posted anything new on the ol' blog for a few weeks.  Hmm... I guess it's time to post something.  I have posted many things in my mind over the last few weeks, but obviously none of those posts have made it from my mind to the internet.  So here we go in a random, no particular order, with bullet points, post about what's been rolling around my mind. I survived my 21 day vegan diet  with my mom.  It really wasn't as hard as I thought it would be (though I did cheat once with ice cream).  My mom lost about 11 pounds.  I lost about 3 1/2.  We took about three weeks off and ate a little more normal (i.e. lots more ice cream).  I'm going back on it for another three weeks or so again with her again.  I might not be ultra strict, but when I have the choice, I'll choose vegan again.  But I'm positive this won't be a permanent lifestyle change for me. Life skills week in schoo...

I turned 33 yesterday.  I enjoy my birthday celebrations each year.  I don't need lots of parties or hype - mainly just a time to be with the people I love the most.  Aaron took me out on a date on Saturday night to celebrate my birthday.  We decided to dress up nicely for once.  Aaron even wore a tie for the first time in a very long time.  Here we are as we dropped the kids off at their friends house to spend the night there. We didn't have a super exciting date by many people's standards, but it was by mine!  We ate out - that right there is all I need to be happy.  Eating out is such a treat for me, we rarely do it.  We also went to my new favorite frozen yogurt place.  Aaron didn't swoon with love over it, the silly boy.  I still was enamored with it.  And since we were already in town and the night was still young, we did the romantic thing and stopped to pick up a few things at Walmart that we were out of (milk, bre...

Yesterday, I was feeling a bit overwhelmed by my to-do list.  But then something magical happened.  These two strangely dressed creatures arrived at my house and without speaking began to clean.  I had something like this happen last year.  It was amazing.  They wouldn't speak to me, but just went about silently cleaning.  I managed to convince them this year to stick around for a little snack as a thank you.  They even let me take their picture this year. Ana and Abby arrived right after the cleaning fairies left.  They said they had been outside playing.  They were surprised to see the house so clean.  But they were disappointed when they asked for a snack and I had to tell them that I gave their snack to the cleaning fairies.  The cleaning fairies visit definitely brightened up my day.  We also went to the city yesterday and stopped off at the library.  I got our first round of library books for school (which will sta...

Since I seem to have lost my ability to take pictures again - I think taking so many pictures during our vacation did me in - I will now give you post of random questions and answers all about me.  I know you've been dying to find out these little bits of randomness about me, so without further ado, here are the twelve most pressing questions you have all wanted to know. Q: What did you have for supper last night? A: "Summer Stomach" was in full swing last night, so grilled chicken salads it was.  Also had a glass of freshly made lemonade - I decided it was time to turn my lemons into lemonade.  Yum! Q: What would have made your supper perfect? A: Corn on the cob to go with my salad.  Sadly, I have yet to eat a single ear of corn this summer.  I'm nearly wilting from my longing.  I need to find a roadside stand very soon, or just move to a house with a huge yard so I can grow my own field of corn. Q: What is your favorite time of day during the...

Now that summer vacation is here (for us, at least), you may be wondering what I will do to fill up my piles of spare time now.  So here are some things I will be doing this summer and hope to accomplish before school starts in the fall, in no particular order. 1.  Garden! - I currently have two gardens - one at my house, one at my mom's.  There's a possibility of getting another one too.  Not sure on that.  So traveling about tending my various gardens will take time 2  Baseball/T-ball - The month of June is ball season.  We will spend at least three nights a week - sometimes four at various games of David's and Ana's.  I am helping coach Ana's team again this year. 3.  Declutter - I am dedicating this summer to lightening up my life.  That includes not only my house, but how I run my life and the organization of it.  I need to bring a certain degree of organization to my life so that I can happily do the things that I'd real...

I apologize once again from my absence.  The weekend got a little hectic.  We had a major cleaning frenzy on Saturday since we were having a pile of people over on Sunday after church.  The kids did an awesome job of helping us out.  Definitely appreciated that!  I also did a large amount of cooking and baking over the weekend - unfortunately there's nothing left to show from that activity.  But the rhubarb pies were delicious!  Monday morning brought our last birthday celebration for Abby.  We invited four of her little friends over (two sets of siblings) to spend the morning with Abby.  She got some fun stuff including her very first Barbie.  She likes it a lot because it has hair extensions you can put on and "cut" off.  She is also enthralled with her birthday balloon that was given to her.  Here's a picture of her opening presents with her little friends watching. I am not one of those parents who go all out for birthday ...

First of all, I want to say a big thank you from the bottom of my heart to all of you who left a comment on my last post or sent me an email.  They gave me piles of warm fuzzies.  I didn't write my feelings out to get back pats, but mainly because I was tired of feeling bad and listening to the whiny voice inside my head.  So I thought if I wrote my thoughts out it would help me with my whininess and aid in promoting an internal change for me.  And I ended up getting bonus back patting too.  : ) So, that aside, let's get on to my favorite topic... food!  Strawberries are starting to get cheaper in the stores and less green looking, so I bought some at our local grocery store (actually I got them for free since I was able to redeem them using my "points"!).  I told Aaron I wanted to make some strawberry shortcake with them.  I was appalled when he was indifferent to that idea and then had the audacity to say that he doesn't really like strawberry ...

Don't you wish you could spend your days snoozing on top of a pillow?  Me too! Oh well, I would miss out on much of life if I slept as much as Joey.  So I will be content with my non-snoozy-pillowless-days. So I've been doing lots of thinking, praying, etc. the past while about my life and the way I live it.  For the past I don't know how long, but for too long, I've felt like I've just been hanging on by the seat of my pants as I try my best to survive each day.  Not getting done what I want to do with schooling stresses me out, having a messy house stresses me out, unfinished projects stresses me out, dealing with a bum foot stresses me out, feeling like I'm falling way short of the super high expectations I put on me stresses me out.  The past month has been rough and full of stresses I've put upon myself.  I don't want to live my life that way.  It's silly that I have a huge amount of grace for the people around me, but a zero tolerance level fo...

Ana had her first official sleepover at our house this weekend.  Of course, being the good mother that I am, I did not take any pictures of the time.  Oops.  She invited over one of her friends who is also a homeschooler.  The last few hours before she arrived passed agonizingly slow for Ana.  But once she arrived, all the past angst immediately disappeared.  They spent the evening playing with their magic fairy wands that Ana had made for each of them, casting magic spells to make things happen - they pretty much made supper as they ordered everything I did as I prepared things ("Now, I will make water cups appear on the table!").  It was pretty cute.  They turned in their fairy wands in exchange for wooden swords and spears after awhile.  It was time to defeat some nasty foe (which was me, apparently, as I happened to walk by at the wrong time).  Easter egg dyeing was also in the mix, along with drawing on the whiteboard....

I've definitely been having a good day today.  Nothing spectacular has happened, but good nonetheless.  I'll start off with a picture from yesterday's fun with Grace.  She has a weak eye and so she has to wear a patch over her glasses to help strengthen her eye.  My girls decided to join in and show solidarity with her.  Ana is sporting our one and only pirate eye patch.  Abby was not deterred by the lack of eye patches and swiftly put a pair of underwear on her head to pull down over one eye.  She also kindly lent Grace a pair of her underwear (clean) so Grace could also sport a cool hat like hers.  Abby is in favorite dress #3.  Ana is wearing her Indian princess dress and shawl.  Grace is borrowing a summer dress of Abby's to wear over her clothes. Later on in the day, Ana made a picture for Grace.  She cut out all the shapes from other colored paper and added some star stickers.  I thought it turned out pretty co...

I had a lovely day yesterday.  School was finished quickly in the morning and then after lunch, Aaron's folks took the kids up to the Children's Museum for the day.  What a treat for all!  The kids had a blast hanging out there with Grandma & Grandpa while I got to have a blissful afternoon all by myself.  I didn't do anything too spectacular.  Mainly just hung around home getting things done and making supper.  One thing I did allow myself to do was to watch TV while folding the mountain of laundry.  I don't watch TV much at all because usually I'd rather be doing something else than sitting down all day long.  I especially don't watch it during the daytime hours as the moment the TV gets turned on, all of my children seem to have this magnetic pull towards it and must stand there with half-glazed eyes as they inhale all that's being fed to them from the TV.  It's much easier to keep the TV off than to police what they watch.  The m...

So here I sit, blogging, when I need to be doing 30,000 other things.  I had glorious hopes to have my house all shiny clean by the time I picked up my mom-in-law from the airport tonight.  Instead, I have shiny clean spots in my house.  For example, my microwave is gleaming inside and out.  My fridge got a good cleaning too inside, should you ever want to look inside of it.  I put up a new shower curtain to replace the highly torn up, rust covered old one.  Other random things got cleaned.  I guess I wasn't dealing with big picture this week - just little projects that have irritated me for the past several months.  I would try to download some pictures to show you, but I'm still having issues with that and don't have the time to figure it out.  Maybe later.  I was grocery shopping at Aldi's yesterday and saw some Thanksgiving pies deeply discounted there.  Deeply discounted as in 25 CENTS EACH.  So I bought three.  I k...

Hello everyone!  I apologize for my slacking on posting lately.  I don't have much by way of excuse other than normal busyness.  We had a great Thanksgiving.  My aunt lives a few hours away and is a hotel manager.  So we went had Thanksgiving at her hotel this year.  We went up the night before to spend the night there (a nice perk of having a hotel-managing aunt).  We got there pretty late, so we didn't do much other than get settled in and go to bed that night.  In the morning, the kids were super excited to go swimming in the hotel pool.  We spent an hour or so down there playing in the pool, enjoying the hot tub, and then watching the kids continue to play.  The girls' lips were starting to turn blue with cold, but they still were sad when it was time to go back to our room and get ready for lunch.  My aunt made an amazing feast for all of us.  Yea!  We spent the afternoon playing games, talking, watching football and ...

I've been having "one of those days."  Days where you feel overwhelmed by all there is to do and how little time you have to do it.  The weekend was hectic and fun, but left me with mountains of undone tasks.  Sigh.  That's how I felt when I woke up this morning.  Another sigh.  I tried writing a post this morning and it felt too whiney, so I deleted it.  My purpose in posting isn't to make you feel sorry for me, because really, is my life all that different from yours and all that you have on you?  This afternoon, while I was doing my dishes (which is a good time to think), I was reminded of a little magazine article/blurb I read a few weeks ago.  It talked of changing your attitude.  It was all good stuff and things I am constantly telling my children - "you can't change the responsibilities you have to do (chores, schoolwork, sibling behavior), but you can change how you view them and respond to them and that will make your lif...

Yes, I'm spoiled. I clean a house on a somewhat monthly basis. I get paid to do it. But, that's not all! I almost always walk away with other things as well.  Here's a typical cleaning day pictured. You'll notice that the frappuccino bottle is empty.  Usually, depending on how generous I'm feeling, I save around half of it to share with Aaron.  Not yesterday.  I knew he had spent the morning at the coffee shop sipping coffee and eating cookies, so I had no mercy for sharing MY frappucino with him.  : )  Sometimes a chocolate bar is set out for me as well.  I was happy to see it was dark chocolate.  Aaron doesn't like dark chocolate all that much so I don't have to share very much of that either!  I had a square of it yesterday - delicious!  So, J. & M., thanks again for all the wonderful things you give me.  You guys are so awesome!  (and not just because you leave things out for me). You remember my giveaway winning fro...

My poor Ana is sick today (and yesterday).  She's so pathetically sad when she's sick.  It's nothing major, just a fever and bit of upset tummy.  She's getting lots of TLC today, no school, got to watch a movie and took a nap.  She hasn't even felt up to eating any of her candy from trick-or-treating.  Speaking of candy, here's what I decided to do.  They each got to pick out 30 pieces to keep, and I'll let them eat a set amount each day (today was 5 pieces) - when they eat it is up to them.  If they want to eat it at breakfast time and not have any later on in the day, that's fine with me.  Let them figure that one out.  Abby finished hers very quickly this morning.  She wanted more, but I had to remind her of the rules.  Later on this afternoon, she was crying about something and told me that, "The only thing that will make me stop crying is a piece of candy."  I told her I was sorry to hear that since that meant ...