Insta-Friday

It's been pretty chill around here the last couple weeks.

Just the normal routine and rolling with the every day family stuff.

Abby is getting ready for her spring ballet recital.

Girlfriend loves to perform on stage...imagine that.

Love me some orange cinnamon rolls.

Such a fabulous combo of flavors.

And so easy.

And requires minimal dishes.

Perfect.

I don't like to complain, but can I just say...

This never ending winter needs to end.

Snow gear every week is draining.

This little guy is into everything.

Climbing up onto chairs and tables in seconds flat.

But he is the happiest kid I've ever seen.

Laughing and smiling his way through the day.

Every day.

Such a little charmer.

He loves cuddling, bananas, trucks, and running with his brother and sister.

The kids love learning about Jesus and reading the bible.

AJ asks some pretty powerful spiritual questions that make his dad and I think a lot. It's a good kind of reflecting.

He is really growing into such a strong boy.

Abby prays the sweetest prayers and tells God she loves him to the moon and back. Her strong personality makes living by the golden rule tough sometimes, but we are working on it.

I decided to teach VBS this summer and religious Ed next school year.

I'm excited and feel so blessed to have this opportunity!

We started a chores chart linked to allowance this week.

We have tried a chores chart in the past, but have never been consistent.

We always start strong and get tired and fizzle out.

But the kids are getting old enough to contribute to the family and learn how to save money.

So we are really trying to stick to it.

They each have spend, save, and donate jars.

They are excited and eager to do their chores.

It's great to see them feel empowered by taking on their responsibilities.

Ab has been showing some serious middle child syndrome behaviors which has been...challenging. So we've been making an effort to make her feel important and special. We made pink pancakes with sprinkles the other day after we dropped AJ off at school.

This parenting thing is tough business.

But also the most rewarding business.

 

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Easter in Crazytown 2013

Easter Sunday. 

What a day.

A day that has to be strategically planned.

Wake up. Get everyone not just dressed...but dressed up...

Then the Easter Bunny has to magically arrange Easter baskets and hide eggs...while we are at mass.

It's an interesting thing to pull off.

This is how it played out that morning.

Shower, get dressed, do full hair and make-up, tag team getting the kids dressed.

Abby refuses to wear her Easter dress.  

Of course she does. Because her mother needed more stress that morning.

Whatever Abby.just.pick.a.dress.

Andy loads kids in the van while I run around throwing Easter baskets out and hiding Easter eggs in the back yard in heels.  I can only imagine what our new neighbors thought as they looked out the back window.  It was a fast and furious spectacular mission.

Hop in the van and play it cool.

It was an Easter miracle we made it out of the house.

 

Get to church. Realize we totally did not get there early enough as we see people walking from blocks away toward the church in their dress up clothes.  

Andy drops me off.  I don't even try the church and head straight to the gym.  

Oh but don't worry.  It is full.  The bleachers it is.  With three restless overexcited kids.  

It was an entertaining hour...at least for those around us I'm sure.  

Abby did the wave every time anyone said Jesus has risen.  

Then she busted into a full out hula dance.  I'm not kidding.  

Girlfriend was moved by the holy spirit.

My heel kept getting stuck in the bleachers and Brody threw his cup at the people in front of us.  

It is really loud when a sippy cup full of milk hits the bleachers.

We lasted about 45 minutes before full on melt down mode by all three children.

Brody tries to take a header over the bleacher in front of us. 

I throw the sippy cup, abandon the heel that is wedged into a crack in the bleacher and dive just in time to  catch him before his head hits the ground.

I prayed hard for patience and help being a good mother that morning.

Then we walked two blocks back to the van.

The celebration had only just begun.

We had 45 minutes to enjoy Easter baskets, find Easter eggs, eat breakfast, and load back in the van to head to Aunt Lou's house for brunch.

AJ was excited to get a place mat with a world map on it, bubble bath, sand toys, an exercise shirt, flip flops and a math game. 

Abby up on the table of course...

got a Barbie movie, sand toys, Cinderella socks, a Tinker Bell night light, sand toys, and a kite.

Brody was excited to get a water bottle like his brother and sister's, a duck loofah, sand toys, and Oreos.  The kid is addicted to Oreos.  He has only thrown a fit twice in his life.  Both times it was because we were out of Oreos.

Then we found our designated eggs in the back yard.

Each kids has 7 eggs with their names clearly labeled on them.

Because that is how I roll.

Label the eggs, there are no fights...thus saving mom's sanity.

Then we headed to Aunt Lou's where the kids were giddy to find more eggs.

Brody caught on to the egg thing fast once he realized they had candy inside them.

Love that boy all dapper in his jacket and tie.

Brody was so into the thrill of the hunt that he also thought it was cool to hunt rain gauges...

lawn ornaments...sticks...rocks...

pretty much anything he could pick up and fit in his basket was fair game in his mind.

You had to monitor that kid's basket pretty closely.

Abby.  Let me tell you about Abby.

Nothing gets in her way. 

When Girlfriend is on a mission, Girlfriend is on a mission.

And a slide is only a faster channel to get to more eggs.

Nothing slows her down.

The egg hunt is a serious thing.  

I love this action shot.

Move, move, move, find those eggs!

Leave no egg or rain gauge left unfound!

Then eat all the jelly beans as fast as you can before brunch.

It was a good day.

Jesus had risen.

Insta Catch Up

I love these colors.

They make me think of the ocean.

Making something out of them makes my heart happy.

I could stare at them all day.

I love being nestled up on the couch under my fave $6 thrift store afghan watching movies with the kids.

I seriously love everything about that blanket.

I love granny squares and the crazy bright funky rainbow of colors. I love that the predominate color is a spastic bright yellow.

I imagine a really cool woman with a fun personality made it and somehow I ended up blessed with it when no one else wanted it.

It was fate that it ended up with me.

We went to the coolest 5 year birthday party ever for a great friend over spring break.

It was so fun. The kids were pumped. The games were awesome. His mom was dressed as Wonder Woman and his dad had multiple costume changes. You could tell the birthday boy is so loved by all the hard work and thought that went into making it such a special celebration.

Such a truly authentic family. One I aspire to be like.

I actually enjoyed a few real rounds of UNO with the kids the other day.

I was over the moon.

You can't understand how exciting it is to play an actual game by the real rules until you've been tortured through hours of playing games where the rules shift every turn in favor of the egocentric 4 year old.

Ab won fair and square. Real rules. Real game.

Who knew Ab was such an Uno shark?

We went tubing up at Copper Mountain over spring break. It was crazy fun. Seeing little Brody in snow bibs cracks me up. Can't get enough of it.

My kids are crazy little dare devils.

I have no idea where they get it from.

Brody seriously laughed his bum off every time all the way down the hill stuffed in that little tube. And AJ requested fast and spinning every run. I would have puked my guts out.

We all left with bright red sun burnt faces.

My face is really tan now.

Which goes great with the ultra pale rest of my body.

It's awesome.

Such a rookie mistake.

After tubing we went out for bacon cheese burgers, root beer, and fried cheese curds and root beer floats.

The word curd(s) seriously grosses me out.

And the thought of it in relation to food just about pushes me over the edge.

Andy ordered them.

I went to my happy place in my head to hold them down.

Couldn't they call them cheese nuggets or something?

We dyed Easter eggs at Nana and Papa's house.

We kinda ambushed them and just showed up with eggs and dye when it was time to pick up 3 over excited Easter anticipating balls of energy.

It was fun.

My Easter eggs as a kid all turned out either army green or poop brown because we mixed all the colors every year hoping to invite some new amazing color. Every year.

The Easter Bunny brought me these yummy little treats.

Love them and that Easter bunny.

We cleaned out the sandbox and added new sand last weekend.

Brody stayed in there forever burying his legs and feet and laughing.

Nana and Papa gifted AJ with that sandbox when AJ turned one.

It's one of our favorite parts of summer every year.

I've been reading this book from a friend and LOVE it.

It's about how to raise a healthy, virtuous boy.

It's good.

She also wrote Strong Fathers, Strong Daughters.

I'll be getting it next!

Remember making these things as kids?

I do. I loved them.

I wasn't sure if the kids would get into them or not.

AJ LOVES making them. He'll spend two hours making intricate patterns and designs and searching through thousands of beads for the right color.

Abby lasts about ten minutes, starts 5 different projects, and finishes zero.

That's her star. She made one corner of it.

Love her fleeting interests and restless spirit.

She keeps me busy.

I've been working on organizing the garage.

Seriously 3 kids with bikes, trikes, and scooters takes up half the garage.

But it makes my heart happy to see them ride around.

Last Saturday we worked in the yard, checked out some play sets for the back yard and made it to happy hour!

My cherry coke had 7 real cherries! It was the best day ever!

 

 

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I Can't Break Up

It's only been 6 days, and I already miss blogging.

I want to share my life with friends and family in this way.

And capture our little moments for me too.

I love looking back at what we've done

or little AJ/Abby/Brody-isms.

Life is too wonderful not shout it from a rooftop.

I lost focus on my original purpose for this blog when I opened my etsy shop.

I got sucked into using my blog as a venue to promote my shop.

I got caught up in how many followers I had or how many comments I got.

It became more about a blog

and not about cherishing our story.

Things got muddled.

It lost its authenticity.

So I'm back.

But not with a Followers gadget or an Etsy shop.

But with a renewed focus.

Blogging for my kids, my family, my friends, and me.

Maybe not posting everyday or even every week,

But when I want to because I want to.

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Signing Off...

Hello friends. 

I'm writing this post to say goodbye for a little while...

or a while.

I'm not really sure how long.

I want to simplify.

I want to take a break 

from blogging, etsy, facebook, pinterest, instagram...

some of the things that pull me away from being present in the here and now.

I want to spring clean...

stay caught up on the dishes...

read books...

hang with my family...

take pictures with my big camera again...

Realign.

Refocus.

Refresh.

It's a good thing.

Email me if you need to touch base.