Happy Insta Friday Y'all!

I swear time goes by three times faster with three children.
Didn't I just post Insta Friday?! Like yesterday?

I've had this overwhelming need to do house projects lately.
Which means a wee trip to Ikea was inevitable.

Before:

Seriously, what the heck is the purpose of those upper windows?
They.are.a.pain.in.the.butt.

After:

Take that upper windows.

I am in love with the wire cable look.

In the middle of the curtain project Abby joyfully boasts, "Look mom! I'm up high."
I glance over to see Crazy herself at the top of the ten foot ladder, holding on with one hand, and waving at me with the other hand.
Dear Lord. That child scares the crap out of her mother on a daily basis.

Did I mention I'm in love with the wire cable look?

Lemon Creme Raspberry Cheesecake
You had me at lemon.

Girlfriend said her "girls" needed some new shoes.
Of course they did.

Have I mentioned that I h.a.t.e snow?
And that it snows like everyday here?
Seriously. The van slides back down the driveway when it snows.
I have to "gun" it and pray not to slide into the right side of the house...or into all the crap on the left side of the garage. Not my favorite part of living in this state.

I usually have to buy some liquid courage from the local drive thru Starbucks before
"gunning" it up the said driveway.

Goodness. This is the happiest baby in the world.
I have hundreds of pictures of that smile.
How could I not?!

Have a great weekend!
Whatcha' up to?

I think I'll read some paranormal romance...
maybe play some board games with the kids...
maybe sew or quilt a little...
maybe watch a movie...
maybe paint Girlfriend's nails...

Snow Boots

Out in Colorado, I swear it snows ten months out of the year.

So ya need a cute pair of snow boots.

The kind that look fun with skinny jeans...

have pom poms on the laces...

and little snow flake charms.

Sugar Cookies With Royal Icing

Andy dropped the kids off at preschool one day
and signed me up to make cookies for Abby's cowpoke lunch.

Mind you, when I dropped them off I signed up to bring spray butter for AJ's cowpoke lunch...
because well...one will take all day to make with three children, as well as destroy the kitchen
and the other...you can just run into the store and grab.

Thanks Andy.

So, I decided go big or go home.
Let's make sugar cookies from scratch and decorate them with royal icing.
I could add little stitching details and put each kid's initials on their cookie.
This will be fun.
People will be so impressed.

um-hum.

Andy found some western themed cookie cutters for only $0.76 each!
And I found a fabulous blog with a sugar cookie recipe
and step-by-step directions with pictures on how to decorate cookies with royal icing.
This was going to be great!

And so begins my grand cookie adventure.
This is the part where you no longer ask things like, "How do you do it all? Three kids and you still sew and make cute cookies?"

Because you will soon get a sense of the craziness I call reality.

10:30am...Brody has been fed...twice, I am dressed in clothes that could count as pajamas, and the kids have had yogurt and cereal for breakfast.

Time to start gathering ingredients.

With the kids caught up in a new Lego set, I went unnoticed for about ten minutes.
Then my helpers descended upon me.

At first, the damage to the kitchen was minimal.

Dough ready to chill in the fridge by 1:30pm.
Not too bad.

Then all hell broke loose.

The kids started fighting and suddenly developed a sassy attitude towards their dear mother.
To which I realized...oh we haven't eaten lunch yet.
Damn cookies.
Here, I had a brilliant idea...let's just load up in the van, swing by daddy's work to grab the cookie cutters he bought over his lunch hour, and the best part...eat lunch at Sonic!

We finally make it back home about 4:15 in the afternoon.

The cookies are still in the form a giant dough ball in the fridge.
I should start thinking about dinner...but they just ate lunch at like 3...so we should be good for awhile.

Cookies cooling by 6:00 when Andy gets home and asks, "What's for dinner?"
Ha! Wrong thing to ask.
So, we had a "fend for yourself" dinner night.
I'm not even sure what they ate.

7:30pm all the cookies are out of the oven, Andy takes the kids to get ready for bed, and I begin phase one of frosting with royal icing.

9:30pm and I have 36 iced sugar cookies for Abby's cowpoke lunch!
No stitching detail or initials.
Just 36 plain cookies with royal icing.

11:00pm the kitchen has been repaired back to its normal state.
11:15 I make it to bed.

And I still need to run to the store and grab AJ's spray butter tomorrow.

January 10, 2005

I vividly remember a phone conversation January 10^th 7 years ago today.
It is a conversation that I hold in my heart everyday of my life.

I was sitting on the couch, and my brother, James, called. I remember making small talk and laughing. My brother mentioned that he was looking for a change and wondered if I might be able to talk Andy about getting him a job. This is the moment, I will forever own and forever wish I could take back.

I hesitated.

My brother was a passionate person. He was a restless spirit.

He had almost too much passion and adventure caged in one person.
I was not sure how to handle how this could unfold.

In one selfish instant, the damage was done.

My brother sensed the hesitation and awkwardly ended the conversation with a quick, “I love you, and will talk to ya later Chance.”

He later told my mom he was sorry for putting me in that position.

What position? The position to open my arms, and let someone I love know it?

The thing is, I let my brother down that day, and we never really know what someone is going through on the inside.

I held back, and it was stupid. I will never know how my brother being in Colorado would have unfolded.

It could have been the best thing for both of us.

It could have flopped miserably.

The thing is, I didn’t even give it a chance.

If I could take back one split second in my life, this would be the one. My split second of hesitation when someone I loved reached out.

Things may have still unfolded as they ultimately did, but at least I would always know that my brother knew in his darkest moments that I loved every single part of him unconditionally.

You see a little over a month later, on President’s Day, I found out my brother took his own life.

And I know people will say that I should not own his death, but as a sister I will always own a piece of it. Someone I loved and grew up trick-or-treating with was in a dark enough place to take his own life. I should have let him know what he meant to me, and without hesitation said, “YES! Come out here! We can go hiking in the mountains! It will be fun!”

If I can blast any message, it would be don’t hesitate.

Open your arms fully to those you love and embrace all that comes with it. You just never know if it will be your last opportunity.

I love my brother dearly with my whole heart and soul. I try to cherish and remember the things I don’t want time to let slip away.

His laugh. How his bony collarbone felt when I hugged him. How he used listen to his music so crazy loud when he drove with all the windows down. How he took in the world around him with such intensity. How he got a thrill out of getting my mom all worked up or scaring my little sister and me. How he took me out for steak and eggs when I graduated. How he used to put his hands in his pockets so his shoulders were slightly raised when he was around people.

How he was always up for a new adventure.

How he never hesitated.

The world lost a truly amazing person that day.

My little world was rocked to the core and my frame of reference was forever changed.

Songs, smells, the similarity of someone’s jaw line to my brother’s jaw line bring back fleeting memories nearly every day, and there is a sting in my heart.

Life is short and unpredictable.

Please don’t hesitate to love unconditionally.

Insta Friday

We are settling back into the normal swing of things.
Thank Goodness.
This mama needs some routine to rein these wild ones in.

With a couple warm afternoons,
we were able to get out and let Girlfriend try out that new scooter from Nana and Papa.
Brody was snuggled up in the Moby and AJ and Abby let out some of that pent up energy.
It was lovely.

Until Abby decided she was done and just rode off on that scooter.
You always think they will only go so far and come back...
then you run like hell to catch up with them when they don't.
That's a different kind of lovely.

We celebrated New Years with the wildest people I know.
But they were in bed by 8pm.

So I read into the new year.
It was the good kind of lovely.

Seriously?
Rock hunting.
At this rate the entire perimeter of my back yard will be in AJ's room by Valentine's Day.
Who knew the builders blessed us with lava and space rocks
when they landscaped our back yard?

OPI's Muppet's Line: Divine Swine
It's quite divine indeed.

And this boy's smile makes everything in the universe right.

Have a fabulous weekend!

Real Or Not Real?

Some books are to be tasted,
others to be swallowed,
and some few to be chewed and digested.
~Francis Bacon

…something is significantly wrong with a creature
that sacrifices its children’s lives to settle its differences.
~ Katniss Everdeen, p. 377 Mockingjay


"Real."

Words For 2012

Some people pick one word on the dawn of a new year.
A word to inspire them.
Guide them.
A word that encompasses how they want to live their life over the next 365 days.

A catalyst for ambitions going into a new year.
An invisible, abstract idea that drives their actions,
grounds them,
helps them focus, re-focus, meditate and reflect as they go through the year.

I tried.

But one word is not enough to truly encompass how I
want to take hold and start living my life
as a better mom,
a better wife,
a better friend,
a better sister,
a better neighbor,
a better person.

I actually came up with a crazy long post paragraphs long.
Too long in fact.
I edited, revised, totally rewrote, and in the end deleted that post.

It was too...
well too wordy.

My little sister, one of my closest friends that knows me better than anyone in the world
sent me this one time,

and said if I had a manifesto
this would be it:

There is so much truth in those simple black words.
They are the kind of obvious truths that you know are lingering in the background
of your fast paced life...
that slowly sneak up on you, then slap you in the face.

Or at least that happened to me last January when I was stressed to the max
and looked down to find a positive pregnancy test...
and decided to take the leap of faith I was always afraid to take
and become a stay-at-home mom.

So in the end, with this manifesto in the back of my mind
and all its truth in my heart...
I came up with a list of my words for 2012.

Simplify
Prioritize
Filter out
Commit
Reconnect
Accept
Embrace
Grow
Discover
Honor
Authentic
Balance