Category: Uncategorized

BOY!

 For those of you that follow me on social media, this is old news.  Just in case though, here’s the rundown of what’s happening with the newest babe.

If you would have asked Hayden, she would have told you that she was getting a brother. Anyone else however, their money was on a girl. Even Andy, and he was pretty convincing. When you are pregnant, there are a few questions you get asked a lot.

“How are you feeling?”

“Do you think you know what you’re having?”

“Are you getting excited??”

That last one gets me. I totally find myself asking the same thing to an expecting mother at times. I’ve yet to meet a person who answers no, but perhaps I should sometime, to mix things up.

• I’m feeling good. I’m tired more than usual (I mostly blame the weather. I’m beginning to think that the snow is here to stay all year) and have been fairly sick with this one. Generally though, I’ve been very fortunate to have an uncomplicated and healthy pregnancy and I’m very thankful for that.
• I was down the middle with this gender reveal. I was asked quite often which pregnancy this one is more like, and the answer is Hayden. This pregnancy’s sickness is comparable to Hayden and I carried her fairly high. This guy has been incredibly active already and has maintained a much faster heartbeat than Reid. All the old wives tales would tell you that means it’s a girl. The beauty in life is that nothing is certain, so it was a pleasant surprise in our house when we revealed that we were adding another boy to the crew. I didn’t have strong feelings one way or the other about what we were having, but I’d be lying if I said I didn’t always rummage through the girl stuff first whenever we did any baby shopping.
• Am I excited to have a newborn again? To revisit the days of constant late night feedings, endless days with no sleep, changing hormones and moments of uncertainty because this sweet and squishy being won’t stop crying? Not exactly. If I’m honest, those first few months make me very anxious, and I believe they would no matter how many kids we had. But I am VERY excited to wear regular pants, not have my bladder squished all day long and not be constantly nauseous. All those exhausting and hard days are remedied with the soft snuggles of a new baby that smells so incredible and those rough moments go by quickly. I’m excited to be able to drink wine with dinner again and not have heartburn every night. And I can’t wait to bring this little guy home and welcome him into our crazy household with siblings that are eager to help out their new sibling. He’s already so incredibly loved and is going to fit right in.

We’ve got 17 weeks left before he arrives, no we don’t have a name yet and all my bets are on this being our last one. That should about cover everything. 🙂

Until the next update..

Mixed tapes are a dying art in my opinion. No matter the trends or the popularity of something, there are some things you should hold onto. For me that’s playlists. You better believe that I used to sit in my bedroom over and over and wait for that certain song to come on the radio so I could hit record. My friends and I would call in requests and celebrate when our picks were played. That evolved into burning cd’s, or compacts discs, those round things that annoyingly get scratched all the time, and soon my collection grew. I saved money and secretly bought music that my parents forbid (I mean who didn’t do that) and hid them in my room to listen to when they weren’t around. I rode out the wave of mp3s, Napster, and any other free download program that popped up. You wouldn’t believe how many places you can get massive playlists from. BIRP still might be my favorite though, and an awesome place to check out all sorts of new stuff. And FYI, this site doesn’t require you to download anything or have any special program for it.  I crashed a few computers and resulted to making giant lists of songs (literally notebooks) for my friend to make cd’s for me. Shout out to Adam to indulging in all my requests. 😉

Fast forward to the world of satellite radio and bluetooth, Pandora, Spotify, Itunes, Shazaam (I really heart Shazaam) and the all the hipsters with their record collections. I’ll admit though, I’m a fan of vinyl myself as well. There are countless forms of music trends so much so that I can’t even keep up, nor do I really care to. Making a sweeping turn back to where I was going with this…. Anyone that is friends with me has gotten a cd from me at some point. I’ll continue to do that whether or not it’s cool or people like it. Side story, I made a couple cd’s that went in a wedding present and the groom told my husband he threw them out the window. HA! Who doesn’t love a road trip kit?! Some people just don’t know how good they have it. Your welcome to whoever found it on the road and probably played it, because I’m sure you thought it was awesome.

Here’s my Saturday session that’s on today. Happy weekend friends!

 

-Email version won’t load the playlist, only online version of site-

Turning six was a pretty big deal around here. All weekend long Hayden was celebrated. Presents and so many treats. Singing and laughing and dinner with family and friends. Cupcakes were made to be eaten with classmates. Oh, and that pesky last front tooth finally came out. Opening the door for the cutest lisp to creep in. All leading up to the big day. She woke up this morning to be officially six.

I got a chance to have a one on one with her and really get a look into what it’s like these days to be six.

Your now halfway through kindergarten. So tell me, what’s your favorite thing about school? If there was one thing they told you that you could for a solid week, what would it be?

 Writing. I love to write. With a big pencil and a big notepad.

What’s your least favorite?

Math. No wait, the pyrethrum board. Because there is a timer and you have to just sit there and it’s like 100 minutes long. Let’s move on!

You get home from school and you love to do what?

Play with my friends and build a snowman.

What if there is no snow?

I’d still play outside of course. Hopefully with no coat and shorts on. And flip flops. Gosh I love summer.

Your all done with school. You graduated and now you have to go get a job. What do you want to do?

Work in a donut shop.

What do you see yourself driving?

Something with sliding doors. I don’t like opening doors. So I want one that does it for me.

So a mini van?

Sure.

What’s your favorite color right now?

Pink. Not just hot though. Light too.

Let’s talk about family now. Do you like having a little brother?

Yeah. I like feeding him. And he’s so little and I can take care of him. He tickles my back too. And I like it when I eat his chips. And when he has more chips. So I can steal them.

Do you like living in Alaska?

Yes.

If we didn’t live in Alaska, where would you want to live?

Hawaii. I mean Disneyland. I see a lot of commercials. I’ve been wanting to go for years! But you never take me. You’ve never taken me to Hawaii either. You also won’t let us get a new dog. It’s 3 against 1 you know! You should just move to the forest with Sharky. Then we could get a new dog. I’m not kidding….

Who knew that was such a loaded question. Moving on. What makes you the happiest?

Presents. I mean summer! No, cupcakes. Summer cupcakes.

What are summer cupcakes?

They’re green.

One final question. If there was something that you could do that would make everyone happy and make the world a better place, what would it be?

Shut the door on them.

What? Why is that going to make everyone happy?

Then people will be like “Hooray, it keeps all the babies out.”

Why do we need to keep all the babies out??

Because they mess all your stuff up.

If you couldn’t tell already, she’s full of life and spunk. She’s always been my cautious one that questions everything. She is thoughtful and creative and in so many ways pushes the limits. She’s six going on sixteen as the saying goes and if she is half as determined and outgoing as she is now, then I’ll feel like I’ve done it somewhat right by her.

Happy Birthday Hayden Evelee.

Time to break out the baby stuff and stock up on some zzzzz’s. We are expecting (!!!) and our newest family member is joining us this July. I haven’t shared much on it though. For no real reason other than procrastination and failed attempts at maternity photos.

I have a few wonderful friends that have done beautiful maternity shoots and it’s not uncommon to see people you follow on social media share their spread of gorgeous pregnancy photos. Here is where it got tricky. I’m quite certain they aren’t the ones behind the camera, and as I found out it’s difficult juggling being the photographer and the subject. Throw in a handsy toddler and lighting issues and you find yourself really flailing. I easily became disheartened and put the project on a back burner and thus never got around to writing this post. You need really great photos to go with a big announcement right?!? Thanks Beyoncé. 

After a conversation with MachoTurbo this week where we spent some time discussing family, it became clear to me that taking good pregnancy pictures right now isn’t the hard part. Everything else is. The struggles of raising a family far outweigh whether I have perfect photos documented along the way. I’ve so far been very fortunate to have uncomplicated pregnancies and easy deliveries. I’ve been able to stay active and keep up with our two other little people. We’ve taken home healthy babies and survived those fragile first years without many hiccups. Not everyone can say that, and I try my very best not to take those things for granted. Choosing to have a family is a big responsibility and incredibly rewarding. It’s at times much bigger than me and sometimes you need someone else to put it in perspective for you.

 I’m humbled a little more by each pregnancy and have come to value every part of this journey. Which then makes me feel silly to get so worked up over pictures. Anything can be dressed up and surrounded by props and made to look perfect. But life has flaws and things aren’t always pretty. Sometimes it’s blurry and grainy and not focused right and stuff just doesn’t go as planned. The fact of the matter is that I’m lucky to be able to do all of it. To give someone life. Three times over. It’s an amazing accomplishment and a special privilege and there isn’t really anything comparable. Besides maybe finding your favorite ice cream. On sale, and discovering it’s actually really healthy and you can eat it every day, all day. Which isn’t real, so basically nothing compares to it.

16 weeks and counting. In a few weeks we find out the gender of this little avocado and then we can really get down to business. 🙂

It has been pretty silent on these fronts, but as with most everyone else I have high hopes for the new year that my goals will be met with a little more haste. My Instagram feed for the last week now has been filled with everyone’s #bestnine2016. So in the spirit of sharing in the joy of another great year in the books, here are some of the highlights.

2016 had many travels for us. New places were explored and old friends visited. My best friend got married and we gained another amazing person into our family. We spent holidays with loved ones, creating new traditions in the process. Andy and I were fortunate enough to have yet another adventure packed anniversary, celebrating another blessed year together. A giant thank you to our family that is always kind enough to help us out with the kids so we can spend that time together. Birthdays were abundant, with to many parties to count. Gardens were grown and snow was played in. Hayden started school and Reid made it through potty training without completely doing us in. We got to watch some our favorite people become new parents and we lost an incredible person way to soon. There were ups and downs and everything in between, and I wouldn’t trade any of it. 2017 has so much in it to look forward to, and here’s to hoping that all of you experience your best year yet.

Cheers and Happy New Year!

 

Writing this is bittersweet. For the simple reason that our yard looks nothing like this right now. It’s frost covered and only small patches of green are left. The flowers are long gone and the kids aren’t quite as eager to head out and play. Unlike summer time when it takes some serious convincing to get them to come inside.

I had to do some digging to round up my before pictures. The first ones you’ll see are from a couple summers ago. At this point we had planted grass and put in several flower beds. The playhouse was up but we didn’t have any plans of what we would do around it. We just knew that keeping grass around it was going to be a difficult task with all the little feet that continually stomped around. Also, as you can see, we had quite bit of crazy brush.

We wanted a bigger grassy area for the kids and the dog to run around in, and wanted to cut back on what always became really overgrown. We cut down SO MANY TREES. For a couple reasons. To make more space. To replace them with evergreens (less leaves and more green in the yard during the winter). The biggest reason being that we get some pretty gnarly windstorms and we’ve cleared out all potential trees that could fall on our house. We also had to locate some pipes in our backyard last spring and had a few large holes to fill and level out.

We cut down trees. Pulled stumps and brush. Dug up more roots than I ever care to deal with again. Raked piles and piles of top soil. Dug up more roots. Planted grass and spent many days and nights watering and yelling at kids and dogs to stay off it. Transplanted trees. Built a sandbox around the entire playhouse and brought in sand. I spent many glorious days planting flowers and making new beds. All so that our yard can look like this:

Sharky now has more room to roam and play with his friends. The kids ride their bikes from front to back and all over. All the neighborhood kids come and spend afternoons building sandcastles and jumping from tire to tire. We spent the summer hosting BBQ’s and enjoying every bit of the hard work we put in. Just writing this excites me and I’m ready to count down the days until that grass greens up again and we can spend all our days outside. When we have a lot more of this.

 

 

 

Last month we started our kitchen renovation. While majority of it is finished, we have just a couple minor cosmetic details left. We spent so much time on it that those small things took a back seat so we could take a break and enjoy some family time. From the kitchen, I also moved on to the front of the house and painted the living room, entry way and hallway, and also changed the color of the front bathroom (that room didn’t get photographed because it has horrible lighting, and who cares, it’s just a bathroom). All those areas got a fresh coat of paint and some changes to decor. Going back and looking at pictures of our house from years past, I love to see how our taste and style has changed. I’ve learned to slow down and not rush to fill a space. Find pieces and projects that I really love and want to look at for a long time. And to worry a whole lot less about how it looks to other people. It’s easy to fall into trends and stray away from what pleases you and instead you become focused on what you think others will like. Homes that are Insta perfect and always current or trendy. Perhaps I’m becoming wiser with age, or realized that it’s expensive to constantly be changing things. A combo of both I imagine. As a stay at home mom, what I surround myself with should make me happy. Seeing pictures of our memories and drawings by my children is more important to me than fancy pieces of art. Feeling comfort and content in my living room out weighs the pleasure of uber modern furniture and pieces that inevitably will be broken by my children. All of the shelving we have has been built by Andy, making it all one of a kind and unique. I’ve come to find that I can take all the inspiration and use it in my home for our lifestyle and what fits our family. That right now means tiny hands all over everything and floors that are ALWAYS dirty with crumbs, clothes that don’t make it to the hamper and all of the tiny toys that I didn’t even know we owned. Our home isn’t the biggest. It’s not the fanciest one on the block. It might not always been roomiest or the cleanest. But it is ours, and we are incredibly thankful for what we have. Which makes it perfect and filled with so much love.

Enough of all the babble. Take a peek at the place we call home.

 

While finishing pictures for this blog post I made this  for brunch with a friend that day. Bomb diggity and one I bookmarked to make again. Hope you enjoyed the small home tour and up next I’ll FINALLY show you what we did with the yard this summer!