Hello Monday

Hello new week.

Hello spending all Sunday afternoon in a class learning all about my new computer.

Hello day date with my first born. So precious.

Hello cute kiddos that watch their mamas clean up the kitchen.

Hello needing to re-focus on my clean eating. These two blogs are really helpful.

The Gracious Pantry and 100 Days of Real Food.

Hope you all have a wonderful week.

Thankful Thursday (but on a Saturday)

1. For the friends my Calvi has. He's had a very social week of at least one coffee or lunch date everyday. The boy is going to need a second job in order to afford his social life, or a Proverbs 31 wife that will allow him such luxuries.

2. My baby took a spill on his skateboard this week. It was a horrible fall and he's quite the mess. But I'm SO VERY thankful that it was not so much worse. During our day at the hospital, we heard countless tragic stories, it makes me quite emotional to think of what 'could have been'.

3. Enlisting prayers from our friends for more work, and within just this past week, we got four new phone calls. So thankful for HIS provision.

4. My job. Did you know that I work? I do. I do all the books and such for our company. I'm FINALLY starting to take it seriously. After 13 years, I figured it was probably about time. Ha! The past two weeks I have been having to pretty much re-learn everything as I've switched to doing the books off of a software program and am now on an online application. Ugh!!! "It's hard to teach an old dog new tricks!"

5. Homeschooling. I'm amazed that I'm almost done. That I've lasted as long as I have. I'm thankful for all the different opportunities there are in our area. It's been a stressful summer trying to navigate and plan and make sure I finish their schooling well, but I'm excited and thankful for our upcoming year.

6. Friendships. Walking every morning this week with sweet Monica; the time flies by as we do circles up and down the hills in her neighborhood and vent all our woes and tell all our stories. Plus a very special night last night with some favorite friends that we haven't spent time with in many years. Precious.

7. The weather was cooler this week, WOW, so much cooler. We could go on our walks anytime of the day and not pass out.

8. I started using fabric softener sheets in the dryer, AS WELL as using the liquid downey in the wash...the towels and SO MUCH softer. Oh the joy of burying your face in a nice fluffy towel that smells so divine. Sometimes it's the little things that make a big difference.

9. The neighborhood pool. Love it that the kids can have their friends over and they all just go to the pool. What fun!!!

10. My Sweetie is teaching a class tomorrow at church. I love it when he teaches. So thankful he gets opportunities to share his gifting.

Hope you all have a wonderful weekend!!!

Tour Tuesday - The Kitchen

(I forgot to post this yesterday, so forgive me, I'm a day behind.)

My kitchen. Love this kitchen, I love how it opens to the rest of the house. I love the arrangement. I might want to paint the cabinets a white color, but this house gets so much light that I never feel like it's dark in here.

My favorite square wreath is from Target (a long time ago).

My baking center. I am a lover of all things baked.

Food storage. Boring. But well organized.

My beloved spice cabinet. Makes me look like a real cook.

Where I keep my extra mason jars & lids. Our extra vitamins. (Yes, I'm a vitamin junkie.) And our paper goods.

Cooking utensils.  I keep them in one drawer, if they start not fitting, it's time to get rid of something!

Knives and all things sharp.

Pots, pans, lids, skillets, mixing bowls & measuring cups.  I love that all the lower cabinets have the pull out shelves.

Under the kitchen sink.  I'm in love with those dishwasher pods, how easy are those things!?

Pantry love.

Pure bliss.

I have a mixture of mis-matched white dishes, it suits me just fine, especially since I've got two clumsy boys that do the dishes everyday and tend to break things.

This is what happens when your son finds you in the kitchen trying to take pictures. He's so helpful.

I have been put on restriction from buying anymore mugs.  I love mugs, I don't know why.

We have lots of silverware.  We are constantly running out of spoons, so I stock up when I can.

The tea drawer.  I have gotten back into drinking tea, as long as it's caffeine free and  TAZO brand is my favorite.

The coffee pod drawer.

Small appliances.  My two favorite ones are on the lower left, my Vitamix and my waffle maker.

The junk drawer, AFTER I straightened it.  See those red trimmed circle stickers, from the Martha Stewart line at Staples, I love them, I use them to label everything.  Just love the Martha Stewart line at Staples.  Anyone else??

That's my kitchen, time to go cook something.  Thanks for visiting.

Hello Monday

Here are the latest pictures of our summer adventures:

Playing Yatzee one night, Winston likes to play, but he couldn't get his full house. Poor thing.

One more family shot while in the car. This is going to become our Christmas card picture, cuz it's the only time I think to take a picture of all of us. So lame.

I love summer storms, but this one was a little scary looking.

Love sitting on the front porch during the rain.

Face Timing with Sweetie and Dave every morning when they were on their big baseball extravaganza trip.

Snuggling with my favorite boo while watching a movie.

While in San Diego, our trips over lapped by a couple of days. I hadn't seen these two in a week, I was SO excited to spend a day with them.

My mother-in-law is precious.

My Daddy is hilarious and such a cutie-patootie. Though he's going to kill me for posting this picture of him.

A most precious afternoon with my mama and sister, love them so much.

Then this lady from church got on my case for not blogging in awhile....

it's okay though, she's the sweetest lady in all the land. (Hi Sally!)


Over Easter weekend we got to take a trip to the mountains.

We were super excited.



We went with some super-duper friends.



This is Grant, posing like he does, in front of our totally-rockin'-awesome cabin.

And yes, there was snow on the ground, so daily snow ball fights were had by all.



This pretty much summed up what we did all weekend. Grant walking back from the kitchen with food in his mouth, typical. Monica working on the blasted afghan that she feels she will never finish. Gracie in her lap snuggling. Jay in his favorite spot where he would daily nap in front of the basketball game. Me just being thankful he wasn't working and was relaxed.



This was also a typical scene. Gracie and Dave on their phones, Grant in the middle looking like he was ready to pounce on one of them.



Hannah and Calvin were twinsies for like a couple of days, cuz isn't that what you do when you're on vacation, you wear the same clothes over and over again? Yep.



Grant tried to tackle the Dave into a snow bank. I DID NOT get the picture of him picking him up and slamming him down into the pile of ICE! Let's just say, there was much laughter, and then blood and scrapes. Good times.



This is my Monica friend. My walking buddy. Love her. See how sweet and cute we are?



Yeah, not so sweet and cute now. We got all excited, we thought we had found Dave's phone, he had been stealing ours all weekend and posting gosh awful pictures on them, so we did this to his....but unfortunately it was Jay's phone...he STILL has this as his wallpaper. Goober.



In the backseat on the way home.



After picking up Winston from the boarding place. They just snuggled like this all the way home. It was the sweetest thing.


And now for some random pictures off my phone....



This is a daily occurrence, to find pictures like this on my phone. Turtle-boy.



My babies had just gotten home from their youth retreat. They had an amazing time. Loved hearing all their experiences and seeing their joy. Precious.



Dave had a presentation in class on Napoleon Bonaparte and THIS is what he used for his opening slide. That boy is hilarious. Yes, he got an A.



Calvi gave me a tattoo during church one day. Love it.



The boys decided to go study at a place in town one day, I missed them, so I sent them this picture.



Then this one.



Then they said something sarcastic back at me, so I sent them this one.



Calv-Boo came into our room one night to 'share', love his heart. Getting some wisdom from his Daddy and taking it in.



This cat naps more than I do, and that's hard to do!



Had to take Winston to get his shots, the other day...this is him staring me down while I was driving there, he knew EXACTLY where we were going. It was the saddest thing, while we were in the waiting room, a family came out that had just had to put their precious doggie down. They were all crying, but I lost it when the Dad was carrying the boy, both were sobbing and the Dad was speaking soothing words to his son. That was it, I went into the ugly cry right there in front of them sitting in the waiting room. It broke my heart. I do NOT look forward to the day when that will be us with the Winston.



But on a happier note; did you know I was married to Superman? What a stud, this guy.



Eating lunch with my babies, and THIS is what I get to look at. Wow.



Had a totally fun day out with my sweet friend Mimi, we had sushi. I hadn't had sushi since last summer. It was SO yummy. This was my baby dragon roll. Too cute.



Calvi and I took a 'selfi' while running errands one day.



Dave was snuggling with me on the couch, but when I tried to take a picture, THIS is the face he gave me. Goober.



And I leave you with this image. Look how content that kitty is, his favorite snuggle spot. So sweet.