Our 10th wedding anniversary

Well we had our 10th wedding anniversary on Friday and it was a night and day to remember. About a few months ago D suggested that we get our pictures taken on or around our anniversary this year since this was the year we were due to get our family pictures taken. So we said it would be a great idea. Then D suggested that I get into my wedding dress and we have the girls wear their flower girl dresses from their aunt and uncles wedding last year. So I thought it sounded like a great idea. Something that would be fun, creative and exciting. So we had our favorite photographer at Open Image Studio come and take our pictures. He really had a vision of taking them on our red couch in our back yard. So we brought out the couch and got some great shots on the couch. He should have them up on his blog in a week so when he puts them up I will attach a link. We got Nathan a little suit and he looked so cute in it. I was afraid that he would say "I said No" to me putting it on and make a big fuss but he had no troubles wearing it and he looked so cute in it. The girls also looked adorable in their dresses and D looked as handsome as he did when we got married in his suit.

After we got our pictures taken D's mom took the kids and we changed into causal clothes and went to a park to get more photographs. We got some pictures taken in a swing together, behind a old building with deteriorating paint and in front of a white house. So we will see how they look. I am excited to see them and I was downstairs changing into my wedding dress when the photographer was taking the kids pictures. So I do not really know what poses or how that was going so I will be excited to see how they turned out. It was fun to do and I hope we will be able to do it again on our 20th wedding anniversary.

After the pictures we went to a downtown restaurant and had a nice relaxing dinner. I surprised him at home with his 10 wedding anniversary gift, which is tin/aluminum, of an aluminum bucket that you put ice and beverages in. He really liked it and he got me a "tin cup" necklace with pearls and amethysts. It is really pretty and I was excited to wear it but it was broken so we have to send it back so I will have to wait to see how it looks on.

We also got really good news on the 29th that we had a contract coming in for our house in Tennessee. We were so excited but I know that it is the very beginning of the process and we will see if everything goes well. The contract says that we should close no later than July 7th. So that would be prefect. So I am hoping that everything goes well and this one goes smoothly.

D also surprised me for our anniversary by getting his hair cut shorter, which he did not really have to, but it was a nice suggestion. He also sent me lovely flowers and chocolate. Here are some of the beautiful flowers he sent me.


Things I am grateful/thankful for:
-Having great weather this weekend
-Spending good quality time with D on our anniversary
-knowing that someone likes our house in TN
-feeling happy

Our week in review...

Well we had a great relaxing week and a busy weekend. I took the entire week off of crafts/sewing/cleaning, well not really, and anything else productive since I am spent from the last few weeks of being too busy. It was nice and relaxing. I sat on the couch a lot and did a bunch of nothing. On Thursday I had to put that aside and go back to working and cleaning and getting ready for my friend Katie to visit from Knoxville. I was so excited that she was coming up and I was excited to reconnect and to have another crafty friend to talk to. She got here around 11:00 ish on Friday night so I got to see her daughter for the first time in probably over a year and then we had to get her settled back down to sleep. On Saturday morning we talking and lounged and then made it over to the North Market where we went to the local farmers market and ate lunch at the market. It was great to go back there. I really do love that place but never make it over there. It was great to show her some cool spots in our town and I knew that she would like it. In the afternoon we went to my beloved going out of businesses fabric/sewing store and again stocked up on their half price fabrics. Katie was a talented fabric organizer and helped me pick out coordinating fabrics and even organized some of the fabrics in the store, since they were not really organized. I wish she lived closer so she could go fabric shopping with me more often. I think I would learn a lot from her since i do not really have any crafty friends in town. The girls got to spend the night over at Grandma Marci's so they were excited to do that and it wired to have only Nathan. It was like we only had one child again. That night we made dinner, went to Graters and we relaxed on the couch with a movie.

Sunday we relaxed in the morning and then I took her to Trader Joe's since she wanted to go and I needed to get food for dinner that night. She also loved that store and much to her husbands dismay she bought a lot of food for her house in Knoxville. I will be anxious to hear if she likes the food she purchased. That afternoon they headed over to another friends house for a trip to the ice cream store and to the park. She got home around dinner and we invited our close neighborhood friends over for a cookout. It was a lot of fun and I think that Katie and her husband still had a good time eventhough they were surrounded by strangers. We ended the night by playing Cranium. Which is one of my favorite games to play. it was fun. I was declared the worst "Star Performer" but helped out in the "Creative Cat" category.

The weekend was great and I was really sad to see her leave. She reminds me of my K-town days and that is a part of me that I miss and she is also a great friend and I missed that about her also. I feel like we did not have as much time as I would want to talk and to do other things around this town but I guess it will have to do. Thanks again for coming up and hopefully soon I can come down there.

Ken holding his "twins".

This is Adeline. She is only three weeks older than Nathan. The kids had a good time playing together. Mallory especially liked watching after Adeline and taking care of her.

D and I ran the annual 5 miler memorial day race in our town and it was really fun because we had our neighbor girl watch the kids and then the kids ran the kids race. I ran the race in 39 minutes and D ran it in 35 minutes. So we both had great races and it was nice to push myself. Julianne ran the entire kids run and Mallory ran/walked the run and Nathan ran/walked/went in the stroller during the race. They all got medals for running it and it was nice to see them proud of themselves. We were extra proud of Julianne since this is the first competition that she has been in and she had fun and was not too concerned with not being first or worrying that she could not do it. She actually had fun which is what she should do. So I was happy that she did that.

When we got home we helped our neighbor plant veggies in our neighborhood garden. The garden is between two neighbors houses and we are going to help them take care of it and in exchange be able to eat some of the veggies that we helped grow. So the kids had fun and we will see if the effort continues.


This is a sweet letter that Julianne wrote to her teacher this week while I was writing thank you notes to Mallory's teacher. She really took her time and did not ask me to help and it was nice to see her effort. She really loves her teacher and I think it shows in her letter.

Mallory and I decorated her butterflies that her aunt and uncle gave her for her birthday. It was a fun craft and we had fun thinking up ways to decorate them. Hopefully soon we will hang them in her new room.


Mallory has a new friend that she found on a tree this week. This poor caterpillar has been touched, picked up, dropped and it even tried to escape several times. Mallory is so excited about it and so wants it to turn into a butterfly. She had butterflies at school and she thinks that this one will do the same. I am starting to feel bad for the caterpillar since it has been in the plastic container for several days but I guess it could be in worse conditions.


This is a pretty "weed" from my neighbors yard. I really love it the way it looks and I just had to take a picture of it.


Things I am grateful/thankful for:
-Katie and her family coming up to Ohio for a great visit
-spending quality time with friends
-running a great race
-seeing the girls play well with friends

Mallory's Birthday extravaganza

We celebrated Mallory's birthday this weekend with a three day party. D's mom took the kids on Friday night and we painted Mallory's room purple and put her new bedding in, carpet and other decorations. I forgot to actually take pictures of the room before she got in there but when she came home from Mimi's she was very excited and just started jumping on her bed. She said she loved the purple, the "measure chart", her carpet and her new bedding.



On Saturday evening she had her friend birthday party. She invited 5 friends but only 2 of them could come and her cousin came also. So it was a good crowd, the girls all played very well together and enjoyed decorating the bag. She was really cute with her friends and it was nice to see her have her day with her friends.






Our neighbor girl came over and helped with the party and she gave Mallory these stuffed animals. She loved playing with them.

On Sunday we had her family party. She also had a great time at the family party and enjoyed playing with her cousins and seeing her baby cousins. She is happy that she is 5 years old. She kept saying that she would buckle herself in her car seat when she turned 5 and sure enough she now buckles herself in her chair and is very proud of it. It is nice for me since that is one less person I have to buckle in.



I love her face as she is opening her card.

However, the last few days she has had some extra attitude. So I don't know if she is testing her 5 year old self but she has been saying a lot of "no's", Oh, Fine, and not listening to me. She usually does not spend much time in time out but the last few days she has made up for that time. So hopefully this is not a long lasting phase.

Things I am grateful/thankful for:
-Our sweet Mallory
-seeing her happy and loving the birthday attention
-getting everything together without losing my sanity
-fabulous weather for the entire weekend

Catching up

Well I have been busy latetly sewing, rescreening our screened porch, installing a new ceiling fan and light in Mallory's room so I have not been able to post. I sewed two fabric trash cans for my car. My car is a trash pit for my kids. I have to feed them, mostly breakfast bars and snacks, in the car since we are always on the go and it is easy to give them something to eat in the car and it helps with cranky behavior. Anyway so my car is always a wreak. So I made fabric trash bags so that they can throw their own trash away. I got the idea from this great blog, Make it and Love it. I do not have pictures but I love them and they turned out great.

I also made a dress, well actually it truned out to be a shirt for my newest neice Lexee. It was really cute and also really easy to make also. I go the pattern from this website and I hope to make her another one soon.

This is the front

This is the back with the cute little buttons

There she is. It fit really well so I am glad that I did not have to do any alterations.

What a cutie pie.

This weekend our friends came over on Saturday night for dinner and my friend's husband is a professional photograhper. He owns Open Image Studio which is a professional photography studio in our town. He brought his camera which has an amazing lens on it and he let me shoot some pictures with it. It was really fun but it weighed about 10 poulds, at least if felt that way. So it was fun and the pictures did turn out a lot more crisper and the lens enables portrait pictures to be taken with the subject in focus and the background blurry. So here are some of my unedited pictures.









Monty took this picture

Mother's Day was very nice and relaxing. D and the girls made me waffles and D bought two great outfits for this summer and spring. The girls made me very cute cards and Nathan loved laying in bed with me. I worked out and then came home for lunch. D took the kids to his moms in the afternoon and I started sewing Mallory's bedskirt and tried to get my computer's internet working. So it was nice to have a couple hours to myself to think and to do things around the house without interruption and not having to do it after the kids go to bed. My husband always does a great job taking care of me on Mother's Day. He picks out the best outfits and he makes sure I get to take it easy. Thanks for a great day D.

I feel better now that I got to catch up on things I wanted to post. I will be busy this week and this weekend. We are having D's mom take the kids on Friday night and we are going to paint Mallory's room and get it all ready with her new bedspread/sheets/etc and surprise her when she gets home. For our kids 5th birthday we get them new bedroom furniture and bedding. Mallory does not really need new furniture so we are getting her a new rug, sheets, comforter and new paint. She picked out this bedding set from Pottery Barn Kids. On Saturday evening we are haivng her friends party. She is having only a few friends over for crafts, games, cake and food. Then on Sunday we are having her family party. So we have a busy weekend with lots of fun and excitment.

Things I am grateful/thankful for:
-seeing Nathan's face while he was running away from a chipmunk. He was running really fast and the expression on his face was priceless
-having fantastic weather
-a great Mothers Day

The doll house

I was suppose to post on Sunday but my computer Internet was not working so I was not able to work on it last night. So our week was a great week. The doll house came on Monday and the kids were so excited. They love it and I love having it in our house. My grandmother and late grandfather built it and decorated the house after Julianne was born. They have had it at their house for the past 7 years and we finally got it here. The detail on the house is amazing and my grandmother's decorating is also very detailed. We are so lucky to have this house in our house and we will keep it for our grandchildren. They constructed a Victorian Era house because that is the type of house that I would love to own. So here are the pictures. The pictures do not do it justice since we had to put in our basement so I had to take these shots in the basement under ugly florescent lighting and concrete walls.

Here are the girls opening the boxes of furniture


Here is the front

The top porch

The bottom porch and front door



Dining room. Don't you love the furniture and the chandelier

Here is the kitchen. It is hard to get to the kitchen from the side opening so it was hard to take this pictures.

Living room

A bedroom. Notice the curtains.

The master bedroom. Notice the bathroom fixtures like the tub and sink.


These two pictures are of the upstairs bedroom/playroom. I love the ceilings.

Well that is our new heirloom dollhouse. The girls love it. Nathan could really care less about it but I am sure when he gets older the girls will make him play with it with them. That is probably the best thing now since we do not want him to break it.

Things I am grateful/thankful for:
-Having the doll house in our house. It reminds me of my grandmother and my late grandfather.
-seeing the girls enjoy the craftsmanship of the house and telling their friends to be careful with it.
-Great weather.

Toy cleaning weekend

Julianne threw up on Friday morning so we keep her home Friday morning from school. She ended up not really being sick. She threw up twice on Wednesday night, was fine the next day then Friday morning, early morning, she threw up again in her bed. She was fine by 9:00 am so I sent her to school. I don't really know what was going on. She was worried about making up her Fairy Tale story at school and she had makeup work to do on an animal research project so I do not know if she was stressing herself out or just had some wired food. Anyway she was fine but my point is that I did not go to spinning on Friday like I usually do and had the entire morning at home with the kids. This meant that I was able to de-clutter and get rid of a ton of toys. I got rid of most of the toys from the basement. I got rid of a ton of Little People sets, some old groovy girls, books, old naked barbies and some outside toys. I gave them all to Goodwill and it feels great.

We are actually cleaning because Grandma's dollhouse is coming on Monday. We are so excited to have it in our house and I am excited to see it again. It has been several years since we have seen this homemade house that my grandmother and grandfather made for Julianne. When it gets here I will take plenty pictures of it so that you all can see the handiwork, detail, energy and love that was put into this precious gift.

On Saturday we were greeted by the Goodyear Blimp flying over our house. There was a regatta this weekend at the Scioto River which is only about a mile away from our house and the blimp was flying over the event. Nathan loved watching it circle our house. He also loves finding sticks and other pointy features and making gun sounds out of them. He puts it right over his chest and says "ch". It is hilarious and it I love his scrunched up face. I was finally able to capture this moment in these pictures. This first picture is his face as he is saying "ch".







Some water fun


Mallory had her preschool performance and graduation on Thursday. She got to sing on stage and really enjoyed it. She tried to remember the songs before the recital but could not remember them. I took some pictures but they did not turn out. My friend, who is a professional photographer, took some pictures so when he sends them to me I will post them. She still has school for a couple more weeks so she is not done with school it was just a early graduation.



Nathan has had another minor asthma episode. I think that his allergy episodes are minor compared to his asthma episodes triggered by colds/viruses. He had a dry cough on Friday and then on Saturday he was breathing harder and had a temperature of 100 and then today he is coughing a lot more and coughing mucus up and breathing normally. I never gave him a treatment because he was not breathing very hard. It was only really when he was running that he was breathing extra hard. So we will see. His last episode was March 30th. An this one was May 1st so technically he did not have an episode last month. Which would be the first month he has not had an asthma episode since his first one last October. His arms are breaking out in eczema again like they did last spring and his legs are also breaking out more. He also has a rash on his belly which I am not really sure what it is. It does not itch so it is probably just something unrelated but it does seem wired.

Things I am grateful/thankful for:
-seeing a deer on my Friday morning run
-reorganizing our toys
-having a great weekend