Family togetherness week

Well we had are annual "family meeting/reunion" this week and it sure was a busy one. We had meetings on Wednesday afternoon and Thursday morning. All the guys went golfing on Thursday afternoon and on Friday the kids went to the Homeless Families Foundation to serve the kids White Castles. Then we were at the zoo for the evening. The kids, well I guess I should say Julianne, enjoyed the Homeless Families Foundation. Julianne was in charge of giving the kids cookies and Nathan handed out plates. Mallory for some reason was not into it and just hung onto me or her aunt. The kids at the center really enjoyed us coming to their school and I heard several comments saying that it was the the best day ever and that they loved White Castle. I talked to a couple of kids that said they did not like WC but they really liked the chicken rings we served and the cookie. Either way it was fun and it was great to get the kids out in the community. Here are some pictures of the event.





My friend Jessica just dropped off my share of the CSA for this week. Well actually I think it is the entire share since she is going out of town. I think she left me the entire share but I have still not heard from her so I am not sure if it is or not. Either way it is a lot of veggies. We have two heads of romaine and a green leaf lettuce, six heads of kohlrabi, two zucchini and some green onions. I really have no idea what to do with the kohlrabi but my friend Jessica has already experimented so I am going to use her Asian salad recipe and make that. I guess the kohlrabi is a type of cabbage so I can use it in the Asian salad.


Things I am grateful/thankful for:
-visiting with my entire extended family
-getting out in the community to do some service
- Nathan saying his favorite part of the day was sharing ice cream with me

Not much going on

There has not been too much interesting activity going on in this household lately. I am also in a blog funk. There has been a lot of "what are we going to do today?" going on. Most of the days have consisted of either going to work out and then swimming, going to the library, hanging out with friends, and mostly just hanging around the house and enjoying the summer. The kids have been on each other nerves lately more and I guess it is because of the extra time together. The past two Monday have been crazy with Julianne 's extra emotional outbreaks and the girls just fighting with each other. The other days have been better. We had to remind the kids of the rules of the house and the rules with each other. So there have been extra consequences given out lately and lots of time-outs and kids up in their rooms. I am guessing that it is because of the change in the routines since they are not in school anymore. The girls have been sleeping together in Mallory's room since school was out. They used to sleep in Mallory's room together on the weekends but since there are not any school days they have been together ever since school was out. So that has been nice for them to reconnect at night and they seem to not fight while they are in their room together.

I have also been working on a quilt. This will be my second official quilt and hopefully I will be able to finish this one. The last one is mostly quilted and just needs to be finished. However, it needs some seem striping in order to get the puckers out of it before it can be finished and I am so over working on it I don't even have the desire to finish it. So I have abandoned that one for over 7 years and now I am finally able to move on. I know that my sewing skills are much better now and my knowledge of quilting has grown over the past 7 years. So we will see. The one I am going to work on is Amy Lotus Brick Path Quilt which was a free download off of Amy Bulter's website. It seems pretty easy and I can quilt in the ditch so that will help me out tremendously. However with any large quilt project there are a lot of cutting steps. I have to cut out 196 "bricks" and I have already done 130 plus so I am almost there. I had to order new fabric and the back so I was waiting for those to arrive for me to finished cutting. I finally got the fabric yesterday so I am going to work on it tonight.


Here are all the fabric choices I am using for the quilt

This is the backing.



This is Nathan trying to blow bubbles. Kids really just do not get it that you have to hold the stick away from the mouth and not spit into the middle. I tried to keep telling him that but he forgets. It is a cute picture and that I why I like it.

This is our neighbors dog. Mallory and Nathan go over to see it almost everyday. I just heard Mallory say, "Molly's out." So they run over to the next yard and pet Molly. Mallory and Nathan are great with the dog. Julianne is still getting used to it and it depends on the day if she likes Molly or not.

Some outdoor playing.

Things I am grateful/thankful for:
-emerging from of my nasty mood for the past week.
-seeing Julianne's progression in her reading skills
-shopping for Father's Day

Our first CSA share

Well we just got our first portion from a CSA, community supported agriculture, co-opt that my friend and I are sharing. We get a portion of the crops each week from now until the end of the growing season. This week we received some green onions, strawberries and peas. So we have already eaten the strawberries and half of the peas, and I put half of the green onions in our salad. It will be good for me to participate in this since I seem to get stuck eating the same food, especially veggies. We used the peas in my tortilla pasta dish that does not call for peas but I added them in. I am a person who goes by the book or follows the recipe and is not really willing or creative enough to deter from it or add to it. So this will be good to try new veggies and to add them into my dishes. It will also be good for the kids to see us buying from a local farmer and supporting a good cause.

The first few days of summer have been busy and somewhat long. We had a few issues on Tuesday with "what are we doing today" but today was better. The girls played better today, yesterday they were yelling at each other and not playing with each other. So it was a better day. I have a few ideas of one day road trips that we will take so that will be fun and we tried to go to the strawberry patch but it was closed for strawberry picking. So I will just take it one day at a time and see how it goes.

Things I am grateful/thankful for:
-Support local agriculture
-getting better sleep
-not having my heal hurt right now, I think I have a heal spur and I have been on ibuprofen the last few days

Weekend retreat

Well we just got back from our short, too short, weekend retreat. D and I drove the kids to Mimi's house and headed to a local state park for some rest and relaxation. There were no TV's, no phones, no cell phone reception, just a lot of lounging around and enjoying the local scenery. We even had to use the Inn's public phone. When was the last time you used a public phone. It actually cost 50 cents now. I brought a quarter with use and was astonished that it cost 50 cents for local calls. Too funny. Mimi ended up not being local, even though it was within the same area code. So we did not have enough money and ended up making a collect call. She was a little taken back when she got a collect call from us. I think she was actually worried but we reassured her that everything was OK we just did not have cell phone reception. We also did a zip line tour and had a lot of fun. It was scary at first being within the trees on a platform and zipping down the cable. I did have several moments that I thought that this could possible break and I could fall down but that fear subsided after the first couple of zips. D and I got to reconnect, spend some quality time together, and to relax so it was terrific. We played Yahtzee, Backgammon and made a 500 piece puzzle.

The kids had a ton of fun at Mimi's and it was nice to have them back. Julianne ended school on Thursday so it was a nice time to get away and to have the kids go somewhere else other than our house. On Thursday we had our neighborhood end of the school year party. The kids had fun in the slip and slide and the sprinkler and the moms got to relax and enjoy some adult beverages.


These are from Julianne's school party


These are from our neighborhood party

Things I am grateful/thankful for:
-being able to take short mini vacations with my husband
-having Mimi there to take care of the kids. She is great!
-seeing deer, other animals, hearing birds, crickets and other natural noises
-not having anything to do

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