Thanksgiving

A midst the wonderful Thanksgiving that we had, we began passing around the stomach flu at our house, I had prayed that everyone would be healthy for the day, and miraculously we were.  We went to my Aunt Amy's again this year, it's been a tradition for a lot of years.  Even when my aunt and uncle lived in a very small house next door to me, we all crammed in.  I love those memories, I love my big, crazy family, that we are all so different and from an outsider's look in, I'm sure no one would guess we are related. 

In my mom's family, she had two brothers and two sisters, and all of them have had two-plus kids, and each of them have been getting married and having kids of their own, making our family HUGE now.  There is someone for each of the kids and grand kids to play with, several times many of us have been expecting at the same time.  Growing up with so many cousins around my age made for some really fun holidays.  I am so glad my kids have that too. 

Every year I wish I would have taken more pictures, but I don't regret that the reason is I get so caught up in the day.  This year was no different.  About eight years ago, my aunt and uncle moved to a big, beautiful, old house, on five acres.  It reminds me of when my cousins and I were little and one of my other uncle's lived on a farm.  We loved running all over that place, so I love that for the past several years all of my kids have run like that all over my aunt's land. 

Calling kids in to eat and watching them come running, all rosie cheeks and smelling of fresh air, what a great site to see.  The weather this year was so beautiful, perfect for playing and exploring outside. 

Because my Uncle Steve was so sick, last year I hosted Thanksgiving for just my immediate family, it was great, but I missed seeing the whole family.  We lost my uncle to cancer soon after that.  It was definitely different this year.  He is greatly missed.  My uncle was a wonderful cook and it was sad to not see him running the kitchen this year.  Don't get me wrong, the food was wonderful, everyone pitched in and there was a huge spread.
While the day was wonderful, it was slightly shadowed by the knowledge that this is probably our last Thanksgiving there, my aunt is moving to Lawrence for her job and selling the house.  Several of us were discussing options for buying it to keep it in the family, but sadly, I think we will all have to let it go.  Funny how a house can be like a family member over time. 

This year there was a new family member, Nick and Stacey's little Levi, to love on, and next year there will be another, Andrea's and Josiah's baby boy.  Our big family just keeps getting bigger and even more wonderful.

Next year there will be a new house to gather in, and everyone will make new memories there.  My cousin, Rob and my dad will get there early to claim their spot on the couch for football watching and napping, and the kids will run and laugh in a whole new place to explore.

And maybe next year, I will take more pictures, like I say I will every year.  But something I hope will never change, is that every year we will all be together, at least for one day.

My Superman

Somehow Rob lost his glasses the other day at work, apparently they were thrown away.  Since he's had the same glasses for about 10 years, I thought it'd be fun if he tried something new.  He wasn't/isn't so sure about them, but I REALLY like them, like A LOT! 

So he's trying to get used to them, but we also got a second new pair that look very much like his old glasses, but do not transition!  I HATE those things, they make taking pictures VERY difficult.  He's been getting some ribbing about them at work too, being called Clark Kent, and Superman.  But he has totally owned it, striking a Superman pose even for them.  Just another reason I love him!  So here's my Superman...

Halloween 2012

What a crazy BUSY Halloween week we have had!  

I feel like this afternoon has been my first breath!

It all started Saturday night when I got to go with the youth group to Gary's Pumpkin Patch, 

it was cold, but a really great time.

I enjoyed getting to know some of the faces I see at church 

every week a little better.  

Did I mention is was COLD???

Then on Monday night we carved and painted pumpkins.

This year I let the kids choose how to do their pumpkins, Faith and Ethan still wanted to carve theirs,

Grace and Zach painted theirs.

I love that Grace painted Pac Man, it makes this 80's era mom, proud.

After we lit the carved pumpkins Zach was a little upset that he couldn't light his up.

This was the first year that Ethan designed and carved his own pumpkin. 

Tuesday morning Faith and I went to a nursing home with my MOPs group, 

there was a great group of kids and 

Faith enjoyed that even more than I thought she would. 

Faith chose to be a "Mom" this year.  She told me everything she needed to be a Mom, things like coffee, a cell phone, a camera, a purse, a baby, jewelry, a cute outfit, and make up.

I thought it was quite interesting to see myself through her eyes.  I made her a little sling for carrying her baby in, just like I used to carry her in and of course we had to visit Starbucks so she could have a coffee cup to carry!

She got a great response from her costume, everyone knew exactly what she was supposed to be!  Of course this has all gone to her head too, she says, "Don't talk to me that way, I'm a MOM!".

That night we got to spend some more time with our MOPs friends 

at a Fall Festival out in Berryton,

it was a wonderful time, including a real hayride and bon fire!  

I love my MOPs group so much!

Wednesday morning at Faith's preschool she had a little parade and party, it was the cutest thing, they sang all of us parents their cute little Halloween songs complete with actions.

This is Faith and her bestie, "Mona" a.k.a Ramona.  They are too cute!

A couple of weeks before Halloween my sister finally told me the theme for their house, CIRCUS!  I helped sew the circus curtains and I still wasn't planning on dressing up, but, well, then I saw this!

 I changed my mind and went shopping, for THIS!  I know, speechless, aren't you?!?!  It was SO FUN showing up to the boy's school parade dressed like this when they didn't know I was dressing up at all!

Ethan didn't recognize me till I talked, neither did Rob!  

Zach knew his mommy right away though, I'm not sure how though!

My sister and her whole family dressed the part, it was so much fun!  You would think that more people would be disturbed by the bearded ladies, but nope, it was me, scarring the young and old in my clown get up!

Grace dressed up as a ninja...

Ethan was a nerd, doesn't he make an amazingly convincing nerd?

And Zach was a dinosaur (of course).

Because my sister and her family live in the Potwin area, we saw probably close to 1200 Trick or Treaters that night, it was amazing and fun, our whole family came, including my mom, who drove here special for the evening.

We were told several times that it was the best house in the neighborhood!

I told Rob that next year I want him to take off work so he can help me with all the parties and events.  Rob and I did get a little down time this week, we went to see my cousin Dalton in his high school play, "The Liar", which was so great.  

On Friday, after Faith's preschool, my mom and I spent some quality time together in Lawrence shopping and lunching, it was a much needed fun time for us. 

That night, since my dad was also in town now, everyone had dinner at my parent's place and then Rob and I left the little ones there and went to see, Agatha Christie's "And Then There Were None" at the Topeka Civic Theater.  I feel so cultured in the arts now. :)

Today, I got to spend some time helping at the New Hope Food Pantry and if you check out my NEW BLOG, as promised on Monday, you can read about that.

www.dailybalancedliving.com

As fun as the week was, I am ready to CRASH!

Sick Times Six

SICK!  This seems to be the theme of my life right now!  We have been passing the same crud from person to person for a couple of weeks now.  Grace (who NEVER gets sick), then Ethan, then Zach (who barely got it), then Faith (who had even less than Zach), then ME (insert very sad face here), now Rob.  I attribute Grace and Faith's strong immune systems to the fact that they both were/are my thumb suckers.  It may not be scientific, but it's what I think. 

While none of my kids like to miss school, all but Faith has had to miss at least one day from this.  I did not have any sick days to spend (but really, what mom does), so I worked through it, I survived.  It was mostly just an upper respiratory thing, so I was really scared it was going to turn into pneumonia for me, again.  Thankfully, it did not, and today, I can finally take a deep breath without coughing again now.

Even though this meant missing work-outs for two whole weeks, as of this week, I am down a total of 27 pounds, which is right on track for my goal of 7 pounds per month!  Exercising can start again this week, after missing two weeks.  I am SO READY! 

The eating right is going really well, I have a new "secret weapon" that is really helping me to stay on track.  It's myfitnesspal.com, its an app for your iPhone, Android, Nook, or like I have mine on the Kindle.  The Kindle lives in the kitchen when not being used, making it perfect for me to use to track my food intake.  It lets me look up and track the foods I eat, records my weight and measurements, exercise, and water consumption.  You will definitely want to check it out.

I have been feeling a little scattered trying to keep balance in my personal schedule and to dos every week, one day running around crazy and another twiddling my thumbs (well, not really, just not as much to do), so I'm trying out a new notebook, it's in the testing phases right now, but in it's completion, I will be sharing that.  I was finding it difficult to be intentional without a plan of action that I can see in front of me.  I want to see my written goals in front of me so that I can stay on top of them and continue to set new ones also.

Something new, that I'm really enjoying is my sister's new blog, makeitworkgirl.com, I'm "One of the Girls".  Be sure to check it out!  My own new project is still in the works, but progress is being made, so that's exciting too. 

While I'm currently still playing nurse to a sick Rob, who is still working through his sickies, I pray this house finds itself healthy again in the next few days, I feel like a good bleaching or Lysol binge is on the horizon, and hopefully the weather is nice enough tomorrow to open the windows and air it all out.  Sick times six is no fun at all.

Everything In Its Place

In an effort to continue organizing every area of my life, this is by far the one area that I have been dreading.  The before of this project is absolutely embarrassing.  There was seriously no where to walk in this closet, things were crammed in everywhere, things that do not belong in a closet and an excess of all things that do belong in there.  This room has been a terrible place to begin and end my day.

One of the major issues of this house of ours for me is that we have no actual basement, because it is a split level and there is very little storage anywhere.  The largest storage area we have is the attic and it gets too hot and too cold to store many things, I lost a snow globe stored in a box of Christmas and learned the hard way about that.  So I have learned to become very creative.

Because we have four bedrooms, two of which are large and two that are on the smallish side, we opted to put the girls in one room and separate the boys, leaving the master suite for Rob and I (obviously).  In our recent remodel we opened up our main floor eliminating my space for crafting.  I didn't realize how much I'd miss it, I thought I would craft on the kitchen table, but I don't like not being able leave it and come back without having to clean up every time.  So in the midst of my closet makeover I carved out a little space for crafting also.


I was very surprised to find how many of the file boxes I had on that top shelf full of, well, basically crap!  A couple of them were almost empty even.  I kept thinking, how did this get THIS BAD?  Obviously life is hectic and somethings can get pushed to the side, apparently all of those things got pushed into my closet.

So, here is the BEFORE...(CRINGE!)

AND, the AFTER...(Dramatic, isn't it?)

To achieve my dramatic results I actually filled more than 7 bags of items to take to charity and trash and spent about 18 hours over the course of 3 days.  I kicked the 2 file cabinets to the curb, they were sitting in there with basically nothing in them, just taking up space.  Also the paper sorter was tossed and I organized my papers in a smaller file box with it now sitting by the printer in my room (what a great idea, put it where you use it!).
Generally I like to plan out what I'm going to do when I start a project like this, in this case, I pretty much just dove in and let it evolve on its own.  I knew that I wanted a craft space, but I wasn't sure if I could squeeze it in.  I moved things around several times to get it just right.  I had the black desk sitting in the hallway because there was no room in the garage to store it (Rob's working on that space this week!).  We do not have dressers in our bedroom, to save space, so instead I use these Sterilite three drawer sets, they work great for crafts and clothes.

This is not a huge closet, but it is good sized at 6 foot wide and 12 foot long.  The gem in it is that it has a window!  You could only see glimmers of light through the hanging clothes before, so the desk just had to go in front of it.  To organize, I scrounged all over the house, garage, attic and other closets to find all the bins, baskets, and containers to put everything in.

The things I purchased were the self-adhesive plastic labels for totes and drawers.  I found them on eBay, they cost $1.99 for a package of 6.  I also purchased the 12x12 plastic container at Michael's, it was $19.99 with three hanging folders and I used the 40% off coupon for that.  The tags I laminated myself and the chalkboard labels I had from some previous projects, I bought them on eBay also.

I am fully aware that most people do not just collect the types of things you see in here, so I did go in search of some items that would work similarly and found several containers that you could use at the Dollar Store, Walmart and Target.  My favorite places for baskets are TJ Maxx and Gordmans. Several fabric baskets and boxes were on clearance at Lowe's also.

Tips for organizing your own closet or craft space

1. Decide how you will use the space
2. Only keep items in your space that you currently are using (only clothes that CURRENTLY FIT!) 
3. Have plenty of trash bags on hand
4. Make a give it away box, trash, and sell box and sort through EVERYTHING
5. Combine like items (maybe this is a "duh")
6. Label boxes and baskets to make items easy to find
7. Don't overfill boxes or drawers to allow for growth (this is especially important for crafting supplies)
8. Everything MUST have a place
9. Use all surfaces for storage including the door

Since my closet makeover this is now a place that I feel freedom of creativity with everything in reach, and it's a wonderful place to start the day and end it.  Now there is a place for everything and everything is in its place.

What I Want To Be When I Grow Up

It maybe a funny question to think about after I'm well past 30, but I'm asking, "What do you want to be when you grow up?", maybe it's more appropriate for me to say, "What do you want to do when your kids grow up?".  Either way, as a 30-something I have been thinking about this for some time.  With Keith moved out and graduated now and starting Faith in preschool, I am finding myself with some time to myself that I did not previously have.  So, I am asking myself, what do I want to do with that time?  And then when there is even more time, what do I want to do with that?

I have for the longest time thought that I wanted to be a public speaker, I know, I know, most everyone just gasped and their heart sped up a bit just thinking about standing in front of a lot of people to say anything.  I am the opposite.

What would you speak on?  Glad you asked!  I truly believe that God has brought me through a variety of experiences in my life so that I would have tools to share with others, and let me tell you, sometimes I feel like I have a 170 piece set in my tool box!

Several times in my life I have thought that I can't just let this be just something that happened to me, I have to allow God to use it in me for something good, not even just good, amazing, miraculous!  I am going to leave myself open to wherever He leads, which is somewhat scary, in a very exciting kind of way!

Be watching for a new blog I will be launching soon.

Eight Years Later...

A few days ago, on the 27th, Rob and I celebrated our 8th anniversary of our first date, it was a blind date too!  Eight years later, we have definitely endured a lot together, more than either one of us would have asked for.  Especially the past five years, there is no denying that we have struggled, to the point of almost breaking even, the repercussions of the flood we went through are still far reaching, emotionally, and very much financially.

Rob's work schedule has been a stress on us all, but in the past few weeks, it has been getting better, last week he actually had two days off.  I hardly knew what to do with him here.  He has had to work most Sundays, but the past few weeks he has gone in early so he could leave at 11 so he could be at church with us, considering Pastor Casey has been teaching on marriage, this has meant a lot to me.

One of the things that I have seen make a noticeable difference in our relationship is our weekly "team meetings", where Rob and I sit down and talk about our family's calendar for the week, our finances, and anything else regarding the kids that we need to discuss.  It allows us to stay on the same page when it comes to managing our home and family.

Another thing that has made a noticeable difference is that we have started doing the finances together, previously I had been doing them by myself, then Rob took them over and was doing them by himself, and both ways just really didn't work, with both of us working on them together, we have really seen a big difference, not only in our attitudes toward money, but we are well on our way to being out of debt (FINALLY!!!).

Something that Pastor Casey challenged us to do was go out to dinner together and commit to each other to do whatever it takes to make our marriage work.  We chose a Wednesday night to do this, because all the kids were going to be at church for youth group and Awana, that night, we realized that it was the perfect night to have a weekly date night.  Previously we were trying to make Sunday evenings work, but it was a struggle with the kids schedules and we recently joined a small group that meets on Sunday nights.  But Wednesday nights are great, the kids have their activities and we have two hours all to ourselves to work on our marriage.  Because we are working hard to get out of debt, we won't be going out to dinner every week, so there will be some creative date nights happening, I'll post some of those ideas another time.

I'm so proud of us and the distance that we have come, I feel so blessed that Rob is so committed to working on our marriage and makes efforts to grow our relationship.  Just the other day Zach walked into the room while Rob and I were kissing and said, "You kiss too much!", I couldn't help but feel some pride at that comment, it is something that Rob and I had consciously made a decision to do.  Kiss more, hug more, talk more, especially if you are a newlywed couple, that might sound strange, but we have realized that life is crazy busy (especially with all these kids!), and if we don't consciously make efforts to show each other love, sometimes it doesn't happen. 

In eight years, what I am very sure of is two things.  1) Rob and I are very different, like night and day in almost every area.  2)What we do have in common, what is the most important, is our love for our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, and that is really everything we need for this marriage to work.