1. We have knobs and pulls our cabinets now. This is a big deal. Not only does it look great, but it means we're getting to the finish line... Next up: trim on the cabinets. Forgive the poor photo - the little guy was tugging on me while I was taking it.

2. Have discovered that I actually do like coffee... but only black with maple syrup in it. It's pretty great that way.

3. Now we have to buy a gallon of maple syrup to make it last. This is the brand that we use - local and oh, so good.

4. I've been eyeing this pendant light. I've never bought anything from Pottery Barn, so this feels really indulgent. Looking doesn't hurt anything... right?

5. I'm always amazed how I can justify some purchases (like the light fixture), but we've been without a microwave for over nearly a year now, and we're not planning on getting another anytime soon. Weird (though we didn't use it much anyway).



6. It is definitely boating season here in the great up north. The little guy has been quite obsessed with all of the boats that we have seen lately.

7. And he definitely loves the beach, but really, who doesn't?

8. Fun, but tiring weekend of farmer markets, a wedding and a bridal shower. I had fun putting my friend's gift together (had to sneak my fave Mrs. Meyer's scent into it).

9. We've been talking a lot about our "story" (Donald Miller "A Million Miles in a Thousand Years"). I have so many thoughts and emotions on this book - what our story is about as a family, and it rekindled my motivations and renewed peace in a lot of areas in my life. This is a whole other post, and I do promise to share.

10. I've written two posts in a week. Yay for me.

List of Life

It's been a little while, but felt a little inspired to blog again. Hope everyone is doing well, and enjoying the first portion of June!

Our life as a list:

1. Summer is coming! Garden is in - we have tomato plants, peas, beans, kale, peppers, broccoli, spinach. Hoping it's a good year, and hoping it consistently stays warm.

2. Some of my favorite books I've read lately: "Power of Play", and "Bittersweet".

3. We're taking a break from all extracurriculars this summer. Sometimes we all need a break and rest.

4. We're getting a play structure for the kids today. Yay!

5. Work has been crazy for both of us. Seriously crazy for me. I have 28 cases, with three more on the way, and two more referrals.

6. That said, God has answered a prayer regarding work. I've been working a ton - enjoying the job, but not really wanting to be away from the kids three or four days a week. My boss approached me about going down to two days, so that we could move someone else into our program. I was like, um yes, I do! So starting July 1, I will be transitioning down to two days a week. Excited to have more family time, and still keep my job.

5. We've designated Sunday as a media free day for the family. No movies, television, internet. Just a day of rest.

6. We've had a sick week in our house. The girly was sick last weekend, now I'm not feeling the greatest and the little man came home with a fever yesterday. :(

7. The little guy had his two year birthday a couple of weeks ago. Crazy how fast time goes. The big guy had his much much much older birthday too. He built a computer to celebrate. :)

8. Looking forward to lots of beach time, berry picking, CSA shares, and farmers markets. Hooray!!!

Okay, so it's been nearly a year since I wrote my last post. Hmmm... that probably won't change. I'll just keep this blog open for when I feel inspired and have the time to sit. Here's my life in list format:

1. The sun is shining AND it's Friday. Praise God. Please make this snow go away.

2. Eden is sporting her ballerina outfit this morning. She's been showing me what she learned from class... I've never taken dance before, but I did not know there was a balloon move.

3. A friend gave me farm fresh eggs the other day. Mmmm...

4. Blessed that my clients continually open their door week to week allowing me to join in on the mess of daily living. Certainly wouldn't get this kind of relationship if they came to my office. It's an honor to have my job.

5. Rhys is counting and starting to sing the "abc" song. This stage is so much fun.

6. One month since we've become debt free! We took the month off from money management and bought an armoire and flat screen TV. Our old, old, old TV has served us well over the past eight years, and to the others before it was given to us.

7. I miss our early years in which we didn't have cable TV. Trying to convince the hubby to go back in time. He ain't buying it. :)

8. God is doing an amazing work in my life. He's leading me through a hurdle that I've been staring at for a little while, and it's so humbling and wonderful to see where we're going together.

9. Eden keeps asking to take piano lessons. I am incredibly excited about this... though she should probably wait another year? Anyone know when an appropriate time to learn happens to be?

10. Thinking about school for the fall... considering montessori, public preschool, and even homeschooling.... yikes. Liking montessori the most right now.

11. Trying to gear up for a 5k in spring with a friend and some family. Hoping it's warmer than last year.

12. So proud of how hard my wonderful husband works to provide... and still has time to play with the kids and do chores around the house. So blessed to have him.

13. Getting ever so much closer to being done with our house... we still have to do lighting, trim, another painting job, backsplash, but... we're closer. :)

14. Looking forward to spring break! We're all taking time as a family to do some fun close to home activities... maybe water park? Children's Museum? Discovery Center? So excited.

15. It's spring people! Hooray!!

Islands

Today has been such a beautiful reminder of how important friendship is to me. God has allowed so many lovely people to surround me. I am so thankful that God answered my prayer to provide kindred spirits in this tiny town we live in. Lord knows I needed it.

There are moments when life gets hectic, or difficult, and it's my tendency to become insular. I am a fairly social person - after all, I chose a career that is people driven, and my mom always reminds me how I was never able to play by myself as a child. I justify this isolation by saying I'm exhausted, an introvert, or just plain too busy to get together with someone. And you know what? That's how I know that Satan is creeping in, because it's during those times that I become depressed, lonely (go figure), and negative.

God must be showing me something, because I've had the same feelings twice: we have some friends that we haven't seen since March (tsk tsk tsk), and I've been meaning to call her. When I would actually think about calling, I would feel silly waiting all of this time to call her and chicken out, or my workload would be heavy that week, leaving me with one day off (which is normally errand day).

Well, this week I worked four days, but happened to run into my friend very briefly, as I running late to something else. She was on my mind the rest of the week, and finally on Friday afternoon, I just sucked it up and called her. It was a forty five minute conversation and a "let's get our kids to do this" and "let's get our kids to do that". And instantly, it was like we had talked to each other every day during this time. Why do I wait so long?

And just today, my wonderful hubby was busy working on his car, so I was in charge of kiddo care. It was fun for the most part - farmer's market, park play, spraying each other with the hose. Honestly, I was torn between calling a friend or napping. And even more honesty, I regretted it a little because a nap did sound good. Thankfully though, friend was the right choice, and for four hours we talked, and teared up, and shared, and laughed, and ate. A nap wouldn't do for my soul what my dear, sweet friend did for me. Praise God for knowing me better than I know myself.

Aren't you glad that we were never meant to live as an island?

Decisions and Home Remodels

All right - let's talk home remodeling. Now when we bought out home a year ago, we knew this house would be a "project house". The bones were good, and had a lot of aspects we loved - walkout basement, tons of windows/natural light, open floor plan, etc, and at the right price, especially with our down payment.

Still, we knew that we wanted to gut the kitchen, and redo the flooring in the living space. We decided to hold off a little while due to a new babe and do a lot of minor projects our house needed.

We continued to debate whether or not we should put the project a little further down the list when we found out that L's company was doing some pay cuts, as we didn't know if this was the start of worse things to come (things have since picked up, and his full pay restored). Finally we came to the point that we just decided to save and go for it - ripped linoleum, and broken, unusable cabinets put us over the edge.

We started saving, and researching flooring options, cabinets, countertops ideas. We decided that we would not buy anything unless we had the cash, got a good deal, and liked it. L had his heart set on wider planked wood flooring, and surprisingly enough, we found maple planks that we both loved on clearance. It's in now, and it looks even better than I imagined.

The cabinets were a little more difficult decision for us. I'm cheap. I'll admit it. We looked everywhere for cabinetry, and boy, boxes that hold stuff is expensive! We both liked the shaker style the most, and we liked the painted maple the best (painted wood is an upcharge). After a little more deliberation, we just decided to buy it, only to find that there was a special on painted wood that week. We were a little more than excited. We were able to get our cabinets for $2000 cheaper than we were originally quoted.

The last "big" decision was countertop. We have a lot of countertop space, and found that the solid surface was priced between laminate, and granite, and we liked the look. We were a little nervous to put that in ourselves, as that can can be a pretty expensive fix. We looked, and looked, and waited, and waited some more. Finally we were at Home Depot and found a solid surface priced at the lowest we had ever seen - and that was installed. Praise God.

In between those purchases, we had a dishwasher to buy (also on sale, with an energy rebate), a sink, faucet, knobs, and lots of other miscellaneous items. At times we were burned out just deciding and debating. I'm not naturally someone who just knows what they want and can visualize how it will look, so it was a stretch for me.

But here we are, in the middle of our remodel, flooring completed and some of our cabinets in. We wonder if we made the right decision doing the work ourselves, but know that we could have easily doubled the cost to pay to have it done. We have gotten burned out, and doing a remodel with two little ones underfoot isn't easy. Still, we can sort of see the end now - and boy, it's going to look so so so nice when it's done! Can't wait to share how it looks once it's finished.

Some Green News

Our first strawberry off of our own plant! Yay!

It's been six months since my last blog. Yikes! Let's say life has been full - some family stuff, saving for, picking out, and gutting our house for our kitchen/living space remodel (more on this later), adjusting to two kiddos at work (this was harder than I thought it would be), and just the day to day wonderful stuff like having two kiddos who are too cute.

Anyway forward to fun stuff, this summer I was bound and determined to try our hand at gardening. We built two raised beds and filled them - perhaps a little too much - and we've seen a lot of good growth. We're growing peppers, broccoli, peas (lots of these), green beans, watermelon (crossing my fingers on this one), zucchini, cucumbers, and lettuce.

We also have some containers plants going - strawberries (shown above), blueberries, grapes, and some basil. Sadly, my last three are not doing so well. I bought them in an attempt to nurse them back to health (since they were such a steal), but no luck so far. Needless to say though - I am excited for harvest.

Honestly, I thought my garden would be dead by this point, since I don't have a green thumb, but weather conditions have worked in our favor thus far. I'm excited that we can continue our quest of eating clean and local food (what's more local than your own backyard?). It started with our CSA a couple of years ago, and has grown ever since. We've bought local grass-fed beef, eggs from church friends, and once this house project settles down (a kitchen is such a blessing we take for granted), hopefully some raw milk in the future. I love supporting local farmers, and love being able to grow our own food to know exactly what is put into (and onto) the plants, and cutting down on or food bill.

Isn't my garden pretty?

It's hard to believe that in just a few days Christmas will be here! E, R, and I have the next couple of weeks off, so we're hoping to eat, relax, see friends and family, and of course, play. The girl and I have been making cookies, wrapping gifts, and decorating Christmas tree ornaments. We don't go overboard with the gift idea - we didn't get R anything this year (as we didn't get E anything her first year), and our budget for E was pretty small, as she likes pretty cheap-o stuff. We want the kids to understand Christmas is about our Savior's birth. We also want them to understand contentment and have a heart that understands that there are those who don't have the luxuries we have here.

I think E is mostly excited to see the grandparents anyway. She's been talking about seeing her grandmothers for days now. I pray she always treasures family and Jesus above presents under the tree.
I'm sure you've noticed these pictures are not very "Christmas-y", but we found them on our camera the other night - one of our last hikes before the snow. I love my kids. R is seven months and so close to crawling - he'll see E run by and push up on his arms, trying to propel himself in a foward fashion while grunting. He's waving and getting pat a cake, which is so cute. He's starting to do the army crawl a little bit, but he doesn't go very fast. He's got three teeth at the moment, and we see three more coming in. Yikes.

E is becoming more and more independent. She likes to pick out her own clothes, and dress herself. And you know what? She actually matches a little bit - sometimes she's purple from head to toe, but we're impressed.

Her speech is insane. L was reading her a book the other night, and she pointed to a picture (it was a squirrel), and said, "Daddy, that's terrifying!" and her prayer before bed the other night was "Thank you Jesus for a nice day. Thank you for Daddy, Rhys-y-pie, Grandma Mona, Grandma Linda, Mommy, my bed, Emma, Madeline (her friends), Megan (cousin), Ann, Steph, lights. Oh, and my toes. Amen." I'm thankful I have toes too.

As far as our family goes, our life is very full right now - we have been, and continue to be very blessed. As you've probably seen on this blog as of late, I haven't been posting much. That is probably not going to change much - in fact, I've debated bringing this blog to a close. I'd like this upcoming year to be focused on my personal journal that can voice what this blog cannot. My main goal for the new year is simple - I want to love Jesus more deeply, and my journal helps me do that.

So this is a close for now. May you all have a lovely Christmas filled with wonder, and a happy New Year that brings you even closer to our Savior.