I think it might be time.

I have been neglecting this blog for many reasons but one of the top reasons has been time.  It is just so much easier and quicker to post on instagram. However the stories are missing.  Every night my children ask me, beg me to tell them a story.  A story about when I was growing up.  A story about them when they were babies.  A story about their father.  A story about their grandparents.  It really doesn't matter to them as long as it begins with Once upon a time...  So that has gotten me thinking and I have decided that this blog of mine is filled with stories and memories that I have already forgotten about.  As I skim through the pages I am reminded of all the good and difficult parts of motherhood that I experienced with 2 young babies in Oregon.  I also realized that i have completely missed out on documenting any story of our life now with little Sawyer and soon to be 4th baby boy.  Today is the day that I will start.  These stories are not meant to be glamorous or competitive, judgmental or boastful.  They are simply my stories.  Stories that my children can look back at and read to remember their childhood.  Hopefully they will capture our real life experience.  Hopefully they will contain some words of hope, love, patience, difficulty, compassion, laughter, hardship, and minimal grammatical errors.  Let the adventure begin again!

This is for you guys!

Fathers day was so much fun this year we were able to spend it together with Chads' Dad and family. For his gift this year I decided to finally do an idea that I had seen a couple of years ago on this blog.

The kids and I had so much fun rounding up all of the root beers. It took us about a month to find them and we are still missing 5. Chad loved the gift.
We have loved taste testing them every night.



I downloaded Erin Jangs cute cheat sheet and printed it at Kinkos for 3 bucks.
I found 7 of the bottles of root beer online at bevmo.com and had them shipped.
The rest I found at little shops around town (Pirate O's was the jackpot).

Cone of Shame

Our poor poor dog.
She got hit by a car a couple of weeks ago and now wears the cone of shame.
Every now and again I will take the cone off and let her relax without it.
The second she starts to lick at her leg Tuck screams,

"MOM, MOM HELP!!! Get the cone of shade!!!!!" (as he refers to it)

She had surgery on her shattered front leg and they installed pins and bars to help
stabilize it. She will be wearing these lovely contraptions for the next 3 months.

In his prayers last night Tuck asked that Wrig be made better, and that she would not run out into the street and get hit by anymore white minivans.

ice pops

summer is here look what on the menu for this week
recipe

5th year

This years birthday was all about balloons.
What kid isn't crazy about balloons.
I created my own version of this invitation


We had balloons coming out our ears.

THE COUNT

40 helium balloons for decorations.
24 regular balloons for balloon tag (tied them to their ankles and they had to pop each others)
36 water balloons for water balloon bullseye ( I drew a chalk bullseye on the ground and the kids climbed a ladder to toss the balloons from above)
17 balloon animals (I youtubed a how-to the night before. It's easier than I thought... big hit)
19 red helium balloons tied to lollipops with a thank you for party favors.
And finally we stuffed treasure hunt clues inside of 5 (because she's 5) red balloons and hid them around the yard.
Tuck and I even made 1 DIY balloon pinata (the pinata was the treasure at the end of the hunt).

The birthday girl planned the menu and requested sprinkled cupcakes, corn dogs, sprite and popcorn.
They all watched the Disney movie UP while snacking on dinner.
I have to tell you this was one of the easiest parties to throw and one of the funnest to date!

DIY pinata

I used this demo here to learn how to make the pinata.
FYI It took three days to dry before we could decorate it so plan ahead if you are going to try this.
It was awesome when it exploded.
Crepe paper everywhere.
The kids loved it

gumball prizes for the game winners


Happy birthday Lovely

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Imaginary Friends

I have heard that lots of little kids have imaginary friends. Fin never did but boy oh boy does this guy love his imaginary pals. There is TIKI who is tall and wears a batman shirt. He has two 2 eyes and one nose and eats his food all the time. There is COCO who has a really really big fat tummy that Tuck can jump on, and consequently just died. There is FRANKEN who likes to wear an orange shirt. His dad makes him hot dogs and he doesn't have a mom, she's in jail. And finally there is a new one in the mix, his name is LOOKY. This guy plays with his toys all the time. He has a bone shirt on and he has orange hair. These friends have been around for a couple of months now with the exception of LOOKY. I wonder how long they'll be sticking around.

diggin' in the dirt

We LOVE great-grandpa!
Every time we visit my grandparents they have a garden full of wonderful things to eat. My kids love searching for all sorts of creepy crawly creatures and crunching on veggies pulled straight from the earth.
He is so patient with them and loves to watch their reaction once he unearths each burried treasure. I love watching them too...and I love gardens.
(although ours is far from what i would expect a good garden to look like)

Last year we spent hundreds of dollars planting a garden with 19 variety's of veggies and 5 varieties of fruits and 7 different herbs. We weeded and watered everyday and all we reaped were about 45 cherry tomatoes and 2 dozen peaches. It was a bust. I was BEYOND frustrated and vowed I would never do it again. Then I remembered where we were this time last year. Chad was keeled over in a hospital bed with gallstones and pancreatitis. Hospital bills were racking up by the 10's of thousands. I thought to myself how can I not plant a garden. My family needs this. I started collecting gardening magazines at the checkout stand. I watched Food Inc.(I agree with MOST of it), read a lot of nutrition articles and just generally feel the need to eat better. So here I am planting another set of crops this year. Only I have scaled back a lot.

This years garden menu:
strawberries
peaches
apples
grapes
tomatoes
Italian flat leaf parsley
lemon thyme
zucchini

I was surprised at how many crops weathered the long winter without any attention.
The only new crops this year will be fresh tomato plants (since that's all that I could get to grow last year), grapes (a mothers day gift from chad), and zucchini (from our neighbor). KEEP YOUR FINGERS CROSSED. Here we go.

The Recap

Last week was Finley's first dance recital. After her performance Chad asked her if she was nervous to dance in front of so many people.
She said, "I wasn't, but my heart was. It was jumping all over the place."

Tonight

My May

This may be one of my new favorite moments. These pictures kept me laughing all day. Happy Birthday to me and long live Mustache May!

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