six things

1. in season. we entered the travel season for tim. we actually survived his first trip of the season. he was gone friday morning through around 3 am this morning.

2. christmas. the girls have been asking to decorate for christmas, so after a fun trip to hobby lobby we were definitely in the mood. so we went for it. this is the earliest we have ever started decorating. we started with their little trees in their bedrooms. we got the little tree up on the kitchen counter. and that is where we stopped. beginning to look a lot like christmas.

3. ellie basketball. ellie is in the middle of her basketball season. she is playing on the c team and having a blast. they have won all their games so far and her coach is planning for an undefeated season. she is having so much fun. when the season was going to start she was not feeling so well and was really tired. she tried to say she didn't want to play basketball. we told her to give it a shot. later she told me she was happy we told her to give it a try because she is loving it. it makes my heart happy to watch her work hard and have fun doing something that might not have been her favorite, but that she is putting her heart into and enjoying.

4. kitchen counters. our kitchen counters have been in the forefront of our thoughts late summer and most of the fall. it has been a few weeks since the second part of our kitchen counters went in. i love the way our kitchen has been transformed. the new bar counter just makes my heart happy. the way our counter was before just did not work for our family. it was not functioning at all. now the kids can sit at the counter to eat breakfast, lunch, snacks, and dinner. it makes those evenings where we are hustling so much easier. i am so darn thankful tim and my dad were willing and able to make my crazy idea come true.

5. stools. i had been struggling to decide what stools to get....backed versus not backed. and was nervous to spend too much on them, but didn't want to buy something that was junky. anyway one day i saw some stools in my friend's garage. i asked her what her plan for those was and she was planning to take them to goodwill that night! i told her i would buy them from her and she gave them to me for free. love a free find! as we have used them we couldn't be more happy with them. we love the size and shape which are perfect for the size of our space. we are even liking the dark wood color.

6. stranger things. tim and i have been watching stranger things. i read a lot of places that is was so scary and freaky. i am a complete chicken when it comes to scary stuff, but i have really enjoyed watching. i do not find it to be scary. a bit freaky yes. i like to figure things out and i just can't get it figured out. if you haven't watched. go for it.

have a great week.

hello....eight things.

we aren't going to talk about how long it has been since i blogged. we are just going to move on.

ok?

ok.

1. school is almost out. like serious this year went sooooooo fast. holy smokes. time. slow it down.

2. i think this may have been one of the best end of the school year for our family ever. we tend to come a bit unraveled at this point in the school year. bed times get pushed back. mornings get rough. lunches get packed at the last minute. homework is rushed. and reading logs oh lord reading logs. well this year with five days to go i just put all the babies to bed by 8 pm. we are holding tight to a good routine. and everyone is benefiting. momma included.

3. mothers day weekend was great. i told maggie i get the whole weekend and we ended up doing most the celebrating on saturday. it just happened that way. and time at 12:15 am sunday morning jake kicked mothers day off with the croup! we were able to keep him comfortable and sleeping. i took him to urgent care the next morning. he was put on five days of steroids. quite the mothers day with that dude.

i love being a momma and i love my babies something fierce.

4. i got some sweet gifts......

notice all the children telling me to STOP singing. hmmmmmmm.

5. mags loves to have someone lay with her at night to rub her back and sing her a song. her song of choice since early december......silent night. every. single. night. silent night. and don't you dare try to change it up. oh magpie.

6. jake went through a sleep fighting phase over the last few weeks. it started one night when he woke up screaming. i went to check on him and he was so scared. not sure what it was. then he started to fight bedtime. saying he was scared. we had to remove a picture from the wall that he said scared him. but slowly he has eased back into a good sleep schedule again. he seems less scared.

7. i got to go see cece present her making a difference project at her open house. she was a rock star!

8. ellie has just five days left at school with me. i can't even believe it. after years of going to my room and talking about being at my school. she is almost done. makes me so sad. yet watching her grow is such an honor. i just wish time would slow down. i just want to soak it all up.

lately....

1. the littles (mags and jake) are obsessed with saltine crackers and marshmallows right now. like we cannot keep them in the house obsessed. cracks me up. mags just cannot get enough. and if you give jake a bowl of saltines and he struts around so proudly. add a few marshmallows. oh boy. over the top.

2. actually Jake is obsessed with snacks right now. in the evening he spends his time rummaging through the pantry to come up with snacks.and he likes to put his snacks in bowls and line up all his options. he also thinks he needs multiple spoons to eat one or two yogurts. this boy.

3. my new years resolution (if you want to call it that) was to get up earlier. the morning seems to go better for everyone if momma gets up early enough to workout, get things around, sit and sip some coffee, read my devotional, and not be rushing. my alarm goes off at 5:00 am and i try to be up and out of bed by 5:10am. i really enjoy this quiet morning time. it helps me feel prepared for the day.

4. ellie is busy finishing her basketball season and starting her volleyball season. she enjoys it all and never complains about practices. this year her volleyball practices during the week are from 7:30-8:30 or 9:00. at first i wasn't sure how that was going to work. but actually it is pretty awesome. she gets the evening at home. time to finish homework and play with her siblings (who would do about anything for play time with ellie! seriously, maggie gets so sad when ellie is busy and can't play with her.) and have some dinner. then off to practice. tim has been able to take her most nights. and then the littles get to be at home all evening and go to bed on time. ellie is pretty good about winding down, having a snack and getting to bed after her practices.

5. cece chose to continue gymnastics for the spring. it makes her so happy. you should see the smile on her face as she practices. it is a little bit of running for us to get her there. however, i would rather invest a little time getting her to the one thing she loves than run her around to 5 things that are closer that she doesn't really enjoy. plus cece can't handle being overly busy. having one activity that she really loves is great for miss cece.

6. maggie's current favorite princesses are Ariel and Belle. we have watch the little mermaid and beauty and the beast over and over again.



7. one of our favorite christmas presents this year was magnet blocks. they have been enjoyed by all. maggie builds amazing houses and towers. and jake spends a lot of time matching and lining them up. they are awesome. wish we would have had some sooner. definitely a hit at our house.

 

8. the girls decided they wanted to spend a little of their christmas money at build a bear over christmas break. this is something we had never done before. they had fun picking their bear and watching them come to life. jake got in on the action too.....he just didn't really have much say in the whole thing :)

happy weekend.

five for sunday

1. it is october. lots to blog about. not much time to do it. i wish i had more time. but i can't seem to get the laundry folded so the blogging has to wait.

2. beautiful fall weekend here. have i mentioned fall is my favorite. it is. i love it. the cooler temps, the changing colors, harvest time. it is good stuff. i snapped some fall pictures of these goofs the other day. apparently the sun was bright.

3. we finished up a big project this weekend. last spring we started working on our landscaping. we added edging around all our flower beds. we also added some new plantings. and then we mulched. we had one more area to finish up. we wanted to split and transplant some existing plants. we had to wait until fall. well yesterday we moved some hostas and iris. we put down the last bits of mulch and we are done! we are very happy with how it turned out!

4. both ellie and cece finished up their softball season a few weeks back. both girls had great seasons. they worked hard, improved and had fun. ellie in particular really came along in the final weeks of her season. she started to hit the ball....doubles, triples, and an in the park homerun. so fun to watch. now we are on to basketball and volleyball. and cece is living the dream doing gymnastics on tuesday nights.

5. we are all back in the swing of school. jakers is enjoying going to see miss ashley. some mornings at drop off i chat with ashley for a minute or two. and jake has been known to push me out the door and shut the door in my face. then he will wave bye out the window! maggie is loving preschool. when we ask her how her day was she usually just tells us about the snack......and if she liked it or not. we know she likes scooby snacks and DOES NOT like peach cups. we are working on saying "no thank you" versus "yuck! that is gross!" she claims she has tried everything....but also tells us about how she tries it with a "baby lick." cece seems to be really enjoying her school year. in the past there were dramatic "i hate school" comments. and this year, none of those! we will call that a win! ellie is settled in to 7th grade. i don't have her in class but get to see her often. one day we ended up in the bathroom at the same time. there are 900 students in our school, so it is kind of funny that i run into her there.

happy sunday.

six for saturday.

1. we survived our first few weeks of school. we are starting to settle in to our school routine. the children are tired. the parents are tired. weekend was necessary. the first weeks back are so busy. back to school nights, new activities starting. it just feels like you are running from thing to thing. this week was a lot more calm.

2. miss maggie started preschool on tuesday. more on that to come. just know she loves it. she is really going to bloom this year. i can feel it.

3. tim traveled this weekend with football. and with nothing on our calendar for saturday we are doing nothing. except for looking for him on TV during the game:)

4. well i lied i will be doing a little something. early august we started some house projects. it has been a little bit like the book if you give a mouse a cookie. it all started with us wanting to make a few little changes to make our house function as best it can for a family of six. so we started working on the function by putting shiplap on some walls. lol. in our defense. we want to put up more hooks for coats and bags. i wanted to put ship lap behind the hooks. which then lead to a few walls of shiplap around the house...with plans for a few more. and now we are starting to paint. but our ceiling has never been really painted....we are pretty sure they just added paint to the texture mix before they sprayed the ceiling. so to recap we are trying to add function and we have added shiplap and are currently painting the ceilings. apparently pretty things function better. ha.

5. ellie just made breakfast for everyone. eggs in the middle cooked to everyones liking. she is quite the little breakfast chef.

6. cece started gymnastics. it literally is a dream come true for her. she absolutely loves it. it is something she was wanted to do for awhile. we just didn't know how to make it happen. an opportunity came up this fall and we jumped on it. oh she is so happy.

happy Saturday y'all!

life lately...16 things....

1. we have been outside a bunch. and this little dude loves it. 

2. she is in a pajama phase. as in pjs all day. as in get up in the morning and change out of pjs into new pjs. oh silly girl.

3. opening day baseball. lets go mets.

4. monday grocery shopping with these fools. that is jake's "i don't know" face. and mags was giving me the stink eye. never a dull moment. oh and they love to sit by each other. but they can't do that in a normal cart so we get to push the car cart around. people tend to get out of my way:)

5. not many girls wearing their big 12 wrestling sweatshirt to soccer practice. and by not many i mean none. 

6. he looks big here. stop growing buddy. pleaseandthankyou. 

also linebacker? hmmmmm. 

7. dem toes. 

7. he wants to go back in but he will not sit still and be quiet. during the sermon i like to take him out. that way he can walk and i can listen. 

8. ellie's first soccer game. they lost 4-2. but they played well. i think it will be a fun season. 

9. church dress. bare feet. dirt pile. our girl.

10. wagon ride.  in the wagon that has been around for longer than a decade. this moment it got me a bit how long i have been in this momma gig. over a decade of wagon rides and mommying. time does fly when you are having fun. 

11. cece selfie.

12. straight up bribing him with m&ms as i cook dinner. and guess what it didn't spoil his supper. he still ate it! who knew.

12. nose in her book. love my little reader.

13. ellie is seriously the best big sister. also she is totally freaking out about maggie climbing this ladder when i was taking this picture. she kept saying over and over how mags was giving her a heart attack. so sweet. and protective!

14. we met up with maggie's daycare buddy at the park. and then obviously we took their engagement pictures! seriously, what a lucky girl to have such a good buddy. he was protecting her from a girl who was throwing wood chips. by the way that is a BIG crime at a park. :)

15. more car picnicking.

16. maggie wakes jake up every morning. and by wakes him up i mean she climbs in his crib and wrestles him. jake is such a good little brother.

happy wednesday y'all.