Blessed Beyond Measure

On Saturday I reached a rather important milestone...I survived turning 40. It wasn't as horrific as someone much younger may think.   Actually, what I got out of the experience is the renewed knowledge that I am one very blessed individual with incredible friends and a very special little family.  Is it possible to measure the impact of a person's life on your own?  What if several amazing people are in one place at the same time?  Immeasurable!

The night before my birthday we spent the evening camping with three awesome families.  A very cool teenage boy made the most beautiful birthday cake I have ever had, all our children sat together and led in the singing of the Happy Birthday Song, and we all ate s'mores and told stories around the campfire.  It was a wonderful night.  I slept like a rock in our tent surrounded by my sweet family and our dog Annie with the sound of the nearby creek as my own personal lullaby. 

On my actual birthday, all the dads took the kids fishing and I got to spend several hours lounging and chatting with three of my very best friends.  My friend Amy even shared her delicious breakfast burrito with me.  If I could have stayed in that place with those people for many more days, I would have.  But, we needed to be home so we packed up during the lull of the daily rainstorm and headed home, stopping in Taos for dinner.  Of course when we got home I had to check facebook and had so many sweet messages from friends and extended family. 

Then last night, we had a birthday BBQ with a whole bunch of really special people.  I was so humbled and honored that so many of our friends would take an evening  out of their busy lives to hang out and celebrate with me.  You guys are incredible.   Thank you so much for coming!  My fantastic husband and oldest  daughter did all the prep work for the party and I got to relax and enjoy my night.  My youngest daughter cuddled with me most of the evening and even fell asleep in my lap and toward the end of the night, my son sang a very special happy birthday song for me. 



































All this to say, WOW!  I have the best life!  I  truly am blessed beyond measure.

Home Sweet Home (for now)

It's been awhile since I've blogged.  I'd like to say it is purely because I've been too busy enjoying summer to write, which is only partly true.  The rest of the truth is, it has been a crazy month trying to get our house ready to sell.  Fortunately, we've had some fantastic friends come alongside us and help with the process.  It is like a brand new house around here and honestly, except for the fact that I'm a little tired of messing with it, I'm going to miss living here.  It has been a great home for us for the past ten years. 

Here's what we've been up to:
(and when I say we, I should give Jamie most of the credit.  He has worked so hard.)  

Getting a new roof -thank you State Farm
Painting the exterior and trim
Staining the deck -and it's a big one!
Replacing three large windows
Removing bushes and filling in landscaping
Painting interior upstairs trim
Painting the kitchen
Updating the master bathroom
Updating the kitchen
Sorting, sorting, sorting
Cleaning, cleaning, cleaning
Two yard sales
Several trips to the dump
Giving lots of stuff away

And it seems like the list could go on and on...

But, we finally have almost everything complete, we met with our realtor yesterday and will be listing our house with Remax next Wednesday.  It is very exciting and scary and overwhelming to be at this place. 

Besides that, we've also spent several wonderful hours at the pool and enjoyed spending time as a family watching fireworks, going to a minor league ballgame and went camping  with friends.  We are exhausted but happy.   Life is good!

Take Me Out To The Ballgame

There really is nothing more fun than cheering on one of my kids in something they visibly love doing.  For our only son that is all things sporty...right now, he adores baseball.  And we love watching him!

Tonight I got to enjoy watching  him play in left field, second base and score three runs. Yes, he did get MESSY but it is all worth it to clean grass stains off those pants when I get to see the proud smile across his sweet face.  It's so much fun to be the mom of a sporty boy! 

Make a Splash

There is a lot of DIY going on around here...mostly by my awesome husband.  I've spent most of my energy on de-cluttering and trying to organize things while still trying to keep the house running (laundry, grocery shopping, food prep, dishes, keeping little children happy) and of course spending too many hours on pinterest. 

He has:
-painted our bathroom countertop with countertop paint
-installed a new sink and faucet in our bathroom
-installed "tile" on the bathroom floor
-hung new bathroom light fixture
-installed a new dishwasher
-put in a new kitchen faucet
-powerwashed the house
-picked out paint for the exterior
-ripped out dead shrubs
-started painting the house
-arranged for a new roof to be installed

Something I did do that I think turned out really cool was to hang this in our bedroom:
                                                                                                                                                                                     

It is the beach mat that we bought to use at Laguna Beach over Spring Break.  I framed pictures of us enjoying the beach and found these fun wooden flip flops that say "Beach Feet" on the bottom at a Goodwill in Phoenix.  I love how it looks in our room.

A Bowl Full of Cherries

Life really is a bowl full of cherries around here.

I was looking back at photos I have taken in the past week and I have so much to be thankful for.

Here's my top ten list of favorite memories in the past week:

#10 The service project we did with our homeschool co-op...planting small trees and plants in front of our church with my kids.  It was a lot of hard work but also rewarding showing the kids that it is good to give back.

#9 Spending many special moments on a retreat with this sweet girl.

 

#8  Finding four comfy pairs of shoes on sale...and getting two of them for FREE!

 

#7  Jamie playing MY SONG for his students and their parents at the recital on Tuesday night.

#6  Little Man's first piano recital.

 

#5  Watching him teach her to play "all the songs I know"!

#4  The song he wrote for me... (just like his dad).

 

#3  This ladybug.

 

#2  Picking (and eating) these lovelies in my own front yard with my kids.

 

#1  Promises from a loving God.

Hotel Living

I'm writing today from the lovely Hyatt Place Hotel in south Santa Fe.  Why?  Just a little getaway for my oldest daughter and I.  It has been a great trip for us.  The main reason for the trip has been to go through a rite of passage ceremony   ritual sacrifice service   purity curriculum.  We also did a little shopping!  And eating (food which I did not have to cook).

I have to say, telling someone (my own daughter) about some of the hard things in life  is much easier when you push the play button and let someone else on a cd do it for you and then do a little follow-up.  That sounds a little bit lazy but I have been dreading this conversation for some time.  They don't give you this info when you bring that tiny wriggling being home from the hospital.  You somehow have to figure it all out on your own, or worse, throw them to the wolves let their peers inform them.  It could get MESSY!

I'm not going to share all the details of this experience with you...or anyone...for that matter.  It has been a special bonding time with her that I would not trade and would recommend to anyone facing a daughter of this age.  We have had some beautifully candid conversations.  And more than anything, I've gotten to hang out with my oldest daughter for two days without her siblings and she felt special.

Plus, I got a really cute purse!  Enough said!

Have a fantastic Memorial Day Weekend!

Inside... Outside... Upside Down

Life feels a little bit like something out of a Dr. Seuss book around here right now. I'm doing surprisingly well with it.  I suppose living with four other people who are seriously MESSY will tend to either drive you crazy or help you conform to their way of living.  I guess lately, I've chosen to give up the fight and give in to my inner-messiness. (Not that I was ever the cleanest person in the world but I do have some standards!)  We've had a lot going on so this is just the best way to deal with it for me.

There's a Crib in My Living Room

I hate it when I can't find things.  Most recently, we were having a garage sale so I decided it was time to sell the crib.  It is a great crib and has been super for the last two of our kids but I am not attached to it.  As far as I know, there will be no more babies born to us and we are great with that.  The Little Man would really like a brother of any kind but for now that is not in the plan and hopefully never from my body.  Back to losing things though, I got ready to sell the crib...pulled it all outside for the yard sale and decided it might sell better if it were put together.  Guess what! No hardware could be found for the crib.  Who really wants a crib with no hardware?  All the bolts to hold the bed together were nowhere to be found and I didn't have time, hours before the sale, to search.  So we brought it all back inside.  Unfortunately (and fortunately) I had listed the crib in my newspaper ad for the sale.  A lady came by asking about it and I explained the whole story to her.  She wanted it anyway.  Fantastic! I figured I would finish the sale and be able to look for the missing pieces.  And believe me, I tried.  And tried. And tried.  I have looked everywhere for that bag of bolts.  They are not here.  I have no idea where they could be.  And, you can't just buy crib parts at the local hardware store...they are special.

Thank goodness for the internet!  What did we ever do without it?  I googled replacement crib parts...and Voila, there they were.  I chose one of the sites to inquire about my crib pieces and talked on the phone to the nicest "southern gal" named Paula who quickly sent me all the parts...only they weren't the right ones.  PAULA!!! I called Paula to fix the problem and I've now returned the first set and am waiting to see if the second set will work before handing all the crib parts over to the nice (patient) lady from my sale.  In the meantime, the crib sits (in pieces), for all to see, in the middle of my living room.  Thankfully, the people who would mind don't matter and the ones who matter don't mind...and not too many people have been over to worry about it anyway. 

There's Also a Toilet in My Bathtub

We are getting ready to sell our home of the past ten years.  A fact, that some people in our family are having a hard time with.  I waiver between wanting to cry over it, because of all the memories we have here, and wanting to throw my own personal party.  Being a homeowner is hard work!  Hopefully it will be on the market sometime this summer.  So, Jamie has been doing many home projects in order to maximize the value of our cute little house on a beautiful canyon with soon to be a lovely-mostly-remodeled bathroom and hopefully a spanking new roof due to hail damage!  Not to mention, that any day, it will have a new paint job (outside) and other new features.  Any takers? A lot of these repairs and re-dos are projects we've been talking about doing for several years.  I'm finding it ironic and a little bit sad that we are making our house beautiful for someone else to live in it.  Oh well.  Anyway, there is a toilet in my bathtub (not the same toilet from my Superman post)because Jamie has most recently been working on the bathroom floor, which is looking great btw.  I'm hoping that the toilet will make it back to its appropriate location soon because both it and the tub are a little hard to use this way.  Oh the places we'll go!

I know that these aren't the only things that are upside down in my world, because when you look at life,  isn't it  really a little bit like a Seuss book everyday?  They are, however, the easy things to laugh about.  Everyone needs a little more laughter in their life. 

What is upside down in your world today?

Disclaimer:  When I said 4 messy people live here + me, I really shouldn't have lumped my son into that group...for the most part, he is incredibly clean and organized for a seven year old boy...he does leave his stuff lying around and grunts about picking it up but compared to everyone else, he is a clean freak!  And this mom loves that about him!