Monday Morning AND Big News

 

 

This Monday morning has been a lovely one! Yes, I could complain about at least a dozen things that haven't gone "right" already, but I'm not going to. I'm just going to say another little prayer for today's worries and move on. There' s plenty to get done around here and nobody has time to waste thinking about things that can't be changed!

 

My lone tomato plant is really flourishing!

 

 

The weather was amazing in Tennessee this morning. But when I went outside I noticed how bad my favorite place has been neglected (the front porch). But there is hope. I saw some tiny seedlings sprouting in one of my pots, and hopefully the window boxes will have sprouting activity soon. I've been using the porch for sanding and painting cabinets for weeks. I'll have to add "make porch beautiful" to my list.

 

 

 

 

 

This week's "to-do" list is already a mile long. The kitchen is close. Really, really close. Some more cabinet doors are going up tonight and I hope to have all cabinets totally finished by the end of the week.

 

Note to self: Never ever under any circumstances paint the kitchen again!

 

In other news....

 

I am SO excited to announce that I am hosting a fall craft party!! eeeeek!!

 

 

I love making things and I love opening my home up to my people. So why not put them together for some serious fun?! Come join me for a night of food, fellowship, and cute crafts!

 

 

Here's the details:

 

+ Fall craft party with Journey's Creations at my home in White House TN.

+ On Friday  September 25th at 6:00 pm.

+ Cost is $25 per person.

+ Materials, dinner, and dessert included in registration fee.

+ We will make three adorable crafts that will not disappoint!

 

 

 

Registration is OPEN NOW! Space is limited and some supplies need time for shipping, so please be sure to reserve your spot early.

Craziness & Finding Beauty in the Everyday

 

 

What a week this has been!

 

Colds are fading away and life is getting back to normal. Well.... the new normal. And, I'm not even exactly sure what that is yet. I've been working like a crazy person trying to finish house projects, working on orders from Journey's Creations, and best of all, getting my Etsy Shop back up and running! I'm so terrible at the Etsy thing. I list things and then end up selling them to someone local or giving them away as gifts. But I have a new strategy that I'm hoping will help. We shall see.

 

 

 

Fall is my busiest season of the year for photography and it's right around the corner! I've already been busy setting up sessions this week and getting ready for a big wedding with Authentic Photos & Designs next weekend.

 

The girls are doing amazing in school. Or at least I'm amazed. Taylor did happen to bomb out on her history test last week but I'm certain that she'll improve. She has awesome study habits and I know she'll come through. I couldn't be happier with their effort. Mary seems to be averaging B's on her work, and considering that she's never been to school before, I think that's wonderful.

 

The best thing to me, is that August is almost over and fall is a little closer. I'm looking forward to fall even more than usual. This summer has been the saddest, most difficult time in my entire life. I'd like to move on to another season and leave this summer behind me. I'm so ready for change (remember, I love change). Ready for cool breezes. And sweatshirts and baking and coffee on the porch swing. Ready for the grass to slow down and the leaves to change.

 

At this point in my life, I'm learning how important it is to truly enjoy the little things. The everyday. Seeing beauty in the everyday is priceless. These lives we live are special gifts from our Heavenly Father and we should cherish them as He would want us to. We have to be careful to not waste them away worrying and feeling sorry for ourselves. Careful to not dwell on our troubles, but on the joy in our journey. And learning to find that joy in the everyday feels good.  

 

Today, I found joy in watching my babies play with an $8 bag of used kitchen toys. They played and played. They never even spoke to each other. I sat there and watched them and I loved it. They were so busy investigating every single plate and piece of play food. After they had touched each piece, they started creating meals and play feeding them to me. It was the cutest!

 

Then I made my big babies some rice krispy treats to enjoy when they get home from school. I slapped a tablecloth on the front porch table and I was the very first person to break into the mums at walmart this morning!

 

 

Happy Friday Y'all!

 

A Tiny Peek at Our Kitchen Makeover

I guess we'll start with this crazy awful embarrassing picture. The right side is the dirty old green cabinets and the left side is the clean new grey cabinets (obviously). I actually like the old green color and seriously considered repainting them the same exact color. But then I thought, if I'm going to go through all the trouble of painting my entire kitchen, I may as well change the color.

 

What do you think about the grey?

 

 

I went back and forth after painting this one little section. I never really decided if I loved it or not but I didn't want to repaint what I had already finished. I'm really lazy and I can't work on any one project for very long. I usually have at least four things going at once. I like to hop around and have the choice of what I feel like working on. I like change, so I just keep on moving around and changing.

 

I know this is not much of a peek but I don't want to spoil the big reveal :)

 

 

Happy Tuesday Friends!

Sunday Harvest and August in the Garden (Don't get excited)

 

 

 

This is the gorgeous Sunday morning harvest from our garden. And technically, aside from the strawberries, this is the only harvest from our garden ALL year.

 

I really hope you enjoyed that pretty picture. Now get ready for some not-so-pretty pictures from our August garden.

 

Yes, that's Buster's tail bouncing around in there. He was looking for something edible. He didn't find anything, except maybe a rabbit :(

 



The fence is basically covered in vines.

 

Now check out some of last year's garden activity. It was the opposite of this year. It was awesome!

 

 

 



 

Fermented salsa! I would slap someone for some of this right now.

 

This is what our cucumber harvest looked like every other morning!



The pickling was endless.

 

The tomatoes were gorgeous!

 

Below is our only living and happily thriving tomato plant of 2015. Notice that it's not even in the garden. I should probably mention that we didn't even plant it!! It just sprouted up in the front flowerbed all by itself :)

 

So we tied it to a pole and it's totally content.

 



It's Friday! SO How About a Cookie Recipe!

 

This school lunch business is really making me crazy. I don't mind them eating sandwiches and chips (that's what they ate many days homeschooling) but I can't handle or afford the little prepackaged snacks.

 

I'll admit it, I bought some. I was overwhelmed (like most parents) this first week and I caved. I didn't really feel bad about it either. But into the second week, as we were running out of lunch food, I felt like I could do better. Mary said that one kid had cookies and another had fudge rounds and a list of other things that I don't buy regularly.

 

I get it. They want sweets and junk food. So do I.

 

My last couple of batches of healthy sweet stuff haven't been very tasty so I needed to try something less drastic. My theory on food is "make good choices when you can, anything is better than nothing". So I made a batch of semi healthy chocolate chip cookies. They are no doubt better than pre-packaged desserts and they actually tasted really good. Yes, I ate three of them :(

 

Here's my recipe! Use what you have. Pretty much every ingredient is organic so I'll spare you and not put organic in front of everything.

 

Semi Healthy Chocolate Chip Cookies

 

 

1/2 cup shortening of your choice

1/2 cup butter

1 1/4 cup flour

1 1/4 cup oat flour

1/2 cup brown sugar

1/2 cup sucanat

1/2 cup sugar

2 eggs

1 teaspoon vanilla

1/2 teaspoon baking soda

2 cups chocolate chips

1 cup chopped walnuts or pecans (optional)

 

 

Mix ingredients in order of recipe with an electric mixer. Then stir in chocolate chips and nuts.

 

 

Roll or drop (I did both and they both worked) onto cookie sheet. Bake at 350° for about 10 minutes. Cool on wire rack. Makes about 60.



 

 

Paisley approved!

 

 

 

Have a Super Happy Friday!!!!

 

 

 

Homemade Wide Plank (Plywood) Hardwood Floors {Bedroom Makeover}

It's a good morning today! The babies both slept pretty much all night, the weather is amazing!!!, and I'm ready to share what we'll call "phase 1" in our girls' bedroom makeover.

 

 Our homemade wide plank  hardwood flooring in the girls room!

 

 

 

So we bought 5 sheets of plywood and had the guy at Home Depot cut them into 8" wide strips. We sanded the best side of each piece.

 

Then we removed the furniture, baseboards, carpet, and padding. And played around with the layout a bit.

 

 

I painted the room an awesome griege color. You'll see through the pictures how the color changes in different lighting. All of the pictures were taken from my phone, just at different times of the day.

 

The next day we layed down a sheet of thick plastic to protect the cheap particle board subfloor underneath.

 

 

And then we pretty much mixed and matched the pieces and nailed them down with the nail gun when we had the look we were after. While he nailed, I came behind him and stained.

 

 

We started out seperating the boards with a penny to leave space for expanding but it wasnt really necessary because of the slight variation in the size of the boards. It worked out just perfectly.

 

When the stain dried, we did two layers of polyurethane.

 

 

The only mistake that we made (and I mean "I" made) was not letting the poly dry enough before eagerly skidding the box springs across. I'll have to fix that another day.

 

 

 

Paint color: Whiskers by Porter Paints

Stain color: Walnut by Porter Paints
Room size: 11x13
Floor cost: Around $150


 

A Bang and a Cough

 

The second week of school has come in with a bang.... and a cough :(

 

Monday morning we dealt with a broken dryer, a serious laundry backup, and I was eventually forced to iron school clothes (double sad face). By that afternoon, the Queen (Victoria) was coming down with a cold. That evening we had some unexpected school/homework confusion with Mary but it was nothing that a quick phone call to her teacher couldn't solve.

 

Monday after school hair.

 

Taylor had her first basketball practice after school. When I picked her up, she looked like she was about to faint, red faced and pale at the same time. I would have LOVED to take a picture to share but as you can imagine, she probably would not have appreciated that very much. And by bedtime, the Queen was sick. She slept in my bed and I snuck into bed with Paisley. I may or may not have cried on Monday.

 

But we persevered! We not only made it through Monday, we also made it through Tuesday. And you know what?! I have some of the best, most exciting news to share (and it's not my new floor, which I promise I will share soon). My van is HOME and FIXED! :) ! :)

 

 

I've been speculating about how much better things will get when I get my van back and I was way off. It's even better than I imagined! Life with four kids is nearly impossible without a minivan. At least for me and my family it is. Check out how happy the babies are about another trip to school in the truck :/

 

 

Thanks to an amazing friend I sucked it up and pulled my stuff together. I cleaned, painted a dresser, caught up on laundry, cooked a chicken for two dinners, made bone broth for the sickies, soaked oatmeal, made dinner, and I didn't cry once all day. It's obvious that we just need more practice living this busy schedule kind of life.

 

Of course, by Tuesday night we added another sick kid to the mix and I pulled what was extremely close to an all night'r last night. My first in a while. Surprisingly, today has been ok. I'm tired. But I'm making it. With a little extra support from my super sweet Honey and a lot of coffee I'm still hanging in here.

 

Tomorrow I tackle this disaster.