good books

Every once in awhile Eric is great about walking into a room and pulling out his phone to take a picture of our family moments. I'm so grateful he has learned to do this. Because he has documented some of my favorite moments. Moments like this one.

Back in December, the girls and I spent many nights cuddling under the christmas tree reading christmas books together. It felt so magical and peaceful to enjoy so many stories under the twinkling lights. It was hands down my favorite part of the christmas season.

Though another highlight of the season also includes good books. I hosted my second annual favorite book exchange party.

Everyone brings an unwrapped favorite book. These were the picks this year.

After eating and talking, we each went around and gave a brief explanation of the book we brought and why. Then we rolled a dice and passed our book to the right that many times to start the exchange. Then we did a five minute frenzied exchange. We set a timer and passed two bowls around, each with two dice. When you got a bowl you quickly rolled the dice. If you rolled a double, 7 or 11 then you got to exchange your book with anyone that you chose. At the end of the timer, that is the book you got to go home with. These were the books we went home with.

It was such a fun group of women that night. Our book club hasn't been meeting that often because of covid so this was really nice to gather with women who inspire me, teach me, make me laugh, and our united with me in a love of good books.

E’s birthday

Happy birthday to the greatest man I know!

Eric is at the end of his thirties now and I think his wisdom and strength surpasses his age. He is my rock and my refuge, that's for sure. So grateful for every year he has spent on this earth and that he spends with our family.

His birthday comes at such a crazy time--right after Christmas and Kacin's birthday. Unfortunately, this year by the time we reached his birthday it was day 5 of celebrations and I was tired. We tried so hard to let him know how much we love him, though.

Eric and I went on a beautiful, long bike ride together.

He took most of the kids with him and went around to all the restaurants that give birthday rewards and they came home with a big spread. We divided everything up to get an awesome sampling for lunch.

His birthday "cake" request is always the same every year--pumpkin pie. I think we need to buy some new candles soon. The best we could do was 3 for 30 and 3+6 for 9. Ha!

It feels lame that these were the only pictures I took that evening (again, tired...).

But the lack of pictures is not reflective of the love we all have for this hardworking, loving, playful, involved, thoughtful, fun, smart, loyal, faithful man! 

We love you, E! Happy birthday!

16th birthday

Happy 16th birthday to this amazing guy!!

Kacin is fun-loving, easygoing, loyal, resilient, strong, hard working, clever, sweet, loving, kind, patient, competitive, and an all around amazing human being!


Definitely a bit of a goofball. haha. And we love him for it.

I can't believe he is 16! Except I can. Because he is so ready. He is ready to drive and to date and embrace the world as a sixteen year old.

On the day of his birthday we took him and his friend (one of the few who weren't quarantined because of coronavirus) out to eat at Red Robin. His only request was bottomless fries. And that's what he got. Six baskets of fries!


And a birthday ice cream sunday to top it off.

He spent the rest of the day doing something he loves but that rarely ever happens in our home--watching football.

It must have been a really exciting game because all three of the football watchers fell sound asleep.

The girls helped me decorate a birthday cake for him after dinner.


And we opened his presents.

It was a simple, relaxing 16th birthday.

It's always tricky celebrating a birthday the day after Christmas. Which is why we got smart and planned a birthday surprise the week before!

We had Jacqui ask him to babysit to get him out of the house. Then all the teens showed up just before he got home. 

Surprise!!!

I thought for sure he had an idea that something was in the works. Since text messages were going around the week before his party, I was sure someone would accidentally say something. But he was oblivious to our plans, thank goodness, so we got a true surprise out of him. 


He does not like being the center of attention these days, but we needed a day to show him how cool we think he is.


Kyler made sure he felt like a king. ha!

They lifted him up in his chair as everyone sang to him.




Happy birthday, Kacin!!

We played a game of pass the parcel. In case you haven't played before, I set the game up by wrapping a bag of candy in a box in multiple layers of wrapping paper. On each layer was written a note with a task to perform. When the music came on, the parcel was passed around the group. When it stopped the person who had it had to open it and do whatever it said to do. There were things like sing rudolph the red nosed reindeer, get kacin to smile without touching him, catch popcorn in your mouth, etc.

This one was to give Kacin a santa beard with whipped cream.

These guys had to dance to a song.

Thank goodness they got some help with their dance moves.




While they gathered around the firepit outside, Kyler presented Kacin with a gift that he had been working hard on--a dating guide. He wrote out ten rules of dating and then listed a bunch of fun dating ideas. It was so great to watch him present the book and read the rules to everyone! Kacin and Kyler will be a fun pair to go on dates with that's for sure. 

In our family, we decided that before you get your driver's license you must participate in serving other people. Kyler had decided to join a club at school that works with kids at special needs (he is two years strong being a part of that group and has had some awesome experiences.) Kacin wasn't sure what he wanted to do. And when you wait until the last minute it gets kind of tricky to make it all happen. But on the eleventh hour, this guy served a lot of different people to show that service is part of who he is. He organized two trips to serve at feed my starving children, wrote letters to missionaries, used his own money and collected money from family to buy 10 pairs of shoes for specific boys at child crisis center, served with the salvation army to pass out toy donations, helped out at a church activity, made food bags with Layla and passed them out to homeless people on the street corners, and served our family in small ways, too. I'm so glad he had these varied experiences to give a little of himself to those around him!

So a few days after the holidays, we took him down for his road test and he passed!! We now officially have another driver in the house. So proud and excited for him!

Happy birthday to you, Kacin!! Love you so much.

happy new year

I think most people were ready to say goodbye to 2020. 2020 was a doozy of a year. But in reality it was much better than my 2018 or my 2019. So I felt a little indifferent on the matter.

But I am all about any chance for a fresh start or a party so I was excited for this new year's! 

We had two families over to celebrate with us on New Year's Eve. We ate pizza and treats and played games while the kids all played.


At 10pm we joined New York as the ball dropped to ring in the New Year.

We played with fireworks and sparklers.

Happy New Year!

We got the younger kids in bed while the teenagers crashed our house for awhile and played games and set of their own fireworks. 

Eric and I stood out on our balcony at midnight and watched fireworks go off in every direction. How lucky I felt to be standing there under that sky next to my best friend with the hope of a new year lighting up the sky with every burst of color.

The next morning seemed even more hopeful and fresh and alive.

While the younger kids played with friends, we took the older boys on a hike near lost dutchman. 

Where we could dance in the new year!

I'm glad we could hike together and talk about life and work out some things that we needed to work out together. I love how hiking encourages deep conversation.

 

Kyler was there too, but somehow he avoided the camera. Maybe because I was so captivated by the cactus.

It was a lovely start to the new year. I was so hopeful. We were all sorting out our new year's resolutions. And we were ready for school to start a few days later.

ALAS. After a circus of a board meeting, our school district decided to return to virtual learning for two weeks. Which made me BOIL inside. Our kids, MY kids, need to be in school. With the data and the evidence in the schools and how our school district is handling things, you just can not convince me that this is a plan in the best interest of our children.

This is how life goes though, isn't it? We hope and we plan and then we adjust.

I've had to adjust a lot. I am teaching Layla myself instead of having her participate in virtual school because it's just not how she learns. She will return to her class as soon as in person resumes though. I have to make sure someone is always available for Perry during the day. And has eyes on Brinna, too. And the older boys jump from google meet to google meet. It's a lot to manage again, especially when I am still working on some things myself. But we take what we are given and we carry on.

This first week of the new year is reminding me once again not to have expectations.  To focus on what's most important. To rise to the occasion. That life is about building character and showing love and not about a checklist to accomplish in a week. 


Here we go 2021.

kitchen update

 When we bought our house we didn't have any plans to make any changes right away. A few months in, and we decided it might be nice to brighten up our kitchen. We just concluded if we were going to do it in a few years, we might as well do it now.

So we started by whitewashing the tan stone backsplash. 

We debated a lot on new flooring. We knew we couldn't replace the flooring in the whole house so we needed to find something that would work with the wood flooring downstairs. It was a fiasco trying to make the tile decision. We'd fine one we wanted then would find out they didn't have nough for our floor etc.

We finally found a new tile. So in the days before the demolition, we let the kids draw with sharpie on the old travertine.

Some beautiful floor art work. Kind of sad we had to destroy it.

But destroyed it was!


New tile went in! And we got half of our new countertops installed.

The cabinets began the process of being painted white and the island countertop was installed.

The cabinets were finished. And then Eric went to work to finish things off.

We changed lighting, added cabinet pulls, found barstools, and replaced cabinets with open shelving. I love how much lighter it feels now. We still have some finishing touches on the backsplash and the drywall that needs repaired but happy how it is coming along.