Everybody's doing it

Trick or Treat!

2009-10-31T15:54:00.000-07:00

My blog is 1 year old!! Crazy. Anywho, today is Halloween!!! Both girls knew early on what they wanted to be: Ally a Lion and Audrey a bat. Matt was getting Ally's costume on this afternoon and I heard her start to cry. I walked into the room and said "Ally, what's wrong??" And she held out her hands, sobbing, and said "LOOK AT ME! I look RIDICLEUS!!!" (ridiculous)

It was one of those moments where I felt like my heart was being wrung out like a wet rag! I didn't know whether to laugh or cry. It took about 20 minutes for me to convince her that face paint would complete the look and she would look as scary as Audrey.

Audrey snarled at people when they said 'look! It's Batman!'. She would mumble "I'm just a BAT!"

Our neighbor Sam (Mario)

neighborhood kids

Anakin the Super Dog

Audrey reading to Ally

2009-10-18T09:28:00.000-07:00

Remember me?

2009-08-08T07:10:00.000-07:00

It's a stormy, rainy day which means it's perfect for updating my blog! I can't believe it's been almost a year since we moved. I change out my day planner every July and it was weird to go through my old calendar, remembering our last couple of months in Portland. :( I have also been going through my iPhoto library and pulled a few pics to post here. My dad and nieces and nephew visited in June and took lots of pics of the house and the girls:

Sunroom:

me sneaking in facebook time:

Family room:

The girls LOVED getting to know their cousins!:

back yard:

I found this desk at a garage sale. Ally loves it :)

Audrey playing guitar hero:

another back yard pic:

New new blog

2009-03-03T12:50:00.000-08:00

I have a new business: SkinDeep Naturals
I have a new blog: SkinDeepNaturals.blogspot.com
I had my first big order 2 days ago: 20 lip balms
I have one person interested in a wholesale account with me: a retail store in Canada
My shop isn't very impressive but it's coming along! I am working on a logo, that should be up in a few days: SkinDeep.etsy.com

Slow down...

2009-02-18T18:53:00.000-08:00

One of my facebook friends posted a blog from Mary Beth Chapman (Steven Curtis Chapman's wife) today. The Chapman's tragically lost a daughter last year. Mary Beth posted this blog this past Christmas:

"As I anticipate Christmas 2008, I have many thoughts flying through my heart and head. The last several days, my mind has not been able to stop thinking about Mary, the mother of Jesus. Pregnant and scared, knowing that the baby she was carrying eventually would pay the ultimate price of His life. How would I have lived differently if I knew that my time with Maria was going to be this short? Regretfully, I would have lived much differently. I would have purposely hugged and kissed more. I would have tried to memorize and lock away in my heart certain smells and smiles. I would have colored more and worked less. I would have laughed more and fussed less. Bedtime wouldn’t have become a chore to check off the list of things to get done. Instead it would have been more of an opportunity to listen about the day and offer whatever words were needed. The swimming pool wouldn’t have been too cold to swim in. The flowers in the garden would have all been picked, and definitely more ice cream would have been consumed!"

I almost stopped reading the note initially, because I wasn't in the mood to feel sad. But, thankfully I kept reading and was able to embrace this day differently. Although bedtime was still a "chore", all that preceded was a delight. We had lunch together, had a nice outing to the bank, played puppy (I even let Ally lick my cheek a couple of times), split a donut 3 ways at Starbucks (I took the smallest piece), played at a toy store for an hour, and read a nice advent story together. Today was a good day!

Tomorrow I will try harder!

Audrey's earrings

2009-02-06T20:02:00.000-08:00

Audrey decided she was ready to get her ears pierced :)

I don't know what to feel about the fact that she asks me to take a picture of her earrings and sell them. She's so used to me selling things online :)

Audrey is very proud of her earrings. And I'm so proud of her. It's hard to believe how quickly my little girl is growing up..

Audrey trying hard not to cry after the piercing:

The girls on the carousel at the mall in Grandville:

Bear

2009-01-11T19:44:00.000-08:00

My best analogy for life lately is that I feel like a bear in hibernation. We go to church once or twice a week, I walk Audrey to the school bus, make a couple of trips to the gym and the grocery store, and that's it. Full hibernation mode. It's just too stinkin' cold to go outside and play. I tried to get the girls out in the snow the other day for some snow romping and Audrey (not in these words) expressed how confining snow pants, boots, a snow coat and mittens are and that playing in the snow wasn't much fun. I can see her point.

Being a hermit at heart, I don't mind being a shut in. I have felt gloomy at times, but that's normal for me. Can't blame that on the weather :) All in all, life is good and we are enjoying watching lots of movies on our new HDTV.

I have been working away in my kitchen like a mad scientist coming up with new potions for my latest etsy shop (skindeep.etsy.com). I'm having fun with that and have had 2 sales so far!

One of my favorite parts of our week are waiting for Audrey to walk home from the bus stop. She has mastered the art of whistling ... I can always hear her coming before I can see her. My little girl, walking and whistling a happy tune. It doesn't get much better than that. She loves school and is always excited to go (and practically hyperventilates if she thinks she's going to be late for the bus). She comes home happy and loves to tell me about her day and get started on her homework.

Random stuff

2008-12-14T06:37:00.000-08:00

I was at my favorite market yesterday and found these sandwich/snack bags. They are natural waxed paper bags that are non-toxic and landfill safe. Yippee!

We will be traveling to Mexico later this week for Matt's sister's wedding. While we are gone, our dining/kitchen floors are being installed! Double yippee! We went with Brazilian Teak wood. We have a lot of wood work in our house, oak and pine, so it was hard to find a wood that blended well with the different types of wood. The teak has a lot of color variation, which is perfect. Matt has been pulling up the carpet this week (yes, we had carpet in our kitchen) to get the sub floors ready for the installer. We've been walking around on sub floors for a few days and the girls keep getting splinters :)

In my ongoing efforts at making a few extra bucks while being a stay at home mom, I have opened another Etsy shop. I've already had one sale! Woo-hoo! I'm having fun experimenting with different recipes. I hope to have a skin cream up for sale in a couple of weeks.

I'm ba-ack

2008-11-25T07:18:00.000-08:00

I have been scolded by a couple of people for my lack of a blogging update. (It’s nice to know someone other than my sister is reading this.) Since a picture speaks a thousand words, I’ll illustrate what has been going on the past week or so…

We finished the painting (with a lot of help):

We moved (lots of help there too):
The girls entertained themselves with the camera while we unpacked by taking 50 pictures of the television and almost as many of each others backsides:

Audrey rode the school bus for the first time (sniff sniff)

We had our first snow storm:
Video of the Day

painting painting painting

2008-11-10T19:09:00.001-08:00

I have a few pics of our house. Nothing exciting, just painting chaos!

My poor neglected Ally glued to the TV in the sunroom while I paint!

Audrey helping Marny paint Ally's room. Marny, by the way, is AMAZING! She has been working so hard helping us this week:

Another amazing friend, Betsy! Poor girl, painted lots of ceilings today. I owe her a massage therapy gift certificate, at the very least..

The sea of light switch/socket covers:

Do I keep the palm tree?

Oh, sweet election day

2008-11-05T18:31:00.000-08:00

So, last night I went to bed at 10pm. Which is unprecedented. I am usually up way too late. It could have something to do with cutting out my afternoon coffee intake. Actually, not only have I slept better, but have felt better in general. A few months ago I had some tests done to check for rheumatoid arthritis (of all things!) because I was feeling achey on a regular basis. It was getting bad again, I chalked it up to stress and then decided to do the caffeine test. Voila`! All better. I'm still having 2 cups in the morning, but that's it. Progress.

Speaking of progress... I felt an extra bounce in my step today! I'm feeling very hopeful that Mr. Obama won. (Do we call him President Obama yet?) I watched his acceptance speech this morning... wow. That man inspires me and I'm so proud of our country for making this decision.

I also watched Mr. McCain's speech. I felt like he focused on race a little too long (atleast 1/4 of his speech). I understand the magnitude of electing our first African American President but for so many people it wasn't about race. So, I don't know, just a bothersome feeling I had about his speech. I hope Mr. and Mrs. Palin find their way back to Alaska and Mr. McCain can get some well deserved rest.

Home Sweet Home

2008-11-02T16:21:00.000-08:00

Matt and I are ecstatic to be moving into our new home in the next couple of weeks! This is the least “fixer upper” home we’ve ever owned. Thank God for that. That stuff was fun in our 20s, and maybe will be fun again when our kids are grown and we have money (hopefully) to pay other people to do the big stuff.

Here are the details on our house. It is a 1987 brick ranch, 2200 square feet, 3 bedrooms, 2 1/2 baths, a formal dining room, family room, living room, sunroom, kitchen, casual eating area and a full unfinished basement. The landscape is beautiful; the backyard is lined with evergreens and pretty maples. We close later this week and will spend a week or two painting, etc. before we actually move in.

After painting, we'd like to work on replacing flooring with hardwoods and carpet. We would like to put hardwoods all over but it’s out of budget right now. Speaking of hardwoods, Matt is reading a book called Stuff White People Like. Hardwood floors is #42, Renovations is #37. This is a hilarious read, especially if you’re an urban hipster (or wannabe urban hipster) and are not afraid to laugh at yourself. I digress, sorry. So anyway, back to carpet. I despise carpet, really. Besides being a dust trap, it has been proven to be unhealthy, especially for children. The flame-retardants and chemicals used in the adhesives have carcinogens. Bleh. I’m looking into Flor carpet tiles. They use recycled materials and don’t have the toxic adhesives that traditional carpets have. I also found out that you can recycle carpet as opposed to sending it to the land fill. Looking into that as well.

One more thing before I get off of my green soap box. If you haven’t read this book, you should. There are lots of great tips and information.

Pictures of the new house soon!

Spy Girls

2008-10-31T18:53:00.000-07:00

We celebrated Halloween by watching lots of spooky cartoons, followed by a Spy Girl mission on bike and trike, and finished off with some serious trick or treating.
Side note... I'm not showing favoritism here, the reason there is more footage of Ally is because she is always at my side. Audrey on the other hand has cut the apron strings and is too busy exploring to be filmed or photog'd.

Ally time

2008-10-30T16:35:00.000-07:00

Ally and I made the cupcakes today!

Halloween fun!

2008-10-27T18:04:00.001-07:00

The girls and I carved a pumpkin today. This is actually our second. The first one was gutted but never carved, it got kind of rotten and stinky while we were in Atlanta. SO... this was our 2nd attempt and it was successful. A nice, friendly bat.

And... clean up!

Tomorrow's agenda:

Everybody's doing it

2008-10-26T16:48:00.000-07:00

We are getting our first taste of winter weather tonight. Nothing outrageous, just a wintry mix of rain and snow. It's always interesting to wake up and see what happened overnight! I remember waking up to snowy surprises as a kid. That was always so exciting, especially in Georgia because 1 or 2 inches of powdery fluff = snow day :)