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Our July 4th At The Beach

July 7, 2014 Leave a Comment

The first thing we did on our July Fourth was attend the home-spun parade I grew up attending EVERY year as a child. Yup, just as hokey as ever! Isn’t it funny how the small town things of our childhood stick with us and make us love them anyways?

And now some shots of my gorgeous offspring.

Jesse and my sister Janelle decided to talk about movies the entire time. Oh well. I had the hokey parade ALLLLL to myself. Muah.

After the parade, we went home and all took long naps. Later in the evening, we went to the beach with my family and a few friends to watch the fireworks and eat tri-tip.

I was basically freezing the entire time.

This was the only good picture I got of Gregory because he was running around and having so much fun.

Fireworks at the beach…so pretty!

How was your holiday? Hope it was as grand as ours!

Should 2 Year Olds Have Birthday Parties?

April 22, 2014 8 Comments

At some point in time, every parent wonders how they should approach birthdays. As a family, for the last 4 birthdays in a row, we have paid very close attention to the boys’ birthdays. I’ve thrown a Old MacDonald Party, Basketball Party, Dump Truck Party and a Train Party.

For AJ’s 2nd birthday party however, we just invited the family over for some hotdogs and potato salad. My mom let us use leftover cake from Easter, and we picked up a chocolate cupcake at a bakery for AJ. In total, we had only 5 or 6 presents tops.

No guests. No decorations. No games. No fancy cake.

And you know what? It was just as much fun! For me, it was probably even MORE fun. Sure, we did a little bit of extra cleaning throughout the day, paying special attention to a good deep cleaning of the deck, but we were probably going to do that anyways. Because I wasn’t stressed out about guests and decorations, I was able to relax and enjoy myself! I didn’t realize that a small part of me was dreading birthdays because of all the “work” involved.

And our 2 year old loved all the attention during his birthday song. He was so hilarious while he ate his cupcake that he actually had quite a large audience gathered around him for the better part of an hour. Get this– he divided the cupcake in half, right down the center, and didn’t touch the other half (not even the frosting!) until he was finished with the first half. We even tried to rotate the cupcake when he wasn’t looking, but he just reached his hand over and continued to eat from the opposite side. See what I mean about how he marches to the beat of his own drummer?

The entire time we sang, he gave us coy smiles.

Once we blew out the candles, the drama began. We attempted to take the candles out, but he screamed, “NONONO!” as loud as he could muster.

Finally, he tasted a little bit of frosting and calmed down 🙂 See if you can spot Gregory’s “gollum-face” in this next picture as he eyes AJ’s chocolate cake.

What about you? Do you host parties every year for your kids?

My Daily Schedule

March 20, 2014 5 Comments

I always love it when other people do posts about what their day to day life looks like. You might have wondered how I manage to keep four kids alive, blog daily AND work 20 hours a week, so here it goes— a sneak peak into our crazy. Feel free to marvel about how late I wake up. You can even make fun of me. I DON’T CARE, HAHA!

8-9am Slowly wake up with my 3 and 1.5 year old. The older two boys and Jesse are already at school for the day (I am so lucky to have a hubby who gets up for work, gets the two older boys dressed, and gets them all out door on time every morning!). And, yes, I’m also lucky that my babies are late risers like me 🙂

9am Cuddle with the babies in bed. Sing some songs, tickle some baby chub 🙂

9:30am Stumble around until my coffee is made. AHHHHHH. What, did you expect productive things from me this early in the morning? I don’t save the world until 10am, thank you. GROWL.

10am Nope. No saving the world. Just feeding the babies some oatmeal for breakfast. We usually mix in coconut sugar and blueberries! YUMMM. And I buy the gluten-free TJ’s oatmeal, because it isn’t cross contaminated.

10:30am Take care of any blogging business items while the boys are eating and/or playing with trains. If we are going to story time at the library or to a playdate, this is usually when we are getting out of the house.

11am-12pm Play with the boys, either outside or building blocks in the living room.

12pm AJ goes down for a nap. I clean up the house, while Gregory keeps playing (he’s a fantastic independent player! Sometimes, when I try to play with him, he tells me to go away!)

12:30pm Phone calls, logistics, answer emails, etc.

1pm Workout using a Blogilates or yoga video while Gregory laughs at me (just like his father. sigh.)

1:30pm Make lunch for Gregory and I.

2pm Shower, blowdry hair, put on makeup

2:30pm Get Gregory ready for his nap. AJ wakes up and I switch them, laying Gregory down (they can’t nap together for some reason! Must be all the giggling and shouting they do together…).

3pm Give my babysitter (my mom or mother in law) the run-down on the boys’ schedules, food, etc. Rush to work (my commute is approx. 6 minutes, depending on the lights).

3:15-4:45pm Latin class!

4:45-5pm Hurry, grab a latte at Starbucks! WHY ARE THERE SO MANY PEOPLE IN THE DRIVE THRU?? Step aside!

5-5:30pm Teach a piano lesson around the corner

5:30pm Run any needed errands, last minute dinner items, etc. Come home where Jesse and all 4 boys are waiting (I pay somebody to pick up our two older kids and take them to their after school activities. This way I can still teach piano lessons and Jesse can stay at work and get his grading done).

6pm Help Jesse finish making dinner (yes, we both share this task in our house, no shame!). Keep the boys from running into things since they’re usually wired and crazy at this time of night! Now that it’s lighter outside, I send them outside to water plants or count leaves or jump off things and break their arms (wait, is this just my kids?).

6:30pm Sit down to dinner, get the boys cleaned up, give everyone one treat for dessert (I buy the chocolate covered powerberries at TJs! Kinda healthy, right?).

7pm AJ goes to bed.

7-8pm Help our 10 year old with any extra homework.

8:15pm Help the two older boys call their Dad and say goodnight. Give everyone their vitamins and essential oils.

8:30pm Both older boys go to bed, lights out. Gregory gets some much needed individual attention from both Jesse and I. Usually, we read him a story or cuddle for a bit. He’s been really struggling, feeling attention deprived.

8:45pm Gregory goes to bed.

9-10pm Jesse finishes any grading while I write a new blog post for the next day. Sometimes, if I’m really far ahead with my posts, I edit pictures for the next week.

10-11pm Jesse and I watch an episode of whatever show we’re currently obsessed with. Sometimes we end up watching until midnight (shh!).

11pm Jesse packs his lunch while I shut down my computer, and we go to bed

So…there you have it! Not too crazy or hectic, right?

House Tour: The Nursery

March 18, 2014 6 Comments

I know– I’m breaking ALL the rules by not waiting until Saturday to show this. But they’re my rules. And my rules are made to be broken. Just ask my boys, right?

I’ll admit– while there are many things I’ve eased up on as a mother, my kids’ beds are not one of them. They only have organic mattresses and pillows, despite the fact that we’re on a budget and we scrimp and save in other ways. This just isn’t an area I am willing to compromise on.

This room is TINY, in case you can’t tell from the pictures– around 9′ by 14′, in fact. But it’s right off of our room, and easily fits two toddlers. We love having the boys so close for those bad dream nights.

Back in the day, when I was designing Gregory’s baby room in Dallas TX, I knew I wanted owls for the theme. I also knew that I wanted to incorporate woodsy/rustic furnishings, using the colors light gray and blue. When we moved the boys in together here at our new house, I found fabric online and used my new sewing machine to whip up curtains, duvet covers, and pillowcases. I knew that we couldn’t paint a birch tree accent wall like our old place, given that the main wall in this little room has large french doors, so I went with birch tree curtains instead!

These wooden toys were handmade by a friend of my sister in law. Aren’t they just precious?

Fun fact: I hand-sewed (no machine even!) this owl blanket while I was pregnant with Gregory.

You may have noticed you haven’t seen a dresser yet. That’s because we hid it in the closet! We also painted it with chalkboard paint so that we could label the drawers on the outside. And, yes– the handles are made from rope. I got it from a thrift store a few years ago, and it was beat up and missing a few handles, so we just took the plunge and removed them all!

At one end of their closet is an attic crawlspace. I hope they never find it!….

Originally, Jesse told me this sign was too girly. I didn’t listen to him. “You Are My Sunshine” is a very special song for me, and I use the song lyrics whenever possible 🙂 The footprints below are from the birth center when Gregory was born!

Right outside the door, we have hooks for the boys with their jackets and bathrobes

That’s it! I hope you enjoyed the nursery tour!

Our July 4th At The Beach

Should 2 Year Olds Have Birthday Parties?

My Daily Schedule

House Tour: The Nursery

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