Sundays

I've been chopping and grating all afternoon. We're having homemade tomato soup for dinner and the kitchen smells amazing. It's sunny and warm out, but not hot and I'm so grateful for the first hints of fall weather and the lower softer light that's spilling in our back windows.

Caroline didn't want to nap today so Brian rocked her in her chair and they took naps together.

I bought some new fall clothes for the kids last week. Andrew wore his dark jeans and a pink checked button down to church this morning and he looked like a million bucks. He helped me put the outfit together, down to the sloppy front tuck. I think he's got a little bit of style in him when he tries.

Caroline wore her new pink Nikes to church even though I wanted her to wear her little silver mary janes because these days shoe choice is just not something I have the energy to argue over. She is so very TWO - self assured and full of firm opinions. At least they're super cute for sneakers.

Our living room is full of the sounds of football. Andrew knows that a Sunday in the fall will be known as "football Sunday" in our house. The Cowboys lost. But I'm going to win both of my fantasy games this week. I'd honestly rather lose my fantasy games and have the Cowboys win, and that's saying something.

Andrew's spent his afternoon in the playroom building little cars out of his Legos. His ability to focus and build for 2+ hours at a time is still surprising to me. He's such a little boy. We call him Architect Andrew because he designs these tall castles and garages for his cars to sleep in.

I did some decorating while it rained yesterday. I worked on the bedding in the guest room and we hung a new mirror in the entryway. (But there's still so much empty wall space here! And boxes too. Oh yes.)

My fall book banner from last year is hanging on the mantle in the living room. I like it more here than I did in our old house. The old straw scarecrow is standing by the front chest, ready to greet you when you knock on the front door.

Now I just need a few little pumpkins to scatter about, and we're ready.

Happy 4th!

Happy 4th of July friends!

We're celebrating all that is wonderful about this great country of ours with some swimming and some barbecue, super cool shades and maybe a firework show or two.

I really, really wanted to make this peanut butter American flag dip (OMG!) but I ran out of time. Boo! Maybe we'll have it this weekend instead.

via Crazy for Crust

We'll just keep the celebration going.

What are you doing to celebrate today? 

Balancing

Weekends at the family lake house are the best.

They're full of sun and fun and conversation, family and floating and lots of hot dogs.

Here are a few snapshots from the weekend....well, last weekend, but this weekend looked pretty similar.

So the rest of our July will look a lot like this, plus about a million boxes and movers and hours and hours of packing and unpacking.

I'm hoping to balance our time well for the sake of the kiddos. They turn into wild animals when we spend too much time inside, and well, we pretty much have to be inside for me to pack.

So a little packing, a little playing, a little unpacking, a little swimming....we'll balance it all out.

It's going to be a good month!

Sunscreen and Pool Water

It's summertime and the living is supposed to be easy, but these last few weeks have been so crazy!

But crazy in a good way.

Last month I told y'all that we found a new house in a new neighborhood and that we'll be moving soon.

Well, it's coming along - we're making decisions and watching it all come together.

Here's a preview of our very dirty new kitchen. This was a week or two ago. It looks a little cleaner than this now, I promise. :)

Yep, we painted the island blue. I'm a little nervous about it, but so far I'm happy with it. The rest of the cabinets are white and the counters are light so the pop of color is a nice contrast.

(The island paint is blue danube by Benjamin Moore and the rest of the cabinets and all the trim are painted in BM's white dove. The wall color is BM revere pewter which Pinterest claims is the best wall color ever - I guess we'll find out!)

I feel like every time we talk about paint or furniture or rugs I say, "well, I want it to be really light and bright." Our current house isn't exactly dark, but it's decorated in golds and browns and creams and I'm moving away from that look here with the new house.

So I hope we like it!

And this house is on the market now so we're running around keeping everything picked up and super clean which is super fun when you have two little people living in your house.

We're in a pretty hot housing market right now so I'm hopeful it won't take too long to sell, but again, we'll just have to see.

Lots of hurry up and wait these days.

But lots of fun too!

I taught Andrew's VBS class last week. We had 22 three and four year olds! I'm convinced that all preschool teachers are saints. :) Andrew loved it so much though that it was totally worth all the early mornings and trips to the potty.

Um, Caroline clearly felt the same way. Ha!

There's been lots of swimming already this summer. Andrew completely wore himself out with all the pool time this weekend. He fell asleep in the car on the way home from my parents' today and didn't wake up again so he's been in bed since 6PM.

I'm hoping his crazy early bedtime doesn't lead to a 5AM wake-up.

The kids are both so dirty right now. They still have sunscreen in their hair and smell like pool water, but I figure that's what summer is for, right?

They'll get a bath tomorrow. :)

A Random Weekend Recap

My friend Elaine used to host a Miscellaneous Monday link-up, and let's just say that today's post would totally fit in over there.

Except that at this point it's barely still Monday. Oops.

We had a beautiful weekend here in Dallas and we spent about 85% of it outside. Poor Caroline had a fever most of the weekend and didn't feel well, but she wanted to "go, go" so we kept buckling her into her stroller for a "ride".

It's her favorite thing these days.

Whatever you say, pretty lady.

Our first delivery from Greenling came last Thursday night, and I was so excited about all those fruits and veggies! I wanted to cook Friday night, but our kitchen faucet leaked AGAIN, so we had I don't even remember Friday night.

But also included in our delivery were sweet little limes from McAllen, Texas and we had tequila in the pantry so Brian made margaritas. They kind of helped me get past the leaky faucet. :)

But by Saturday our kitchen was fixed (kind of), and I cooked. I can't wait to tell y'all more about Greenling later this week. I'm a new fan for sure!

I like to have slow, laundry doing, closet cleaning, music listening, water playing (in the summer), list making Sundays. But this Sunday was packed, and I had so much fun I didn't mind it a bit.

Andrew and I went to church while Brian stayed home with feverish Caroline. Then we stopped by Whole Foods, had a quick lunch at home and headed to a friend's birthday party at Pump It Up.

It was our 4th party there this spring. Andrew loves it so much. He's a pro at this point! We had to stop at Kroger on our way home because we were out of paper towels - I know. Mom fail.

So together we survived our second grocery store trip of the day.

And then I cooked again!

After our terrible dinnertimes last week I told Brian I was going to spend my cooking energy on the weekends when he's around and just kind of throw stuff together during the week when we're all so busy and he's not really here anyway.

I think this is the best plan for my sanity in this season.

And that gets us caught up to today, when I went to work and the Container Store. I'm going to organize all my bento lunch supplies this week. I need some serious help there. Like stuff sometimes falls out of the cabinet when I open the doors.

So happy totally random Monday, y'all. I hope it was a good one. :)

All Dressed Up

Brian and I got all dressed up in our snazzy best Saturday night and headed downtown with Kelsey and Matt and my parents to live it up at the Rockwall Women's League Charity Ball.

This was our second year to attend. Last year the ball was held in a huge barn in a pretty spot out in the country. And it was fun, but it was hot and humid and we all had fuzzy hair.

Last night's fancy ballroom party was much more comfortable.

Except for the shoes.

I wore these. Not only did I wear them all night, but I danced in them all night. My feet may never forgive me, but it was worth it. The band was fabulous. They were a bit like a toned town version of the Spazmatics - awesome.

The Reid girls all dressed up.

I was super happy with my dress and I'm bummed I didn't get a picture of the whole thing. It has a full ruffled skirt. I'm hoping I have a reason to wear it again soon. Kelsey was glowing in her coral dress and mom was just beautiful in her regal purple gown.

So fun to see Dad in his tux. As a member of the the Women's League, Mom worked hard to help set up and prepare for the party. It was so nice to see all their hard work pay off.

They had pretty flowers on the tables and they were up high so we could see around them. It's my favorite way to do centerpieces.

And maybe my favorite part of the party was the little flipbook we had made of us in silly costumes.

So much fun! (PicFlips had a little booth set up and they did a great job! I think this would be the BEST wedding party activity.) We'll treasure our little flip book for a long time. And Brian may grow a big mustache. :)

It's so fun to get dressed up and go to a party! I'm looking forward to next year's ball already!

Saturdays

Caroline seems to have finally given up her 4:30 or 5AM nursing session which is wonderful. I'm so, so glad. But it also means she's up for the day by 7AM now.

Which is not that bad I know, but we're a late night household.

I'm working on changing that, but somehow 7AM is a lot earlier than 8AM on a Saturday.

We are finally going to make it to the kids' swimming lessons this morning. Our Saturdays have been filled this spring, and we've missed the pool. I'm so looking forward to summer and weekends in the water.

After swimming lessons I'm leaving the kids and taking one of those "me" days I talked about this week. My sister and my mom and I are going shopping. Woohoo for new spring clothes!

If I find anything fabulous I'll be sure to share it with you.

But first I wanted to tell y'all about Whitney Rae Paper.

I met Whitney at the Handmade Marketplace at Blissdom. I was immediately drawn to her paper goods because I love all things pretty paper, but her camera stamp jumped right out at me.

I neeeeeded that stamp. I've been stamping all kinds of stuff - my planner, blank note cards, the kids - kidding! Kind of.

If you love photography and you love paper you should put one on your list.

Happy Saturday friends. :)

Our Belated Easter Celebration

No, no. I'm not a week behind. Well, I am, but these photos are just from yesterday.

Remember how Andrew was sick as a dog last week? Well, we delayed our family Easter celebration until this past weekend.

We went to our church's new Saturday night service and then we were up early on Sunday to see what the Easter bunny dropped off. Yes, I called the Eater bunny and asked him to come a week late. No problem at all, he said. :)

Andrew thought getting an Easter basket full of goodies was way worth the wait. And Caroline was pretty happy with her new "phone" too.

And then we were off to my parents' to hunt eggs with my sister and Matt and cousin Reid. Miss Anna Kate slept through most of the egg hunt, sweet thing, but she was there too.

The kids had a blast! I knew Andrew would be a pro at egg hunting, but I wasn't sure what Caroline would think of it all. Well, she figured it out right away.

So even though our real Easter Sunday was spent on the couch, we can celebrate God's love and His promise anytime, right?

Day Four

This photo pretty much sums up our Easter weekend.

Oh poor sad Andrew. His tummy bug, which had to be some kind of super-charged mutant virus, lasted a full four days and nights. I called the pediatrician, and they assured me that this was okay, but I was beginning to get worried.

We had great plans for a day with family at my parents' on Easter Sunday, but instead we sat around in our pajamas and watched Disney Jr. Again.

Well, not Caroline. I dressed her in her Easter dress anyway because she looked so cute, and I hated to not get another wear out of it. She played in the backyard for a bit and kept up her usual toddler shenanigans.(She's so ladylike y'all).

So by Sunday - the fourth day - Andrew started to feel like he could get up and do stuff, but then after a few minutes he'd say, "I'm going to go lay back down." So sad.

But I'm happy to report that as of this morning he seems to be back to about 85%. I told him we're still going to take it easy, so he's building castles with his Magnatiles and then stomping on them like a T-Rex. Sounds about right for a Monday morning.

And I told him that even though we didn't get to go to church for Easter we still need to remember God's love and mercy everyday. And also that I called the Easter bunny and he's going to make a special trip to our house next weekend. Andrew was totally okay with that.

I hope you all had a marvelous, virus-free Easter weekend!

Spring Break Fun

Well Spring Break 2013 is all wrapped up and Andrew heads back to preschool on Tuesday. And I'm heading to my first blogging conference, Blissdom at the Gaylord here in town, later this week.

So I guess we'll get back into our regular routine next week. :)

Andrew had the greatest week ever.

It all started with his Superhero birthday party. Then we took a trip to Target dressed at Captain America, had a playdate at the park with school friends, went to the Perot (or the dinosaur museum, as he calls it), got to stay up late and meet our friends at a dinner party at my parents', visited my dad's ranch where we played on the giant tractors, and then he swam in the "hot pool" all day long on his real birthday.

Whew....I'm tired just thinking about it.

Here are a few photos from our week 'o fun.

At the Perot:






Part of our skyline.



She tried so hard to be a big kid in the play area. I wanted her to stay on the floor and play with me, but she was not having any of that. :)






At the Ranch:








Seriously. He's barely four. Not ten! How does he look so grown up in these photos? It must be the silly glasses.



Today I'm trying to catch up on that stuff I didn't do last week. Like laundry and groceries and house cleaning and blogging. I'm sure the kids will think that's just as much fun as hanging out with dinosaurs and tractors and their grandparents.