Cherished

There are things that you have that you know you love now, and then there are things you know you will cherish forever. For me, this is one of them.


Debbie from Mimi Leavitt on Vimeo.

Thank you so much Mimi. (See her other work here.)
I don't ever want to do family pictures without a video again. You get so much more of the interaction. I can't wait to see the pictures. I can see Russ and I years down the road, wrinkled and gray watching this with a smile on our face and a tear in our eye. And I am sure the kids will like watching it too.

This time last year...

I was at a Muse concert. I guess I should say, this month last year. I think it was the 15th? 19th? Anyway, it marked a big day for me. I was pregnant and sick and I had purchased the tickets before I knew I was pregnant. I wanted to go so badly, but throwing up at a concert would NOT be fun. I looked at the calendar over and over again and decided that it was about the time I should be getting better (my second trimester) and I was determined I would be better. And I was. Sorta. I felt pretty crappy, but I was able to stand for all their performance and didn't throw up. 

That also meant that it was time for us to move into the house we had bought. 

That was such a crazy time. I had no part in moving so unpacking was kinda tricky, but so many people helped me and things went so well. A lot of work has been done since then and I think I am ready to start showing my house to the internet world (I am actually not ready, but I feel like if I post this then I have to get ready) I won't (can't) do it all at once. So I will go one room at a time. Plus we will be gaining 3 rooms in August when Mark, Ashley, and Sam move out. I will have a lot of work to do over there. It should be fun.

Living here has been great. Sometimes it is easy for Russ and I to look at the house and only see the things we need/want to get done and not see all the progress we have made. It really is such a nice place to live.

So hopefully once a month I will feature a room in our house. Starting with next month.

Now I need to go get ready for the basement sale. I hope I see you there. It should be fun.

Easter Sunday

This year I made Gracie's skirt and bow and William and Russell's bow ties. I also updates my sweater with flowers. Looking back I wish I had made a bow tie for Joseph. His tie is cute, but a bow tie may have been better.

I love Gracie's skinned knees poking out in this picture. It reminds me of Idgie from Fried Green Tomatoes. I love that movie.

Gracie is just cute and William is holding the "Elder Wand" from HP.

I am so glad I made at least something for Easter. My aunt posted something my grandmother had written about growing up in Colonial Mexico. One thing she mentioned is that she always got a new (handmade) dress at Christmas and Easter. This is a tradition I want to continue. She also said that growing up she had 2 dresses. One she was wearing and one being washed. Reading about her childhood (where she didn't have much but at the same time had everything)  made me think a lot about luxuries and what would have been luxuries then seem like necessities now. I need to be better about not taking the luxuries for granted. And not spoiling my kids...or myself. Cause you can be happy without a lot of "stuff". Maybe even happier if we can live without it and without wanting it.

I have everything I need and I am so grateful for that. 

Happy Easter.

Second and final egg hunt

Here they go...

William loved that Gracie found an egg in the basketball hoop.

Joseph sat in the grass for the first time (Our grass is too pokey sit on). I love witnessing firsts. 

he loved it

this is the best picture I could get of the kids together.

But they did really good for the family shot. I mean, look at William. It looks like there is someone behind the scenes posing him (but there wasn't). 

she still loves to smother him with sisterly love.

This picture makes me feel like I am about to be eaten by a giant baby.

This picture just makes me happy. It might be my new favorite.

Look at those legs! I feel like it would hurt to have that many rolls over your knee cap. He does seem to love it when I massage them after his bath.

Joseph gives kisses now, which is so nice. I spend most of the day kissing him, so it is nice to get some back (even if is an open mouth-slobber on the cheek-kind of kiss).

And this made me laugh. Gracie reading a book to her puppy dog. This toy has a little leash you can pull it around with. She was pulling it around and kept saying to me, "he thinks no." I had no idea what she was talking about until I saw her pulling the dog and realized as you pull it, it shakes it's head. Get it? He thinks "no" - like he is shaking his head "no". Ha ha love that girl.

The Huston's Easter shin dig

So after the kids found their easter treasures, they waited (not patiently) for their cousins to come.

Once everyone got there we had good food and happy little kids.

This is Joseph's new trick. He makes  noise whenever we move our finger over his lips and it is pretty cute. I need to get it on video.

They played kickball and had the best time.

I laugh out loud every time I see this picture of William running.

everyone loves to hold the baby

Two very lovely ladies.

Ready to hunt the eggs (that we hid while they were playing kickball)

on your marks...get set...

GO!

It was a wonderful time.

Make a gif

These two did this over and over. They thought it was so funny.
After we cleaned up here we headed over to Russ' brothers house for another egg hunt. I will post about that tomorrow.

a short breath

Easter is done and it was lovely.

I used the trimmings from our front yard bushes to make things pretty and green.

We spent Friday night dying eggs as a family. We used foods to die them and it worked out pretty good.

We used yellow onion skins to make orange. Red onion skins just made a brownish color.

A lot of websites said to use tumeric for yellow, but I didn't have that so I used yellow curry powder and it worked to make a light yellow. Red cabbage makes blue, but I had to leave it in it all night to get a light blue.

I chopped up beats in the vitamix to make a pink. 

I kinda mixed between all of them and came up with some pretty colors. We will definitely be doing that again and experimenting some more.

I made these table cloths for our Young Womens New Beginnings. The theme for that was the Princess and the Pea.

I also hung some pom-poms from that in out tree.

Look at my cute Dad.

And again for their Easter baskets I used bush trimmings. As I was giggling putting the baskets together Russ said, "I love that pretty things make you happy." It is true, I like things to look pretty.