SNOW DAY!

Yes, I'm still blogging ... though not very much lately, huh? Sorry! :( 

So in the midst of this busy month we were given a gift yesterday ... the gift of a SNOW DAY, a rare Tuesday off where no one had to go to work or school or even leave the house for that matter. School cancelled, work cancelled, basketball practices cancelled ... the only thing on the agenda was family time.

The night before we had heard the forecast, so we set our Elf, Jingle up with a question -- Snow day? Hoping and wishing that it would come true! Sure enough it did. I got up, realized there was no school/work and went back to bed for awhile. When I got up later around 8:30 I made my coffee and the snow started falling hard and fast within a few minutes. 

We spent most of the morning relaxing. I had my quiet time and coffee while Jill played on her ipod and the rest slept in. Then they sat around watching TV for awhile while I went online. 

Around 11:30 we got all bundled and went for a hike in the woods. It was SO pretty, it looked just like stepping into Narnia! 

In a lot of places it was really overgrown and we had to climb under the snow covered branches and avoid all the prickers. It was a fun little adventure though!

When we got back I headed in to warm up, but the girls made slushies out of snow and soda. 

For lunch we made grilled cheese and tomato soup - a classic snow day lunch!

Then we pulled out a bunch of old home movies from when the girls were little and watched those for awhile. I also had a little snooze for about a half hour and then a yummy cup of mocha when I got up. 

At Bob's request we made Chocolate Chip Cookies. His fave. =) 

We put a movie on sometime mid-afternoon - it was called the Amazing Panda Adventure and it was really good! The girls and I really liked it ... 

These two snuggled up and fell asleep during the movie! So cute! 

After the movie we got some games out, first up was Pick Up Sticks. {I won!} Bob had made some delicious homemade meatballs earlier in the day and put them in the crockpot all day ... so we got some pasta and breadsticks cooked and got ready for dinner. 

It was DELICIOUS! Comfort food at it's best! 

After dinner we played Apples to Apples until it was time for the girls to go to bed. Then Bob and I watched Couples Retreat until I went to bed. 

It was truly a fabulous, relaxing, fun day. So thankful for SNOW DAYS! 

The Heavens Declare ...

Psalm 19:1

The heavens declare the glory of God;
    the skies proclaim the work of his hands.

 

 

On our recent trip to NH I took out my real camera and spent a lot of time searching for beauty in nature ... it wasn't too hard as we hiked through the mountains - the beauty was all around us!

I kept thinking of this verse from Psalms as we hiked ... the world we live in is such a beautiful place, a glorious creation given to us by God to enjoy. Here are some of my favorite nature pictures from the weekend ...

Fall

WOW, y'all ... where has time gone?

I completely missed the whole month of October as far as blogging ... sorry!

 Life has just been SO busy!

 

Here is another one of my famous 'catch-up' blogs - only made possible today because

 I'm home from work feeling sick! Guess my body was telling me I needed a day of rest ...

 

Anyway, here's just a little glimpse of what we've been up to:

 

I went to the Women's Retreat at Camp Berea at the end of September.

There was a group of us who were all connected to each other in some way. We had SUCH a wonderful time ... fellowship, fun, food, gorgeous weather, encouragement ... it was seriously such a blessing to attend!

 

One of my besties, Lynn went this year! So fun, we had a great time!

AND ... the speaker was author Shaunti Feldhahn!

It was such a pleasure to meet her and have her sign my book ...

she was an absolutely AMAZING speaker!!

 

On Columbus Day we had our Fall Family Fun day ...

we picked apples and pumpkins, went out for lunch and came home and carved them ...

 

We went up to NH for a little fall getaway with my in-laws.

This is seriously one of our FAVORITE weekends of the whole year and we look

 forward to it every year. We had 3 full days and 4 nights. We went hiking all 3 days,

did some shopping, swam in the pool and soaked in the hot-tubs,

had a date night and just did lots of site-seeing and relaxing ... it was WONDERFUL!

 

I work at the best school ever! We have so much fun!

 We had crazy hair day last week so this is how I went in to work ...

 

And, that brings us to Halloween ...

another fun year with friends!

Here are my beautiful girls, they are getting SOOOOO big!

 

Bob went as Moses and I was just a crazy lady with my curlers and green face mask and bathrobe...

I really can't believe it's NOVEMBER already! Where has this year gone???

 

Right now we are getting a little break in our busy life as soccer has ended {except for one last tournament this weekend} and basketball doesn't start up for a few weeks ... kinda nice to just BREATHE for a couple weeks!

September

Sometimes I used to think I was busy ... even when we homeschooled and I was home all day with both girls and it felt like we had a lot to do. Now I just have to laugh at myself because I don't think I ever really knew what busy was until the past month.

Here's a little sample of our week:
:: went to soccer opening day ceremonies
:: attended two different soccer games in 2 different towns
:: went out for dinner for a friend's birthday
:: helped teach teen Sunday school at our church
:: went to a local fall fair
:: 2 girls in school every day {making lunches, doing homework, etc}
:: myself working in the school every day
:: taking the 2 girls to and from 3 different soccer team practices and games which ends up being every day of the week except Sunday
:: attending a PTO meeting at the school and back to school night too
:: planning, shopping for, decorating for and throwing 2 birthday parties for my oldest who is about to turn 12 {one with friends, one with family}
:: picking up groceries, running basic errands for the house
:: cleaning the house, putting away summer décor and putting out fall décor
:: keeping up with laundry and dirty dishes - a never ending task!!
:: making time for my husband, the Lord and a little exercise too
:: and oh I guess there must be time for sleeping, eating and showering too, right?! ;)

This week I wrote all the stuff on my big kitchen calendar and then I color coded it all with highlighters for each person/sport ... I feel like I would be lost without that calendar!

It all seems a little crazy and some days I feel like I AM going crazy. But I've found through talking with other parents that the older your kids get, the more crazy it's going to be. And right now even though our life is VERY full ... it's full of very GOOD things. Our daughters are doing fantastic in their schools and their sports. They are great girls and are such a blessing to us. It's so exciting to see them do things that they love and see their joy when they work hard for something and then see the benefits of it. {You should have seen the smile on Hope's face when she made the middle school soccer team!}

Personally I am starting to find a routine. I really miss those lazy summer days that we could just go to the beach and hang out in the sun. But I also love this season of life. I really like my new job, it's so rewarding and challenging all at the same time. Sometimes the kids drive me bonkers and then two seconds later one is hugging me or smiling at me or telling me a story and I'm so thankful to be working there. I also really like that I have 2 hours in the morning when I can dash home and get some things done. Usually I throw something in the crockpot for dinner, do some house cleaning and maybe run an errand. If I didn't have those 2 hours each day I would really be struggling to keep up with my housework!

How about a couple pictures? Blogs aren't fun without something to look at ... =)

I forgot to share pics from the 10K we ran the day before school started. It was my first 10k and wouldn't you know, I haven't run a single day since then! It was good though, I'm glad I challenged myself to complete this goal. In the second pic you can see my time and pace - nothing great but I'm just glad to have finished the whole thing!

AND I forgot to share first day of school pics too ....

I have one sporty girl ...

 

 And one sparkly girl ...

 We picked up their instruments a couple weeks ago and it was so cute to see how excited they were to get started right away. They both chose songs they found online and are practicing playing them so they can hopefully play them at their schools during the next band concert. This is all extra! Not even the songs they will be assigned from their band teachers!

And a couple pics from the fair ....

 

 Hope you have a great weekend! We have LOTS going on but I will try hard to blog again before too long!

 

 

A Simple Holiday Weekend

We had such a nice Labor Day weekend ... just simple and laid back, exactly what we needed!
Friday night Hope went to a sleepover birthday party so I let Joy invite 2 friends to sleep over. They are SO easygoing, they swam a little in the pool, ate homemade pizza, watched a couple movies and went to bed {at a decent time!} I LOVE when her friends sleep over, they are such good girls and so easy!

Saturday and Sunday night we camped in a friend's backyard. The best kind of camping if you ask me! We pitched our tents, cooked some really awesome meals over the fire and just chilled. Saturday night we had steak and potatoes cooked on the grill, hung around the fire and talked. The only mishap was their daughter got stung by a bee right next to her eye, so they had to take her to the walk-in where she was given some prednisone. We felt terrible for her!

 {setting up the tents}

 {Saturday night dinner - yum!}

Sunday we went to a local beach and spent the day relaxing, it was quite overcast but we still enjoyed it. The adults played an 80's Trivia game while the kids played in the water. It was so fun, we were laughing while we tried to remember the names of songs, TV Shows and Movies and it was SO competitive!

Sunday night we cooked delicious Mojito Lime Chicken over the fire along with corn on the cob and Confetti Black Bean and Corn salad. Later we had Dilly Bars and Buster Bars that we had picked up from Dairy Queen. We played Apples to Apples around the fire and told funny stories and just had a great time.

I woke up around 4am in our tent because I had to pee and there was thunder and lightening all around us. I ended up checking the radar on my phone and saw there was a big storm coming our way. So I decided to wake everyone up and we all headed in to sleep the rest of the night in the house. We felt much safer not being in tents for the storm!

This morning we sat around being lazy for awhile, everyone was pretty tired. We had a late breakfast of pancakes and sausage, then started packing all our stuff up to head home.

After we got home, started laundry, unloaded everything and took showers we decided to go out to Chili's for a late lunch/early dinner. We were too exhausted to cook! I barely got any sleep over the course of the two nights but we made priceless memories with our girls and our friends. Tonight will be an early bedtime for us all!

I'm so thankful we didn't travel this weekend and were able to just enjoy some simple and uncomplicated FUN! Just sitting around laughing, talking and playing board games reminds me how much I love simple fun, not all the silly technology stuff we're all so used to being connected to.

It was a great weekend and now we're getting ready for another busy school and work week. Hope you had a nice weekend too!