My Beautiful Days

It seems as though I've abandoned my blog, which I truly kind of have.  Life has been extremely busy for me as of late ... these are the things we've been up to since my last post: My amazing husband and I celebrated four years of being married (and no, this picture isn't from our anniversary .. I just realized we don't have many "just us" pictures anymore!). We celebrated Christmas as a family (this was the picture on our Christmas card). We threw a surprise birthday party for Claire, and some of her friends came over and spent the night. Monte and I went on vacation to Playa del Carmen, Mexico where we stayed at an incredibly beautiful hotel and spent as much time in the sun as possible! We celebrated Colin's 7th birthday with a Lego cake made by the world's best nanny, Krista! Our front-toothless birthday boy got lots of great presents, too! I've done a lot of snow removal... ... and plan on doing more wit...

We recently had our family pictures taken by the AMAZING Michelle Lund of Lund Studios .  The picture taking itself went well, but we were beyond thrilled when we received the pictures!  As we were looking through them, one picture in particular stood out to Monte and me: This picture so perfectly captures every-day life in our family!  While Monte and I may be focused on the task at hand, there's usually something going on among our children that keeps them distracted and preoccupied.   I love this photo.   I mean I love, love, LOVE it.  It so perfectly captures us just how we roll.

This summer we've been ... Drawing on the sidewalks ... Chasing snapping turtles out of our garage ... Giving Colin the freedom to dress himself ... Giggling as we catch our babysitter (Claire) asleep with Ethan ... Changed lots and lots of diapers ... Gone shopping (yes, that sign behind me actually IS accurate!) ... Played with Ethan in a box ... Dressed up for church ... Snuggled with our brothers ... Hosted dinner parties galore ... Participated in lots and lots of goofyness ... And got caught loving on my honey! It's certainly been a busy summer in our house!  How is your summer going?

It's no secret that a road trip, while often quite enjoyable, can also get to be quite long.   Especially on the drive back home, when all of the anticipation of where you're going has diminished and you're just longing to be in your home again.  A few years before I married Monte, my brother Tory introduced me to a road trip game that sounded completely bizarre, but I have to admit it: I'm hooked!  The game is "I Spy a Cow".  The basic concept is that you want to spy cows along the drive before any other passengers in the car see them.  The catch is that, while you may spy an entire herd of cows, it only counts as one cow - in other words, you may not count more than one cow in the same pasture.  On top of that, if anybody happens to spy something that is NOT a cow (i.e. a horse) and mistakingly calls it a cow, they go back in points by one cow.  The big catch, however, is that you can clear all other players of any cows they had earned by simply...

While it can be said that both Monte and I have gone camping in the past, and the boys (Iain and Ellis) have technically  been camping (meaning they spent the night in a tent), our family as a whole had never been camping together - so that is what we did this past weekend!  We packed our Suburban to the brim and woke up early enough to have our family out on the road by 7:00am.  Destination: Itasca State Park.  We made a few stops on the way, including one at my sister's house to pick up the things her family was loaning us for our camping trip (as they tend to camp quite frequently).  When we got there, I knocked on their back door and let myself in.  I was greeted by my brother-in-law, Martin, and my niece, Khloe, who ran up and gave me a huge hug the moment she saw me!  It was all too sweet! :)  So, Khloe in my arms, we headed outside to get the screen tent, grill basket, air pump and air mattress that we were borrowing from them (let's face ...

This was passed on to me from my mother-in-law.  I thought the message was quite phenomenal so I wanted to share it with you.  The author is unknown. Family I ran into a stranger as he passed by, 'Oh excuse me please' was my reply. He said, 'Please excuse me too; I wasn't watching for you..' We were very polite, this stranger and I. We went on our way and we said goodbye. But at home a different story is told, How we treat our loved ones, young and old. Later that day, cooking the evening meal, My son stood beside me very still. When I turned, I nearly knocked him down. 'Move out of the way,' I said with a frown. He walked away, his little heart broken. I didn't realize how harshly I'd spoken. While I lay awake in bed, God's still small voice came to me and said, 'While dealing with a stranger, common courtesy you use, but the family you love, you seem to abuse. Go and look on the kitchen floor, You'll f...

This morning has been a crazy one already. I got up early and put a French Toast Bake in the oven, spent some quality time with my hubby while that was baking. I ate said French Toast Bake with my family 40 minutes later and realized it was disgusting. Gave permission to all family members to throw the nasty bake in the garbage disposal. Showered and got ready. Watched my husband try to repair our Wii. Searched online for diagrams as to HOW to reassemble said Wii. Failed to figure it out. Bid farewell to Monte and Iain as they headed out to winterize our boat (all the while the Wii is currently on our countertop completely disassembled and we have been given strict instructions stating "DO NOT TOUCH THIS!"). I watched the family eat lunch, and realized that I have yet to do so myself. This will happen in just a few minutes, of that I am sure. While it has been a lazy Saturday morning here, it also seems to have been an exhausting Saturday morning! Why is that? Wh...

I'm beginning to wonder if my absense from blogging is a pattern in the making?! Well, I guarantee you that it actually IS, at least for the next couple of weeks. Why is that? Well, because my brother, Tory, and sister-in-law, Lisa, just welcomed a new baby girl into their family on Monday morning (wait, that's yesterday right?! Holy moly it feels like more than one day has passed since then!!). Say hello to the absolutely beautiful Abigail Grace! My upcoming absense comes partly due to the fact that I am going to Jamestown, ND to spend a few days with my brother and his family. I will leave tomorrow morning and return home again on Friday. That being said, on Saturday morning our family is leaving for a week "up north" at a cabin near Brainerd, MN. We are going to spend the week fishing, swimming, reading, relaxing ... oh, and I am determined that I am going to learn how to knit ... so I'm going to do that this coming week as well! :) All-in-all, I'm just giv...