I remember this day

 

like it was yesterday. 

I was a grump. 

It was February 2010 and I had two adorable busy boys at home making me laugh and wanting my attention, they wanted me to play with them and tickle them and make them yummy treats.

but I was being a total grump. 

Mommy was preoccupied with wanting something more. A new baby to be exact but I had been waiting and waiting and waiting to get pregnant and nothing was happening and on this day I had thought it was another failed month so I was crying and carrying on and yelling at God and totally ignoring my sweet blessings named Simon and Levi.

Simon came into my room, looked up at my sad eyes and told me we needed to take a walk and he was right.

and so we did.

It was perfectly refreshing and a good reminder that God holds my future so tenderly in His hands and all He asks of me is to live in the moment and enjoy the gifts He has laid before me for EACH day one at a time. 

I remember this day like it was yesterday.

Mommy was actually pregnant but thought she wasn't and she was being a total grump.

Oh how I wish I could take these moments back. This perfect walk. The gift of my boys at age 2 and 3. If I had trusted that God had His perfect plan in motion I would have been more present.

How easy is it to get fixated on the next thing, more of the story more of what we think will make us perfectly happy.

I long to be present in each moment throughout my day. I long to be content and not look for fairness but rather grace and truth. Oh how I wish I could have the moments of this day back to LIVE my life FULL and not somewhere off in the future. 

Teach me Lord to rest in you today, to trust in you and to believe in your perfect ways.

Although God was so faithful to answer my hearts cry then I constantly find myself back at the start again needing Him to order my mind and center my thoughts on Him.

These photos reminded me today to stop and be present and to know that God is the one that unfolds our lives and I just need to cling to His perfect ways.

(PS. Mommy is NOT currently hoping to be pregnant for the record just feeling nostalgic and thankful today)

make something monday :: a knock off necklace

Well I have a confession to make: I don't have a tutorial for you today. In my defense it IS a holiday and I DID make something this weekend but instead of crafting a little tutorial to share I selfishly decided to knock off a necklace I have been coveting for a few weeks. I first spotted it on the amazing Rachel Denbow's pinterest - this is the original:

When I saw it my jaw dropped. I love everything about this necklace and had to try to duplicate it somehow. Last week after teaching a class at the bead store I picked up a sampling of seed beads, some power pro and a few components and then spent a week slowly building this thing here and there when I had time. I am not big on puzzles but it sort of felt like a puzzle, something to keep me busy when I had five or ten minutes to spare. I was actually kind of sad when I finished it. This is how it turned out:

What do you think does it look like the original? I chose a few different colors including gold and pink instead of red and yellow. I think it turned out pretty close - I am excited to wear it out. It isn't exactly baby friendly but maybe I will convince Mr. Gough to take me out on a special date...or maybe I will just wear it to the grocery store...heck if I ever get five minutes by myself I will throw it on and have a party - ha!

Chris did take a couple of pictures of me wearing it this afternoon and he tried to convince me to let him photograph my face for the shot but it just seemed so senior picture - he totally had me laughing...and wow this is a bad angle for my nose :).

Happy Memorial Day I hope you are all having a wonderful holiday however you choose to spend it!

PS. If anybody wants me to write down the pattern and colors of beads I used I am totally willing just not entirely sure anyone else would be interested in stringing hundreds of beads in their spare time. I could be the only crazy lady but lemme know!

UPDATE: HERE IS THE PATTERN!

nursery tour on odeedoh

In May Odeedoh has been featuring small spaces for kids and so when Danielle contacted me about doing a little tour of our nursery too I was shocked and honored to be a part! The full tour is up this morning and you can read about it HERE! What a fun gift and blessing to be included on such an inspiring site, thanks Danielle!!

dinner at eight :: italian style

{Dinner at Eight is a special project I am doing with my friend Andi this year - planning date nights at home for our husbands every other week, putting the kids to bed early and being intentional about our marriages! Read more dinner at eight posts HERE!}

You guys this week has been so crazy! Lots of late nights with me out teaching and Chris working late and so the thought of planning a really purposeful date night was, I am not going to lie - totally overwhelming. I procrastinated and on Tuesday when I realized that we would really only have one sliver of an evening to spend some time together as a couple I decided to go easy and casual and hit up Trader Joes for our Italian Style feast!

Miraculously it all came together so easily. When Chris came in the door a bit late I don't think he was expecting a date night and seemed so pleasantly surprised to see the table all set up. White paper and candles and some pretty flowers was all I used. I poured him a glass of wine and went through the menu: a simple antipasto platter with cheeses, olives, bruchetta spread, salami, caprese skewers, bread with oil and vinegar, artichoke ravioli with chicken sausage and vodka cream sauce and canoli for dessert. He seemed so impressed and the nice thing about it was all I really had to do was open everything up, skewer the tomatoes and cheese, boil some water for the ravioli and dinner was served. Chris put on some Dave Brubeck which was perfect and although we did have quite a few interruptions from the little ones we still had such a wonderful date night in.

I was talking about Dinner at Eight this afternoon with a friend during preschool pickup and realized just how amazing these intentional nights have become for our marriage. In the past few months Chris and I have literally only gone out once for our anniversary - otherwise these date nights at home have been it. I am not going to lie it is insanely hard to find a sitter for us during this season. We have tried like fifteen times in a row and been unsuccessful - it's actually fairly comical. I think the fact that we have so many young kids and really busy extended families we just don't get out much. But I will say that because we do these dates at home we have truly felt so blessed through our intentional times together anyway it's been amazing.

Chris and I talked about this project a lot during dinner and about how it sort of even feels like we are at a restaurant sometimes. And how it has been so helpful to to be doing the dates alongside Andi and Erik. Knowing that they have just as busy a schedule as us and are still finding time to focus on their relationship helps so much! Chris even suggested that I started challenging some of you guys to these date nights because they have been so fun for us. Would it help you guys to know that you have a bit of accountability in the dating department? Seems so funny but really if we aren't taking responsibility for our marriages who will right?

All in all it was truly another huge success and I felt so refreshed and energized to finish out the rest of a busy week after reconnecting with my sweetie pie!

ps. I realized in writing this that I owe you guys a life update post because yes you did read that right - Chris got a new job!!! More on that soon I promise! xo

don't forget to check out Andi's date night too this time she has a two parter!

the best part of my day

via

it has to be the little pitter patter of tiny feet running down the hall in the morning. I am so NOT a morning person and Chris is always up first with our early birds but I still always love to see the blonde top of Simon's head peeking over the edge of the bed smiling the biggest good morning grin. That boy is in such a great mood when he wakes up oh how I wish that was the case for me too. Often times he says to me "good morning Mom - do you need coffee this morning?" to which I laugh and reply yes. Then he makes a b-line for the kitchen where Chris is getting cereal or eggs started and I hear him say "hey Dad Mom NEEDS coffee" it always cracks me up, and I always give him an extra kiss when Daddy brings me that coffee in bed!

so what about you whats the best part of your day?

make something monday :: butterfly snack bags

project originally from BakedBree - thanks Bree for saving my hide today!

Were a little bit crazy over here today. I am teaching a jewelry class this evening at Fusion Beads and truthfully I am a tad unprepared. This morning I knew I would need to take my crew to the office supply store for some printer ink so that I could finish printing up the instructions for tonight and on our way out the door by the grace of God I remembered that tomorrow Levi is on snack duty for preschool. Those of you who have preschoolers know that snack duty is kind of a big deal - at our kids school you get to be *host with the most* for the day and treat everyone. I usually try to get the kids engaged in the snacks somehow but knowing I would be home really late I was sort of freaking out in my mind. I only wanted to stop for the ink (and maybe the drive thru for a venti americano - I have been up since 5am folks don't judge me) and I remembered that we had plenty of goldfish and raisins at home. I then thought of the cute little butterfly snack bags I have seen via BakedBree a few times lately. This week the kids are studying insects and bugs...hm could be perfect but I still needed snack size ziplocs (everything else was waiting at home) as luck would have it on our way into Staples there was a huge display of summer supplies including snack sized ziplocs - yes!

These are pretty self explanatory - we just filled the baggies with snacks and then I set up a little craft table for the boys to paint the clothes pins.

I rolled the antenna around a crochet hook while they painted

We clipped them to a plate and allowed them to dry and then added the eyes using a white and black sharpie. The googly eyes Bree used were even better but we were not going out again for those maybe next time.

Once they were all dry the boys added some stickers and we clipped the bags together. Levi was beaming with pride and decided which child in his class will get which butterfly.

And Simon made me promise that we would make these for his class next time he is host with the most he was pretty bummed that it wasn't his turn tomorrow! Wouldn't these be cute with skittles or conversation hearts as party favors??

Fun project - I love finding great ideas around the web to use in a pinch. Anything good you've seen lately? Hope you all are having a great Monday I am off to finish getting ready for what should be a fun evening making jewelry!!

slivers of sunshine

 

It's not all strawberry butter and crafting around here let me assure you but we sure do feel blessed and on a sunny Friday it was hard not to want to capture at least a couple of bright moments...besides no one wants to look at pictures of unshaven legs and piles of dishes and laundry anyways right? The rain has returned here in Seattle and Chris is literally gathering more wood to put on the fire but I am hopeful she will make her return again soon because the sunshine is so good for the soul!

Hope your having a great weekend friends!

star chart reward

In our house we use a star chart system for only one thing at the moment. My boys get a star for each night that they stay in bed until at least 7am. We have great kids but so far none of them have proven to be great sleepers and since they all share a room it makes it even harder to keep them in bed - usually at least once a night we are up with one of the boys and they like to get up pre-dawn too. So we implemented the star chart system as a way to encourage them to stay in bed longer. So far it has worked pretty well, not perfectly but helping. The chart is pretty long and so the reward is usually a fun family outing to celebrate their success. Last weekend we got to take them on a reward outing and it was super fun. Chris and I decided to surprise them with a trip to the pet store where they got to pick out their very own betta fish, it was awesome!

They wanted to see everything, the birds and hamsters, they picked out some balls for our dog Renton and then collected the fish food, rocks, water purifier and of course their new pets.

We also let them pick out a fish for Josie - Levi chose a red one with a white tipped tail. Please let me introduce you to Austin.

Simon wanted the white one with a rainbow tail. This one was named Max.

And Josie got a turquoise one (I might have had a hand in picking it) and the boys chose the name Ruby for hers.

Pretty fun if I do say so myself. We put them each in their very own dish - my large candy jars, they get to feed them three times a week as recommended by the pet store. They are so pretty and peaceful to watch from the couch and I like the pink and blue rocks we picked too!

Now to think of the next little reward outing...any good suggestions on star charts and rewards you use in your home? Would love to hear!

etsy favorites :: bright and cheery

 

{one} {two} {three} {four} {five} {six} {seven} {eight}

I love peeking in my etsy favorites and finding that my eye has picked choices lately that feel like they go together. These were all things I've *hearted* the past few weeks. Those mid century tumblers at the top are killing me. I have a weakness for vintage dishes and if we had the extra funds you can bet I would snap those up in a second for sipping lemonade this summer on the deck. Oh etsy I wish I had a money tree because there is never a shortage of pretty things to purchase from you.

What are you swooning over these days on etsy?

make something monday :: strawberry honey butter

Last week on my ten on ten set I posted a photo of some yummy waffles Chris made for breakfast. A few of you guys asked about the pink stuff on top so I thought today I would share the recipe with you for strawberry honey butter. It's super yummy on waffles, toast, muffins - anything really and would look so pretty on display with scones at a shower or tea. Truthfully I got the idea for strawberry honey butter via the kitchen sink blog. I mean who can resist pink strawberry flavored butter? I did alter her recipe quite a bit to accomodate my sweet tooth so feel free to change it up depending on your taste buds. Here is what I did:

You will need:

2 pints of strawberries hulled, processed and pushed through a fine sieve

6 tablespoons of honey

2 tablespoons of sugar

4 teaspoons of lemon juice

a pinch of salt

Bring this to a boil and simmered for fifteen to twenty minutes until thickened.

After strawberry mixture cools to room temp beat with three sticks of butter for five to ten minutes in kitchen aid mixer. Store in airtight container in fridge

Serve it up on waffles or toast.  I packaged some of the extra up in little jars to give as gifts!

Enjoy happy monday everyone!!