What We Do In This House...{Thoughts}

There are simply times where I am just overwhlemed with emotion.  It's usually a feeling of gratefulness.  I look around me at how lucky I am.  Four beautiful, perfect children.  A loving, adoring, and caring husband.  A warm and safe house.

I wonder how we can get so caught up in what we don't have, what we can't have, how things should be. We get distracted by TV shows, the internet, or video games that we forget to simply BE with the ones around us.

Sometimes my love for them (my fam) feels so big I can't believe that I can be distracted.  I want to be able to live every moment right there in that moment. And not worry about the messy kitchen, or whether or not I have email, or the growing To Do List in my head.  I have so many things I want to do.  I want to pick up running again, I want to craft and create all day, I want to finish painting my kitchen, I want my house to be clean and to put good meals on the table, I want to find the best deals in town and save the most money I can for our family, I want to read a book.  So many things I want to do or wish for.  I want to have my hand in them all... but there are only so many hours in a day.

I love the moments I find myself completely engaged.  I know beyond all else that is what my family really cares about.  So the house isn't always clean, or projects are slow to be finished.  What matters most is being WITH them.  I hope for my children that during those moments I can pass onto them the things in life that I know are important - loving each other and themselves, giving to and forgiving others, having fun and challenging themselves.

I hope that if I can make this sign and place it in my living room I can not only remind myself of what is important, but I can reassure my family how important they are to me.

This image was found on Pinterest courtesy of A Lady's Findings.  It's a future project for my home.

Kids Birthday Celebrations

We had some serious birthday fun this month!  Four birthdays in nine days can get pretty crazy.
Thank goodness for Pinterest or i never would've come up with ideas for easy celebrating.  Check out here where I came up with some of these ideas.

My little guy loved his Dump Truck Cake.  Best of all you don't have to be perfect for this to look really cute. I personally thought the gummy worms were a nice touch : )
I don't know what the blue icing has to do with dirt or trucks, other than the fact that's what the Birthday Boy wanted on his cake.

Each of the kids got their own dump truck to shovel cake into and eat out of.

Everyone woke up to a decorated door on their birthday morning.  I also wrote a little birthday message to each child on their bathroom mirror.  

The kids loved making some really easy and cheap decorations to keep up for the month of September.  Crepe paper banners strung up in the dining room made every day feel special.

Can I get an "Amen"? I found this cute printable here.

The boys were more than thrilled with their cake.  Yes, there really is a whole cake under all that candy!

Yet another super cute, free printable from eighteen25.

We ate entirely too many treats between all the celebrations! (and loved every minute of it!)

I tried to simplify when I could.  I bought one big roll of plain paper and then assigned everyone a color ribbon and hand stamped their names on the packages. 

Super Mom I am not! I admit I breathed a sigh of relief when my daughter begged for a store-bought cake.

We had a blast and are just now coming off the sugar rush.  Just in time to gear up for Halloween!

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For the Love of Pinterest {Birthdays}

September is a fun month for us!  We have four kids, all with birthdays in September!  And not only in September, but within 9 days of each other!  So this weekend we have the twins 10th birthday on Saturday, and our littlest guy turns 3 on Sunday.  My daughter has the long wait until next Monday before she can celebrate her 8th birthday! So instead of painting, crafting, and being lazy... this is what our weekend will look like~

  Kit Kat Cake that I'm making for the twins birthday
{via: Sisters' Stuff}

The Cars Cake I WISH I was talented enough to make for my
three year old.
{via: flickr}

A cute idea for said three year old that I could probably
recreate easier than that Cars cake!
{via:kidsstuffworld.com}

Decorated Doorways on Birthday Morning

{via: Secrets of a SuperMom}

Crepe Paper Bunting
{via: Jen Johnson Guesting at eighteen25}

A new 15' Trampoline from Grandma and Grandpa
{via: Sam's Club}

That's just a few of the great inspirations I found out there in Pinterest Land.  

Do you Pinterest? If you don't and need an invite, just let me know : ) You can find me here. Feel free to add your link to your Pinterest boards in the comments, I'd love to check them out!  

Go here to see how the weekend parties turned out : )

Made some Momma Birds

Thanks to Larissa over at mmmcrafts I recently added a new pin to my Crafty Ideas board on Pinterest. She offers a free downloadable template of this-

Make a Momma Bird (or two)

Ah! So cute!  I didn't know where or when I would find the time to play around with this but I had to at least pin it.  So... when my poor mother in law had some minor surgery we thought it would be the perfect time to put the kids to work making her some cards.

We hauled out the scrap paper box, printed the easy template, and I got busy tracing.  Keep in mind I let the kids do all the cutting and gluing. They also had full creative license over the choice of paper... so ours differ a bit from Larissa's!  But the mother in law loved them and the kids had a great time!

My daughter wanted to add some ribbon embelishment
for "grass".

Even my sons got into making them!

We just let the kids use a Sharpie to add the eyes and beaks
to keep it simple : )

And here's her finished card.  

I wish I'd gotten a picture of all three completed cards.  It was very cute when the kids added hearts and stars to scene. I was so glad to find something that was easy to do, fun for the kids, and looked adorable when it was finished.  And best of all I didn't feel like pulling my hair out trying to complete this craft with four kids!

Linkin' it up here:

A Sad Goodbye

We said a sad goodbye to my parents today.  It was so great to spend some time with them and for them to see the grandkids.  We spent much of our free time fooling around with several projects and creating a timeline for the kitchen renovation.

The kitchen bench seating was built and installed.
It's not so pretty now, but trim work will be done in a bit.

This is looking down inside the bench.
See where the register comes out of  the floor?
We added tubing to re-route the air.

Here you can see where the air
will come out the side of the bench so that
it won't be trapped inside.

Whee! Brand spankin' new garbage roll out!
Thanks Dad!

These are the new cabinets that replaced the desk area.
Yes, they are ugly now, but again... painting will be done.

And here's my new bench seating fabric.
This went home with  Mom so that she could sew it on a decent machine.
Maybe one day I'll get a machine that works!

We had so much fun working together and hanging with the kids.  I just wish they lived closer!