move = bittersweet

the moving truck has already been packed and unpacked. i'll admit i completely lost it when it came in the driveway and when it pulled out. have you ever felt excited, anxious, sad, scared, happy and depressed all at the same time? that's how i'm feeling right now. i feel almost paralyzed. silly though cause its just a move a few hours away and people move everyday right?

i have a high school friend moving to another country as a missionary with three kids - if she can do that then why am i being such a putz about moving just a hundred miles away? reality is i am scared. i am getting out of my comfort zone. i am worried about my kids. i know it will all be ok but i am worried - worried we are taking them from their friends and family. are we being selfish or are we doing what is right for our family? my head knows we are but my heart - not so much. i know even three months from now it will be better but for now don't expect me to be the least bit "with it" cause it won't be happening.

this was only half of the stuff and minus furniture

so long yellow...

I really don't like yellow on walls. My apologies to those that love it - it just isn't for me. It took me two rooms of yellow to come to this realization. Our first house we painted the nursery yellow. I couldn't stand it. When we finally got around to painting it a soft pink I was in love. Fast forward to another house and a kitchen. When we built the house I had it painted empire gold. I like the color - it is even in my livingroom, but I just didn't feel it was right for my kitchen. It didn't go with the black and stainless. It just wasn't right. I felt maybe it was because it was too dark so I had the idea to go lighter. Guess what that was ------ yellow. I was in denial. I thought wow it looks so much better but really I was thinking - not loving it. I was also pregnant at the time so I chalked it up to hormones. Well I never grew to love it and begged hubs to help me paint it another color. I knew exactly what I wanted - a coastal blue. He finally agreed.

good riddence friendly yellow!!

Mucho improvement!!!

Nice, Happy, Hopeful

word of the year - SIMPLIFY

quotes to remember:

Stages of life dictate the pace of life.

Never lose a chance of saying a kind word.

My irresponsibility leads to someone else's responsibility.

Don't let anything ever be ordinary.

Enjoy the little things in life... For one day, you will look back and realize they were the big things.

The capacity to learn is a gift; the ability to learn is a skill; the willingness to learn is a choice.

It's ok to be nice, happy, hopeful, imperfect, silly, yourself.

Love everyone!

Work while you work, play while you play; this is the way to be happy each day.

All that you do, do with your might; things done by halves are never done right.

If you don't feel that you are possibly on the edge of humiliating yourself, of losing control of the whole thing, then probably what you are doing isn't very vital.

Valentine heart initial shirt

I've been seeing shirts like this all over the blog world so I thought I would try to make some for the two little ones. I think the oldest would freak out at the thought of me making one for her. I started with a long sleeve shirt I found at Walmart.

I then cut out a heart using cotton fabric.

I also cut out an e with a plain red fabric. With both I applied a fusible interface to the fabric and then traced the pattern on and cut it out. With the heart I did not reverse it when I traced but I did reverse the letter.

After fusing the heart to the shirt and the e to the heart, I added a stabilizer to the back of the applique. I then started sewing my applique to the shirt.

Finished product!!

eating healthier

I have decided I want my family to start eating lighter, healthier foods. I don't like the feeling when I eat too much or just really heavy foods. My 2 youngest love veggies so going that route should not be an issue. The oldest is not a fan so much of anything but sweets. Convincing her will take some trickery. I follow tons of blogs and one that I follow is Kraftfoods.com. Last week they posted a blog on zucchini "fries" with lemon aioli as a healthy foods idea. They looked awesome so I knew I had to try them.

There are only 4 ingredients. Zucchini, chicken flavored shake n bake, egg and parmesan cheese.

Cut your zucchini up into "fries". The smaller ones tasted better so cut on the thin side.

Before you put the "fries" in the egg wash go ahead and get your breading mix together. Open up one pouch of shake n bake and put in the bag provided. Add to it approximately 1/4 cup of parmesan cheese. I think we added more but if you aren't a fan just add less.

Next put your "fries" in the egg wash and then into the shake n bake bag. It is recommended that you do this multiple times. Be very careful that the "fries" are not too moist. By the third time the shake n bake would not stick to the zucchini.

Overall the family really enjoyed these. They are best right out of the oven and thin. I think next time I will put the zucchini in salt water and see if that helps with moisture because getting the shake n bake to stick was frustrating. We made a simple remoulade sauce to dip them in so we didn't make the lemon aioli but if you want the recipe you can get it here

Sweet Shoppe

While planning the party for the Beast I came across the photos from Dedle's party. I have a friend at work that is awesome at party planning and I have to give credit where credit is due. She came up with most of this and did a fabulous job!!! Thanks LINDA!! I can't wait to get her help with Beast's party

lollipop topiary!


close up of topiary


gift bags for kids to put candy from the candy bar in


smash cake, mini cupcakes and some of the candy bar treats


sweet shoppe


banner


another view of candy bar

Hula Party

I have a friend that is so organized and always starts planning way ahead for this. For example she is already planning her Fall trip - seriously I haven't even planned dinner for tonight. She is awesome - I'm not - case closed. Anyway she was talking about planning her girls birthday parties and it freaked me out cause I realized the beast will have a birthday coming up and I haven't even thought about what kind of party she is going to have.

Deciding on her theme made me think back to her last party. She had a Hula theme. Our intention was to have the party outside but it decided to be freezing at the end of March on that day so everything was moved inside. It would have so rocked outside but had to work with what I had. This year I am leaning towards a Gnome and Fairy Princess party. Can't wait!!!

Yell Challenge Day 7 Report

It has been seven days and I have to say our house is a lot quieter. Not yelling really does seem to help with the chaos already present in the house. I now notice how much my kids yell at each other and I know they learned it from me and that makes me sad. We are working on correcting that. I'm not going to say I am completely changed and it will never happen again but I bet I will feel guilty the next time I do yell at my kids and wish I hadn't done it. This challenge has shown me that there are so many different ways to handle situations and yelling never is the right way.

Yell Challenge Day 6 Report

One more day left in the challenge and I think day 6 has been the worst day so far. I am so much more aware of how much I yell without a second thought when not doing so would be so much better for any situation I am in - of course unless someone is in danger and needs to be warned. I don't want my kids to remember their childhood with their mom a big ole miss of screamingness.

Yell Challenge Day 5 Report

Day 5 and the end of a work week is in sight. This for sure will make it easier in the household cause weekends are always stress free --- well may not. I think by day 5 of the week we are on autopilot. Lately it seems I am on it all the time just to make it through the week. I don't really like that feeling but anyway moving on... nothing substantial stands out as a big fail today. I guess you would say we passed day 5. It is Friday and everybody loves Friday right. TGIF!

yell challenge Day 4 Report

So today I was looking for inspiration to make it through the rest of the week and came across this article. It gives some good pointers.

http://www.bkhush.com/dev/content/how-stop-yelling-kids

Yell Challenge Day 3 Report

So with just the baby this morning to get ready we had no problems with yelling at the kids. The baby wakes up happy and hungry so when that need is met she is good to go. The baby didn't sleep well at all and was in our bed for two hours wide awake. I think the bad weather woke her up and she just didn't feel like going back to sleep. So I guess good we were two down on kids cause I wasn't in the best of shape to deal with any resistance. So morning report - we passed.

The night - not so good. We had planned to go to church and eat there. Hubs mom backed out and I was exhausted so we quickly changed plans. Problem with the change of plans is dinner hadn't been planned and the kids were starving (cause you know they hadn't eaten in like two days - realistically they had just finished a snack). So meltdowns began as we entered the grocery store. Luckily it was public - and who screams at their kids in public - lol. I don't think we failed once we got home but there was some louder than normal voice pitches heard. I honestly don't think we are passing but it is really making me think before I react to my kids so I think that is good.

Yell Challenge Day 2 Report

Day 2 was nothing like Day 1. I was like a switch went off and the kids realized vacation was over. Nobody wanted to wake up, get dressed or do anything to get out the door. It was a recipe for a complete yelling fest. I honestly don't know if we failed or not this morning because it was such a blur. I don't remember any super yelling going on but I know there was crying and fit throwing by everyone. The pickup from daycare was shaky. The kids were tired and hungry. M was with her mimi so we had no issues there and then we got a call that she wanted L to come stay too so down to one kid. We could handle that. No yelling in the p.m. Can't wait to see how tomorrow works out.

Yell Challenge Day 1 Report

Yesterday was Day 1 of our challenge. Nothing like starting on a Monday. But not just any Monday - the Monday after a two week holiday from normalcy (we were just asking for failure). To our surprise the morning was almost perfect. We had 5 people out the door and dressed by 7:30 and no yelling or crying ensued. Since we both work - the rest of the day was a breeze :). We had no major meltdowns when we picked up the kids. We served pizza for dinner so the hunger crazed scenario didn't occur ( a for sure yelling moment). Next it was bath time. It was like our kids were from another planet. They took baths with no complaining or questioning. It was unbelievable. Dressed and in jammies we just knew we were home free. Then it happened... Diesel stoodit in her diaper. So I go to change it and she starts flailing everywhere. I'm not going to lie, it was foul and unfortunately leaking out one side. So I yell. I failed - I immediately know he knows I failed. I discussed this failure with one of my colleagues and she pointed out that we in fact never set ground rules or defined what yelling was considered and that I should make the stipulation that yelling is acceptable when it involves situational pooh. Hubs please note the new stipulation. Game on!

Could You Go a Week Without Yelling at Your Kids?

Could You Go a Week Without Yelling at Your Kids?

My husband and I decided to take the challenge and see how we fared. We are both pretty competitive so we had some motivation there plus the yelling doesn't seem to be helping any - probably making any situation worse. With that said I am going to blog our experience daily to report how we did. I can almost promise there will be slip ups but I'm hoping the outcome is a lesson learned that maybe we can solve some of our daily chaos without the yelling.