Living Loving my Chaos

Life is beautiful. Chaotic, messy, loud, exhausting...but beautiful. Watching my children's relationships with each other  develop and blossom is something I've been observing more and more and it is incredible to watch. Their closeness and love for each other is portrayed when I least expect it and melts my mommy heart. 

 Cute faces from this week:

Oops--that's not a face!

Like I said. Chaotic.

Happy Sunday! Hope you worshipped Jesus in his house today!

Daily Moments

Just a quick mid-week daily moments from my phone. I post a lot of these on Instagram, but I take so many pictures only a small fraction of them get shared.

 We've had special meetings this week that have been just.what.i.needed....I think all of us are feeling that way. The holidays are spent stuffing ourselves with cookies and goodies so January is the perfect month to stuff our spirits full to the brim with the good stuff in preparation for the year.

Came out from the laundry room to see everyone praying together before bed. Loved this scene. And Nathan was about to cough ;)

Heard banging in my cupboard and found him in there with his little bag of cars.

Nothing to see here. Just another day at the office.

Homework buddies

Oh, hi there!

Was super low on groceries so I threw together some Tuna Casserole...needless to say the kids devoured it 2 nights in a row. We may be on to something here..

We've been doing the Bumbo seat here and there, but he doesn't like it for more than a few minutes. I've heard it's not good for babies to be in it long because of their growing spines, but he doesn't really like it too much anyway. Although, he looks thrilled here ;)

We took down all of our Christmas decorations and I've been working like crazy this week to catch up from the lazy holiday break. I figure I can allow myself the month to "cleanse" in a sense--body, soul and spirit. And house. I think by tomorrow I should be caught up so I can resume normal every day routine and not have to do so much extra (hello, putting away 5 loads of laundry).

 Do you guys have to catch up this month, or do you keep up during the holidays? I would love to hear about it--and how you do it!

 Happy Friday-Eve! ;)

Daily Moments

I haven't done a "daily moments" post in a while, and I figured now is as good a time as any! This post ended up being a lot of pictures of Nathan. He is obviously my one that is willing to let me take pictures of him right now--more than the other ones, at least. He also turned 2 last week, which made him the center of attention for a few days!

Nate's birthday dinner

Joe did his own hair this day

This boy loves his baths. He will get out and then beg for another one an hour later. He always wants to "take a baf"

We grow them stylish in Texas

Gorgeous Spring Day

Climbed up on the stool, grabbed a leftover pork chop and ate it with his bare hands. Such a man!

My 2 year old birthday boy!

Daily Moments

We are settling into our temporary home, and I promise you I could not be happier. It took us from 8am-1am to move out of the house and another 6 hours the next day to clean. ( I was very determined to get my deposit back!) 

 My neck, back, hips and feet ached for 2 days but I'm finally feeling normal again. We had the help of great friends for several hours and could not have done it without them. Who knew we needed so much stuff? I've tried to organize and stay on top of everything, but somehow we still require a ridiculous amount of things. 

 The great news...we found a house! It's actually one that I saw months ago and we looked at. At first we weren't sure, but after a month or so we realized we kept thinking about it, so we went and looked at it again and they accepted our offer! We close in about 6 weeks, but they may rent back from us for a few months while they house hunt. So, we will probably be here for the summer which is fine with me. We are doing some renovating before we move, so they longer we are here, the more time to save money and renovate! I am super happy and can't wait to show you all pictures once we are moved in!

And now, our daily moments this week...

someone turned 6...official birthday post coming soon

After rain mud puddle fun

And then he made this face after he passed gas...

New footless tights

Memorial Day

We had a few days of indoor picnics since our dining room chairs went into storage

Naps on Mommy's bed

Found this hanging next to my bed. Priceless.

Last walk in our neighboorhood :(

Moving Day breakfast

Moving Day Dinner. We were a picture of health that day, obviously.

Intense game of tic-tac-toe

Eventful visit from the fire department for an oven fire...thank God we were all ok, besides being embarrassed that my oven was so dirty.

Leaving our now "old house" for the last time!

Date night with the Best.Fajitas.Ever...oops, I mean Best.HUSBAND.Ever. (I'm seeing a common theme of eating out this week thanks to moving!)

Date night fun...a trip to Home Depot to window shop for new home stuff

Hope you guys had a great weekend!

Daily Moments

It's been a really long, exhausting week. I am so ready to be done with this moving thing.
 Mary left on Tuesday, which resulted in my usual behavior of depression eating every carb-filled-sugar-filled-fat-filled food in the house. Somehow, even though I "don't buy that stuff", things magically appear--like 12 reeses peanut butter eggs in my freezer that I had no idea were there. Twelve. That's like a dream and a nightmare all wrapped into one. We won't disclose how many I ate.

 The house hunt is getting discouraging and I'm sick of packing and cleaning the house for showings, organizing, and choosing what we might need in temporary housing for a few months and what to put in storage.
 But more than all of that, I'm mainly feeling grateful tonight. The in between moments is what I'm focusing on, the moments when I'm hugged by my kids for no reason, or I receive a crinkly-nose smile from my baby. When friends and family come over to pack, babysit and clean, (but mainly hang out and laugh for hours) because they care and want to help. When my husband cleans the kitchen after dinner because he knows I've had an exhausting day. I am so blessed to live my life surrounded by so many wonderful, amazing people. My family lives far away, but we get to spend so much more time together compared to most long distance families, and when we do it is pure Heaven on Earth. My husband's family is like my own and so supportive and helpful. I have childhood friends that I've grown up with that I consider brothers and sisters, and my Texas girls that I've known since marriage are becoming my sista's too.
 My New York and Texas family is becoming closer as the years go on, and it's this great relationship that I'm really happy to be in the middle of. I'm so blessed, you guys. I don't know how else to put it.

 So without further ado, the in between moments from this week:

 Possibly THE best moment from the week. This happened to Mary during our garage sale as a customer looked on. We screamed with laughter and could.not.stop.

Date Night

Mixed and matched ideas to come up with this roasted red pepper and cauliflower soup. Pictures from toaster strudel and peanut butter cup day not available.

Found him "reading" his Bible

Girls Night

Also, we're twins who are 10 years apart

Nothing like a sleeping child

Workout

Grandma Time

Poor kid has almost all his toys packed away and is very bored ;/

Ended this week with a rainy weekend--so needed around here!

Hope you all have a great Memorial Day! We are (surprise, surprise) packing and moving belonings into storage, but I'm looking forward to next year when we'll be in our own house and able to have friends over for a cookout!