Water anyone?

Lula produced quite the giggles today :-)

The girls wake up a little easier these days. Then they go running down stairs to find Lula.

A Little Outdoor Decor

Today I did some decorating outside.  I love having a porch!  I saw this in a magazine years ago and had always wanted to have a house where this could work.  I absolutely love it!

The girls also woke to find that Lula had found her way into the pantry. 

She Found Us

Looks who's back!

The girls noticed her right away and were so thrilled to see that she found us!  This is our first Christmas in our new home and now that Lula's here it will start to feel like that time of year.  Welcome Back Lula!

The guys rented a lift today to get the lights put onto the house. It was such a smart idea and took them a fraction of the time.  It was freezing today which was quite a bummer- poor guys.

Give Thanks

I am feeling extra thankful this year.  Life has been good to us.  We have a great new neighborhood, our jobs are going good, we are healthy, our kids are smart and well behaved.  

We have friends and family that we get along with and enjoy spending time with.

Happy Thanksgiving!

It's About Time

Hailey does not like jeans.  She never has.
Even when she was younger, I never really put her in jeans but she's finally decided she wants to try them out.  Look at her!  She looks so grown up!

It's Out!

Hannah's tooth came out tonight!  How adorable!

Hoops

Hannah and Jacob are playing basketball this winter.  It's through CDAA and at this age is Co-Ed.
They were super excited to be on the same team.  They will spend a few weeks learning the skills and then the games will start.  The games will be coach led-non-scoring games.  Just to give them the experience of playing. The first few weeks will be mainly practice and teaching them skills then they will have a few games with a few skills days mixed in.

Another Sleepless Night

It's bed time and as I was walking Hailey to her room I came across her stash.  

She is not a kid who can just go to her bed, relax and fall asleep.  She typically plays for a little bit and then eventually puts herself to sleep.  Some nights she plays for 10 minutes and others she will still be awake 90 minutes after we put her to bed.  Poor kid- I hope this changes for her when she is no longer at daycare and is expected to take a nap each day.  I don't always take her stash away from her, lately I have just been letting her play to wind down and reminding her that she shouldn't play for long. (as long as she doesn't wake up crabby!)

Hanging by a Thread

See that tooth up there?!  That one hanging by a thread...that little bugger has been teasing us for days.  Hannah's a rockstar with her loose teeth.  She will have a loose tooth for weeks before she will even tell us and then all of a sudden they are ready to come out, like now!

This guy has been loose for a few weeks and just recently he has started to hang lower than the others.

It won't be long now!

There has been a Gymnastics Club at Adventures Plus this week.  Hannah and Samantha are both in the club together and tonight when I went to pick Hannah up they had to huge goodbye.  I could hardly pull them apart.  They were so happy to be together.  It makes me happy :-)

Not Bad For a First Try

I have never known how to French braid.  I have always wanted to know but never really had the model or patience to learn.  Hailey always asks me to braid her hair and it's been pretty impossible because I have no idea how to even start.  No idea how or where to begin.
I'm surprised that I have made it this far without having to know this yet after having 3 younger sisters and two daughters.  I think it's finally catching up with me.
Tonight at dance I gave it a try and I have to admit, it wasn't the worst.  I think with lots of practice I could actually pull this off!

That Looks Confortable

I guess we all have our own sense of comfortable.  Hailey sat like this watching TV tonight for quite a while.  This girl is such a character.  I just adore her.

Merry {early} Christmas to Me!

It came!
I ordered this on the Kohl's website after I received a mystery 40% coupon.
I couldn't pass up the deal.
I can't wait to make Christmas cookies this year!

Friends in Low Places

 I didn't realize just how excited I was to see Garth Brooks in concert until we were on our way there.
Loriann, Karri and I were meeting Mary and some of her friends there after dinner.

 

His show was AWESOME!

He sang all of his old stuff. He was full of energy and super down to earth and genuine.  I absolutely loved it.

  It was surprising how many songs we knew that we had forgotten about and it was so impressive to hear how great he sounded. His voice was so pure, the music was at a perfect volume.  Tricia came out half way through the show and sang a few songs and she did not disappoint either.  Great night, great music, great friends!

Full of Ideas

This morning I caught Hailey on the way to daycare looking through the toy catalog.  Chatting the entire way there about all of the things that she wants.  "This Barbie has high heels mom!  This Elsa doll has a beautiful dress!"  Oh to be young again....

Hi You

As we were heading outside to leave for daycare/school, the girls were so excited to see that it had snowed enough to stick to the ground.  They insisted on getting their boots on and getting their hands on it before we left.

Hailey made this guy and I couldn't bear the thought of throwing him away.

Today he sat at the computer and kept me company while I worked.

The Season's First

Tonight was the first snow fall of the season.  There wasn't much falling but it was enough to see it in the sky and enough to require everyone to stop and take in the moment. 

 Even if we were just in our undies :-)

Momma's little bakers

After some time away, the girls wanted to do some girl time so we rolled out the Easy Bake!

We didn't have any premade mix so we had to look up a recipe on Pinterest and try our luck.  The 11 minutes we had to wait for those brownies were the looooooooooongest 11 minutes of my life.

Love Your Life

This years Hearts at Home Conference was themed Love Your Life.
For the first time I really struggled trying to find sessions that I was really looking forward to.
There were a few that I was a little bit excited about but not like in the past.

I didn't recognize many of the speakers and there were less 'practical' sessions like home organizing, personal styling, etc.

Here are some key notes that I took from my sessions this year.

"Grieve what is not and accept what it is."
Jill talked a lot about trying to get rid of the 'perfect' image in your head about how things should be.  Let go of the control and stop dwelling on things that weren't done or didn't go the way you had hoped and live in the moment to accept your story the way it is at this moment. 


Winning the Battle in your Mind
Be careful how you think; your life is shaped by your thoughts.
Worrying accomplishes nothing.  Worry doesn't add hours to the day or dollars to the bank account.
We have far more interesting things to do with our lives.  The goal for this session was to take the Two-Week Challenge to Saying NO to Verbal Slams. 
Stop trying to 'be good enough', you ARE good enough.

How to Cut Your Grocery Bill in Half
 This session was put on by the Money Saving Mom:  http://moneysavingmom.com/
1.  Create a budget ($20-$50 per person per week, then set a goal to decrease that by 1-3% per month).  Only use cash to pay for items.
2.  Menu Planning.  Write out 30 meals and then rotate.  Here's a  Recipe Blog
3.  Rotate your stores (based on deals, items)
4.  Buy in bulk
5.  Use Less
6.  Use your freezer
7.  Purchase groceries online.  Subscribe to sites for deals and then cancel subscriptions
8.  Serve meat as a condiment so you are not eating that as a main dish 

Overall the conference wasn't as good as it has been the last two years but as always, I am still glad I was able to come.  I'll be back next year, for the whole weekend this time!

Mom's Away

This weekend is the Mom Conference (Hearts at Home) in Rochester.

I started my day just like last year, with a quick new do!  Tried some bangs this time and my nose looks way to big in selfies so this is as good as it gets :-)

Loriann wasn't able to join us this year (along with many others) so it's just Tammy, Tracy, Karri and I.  It'll be nice with a small group but I will definitely miss our other ladies.
We started the weekend out right with a shopping trip to Hobby Lobby and then made our way over to Chipotle for dinner.  YUMMY!

Then we made our way to the Ladies Night Out event.  Once again, great entertainment and a fun night followed by a dip in the pool and soak in the hot tub.  Excited to re-energize tomorrow!

I just might start to cry

I hope within a month or so I can remove this entry.  But for now, I need a place to just say that I am dying.  My poor blog is SO far behind, it makes me ill.
I WILL be back.  I have my pictures all set aside, I just need to sit down and get to work.
Having awesome new neighbors and being overwhelmed at work have taken over and things are slipping.  Well, they have slipped. 
This is super important to me and it's not something that I am going to give up on.  I just can't write right now.  As a matter of fact, I am sitting here right now at 10:21 staring at my computer almost in tears.  My list of things to do to prepare for our Epic go live in December is getting longer and longer, the uncertainty of who will we report to and how our team will be structured is getting to me.  It's starting to get darker earlier in the day and the sense of  'I don't have time to get things done in the day' is worse than ever.
I know things will eventually slow down and I will be able to make room for things like this again but at the moment I am super sad and overwhelmed about it.

See you soon....

Tis the Season

It's about that time again!  The toy catalogs make their way through the mail to our house and the kids can not get enough of them.  Hailey has been studying the Target book every night.  This time she has been 'signing' her most favorites and no surprises.....most items are high heels, dress up clothes, Frozen stuff and everything pink.

Just a little something I put on

Hailey was really into the Halloween spirit this weekend and today when Jacob came over to see if she could play, she ran down from her room dressed in her Sunday best.  I love this kid!

Come On Down!

Paul and Amy had an Adult's Halloween Party tonight.  It's also his birthday weekend so we should probably note that this is also the First Annual OCW Boo Bash! 

I have never really been to an adult Halloween party.  Never gotten together with a bunch of couples, dressed up and enjoyed the holiday.  Because of that I was pretty out of my element when it came to coming up with a costume.  I went out looking a few times at Party City, Target, Walmart, etc but they all seemed to have the same things.  I had no idea what to expect.  Would the others be going all out?  Is everyone really going to dress up?  I did some Pinteresting and came across a few couple costume ideas that were easy and low maintenance.  If nobody else really dressed up, we would still fit in.  If everyone went all out, we would be a tad underdressed but then would know better for next year, etc.

This is what I came up with.

Complete with homemade OCW University shirts (OCW = Oxbow Creek West)

This group knows how to party and there was NO shortage of fun!