my absence

I have been MIA for a few weeks now . . . not that that's uncommon, but this time I have a really good reason.

This November, Enos and I will be celebrating 10 years since the day we promised ourselves to each other.  To celebrate, we went on a cruise, and dragged our best friends, Ben and Tonia along!  (Thanks again for finding child care and coming with us amidst a move and job change.)

And now, I'm going to make you jealous:

We went ziplining in the Jamaican tree tops:

My beautiful friend, Tonia and her tolerable husband, Ben. ;)

After ziplining, we played on the ocean toys in Margaritaville, Jamaica.

In the Cayman Islands, we played with the stingrays and snorkeled:

And in Cozumel, Mexico we hiked the Mayan ruins while being eaten alive by mosquitoes:

We stayed up too late, got up too early, ate way too much, and had a generally amazing time.  We hope to do it again in less than 10 years.  Until then, I'll spend my spare time staring at beautiful pictures of sunsets and reliving the wonderful memories we created:

deep cleaning

At the encouragement of my best friend, I've decided to show you the mundane things that have been eating up my time as of late.

I called her one day to complain that I dislike deep cleaning because no one ever notices.

No one is ever going to climb up on top of my counters to look above my cupboards and notice how clean they are. 

Nor are they going to open up the cupboards under my sink, or the countless drawers that used to be filled with masses of junk, but are now stocked with properly organized junk.

When looking inside my fridge, they probably will not notice that all the glass shelves are once again clear, as opposed to sticky and cloudy like they started out this week.

My husband notices all these things (partially because when I see him at the end of a long day of seemingly unproductive cleaning, I drag him to the things I've done and make him look underneath, on top of, and inside all the areas I've been working on so hard that day,) and now I'm going to give you a chance to "notice" them, as well.


Under the kitchen sink:

A few days ago, this area was the catch-all for miscellaneous kitchen items that didn't have a home.  However, since we also keep a lot of our cleaning supplies under here, it seemed an oxymoron to leave it in the state it was.

Above my cabinets:

See this cabinet?

the top has been scrubbed clean,:

as have the tops of these cabinets.:

Nobody but those within my own family would look at this closet and think it looks "amazing," but if you had seen my crafting supplies a week ago, you might have thought I owned the company that makes plastic shopping bags because that is how it was all stored.

This closet also happens to be where the extra toilet paper is kept, and look out if you needed to re-stock the bathroom because this closet was an open-at-your-own-risk, knee-deep hazard.

These are not the only areas that have been subjected to deep cleaning lately, but they are the only ones I took photos of.  (Even I realize you can only indulge me for so long.)

While cleaning the tops of my kitchen cabinets, I discovered that the installers drilled no fewer than 17 holes in the wall looking for a stud!  I guess it's kind of a good thing that nobody ever climbs up to look at the tops of the cabinets because I really don't feel like fixing what no one will ever see!

not a single one

Hmm.  Not a single post in August.

I sort of inadvertently took the summer off.

I didn't realize how busy 5 troublemakers were going to keep me (as opposed to last summer's 4 troublemakers.)  I still haven't figured out how it works, since the two kids I lose at school time are the ones to dress, bathe, and sometimes even clean up after themselves.  Yet somehow when they go back to school there seem to be less messes and things are accomplished so much quicker.

Whatever the reason, having the 2 older troublemakers back in school has freed up some time.  I have been able to clean, maintain, and every now and then I get to deep clean something!  It's been a long summer, and I was aching for school to start again.  Now that it has, I've been more productive in the crafting department.

This past week, the stars aligned and both little troublemakers went down for naps at the same time, and Rora found herself with a hankering to watch a movie, so I indulged and got a few crafts done, which I'll be sharing with you over the next few days.

I'm going to try to be better, but I don't know that I can promise anything because soccer season started for our older three troublemakers.  That means 2 soccer games every Thursday night, 1-2 games each Saturday, and practices in between, and sometimes they overlap.  Things are busy, but when I can steal a spare hour or two, I promise to show you what I'm working on!

end of school

I'm sure those of you with school-ages children are feeling the same way I am about this time of year.  Nostalgic, proud, and excited for the lazy days of summer.

We have a first grader and a kindergartner, and over the last few days, we attended each of their end-of-year productions.  Samuel's first grade music program was Thursday night, and Xavier's kindergarten graduation yesterday morning.  In looking at the pictures, I saw things about my kids that frustrate me at times, but today it made me laugh!

First is Samuel.  Samuel was blessed with my mother-in-law's smile.  He has a wide, pretty-lipped smile that makes me jealous much of the time.  Unfortunately, he is 7 years old, and smiles like this when I hold up the camera:

He tucks his lips in and it becomes a very forced excuse for a smile.  Hopefully he'll grow out of it, but someday I'm going to look back and be glad I have this picture to remind me of his "quirk."

Then there is Xavier.  When I sent him to get dressed this morning, I reminded him that this was his last day of school (and his graduation program,) and to try to look nice.  Let's look at what he picked, shall we?

Shorts and a t-shirt.  Not even a button-up or polo shirt, but a t-shirt.  And look where he is:

On the front row.

See the kids around him?

Yeah.

Mine was that kid that people look at and either decided we were dirt poor, or that we didn't care enough about our kid to make him look nice.  Xavier thought he looked nice, though, so that's all that matters.

Anyone else have a humorous experience at "graduation?"  I'd love to hear about it!  And yes, I'm shamelessly fishing for comments.

donut day

I've been a slacker.  I haven't been crafting much since Graham was born.  I've hemmed pants and repaired holes, but pure creation has been on hold while we finish a bedroom in the basement for the oldest two troublemakers to move downstairs . . . also, there's the adjusting to the newest troublemaker.

Graham will be two months old tomorrow, and I will begin crafting, sewing, and posting again next week.

For now, here are a few pictures of one of the sweet things we did today:  we had donuts with chocolate frosting.

See you next week!  I've missed you.