Where Has All the Blogging Gone…Long Time Passing...

Six months and some change since the last post…and every second FLEW by! A sure sign that I am definitely getting older. *sigh* Better than the alternative, I guess.

Clearly, I can't sum up the past HALF year in a single post, but I'll just try to set the stage of where we are…at the moment.

As of today - Grace has lost two teeth, can read, snap her fingers and endlessly asks for definitions while we watch the news. "What does catastrophic mean?" I can actually see her brain "sponging" up knowledge. Kindergarten brings lots of milestones…including late night trips to the doctor for pink eye meds so as to miss as little school as possible because "I'll miss my friends soooo much Mom!"

Bedtime takes twice as long these days. Grace reads one and then I read one but I can see the light at the end of the tunnel. Soon it will be her under the covers with a flashlight reading well after "lights out!"

Charlotte is our energizer bunny comic relief! She is so darn funny but HATES when people laugh at her…even if they are laughing at her joke. It's complicated. SHE'S complicated…in the best sense of the word. She is as sensitive as she is tough, as strong as she is delicate.  Irony at it's best, no? She LOVES to help but doesn't WANT any help…catch my drift?

Her night gown is on backwards but my God those glasses make her look so sensible. 

We are officially recovering from Valentine's Day. I love Valentine's Day…with kids. It is so innocent and red and pink. And Valentine's Day happens at a time of the year when I actually have time and energy to "do all the things"!

Both girls had a party in their classroom where they were exchanging Valentine's with their friends. I let them each pick out their Valentine's… 

Grace chose owls and Charlotte chose ladybugs. 

A card just didn't seem like enough! So she and I made ladybug sugar cookies to accompany her valentines! And to wear to her a party? I found some ladybug fabric and made a skirt and found the cutest pattern for a ladybug purse!

I didn't get a pic of Grace's actual Valentine but we made pink owl cookies for the girls and blue owl cookies for the boys! She also got an owl skirt and her little owl purse is seriously the cutest pattern. (I found the patterns on Etsy.) 

The night before Charlotte's preschool party I realized I didn't have anything Valentine-y to wear so I glued a bunch of black "jewels" to a sweatshirt in the shape of a heart. Voila!

Probably the most exciting thing to happen in 2015?!?!

My sister is engaged!

We are so, so happy…can you tell?!

So much fun stuff to do and plan! I've already got the important things underway - 

the bachelorette parties!

You read that correctly!!

P-A-R-T-I-E-S…with an "s"!

Finally, good news/bad news?

This is what the weather has been like...

I don't even feel right posting this picture when the entire east coast is soooo over winter.

It was in the 60s today. Broke a record which is great for moms who want to get outside with their kids but horrible for those of us dependent on snow in the winter for water in the summer. 

Hopefully, I'll be be back before six months passes. If not, catch me on Instagram. It's like miniblogging and takes sooo much less time. You can see my Instragram feed on my blog in the sidebar or you can follow along in the app. 

January and Then Some

Well, hello there February. Geez, I wasn't prepared for January (as clearly evidenced by my lack of posts) and I am REALLY not ready for February! Alas, here we are. February 5. 

I am disappointed that I haven't gotten more up on the blog. I just can't seem to get in a rhythm. I want to sit down and write, capture the day, the moments…rehash a funny scenario. Recently, I've been uninspired, tired and just plain busy. There just aren't enough hours in the day. Does anyone else feel like that too?!

So I thought I'd give a brief update as to what is going on here - behind the scenes - and try to get some of my blogging mojo back!

Where to begin??…The months between September and December nearly kill me - every year. Yet I love them! I live for them! The changing of the seasons! Back to school and buying school supplies! Birthdays! Holidays! And the big doozy! Christmas! I literally don't sleep for three months. 

Coming off all that holiday frenzy…I am literally exhausted. Throw a vacation in there to Maui, where I was warm, rested, didn't have to cook, do laundry or drive a car for an entire week - getting back into the swing of things - i.e. REALITY! - has been close to impossible.

My plan over Christmas break was to back post on the blog and get caught up. That didn't happen. We got both girls up on skis instead! A wonderful and exciting break through for our future skiing adventures!

But anyone who has skied with kids knows that  at the end of the day all you want is a drink, a hot shower and bed! (Who am I kidding? That is what I want at the end of EVERY day!)

When we got back from skiing, our washer and dryer broke. So you can imagine the amount of laundry that needed to be done when those babies were back up and running.

Once we were finally unpacked and laundered for the first time in 2014, it was time to hit the road again. This time to much needed warmth and sunshine. Maui!

It was a great trip. My only complaint?

Not long enough.

One of these days, I 'll get photos up.

Speaking of photos. That leads me to another time suck. My computer is so slow. No really, like so slow. Take slow and multiply it by 20,000 and it is still slower than that. Even after an extended visit with the computer guy, it's still so mind boggling slow it has severely impacted my photo taking/uploading capabilities. 

Court urged me to rectify this situation (aka he was sick of hearing me complain!) and pointed out that the 30,000 photos on my hard drive *might* be slowing things down.

Ya think?

The computer guy says no but I figure it is about time I properly back up and store my photos. I mean I REALLY don't need a computer crash about now.

So I am uploading all my photos to SmugMug (highly recommend - check it out!) and because of slow internet connection I can only upload photos in small batches of about 30 or so. Let me remind you that I am trying to upload tens of thousands of pictures. It's a time suck.

Once uploaded to SmugMug, I am starting to save all photos to external hard drive. Once that is done, I plan on deleting all photos from my computer. Hopefully, that will aid in the photo uploading department which will in turn get me back in business on le blog!

In other time suck news, I've got an Easter project that I am working on. It's something I've never done before so I have to teach myself each and every step. It's moving along at a pace opposite of speedy.  (surprise, surprise!)

Valentine's Day is around the corner and we are TOTALLY behind in our preparations. I'm no fortune teller but I see some late nights in my future.

On Friday, we head to Seattle to meet with Grace's doctor. It is her 6 month post surgery follow-up appointment.

Hard to believe it has only/already been six months! Hopefully, all goes well! Fingers crossed!

So there you have it! Just a few of the things we've been up to. 

Probably need to sign off but a quick, funny story.

Charlotte has taken to drawing "marks" on her arm. She pronounces it "mak" which makes this story even funnier. The "marks" are usually drawn on her left arm with her right hand and are inspired by the "cutie marks" on the bums of My Little Ponies. 

Yesterday, her "mak" was larger than normal so I told her that her marks can't be that big.

She immediately went to level 10 on the 1-5, 5 being the maddest scale. She stomped her feet and fisted her hands at her side.

"Mom, these are big things. This is how I am."

(Insert several foot pounds on the floor…no idea where she picked up the foot stomping!)

Charlotte, the mark is too big.

"MOM! This is how I am. I am meant to do big things!"

Point. Set. Match.

Until next time…hopefully, that will be before March 1!

For the Record Books

November is going down in Home Sweet Home Place history. The only month since I've started this blog with NO POSTS! Notta one!! I'm not exactly sure how the month got away from me but it did. This truly is the busiest time of year!

I do appreciate all those who have checked in - inquiring why no posts, making sure I'm alive and well - and yes, I am here! Alive and well! Just busy! Just running from one thing to the next. Shuffling from one activity to the next.

I told my sister a few weeks ago that it is just a year....just a year of shuffling the kids everywhere. With Charlotte in school twice a week (an hour away) and Grace going four days a week with short little bursts of class, (meaning by the time I get home from dropping Grace off, it's time to turn around and go pick her up), not to mention the regular errands - I end up spending A LOT of time in the car. While I can multitask the best of them under the table and not yet  outlawed here in the US yet, blogging and driving is NOT recommended.

Thus, no blog posts. Good news though!

Grace's 5th birthday party is this Saturday! Once that has been properly celebrated, and I only have Christmas looming before me, I should be back to my regular posting schedule! I am going to try and do a bunch of back posting - more for my benefit than yours - so that I can look back five years from now and have some recollection of what we were up to in late 2013.

Here are just a few pictures taken since December 1.

North Pole Breakfast

Elfie came! He brought a friend too...more later!

Advent calendar!

Homemade advent calendar. Ran out of time - didn't get to make the ornaments. Had to buy some cheap-o ones. There is always next year!

My 35th birthday! Yeow!

Another year older, another year....

School, school and more school!

A few sick days too!

Keep in mind, it is only December 9 at 6 am as I write this! So all of this in basically eight days! Not to mention we've been making merry and decking the hell out of the halls!

I'm in hog heaven people.

THREE CHRISTMAS TREES!

You read that right! 

THREE!!

So stay tuned. I am going to do my darndest to keep all the balls up in the air and make some birthday/Christmas magic up in here. Fingers crossed!

Hoping to be back in the space again soon!

Hope your holiday season is off to a happy and healthy start!

October in a Nutshell

October has been a weird month. When I look back at my photos, I have almost none. I think the reason for this is that the weather has been SO glorious, I have just wanted to soak it all up. Instead of pulling out the camera, I've been snapping pics with my mind which we all know is a bad idea. 

So because I truly can't remember anything without a photo prompt, let's have a short picture show of what we've been up to.

We managed a trip to the pumpkin patch.

The girls ate donuts, played on the playground, rode the train and picked pumpkins...yet this is the only picture I snapped. 

Like I said, the weather has been ideal. Truly my favorite time of year. Sunny and warm, yet crisp. We've gone on LOTS of walks...during daylight hours even! woo hoo!

Charlotte is REALLY into bandaids at the moment. She wants to put bandaids on everything. Grace went through this phase too. So the other morning, we weren't too surprised when we discovered she'd put a bandaid over most of her eye and eyebrow. To remove the bandaid would mean removing most of her eyebrow. Not a good look.

So we left it. 

Then we REALLY got concerned when we found a rubber band - the tiny kind for thin toddler hair - around her wrist. I TOTALLY freaked out. We had a shake down in their rooms for any rogue rubber bands and SO SO SO thankful this ended up being nothing worse than an important reminder!

Caught a great pic of Charlotte sleeping...on top of Lucky.

He is SUCH a good dog!

Grandma sent some super cute Halloween outfits. The girls LOVED them and when I tried taking pictures of them in the outfits, they kept pretending they were spiders. 

We carved our pumpkins weeks ago and the insides have already turned black. I didn't get any pictures - of course - so I tried to get a picture of the girls outside by our front door. 

This was the best picture - by far - for a couple of reasons. The first being the 50 mph wind gusts that were steady ALL DAY. The other was Stranger was about to jump up and tackle both girls out of pure excitement.

And those winds? Those damn winds did some damage. They ripped off the roof of our outdoor dog kennel. Stranger has a wound that we think was caused by a bungee cord. At our old house, a tree fell and damaged a bit of the roof over Grace's old room. 

Scary.

The wind also ripped my car door right out of my hand and the force was so hard that now my door creaks and groans like I am opening a tomb in ancient Egypt. 

Super.

That'll be cheap to fix.

Merry Christmas to me.

So that's what I've got for October. 

Hopefully, more Halloween posts to come!

Getting Caught Up

December is an insanely busy month for me. In just this last week, life has somewhat returned to normal and I have down over a month's worth of back posting! After this post, we should be current - at least for a while!

So we made the long drive back from Sun Valley. We stopped in Boise for lunch and it was DUMPING snow! The most snow I'd ever seen in Boise!

People were cross country skiing in the streets!

Back on the road, we made pretty good time having only one emergency "pee stop" for Grace at the top of Dead Man's Pass.

Once home, things kicked into full swing!

Laundry, laundry and laundry and we finally got all the Christmas decor packed up and put away!

I've gone through all the girls old clothes and I feel like we are finally ready to start the new year - thirteen days in!