Wash. Rinse. Repeat.

The title sums up what I felt like I did all weekend!! I must have washed 4 loads of dishes. Everytime I turned around I was washing more dishes, unloading, or loading the dishwasher. In all reality - I'm happy to have an amazing family to wash the dishes after and I probably only did it 3 times. It's just so rare that we are home for so many days in a row where we eat all of our meals here.

It was a super productive weekend around our house. Saturday morning the family split and the boys went to work on the boat and the girls went shopping!

I can't believe I'm about to share with the world the chaos I've worked in for the past 4 years but here goes ... Some of you may know that I work from home 3 days a week. My office has been in 3 different rooms in our house (so far) and never has it been neat or clean. While this may not bother some, it bothers me ... I've adopted a new motto: 'Outer order leads to inner peace'. So as you can imagine, working like this has made me a bit batty ...

I'm further motivated to do this project because they've started video conferencing at work and I just couldn't find an angle for the camera that hid the insanity. So Lily and I set out for Ikea on Saturday morning. I had picked out this desk and book shelf:

This was some seriously heavy furniture. Thankfully a nice man and his son came to my rescue as I was attempting to load it up. They hopped out of their truck, loaded me up, and were off. True blessings! Steven and I struggled to get them up stairs!

I went to unpacking the pieces and this is what I found!

Needless to say, I had to call for back up and it became a family project!

Its still a work in progress so check back and I'll make sure to update with the finished product! I'm looking forward to having an ORGANIZED space for working and crafting! The good news is the room has great bones - lots of windows. I love it!

In other exciting news - I go to the orthodontist tomorrow and hopefully find out I get my braces off in a few weeks! I am thoroughly looking forward to being able to eat in public again!

Now I'm off to get some work-work done. As Lily would say 'ni-ni'!



Happy Birthday America!

Summer is so much fun through the eyes of a child! You almost forget the heat, humidity, and mosquitos when you see your kids eyes light up at the sight of fireworks. Or chase their friends around smearing popsicles on each others faces until they fall face first in the sand at the beach. The older my kids get, the more I realize how much there is to be learned from the sweet innocent spirit of a child!

A bit of background before I share our weekend - We were so blessed to have a great group of friends when we lived in Tampa. We had a teriffic Sunday School class called DINKS - Double Income No Kids. Our weekends were filled with trips to the local pizza place, bowling, and hanging out at each others house. Needless to say, we've all aged a bit and most of us have kids now. We've managed to all get together with all of our crazy kiddos for the past two years for a reunion. This year we went to St. Pete beach and the adults sat around and visited while the little ones entertained each other!

No smiles from me Daddy! Notice the kid in the background with the popsicle all over his face. That was because ...

He and his friend chased each other around with a melting popsicle!

So then I thought I could get a picture of the kids. I bribed with cookies which worked until ...

Jay realized he was out of cookie but Lily still had some. So ...

I gave him another one and this was as good as it gets!

Sunday brought church and again the idea that I could get both kids to look at me without a scowl for a picture. (I don't think I'll ever stop trying to get a good shot!)

We spent some great time with our family and Lily took her cousin in a car race!

Monday brought the question - where am I going today? I explained that Mommy & Daddy were staying home because it was a holiday - America's birthday.

And of course the next question was - can we have a party? With cake? And sprinkles? So I obliged and we made red, white, and blue cupcakes (with sprinkes!).

I really wish I had gotten a good picture of Lily during this. Jay was putting the sprinkles on himself so of course they were all over the floor. I turned around to find Lily under Jay's feet picking them up and eating them! She loves cupcakes. Today I was sharing one with her and she kept signing 'more' and saying 'mo'. Too cute - she's definintely got spunk!

We topped off our hoilday weekend with fireworks compliments of Uncle Josh! Jay liked the 'pretty colors' but didn't really care for the 'scary noises'.



It was a great weekend and good time to remember what we were celebrating. We're blessed to live in a free country and I'm so thankful for all of those who sacrifice time with their families and sometimes their lives to defend our freedom! We so often take for granted if we call the police - they come, if we attend Sunday worship we aren't persecuted or tortured for our beliefs, and we are free to speak our mind. So many people don't have such luxuries. 

God bless America! 

Woo hoo!!!

My little man is quite a rock star in my book! Our return visit with the eye doctor was today and it was GREAT!! Our first visit left me with a bad taste in my mouth about this doctor ... he looked at Jay for 5 minutes and told me very matter of factly that he has a condition that is generally only corrected with surgery but they would try some patching but that usually didn't work. Then he handed me a packet of papers on eye surgery and sent me on my way. As you can imagine, that caused utter panic in my heart! Not to mention I was by myself trying to hold back the tears so Jay wouldn't think something was wrong.

So today, we all loaded up and went back. I thought his eyes were better but I was trying not to be overly paranoid and stare at him too much. After looking at him for a few short minutes, he turned to us and very matter of factly said, 'Wow. This is the most dramatic change I've seen using patching therapy. His eyes are aligned. We'll just keep doing what we're doing and check back in in a few months.' He went on to tell us how uncommon this was and then tell all of the nurses when he left the room. God does answer prayers!

I feel like I've talked a lot about Jay lately. I need to give some love to my 'little Lils' so here goes... Lily is the PERFECT addition to our family. Her personality fits right in and adds to the chaos. She recently started walking and watch out world! She has really come out of her shell recently - she has always been very shy. To some extent she still is but now that she has perfected 'Hi', she thinks she's the greeter everywhere she goes. Yesterday in the doctors office, she greeted everyone with a 'Hi' and then she walked up to all of the people and said 'Hi' until they acknowledged her. It was hilarious. To add to the personality, her hair is finally long enough for pigtails! I've loved making her sets of bows for those perfect little piggies. (I still need to get pics of her with them).

Tonight, I caught her in the play room reading. She had pulled her chair up to the bookcase and pulled them off one by one, flipped through the pages, and promptly threw them on the floor!

Lily is such a little girl and I love it! I introduced her to a good ol' PB&J today and she loved it. Here are a few pictures from our lunchtime adventures!

And Jay had to get in on the action with hia little camera he got at the doctors office from the treasure chest. :-)

Even the most normal day around here is fun! We have plans to visit with our Sunday School friends from Tampa this weekend. We can't wait to get together with all of our friends and their kids at the beach! Jay and Lily love the beach so it's sure to be a fun weekend.

Happy 4th of July if I don't get around to posting before then! I am so thankful for my freedom and all of those who keep us free! I am anxious to have my solider home soon!

Big weekend!!

I think we're still recovering from our crazy fun weekend! Jay is a H.U.G.E fan of Cars. He can spend hours pushing them around the house, creating 'Cozy Cones' for them and taking them into the shop. Needless to say he was thrilled that the second Cars movie was coming out (as was I - I love Radiator Springs and all but you can only watch the same movie so many time).

So we decided it would be a Jay day and he could pick what he wanted to do that day and then we would go see Cars 2 that afternoon. He chose to ...

GO FISHING!

He was excited to get out on the water. I won't lie - I was a bit skeptical ... the weather was pretty rough looking that morning but it ended up being a great day to be out! Jay loves to be on the boat but fishing requires a bit more attention span than he has. He was done after 2 casts of his rod and then he spent the rest of the time ...

Playing with Daddy's bobbers. He insisted that next time we go out, i put a pink bobber on my line to match my pink fishing pole.

After our fabulous time on the water, it was time to clean the boat and ourselves and head to the movie theater. As you can see, Jay is a great helper ... he pitched right in without being asked!

Once we were all squared away, we packed up the truck and headed out for the main event of the day ...

The movie was great! Steven and I enjoyed the movie as much as Jay did. Disney and Pixar certainly know how to entertain all ages. It was a wonderful day! We have really enjoyed our summer with the boat down at the beach and a good movie was the perfect way to end a nice summer day.

In the last post, there were a few pictures of Jay's eye patch. Jay has a condition called strabismus. It's basically where the eyes don't focus together properly so his brain receives two images. If left uncorrected, it can lead to the loss of vision in the weaker eye. For the past two months, he's been wearing a patch on alternating eyes for a few hours each day. When we saw the doctor back in April he said we would try patching but he thought Jay would need surgery to correct the problem. We go back tomorrow so we're praying he's made enough progress not to need the surgery. Our pediatrician has reassured us that the surgery is not a big deal and it's a quite common thing. Any and all prayers are appreciated and I'll keep everyone up to date.

Wow ... this Gator baseball game is so exciting I got through a whole blog post without missing anything ... I'm off to fold some laundry and am hoping this game improves! Take care!

Georgia on my mind!

Greetings! A few months ago, my mother-in-law invited us to attend her annual family gathering in north Georgia. We happily agreed to go but as the date got closer, I must admit I was a bit anxious about how my two little crazy kids would do in the car for that long of a time. I’m happy to report; we took 3 little ones in our ‘school bus’ and everyone made it there and back without any tears or screaming in the car!!



We decided to break the trip up with a stop in Gainesville to visit with a good friend. It was great catching up (although we stayed up way too late)! The next morning, we loaded up the coolers, kids, and distractions and took off. Now that I’m writing this, I think I should have taken some pictures of the chaos in my car with it loaded down with 4 adults and 3 kids – and our orange & blue cooler on the back!


Our trip brought wonderful visits with family we hadn’t seen in years (or had never met!). It was great to spend time with everyone in such a beautiful place. We played cards, read, went on ‘treasure hunts’, camped, had a chili cook off, napped, and my favorite – caught fireflies! It was so fun to watch Jay get excited as he zig-zagged through the woods trying to catch them. I remember being a kid on vacation in the mountains where I discovered the magic of these strange bugs that lit up! It was a jam packed fun weekend.


Jay got to spend one of our nights in Georgia in the camper with Grammy & Papa. He was so excited to get to really ‘camp’!! We play camping a lot around our house! And he’s decided that he and Daddy are going to build a camper (Jay’s responsible for building the wheels). He had some older cousins to play with that drew him maps and hid treasures for him to find. It was so fun watching him run around, looking at the map, and trying to figure out where the treasure was!


Lily has been quite a slow walker and Steven and I were disappointed that she wasn’t really walking by the time we left. Our disappointment quickly dissipated as we watched our nephew (who is a week younger than Lily) run all over the place as his parents chased him. Although I wasn’t crazy about her crawling all over the ground, I enjoyed not having to worry that she was running down the hill or into the road! No worries – she has since started walking and it really does change life (for her and us!).


Rarely do Steven and I take time to just sit down and relax. We were able to do this on our trip and it was great to just spend time together as a family. We need to be better about making time to do it because it really does recharge the batteries!


I have to share my favorite story from the whole trip… Jay calls a walkie-talkie and ‘okie-dokie’. I have no idea where that name came from and this trip was the first I had heard him say it. So we were in the midst of naptime negotiation with Jay and I left the room and told him to keep his eyes closed. A few minutes later I went in to check and make sure his eyes were closed. I didn’t expect them to be closed but I also didn’t expect them to be as large as they were. I asked him why his eyes were open and he looked at me wide eyed and said, ‘Mommy – that okie-dokie said something!’ I couldn’t help but laugh and needless to say that was the end of our naptime negotiation.


The trip was great and I can’t wait for our trip in the fall! I’ve added some pictures – I wish I had taken more!!

It was a great trip! You'll notice Jay has a patch on his eye - I'll save that for another post but he's having some eye issues (so he gets to be a pirate!). We're praying they're resolved when we see the doctor again next week. In the grand scheme of things - it's a minor issue.

Until next time!!

New look ...

Same great content! I'm updating the look and learning about blogging as I go. This is a fun hobby - let's hope I can keep it up!

It's been an exciting week around here. Miss Lily is cutting molars and our beloved dog Coal had to have unexpected surgery on his ears last week. (Both are ok - just needing some extra love.) Top that off with a crazy week at work and you've got it - chaos at home.

I'm off to fold the 7 loads of laundry I did over the past few days - maybe by next week it will find it's way into the appropriate drawers. :0)

I have so many post ideas - our camping trip to Georgia, 'a day in the life of [insert childs name]', Coal the Cone Head ... Stay tuned! There are lots of fun pictures to follow!

Handsome boy!

So I'm going to dedicate this post to Jay because he's changed so much lately! I can't believe how my little boy has turned from a toddler to a little boy. He cracks me up with what he says ... the other day I told him to do something and he asked me, "Mommy, are you just kidding?" He's the master negotiator (totally gets that from his dad) - if you tell him to lay down and close his eyes, he tells you he'll close one of his eyes. And he does just that.


On a recent trip to Target, I found a pair of rain boots on the clearance rack for $3. They were green (his favorite color) so I had to buy them.

The other night he put his boots on and told me he wanted to wear a tie like Daddy. So daddy tied the tie, and Jay stomped out in his boots, and declared, "I'm a really handsome boy now!" I had to break out the camera - it was too cute to miss.


I've yet to capture his Mick Jagger face but I did manage to get his 'mean eyes'.

The other night, I was getting onto Jay about something and he looked at me with his mean eyes and said, "I'm very aggrivated and I'm making my mean eyes at you." It was all I could do to keep from laughing! He tests my every last nerve but is so cute in doing it! And so smart - it's scary!

We're making the trek to Georgia for a family reunion with the Galloway clan soon. I'm excited to take the kids somewhere new and the place we're staying looks neat. It will be great to visit with everyone! I'll be sure to post pictures when we get back.

Off to do some packing and quiet the other little one that lives in this house ...

Summer fun!

This summer, we've been blessed to be able to put our boat in the marina so we've gotten a ton of use out of it. Most recently, we spent Memorial Day weekend on Little Gasparilla with our friends. Jay LOVES being on the boat ...

And both Jay and Lily like the beach. Here are a few pics from our Memorial Day trip ..

There was no stopping Lily!

And there's nothing like a little sibling rivalry ...

But it's not just at the beach we have fun. We've spent many nights just hanging out at the house. We spend lots of time on the deck and some nights just hanging out and coloring.


There's nothing like crawling all over daddy after a long day!

And who can resist fishing off of the deck?

Well - that's enough pictures for tonight! I have so much catching up to do! The kids were gone for a week and I thought I would get so much done. Life gets so busy so fast but I cannot complain - I am wonderfully blessed! Watching my kids grow every day is so much fun. Their love for life, each other, and fun is such a lesson for me. Often I forget to enjoy the little things and they constantly remind me about the joys in every day life. Until next time ... God bless!