Easter

When the sun starts to rise

And I open my eyes

You are good, so good

In the heat of the day

With each stone that I lay

You are good, so good

With every breath I take in

I'll tell you I'm grateful again

When the moon climbs high

Before each kiss goodnight

You are good

When the road starts to turn

Around each bend I've learned

You are good, so good

And when somebody's hand

Holds me up helps me stand

You are so good

With every breath I take in

I'll tell You I'm grateful again

'Cause its more than enough

Just to know I am loved

And You are good

So how can I thank You

What can I bring

What can these poor hands

Lay at the feet of a King

I'll sing You a love song

It's all that I have

To tell You I'm grateful

For holding my life in Your Hands

When it's dark and it's cold

And I can't feel my soul

You are good, so good

When the world is gone gray

And the rain's here to stay

You are still good

So with every breath I take in

I'll tell You I'm grateful again

And the storm may swell

Even then it is well and You are good

You are Good - Nichole Nordeman

Spencer and Dickens before Dickens decided to take a bite out of his face.

Evan and the bunny cupcake cake we made. He was the only kid that wanted to help me make it.

Hailey riding her new princess scooter from the Bunny. She is a fashionable scooter-er!

I love this picture of my mom and the kids. They were all laughing and look so happy.

Our Easter was low key compared to years past. We woke up and found the candy and baskets that the bunny hid. The kids were up at six fifty ready to search - I had to turn on the TV for them to get an extra half hour of rest. After breakfast consisting of pancakes and chocolate-mostly chocolate- we went to church. At church the kids got to hunt for more candy in the church gym. I am not kidding when I say that their baskets weighed about five pounds a piece. We had candy coming out of our ears! My mom came over for dinner later in the afternoon. That was all we did. A nice relaxing day. It was fabulous!

Happy Earth Day Good Friday!

Man must feel the earth to know himself and recognize his values.... God made life simple. It is man who complicates it. ~Charles A. Lindbergh, Reader's Digest, July 1972

The kids were not super thrilled to pose for me this morning in their Earth Day shirts. I know it wasn't warm out, but is thirty seconds for a photo too much to ask? I just realized that the jeans that they are all wearing today came from second hand shops. How is that for Earth Day friendly? Reduce. Reuse. Recycle.

Have a great Earth Day and a fabulous Good Friday. Go out and do something to better the world. To quote from one of my favorite movies Evan Almighty (Don't judge. Watch it again without the expectations that it will be an Oscar winner and with the mindset of entertainment and listening to the message it conveys.)

"How do you change the world? With small Acts of Random Kindness - ARK." ( If you haven't seen the movie, it is about a modern day guy who is told by God to build an ark - seriously, don't judge - it is really good.)

Let them buy cake

Tonight was the Cub Scout cake bake. The scout bakes a cake with their parent and then brings it to the pack meeting where they auction them off. It is all to raise money for the pack and to help toward the cost of the various scout camps.

Evan wanted to make a giant cupcake with his Big Top Cupcake maker. We decorated it with blue and gold because those the the Cub Scout colors.

I had my "short" lens on for these photos and I am just amazed at the depth of field on this lens. I couldn't keep both Evan and the cake in focus - one always blurred out. It is an awesome lens.

Spencer and Trent scoured the internet for ideas for his cake. They came up with a campfire cake which would fit in with the scouting theme.

It turned out very cool. I was a little surprised that it didn't win any awards, but kids voted and kids like weird things.

Did I mention that at the auction the kids get to bid? Yeah - they do. I got there late because Hailey had soccer practice. When I arrived I saw that Trent was playing the part of auctioneer. He tried to ignore our paddle happy boys as much as possible, but they couldn't be stopped.

I knew that we would most likely come home with two cakes because we have two scouts. We walked out of the gymnasium with three cakes and fifty six dollars less than we walked in with.

And one of them was our own cake.

(Here are the happy boys with our three cakes. Also the legs of their little sister who was dipping her fingers in frosting every chance she got.)

At least it is all for a good cause right?

They don't make 'em like they used to

A few weeks ago, my Mom gave me this shirt ( I call it a shirt, but I think it was originally meant to be a dress) for Hailey that was previously worn by me. Being that it was originally a hand me down from one of my cousins - this little number is over four decades old.

It is in fabulous condition for its age. I am not a huge vintage clothes fan for myself, but on little girls -LOVE.

This shirt is made so well. It looks home made, but it is not. There is a tag in it. It was from what I am assuming was a very trendy and not cheap store in the Chicago area.

It just goes to show you that they don't make stuff the way they used to. My kids have brand new clothes that they wear one time and then they are snagged, have strings hanging off of them or holes and tears.

Just like the fridge in our garage that I had to have the repairman come look at and found out the problem was a packing peanut stuck in the fan. He commented that the fridge was old. I told him he had no idea. That fridge was in my house when I was born - it is going on forty years. He laughed and told me that it would last longer than the fridge that I currently had in my kitchen.

Back then they made things to last is what he told me.

I guess he was right.

And bless my mom for hanging on to all these olden day gems. I guess I know where I get it from!

Morning

I woke up this morning to snow on the ground, a bed that needed changing after a night time pee pee incident and dreading a trip to the grocery store with a mile long list.

Not the greatest way to start the week, but it could be a whole lot worse. My poor flowers cannot get a break. Last year it was the deer, this year they better survive this late season snowfall. I am keeping my fingers crossed and maybe getting out some old blankets for tonight.

This is the way I spend the day...

In between doing dishes, putting away laundry and cleaning up whatever disaster Hailey created for me, I keep myself entertained by giving my thrift shop finds a new purpose in life. This seems to be a pretty fitting post for Earth Day week huh?

I was scouring the local thrift shops looking for a frame that I could use as a chalk board. I intended to spray the glass with chalk board paint and paint the frame whatever color I decided to go with. I looked for months and just couldn't find what I was looking for. Until one day I walked into the Goodwill and found this....

It was already a chalkboard. It was rough looking. It had scratches in the wood. I didn't like the color, but it was awesome. It was very well made, solid and even had inset hangers on the back. I bet it someone paid big bucks for it when they got it. I paid five dollars.

After re-spraying the chalkboard and painting the frame. Isn't she a beauty? I antiqued it a bit to give it a little interest. I am thrilled with how it turned out.

I hung it in the back hall with the sign my mom got me and the letter holder my sister got me for Christmas. LOVE.

On another trip to Goodwill, I came across this ugly bird sculpture that was screaming to live in a house with an old lady and her twenty seven cats.

After using up what was left of my chalkboard spray paint...

It transforms into an awesome little decoration that just looks like spring to me.

Hailey has had this letter "H" in her room for years. I have always intended to paint it or do something to it. I finally got around to it.

Much better huh? I think this summer our "nursery" will be turned into a little girls room. Poor Hailey. The boys had their "boy" rooms by the time they were three. Here she is almost four and a half and still in the ABC room. She insists that she wants her walls pink, which is fine with me. At this point I am not really thinking of doing any certain "theme" in her room, just making it girly, shabby chic and probably using the colors that are in the "H" - pinks, browns and blue.

Speaking of Hailey's room, she was in dire need of some storage. I purchased a cubical storage system from Target that helped a lot, but she needed a shelf that could be hung on the wall. Then one day while perusing a Pottery Barn Teens catalog I found what I wanted...

One hundred and twenty nine dollars. A little more than I wanted to pay for a pretty simple shelf. Knowing what would happen, I showed the picture to Trent on his first day of spring break. Within the hour he was at the Home Depot and purchased about twenty dollars worth of supplies. A few days later, she had her shelf. I love being married to a guy that knows how to build stuff!

Here is her room with her much needed storage. She insisted on helping to put stuff on the shelf, that is why the lowest shelf is filled with junk that I probably would have stuffed in the garage sale box or a drawer rather than display proudly. Oh well, it is her room.

That is what I have been up to the last few weeks. I am planning on going to buy some black paint tomorrow for my next little projects. Just wait and see!

Blast from the past

The kids decided that since the weather was warming up, it was time to get out the basket of bubbles and bubble blowing paraphernalia. I had to laugh when I noticed the actual bubbles they were playing with.



These are the bubbles from our wedding - thirteen and a half years ago. We decided to have people blowing bubbles at us as we left the church instead of throwing birdseed. Trent's Mom and Dad pasted on the labels, tied on the ribbon and hot glued the roses on hundreds of those little containers. Needless to say, we had a few dozen left over. I had them in a box with our other wedding stuff for the longest time until I got into a major purge mood and put them in the garage with the rest of the bubbles from various occasions and holidays.

Sentimental or hoarder? Some days it is hard to tell.

Shadow

This is one of my favorite photos. Of my favorite people. Taken at one of our favorite places. When I saw that i heart faces was featuring shadow photos this week, I knew I had to enter.


Head over to i heart faces to see more amazing shadow images.

Like a Christmas tree except for with eggs.

Like a Christmas tree except for with eggs. That is how Hailey described our egg tree that we put up today. I think this may be the first year she has ever seen the egg tree. At least the first year she was ever old enough to participate. Since Easter is so late this year, we can actually put out our outside Easter decor without having to deal with snow - at least not too much snow. ( I am not even kidding when I say that parts of our neighborhood still have some small piles of the white stuff - well, gray stuff now - in their yards.)

Hailey and Evan were really into it. Spencer just wanted to climb on the ladder which was not the best idea since the tree is in soft dirt and there are numerous spots where my spring bulbs are coming up that I was yelling at them not to step on.

Hailey wanted me to take a picture of her with her hair in her mouth. She is a goofball. Oh and here she is in her "brother" jacket.

All of the eggs are pretty low, but the decorators were pretty short. There is one purple egg from years and years ago that is stuck at the top. It makes a statement.

One shot of my pretty daffodils. I am just so glad to have some flowers coming up this year. Last year they were all food for the deer.

These pictures are pretty rough and not edited at all. I have been suffering from some major sinus issues the majority of this week and while taking these pictures was ready to rip my left eye out of my head because it hurt so bad behind it. I just really wanted to get something on the blog. I feel it has taken the back burner lately. Since my head is giving me a few hours of reprieve I feel I better go try to accomplish something before I am back to wanting to drill a hole in my head to relieve the pressure.