Archives for March 2015

March 13, 2015 By Leave a Comment

Queen Of The Random

*It’s Friday.  Big kids have a sleepover tonight.  The 2 littles have an evening date with Big Daddy and Nene.  Josh Kelley and myself will be rocking on with Francis & Lisa Chan.  Then we’ll set up tables in our downstairs along with a whole slew of random chairs.

*Today I am making the following:  Gooey Butter Cake, Chocolate Chip Cookies (Duh!), my Aunt Tootsie’s homemade chocolate sauce <—-it’s becoming an addiction and a bunch of key fobs.

*Yesterday was busy and I never made it to the store. Last night I went shopping alone from 9 to almost 11 at Target and Kroger. Swoon. I planned on getting popcorn and sharing with no one since I was alone, but when I checked out the concession stand was closed. I apparently was the last person in the store. They even turned the lights out.

*I got a lot of work done this week which was really nice and refreshing.  I’ve struggled with balancing the family growing to 7 along with work.  Completed and shipped orders makes me feel kind of proud.

*We talk about death probably a little too much around here.  My kids may be a little too comfortable with people dying.  While we were pulled over for a funeral processional the other day Hudson yelled from the back seat:  “Which car has the dead body?  Did we miss it already?”  Geez.  And then there was the following death deep thoughts before bed courtesy of Hudson:

Hudson: Would you be naked if you came out of your tomb?

Me:  Hmmmm, well I don’t know.

Hudson: Well, you’d definitely have some weird stuff on you.

It all makes perfect sense.  We’ll pay for therapy later 🙂

*And I’m having an April Bible journaling class!  Eeeek.  I’ll post all the details on Monday so check back if you are want to join in.  I’m still so excited.  Like a big kid.

Now I’m off to claim this day, fix 2 littles lunch and eat some cookie dough.

Have an awesome weekend.  Happiest of Fridays.

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March 11, 2015 By 10 Comments

Here’s What I Know

I have officially felt as if I was going to drown the past few days.  I know some of you are nodding your heads in agreement.  You can relate.  Many of you can relate.  Maybe all of you.  I might have sent Josh Kelley a text yesterday explaining how overwhelmed I felt and describing a scene in which I wanted to collapse in the floor and say curse words loud and clear 🙂  And yet, I survived and my drama was way over the top and I realized I’m a different kind of crazy and the world isn’t too big to handle when I take out all the stupid things I get worked up about and let go of all those uncertainties.  Instead of sitting with all the unknowns today I want to sit with all the things I do know.

I know Solomon has mad Mancala skillz.  We play approximately 307 times per week.  He beats me more than I’d like to admit and it’s one of my most favorite moments of each week.  He always asks to play on our bed.  I like him…and his high raised eye brows.

I know this girl is insane joy.  I wish I could convey the shine she has spilled all over our family and home.  She gives the most amazing hugs and just wants to put her cheek next to ours sometimes…just because.  We get to play this role temporarily and it’s an honor.  What’s even better is when I get to hug her momma and daddy tight and tell them to keep doing their thing.  Keep up the amazing work.  Sigh.

I know solo Amon time has become rare, but today during visitation Amon and I had a little lunch date.  We did important things like eat Chickfila and pick out birthday plates for his party.  We also got wild and went to the post office and Kinkos.  I like this kid too.

I know kindness is still rampart in this world.  It is.  While at the post office an older gentlemen overheard us talking about picking out birthday plates and gave Amon $5 to buy a treat for his birthday.  I about died from the kindness.  We both went a little crazy with our thank yous and Amon yelled at him, “Happy day to you.”  Then I got in the car and cried like a giant woman baby.

I know I have absolutely zero planned for Amon’s party this weekend.  Zero.  Nada.  Zilch.  Oh, besides his baseball plates he picked out today.  It was a tough choice.  He had it narrowed down to these or Elmo plates that said “Happy 1st Birthday.”  It was not a hill I was going to die on, but I was a bit pleased he went with the baseball ones.   And I know it really doesn’t matter one bit that I am completely unprepared because he’s going to feel loved and celebrated no matter what.

I know I love my job.  I love to create and make things.  It absolutely delights my heart that I get to share this with people.

I know I am far too excited about the Bible journaling class Saturday.  I made all my copies today and I have officially practiced out loud 1 million times.  Amon always asks: “Who you talking too?  Jesus?”  Nope buddy, just myself.  Cracks me up.

I know I’m making THESE cookies as soon as Friday rolls around.  It’s becoming tradition and you can’t break tradition.

And I sure do like the things I know.

Happy Wednesday.

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March 9, 2015 By 7 Comments

Seven

1.  It’s Monday.  We just finished up therapy and next week is officially Amon’s last week of therapy.  Tear.  And what are you having for dinner tonight?  I would love to know.  I kind of loathe cooking and I’m always on the lookout for some easy, good dinners.

2.  This picture of Amon absolutely kills me because A) Waiting for donuts is hard even for me, but for an almost hungry 3-year-old it’s near impossible.  And B) He totally reminds me of a young Bob Dylan.

3.  Does anyone else have a random cereal jar?  Just us?  You know the small portion remnants of all the cereals in your cabinet…well, at our house we combine them all in one jar and it’s like a suicide of cereal.  Please tell me you remember mixing all the fountain drinks and calling it a suicide??!?!?!

4.  Josh Kelley and I are reading this book…again.  This makes for the 86th time 🙂  It’s just THAT good people.  Buy it.  Read it. Get ready for the change.

5.  Want to share some baked good love today?  Here’s what you do…make my Aunt Tootsie’s (Margaret for you fancy people out there) amazing homemade chocolate sauce and divide it into small jars.  I use cocoa powder.  Then buy the following: Breyer’s vanilla ice cream, mini M&Ms, spray whipped cream, cherries, sprinkles and some fun bowls if you can find them.  Put everything in a bag along with the chocolate sauce and give it away.  Just do it.  Ice cream is fun and brings about smiles.

6.  I’ve been working on my Bible Journaling prep for this Saturday.  I am so crazy excited/so nervous I may puke.  True story.  And I still have some spots available if you would like to join us.  Just shoot me an email at pitterpatterart at gmail dot com

7.  And orders.  You guys I am so out of sorts with balancing work and home now that my alone days at home are non-existent.  I’m learning again how to work with a little one in tow, but she’s the cutest little helper/mess maker in all the land.  God is teaching me everyday His ways are far better than mine and His dreams and desires for me are more amazing than I could fathom.

Another week.  I think it’s going to be an awesome one.

Happy Monday party people!

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March 5, 2015 By 4 Comments

Important Things

Today is our one millionth snow day.  Tomorrow will make one million and one.  Sigh.  I feel like I’ve been pretty inconsistent around these parts lately, but honestly I just don’t really know what to type.  I feel like I don’t have much to offer you sweet people.  All my feelings are wild and crazy and swirly and sometimes I feel like I just can’t put my thoughts into words.  So on those days I’ve chosen just to sit tight and let the day slip by without typing.  I wish I had the words.  I like blogging.  I like you kind people.

I will tell you my tooth saga still has not ended.  I braved the snowmageddon weather here in Tennessee just to put a final end to my crazy tooth journey only to get there and find out yet again, this dang crown does not fit.  To make myself feel better I ventured into the super Target I never get to go to and knocked out all kinds of snowpacalypse grocery shopping which needed to be done.

Too Many Snow Days Fact #3:  When our kids have all these dang snow days our grocery budget is blown for the month.  They eat breakfast and several lunches during the week at school…for free.  Soooooo, no school means give them all the food of the world.  Budget shot.

The other day I made something super glorious.  Double THIS recipe, but instead of all chocolate chips put in a mixture of chocolate chips, white chocolate chips and peanut butter chips.  Press the whole concoction into a greased 9×13 pan and bake at 350 for 30 minutes or so.  I was pretty crazy smitten.  Especially when we warmed one up with a scoop of vanilla ice cream.  Hold the phone.

The March Bible Journaling class is just right around the corner.  I am probably embarrassingly excited about it.  The class was full, but then people backed out.  I now have 5 spots available.  If you’d like to join us shoot me an email at pitterpatterart at gmail dot com

Pretty pumped too because I’ve got some Timbali zip pouches ordered for the class as well.  These will be available to purchase.  I use mine to hold all my Bible journaling supplies.  It’s the perfect size and the ladies who make them are incredible.  Empowering woman with every purchase.

I’m a big lover of mail.  Every week I mail something to someone…it’s one of my quirky commitments for 2015.  Long live snail mail.  My mom did this.  She was always mailing encouragement.  She lived about 10 minutes from us and still mailed us and the kiddos cards for every single occasion.  Reading through Acts showed me yet again how important it is to be an encouragement to others.  Paul was constantly encouraging because of Jesus in him.

“Brothers, if you have any word of encouragement for the people, say it.”

“…strengthening the souls of the disciples, encouraging them to continue in their faith…”

“…encouraged and strengthened the brothers with many words.”

“…they rejoiced because of its (a letter) encouragement.”

“..after encouraging them…”

“…and had given them much encouragement.”

God is constantly reminding me how important it is to encourage one another.

And I’m officially in the groove of grocery shopping with 5 kiddos.  It’s not always pretty, but it gets done.  At first I just lamented in the car and dreaded it, but then I got courageous and was all like “Let’s do this.  There are people in the world with 10 kids who grocery shop with all them.  I can swing 5.”  Now it’s old hat.  Plus, at Target there’s the glorious concession stand and on good days we celebrate our grocery trip survival with popcorn and icees.

There you have it.  All the important things I just had to relay to you on this snowy Tennessee Thursday.  It’s bath night, so I’m off to tag team all the baths with Josh Kelley.  Then a movie and some fun snacks.  We shall survive.

Happy Thursday.

  

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March 3, 2015 By Leave a Comment

9pm

Long busy day.  I’m wiped out and already in bed with a list of to-dos…Bible reading, blog, reply to emails, read, place some orders, etc, etc, etc.   And they are calling for more snow.  Say it ain’t so.  We’re all ready to get fully back into our routine and this momma has got to get some work done.

Kids and snow are cute, but spring is sounding mighty fine.

(photo credit to our magnificent photographer Cheyenne from Shots by Cheyenne.  She’s the greatest there ever was.)

Happy Tuesday night.

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March 2, 2015 By 1 Comment

Come On Spring

The snow is gone.  Tomorrow is going to be in the 60s and then Wednesday they are predicting more snow.  The big kids went back to school and Amon had his regularly scheduled therapy this morning.  March is officially here and this month spring will come, we’ll celebrate two birthdays and Amon’s speech therapy will come to an end.  And now I’m crying.  It’s officially marked on our calendar and in just 2 weeks our Monday and Wednesday mornings will be free and we will greatly miss our sweet therapists who have worked so hard with him.  He has come leaps and bounds from completely non-verbal to this weekend tattling on our current little because she dumped out all the diapers.  Geez.  God never ceases to amaze me.

We live in a small house and with that comes learning all kinds of tips and tricks to make our house work better for us and our tribe and less is more.  Over the weekend we cleaned, organized and purged more things.  We finally had the drywall fixed in a few rooms which was a 2015 goal…yes, a goal.  We need motivation around here.  So we got to painting this weekend too.  Josh Kelley and I got started late Friday night…it’s what we do.  We brought in some of my Mom’s furniture and moved things about trying to create more space and it totally worked.  When you only have 2 closets storage and organization is pretty key.

Please marvel at how dusty our blue light shade is.  We’re pretty cleanly around these parts.

And see that beautiful spindly high chair?!?!?  My MIL let me borrow it since our new little one joined us and now I currently have the IKEA website pulled up and 2 of their plastic highchairs in my cart because no matter how hard I try I cannot deal with all the food and grime that gets all over those spindles.  Babies are messy.  Bring on the plastic clean lines.  We had the red one for Amon, but thought I’d get crazy and go with white.

If you have not seen Noonday Collection’s new spring line then you are missing out.  The Tereza Clutch is my new favorite.  If you don’t already have an ambassador go with the amazing Ashley Mills…she’s the best.

I am getting so excited about 2 things: 1. Our Swaziland trip.  It’s on and we are for realz going…hip hip hooray.  We still have 2 spots available if you want to join us.  Email me at pitterpatterart at gmail dot com.

And 2. The March Bible journaling class.  I honestly cannot wait.  Excitement is going nuts in my heart and head.  So excited to fill our house up with woman and talk about the Bible and journaling.  I did have a dream last night I was completely unprepared…tables weren’t even set out and I woke up sweating.  Sigh.

I just found these guys and it made me laugh out loud.  I like to think they are riding a mechanical merry-go-round and trying to just hang on.  Hudson = Lego creator for life.

And sadly, this is the current state of my office.  Gasp.  I know.  I tried getting around to it over the weekend, but we were painting and moving large pieces of furniture and cleaning out.  I’ve got orders in that mess which need to be completed ASAP.  Now if I could just find them 🙂

Good news is I did find this cute little 12 month baseball tee in that mess.  It needs a home.  If you are interested shoot me an email and I’ll ship it out this week. $20 (including shipping)

 Now I’m off to maybe clean that office.

Happy Monday people!

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