New space

Remember when I was talking recently about my "can't hang anything to save my life" condition? Here is one space I have TRANSFORMED!

Before: Boring stairway

After:

It's hard to tell, but these pictures were blown up to 16x20 and framed to 20x24. It's just hard to tell they are that large because the space is so large.

I have to thank my sister-in-law for having a nice camera and taking almost all of these great photos and sharing them on discs for the rest of us. You rock!

Just think, you too can have this if you are just willing to forgo one of your kids' college education funds to get the matting and framing done! It's that easy!

But I must stay on track. Despite the fact that I could have chosen owning my own private island for the same price as getting this done, I still love it and I am proud I was able to make a decision, and as my husband specializes in, get-er-done.

And then...

Next on the docket came Jack's 8th birthday....

Happy birthday to my sweet, smart, sensitive, emotional, bull in a china shop boy. You have a smile that lights up first your face, then the whole room. You have dynamic phone conversation skills. You are the light of your little brother's life and no one else can make him laugh like you. You only run on one speed and that is fast. I love you little boy.

Birthday party at the bowling alley with 6 of his buddies

I love these quarter machine mustaches

Then, we had Luke's preschool graduation:

Luke with one of his preschool teachers, who then.... (excellent segue ahead)....

Babysat for us overnight on Saturday, so we could go to Des Moines and celebrate Rob's birthday alone!

where we only took one picture, but trust me when I tell you we had a really nice time. I am thankful we share the love of exploration so we had fun checking out a new city. We could see this from our hotel window:

(from city-data.org),

and, we got to go to a REAL mall! With amazing stores that I haven't laid eyes on in much, much too long. Sephora. New York and Company. J. Jill. Black White Store. Pottery Barn.

Auntie Anne's and Cheesecake Factory in the same location.

I am dead.

Sigh.

So that's what's been goin' on here in these parts. And for all whom I have been sorely lacking in return calls or other communication, I do apologize but life has truly been a bit hectic lately. It's time to resume status quo.

And then normal life resumes....

Our vacation "aahhs" were short lived, as so often happens, by normal life, which doesn't fail to click along at the pace it is used to, so we had much to come back to. All exciting and fun, but just a lot! 2 days after we returned, Jack celebrated his first communion:

I love how he loved to get dressed up!

After he received communion and sat back down, he had this hazy smile on his face, and said "I feel different! I feel Jesus inside of me!" It was very cute.

The next day was another big day of celebration.

Lordy Lordy, look who's....

...celebrating a birthday! (Count the gummies if you aren't sure which one....)

Happy birthday my sweet husband.

Plus it was Mother's Day!

And we were lucky enough to have at least one of our mothers with us to celebrate this big day!

We spent the day doing what I love best on Mother's Day, a picnic and hike at a local park.

Whew it was a big weekend! But wait, there's more!! That's all for tonight though....

Hello again

Hello friends!

Well, judging by the lack of comments on my previous post where I asked you to call out your quirks, I have deduced that all of my readers lead highly normal and orderly lives, virtually quirkless. Or, you are all as busy as I've been the last few weeks and just haven't had a chance to share. I'll go with that one!

Oh where to begin. So much has happened that I'll just bite off one chunk at a time. We recently returned from a wonderful trip to Florida with my besties, and it was marvelous. We had always talked about vacationing somewhere together for our 10 year ish anniversaries, and amazingly this all fell together for us. We stayed at a lovely house that's in Andrea's family:

We ate well, had no plans, and relaxed to our heart's content. It was the perfect length of time, and I physically felt my body relax down to normal levels which was so nice.

I was quite obsessed with these adorable Airstream trailers selling food. One sold only grilled cheese varieties. Kill me now.

Thank you girls for a wonderful time as always and a huge thanks to the grandparents who made this possible!