Lovely

Keeping it real here up in here. I finished my cabinet organization project, but I’m afraid to close the doors too soon without the bumpers placed yet. I’m sure it’s fine, I’m just being careful. Lu asked for a pic, so here it is, messy kitchen and all. 

And Matt, seeing his picture taken, hamming it up for me. 

Yesterday was Charlene’s funeral. I didn’t think I would cry, as I’m not sad for her, but I’ll be darned if I didn’t cry through the whole thing. it was a really lovely service. 

We shopped at Lowe’s for handles and swam and prepared for Sunday. 

This morning was  stake council. so meeting from 7-9 at the stake center. It was good and productive and we had a missionary report which is the best. Then I went to White Plains where I was able to hear that same missionary speak, so it was double good. I was able to talk to some really amazing sisters and then council with their RSP. On my way home I chatted with Amy, then Adi made cookies and the girls came together to make brekkie sandwiches for dinner. We went for a family walk and it was just a really lovely Sunday.  

In her RS lesson Kristen shared this beautiful picture of the Savior that I had never seen before and as I tried to straighten it I somehow cropped it weird and added a border and, listen, I have other talents. 🤣

Also, I would like to be a cooler lady and I was sitting in a meeting the other day and realized I was the only middle aged woman there still clinging to my side part with my cold dead hands. So after church today I gave myself a middle part to see if the girls think I can pull it off with my curly girl ‘do and they all agreed that I cannot. 🤣 Alexis and Jeanne said yay, but Christian said it was weird, Matt said I look like an 80’s rocker, and the little girls said maybe not. Alli and Amy said not just no, but heck no. 🤣 Being a curly girl is hard. Maybe if I straighten my hair I could make it work? 

It’s giving…

Fri-yay

They finished painting and put the doors back up today! Now we just need it to fully dry and to pick handles and put them up. In the meantime, I’ve pulled everything out, wiped all the shelves down, and am moving things around to make it make more sense and for everything to be easier to get to. One can never have too much storage space. It makes me happy. 

Lu sent me this picture and said that Carter really loves the picture on the frame. If you can’t see it, it’s the one of me with Emmett, Carter, and Henry when Carter didn’t want to be in it so I was tickling him. Silly guy. 

Alecia and I walked this morning and got all caught up on our whirlwind summer. Summer just went by really so fast.

I met up with Janet and Tiffanie to dress Charlene for her burial tomorrow. That is always a tender time, but this time especially it’s really sweet. I really am just so happy for Charlene to be out of pain. She had such a tough life and she deserves all the blessings I just know she’s receiving.   

I made sausage tortellini soup for dinner and Matt and I went to the pool. The water is on the chilly side but I am loving it. 

During scripture time Delaney rolled herself up like a burrito. Just because. 

Christian has been sending pics of Ruby’s tummy time. She’s watching the toy screen thing Alecia got them. Babies change so much, I feel like she looks bigger every time he sends a picture!

Out of the Blue

Working to see how many titles I can come up with to use the word 'blue.'

Today was the big day! 

The cabinets are blue! 

I like it. But I don't love it. Yet. 

I'm hoping I will love it soon. 

Either way, it's better than the brown, but I was hoping to really love it. 

Paint colors are soooo tricky! 

All of the girls have said we just need to change the counters and girl! I would love to but it all costs $$$. All in blue time (see what I did there). 

They'll put the doors on tomorrow and because we are awesome there are several spots that will need retouched.

 I would have just gone out to eat tonight but I had 4 lbs of peeled potatoes from yesterdays snafu that I needed to use, so we had potato soup.

This is me. 😆

So hard to throw things away.

I stayed out of the painters way by working upstairs all day, went for a walk and talked to Amy, and then dragged the girls to the cold pool. 

It only got up to 75 and it was windy and cloudy, so it wasn't the most comfortable swim, but not terrible. 

We had family night and then I had a productive Zoom meeting,

I love Facebook Memories. 

It keeps me posting on Facebook even after all the times I've sworn it off. 

All the first day of school posts have come up the last few days so I compared all my seniors on their last first day of high school.

So fun to see them. 

Also, I was a big fan of filters back in the day. 😆

I thought I'd filtered Adi's appropriately but when I put them side by side I see that I did not. 

I've got a heavy filtering and blush applying hand.

And then this adorable little side eyed kindergartner on her first day. 

Feels like so long ago and also not that long ago. 

Bittersweet. 

So much of motherhood is so darn bittersweet.

The trick is to focus on the sweet part of it.

 

1st day blues

First of all, I stayed up too late but it was worth it. So. Satisfying.

Second of all, that 6:00am alarm clock was brutal. Only 179 more to go.

Everyone was in good spirits and had extra time for pictures and brekkie.

I thought about doing a big breakfast or even getting donuts... but then I didn't. 

8th grade cutie! She had a good day, liked most of her teachers and was especially stoked to find her ELA teachers daughter is one of her fav ballet teachers! All of that and she still talked about home schooling when she got home. This is one of those - should I push, or should I nurture? Line upon line, I guess.

It was Adi's first day to drive to school so she gave herself way more time than she needed to make sure she got there on time and was able to find parking. 

HER LAST FIRST DAY OF HIGH SCHOOL. AHHHHH! 

Frankie was tired but excited. Her cheer coaches gave them maps of the school so they could map their classes. There are several freshman on the team and I can't imagine a poor freshman walking into that maze of a school without the benefit of an open house, but they did it.

She came home capital T tired because she also had a 2 hour cheer practice and annoyed because of boys. She was pretty quiet and will need a weekend to catch up on her rest.

Last year for these two to be together. So similar and so different.

I think I make them do this dumb pose every year because I think it's funny. Adi objects!

Off they went! If I knew when I bought that car, a young, single, brand new teacher that *20* years later, clear across the country my baby would be driving that very car to high school, I just wonder what I would have said. Who could have imagined.

I got started organizing cabinets and filled my day with all the things. I had an area RS planning meeting at 5, so I prepped dinner, but needed potatoes that Matt was bringing home. I sent Delaney the recipe to finish dinner, and gave her verbal directions as I showed her the online directions. So imagine my surprise at 6:15 when I came down and instead of a fully ready to eat dinner, I found 5 lbs of peeled potatoes and a meal that had not even started to finish. Oh how I wish people listened. Then Matt didn't realize he had to go early and Adi's activity was at the Aina's so I had to drive and we ended up being 15 minutes late for YW. On the outside it might seem like I don't have it together but I do have it together its just that my family does not. I know that is life and thats the name of the game, and that's also perimenopause talking. I can tell when my patience is short and thats what I always go to.

All's well that ends well. I made it to the pool for 15 minutes for 15 laps and the cold water felt so good. Dinner tasted fabulously and everyone made it home from activities and had a good time. 

And tomorrow my kitchen will be blue and I'm *so* excited!!!

Twas the night before school...

So, funny story. I ordered a lampshade for the guest bedroom before we went out of town, but then it didn’t arrive before we left. Matt and I sort of talked about having a neighbor check things, and also they usually do without having to be asked, so I didn’t think about it till a few days after we got back. I asked Matt and he hadn’t seen it and hadn’t heard from any neighbors, so then I thought either it wasn’t delivered or it was stolen and I got a refund. Also, during the cabinet saga we had lots of random boxes in our garage with all the random parts of our cabinets.

So anyways, I had seen a small, flat box in the garage but it looked old and also like it was part of the cabinet ransoms. So today I was putting something away and decided to see what it was. Imagine my surprise to find that it was unopened. Imagine my double surprise to find my lampshade! It was rolled up into a scroll, so very different size than I was expecting. And also, I don’t know how it made its way into the garage. Whoops. 

The most exciting thing happened today! The painters came and primed the cabinets for paint on Thursday! I received the work quote from him August 24, 2024 (!) so I was very happy he honored that amount. And also, he was 1/3 the price of the only other estimate I got, so we got a great deal which is why we were able to hire out for this project. I’m *SO* excited to get this done and organize my cabinets! I thought they already were fairly organized until they took the doors off. 😆

I was torn between adventure and relaxing today. We talked about an escape room but one was too expensive and the other one would only book parties of 4 or more. Since we were missing one member of our crew, that didn’t work. Instead, Delaney and Adi went to Target and got goodies for a movie day. We ❤️ movie days. 

Another exciting thing about today is Frankie came home! I picked her up from the high school at 8pm and it was fun to hear about their competition and 3 trophies (Varsity only won 1!) and bad food and her sunburn. It sounds like it was a good experience for her and I'm glad she went and glad she's home.

And the last exciting thing is that I got everything done from my to do list by like, 3:00. 📣

We're all heading to bed early tonight in preparation for the dreaded first day of school. Let's do this, I guess. 😒

 

Last middle school open house EVER!

Puzzle update. Because I have the old lady hobbies that are most decidedly not trendy. 

This is especially funny because just this morning I had to ask where our packing tape was. 

I was reading in the Liahona and Nairobi has 2 stakes and 57 wards!!! Can’t even imagine.  

Today was Delaney’s 8th grade open house and I realized when I got home that it was my last open house ever! Anyways, our line is *always* the longest. We were still out the door and there was no line anywhere else. Every. Year. 

Delaney needed two changes to her schedule, but they both got done quickly and easily and we both really like all her teachers. She had a DQ gift card so we popped over there after. 

I made gyro bowls and Adi supplemented dinner with her famous naan, because I didn’t buy pitas. Then this evening Matt and I went swimming in the rain. 

Heading home

 I couldn't believe it was already time to head home. That 2 weeks went by really quickly! I grabbed a few pictures as we double checked all the rooms before we left.

The house was situated on a decently steep hill, there are several identical as you continue up, and they're build on stilts so you have an amazing view off the 360 balcony and with all the windows.

Amy, Lexi, and Christian's families left early. Frey and Tom's families were flying out that afternoon at 4:00, so they had time to kill. And we didn't see a reason to rush out either since our drive was only 7.5 hours. We decided to take a picture in front of the house. ***test shot***

And a zoomed in one. I loved meeting Hannah and Judah and seeing Tom's boys. Zachy is 8 so not that much older than Emmett. One of the early days he asked Tom what he should call me and if he could/should call me mimi. 💗💗💗 My heart! He's such a sweetie and I'll happily be aunt mimi!

Check out time was 11, so after we loaded the jolly green with all the random food, tp, bug spray, and laundry sheets people left behind, we headed out. I had talked to Frey about the giant can of baked beans, and they had a cool looking store too, but my family was being party poopers. Next time.

The drive was smooth and easy until we hit about 45 minutes worth of slow moving traffic. Traffic does not make sense to me, but it is annoying. For my birthday I requested a Purple seat pad, like my Purple mattress, and I used that on the drive and have to admit, my tailbone was not sore. Because I was sitting a little higher though because of the pad, my knee was sore. Getting old is fun.

We stopped for lunch at chicfila and I decided to take a dayquil because my scratchy throat and coughing was giving me a headache. For some reason I was thinking the dayquil was the blue one, and my crew was like, no, it's the orange one. So we go inside and I filled up my water and take 1 dayquil, and I had the other one in my mouth when Adi said "mom, why are you taking a nyquil?" From the parking lot into the restaurant I flubbed it up. So needless to say my turn driving was over. Which, I love sleeping in the car but did feel bad for Matt. He was fine with it, he knew how sick I'd been. The rest of our trip went so fast because I was sleeping so we weren't stopping. 😂 I am a joy to travel with. 😇  We got home at 7:00 and got the car unloaded and most things put away. I had done laundry in Tennessee so it was super easy to unpack.

We got to bed at a decent hour and were all bright and ready for church the next day. Everyone rated the trip an 8/10, so I'd say that's pretty successful!

Catching up!

Carter started preschool and can you read where his favorite place is? That's right, Mimi's house. 💗

On Thursday there was a beautiful rainbow and it felt fitting because I had just talked to Johnna and she let me know they were removing Charlene from life support on Friday. She had been non-responsive for a few days. She seems to have had 100 lives, she almost died so many times. I am so happy for her to be free of her earthly challenges!

Johnna sent me a bunch of pictures and then I got a little sad because of just how much she loved my babies. She passed away Friday afternoon and we'll be able to dress her in her temple robes next week. Until we meet again, sweet friend!

On Friday Frankie found out she made the JV cheer squad. She's worked really hard and was so excited! But that meant we had a busy day to get her ready! She had tryouts that morning from 9-10, then practice from 3-6, but we also made an extra trip because she thought her practice was at 1, but that was for varsity. At her 3 practice we had to turn in permission slips and get them notarized and pay for the cheer camp they left for early Saturday morning. Counting the saturday morning trip to the school, that's 5 trips to LHS in less than 24 hours. 😖

Also on Friday I crossed off a project that has been mildly in the works for so. long. This was my moms dresser that we brought home and painted, then minwaxed, then fixed the mirror, and finally on Friday put the handles on. Happiness is crossing off projects that you procrastinated and didn't really know how to complete.

Cheer camp drop off was 3:30am. I was hoping parents were just dropping and going, but no, they were waiting with the girls. We were all looking like we just woke up in the middle of the night, so it's fine.

There was a cute pregnant mama there that I talked to about how I used to be the pregnant mama there with my cheerleader daughter and how someday she'll be the old mom like me. 😅

I was able to get back to sleep for a few hours, but not for long because Matt participated in the dragonboat races on Solomons with people from work and we went out to support him.

He was the drummer, so he sat at the front of the boat and helped the rowers keep time to synchronize.

We actually missed his first race so we checked everything out and got a cotton candy lemonade and some brekkie sandwiches.

It was fun! I'm surprised we'd never been.

We hung out till his next race and got some pictures and then went on our merry way.

It was hot and we had roughly 1 million errands to run.

We went to Famous Footwear (coupon), Wawa (free birthday treat), thrift store (to drop stuff off and shop), Target (returns and shop), Bath & Body Works ($2.95 soap!), Michaels (coupon), and BJ's (gas). Not all of our trips were smooth so it took awhile but we had fun and got it all done so it's fine.

That night Adi babysat and Matt and I went to the Tripp's for Jen's surprise birthday party. Her birthday was in january so it was a real surprise. That's life!

We've been working on a puzzle and it's a smidge more challenging than I like. I really appreciate when people help with fresh new eyes because they almost always get a piece immediately. I like a nice easy puzzle with easy to differentiate pictures.

Why does summer have to end? I mean, I love Fall too, but summer freedom! Pool time! Family vacations! 😩

This sweet smiling lady! Getting pictures is my favorite thing!

Heather and I spoke in the Branch today. I need to remember for next time that I don't need a translator. I can translate my talk online and then practice it with Matt, and I know enough Spanish to get by. It went well and we were able to catch up and also talk to the new branch organist and iron some things out there, so it was a great day at church. There was traffic coming home so I went through Indian Head and I do love me a country lane.

Today is Lily's birthday and Adi made her the sweetest gift. She blinged out a box, totally personalized and then filled it with some of her favorite things. I especially love that Henry's giant head is front and center! 😆