Friday's Fave Five: June 25

I took a couple of weeks off, which means I have even more to be grateful for! Life has been pretty busy lately and then last week I was away on our annual middle school summer camp trip (with 62 middle schoolers!) so I am started to feel caught up now...although that never lasts more than a day or so!

1. Judah Time! I got to spend a week (while I was away at camp) bonding with just my youngest. Micah got to stay with grandma and spend time with friends, so he had a blast...but it was nice and special to have lots of Judah time!

2. Cuteness! My boys are just so stinkin' adorable! Whether they are awake, sleeping, or screaming (okay, so in that moment I am not thinking how cute they are, but they still are!)...

(don't worry, he is not in pain, he is desperately wanting something other than the broccoli he is supposed to be eating...and yes, that is a tattoo on his stomach, but it washed off in the pool...it was fake.)

Still SO cute!

3. Father's Day. I started about 2 weeks early since we were going to be gone the whole week leading up to it...I was excited that Micah could "help" make something this year for "dadda" but it didn't turn out quite as well as I had hoped. Ultimately, I wish I had someone standing by to film the process because surely that would have been a much better present than our final result. A couple of pictures that I managed to take...

For some reason it didn't equate with him that it was just finger paint. Surely it was face paint, or mouth paint, or food...something better than just finger paint!

You might assume part of the process was eating some chocolate...nope. This is when he decided to eat the brown crayon instead of coloring with it on the paper! Fully eating the crayon! Had to go brush it out of his teeth! The kid refuses to eat broccoli, but when it comes to brown crayons he is all "mmmmmmmmmmmm"! Crazy day!

4. Hand-me-downs. I am all about them! About 95% of our boy's clothes have been given to us. And their toys and shoes and whatever else they use besides diapers. It's a great way to go. Toys are SO expensive and who knows what they will truly end up cherishing...well, Micah LOVES trains...and lo and behold we were given a great train set by a friend that he adores! He just sits there and plays with them and sings "choo choo" in a high pitched voice over and over!

(We are going to redo these floors like we have the kitchen floors, but they are still in the hideous stage right now!)


5. New Kitchen. It is coming along so great! We have very minor touch-ups at this point, but for the most part, it is new, and improved, and SO nice to walk into each day.

I don't have a great before picture, but this gives a view of some of the layers of flooring we took up to find the wood, shows the white counter tops and yellow walls...doesn't show the metal sink that wasn't terrible except for the nails-scraping-the-chalkboard noise when the water was running!

Hard to get a picture of it all, this still doesn't show the new sink. We found a great one on craigslist and it works, sounds and looks worlds better! And this shows the white, gray, and red walls that we painted, the black "marbled" counter tops that we painted, and the newer-looking freshly painted cabinets. It feels great.

We've been busy. But it's been a good sort of busy too. I feel like I could keep writing things...which is good. It's good to feel so grateful!

I am linked up at Living to Tell the Story.

Friday's Fave Five: May 28

Somehow this week has flown by and been long at the same time. Is that possible?
I am thankful this morning. Thankful today. Thankful for life and family and friends. Thankful for Memorial Day weekend and the start of summer...let's get started on the specifics:

1. Visit from Grandpa. Our family can be confusing. Our kids have 4 sets of grandparents. 4 grandmas and 4 grandpas. They are going to think that EVERY older looking person is a grandma or grandpa! My dad came for a short visit from FL this week and it was great! I think babies and kids bring out a different side of people. Almost always. And it's usually (in my opinion) a side that hasn't shown before. I saw my dad's very loving and affectionate and fun side. I was surprised and delighted to watch him get on the floor and play with Micah. A lot! It was cute and our kids are blessed!

2. Micah loves water! I have always wanted my kids to love the water. I do. I love swimming and water parks and going to the lake...and I am so excited to share all of this with Micah (and hopefully Judah) as he grows. It is getting warmer here and we got out the baby pool yesterday. Mostly he just wanted to play with the hose (and chase me with the hose) but what fun to watch and enjoy!

3. Judah is growing. And getting more vocal and more animated. And more interactive.

4. Brotherly Love. Micah is getting much more loving (and sometimes in a tough way!) toward Judah. Yesterday was the first time Micah has completely held Judah by himself. And I have to say, even though Judah was very unhappy the first time, Micah did great, seemed very proud and shows great potential for being a sweet, protective older brother.

5. Kitchen Progress. The kitchen is coming right along. The floors are done! The walls are mostly done! We basically have one wall that we are going to do a different, brighter color and we are going to redo the counter tops. Excited for how it is turning out!

This post is linked to other Friday Fave Five's at Living to Tell the Story.

Friday's Fave Five: May 14

It's probably a good thing that Sunday was mother's day! Mainly because it was a rough day...Micah was up way earlier than usual and both boys were a bit cranky...but it was mother's day and I was just thankful to be a mom! It was also a good day because my husband made lunch and dinner, and he bought cinnamon bun ice cream! Can't get much better than that! I am still extra thankful for my kids this week, and am so excited that I have extra things to be thankful for about them!

1. Micah. He is adorable and growing so fast! Things I am thankful for about him this week: he sleeps when he is sick or teething or cranky (and I think he has been trying to sleep off the end of this sickness because he slept 17 hours 3 nights ago, 18 hours 2 nights ago, and took a 4.5 hour nap yesterday) and I know this is a blessing; he has been trying lots of new foods and it makes meal time more exciting for me and it also feels like a new way to connect with him as a person and as my son; he is learning when he poops and he is learning how to communicate this to us...excited and fearful to start the potty training process.

2. Judah. At this point in Micah's life, he was sleeping through the night, and this has made me wary about how far off Judah may be from this since he hasn't been sleeping as well overall...but he did one 6.5 hour stretch Wednesday night! Yay! He's slowly getting there! Overall I think he is learning to sleep better and fall asleep better on his own. But sometimes it also seems that we take one step forward and 2 steps back. And one more thing that brings me great joy is that one of his favorite places to hang out is on the kitchen floor while we are doing stuff in there. It's random, but oh so cute!

3. Kitchen Remodeling. The process was started a while ago, and then not much was done, but something light a fire under my husband's butt and he decided he really wanted to get it done. And I'm glad. We are trying to very frugally redo the floors, walls and counter tops. Nothing is done, but the process is moving along now.

4. Easy meals. We pretty much started the week with enough leftovers to make it through the week. And we are both okay with eating leftovers. And it has been SO nice to not worry about making food for lunches and dinners all week, and it has allowed me extra time for other things.

5. Lunch with friends. We had a friend over for lunch last weekend and then just sat around and caught up on life. It was nice. We need to do this more often!

This post is linked to Living to Tell the Story.