Category Archives: family

Smiles and sunsets

My drive home from work takes me down quiet country roads with beautiful views. Often times I use my time between the office and picking up the girls as a time to catch up with my sisters or my girlfriend. Or rock out. Or sometimes just quiet time…To decompress after a busy day.

Today was one of the quiet days. The sun was just about set. The fog was settling in around the lake. It was a beautiful evening. I drove in silence. Without even thinking, I brought my hand to my neck. It brushed my necklace. I caught myself and smiled.

My grandma has been gone over 7 years now and there’s still not a day that goes by where I don’t think about her. She’s never far from my mind.

On days I seem to miss her more than normal I think about what it’d be like to visit with her again. It’s an odd thing to go from visiting multiple times a week to never being able to do it again. We’d talk about nothing. Or everything. No matter what my days were always brighter. I can still picture her smile. Even how her eyes beamed. How she’d squeeze my hand.

Today would have been one of those days where I would have stopped off for a visit before going home. To share a bit about my day.

I look at the sun setting through the clouds. I think about all the things I would be telling her if she was here. My hand touches my necklace again and I smile picturing her smile. Shes never too far away.

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Shopping Dates

Over the last few months my sister and I have started a new weekend ritual. Shopping dates. More specifically, grocery shopping dates.The girls and I load up and head into town, meal plan, grocery list and reusable grocery bags in hand. Sometimes we stop for coffee first but not always. We both park in our “normal spot”, grab our carts and get to it. The girls love the time with their auntie and I love the time with my sister. And I also love having a bit of backup on days one (or both) of the girls decide shopping is for losers.

It sounds ridiculous, I know, but our grocery shopping dates have quickly become something I cherish about my weekends.

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The State of the State

Within the last 20 minutes, I just finished up my first post car accident 90-minute massage. I’ve got a little bit of time before I need to go get the girls, but not enough time to head back to the office so I’ve found myself sitting in Starbucks sipping on my beloved iced coffee and water…lots and lots of water.

I’ve been somewhat slacking in the blog department lately and have plans to get back into it {broken record, I know} but I feel like we’ve missed some things along the way, so I figured I’d fill the 20-30 minutes of free time I have here with a general life overview. A “state of the state” if you will.

Reese
Whoa buddy, this girl. She is…fierce. That is the best word to describe her. She lives life…big. She has big ideas and big curiosity and big opinions and a big set of lungs. And a big stomach…homegirl is always hungry. She is in to everything she shouldn’t be. She loves to “help”. She’s starting to “talk” more and more. Her latest word is “cracker” and her latest phrase is “bless you”. She’s a little stinker, but she continues to bring so much joy to our family and I love her so.

Rylee
Kindergarten has been good to this girl so far. She’s reading more and more. She’s continually blowing my mind with things she knows and how easily she’s picking up new concepts. She’s learning to tell time. She gets “optional” homework sent home in her Tuesday folder every week. {for the record, it’s not optional in our house} Just last week her teacher included extra “challenge homework”…with things like greater than/less than as well as “which digit is in the ones place”. I thought, no way this is going to end well. Ry? NAILED IT. She is smart beyond smart. We’re talking about starting gymnastics. She’s getting into the stage of girlhood where she wants to listen to the same song over and over and over again and learn every single word. Then of course sing and dance along. Currently her song is Taylor Swift’s “I knew you were trouble”. Not gonna lie, I am totally loving this stage so far.

Andy
Ha, not much to report here. The beginning of the school year crazyness seems to be easing up a bit {knock on wood}. He’s still working on wrapping up some of the big outside projects on the property in time for winter. Last weekend he and my dad did their first wood cutting trip of the season.

Katherine
Yep…I’m still plugging away. Work is work. My back/neck have been jacked since the car accident so the massage I just had was heavenly. I’m apparently at a point in my life where playdates at Target are totally my idea of fun…and I’m 1 million percent ok with that. I’m also at a point in my life where I’ve come to terms with the fact that I don’t have time for everything. I didn’t can a single thing this year. Didn’t even pick a single pear off of our pear tree. On one hand, I hate the fact that I’m not making the time for those things, but on the other hand, I have my sanity about me and I’m not trying to squeeze in a bajillion things into two days off while wrangling a couple of kids. Life is life and my priorities have been set and I’m not wasting energy on peripheral things.

The Blog
I wish it wasn’t so neglected, it’s true, but there are so many other things that need to take priority these days. I’ve recently stopped blogging over at Liberating Working Moms. It was a bittersweet decision, but definitely the right one for me. I’ve also taken the blog off of the “Top Baby Blogs” directory. I don’t know that I ever thought this blog would “make it big” {whatever that means} but I’m super happy with where it’s at, I don’t know the last time I checked my stats. I do love blogging, I do it for fun and I do it for my kids to look back at someday and don’t see myself stopping anytime soon.

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Fall is always a funny time of year for me. It starts out hectic with the beginning of a new school year then always seems to settle nicely into a season of evenings spent by the fire and reflection and relaxation.

Life is life. Kids are kids. Work is work. Love is love.

And that, my friends, is the state of the state.

Scenes from the Weekend

Oh man friends, last weekend is exactly what I needed…not only was it picture perfect, it was in fact, perfect all the way around.

I kicked off the weekend with a girl’s night at a winery down the road from my house. Good food. Good friends. Good wine. Win-win-win.

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The girls slept in until almost 7 AM Saturday morning! It was glorious! We also had a good lazy, snuggly morning reading books while we waited for the clouds to burn off.

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Once the sun finally decided to show up we headed outside! Andy was working on the chicken coop and the girls and I just spent some time enjoying our property.

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The chicken coop is SO close to being chicken ready. We probably won’t get chickens until the spring, but we’ll be ready! It’s been fun to see this whole thing come together…Andy had a vision for what he wanted to build. I’m always impressed with his skills. Handy Andy. He’s mine.

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The girls have also been enjoying this process. Rylee has helps with a lot of the process, actually. Once it’s all done, I think I’ll put together a blog post on it.

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We spent Sunday much the same way. The girls and I hit the grocery store while Andy continued work on the coop. Then Rylee went to spend the afternoon with my sister. While Reese napped, I worked on the coop with Andy. I love working on projects with him. We used to do it all the time before we had kids, nowadays it’s less frequent, but I always love it when I get the opportunity.

We ended the weekend eating dinner with my sister and her boyfriend. And eating cookies and ice cream. :)

How was your weekend?

C K Say I Do!

The entire reason we went to Hawaii was because my sister was getting married there! I’ve been wishing/hoping a family member or close friend would have a destination wedding for quite some time because DUH! Automatic vacation!

The wedding was beautiful and I hope it was everything my sister and her husband had hoped it would be.

I originally had about 20 photos of their day to share in this post, then I really thought about it and even though I took the photos, even though they’re living in my computer and even though I edited a bunch of them, they aren’t really mine to share, ya know?

But the wedding and the day was too fantastic not to share so I figured if I’m in the photo or if my kids are in the photo, they’re fair game. So here’s a few shots from my sister’s Hawaiian wedding…

The Wedding Location

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The Rings!
{This one might break my rules, but I kind of love this one}rings

Sisters helping the bride.
{This pretty much sums up our personalities…K1 The proper one. K2 The poser. K3 The goof}
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Rylee as one of the flower girls.
{My sister chose not to have a wedding party so she had all of the nieces & friends’ kids as the flower girls/ring bearers. It was very sweet.}DSC_0696

A Dad and his Baby.DSC_0090
Ry adores her Auntie.DSC_0093

Playing in the rose petals waiting to head to the reception.DSC_0132

K2 and K3
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My sister is married!!
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Sisters!
{And two of my best friends}

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Our Family of Four!family

Sis, if you’re reading this {and I know you are} you were a beautiful bride. You will make a wonderful wife and someday an amazing mother. Thank you for letting me be a part of your big day. I’m so happy that I can call you my sister and my friend. I love you.

Oh, and P.S. I’m SO glad you decided to do this! ;-)