Some new things I LOVE

On Saturday Darrin dropped me off at a local home furnishing/decorating store called Real Deals, my friend Carla owns it and it's just amazing. I had no kids and just time, to browse everything. I could have spent hundreds of dollars, and days filling my imagination with all the decorating possibilities, but I ended up limiting my selection to 3 new items. The cookie jar, it's companion, and the orange vase. I LOVE them. I have never decorated for Valentines before and it was the perfect centerpiece for our heart pancake breakfast this morning.

Happy Valentines Day!

Day of rest

I am OBSESSED with photography and my Internet right now. I am constantly finding myself putting aside, dishes, cleaning, and children to work on something which I view as "more fun".

This morning I woke up ready to make a change. So it being Sunday, I thought to myself, can I really have a day of rest, when I don't do anything with photography for one day? Of course I can...I should have started a count as to how many times I thought and almost went "Oh I should go look such and such up to see what's going on (something about photos) because it was numerous times. My one exception to the rule was that I could do my own personal family blog, because that's my family history. It was a tough experiment, to say the least, but I did achieve my goal.

What's my goal for tomorrow? Well...I am going to see if I can wait till 1pm, when the kids lay down for a nap, we will see, I have a feeling two days with limited use, might being going a little far.

Pack Rat

The last few days of changing Kale from his pajamas to his clothes has been filled with surprises. I will pull a little foot out of his sleeper to find it stuffed full of toys, I am not talking about soft toys, I have found little pet shops, plastic dinosaurs and more. The other day I found baby carrots, the small plastic kind (refer to photo below). I am not sure if he knows when I put on the PJ's that he's going to go to bed, and needs some toys to play with or what, but he has been hoarding toys. Sounds like an uncomfortable nights sleep to me.

Will I ever learn to love you?

I am determined to make this relationship to work...my nemesis the laundry. It has nothing to do with washing and drying, it's all about the folding, or more commonly the hanging of the clothes. I have designated Monday's as my laundry day, it works better for me to just get it all done in one day versus little loads every day. Alas, no matter how hard I try I always still have piles to be hung up on Tuesday. Maybe I should just accept defeat and realize it takes me 2 days to do laundry. What I really want to know is will I ever get to the point that I really don't mind laundry. Has anyone experienced this dread of laundry and turned it to joy? Maybe joy is too strong, but I want success stories people, are there any?

Saturdays

I love it when Darrin is home. I love to have a day where I can catch up on housework, and if I choose to do that then I have an extra set of adult hands to distract and help the kids. Most Saturdays I am never as productive as I hope but just that I have the day to think about doing stuff is nice. Last Saturday was one of those days, Darrin was outside cleaning up and I sent the kids outside. Jaya rode her bike, Baylie stayed inside playing in her room, and Eden and Kale jumped on the tramp. It looked like so much fun, I stopped the housework and grabbed my camera.

I really appreciate this photo because the only sign of motion is in Eden's skirt, it's the evidence that she had been jumping, but nothing else shows it, love that!

The POWER of sunshine

Sunshine: It's not too be treated lightly, it's amazing what a few good days of warm sunshine can do to your soul. It's so refreshing.

Shore Excursions

BELIZE - Hiking through the jungle, and then cave tubing, we even got to eat termites! You better BELIZE it!

GRAND CAYMAN ISLAND - Sting ray swimming and snorkeling. This was probably my favorite excursion, because I was so freaked out about the sting rays but they turned out to be very nice, although I never did get brave enough to feed them. Plus while snorkeling we saw a moray eel, creepy.

ISLA ROATON, HONDURAS - Monkey House, Zip-line, and Snorkeling - I LOVED this island, it was by far my favorite, the beaches were beautiful and when we snorkeled there were tons of fish just swimming all around.

COZUMEL, MEXICO - Moped and Beach Hopping - this was a great day. Darrin and I spent the day just the two of us. We rented a moped and explored almost the entire island, well the beaches at least. We snorkeled, ate, slept on the beach, it was a GREAT day.