Dress up

A sweet friend invited the girls over to play dress up and take pictures.  Just so darling, they cannot wait to play again. <3

A day in the life of Holly

 A snapshot of Holly's morning.  Everyone could use a little Holly in their lives. Best dog ever.

Winter is back

We have snow again. And ice. And wind. Winter, thaw, back to winter.  Fit a walk in today in between the pelts of freezing rain and now I'm by the fire keeping warm. Winter can carry on, I have adventures awaiting for me in hardcover and paperback.

(These pics were from before the last thaw.  Now all these trees are bending with ice).

Collections

My brilliant 4-H co-leader suggested we use club money to buy reusable place settings for our 4-H potlucks.  I absolutely loved the idea and said, "Wait. I bet I could already provide transportable place settings for our whole club." We washed up my tinware collection (which I buy if I find them for a dollar or less).  Do I ever have a collection!  Now our 4-H club meals will end with little to no trash! Here's the start of our cleaning. This isn't even my whole collection!

 Speaking of collections, I took our my ice skate collection so my kids could pick out ones that fit.  These were all thrifted, I think the most expensive pair was $5.  I have enough to host a skating party and invite half the town. Perhaps we should get making a rink!

Nighttime reads

As I tucked my kids into bed the other night and they snuggled into their independent reading routines, I just stopped and realized how beautiful this time in my life is.  Because of our schedules, I don't have my husband here at night and it has been my responsibility alone to put the kids to bed for their entire lives.  There are certain parts of our day that are frantic, but for the most part, we have built bedtime to not be one of those frantic times.  We first huddle into my bed for family read alouds and then they retreat into their own beds for their own quiet reading.  It's relaxing. Peaceful. The part of the day we all look forward to.  In fact, my bigs are unwilling to give up our evening routine, even for fun endeavors.

Much of my brain space is all too often occupied by that which I ought to do or frustrations of not completing what I ought to have done.  I am my own worst critic and I do not go easy on myself.  Sometimes my exhausting self talk captures all my brain space and I forget to see what is good right in front of my nose. Today I am aiming to hit mute on all that internal chatter and look to see what is right, instead of what is all wrong.

This is what's good. This is what's right. This is what I'm thankful for.

Childhood

My little girl wearing a mama made dress and a necklace that she made, fixing a meal and reading stories to the (well loved) doll that I made years ago. Life is good.

Winter picnics

 Seems like just a wee bit of time ago we had all this snow. I packed them a picnic and sent them on their way. They spent the better part of the day in the woods at 'Cracked rock'.  I don't know what they were doing, but I do know their imaginations were running wild. Days like these are the best days of childhood.