easter 2009

after church

easter basket goodies



portuguese easter bread


holztiger figurines courtesy little bits



blaise with his new hat knit by grams



graham with blaise

my easter bunny 8 mo.

i wanted to share some of our easter with you'll. we had a wonderful weekend with friends. tommy and amy lowe were in town, along with the some other navy friends, the betz' (formerly jess morris with new hubby ryan). church was wonderful. awe can remember the sacrifice that our savior made for us and the victory we have in his resurrection.

oh death where is thy victory, oh death where is thy sting?

the reason for a clean home ...

i love this quote from simplemom.net in today's post:

We clean our homes because it's sanitary, because it's enjoyable to live in a clean space, and because when our haven is organized and neat, we're able to focus on the things that really matter to us - like relationships.

facilitating real relationships and fostering a loving home, through hospitality is one of my heart's desires. this is a topic i plan to explore more at greater thing. does anyone have any resources to share a theology of the home?

day two: get out of the way of the professionals!

before.

before.

before.


today it was raining and damp here in newport, so it made for a bit of a challenge with the kids. i knew that i had to take rhys to preschool and that rosangela was coming at 11:30am to clean the house. in between, we were running over to my friend's home for a quick rainy day playdate. i was trying to figure out what we were going to do outside the home all afternoon (during when the boys are usually down for their naps and the girls and i get our quiet times). but another girlfriend (who has come over with her kids when her house was being cleaned) let us crash for a few hours. it was not until almost 5pm that i got a call from rosangela!! they had just finished.

yep folks: 11:30am to 4:45pm they cleaned, non-stop. and the house was amazing. AHHHH-MAAAA-ZZZING! it smelled so fresh and clean. god bless her!! it was a two-women job. that means if i had tried to do what they did it would have taken me at least 10 hours and probablylonger without a "system" and even longer had i had the kids with me, underfoot.

because of yesterday's clean sweep i have two tasks for tomorrow. one: make use of the "sell" and "give" boxes; and two: declutter all of the drawers and baskets that i stuffed full of junk that i "swept" off of the surfaces! its most likely going to continue raining here, so its a perfect day to do this. i will be modifying the spring cleaning party list to fit our home and pictures will be included. also ...

the spring clean party will go on a little longer here in our home b/c i will be heading out to california on friday for my grandmother's funeral. i am sure with jet lag and such i won't get back in to the party groove until next weekend. i am really enjoying this event so far and i think each time i come in to a space that has been cleared up and decluttered, my soul feels a little less burdened. clean, free, at peace, calm, zen-life.

today tsh at simplemom.net posted a very inspiring thought that sums up my feelings:

And the most important goal to spring cleaning in ten days? Decluttering. Getting rid of stuff. Saying goodbye to those things that are clogging your living spaces, and therefore causing visual stress.

When you have only what you need or love, it’s so much easier to clean - cleaning those surfaces several times a day isn’t as big a deal, because there’s not much stuff to begin with.
I encourage you to focus on getting rid of stuff. Make a hard-and-fast decision to kick out those things you don’t need or love. It sounds painful, but once you get into it, it’s cathartic, refreshing, and even fun.

join the cleaning party!

today i have headed over to simplemom.net to join the spring cleaning party. kind of reminds me of the folding parties my mom would have us kids do together (you know, folding the dreaded mountain of clean clothes!) but this will be way more fun!

i have hired a cleaning woman to come every two weeks to help me out. with four little ones under 5 1/2 and not getting the sleep i need b/c baby blaise is cutting teeth, and also being buried under the immense loads of laundry and piles of dishes -- i know when i need to call in the reinforcements.

but that means i have to prep the house for her. which is where this spring cleaning is coming in handy. plus who knows when we will be moving to our next duty station - so i need to start now with the decluttering. it will be a segway into my quest for more order and organization in our crazy home.

more on this later ... for now i am off with my two boxes for the "sell" and "give" stuff ... i will have a few pics of before and after (hopefully!)

cute japanese fabric site

www.nuno-plus.com

this site makes me just crazy excited about making little things for the girls and boys in our home! now if i can just get the machine to the shop for servicing - my goal this week! enjoy the site.

updates

hey all, i was reading a friend's blog and discovered through then reading a linked blog (you know how that goes...) to a mom's blog wherebye (okay its a long train to where i found this!:) i found these two really neat toy sites: http://www.willowtoys.com/ and http://www.quiethourstoys.com/. i am scheming already for kyrie's birthday which come at the end of july. i am hoping to steer clear of any plastic items or mass produced - dare i say i may even make her something from that sewing machine down in the basement? (i have got to get it to the shop to have it looked over first!) i know that she is really interested in farms and animals and i also want to encourage her artistic/creative personality ... so maybe a stable for farm animals?

one thing i really want to do after reading Soulemama's The Creative Family (aka Amanda Blake Soule) is to create an art wire and hang the pictures and the inspirations up. and two other recommendations for encouraging the little thinkers and budding creatives in the family: framing some of our most favorite creations; and giving each child their very own art scrapbook - like a moleskin, where their projects can be saved and enjoyed. these suggestions will help with the ever increasing collections of papers and projects covering our dining room table, the kids table and our walls (imagine kyrie taping her pictures up on the wall - i really enjoyed watching her do this. i thrills me to see her so excited and free to share with our family the things she makes.)

graham has been away for the past few days and we had our wonderful friend, michelle, come back to newport to help me with the kids. (she is part of the renewal bible study we help our with at salve and truly one of our most favorite babysitters/friends!) she left this morning and i had a bit of a mini depression. missing graham, glum with the weather threatening to rain all day and mostly just misting (although it was beautiful outside and i love listening to the distant foghorn.) i was trying to figure out what to do with the kids and mainly wanting to just sit and read my book, which i finished. (the copper scroll by joel c. rosenberg) it wasn't until mid-afternoon that i got up the energy and motivation to continue our launry/folding/putting away chore that is stretching out nearly a week from the beginning of the task. more on that later. anyways i was thinking about how i missed graham and feeling slightly sorry for myself when i realized what an ungrateful mama i was being: ie. hello my sister-in-law kyla is home with 3 little ones while my brother is deployed until the end of the summer and I AM COMPLAINING about a weekend apart from my husband. snap out of it girl! so i did. note to self: need to send my niece a 1st year birthday present and an encouragement card to kyla!!!

so about the laundry situation: my good friend alicia suggested i do the "one load a day" rule that flylady teaches. so i did it today - now mind you i am still hammering away at the piles from this past week - but every day is a new day and hopefully by tomorrow (sunday - a day of rest!!) i will be at my goal. all folded, put away and only one load a day. so thank you to alicia for the suggestion and the kindness you delivered it with.

i guess this means that i am still in that mode of getting ready and ramped up for blaise's arrival sometime at the end of august. and as i am typing i remind myself that the first two babes were born early!!! not that i expect this again for our last one but it gets me thinking...i need to get cracking on the continueing saga of dejunking our basement. its all about preparation. really i am just preparing early for our move next summer, too. ahhhh before i start getting stressed out...breathe deeply and remember every day is new day and its one foot ahead of the other, baby steps. little small projects that are doable.

i know that i have not blogged in awhile or rather on a very consistent basis. i want to b/c it always makes me feel so much better. i can collect my thoughts and gain perspective. reading some of the other mom's blogs tonight has really encouraged me to be not conformed to this world but transformed by the renewing of my mind. ie. read some of these blogs and be encouraged and don't read the blogs that bring negativity into my thought life. not that its bad to read a heavy or a sad blog post, rather think on the good things.

i am going to log off and fold this laundry and then read some of the word before i visit the land of nod. there will be more frequent bloggging and also a change of the layout soon. maybe even a change in the purpose of the blog. its all in the works.

sweet dreams

for the vintage in all of us...

www.stores.rubyjane.com

i know i havn't been around lately - seems like i can hardly sit down anymore...i want so much to be doing and going places like the park with the kids at least once a day if i possibly can since it is nice most days...but i am planning a major overhaul of the blog and maybe a focus change.

i found this site on one of my reader subscriptions - blissfully domestic. enjoy!