The green chairs are from my patio set. Daniel bought a 6 chair, hexagon table and green umbrella matching patio set from craigslist for $80 last summer and I have LOVED it. The chairs are comfy and lightweight and I love the bright green color. Can you believe it? ... it's awesome that they just happened to match the baby shower colors perfectly, hahahaha!! "I love it when a plan comes together".

Today is a sick day. It started at 5 am when Noah burst into our room and blurted, "I keep throwing up!" he finished this statement with a demonstration and threw up all over our bedroom floor. Poor little Noah. Daniel's side of the bed was closest to Noah, so Daniel jumped up and took Noah into the bathroom while I leapt up and followed the trail of throw up across the hall and into his room - on the floor and all over his quilt.

We tag-teamed and got it all taken care of. At 5:45 am, it happened again. It was so sad because Noah had tried to get the throw up in the bowl next to his bed and as he was leaning over the bowl with Daniel by his side he was able to make out a few words in between heaves, "I got some ... on the floor Mommy ... over there". It was heartbreaking to hear him apologizing in between throwing up. We got it all taken care of and got back in bed.

Both Daniel and I were exhausted but so wide awake now that we had a hard time getting back to sleep. But finally, we started drifting off and right about 6:45 am ... more throw up, this time, in the bathroom.

This continued until about 10 am.

I pulled out the steam cleaner around 9 am and cleaned the carpets, ran 4 loads of clothes and as I was finishing up a pale faced and weary looking Noah came up to me and said, "Mommy, can you grow if you throw up?" I told him he would still grow. He said, "Can you measure me on my chart? I want to see if I am growing". So adorable that he was worried about his height on a morning like this. We measured him, and much to his dismay, he was the same height as he was in May, bummer.

He took a nap and daddy stayed home from work so I could go to an appointment I had made last week. I kept my appointment and came home with pedialyte and ginger ale. Then Daniel left for work and I blogged a little ... and that's when it hit me too.

I haven't thrown up since I was about 17. I never threw up when I was pregnant. For some reason, my adult body doesn't use the throw up method to rid my body of unwanted fluids ... it uses the "other method". And I am going to be disgustingly honest - you may want to turn away. I pooped my pants today. Yeah, that's the "other method". Needless to say, I have spent the better part of the afternoon either in my bed or in the bathroom. The only exceptions were when I was getting Noah into his bed, getting him Ibuprofen for his fever and when I had to feed Liam.

Liam is doing great. He has been running circles around Noah and me with a tiny, pink, plastic camera (I don't know how that came to be in our house) and keeps yelling, "cheeeeeeeeese!" and then he makes a clicking noise and laughs and runs to the other sick human in the room and does it again. His spirits have luckily been in tremendous strength throughout the day and currently, he is wearing a bike helmet and setting up train tracks in his room and knocking them over, with a baseball glove on one hand. I can't make stuff like that up, it is pure reality around here.

So, I deem this a sick day ... here's for a cleaned out and healthier body tomorrow.

I really can't help myself! When my friend, Senta, asked me to help out throwing a very small baby shower for Megan, I couldn't resist. I love doing this and because we only invited about 10 ladies and Senta and Tamara did all of the food and invitations, I was able to spend some serious time on the decorations and make the favors more intricate than just a cookie. So fun for me.

Megan is a self-proclaimed "non-girly-girl" and her nursery colors are yellow, green, white and a little bit of pink - so we went with those colors for the baby shower. I was inspired to do my party after looking at THIS baby shower on the hostess blog. But instead of doing pinwheels and pom poms, I did paper medallions and pom poms.

The party favors were little jars of sugar scrub and the food was lemon and lime inspired: lemon-limeade, lemon bars, lemon cupcakes, lemon musffins ... OK it was mostly lemon inspired :)

Thanks to those who came and helped out!








































Christine handmade these little hairclips - so cute!


Handmade blanket by Marcie ... amazing.


Handmade blanket by Debbie?? All these crafty ladies!

I just came home from a baptism. There weren't any incredible speakers, or fabulous musical numbers. It wasn't very long. It was a small gathering of people. And yet, it was a powerful experience. These spiritual moments seem to be so fleeting for me, but very strong, so I thought I'd write down how I felt so I don't forget.

It's easy to discount or forget these experiences because they are feelings and once those feelings fade, it's hard to remember how strongly they felt. The Spirit of God testified to me that baptism is an ordinance and a commandment directly from Him and that it is important. I felt warm and cozy. These words are so inadequate, but they are the best way I can describe it. I felt so good inside my chest that I could not stop my lips from smiling this big, cheesy grin the whole time. I felt happy and good and warm.

I didn't really learn anything new or spectacular and to an outsider looking in it must have seemed like a pretty mediocre meeting of people, I imagine. But to be in that room, seeing a young girl get baptized just as Jesus did and watch good men holding the priesthood of God lay their hands on her head and confirm her with the gift of the Holy Ghost - it just felt right. I felt as Alma explained a "swelling" in my chest and I don't want to forget how it all felt.

So ... I've lived in Michigan for 3 years and never took advantage of the Ann Arbor Framer's Market. It's about a half hour away, so it's not a quick trip, but it was worth it! So beautiful and so well managed. It is held twice a week in a covered pavilion area and it had about 50 different vendors there today and I LOVED it! It soooo felt like my kind of place - fresh flowers, organic food, fresh produce, lavendar, sunflowers, homemade jam, homemade pasta ... bushels of basil!!! I was in a little slice of heaven.

It was actually kind of a tough trip, because we hit traffic on the way there and on the way back Liam was doing his best to yell, whine and distract me into a car accident. Then we drove into our driveway and I realized we had left our awesome, vintage radio flyer wagon parked on the sidewalk ... yeah, we drove all the way back and got it after calling the farmer's market office (yes! they have an office!) and they found it and kept it safe until we drove back to get it. Okay ... so even with all of that - for 45 minutes, wandering among fresh food and flowers was worth it! It was sort of magical, really. Noah and Liam were crazy in the acrrides, but while being pulled around in the wagon up and down the Farmer's Market aisles full of colorful fruits and veggies and the aroma of fresh cut flowers, the boys were completely still and quiet, taking it all in. It was magic and it made it wonderful for me.

We bought the largest most incredible sunflowers ($5), the most fragrant basil ($1), the yellowest homemade fettucini ($4) and the plumpest green beans ($3). Wonderful, just wonderful.

I would've taken more pictures because this was a trip for the senses, but my camera battery died!

My bathroom is pretty dated. The tiled walls would be fine, if they weren't peach. Anyway, when we first moved in, we knew we had to do something about the bathroom, because the floor wasn't even a hideous peach color anymore ... it was flesh toned because of years of dirt build-up and not sufficient regular cleaning ... and it's 55 years old. OK, so we put in peel and stick black and white vinyl tiles, I admit, not the classiest, but for sure an easy fix. But I am still unsatisfied. I finally found a handyman who is amazingly cheap and yet good at what he does - tile. So, I wnat to retile the bathroom floor.

But here's the problem, I am trying to decide on the type oif tile I want. I think I know: I want to go with the vintage style of the bathroom for one simple fact - I do NOT have enough money to re-do the whole thing. So, if I can't re-do the whole thing to look brand new, I am going for a nice looking vintage style to the bathroom. So I am thinking of re-doing the floor in 1 inch, white, procelain tiles. I got a sample and here's what it would look like (of course there would be white grout once it was installed):



Here's what it's like now:



But what do you think? Should I do it?

Here are the other BEFORE pictures ... before we did anything:


this is basically how it was when we moved in. The toilet was original to the house and the sink was old and gross.


This is after we replaced the floor with peel and stick tile, the sink and toilet. And it's pretty much how it stands today.

I worry and stress a lot ... about everything. I find myself unhappy with a lot of things in my life and sometimes get kind of down about it all. Sometimes I feel very dissatisfied with my situation at present. I don't like being away from all of my family. I'm not even within a day's drive of any one of my sisters or parents. I don't like the weather where I am. I struggle with being a mommy sometimes and feel like I don't do a very good job and that I waste a lot of time and energy doing laundry, cleaning up stuff and making meals over and over and over and over ... ugh. I get frustrated and feel overwhelmed. Then, when everything seems like it's all crashing down on me, I read other people's blogs. That is not a good thing to do when I'm in a bad mood. I just mostly envy them. Their cute clothes, their family events, their awesome trips, their adorable homes, kids, blah blah blah and I think, "why don't I have that life?" and "what the heck is 'the good life' anyway?" I hear and see people write about it and it makes me angry sometimes because I feel like I don't have that.

Well, I went to the gym on Friday morning. I grabbed a People magazine and started my workout on the elyptical. The magazine was AWEFUL. I usually like looking at celebrities and their clothes and hairstyles and see where they eat, live, etc. Just like looking through a fashion magazine for me. But this time, I read a few articles/blurbs and it was all sad, bad and terrible. Someone was getting another divorce. Someone else's kid was in drug rehab. Someone else had been kidnapped, someone had been killed. Someone was diagnosed with cancer and someone else had a massive heart attack. Someone broke up. Someone was a single mom. Many somebodys had cheated on their lover. Wow. It was just aweful. I only got through about 15 pages of this before I just closed the magazine and turned it over so I couldn't even see the cover. That's when I thought, "I think I'm living 'the good life'".

I felt so grateful for my husband. Who has never cheated on me, yelled at me, hit me, left me for any period of time (well, he had a business trip that once about 3 years ago ... that was rough). I love him. He is wonderful to me and loves me and does dishes for me and is an incredible daddy. He does his best to make me happy and I do everything I can to make his life better too.

I felt so grateful for my little family of boys. Noah and Liam are crazy and beautiful and give my life real meaning. What would I be centered on if it wasn't for them to keep me grounded? I'd be lost without these two little men to keep me busy, happy, productive and humble. I feel grateful that I am a stay at home mom and I get to spend all of my time with these little creatures. They keep things real and keep things in perspective for me and I need that.

I feel grateful for my crappy, tiny home. It's small, but nice. And although a contractor came by to tell me my house was sinking into the ground, I think this little house is gonna hold together for a while longer and I'm grateful for that. We have a plot of land and I get to plant anything I want on it - and then kill any plant I want on it. I have a backyard where my boys can run and run and run and I have a grill out back that we have BBQ's on. I get to paint and rearrange as much stuff inside this little home as my decorating heart desires and I love that. It's our little spot and I'm grateful for that.

I guess I live "the good life". It's just nice to be reminded of that every once in a while. It keeps me from griping too much about stuff. So thanks "People" magazine - your life sucks and mine is good.