…instead of walking away.

I let Em start walking home from school on her own this week. I know it is only across the street (well, actually – two streets – I make her walk up to the crossing guard and then back down the block!) but it is kinda a big step for us all. I wait out on our corner for her and her first words were, “I feel so grown up now that I walk home by myself.”

sigh.

I couldn’t put Addie off for ONE.MORE.DAY. The Halloween decorations were finally pulled out of storage yesterday. She’s only been asking for the past week now. In my defense, it is still only the first week of October. I mean…technically. I guess I’m just not a huge Halloween decoration person. I can take it or leave it. But, the great part about decorating this year? All I really had to do was haul the bins up from the basement. The girls took over all the decorating. It was great. I instead planted a whole bunch of fall flowers,

And cleaned out all of the garden beds. Addie harvested the last of her crops which included these three little beauties!

Throw in finishing up the kitchen (YES…photos tomorrow!!), *fall* cleaning of a few closets and bedrooms, a “W” in the win column for our Spicy Cheesy Nachos (the girls picked the name!),

A big Win for Coach Jamie and the Purple Crushers,

and the promise of some fall-like weather this week. It was a great jump-start weekend, right into Fall.

Lately you may have noticed that I have been a bit absent in the blogging department. Or maybe you haven’t noticed at all, and since life seems to be on super-fast warp speed lately, I can’t say I really blame you. I can barely drag my weary body upstairs most night much less download photos and recount cute stories about the girls or the minor miracles of each day. But that doesn’t mean that I’m not taking photos (oh, wait…I hardly do get a chance to do that much anymore), well, it doesn’t mean that there isn’t 20 things on any given day that I want to write about…I’m just having a hard time finding the time.

But tonight Emma picked up the book J. make me five years ago. He took the first year of the blog here and had it printed into a very cool book. (I’m currently working on getting the last five years into some sort of printed format, too. In my spare time.)

Anyhow…as I was saying, Emma picked up the BCC chronicles and laid down on the sofa and started reading it. She couldn’t get through even one page without cracking up. She kept stopping to show Addie photos of the two of them, or reading excerpts from a particularly funny post. She spent a lot of time on the post about how she was pretending to be the Virgin Mary and took great glee in telling Addie that she used to dump her bowl of yogurt on her head every morning and tell everyone she was wearing a hat.

As I sat listening to her giggle, I realized that I started the blog to keep our friends and family up-to-date with the girls and their antics, but it sort of grew into a cathartic exercise for me, too. Helping me to laugh through those parenting moments when I really just wanted to cry. And then I realized, somewhere along the way it also became a beautiful gift for the girls – and for me. I had forgotten some of those frustrating, exhausting and downright funny moments, too. And to be able to go back and relive them again, especially with such an appreciative audience, is really kinda special. And that’s what I will think of when I feel like “I can’t possibly write a blog post tonight.”

We are still here…hello! Thanks for sticking it out and checking back in on us. It has been a cra-cra-crazy few weeks. BUT…(isn’t this what I always say?) I think things are settling down a little and we’ll be back to our regularly scheduled blogging very soon.

The only thing I have for CT today, I actually completed a few weeks ago, I just haven’t had a minute to post it. I love the cool vintage looking “Family Rules” signs that are floating around all over the internetz lately, and I happened to have a board that fits perfectly into that little space in between windows in the kitchen.

I just painted the wood black, cut out the stencils with our Eva and painted the letters in the taupe. I still need to sandpaper up the edges a little bit and attach some hardware to actually hang it.

Did somebody say hardware? YES…our cupboard doors are done! My dear Jason is going to deliver them on Wednesday. So you know the only thing on my schedule for this weekend is finally, finally, finally putting our kitchen back together. Well, that and a big Girl Scout meeting, a soccer game and a volleyball game. But besides that…I’m going to even say that next CT will feature our kitchen reveal. (Therefore I’m forced to get it done this weekend!)

Have a crafty, lovely week!

My baby (and 15 of my other girls!) are now Junior Girl Scouts.

I am so very proud of them all. They planned the whole ceremony from the invitations to the decorations and food. It was such a great night for all of them. And not to be left out…the Brownies did a little presentation for their sisters.

It is an honor to get to help guide these girls on their journey to becoming our great leaders of tomorrow. Keep your eyes on all of these special girls.

…I used to have time to write, people!

I went back through the blog looking for the kitty cake from when Ad turned two and got all caught up in reading old posts. Back in the day when the ladies of the house were a mere 4 and 2 years old – I had all kinds of fodder and photos for blog posts.

What happened? I’m far busier now, the girls are funnier, smarter, and just as photogenic (well, maybe not so much on that last one!) but I can’t seem to string a coherent sentence together. And how did I post nearly every. single. day?

Of course, the pinnacle of my blog career might have been reached in the the old “poop in a teacup” post. You were all spot on when you predicted that someday I would look back and laugh about that. I’ve been sitting here laughing for the past 20 minutes.

I’m vowing here and now, I will do a better job of documenting our chaos around here. I want to be able to sit here on the sofa and have some more good stuff to laugh at.

We are back! Just because I haven’t posted a CT in a few weeks doesn’t mean that we haven’t been crafting it up around here.

Birdie #2 and I have tried very hard to meet for some all-day crafting days. We haven’t been able to do it every week, but we have accomplished a few projects the last few weeks.

Birdie #2 did these awesome pillows. Cutting out the stencil with Eva, and then just fabric painting right on the burlap before she sewed the pillows together.

Cute eh?

She also did a calendar wall of dry erase squares for her high schooler’s room. (Activities blurred to protect the innocent!)

She cut out each square with rounded corners and the top squares she cut out the days of the week – so the wall color shows through. Grid them out and stick each square to the wall. Easy, peasy.

And my contribution to Crafty Tuesday – I knocked off a little sign that J. got me (the one on the left!) for my anniversary and made him one (the one on the right) in return. I just reversed the paint colors and cut out the stencil using Eva. Then painted on and peeled the stencil off.

I can’t wait to hang them in my kitchen. The KITCHEN! The kitchen that is almost done. I think it deserves a post all to itself. As soon as the cupboard doors are returned and rehung…we will do the big reveal!

What craftiness am I missing out on since I haven’t had a moment to read a blog in weeks? Tell me, please?

Okay, I just couldn’t resist. LOOK at all of you!

Happy Birthday to my eldest niece, Lexer. Not that I would ever play favorites, and I always thought that I wanted kids, but when I would spend time with you when you were little, you just made me certain that I needed to have a little girl like you. You were so sweet, funny, photogenic and ADORABLE. And clearly you just get better with age. (Well, we need to work on that photogenic part…why is it so hard to get pics of you now?)

Okay…well, that one is pretty great – but in general, I’m lacking some good Lexer pics. 😉

At any rate, we hope your day is great, Roo. We love you, love you, love you!

Happy Birthday!
Love,
Aunt Bean

We had a most excellent day. Hours of waterpark, cake & ice cream and lots of presents, good wishes and love from family and friends near and far. I think she had a fantastic day.

Mommy is going to bed. It is 8:17. Photos and more details to follow soon.

Thank you all for the love.

xo

That is the sound of our week flying by.

I don’t know if it was the holiday Monday (yes, let’s blame it on that!) or the fact that EVERYthing started this week – ballet, piano, choir, soccer, girl scouts, (hmmm…maybe it is that?) but it has been incredibly insane around these parts and I completely flat-out missed Crafty Tuesday even!

Oh…and a certain little someone is expecting birthday celebrations this week, too. Her closet door this morning…

(Translation: Don’t Come In – Closed. 1 2 3 4 (with the four crossed out) count down to Addie’s birthday.)

Not that anyone is counting, right? God bless my spelling-challenged child. You would NEVER in a million years guess that she got almost all 100%s on her spelling tests last year, would you? The difference is…she WANTED to memorize the spelling lists. My stubborn (almost!) 7-year old.

Back to work. Got some meetings and parties to plan. We’ll be back over the weekend, I’m sure. Well, I intend to. Let’s just agree on – I hope to be back this weekend.