Leslie Knope is my hero.

A few things are happening right now that inspired me to actually write a new post on my blog:
1. I'm watching old episodes of Parks and Rec, which is my favorite TV show, hands down.
2. I attepted finishing a Chipotle burrito. Failed. Now I'm eating M&Ms.
3. I scored some great deals at the Lucky Duck consignment resale event tonight.
4. My printer is low on ink, so I can't print anything. Which means I have nothing to laminate. (I puffy heart my laminator.)
5. My husband mentioned installing a soda fountain machine in our new house and I'm still giddy about the thought of that.
6. My husband updated his blog today, which inspired a friend of ours, Judd, to update his blog. So here we are.

I guess that's it, really.

In other news....WE SOLD OUR HOUSE! Boo yah. It was on the market for three stressful months. It was a crazy time of trying to prepare and clean our house for showings. Most of our showings occurred in the evening after we had 12 daycare kids here. We purposely put our house on the market in May so that we would have all Summer (we have very few daycare kids over the summer) for showings. However, our plan backfired on us because we had a bunch of showings in May and early June and then NONE over the summer and then a bunch of showings in August when our daycare load was full again. Sheesh! But we finally got an offer, found a wonderful house exactly where we wanted for our next house, and everything seems to be moving along towards our closing date. Yay!
Here is our new house!

This house has a fantastic floor plan for our family. Plenty of daycare space and plenty of family space. It has a fabulous wooded backyard, a full finished basement, and LOTS of personality inside and out. We are so excited to move in to this new house!
We have LOTS of ideas for this house. Oodles and oodles. I can't wait to share with you remodeling pics and home decor designs. Our current house has zero personality and we haven't really done much to it to reflect who we are. This next house will be busting at the seams with our personalities! You just wait.

This little lady had a birthday yesterday:

Classy, no? I think so. Happy Birthday, sweet girl.

Little Zoe is seriously the funniest little thing. Being a third-born child, she has learned SO MUCH from her older siblings. She says and does the funniest stuff for a new two year old. We love her to pieces!
We had a very small little party for her. It was supposed to be an Elmo theme....but this is what her cupcakes looked like, so....

I'll never start a cake decorating blog, thats for sure.

We still had fun, anyway.

scrapbook hall of fame

Well hello there, blog reader. Its been a while.

Here's the deal: I've been in a funk lately. I just haven't felt like myself for quite a while now. Spiritually, physically, emotionally, and creatively. The best word I can find to sum up how I've been feeling is:
BLAH. I know, I should get a thesaurus or something.

I completely acknowledge that this is how life goes. That sometimes I feel totally inspired, on my game, and ready to take on the world. And other times I am always tired, not feeling "it" (whatever "it" may be), and I just want to curl up on the couch and watch episodes of Glee. Over and over.

Thankfully I've been able to finally admit that I've been in a funk and have started making little changes here and there. Exercising again, carving out time for some quiet time with God, MAKING myself MAKE STUFF with my hands, etc. And, surprisingly I'm slowly starting to feel like myself again.

One of my cousins asked me to email her some examples of some of my scrapbook layouts. So I decided that this would be a great opportunity to go through our scrapbook albums and pull out my all-time favorite layouts. I was going to try to only pick ten. I think I finally narrowed it down to 20-something...and THEN I realized that looking through all my scrapbook layouts really INSPIRED me to go create. It was a great little way to get back on the crafty bandwagon.

While looking through years of scrapbook pages, I made a list of things that kept coming back up over and over again:
1. I tend to use mostly neutral (beige, white, browns, and blacks) background colors.
2. I really like using circles as design elements.
3. I like my own handwriting. But even if I didn't, I would still hand write my journaling.
4. Almost all of my favorite layouts are about everyday stories and not events (birthdays, holidays, etc).
5. I like incorporating paint.
6. Grids are my scrapbooking friend.
7. I LOVE using just one photo on a layout to tell the story.
8. I also love using many photos from more than one scene/day to tell a story.
9. I made lots of mistakes on my pages and just went with it anyway.
10. My family is pretty rockin'. We've done a lot of living over these past few years. It is an honor to create art from the memories we have made. I'm SO glad I get to scrapbook!

With that being said, here are my all time favorite scrapbook layouts. I took a photo of each layout, so some images may seem slightly blurry. You can click on each image to see the layout larger.

"family"
Why I love it: Mostly because of the awesome photography by my cousin Jamie (Photography by Jamie). And all the black negative space. And the painted white edges. Ohhhhh I love me some paint on a layout. I love that this layout doesn't necessarily tell a specific story, its all just cool photos.

"capture life, create art"
Why I love it: Because THIS is my creative mantra. Capture Life, Create Art. I have this layout hanging in my scrapbook room STILL, even though it was created in 2007.

"the technique"
Why I love it: This layout was super quick and simple and tells the story about how my daughter Macy would scoot all her food to the edge of her high chair tray and suck it up in her mouth. Macy is now almost 4 years old and I'm certain this is a story I would have forgotten by now if I had not scrapbooked it. I love the simple design of this layout.

"almost 3"
Why I love it: This 2-page layout has nine photos on it that are all from different days during this season of my daughter Macy's life. This layout captures a short time span in Macy's life. I love that there is a photo of her crying and a photo of her crossing her arms when she didn't get her way. Lots of paint. I did the journaling in list form on the side and it includes snippets of Macy's personality at this stage in her life.

"love you"
Why I love it: This is one of my favorite photos of me and Macy. Although I tend to reach for neutral background colors for most of my layouts, teal is one of my favorite colors right now. I LOVE the color combo on this page.

"4 month old"
Why I love it: Oh my, what a cute smile. This is Macy at 4 months old. (The reason this image looks like there is a reflection over her face is because there is a photo overlay on top of the photo.) I love the design and colors and the tight journaling around the photo block.

"messy eater"
Why I love it: This is my daughter Zoe a few months ago. Man alive, she is the messiest eater of all three of our kids. I just wanted to remember that about her as a baby. Love the colors and messy design.

"sweet Zoe girl"
Why I love it: This is Zoe at 10 months. I just jotted down a few things I wanted to remember about her at this age. I LOVE the white background with red and pink accents. And I super love the white letters on top of white paper.

"travel bug"
Why I love it: This is a great example of using a grid as a design element. I do this often. I love that there are 10 photos on this layout, and they all capture Zoe's essence at this stage in her life, which included a trip to visit my dad in Arizona. Cropping photos to a fit on a grid layout is super fast and simple and looks great! I like the papers and the list-style journaling on the left side of the 2-page layout.

"5 months"
Why I love it: I love the title and butterfly on the negative space of the enlarged photo. I LOVE that big photo of Zoe.

"first bites"
Why I love it: I love that this layout shows the story of Zoe's first few bites of real food. Such a fun, although messy, experience. Love the super simple and easy layout design.

"tired"
Why I love it: This is one of my favorite photos of Zoe as a baby. Matt was holding her on the couch and they both fell asleep (oh the joys of a newborn!). And good ol' Conan (our old dog!) was right there in the baby action. I absolutely love this color combo and the placement of the long journaling.

"Zoe"
Why I love it: I love the white background and the mixture of black/white photos + color photos. I LOVE these photos of Zoe as a soft squishy newborn. Love the soft pink accents.

"barely 5, almost 2"
Why I love it: This might be my all-time favorite layout. I love that it includes TONS of information about Jack and Macy (this was right before Zoe was born) and a bunch of messy design elements. Stamps and paint. Yum!

"first smile"
Why I love it: Because this was literally Macy's first REAL smile as a baby and we just happened to have a camera ready at that moment! Special. Love the patterned papers and love the dotted border around the photo.

"hey, I'm 5"
Why I love it: Special photos taken throughout the entire day of Jackson's 5th birthday. Love the design of this page and all the journaling along the side of the page.

"merry and bright"
Why I love it: Again, loving the white background! Another example of using a grid as a design element. Lots of photos (12!) on this 2-page layout from an entire Christmas season. Lots of fun journaling about Christmas. I like the white letters on a white background.

"super Dad"
Why I love it: That top right photo is one of my favorite photos of Matt with our kids. Right after Zoe was born, they were all chillin' on the couch watching football. So sweet to me. The journaling on this layout is special to me as well.

"fall '09"
Why I love it: Another example of using a grid as a design element! I love all the white paint on this black background. And I LOOOOVE Fall photos.

"these hands"
Why I love it: Love the story this layout tells. I remember looking through a bunch of photos and noticing how many photos there were of Jackson using his hands. I'm so glad I made a layout about this! I love the photo placement of this 2-page layout.

"j"
Why I love it: This is a very special photo + story for me. Jackson is our first born. The day before our second child was born, I took Jack on a little photo shoot in our neighborhood (lots of construction and tractors) and this was my favorite photo. The journaling is written to him and it is all about how special he is to me and how our lives were about to drastically change the next day when he would have a new baby sibling. I just wanted him to know how special he was to me even though these next few months would be hard on Mama with a newborn! And I love the color combo.

"sit still and smile"
Why I love it: Again, I love the STORY this layout tells....about how hard it is to get a good photo out of your kids when they are squirrely and won't sit still! I love that I incorporated blurry and not perfect photos to tell this story.

"4"
Why I love it: Love the design of this layout and photo placement. LOVE that photo of Jack holding a red #4. Love the circles and squiggly journaling lines.

"10.4.08"
Why I love it: I LOVE this layout concept...."the story of today". The journaling is detailed snippets of what we did throughout that specific day. I do this a lot and love documenting the tiny little insignificant details of our regular day. Love that photo of Macy coloring.

So, there you have it! I'm definitely more inspired now that I've taken the time to go through all our scrapbooks and catch a glimpse of our lives. Love the hobby of scrapbooking.

corn on the cob

Holy smokes! Has it really been a month since I've posted anything? Just when I thought I was getting back on track with regular blog posts, then I forget about it for a month.....sheesh.....

Well, ONE reason I may have neglected to post anything for a while is because we've been slightly busy around here since we decided to put our house on the market and move! We've been decluttering, cleaning, organizing, packing, rearranging furniture and wall decor, house hunting, number-crunching, fixing-up, painting, etc, etc. I go from being totally excited about moving to being totally overwhelmed about THE move. We've got three young kids of our own AND a house full of daycare kids everyday. You might think that it would be a logistical nightmare to get a house ready when there are so many kids around. And you'd be right. Trying to keep a house cleaned and picked up for showings is hard for any family. But twice as hard when there are so many little people trying to destroy everything in their path. And we haven't even put our house on the market yet! Our house is all ready to go and hopefully in the next couple of days we'll have a sign in our yard. Right now we are in the process of getting pre-qualified for a loan for the new house (which is a feat in itself when you are self-employed and run a business from your home...but that is a whole different story).
Then there is the actual move itself.....moving our three littles to a totally new home and not having any days off from work to accomplish the move. Hopefully it will happen over the summer when we have fewer daycare kids here, but still it will be difficult to MOVE and then run a daycare the next day!
So, setting all the logistical moving stuff aside, we are really excited about the possibility of a new home. Matt and I love running a home daycare. We love that we both work from home. But we also kinda hate that our daycare is IN our home. Our house does not have a good floor plan for a home daycare. The daycare kids have access to our entire main level and there is really no "safe" area from them! We have no privacy in our own home, besides in our bedrooms, and we would like to be able to leave our slippers on the floor or set a book down on our kitchen table and not worry about daycare kids devouring our own stuff. Ideally, it would be wonderful to have a space for our own family separate from our daycare.
We haven't outgrown our home by any means. There is plenty of space for our family. We just need a different floor plan! Another reason we decided to go ahead and start the moving process now is because we have not officially started the adoption process yet and once we do, we would have to stay in our current home till the process is complete. We'd like to get settled elsewhere and then start the adoption process.

In other news....

Around here, we spend most of our day chasing this cutie-patootie off of our kitchen table. Jackson and Macy were NOT climbers, but oh my does little Zoe love to climb.....and we're not so used to that! I'm pretty sure she'll start climbing out of her crib any day now.

Macy has always been very sweet and kind and lately she has been even EXTRA sweet and kind. She'll randomly shout from the other room: "MAMA!!! I LOVE YOU!" or run up and give a hug for no reason or thank me for making dinner or thank me for setting out a pile of books or thank me for making her bed or thank me for helping her pick up her room. She's been very thankful lately ;)
Macy loves her some books. She is very meticulous about looking at the words and pictures. LOVE this about her.

I made corn on the cob last night for the first time this season. We all love it. Well, except for Jack, but he only really likes peanut butter and jelly....so that was no big surprise. We were all excited to enjoy our first batch of corn on the cob this season. Zoe clearly loved it. This little girl was no holds barred with her cob of corn. It was quite comical. Macy is the same way, but I didn't get a good picture of her with her corn...

Jack, on the other hand, very carefully picked off every teeny tiny piece of corn silk he thought he saw. Then he licked the salt and butter off. Then he complained and whined about us asking him to eat a few bites. I keep thinking that SOME day he'll just start eating real people food without complaining.

things i never want to say

Before I get a little serious, I thought I would share a little bit about how we prep for Valentine's Day:

The kids address little cards to their friends and classmates. And, that's about it. BOTH kiddos said they didn't want to attach any candy or treat to their Valentine's cards for their friends. Um, ok? Less work for me! See, Valentine's Day is probably my least favorite holiday. I never really bought into the whole "you have to buy an extra present and spend lots of $$ for someone you love" Hallmark idea created years ago. Yah, I totally know there really is a reason for Valentine's Day and there was a Saint Valentine that performed illegal marriages or whatever. Blah blah blah. I'm not a huge fan of hearts (although every once in a while one will pop up on a scrapbook layout..) and I don't really like red and pink together. I'm totally not romantic. (obviously....) Sure, Valentine's Day is sort of fun because my kids get excited about it and they like making cards and handing out little Valentine's to their friends. But I totally don't go out of the way to do anything extra on Valentine's Day. Except maybe make heart-shaped waffles and sprinkle some Valentine M&Ms on my kids' PB&Js.....perhaps that makes me a Valentine's Scrooge. I don't know. But I DO want to make sure my kids know that telling and showing each other "I love you" is something we do all the time, not just on Valentine's Day. And that they won't be getting piles of gifts JUST because the consumer mind-set of our society is to spend spend spend money on things we don't really need. So, yah, I'm sure we'll have a fun little day on Valentine's Day this year eating our heart-shaped waffles and pink and red M&Ms. And I'm sure that we'll make a few more heart beaded necklaces and red doilie cards until then. BUT the ONLY thing I really want on Valentine's Day is to hear my husband and kids say "I LOVE YOU!" Just like they do every other day.

When I sat down to write this post, I really didn't intend to talk about my anti-Valentine's Day views!.....what I REALLY wanted to blog about is a little mental list I've been compiling lately about things I never want to say to my kids. This list is in no way exhaustive. And, there are items on this list that I have to REALLY work hard at not saying. Some are easier than others. Some of these things are just common sense and some may not seem harmful to you. But I've thought quite a lot about these things and have decided that all of them definitely have the possibility of being quite harmful to my kids.

1. "I promise."
I never want to promise my kids anything! Even something as simple as "I promise we'll do that puzzle after dinner." Because what if something else comes up and I'm not able to come through on my innocent little promise? But I also don't want to promise them big things. "I promise I'll pay for your college tuition." How do I know NOW that I'll be able to come through on a huge promise YEARS from now? We've learned how damaging a seemingly innocent promise can be to our son when we "promised he could go to Grandma's house" and then Grandma got sick (or, on another day, the roads were too snowy) and he wasn't able to go to Grandma's. "BUT YOU PROMISED!" was all he would say. He was offended and hurt. And he lost a little bit of trust in his parents.

2. "I just want you to be happy."
Of course I want my kids to be happy. Who doesn't? But, I want them to be emotionally healthy first. There is a difference between kids being happy and being healthy. ALWAYS allowing our kids to be happy means we're neglecting some HUGE areas of development. The three biggest character traits we are trying to instill in our kids are respect, obedience, and kindness. We also want to teach them patience, self-control, how to handle disappointment, living peacefully among others, being joyful in all circumstances, and forgiveness. I'm not trying to be my kids' friends. They've got plenty of friends and will continue to make more friends throughout their entire lives. I, alongside my husband, have been given the unique responsibility to parent Jackson, Macy, and Zoe. The kids do not lead/discipline/control this family. The parents do. This is how God intended parenting to be. My goal is not to please my kids' every whim and give in to every little thing they want. This is teaching them that happiness is easily attained at any cost. My goal is to teach them to be content with where they are (through being respectful, obedient, and kind....)

3. "Hurry!"
Simply because I do not want them to feel like life is always moving in fast forward and we have to hurry everywhere. I'm a better Mama when I'm not in a hurry. Unless there is a life or death situation where we would literally need to hurry out of the way, this is something I try not to say at all.

4. "Where did the time go?" or "I can't believe you are already __ years old." or "I can't wait until you are (insert next developmental milestone)."
This is something that has always made me stop and think. And yet I still say things like this every once in a while! Why would I want to wish time away to get to the next developmental milestone? Yes, it will be quite nice when all of my kids are potty trained and self-sufficient. But why do we feel the need to spend so much time wishing time away until then? Doesn't this dismiss where we are in life right now? And then, when we DO reach that stage in life when our kids are all potty trained and self-sufficient, won't we then just complain about something else that we can't wait for? Why should it be so hard to believe that my kids have reached a new birthday? Haven't I been with them every single day of their lives? I want to be more conscious of simply living in the present. To live. Just be. To not yearn for the kids' bed time. To enjoy the little ordinary things that happen in my life all day long. To love on, play with, cuddle next to, tickle, celebrate, and simply enjoy my family just as they are. Potty trained or not.

Alright, enough with the heavy.....

scripture memory challenge

The awesome Women's Ministry at my church has challenged us to memorize two Scriptures each month in 2011. Many women in my church have taken on this challenge, including myself, and its been pretty cool to see everyone posting which verses they will memorize. Because I am a visual person, the only way I will actually remember to study and memorize my verses is if they are in plain view for me to see. Matt found this little photo flip album at Meijer and this is how I plan to keep my Bible memory verses in plain view:

And, where do I plan to keep it, you might ask? Well, in the kitchen of course. Not because I'm eating all the time....but because preparing, serving, and cleaning up meals is a HUGE part of my day as a Mama and daycare provider. So, my Scriptures will be in plain view for sure. Right next to my recipe box and blender. AND, I might even get a little crazy and move it around the kitchen here and there.....

What I LOVE about this flip photo album is that I'll have all my verses together and I can flip to them whenever I want. And, of course, you know I had to get a little creative and make each verse a little pretty ;)

I had another one of those "aha!" moments tonight when it comes to my Project Life album. I won this cute little "thirtyone" organizer from my friend Angie and I have decided to use it as my "Project Life all-in-one" organizer. I stuck everything in here that I'll use for PL and I can easily grab it to take it with me when I'm working on my PL album. Besides all the kit contents (journaling cards, date stickers, etc) that come with the PL kit, I also stuck my corner rounder, a small adhesive applicator, photo overlays, a pen, post-it sticky notes, and random things I want to include in my PL album (receipts, tags, small memorabilia, etc). I'm good to go!

In other news, we're on day 3 of NO SCHOOL here. Lots of snow + wind + ice + COLD = cancelled school. Its been kinda fun to be stuck at home with not a lot to do, BUT we're also ready to get back in the swing of things. Its amazing how little we accomplished these past 3 days! You would think we would have been able to check off a bunch of things from our to-do list. Well, we actually don't really have much on our to-do list at all.....so we did some laundry and I did a few creative things. But mostly we just snuggled up in the gigantic multi-couch fort (assembled by my Tetris-loving husband, Matt), played with the kids, and enjoyed the relaxation. We stayed at home for 2 days while most places were shut down and the weather was super crummy. And then today we were able to venture out. Jack and I went to the library to replenish his "Captain Underpants" books, Matt went to the store, and the kids went to Grandma's house for a few hours for a much-needed Grandma night. Matt managed to dig a little path out so we could go get the mail yesterday...

Good times.

all from one photo

You know that saying "A picture is worth 1000 words?" Well, I was looking through some photos in my Photoshop program tonight and came across this little gem. Seriously, you can learn SO MUCH about me in this one little photo.

That's my youngest daughter Zoe. She's 13 months. Zoe doesn't walk independently quite yet, but she cruises around the house holding on to furniture and walls. And, she pretty much tears up anything she comes in contact with. Literally. So, it only makes sense that she is emptying out a cabinet for me while I'm trying to bake in the kitchen. Thanks, little lady.

That's my kitchen. I'm attempting to bake yummy banana muffins on a lazy Saturday morning. Zoe really likes to "help" Mama in the kitchen. And by "help" I mean get as much stuff in my way as possible.

Now lets talk about some minor details that you may not have noticed upon first glance at this photo....

Look at the counter. Its messy. That's how I like to cook and bake, which is TOTALLY unlike me when it comes to everything else. I'm organized and always have all my ducks in a row. Except in the kitchen. I pretty much throw everything on the counter that I think I will need for a recipe and just have at it.

The cabinets are open at the top of the photo. This is another Betsy-ism. I just open up all the cabinets till I'm done cooking or baking. For some reason my mind has decided that I don't have the time to re-open a cabinet over and over. So, I just leave them open till I'm certain that I'm done. This method fits right in with my "throw everything on the counter that I think I will need for a recipe" technique.

In the right cabinet you can see an bright orange container. That's one of my most favorite discoveries. Its our baking soda container. I have never been a fan of how hard it is to get baking soda out of those little orange boxes. So, now we use an old Parmesan cheese container. You can sprinkle the baking soda out of one side or pour it out of the other, just like you would for Parmesan cheese. Totally brilliant.

You can tell I'm making banana muffins because the only time I make banana muffins is when I have 3 bananas left that are brown and yucky looking. Good thing that happened on a Saturday, becuase otherwise I wouldn't have time to make them.

I've got a cold beverage (Diet Coke, if you must know) sitting on the right side of the counter. I pretty much always have a cold beverage while I'm baking, and I always set it in the same spot. Normally, one of my older kiddos is helping me bake. And by "helping" I mean the opposite of what Zoe's doing. They actually DO help. So, they would be standing on a chair in front of the counter right next to the fridge. Naturally the only safe place to set my cold beverage is on the far right side of the counter.

See the empty milk jug, soda can, and coffee cup sitting on the counter next to the fridge? That's the recycling pile. Because we are too lazy to walk 5 steps to the garage where the recycling bins are located, we just start stacking recylables up by the fridge throughout the day. And, from the previous knowledge that I have gathered, I'm always the one who notices the pile and eventually hauls everything out to the recycling bins in the garage.

Another little detail, which is kinda hard to see, is the recipe book that is open on top of the stove. I'm HORRIBLE at remembering recipes. No matter how many times I've made banana muffins, I still have to get out the recipe book.

Okay, now looking in to the cabinet that Zoe is emptying, you'll see that there literally is no organization to it at all. That's because Zoe empties it 74 times a day. I don't see the point of stacking everything nice and neat anymore. I just throw everything back in there.

See that green pitcher with a yellow lid? That was the Kool-Aid pitcher my mom used when we were kids. And, now we use it. LOVE it.

Let's see, what else.....oh, back there behind one of the mixing bowls is a container of Shaklee soy protein. Because we've been using Shaklee supplements for a while now and love them.

I originally took this photo because I wanted to capture how little Zoe helps out in the kitchen. But once I realized how this little scene was capturing a moment in my life that I didn't want to forget, I HAD to write about it. I'm assuming that was about 1000 words....So there you go.

happy halloween

For real, how adorable are these little people?

Jackson was freakishly excited for trick-or-treating this year. He thought about his costume for months and he wanted to be a Viking like in "How to Train Your Dragon". He ran around our neighborhood like a crazy person. And then crashed the second he got home. He is sortof an emotional roller coaster most of the time anyway, so we're used to it...

And Macy pretty much decided on her costume about one minute before we left to go trick-or-treating. Originally she wanted to be Dan Zanes, her most favorite musician ever. She LOVES her some Dan Zanes. Most days, she tells us to call her Dan Zanes. Our costume plan was to just dress her up in crazy clothes and make her hair stick up like Dan Zanes. After Halloween last year, I bought 3 little girl costumes for $1 on clearance at Walmart. A cowgirl, Super Girl, and a princess. (I have to admit, I'm super glad she's not embraced the princess thing yet...) We also have a bunch of costumes that our daycare kids play with everyday. So, the girl has options when it comes to costumes. Every time we would ask her what she wanted to be for Halloween, she always came up with a different answer. I was slightly pleased that she decided on Super Girl since we already had the costume ready and didn't have to put much last-minute effort into getting one ready. Macy has always been a little on the shy side, but these past 6 months or so she has really come out of her shell. So, she enjoyed trick-or-treating as well. Admittedly, she had a hard time keeping up with her older brother who was running around and screaming all night, but at least she walked up to a bunch of houses and said "trick-or-treat" and "thank you" at the appropriate times. And then when we got home she was over-the-top hyper. Opposite of Jack.

Last but not least, our little Zoe monkey. This costume was from our stash of daycare kid costumes. It fit her. So that's what she wore....she sat in her stroller most of the time we were trick-or-treating. Well, it was more like she was stuffed in her stroller, since the monkey costume was slightly puffy. She grabbed two little candy bars with her chubby little Ninja death grip and didn't let go of them all night. She was all set.

Hope your Halloween was super.

i'm here.

Yah, so obviously it took me longer than just a few days to get some more photos on here! Blogger has been acting weird for me lately and I’m having a hard time placing photos within my text, so its frustrating every time I try to update the blog. But, I decided to post something today…..

Everything here is going quite well! We only had 2 weeks off from the daycare after Zoe was born. That was a little rough! It has been going really well, actually, considering we have 12 kids here all day everyday. Two of them, including Zoe, are infants, so it’s a busy day around here for us. We’ve transitioned quite well though, I must admit! Zoe is quite laid back and go with the flow, so she’s an easy baby to add to our daycare. Plus, we have good group of daycare kids right now and they don’t get in Zoe’s face and smother her, so I’m glad for that! With the nasty flu season among us, we’re not taking any chances around here and we’re not letting any of the kids get in Zoe’s face or even touch her! The H1N1 bug has already gone through Jack’s school. There were 100 students absent one day last week (there are approx. 500 students in his entire elementary school). So far, Jack has not got it, but he does have pink eye right now, so he’s missed 2 days of school from that alone. He’s actually sad to be missing school, so that makes me feel good because he must really like it!

Macy is doing quite well too. She’s every bit of being age 2. She definitely loves her baby Zoe and even helps me out quite a bit too. I’m LOVING her age right now. She’s very vocal and chit chats all the time, which I just adore.

One thing that has simply amazed me is how wonderful Jackson and Macy are at being big siblings to little Zoe. If she starts crying, they get her a pacifier. They don’t smother her, but love cuddling and holding her. They respect her space and are quiet (for the most part) when she’s sleeping. Jackson loves telling other people about his sisters. I adore watching them all interact together.

Baby Zoe is doing fantastic. She’s on an awesome little schedule and she just fits right in to the flow of our family. I’m loving every little piece of her! Since I know this will be our last child, I’m soaking up her infancy, although I’m not a huge fan of the newborn stage, which she is definitely still in. She is still waking up twice at night, so hopefully in the next few weeks she will start cutting out one of those feedings. She is 5 weeks old now and is already growing out of some of her clothes! I can’t believe how much she has grown in just 5 short weeks! I went through all her clothes yesterday and put away half of her clothes that are already too small. Her little legs are even starting to get some chubs. Love it.

Fall is in full swing here and this is by far my favorite time of year. I need to get out and get some good Fall photos. We’ve gone to a couple Fall festivals and stocked up on pumpkins. This year, we’re planning on carving a couple, but I also want to paint some and see how that goes. I love everything about October. The anticipation of the fun holiday season is just around the corner and its not too cold outside yet.

random Summer updates

Wow, 2 posts in one day! I also updated our daycare blog today, so clearly I’m on a roll. Now that we’re getting back into the swing of things with the school year starting again, I’ll be updating the blog more regularly.

We found a Dinosaur Monopoly game at a garage sale for 50 cents. Jack is REALLY good at it and it is so much fun to play! Right now Jack is really into "big boy" things like Harry Potter, Star Wars, board games, video games, etc. He seems so old to us now!
Kindergarten registration was last week. Hard to believe that the little man is going to be in kindergarten. His first day is August 13th. He's had his backpack all ready for a while and he has been counting down the days till school starts. In this photo, Jack (on the right) is standing with his best friend, Jase, in front of their classroom door. They are in the same class and they are very excited. They will ride the bus together and everything. So cute.

My dad's side of the family had a Zimmerman gathering at the lake a couple of weeks ago and it was great to spend the day there. The kids had fun playing in the sand and going on a boat ride. Here, Jack is getting ready to head out on the jet ski with my cousin, Jeremy. He loved it!

The Zimmerman clan that was able to make it to the get together....

Matt and Jack had fun making a sand castle. Macy just threw sand around with a little shovel.

On the boat...

Macy is really into playing dress-up right now and she likes wearing ALL the jewelry all at once.

A very sweet moment between brother and sister. Macy just woke up from her nap and was sitting at the end of her bed. Jack always insists on being the one to go into her room to get her up from her nap (even now that she is in a big girl bed...). He likes opening the door and being the first one to talk to her. He also likes giving big hugs and kisses. I wonder how long this sweet relationship will last? I'm praying forever!