Sometimes, we eat spaghetti.
Did you know that grains, unless properly prepared, can actually be bad for your health, particularly your gut? For this reason, we try to not consume a lot of grains/pastas unless we soak them, but sometimes, you gotta go with the cheapest option 😉
It was not only yummy, but also fun to photograph! I love their saucy faces.
I have never made a big deal of Valentine’s Day for the girls. I like to give them a small little gift as a reminder of my love for them. I refuse to buy into the disgusting, materialistic event it has become.
I did, however planned on making it a teaching day about love. True love. God’s unending, unconditional love for us. I wanted to have a little family dinner at home with a special dessert, and lovely homemade decorations.
It was such a beautiful vision in my head. Too bad it didn’t happen. Ha. Life gets in the way. We did enjoy love that day, love from Mawnie and Papa that were in town visiting from Hawaii.
The simple gift I did end up making for them was a “heart attack” inspired from Pinterest (a bunch of paper hearts inside a box). I sewed a paper heart garland and taped it in their mailboxes with glittery tape. When they opened the box, they would pull and reveal the hearts. Simple but sweet.
I hope your day was filled with love.
And about teaching about God’s love? That is done every day, we don’t have to wait for next year!
“Can I have a honey sandwich?”
Honey sandwich: Toasted Ezekiel bread, butter and honey.
Jumping on the bed!
Have you made goals for the new year? How are you doing? One of my goals for this year is to encourage or prompt play for my children. I have been in a “mothering rut” for a while. I think it started while I was pregnant, tired and unable to move “properly” and when Granola was born, well, that just increased it even more… letting the big girls watch too many movies so I can have time to nurse the baby.
Mommy guilt set in. So I have made it my resolution to get back to that state of mind that children need play to learn about life. To encourage play and let loose a little more. I have been doing great so far, and notice a difference in the girls’ attitudes and also in mine! Positivity does wonders!
Another goal for the new year is to more clearly define the purpose of this blog. I have been wrestling with the idea of not writing as much as I used to, mostly for lack of time. I do, however enjoy writing, so I decided that when I feel motivated to write something, I will. I don’t want blogging to feel like a chore, I want it to always be as enjoyable and a creativity outlet as I set it out to be since the beginning.
So now, you will never know if you’ll have just pictures or something interesting (I hope) to read! Keepin’ it fresh.
They wanted to wear their “fancy” dresses and dance. They managed to melt this Mama’s heart.
As promised, here is The Bundle’s fourth birthday party! The theme was rainbows, and if you follow me on pinterest, you already knew that, because I planned it way ahead of time 😉
The party turned out good, although, I ended up not making enough food or cake. I hadn’t even finished decorating when the guests started to arrive, either! Looking back, it was a successful party, even if it didn’t turn out how it “looked” in my head.
We had it inside, because it was just too disgustingly hot outside. I had planned on it being outside, with a beautiful rainbow made of balloons swaying in the wind… sigh…sometimes you can’t have it all.
Veggie cups with dip at the bottom.
The favors had chocolate coins in them.
I wanted to keep things pretty simple with this party, a few homemade decorations, some snacks and cupcakes and that was it. To my mother, however, a party is not a party unless food is served. She volunteered to help me cook the food, which ended up being a lot more work than I wanted, but it turned out delicious.
I don’t like character (cartoon) themed parties, so I will stay away from them as long as I can…. or at least until the girls start choosing their own themes. The theme for this party was simple, just colors! Coral and mint with accents of gold.
The party was at the same park as the Ninja Birthday for The Bundle’s third. I love that little park because there is never anyone there. Except this time, there was a group of moms with their toddlers when we arrived to set up….
The goodie bags were closed with tiny clothes pins with gold glitter on them. Aren’t they the cutest?!
I think I spent the most time making the toppers for the cupcakes. I spray painted them gold first, but I wanted them be a little more sparkly, so I added gold glitter glue. It didn’t occur to me, until they were done, that they might actually sell gold glittery paper at a craft store!
The cupcakes were delicious, oh my. They were from Smitten Kitchen, Roasted Apple Spice Sheet Cake, this recipe is definitely one to keep!
The paper flowers were so fun to make! So unlike myself, I had them finished like a week or two before the party, yay! I hung them above the cupcake table, but I didn’t get a good picture of them them.
Only this one:
The party turned out great. Small and intimate and fun. The sprinklers came on right where were had set up, though, but the men came to the rescue and moved the tables and somehow managed to keep the sprinklers from us while they were going.
Sister Lou, though, wasn’t so lucky. She jumped on a puddle, slipped and landed on her head. Poor birthday girl! She got her dress soaked! She enjoyed her cupcake nonetheless 😉 Tata came to rescue with his perfect gift: a bumble bee costume. Perfect, she enjoyed the rest of the party dressed as a bee.
Sister Lou’s first birthday party.
Oh! I realize I never shared The Bundle’s 4th from this past June! Hopefully before this baby comes, I can get around to sharing it!
We miraculously packed enough food for three days, clothes, pillows, blankets and every other camping necessity into our little sedan. Every nook and cranny of that vehicle was packed. When we turned back, all we could see of the girls were their heads peeking out. They thought it was the funnest thing.
Off we went, up the mountains in search of cooler weather. I took picture after picture from inside the car of the lovely scenery. Look at all that green!
The girls entertained themselves with some fun car toys. We stopped once along the way, because Mama needs frequent potty breaks these days 😉
The higher we went, the more green and wildflowers we saw. Aaah, if it wasn’t for the snow, I would love to live up there. It was also monsoon season, so clouds were rolling in every direction all day long.
We found our campground online listed as number 3 on a top 100 best campgrounds in our state. The sites were awesome! Not too off the grid for these camping amateurs.
As soon as we finished setting up our campsite, we got rain, thankfully we had canopy with us so we had a quick lunch and then went inside our tent because the girls got cold. Cold! I was so excited to get some relief from the long summer heat.
The little storm quickly passed and just like that the sun was out, bringing its warmth back. It was crazy and hard to take consistent photographs in the constantly-changing lighting.
The girls were loving the outdoors. Their favorie activity was picking wildflowers.
We then walked down to the lake to explore before dinner. The lake was beautiful, and we promised The Bundle we would fish the following day. She was so eager to fish with her daddy.
It soon began to get really windy, the girls complained that is was cold, and we realized that there was a pretty big storm coming from the south, and another just as big from the north. Uh-oh, we gathered up and went back to our camp to start the fire for dinner before it got any closer.
Little did we know that that was not the biggest storm we would get….
To be continued…
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We finally found a house to move to, we have seen God’s perfect timing and plans unfold in such a beautiful way in this whole process! We move in the beginning of next month, just a little bit more than a month before the expected arriaval of Girly #3. Phew…. it was getting too close for comfort! We are so very grateful for friends and family that offered up their houses to give birth in, we got 5 diffrent offers when we were not sure if we would move into my parents’ house, making it a little too far from the hospital, which made me uncomfortable in case of an emergency! It is nice to know we have such caring people around us!
The little Pumpkin will be two next month, I can’t believe it! Time has a way of quietly escaping our grasp and before we know it, we find ourselves looking back in amazement.
Almost a half a year ago, we celebrated her half birthday. Just The Pumpkin, her big sister and I. We made chocolate coconut flour cupcakes and enjoyed her one a half years of life.
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The cupcakes were an experimentation of mine. They looked better than they tasted.
The Pumpkin seemed to enjoy them though.
So much has been going on in our lives that it’s hard to think of where to begin catching you up on it! We are impending a big move. We knew it was going to happen sometime, we just didn’t know the exact timing. Our rental is being foreclosed, so we have to find a new living space. It’s a bit overwhelming, trying to find an affordable house in a short amount of time, all while 30 weeks pregnant and planning a homebirth! We are trusting in the Lord for His provision and His perfect timing.
We also have not had an internet connection at our house for about a month now, which was one major contributing factor to my absence.
I don’t expect to be able to post regularly until we have moved, but I will try. I have been wanting to share about our first “real” camping trip we took a week ago! It was so much fun!
The other night, we made play-dough pretty late in the day, right before dinner. The girls loved playing with it, it wasn’t the first time we made play-dough, but it was the first time they played for hours with it. We let them stay up late. I kept giving them stuff to add to their fun. Like cups, and cookie cutters and Popsicle sticks.
It was so much fun watching them create together.
Live Big Love Bigger 