Opa...

we came to visit you today.
i know you knew we were there. you tried to smile, you had just enough energy to move your hands. it must be hard to not be able to speak and open your eyes to see the ones you love.
we know you love us...we love you too.



you love the children. the babies are always your favorite.
evyn hasn't had her picture taken with you, so i wanted to make sure i got a few. i wanted to see those so close to heaven in each other's presence. it was touching.



your daughters love you. inka has been taking care of you for some time now. her devotion displays her love. ineke has put work aside to care for you in your last days. it's good to have a nurse in the family and anja comes down every weekend to be with you.



and while we are able to hold your hands now, we will hold your heart forever.



we love you opa.
may peace and God's grace be with you.

Get the Crap Out...Party

vanessa over at v & co. is having a party to motivate us into getting ourselves and our homes "crap free"...
if you want to join, it's not too late. head on over here, to link up...

now. on to my part of the party.

it's not pretty, but it's clean and my mom could find a plastic cup now if she wanted to!!!

i forgot to take a before pic, but trust me. it was bad.
i decided to clean out my little ol' pantry and the cupboard that we use as a medicine cabinet in the kitchen for a couple reasons. first because seriously, it was a joke. you couldn't find anything and it was embarrasing when anyone opened up the pantry. {ugh!} the second reason is because, this post truly inspired me. and third, because we are moving soon and i really need to have everything cleaned out and organized before i start packing. it's kinda like picking up before the housekeeper comes. {which, btw, has only been a luxury a couple times in my life...sigh}



i finally found a way to store the dumb bags of potatoes.
and i found a place for all the plastic 'stuff' that was thrown down at the bottom for so long now.

and i can't wait to get my labels so that i can organize all these jars!

again, no before. i couldn't believe how much stuff i had to throw away because of the expiration date! be sure to check the exp. date on your sunscreens before you lather up your kiddos, only to find them red as lobsters at the end of the day!

and i saw this idea somewhere and thought it was a great way to store all the tablets that inevitably come out of their boxes...i found these containers at michaels for very little. they are photo holders.

now i realllyyy need to get a handle on my sewing room, but the thought of it, is giving me a headache! hope your having a wonderful day. enjoy your weekend and i'll see you at next week's party!

p.s. hellloooo, becky. your son's fabulous!

How Does She...

have you checked out this website? O. my! you must!!!

i personally fell in love with this balloon wreath, but there is oh so much more!

if you'd like to make your own fesitive wreath, {your kids will LOVE it too!} go here for the tutorial.

and seriously, go check out the site!

Get the CRAP out of my house!

vanessa is hosting a great party!

hmmm, party might not exactly be the correct term. i guess it's how you look at it. organizing that is. i LOVE it, although it's a task that i have a hard time tackling. but between the thought of moving and her post, she's motivated me. maybe she can motivate you too.

click here to go to her post and see how to participate.

i know a couple people who have pantry's that could use a little help :) and speaking of pantry's, holy heck look at this redo. LOVE it!

go here to see the details.

Lemonade Stands

don't ya' love them!

when you see kids selling lemonade on the roadside, do you stop? i ALWAYS do, i love to see their excitement as i turn the car around. it's so cute and nostalgic. my sister and i used to pick avocados from our trees, load them into the wagon and along with some neighbor friends, we'd go house to house and sell them to earn money for christmas gifts...

anyways...

masyn has wanted to have a lemonade stand for forever. i just found this website that has a ton of different downloads for different themed events.

this is a picture of the "lemonade stand" download. i think i need to have it. i think we need to have a lemonade stand. {uncle...can you build us a white one???}

{five} Months

the time is flyyyyinggg by!
yesterday our sweet baby was 5 months old.



at {5} she's rolling all over the place, rockin' back & forth, smiling more than ever, sleeping through the night,



and LOVES, i mean LOVES, to suck her big toe!





we love her to heaven and back!

Paper Flowers

i keep seeing these paper flowers and i've wanted to make some. i found this great tutorial here, if you'd like to make them too! btw...this website has a bunch of diy projects, so take a gander.

Her beach...

what's a kid to do when her mom is soooo mean she won't take her to the beach???
why, create an imaginary beach of course!



the glasses CRACK me up. i'm pretty sure the sass is all sissy's fault!



some quite time reading...
and then i get this boy tattling that masyn is "being rude me"



he promptly walks out, with me behind him, and tells her exactly what he thinks.

i'm not sure if he got his point across. she proceeded to ignore him and enjoy her beach.

My Kind of Cookie...

the past month kenz, masyn and i have been baking once a week and while i'm thrilled that our bond is growing, i'm not too thrilled about my growing waist line...{UGH. sigh. scream!}

i found the perfect remedy! next week we can whip up a batch of these sweet treats!

i'm pretty sure they'll last longer then anything we would normally make and they are super cute! if you'd like to make them go here for instructions and say hi.

Hula Hoops & Pom Poms...

{i know my mom is going to kill me, but it's for posterity's sake...}



did you know that grandma used to be a cheerleader???
did you know that at some age it becomes very difficult to hula hoop???
did you know that hula hooping is a GREAT way to loose those unwanted love handles???
i learned all these things last night. go figure...

Nolan & The Flying Turtle

ok. i can HONESTLY say that i don't have a favorite...but...
if i were to have one, he'd probably be it. {for now...}

this kid keeps us all laughing.

Parfait Party - Part Two

here's the details of masyn's party.
i loved this party because it was as easy as it was pretty...

most of the details were inspired by tutorials on the web.
the tissue pom poms were found here, the flag pennants are found everywhere, although i was pressed for time so i simply bought pre-made red gingham binding {found in the ribbon section at joanne's} cut 6" x 21" strips of different fabrics, ironed them in half, tucked them into the binding and pinned. i repeated that process until i had 12 pennants. then i simply cut the points using my rotary cutter.



i found the parfait glasses at walmart and poured pink lemonade into clear bottles. don't laugh, but the straws are from mc donalds...i said, don't laugh! they are the perfect color pink! the flower cups were simple and sweet. i bought stems of daisies from michaels, cut the stems, and stuck them into clear plastic cups with pink tissue paper. i almost didn't put the clear plates under the glasses, but in the end i was super glad i did...boy did those girls make a mess!



the sundae bar was fun. i was inspired by this post and found the label downloads here...
i purchased water goblets at the dollar tree for the root beer floats. i was a bit worried that they wouldn't be big enough for the floats, but given all the ice cream they were consuming, they didn't need anything larger. the ramekins were found a joanne's in packs of two. i bought the striped paper for the whipping cream at michaels and i would recommend laminating the piece before attaching it to the can.



the activities were very simple and i was a little worried that they would be too simple.
i was wrong.
the hula hoops are on sale at target, sidewalk chalk from dollar tree and water balloons are everywhere {although i bought 2 packs of 100 at the dollar tree}. the relay race was a big hit with all the girls and as i mentioned in the prior post, make the water balloons larger to make it a bit more challenging.



i hope this inspires you. i learned a number of things, as i do with every party...
the most important of which is...the simple things are often, the best things.

A Parfait Party - Part One

today we held a parfait party in honor of masyn's seventh birthday!

we had a water balloon toss,

although 'tossing' wasn't exactly what was going on and mackenzie got a bit wet!



then they were given sidewalk chalk to draw there own ice cream cones.



hula hoops were a HUGE hit.



and so was the ice cream cone relay race. and i have to say, i didn't think the kids liked it so much until towards the end of the party all the girls asked if they could do it again and again. it was a big hit and a super easy activity!
(a little side note...make the water balloons bigger than i did to make it a bit more challenging)

after the activities, the girls sat down and enjoyed thier parfaits, root beer floats or ice cream cones {some had all three!}, a little story time {i read fancy nancy} and gifts.

i think everyone had a good time and i have to give a HUGE thank you to my helpers!!! i definetly couldn't have done it without them!!!

THANK YOU!!!

stay tuned for the details.