Let's Be Thankful

What am I thankful for. I'm going for it rapid fire. Off the top of my head. The first 10 that pop in there.

1. Literature- I am so blessed to have had a Dad that worked with me to help me be a great reader. I did not have an easy start at reading and he worked with me in our kitchen every night until I could do it all on my own. I've been hooked my whole life. Seeing my son at a point in his life now where he can enjoy to read on his own is amazing. It's a.ma.zing.

2. My Dog- All of my pets are lovely, but Mattie has my heart. We're soul mates. Eleven years together. You can't touch that. She has been my best friend through every big life event since I was 16. I love her.

3. Alice Mae- Our spit fire. She makes us braver. She is as sweet and down home as it gets but she is fire and sass and confidence. She twirls the day away. We're wrapped around her little fingers. She is HILARIOUS, gorgeous to boot, loves to bake with me, is the most amazing little life cheerleader. Anything you do, she is urging you forward. She's a freaking angel.

4. Oliver- He is the most beautiful, sensitive soul. He makes friends so easily. He loves to talk. He loves animals. He's adventurous. He reminds me to be kind, to use a gentle voice in life because that's what he needs. He's gorgeous, he's so smart, he's so bad at telling jokes and it just makes it that much funnier, he's my blue sky boy.

5. Netflix- I mean... do I need to say why? I'm a stay at home mom. God bless you, Netflix.

6. Feminism- Again, do I need to say why?

7. Food- I didn't grow up well off. I grew up dirt poor. In the beginning of adulthood it was often that I cried from hunger. I am never without gratitude that I have food right at my fingertips.

8. Crochet- This is a life skill and a coping skill for me. My anxiety is pretty nuts and crocheting gives me something to focus on whenever I need it. Plus, it's pretty. I can make cool stuff for people. It's awfully nifty.

9. Newfound Self Worth- It took me many many years to feel comfortable just being me. I'm a stay at home mom who likes to wear her robe all day. I suck at keeping things tidy, I like to sit on my butt and crochet, I bake a lot, I have frequent dance parties with my kids, I'm totally into PDA with my husband. My life revolves around my husband and kids and that is by choice. When I rebelled against that, wanting to not be 'that woman' or whatever, I was miserable. I'm so happy in the past year. Even through the pain of infertility, I am so much happier now that I don't give a shit and I just let myself love what I love and live how I feel best.

10. Husband- I saved the best for last. Husband is my rock. He's my soft place to land. He's my quiet. We are so good together, such a perfect match. My life didn't have to turn out like this. I got knocked up young, we barely knew each other. I could have been one of those really sad stories on 16 and Pregnant. But somehow we made it. Almost a decade! We love each other so much. It has not been easy. But we have fought for each other. He's amazing. I'm thankful every second of every day.


That was so easy. I'm a blessed woman to be able to take 15 minutes and write out paragraphs of reasons why I'm thankful. Have an amazing, blessed, happy day wherever you are.

Halloween and a Birthday!

I have been really super down in the dumps. Just not capable of thinking out a blog post that wasn't me whining for pages. So I kept my fingers busy crocheting instead of typing. But I wanted to document Halloween and our first born's birthday so I'm back at it!

Halloween is one of our favorite holidays. Halloween and Thanksgiving are tied for 2nd for me, with Christmas being #1 all day every day. I looooove Christmas. I'm one of those annoying people who start decorating in early November. See, I call it 'the Holidays' to give myself an excuse. I'm decorating for 'the Holidays', y'all! It's okay to have Christmas lights going up because there are also apples in a basket on the table and Thanksgiving-y things around.

The kids chose their costumes around September and luckily they were super easy to make and doable. Miss Thing wanted to be a ghost (ooooooh, she said) and the first born wanted to be a skeleton pirate, which I thought was super cool. So I did it! And it came out really awesome!

Al's costume was just a yard of white fleece (2.99, so cheap!) that I cut a whole in the middle of. Boom. A poncho. Smack on some black felt and it's a ghost! Could not be easier. We even dressed up Bun Bun as a ghost.

Ollie's was black pants and a black shirt and I used white duct tape to make the bones. I safety pinned an octopus to his shoulder, made him a skull mask out of the tape, bought him some pirate accessories and used some red cloth I had laying around to make him a sash and bandana. Again, this was easy and fast and came together really well. I loved it. My favorite costume of his ever, for sure. We dressed up Hot Dog the 1st grade class pet as a pirate too!

We took the kids to the art museum's Halloween party as our big Halloween outing and it was a huge hit. Such a cool place, so many craft stations and games. We loved it. Definitely going back again and again.

 

 

 

As the night went on the more Ollie's pirate stuff started to come off, haha.

 

 

It was fun times! We love Halloween.

 

We love it so much that Ollie decided he wanted a Halloween birthday party! His birthday is on Thursday but we celebrated on Sunday. I have very few photos of the event, I was a busy bee! But here are some tidbits.

 



We had spoooooky food and a spooooooky cake. Ollie had this cake planned for months. It was fun to make. He has been saying since last year that he wanted a cookie cake for his birthday so the base is all chocolate chip cookie, chocolate buttercream frosting on top, cookie tombstones, meringue cookie ghosts and a cookie fence. All cookie all the time.

 

He gets his enthusiasm from his Daddy, haha. He isn't much for being the center of attention so having a dozen people sing Happy Birthday to him is embarrassing for his poor little soul.

 

I have managed to keep it together this whole time and not cry about him turning 7. It's still nuts to me though. Seven years! How did that happen? Time really does go by so fast. In a blink. Sigh.

 

We're taking him out for a movie (Big Hero 6!) and dinner on Thursday for his actual birthday. And I know, I just know, that I will cry big sappy embarrassing Mom tears then. But he's my baby boy and I get to.