eat sleep and farm

I feel like everyone says "time is just flying by" or "where is the time going?!" or things like that, about the speed in which time passes.  When I was younger I thought it was just the thing old( er ) people talked about; never understanding why on earth they felt like time was going by so fast, when an hour seemed to take forever  to pass in my little brain. Maybe this feeling does come with age, I don't know, but I've become one of those haters-of-time-passing-too-quickly  people. For me personally, I feel it more in the every day things. Not always the big, monumental things. I find myself folding a load of clothes, coming across a pair of Ethan's size 5 jeans, wondering "when did his clothes begin to look like big boy clothes?!"  Or, doing all my laundry and feeling so accomplished that the laundry room is cleaned and out of service {in a good way} for a day, only to be flooded with new dirty clothes days later. Where did the time go...

Sunday is my favorite day of the week. Its the most relaxing, its filled with God & family and I love that even though not everyone starts the day off with Worshipping God at church, it still seems to be a " down " day for everyone. Our neighbors are always found out on their porches, shootin' the breeze, the kids playing baseball in the street, people watering their lawns, acting like its the most strenuous thing they've done all day, and the yummy food we always seem to eat on Sundays. I think I enjoy cooking more when I'm more relaxed. Chocolate chip cookies and lemon squares are on our counter today... for no good reason, other than our week was relaxing and I experimented with some new recipes. Jason loves weeks like that :-)  I enjoyed being at church this morning. Due to being sick before our trip to California, then being in California for 2 weeks and then coming home and getting sick again ... I haven't been to our church since Mother's Da...

It took a while for the summer weather to find us, but ever since it did, its been nothing but lovely, fun in the sun days for us. The girls adore being outside. Its sometimes insane how hard it is for me to get them to come in to eat, take a bath and get into bed. The other day Rachel announced "when I'm a Mommy and I'm married wif kids, we will live outside, in tents!"  On Wednesday evening (yes, these pictures were taken around 6:30 at night) the kids and I walked to the park and ate our dinner at the picnic tables. Such a fun way to spend the summer evenings! We missed Daddy very much though. Its just not the same without him...  Ethan often asks "can we walk to where the Christmas trees are and play hide-and-seek?!"  the kids also like to play pirates and Peter Pan in this tree area.  she wanted to walk "all by aself" but got to the top of this hill and changed her mind :)  Rachel doesn't like to swing on swings, but she's th...

Here are some more pictures of our time with the Swensons. They arrived a couple days after we got home from California. They stayed with us for the weekend, before heading onto Whistler, Canada for their family get away and then came back to stay one more night with us, before heading back home.  Thank you Swensons, for the super fun time!! Ezra was our guest of honor! He was born in December and so this is the first time we got to meet him in person. May I say, he's quite the cutie pie and such a sweet heart. We loved having a baby boy in our home for a few days :)  and he liked our books. they taste yummy.  {Ethan took this one} look at his beautiful, blue eyes! William made Swedish Pancakes for us, 2 mornings!  Thanks, William - yummers!! Ezra and Ethan seemed to get along swell.  this one is my fave ...  After Ezra left, Ethan came and said "I think it would actually be really fun to have a baby brother someday."Pretty impressive, coming ...

I haven't been feeling well. Since Friday I've had a horrible stomach virus that seems to want to linger and linger, not getting the "unwelcome" feeling. Ethan had it a couple weeks ago and his lasted 5 days. It was 5 days of finding him laying in odd places around the house, hearing him moaning from his bed at night, having him come in our room around 3am, asking if he can lay in between us, hoping that would make his tummy all better. Five days of us not realizing he had the flu and thinking he was constipated. Poor boy. As a result of that, Ethan has enough fiber in his body to feed all of Washington State ;-) I spent Saturday-Monday cooped up in our bedroom, laying in bed, wishing I could just get up and feel well. If any of you know me well at all, you know that spending one day {let alone 3 days} cooped up in bed is like pure torture for my get up and go personality. I try to make the most of "bed time" when I'm sick, but this sickness was bad. R...

Sorry this was delayed. I needed to get larger versions of these pictures from Jason's Dad and then I'm still sick with the stomach flu, so I haven't been able to go through them for a couple days.  We spent a fun time with Jason's family - with a delicious BBQ dinner, lots of playing and even having Christmas in June for the kids! We didn't get to see family for Christmas time, so J's parents saved the kid's gifts for when we came back to visit. The kids loved it. And I think Christmas in June is a grand idea :)  us with the Great Grandmas  Rachel enjoyed Christmas in June :)  holding Kara's new doll, Libby.  Kara has a new love of playing dress-ups, so she's also enjoyed Rachel's new gift!  The jumbo remote control truck! I teased Ethan and told him when he graduates from High School, this will be his first car ;-)  Kara's farm animal toys - I love the tongue :) 

  Today is the day we celebrate and honor our fathers and husbands! I love this day. I love having an extra " excuse " to remind my Dad that I love him and to remind my husband of how thankful I am for him and how much I think he's the most amazing Daddy on the planet.  How do you take one day to tell your Love how much you appreciate him? How do you thank someone for the daily sacrifices they make, because of their love for you and your kids? I like think the best way is not just once a year, but every single day, throughout the year. But I love that we have this day, set aside, to take extra time to tell them and show them how much they mean to us. To remind them that we can't live without them.  I went looking for a Father's Day card, for Jase, from me. It was SO hard to find a good card! Most of them were basically putting the man down, while puffing up the wife's self esteem. Cards that, in a not-so-round-about-way put the husband's character do...

{I still have one final California post of our visit with Jason's parents, but I'm having issues with the pictures, since they're on Costco's website - as soon as his Dad can send me the originals, I'll get that post up} Our friends from California (the Swensons) came up North for their family vacation and stayed with us! They went to Whistler, Canada as a family, but before going and upon return stayed at our home. We had a wonderful time with them and enjoyed getting to meet Ezra for the first time!  The day they arrived, they were wiped out from early travel and so we took a little trip to Mercer Island, grabbed coffee & bagels and went to our favorite park by the lake. our first child who truly loves the swings Jess & Ezra Jason, with William is this what a tree huger looks like?! Ethan's shells Rachel slowly began taking shoes off, socks off and rolled the pants -- and that's when I knew it was only a matter of time and she'd be IN ...

I'm always on the look-out for sauces & marinate to use on our meat when I cook. Especially during the summer months, when BBQ'ing is very in . In the last 5+ years, I've been learning how to make most sauces from scratch...  During my pregnancy with Ethan we discovered I had an allergic reaction to MSG. Put a damper on eating out and eating most anything I didn't make from scratch. It wasn't a severe allergic reaction, but enough that it kept me from eating stuff that obviously had MSG in it. Then during Rachel's pregnancy it was bad... really bad. I had a few nights where it was difficult to breath and I almost thought Jason would have to rush me to the ER. Thankfully trying a few "at home remedies" kept us from ever going in -- sitting up {as apposed to laying down}, drinking lots of water, getting fresh air and sometimes even having to use an inhaler. I basically learned during Rachel's pregnancy that I needed to stay away from the stuff,...

Seems like I'm having a hard time bouncing back after all of our traveling; coming home to company, my sister visiting, Jason going back to work, remembering how much we have a love/hate relationship with his schedule, and getting the kids back to some semblance of a routine. The older I get, the harder it is to bounce back. In more ways than just with the schedule. I feel like my mind and body has just been thrown off and its going to take some serious discipline to get me back on track. Do you ever feel that way? If so, what are some ways that you combat the stuck-in-a-rut feeling? Jason was hoping to switch to an early on/early off shift in mid-June or early July, but we came home to find out that one of his coworkers {the guy who trained Jason} left rather abruptly for a new position somewhere else. Which means, I assume, Jason's shift change probably won't happen anytime soon. We love his hours for the most part, but we hate his hours when it comes to our social life...

{the actual wedding post/pictures is below this one} I personally love weddings and I personally love children. So when you can mix both, I say its a successful day! I took this sequence of pictures and thought they turned out super cute, I wanted to post them. Jayden likes Sonja quite a bit and wanted to play with her at the reception. Sonja however, wasn't sure about this boy and did her very best to let him know that while she'd be friendly, she was NOT going to flirt. And she did a great job holding her ground :) showing off for Sonja :)  he wants to play... she'd rather be with Daddy.  "I wanna hold your hand"  he gets his way... and she at least doesn't cry.  I love her refusal to make eye contact  in the end, they both seemed pretty happy...