eat sleep and farm

Pornography is a topic I wish would get out there more and quit being such a taboo word/concept. I wish parents with older kids would talk more openly about their struggles with their teens and young adult children in this area. Maybe if some adults would talk more openly about their own problems with it we could begin to help the youth in America.  Why are we so quiet? Why do we pretend its not out there? We haven't had many open discussions about it with our kids because they're still super young and don't use the Internet, but we've had "dumbed" down versions of the talk with them. We've explained why we don't allow them to be on the Internet and why we are always careful what our eyes see when we're out and about... and what to do when we do see something we ought not give any attention to. I've had people tell me to be careful because my kids will be so sheltered they'll just stumble into something and not know. I have to laugh eve...

Best part of January was closing the sale of our home!  Is it really the middle of February? Already?! Time is going faster, right? And not just for me... my kids say they feel it too. 2015 arrived with a flurry of lots of things happening. We had just gotten back from our Christmas trip to California and I hit the floor running. School started back up a week earlier than usual and since I homeschool my kids and tutor for Classical Conversations, there was lots of prep work to be done. I hosted two baby showers within a week of each other and just had the every day (constant) chores, errands, emails, etc... to get to. I hosted a shower for my good friend Sarah and a few weeks later  she gave birth to this beautiful baby boy, Isaac David.  David and Sarah lost their baby girl, Ava Grace at 18 weeks  and walking through that with them and being able to experience the joy  of Isaac's birth has been nothing short of awesome.  So happy f...

We decided a bit last minute to go spend Christmas with our families. Its such a hard decision every year because staying home is easy, comfortable and fun... but we know how much our parents appreciate seeing our kids on the holiday and we do always have fun there :)  When we realized it would be decent weather over the pass, we decided to go for it.  Jason bought travel DVD players and ear phones for the kids - both ended up being perfect for our trip! I stocked up on new travel (mostly trivia) games and we set off for the long drive.  We decided to break it up into a 2 day trip and to stay over in Oregon, so we didn't have to do 16+ hours in one day.  here we go!  our stop over at a hotel in Oregon.  Ends up its perfect to drive about 7 hours the first day and 5 1/2 the second day.  arrived at my parents house just in time to watch the Seahawks beat the Rams (!!!)  and the next morning my Dad made us killer omelets....

December has gone by in a whirlwind. I had grand dreams of it going by slowly and enjoying every single moment. Going to all our favorite holiday places and really relishing the month.  Then we decided to drive to California to spend Christmas week with our families.  And some dear friends of ours decided to move to Georgia (we hate Georgia now, just FYI)  and we hosted their going away party... and I hosted my annual ladies only cookie decorating party.  And then we finished up school, celebrated a small Christmas here, went to a couple parties, packed and left town.  my friend Katie had me over with her sister and Mom for a cookies and cocktails  party, which was super fun. We baked cookies together, drank cocktails and laughed a lot.  evidence of said annual cookie decorating party.  I bought these leaves at a market in Tacoma and have loved the color  they've brought to our house! And as a bonus... they're sti...

Merry Christmas!                                                {all photos taken by ivy & tweed photography } 2014 is almost over and while I can't point to anything that made it a bad year, it was a hard year. Lots of changes; some good and some difficult, and it felt long . Most years feel like they flew by, but 2014 has had moments where it feels like its dragging on and on. Our family had good health all year. No terrible sicknesses or hospital visits (woo-hoo!) and we did some traveling which is always fun. Jason had a business trip with Amazon in November and I got to tag along with him, which was awesome. We enjoyed the alone time and enjoyed a few things about Vegas. Its a fun place with weird people :) We took a month long trip to California in June and while the visit went amazingly well, we decided a month is way too long to be away. We were...