Just take a min

New running shoes
Beautiful weather
Time to run downtown
By myself
A chance to breathe
My husband knew I needed it
It's hard to step out of the craziness
He had to push me out the door
He's pretty awesome

The Stairs

Do you have one area in your home that can make the whole house seem clean if it is clean or dirty if it is dirty? For me, it's our stairs.

Our home has this lovely light colored carpet on the stairs and upstairs. It is pretty--if it's clean. With small children who run in and out of the house and through the woods/leaves/dirt all day and a dog who likes to nap on the stairs, it's rarely clean.

After trying to convince myself and jay that polka-dot carpet is in style (because that's what the stains were starting to look like), I finally broke down and steam cleaned the crazy stairs this morning.

Much better now...and the whole house seems a little bit cleaner.

Hatten Family Day 2012

Each year, Jay and I pick a random day and declare that it is "Hatten Family Day." 

We do a fun activity with the family and spend the whole day together. Jay and I commit to not even check our phones or have other distractions :) The kids talk all year about what we are going to do for Hatten Family Day. We hope we are creating a really fun tradition that will continue until they're adults and establish some great family memories. We want them to know how much we treasure our family.

In previous years we have gone apple picking (2008), gone to a Reds baseball game and the aquarium in Atlanta (2009), hiked in the Cradle of Forestry (2010), and gone horseback riding (2011).

This year we went to Charlotte for the day and went to the Discovery Place.

The kids thought it was great to walk a few blocks in downtown Charlotte and see the skyscrapers.

While walking down the street, a family stopped us and said "Did you have 3 kids and then have twins??" Turns out that they had the exact same pattern. Their kids now range in age from 6-12 so they're past the baby stage of it all. It is encouraging for us to see people who have successfully made it past this stage when they're all little. 

We enjoyed pizzas at Brixx for lunch.

 Then we spent the afternoon in the Discovery Place. We investigated and learned about all kinds of things--bears, shells, fish, rainforests, and more.

We watched a 3D movie about lions

 The babies took naps off and on in their stroller. They were very good overall. It was a little tricky when it was time to fix them bottles because the bathroom didn't have hot water. I asked a lady who worked there if there was a sink somewhere with hot water. The next thing I knew, I was hanging out in the breakroom with all the people who work there while I fed the babies and changed diapers. Let's just say that there are some interesting people who work at the Discovery Place. (and I was a science teacher....)

 They really liked the aquarium section, especially the jellyfish.

 I have no idea what Catherine was doing in this part. I was in the break room. I think it was a chair lifted by air??

 Will really liked these drums he found.

 Overall it was a great day! A little hectic and we were all exhausted by the time we got home. Two days of travel, lack of naps and different schedules puts us at our limit. We spent today being very low key and recovering.

We were so thankful to have a fun day together and make great memories for Hatten Family Day!

Thanksgiving at the farm

We went to my family's for thanksgiving. This is the first time we have been there in 4 years. We have lunch at my aunts house--which used to be my grandfather's house and is directly across the road from my dads house. I loved growing up across the road from my grandparents.
With all the aunts, uncles, cousins, and a few people I had never seen before we had 60 people there for lunch. Thankfully it was very nice weather and we could keep the kids outside!
We had a great time and were very thankful for an afternoon with the family.

Pilgrims and Indians give thanks

Happy Thanksgiving! This is one of our favorite holidays: pretty low key with focus on thankfulness and family. And who doesn't love a few little Indians and Pilgrims? The kids had these really great costumes from their Thanksgiving skits at school. So fun!

This past year has been one of the most challenging of our lives, for sure. Last Thanksgiving we told the kids that we were having a baby. We didn't know yet that it was two babies! Jay's dad actually kept joking last Thanksgiving about us having twins and we told him to be quiet because he was worrying Jay. One year ago I had no idea what was in store for us.

This year I am extremely thankful for God's faithfulness to us. He has walked with us closely throughout our time of pregnancy and newborns. Not that He wasn't before then, but we have learned to trust Him more and how much we really do need Him. A lot of this year has been humbling to me, a breaking of my self-dependence and pride.

God has also really shown us how it looks and works for a community of believers to help one another. Like the Pilgrims and Indians (at least the nice, friendly ones we teach the kids about) we have things to offer one another and ways to help each other. I can't name all the ways that others have helped us this year, and I'm thankful that I'm now getting back on my feet enough to be able to help others as well. Helping with meals, chores at home, children, phone calls, cards, and more--It has been so encouraging and refreshing to see how God provides through his people.

We hope you have a happy Thanksgiving, filled with gratitude to the One who is the giver of all good gifts and is always faithful to us.

"Enter his gates with thanksgiving and his courts with praise, give thanks to him and praise his name. For the Lord is good and his love endures forever; his faithfulness continues through all generations." Psalm 100: 4-5

"Come, let us sing for joy to the Lord; let us shout aloud to the Rock of our salvation. Let us come before him with thanksgiving and extol him with music and song. For the Lord is the great God, the great Kind above all gods." Psalm 95: 1-3

"God our Father, God our Father, we thank you, we thank you. For our many blessings, for our many blessings, Amen, Amen" (Anna's favorite blessing--because it says "thank you" even when she refused to say thank you for 6 months)

Laundry from 1986

For a few years now, I've been doing laundry from 1986.

That's when our house was built and that's what year our laundry room still looked like.

I know it's just a laundry room and probably not that noteworthy, but I am in there a lot. 

A whole lot.

After the babies were born and I went through my "postpartum nesting" phase, the laundry room had to change. I really didn't want to spend much money on it. It is just a laundry room, so I tried to think creatively about how to brighten and improve the space.

We were having the exterior trim of the house painted, so while the painter was here I figured I could get him to take down the glorious iridescent wallpaper and repair the hole in the sheetrock a plumber left us a year or so ago. I had a gallon of leftover paint from our bathroom and I had our painter mix a little white into it to lighten it up and create the color for the walls.  We were also having new carpet put into our master bedroom (another postpartum thing that was driving me crazy) so I found an inexpensive linoleum remnant to have installed as well. I  had a shelf installed from wall to wall above the dryer (a simple wood board painted white) and added a few fun baskets for cleaning rags and buttons/safety pins, as well as some artwork. Viola! My laundry mood is much improved.

Here's the before:

Not a huge laundry room, but functional. I'm actually glad it's not a huge room. That forces me to deal with the laundry instead of letting it pile up.

 The wallpaper: blue and purple iridescent design. It shimmered in the light. seriously

 the floor: really stained and old linoleum

 Here's the after:
Much brighter and fresher!

It's nothing overly fancy, but I enjoy it so much more. I am in there multiple times per day, so I wanted to enjoy my time there.

And what is the laundry strategy when you have five small children? You do laundry pretty much every time you walk by the laundry room. Put the next load in the washer or the dryer, fold something, take something to be put away. On average I do 2  loads of laundry a day, and once or twice a week I may have a focused laundry day of 4-5 loads and I make sure I get everything folded and put away.

It's a never-ending job for sure. But I am thankful that we have clothes to wear and people to wear them. (And I'm thankful that the ugly wallpaper is gone. Seriously....it doesn't matter what year it was. That was never attractive.)

Indian mommy

Catherine's class studied the pilgrims and Indians. They each then made a pilgrim or Indian and were supposed to write a paragraph about what they learned. Catherine made this beautiful Indian and her whole paragraph is basically about how they take care of their babies and what they wear. She has a sweet mommy heart already and it shows in what she does so easily.