The Crafts

CJ is a crawling maniac. I can't keep up with her...much less get anything done. I'm so happy for her, really.  She loves the mobility, but man is it tiring for mom. And do you ever want to just yell "ARGH" like Charlie Brown when Lucy pulls the football out from under him.  Remember that?  Somedays I just want to ARGH at the girls.  I'm trying to cook dinner, keep CJ out of stuff, pick up teeny tiny Cinderella shoes out of the carpet before CJ eats them all while Kate whines for milk, a snack, to help get Snow White dressed, find her paints which are 3 feet from her face, play a board game, more milk, and shoot basketballs.  Most days it is a fight to convince Kate to comb her hair, to not wear her shirt backwards and to not color on her clothing. Being a mom is exhausting... and rewarding.

The winner of Freebie Friday is.... Megan Williams! Congrats Megan!  I'll drop your book in the mail soon! In other news... I finally took CJ's 8 month picture. She officially turned 8 months about 11 days ago...but she still looks the same. Except for the two little teeth poking through, although you can't see them in these photos. This was another failed attempt to get a 'birthday' pic. Failed...but cute! Those are my favorite CJ pants, by the way! As of Friday CJ is officially crawling. As of this morning, she is officially pulling herself up on EVERYTHING! She doesn't actually pull herself up to standing, just her knees.  But she is still awesome. Her favorite food is....anything. She loves it all. Carrots, green beans, bananas, blueberries, mac n cheese, crackers, applesauce, cottage cheese, lasagna... Love ya, CJ! I also wanted to take a quick minute to answer some questions I've received recently. 1. What is the bread in the photo of your...

In honor of Mother's Day I interviewed two very experienced mamas. My Grandma Holthaus...mother of four girls, one of which is my mom!  And the other interviewee is my Grandma Smith...mother of two boys and one girl.  My dad included! What was your favorite thing about motherhood when your kids were small? Gma Holthaus:  They were so sweet when they were babies and then to watch them turn into little girls. Gma Smith:  Cuddling, rocking and reading to them. What is your favorite thing about motherhood now that your kids are grown? Gma Holthaus:  It is fun and rewarding to see them be successful in life. Gma Smith:  Having them visit and having adult conversations. What for you was the biggest challenge as a mother of young children? Gma Holthaus:  Getting them to stop fighting with each other which was almost impossible to do. Gma Smith:  Seeing that they got to Sunday school and church. The role of the father has changed a lot over...

Happy Mother's Day to you all! I hope you will remember to give a little shout out to your mama this weekend. I've been thinking a lot about books lately. I love a good book. But they are hard to come by. There are a million books out there that are just ok and about a billion more that are blah. So when you find a good book you want to tell everyone. Well, one of my favorite books is...get the jokes ready....I can handle your judgements... Twilight I don't care what you say. I love it.  So there.  It has been said. On this particular Freebie Friday I have decided to give away a book. But don't worry, it isn't Twilight. It is this one... So how can you win it? Post a comment telling me what is one of your favorite books. Really this is a Freebie Friday for me too because maybe someone will suggest a book I will love.

I'm not feeling very bloggy today. We have a lot of irons in the fire around here. That may explain the loss of blogging motivation. It is going to be a bit more time but I'm hoping to have a big bathroom and craft room reveal. I just spray painted something for the bathroom. The item I spray painted looks awesome. Now I just have to impatiently wait for it to dry. I would have spray painted it earlier but the wind has been bonkers in this part of Iowa. The girls couldn't play outside yesterday because of the wind. In fact, the wind continually blew our porch chairs back and forth all day. I would have gone out to collect them but I was afraid I might blow away with the chairs. The funny thing though is that despite the wind I went golfing last night with some friends. We had a GREAT time! I love getting out of the house for fun. I get out plenty for meetings or jogs but sometimes you need a little fun thrown in there. Have I ever shared my recipe for this???? It ...

During supper tonight we played a little family game of I Spy. Kate had never played before. But if anyone knows Kate, then you know she LOVES games. Any sort of game.  If we call picking up toys a game then she is the first in line. Below is a video of Kate playing I Spy. The beginning is a little slow but stick with it....

Julie!! Congrats Julie!  I'll bring your jam to MMO on Friday. In other news... I apologize for not getting the winning post finished on Monday but yesterday was a very busy day. I don't think neither Matt nor I sat down until 9:00ish last night...to eat dinner! Over the weekend we began cleaning this place out.  We rented a dumpster and basically shook the house upside down to see what falls out.  The previous owners loved and cared for this house dearly but there was a lot of stuff left in it.  And we are finally saying goodbye to what isn't ours. On top of cleaning, I had two meetings last night plus preschool sign-up for Kate.  And then returned home for a 6 mile run.  I had to do my 6 miler in the dark which means no running on the trails.  And it is not easy to find 6 miles to run in La Porte.  I know from experience.  Back in June '08 during the floods I had to run 11 miles in town because all the trails and 7 of the ...