Busy summer life

Lots of random happenings! Summer is in full swing!!!

My flower bed at the community garden. :) It's coming along nicely. We also help with the veggies and last week we were able to bring home quite a bit of lettuce and some beautiful rainbow chard. So awesome.

Gleaned from the yard. :)

So Banden and Ira have been asking to take their bunk bed down for a while now. Ira was always just making a bed on the floor or sneaking into Banden's bed and never wanted to sleep on the top any more. Neither did Banden. I think it's because they like to talk late into the night. ;) Banden had a full size mattress though and it was just too big to have two beds on the floor in that little room. Well our sweet neighbor friends offered us a nice twin mattress the other day and that very same day their daddy offered to take their bunk bed apart. Because he's an awesome daddy. If you notice in the picture he hasn't even changed out of his work clothes yet, after working a ten hour shift plus a two hour commute. The boys were so excited!

Helping their hard working daddy because they are good sons. :)

Two very happy boys. We will get bed frames in there soon, talking Ryder into making bed frames with underneath storage. :) But for now they are comfy cozy and very pleased. If you've noticed we live a very simple life and are now living very close to debt free (besides our mortgage) because of it. Sometimes it's hard to not want bigger and better or something a little more fancy/current but boy does it feel good to live without crushing debt. I know because we've been there. We are trying very hard now to live within our means, to save as much as possible (for those inventible times when Ryder gets laid off) and to be totally okay with second hand stuff. :) If I can get something for free, and thus essential save the money I would have spent on that item I am one happy girl. Ryder calls me the queen of thrifty. He gets a total kick out of all my enthusiastic ideas for saving money and cutting spending. He's more of the spender (although he's good at saving too when he sets his mind to it), I'm generally the saver/do with-outer so together we balance each other out. ;) 

We are going to be ripping the carpet out of the bedrooms soon. It's on our list of things to save for. :) Once we do that we are re-arranging who goes where. Right now it's two kids to a room, but Leiella needs her own room soon, although she doesn't want one. :/ Poor only girl. So far she does not see the bonus in having your own room, she just sees that her brothers are basically going to have a sleep over party every night without her. Regardless it has to happen, so since the rooms are small and we will have three boys in a room we are going to trade our bigger room for one of the smaller rooms. So the boys will have the biggest bedroom in the house. We are waiting to make bed frames until then because if they don't want bunk-beds, which they don't, we well have to get very creative. Probably a trundle bed for two of the boys and a regular bed for the third. I don't mind having a smaller room, it's not like we hang out in there, plus it will force me to simplify even more. :)

My big ol' kitties. :) Just relaxing on a hot day. Our cats totally out weigh our dogs, ha ha!

I organized the kitchen some more. Cleaned off the top of the fridge and added baskets, looks so much better. Most de-clutter sites say to remove everything from your fridge to make it look cleaner, but I love my pictures, so they are staying. :) Even if it does look like a bit of a mess. 

I actually have drawers for my food storage containers! Before they were all tossed into a rubbermaid tub under the folding table. Such a mess. Love, love, love having drawers for them now. :)

Figuring out what flows in the new space.

Coffee station for the husband. So nice to be able to move this and the toaster to the back counter and have extra room around my stove now. :)

Back to potty training after a three year break. Harsh. ;) We are just starting, so he still wears diapers most of the time, but slowly transitioning into training pants. These training pants have a plastic liner on the inside… Where were these when I was potty training before! So cool. It's so adorable watching this little baby walking around with these big ol' undies, seriously so cute! Especially because they all have a picture on the bum, which for some reason makes it a whole lot cuter. ;) Plus every time he sits on the potty he says, "Yay!" and claps his hands over and over again with a big grin on his face. Cuteness overload.

So I got this crazy idea for the full size mattress and just went with it...

I'm sure it's a bit trashy but hey it's not on my front porch at least. ;) It's a reading nook! Or just an awesome place to lay and relax. I covered it with a water proof mattress cover and then a sheet. I got out an old canopy I still had stored away and hung it under the eaves of the house. I want to get some colorful outdoor pillows but for now I just threw some couch throw pillows down. It's sitting on a low wooden frame. I'm going to keep it out all summer long and store it away in the winter time. I want to add some out-door lighting along the eaves and maybe a few lights that dangle down, for a nice peaceful feel at night. So far everyone loves it. I didn't think Ryder would go for it, but he loves laying out there, getting some fresh air, after working in a toxic in door environment all day. So I'm happy that he's happy. :)

These boys also approve.

This picture is from Father's day. Much love to the best father all of us have ever known. It makes my heart so glad.

I find it hilarious that even with the bed on the ground Ira still tries to sleep as close to Banden as he can. :)

So to my husband and kids this is a fort. Sigh. ;) My husband got the opportunity to bring some scaffolding home, which is apparently super awesome, and he decided to set it up in the back yard for now so that the kids could have a fort of sorts. Not sure who's idea it was but they were all so excited about it. He actually made it pretty cool and the kids love it. I don't love looking at it from the kitchen window all that much, but it does make my heart happy to see my kids happy so all is well. :) Plus it was cute to see how excited Ryder was. We have since taken of the ladder because I didn't want littler kids having easy access to the top. My kids are total monkeys so they really didn't need a ladder. Now to keep them out of those super tall trees… :/ I wish I didn't mind them climbing, I did it all the time when I was a kid, but it totally freaks me out now! It's not so much the possibility of  broken limbs, those can heal, it's the possibility of a broken back or a cracked head that makes me turn to jelly when they ask to climb the trees. 

And I'll end with this. I tried my hand a soap making! It was fun. We just used melt and pour soap from a great (fairly local) company, Brambleberry. Mailed straight to the house, because it was easier. We then added herbs and oils to it. They turned out great. Not thoroughly pleased with the ingredients in the melt and pour soap, but not brave enough to try the cold press yet. Cold press soaps use lye which can be a bit scary, especially if you have four kids and don't have a separate work space. But some day I'm going to make soap like this. http://down---to---earth.blogspot.com/2007/07/how-to-make-cold-pressed-soap.html Much cleaner than the melt and pour. Although http://www.brambleberry.com did have better options than other places I researched. I used dried calendula and dried lavender from my yard. :) The soap on the top has this beautiful reddish color when light shines through it, so nice! They all smell wonderful, a nice light scent. Ryder and I really can't stand strong smells, and usually buy unscented soap because of this. So it was nice to be able to modulate the amount of fragrance in the soap. The only one that turned out too strong was the lavender one. We used dried lavender and the recipes called for lavender oil as well. Even though we halved the amount of oil used it was still too strong. If we make it again we will only use the dried lavender.

Well there you have it, all sorts of summer happenings!

Against all odds

Ryder and I recently celebrated another anniversary on June 4th. :)

21 years ago I met the love of my live in a nasty trailer, in a small town, that I happened to be in because I was trying to escape from my horrible home life. It didn't start out a very pretty love story. I was a lost and broken fifteen year old. Sad to my very core. Angry. This boy walked in with big beautiful eyes and a swagger. Full of attitude and himself.  There was something about him that spoke to me on such a deep level. I couldn't even fully understand it. I was hooked. Like a drug. Which isn't a good way to start anything. ;) Turns out that underneath all that swagger was a young and hurting man. Two very broken people trying to make things work. We had a very turbulent start and were on and off for the first few years, mostly off. He left me for a while and it broke my heart so bad that I didn't think I would ever get over it. Probably wouldn't have. But that time apart led to me coming around to loving myself and learning to value who I was, after hitting rock bottom. And I mean rock bottom, shattered to pieces, and slowly gluing myself back together again. I got onto my own two feet, moved away from that small town, got two jobs to support myself and after living in my car, and on the couches or floors of some very sweet souls that went out of their way to keep me afloat and off the streets I finally got my own studio apartment at nineteen. I was living in the same area as his mom, I had moved to be closer to his brother who I had tried to take care of since he was born. Whole different story. When I moved there Ryder was living in a different state and I didn't know if I would ever see him again. But turns out his mother eventually told him I was around and he dropped everything he had going on in that state and moved back. We slowly ended up getting back together, although I had my doubts at first on if it was the best choice for me or not. Mostly because his leaving the first time had hurt so bad. I wasn't sure I was strong enough or brave enough to open myself up again. There was no denying that I was still strongly attracted to him though. Thankfully this time around things were different, because I had started my road to recovery, healing myself from the hurts of my childhood and learning to love myself. Which we all know we need to love ourselves in order to truly love others. Ryder had grown and changed as well. That's not to say everything was smooth sailing, two very hurt people carry a lot of baggage and past hurts come up when you least expect it. But the nice thing about baggage is that you can slowly unpack if you want to. ;) It's been a long road with lots of ups and downs. But at the very core of it we love each other, and have clung to each other for strength in our darkest moments. We have built each other up and have accomplished together what I don't think we ever could have done alone. We are truly a team. When we got engaged we decided to change our last name together. To start all over with a fresh family tree. It's one of the best choices we've ever made. It truly felt like breaking the chains once and for all. 

Our wedding day 2005

This happened to be our tenth wedding anniversary. I look forward to what the next ten years hold for us. I truly feel so blessed to have this man by my side and I'm so glad that even in the rough spots we decided to cling together and grow instead of break apart. There is something that keeps Ryder and I tightly bound together against all odds and for that I am so truly thankful. He is my one and only and I'm still so madly in love with him. It's a deep love now, not the love of a broken teenager. A deep love that comes from all the things we've shared together, and from facing hard moments together and coming out on the other end, still together. Got to have those down to truly appreciate the ups. :)

Feeling the need

I'm feeling the need to let it go…

Poem by Safire Rose

Get ready. Get set. GO!

AHHHHHHH! I'M SO EXCITED!

SO EXCITED.

SO, SO, SO EXCITED!!!

Okay enough, I'm ready to share. We are finally making progress on the kitchen project that has been a dream of mine since the day we moved in, seven years ago now! For about a year now Ryder has been working on the cabinets in his shop, little by little in his very rare spare time. He didn't have required over time at his job this past weekend and was finally done putting them together, so he said it was go time!

This has been my set up for seven years! Using a folding table as a make shift counter. Messy and ugly, plus over all there is hardly any actual counter space in this kitchen. We eat a whole foods diet so for someone who is constantly cooking from scratch three square meals a day and then some it was a bit frustrating. As soon as we put Atty on his special diet for seizure control and I started spending the majority of my days in the kitchen (only a slight exaggeration) I started to loathe my kitchen. I am so thankful for a handy husband, even if it did take FOREVER AND A DAY!

All geared up and ready to be Ryder's sidekick.

This was my job, to handle the spray bottle and the vacuum, both I know well. ;) Ryder had to cut the tile and then chip it all up where the cabinets were going.

It was a nasty job and he ended up cutting up his hand really bad before he put gloves on.

Worst part of the whole thing. Ryder did most of it on his own because I had to get our food shopping done. 

But I bought chocolate ice-cream bars to make up for it. :) Nothing like ice-cream bars when you are working hard at watching daddy work. ;)

This guy was especially happy because they were ice-cream bars that he could actually have. Made out of coconut milk. Happy kid.

Bringing in the cabinets and scoping things out. 

It's so exciting!!! This is exactly how I felt on the inside. ;)

Putting in the drawers. All of this was made by hand by Ryder!

There are some deep shelves back there! Ha ha!

It was a joyful moment when I actually got to fold up this folding table, that has been well used now, and store it away! As it should be. :)

There is a lot left to do. We have to strip the older cabinets of their paint and then paint everything. We are adding knobs/handles and last but not least… NEW COUNTER TOPS! Oh man I can hardly wait!

For now Ryder put a board on top to use as counter space. Hopefully he doesn't get too comfortable with that idea. ;) I'm a pretty patient wife for the most part, but I have a fever for this kitchen to be finished already!!!

Honestly I keep walking into my kitchen and just staring around in awe. It's so awesome. I reorganized everything, did a kitchen purge and a thorough cleaning and now I don't mind spending so much time in there. ;)  There's so much space!

This was from before I reorganized everything, it looks even better now! :D

So there you have it, the kitchen remodel is in full swing and hopefully more updates soon!

Ira turns eight and other adventures...

Ira turned eight!!!

He's been waiting, impatiently, for four months. ;) It drives him crazy that Atty's birthday comes first, ha ha!

Birthday pancakes, got to have them! ;)

Another cake success! Grain free, dairy free, soy free. This time I made a chocolate frosting with Enjoy Life chocolate chip. They do have cane syrup in them, but Atty seems to be able to tolerate a bit of sugar now and again. It has been five year after all since his last seizure. :) The cake its self was sweetened only with maple syrup, and the coconut cream in between the layers inside the cake were sweetened with a little honey. Still trying to stay as close to whole foods as possible (I'm aware that maple syrup is processed but I'm more okay with that than the other types of processed sugars). Every once and a while I'm okay with making an exception since over all we have a focus on healthy eating. 

I love seeing how excited the kids get about getting their sibling a gift.

Atty got Ira a fishing pole! So sweet. :)

Ira's auntie got him this awesome pirate gear. He makes a pretty fierce pirate!

He's a jolly pirate. ;)

Banden got Ira a football!

Leiella made a million cards for Ira, so sweet. 

She also got him some cool survival gear. My little survivalists. :)

Blowing out the candles! He got every one!!!

So, so, so, good!!! Best cake ever. I keep saying that, but truly they just keep getting better and better. Practice makes perfect. :)

So Ira really wanted a camp out for his birthday. So we packed up the trailer and went to a local KOA. it was a blast! We had some friends come and my mom and sister. Besides the fact that it took forever to get on the road Friday after Ryder got off work. It was just one thing after another. It sort of turned into a bad joke. After finally getting the trailer hooked up and finding everything we needed for that, it was so late that I went inside to cook the chicken for dinner at home instead of at the campsite. That left J to help Ryder get out, which involves maneuvering through a gate and down the side of our house with millimeters on each side. It's ridiculous really. Well J failed, big time, in guiding Ryder out and one of the legs on the canopy on the side of the trailer got ripped off and long story short Ryder ended up taking a saw to the fence post and chopping the whole thing down! It was crazy. Then when we finally got on the road, around 7:30 pm, we got two minutes down the road and Ryder realized he didn't put the big side mirrors on. It's illegal to drive without them because he can't see behind him. So we had to turn around and go back! After a lot of cursing on my husbands part (which the kids thankfully didn't hear because they were in the suburban) he realize that they were in the underneath compartment of the trailer. Sigh. I'm telling you it was no fun. Thankfully when we got there things improved dramatically and we ended up having a really nice time. Lesson learned hopefully. When leaving on a Friday after work have as many things figured out ahead of time as possible!

Mini golf! This place has it all and is one of our favorites for a quick get away now. Pool, mini golf, playground, a beautiful creek, movie on the lawn at night, bouncy pillow, you name it, they've got it! Plus a good lay out for the kids to ride around on their bikes. It's glamping, not camping, but you know what… I don't care any more! I use to be sooooo against it! I was all about roughing it and getting as far away from people as possible prior to kids. But now with kids it's just stressful and so much work for me! This trailer camping thing is perfect for this time in our lives. And the KOA's are so family friendly! Although I like taking the trailer to regular campgrounds as well. :)

Playing at the creek, they can spend hours here!

Great way to spend a Saturday, reading outdoors next to a creek listening to the kids giggle and play. :)

Silly girls!

Building a dam. It's a favorite pass time for my boys, ha ha!

Then Atty drove us all home.

Just kidding! We had a blast and despite the hard start it fed my fever for trailer campouts this summer!

Family days

My favorite spot to sit now. :)

Before you start thinking that my husband is never ever around, I thought I'd post some pictures of the family days we sneak in every now and again. ;)

Great walk at Padilla Bay.

Atty learned how to ride his bike! We turned his bike into a balance bike last year by removing the training wheels that weren't doing him any good and taking off the pedals. It really did help him get the idea of balancing. This year we put the pedals back on but he wasn't showing much interest in learning how to ride. Well a few weeks ago I really wanted to go on a family bike ride (our first one ever!) so I told Atty he could either push himself alone the whole ride or he could learn to ride his bike. It was slow going at first, and Ryder and I took turns hanging back with him while the rest zipped ahead. At one point he got really discouraged and I started talking to him about his attitude. That he needed to have a "can do" attitude and that someone who beat seizures can do anything they put their mind to. I traded spots with Ryder and went ahead with the other kids. A little while later I hear Ryder singing to Atty, a sweet song about being a bike rider now. I look over my shoulder and sure enough there is Atty just cruising along. Made my heart so happy. It's a real feat with his neurological issues. I'm really excited too because it's a good therapy for him! The whole rest of the 4 mile ride he kept up his good attitude, even in the rough spots, I was really proud of him. He's a bike rider now!

The moments when we are all together are the moments I feel the most peace. Such a treasure.