some things...or something.

A couple random thoughts. This will only take a minute of your time.

(1) All this end of the school year talk has got me realizing that it's been 7 YEARS since I graduated high school! My word! Check me and my siblings out:

(2) Our kids-free vacation starts tonight! I'm certainly not physically prepared (aka I haven't started packing), and whether or not I'm mentally prepared is still up for debate. Ready for a getaway with my sweetheart? Absolutely yes. Ready to not see my girlies? Possibly/hopefully/eventually yes.

(3) My little bro entered the MTC on Wednesday, to learn how to be a missionary while speaking Cantonese. Yep, that tiny little boy in that picture up there is now tall enough that I had to stand on my tiptoes to hug him goodbye. He's going to be an awesome missionary in Hong Kong!

(4) Maddy reading "Chicka Chicka Boom Boom" goes like this:

A B C D E F G...

Chicken chicken boom!

Cliiiiiiimb up the tree!

No more words jumping on the bed!


It's awesome.

(5) I actually don't really have a (5), I'm just stalling. I'm dreading all the packing. Stalling ends...NOW.

Or 5 minutes from now. #samediff

Mysterious ticking noise

If you don't know what that title is referring to, my heart hurts a little bit for you. Watch this and be enlightened.

Greatness.

Our Charly has her own mysterious ticking noise that she's been perfecting for months. I'm thinking she probably won't be able to do it anymore once she gets some top teeth, so I figured I needed to get a video of her doing it. I've been trying for weeks to get a decent video, but she usually gets all excited about having the camera focused on her that she can't perform, so it hasn't been easy. But I finally got this halfway decent recording during breakfast the other day. Don't mind the yogurt drool.

I'll miss those little clicks.

9 months

These monthly photo shoots are getting harder and harder as this little one gets more mobile. It was impossible to get her to stay on her back long enough to get a picture, so we had to try something else. This picture is obviously not perfect, but I love that it shows off her chubby legs and long hair.

Something old, something new, yada yada yada

Something old:

I bought this beauty on Craigslist in early April, and took my sweet time refinishing it into...

something new:

This now lives in our (newly redone, thanks to my 35 things) guest bathroom, where it holds things like swim towels, extra toilet paper, extra soap, etc. Our home is seriously lacking in useful storage space, so I'm pretty much always trying to find solutions. We had a little shelf thing in the bathroom that was nice, but just wasn't cutting it size-wise (oh, p.s. I'm selling that little shelf thing on Craigslist now; if you live by me you can have it for $15. Click here to see it). And I had a hard time finding something that would fit well in that bathroom space and looked just like I wanted it to, so I figured I'd just find something with the right design and fix it up myself.

It wasn't too hard, and it was actually somewhat therapeutic to work on something that had nothing to do with diapers, toys, or applesauce in a pouch. The most frustrating thing about it was just finding time to work on it. If you look too closely, you'll definitely see some imperfections, but I'm generally happy with how it turned out, and I'm VERY happy with the storage it's added. It's cleared up space in our other bathroom cabinets, and there's still plenty of unused room in it. Ah, the possibilities. 

Sticking with our theme, let's move on to something borrowed:

This story begins two weeks ago, when I was feeling relieved that I had survived another grocery trip with my girlies. Everything was loaded up, everyone was buckled in, we had pulled out of our parking spot, and we were just about to zoom ahead to the rest of the day's possibilities when -- THUNK. Yep, I'm going with thunk. That's what it sounded like when the big white truck backed into my driver's side door, obviously not scratching the big white trunk, but leaving a lovely dent in the side of my beloved Mickey (that's my car, FYI). Mickey was still drivable, but definitely needed some work done, so this week he is hanging out at "the shop," as Maddy says, and we're driving a practically new Elantra around. It's a pretty sweet ride, but obviously not as sweet as Mickey...even with the probably better A/C and the XM radio...

Which brings us to something blue.

Which I don't have.

Speaking of weddings, it's our anniversary on Thursday! 4 years! Par-tay!

35 Things: April Update

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Another month gone, another update post. I hope you guys don't mind these too much, because they really keep me on track.

I did my monthly things, plus:

16. Never go to bed with a dirty kitchen for a month. I won't pretend I was perfect at this, but there was really only 2 mishaps: the first involved me completely blowing it off, and the second involved me completely forgetting until the next morning, when I realized (happily) that the kitchen wasn't really dirty anyway. So I'm checking this off the list!

30. Read 32 books. I read three this month, which puts me at only 1 book behind for being on track for my goal (according to Goodreads), and I'm almost halfway done with a book, so I'm feeling good! I read:

The Knife of Never Letting Go by Patrick Ness. This was recommended for people that liked the Hunger Games series, so YA Fiction in all its glory. I really liked it and was only seriously put out by some language. 4 stars.

Better Than You Think You Are by Ardeth Greene Kapp. I read this to hopefully give me a little confidence boost. It worked in the sense that it left me with very positive feelings, but it might not have been "hard core" enough for me. Great for a general pick-me-up, though! 4 stars.

Legend by Marie Nu. Also recommended for Hunger Games fans, also quite good. It was a quick and entertaining read (which, let's face it, is sometimes all I can handle nowadays). And I guess it was a 4 star month, because hey, 4 stars.

Well, what do you know, that's all I did this month! I had some other things planned but I guess they fell through. I was hoping to get the guest bathroom done this month but I'm not quite finished, even though I've made some good progress. Hopefully it'll be done in the next few days.

I'm also thinking it might be a good time to reconsider some of my goals, and decide whether or not they are still important and realistic. There are a couple in particular that I have to do some serious thinking about. And if you have a list of your own, you should do the same. There's no harm (or shame) in reevaluating!

Happy May Day.