What I learned in August.....

I have linked up with Emily P Freeman for a few months now posting What I learned in.......

here is my August one

1. back to school time is bitter sweet
i feel like it am so ready for them to get back to school and then i find that i miss them a ton. either way they are both doing great in school, my son has new found love for school and we could not be more pleased with the teachers that they each got this year. Thankful for it all.

2. ice cream is cheaper than therapy
i have really struggled with a few things this past month and i happen to come across this shirt. I need it in my life. I searched for something similar on my favorite tshirt site Look Human. i was surprised to find how much is cheaper than therapy. just check out this list of tshirts that have things listed that are cheaper than therapy. WHY KNEW?!?!?

3. i love supporting friends on the mission field
We have college friends that are missionaries in Papua New Guiena. I love that we can partner with them and support them while they are away from home. Here is a link to their Booster page, with one day left to help support them and celebrate with them on two years there.

4. finding beauty in my days
just sitting in carline and this beauty landed on my van. the beauty in the mundane.

5. reading books that challenge and push me.
I finished Rising Strong by Brene' Brown and really loved every second of it.

What I learned in July....

i  have only done this for the past few months but it has been fun. Check out more about the What i learned posts on Emily's blog and link up there.

1. how much i love all-inclusive vacations and can't believe it has taken me this long to go on one.
My hubby and I went to Cancun this month to celebrate our 14 years of being married. (yeah, we are weird like that, we celebrate strange years)

2. celebrating my sons birthday with a camping trip was fabulous and so much fun
the past few years we have been doing combined birthday parties for the kids but this year since we did a paint party for little girl we asked golden boy what he wanted to do. he said camping. he wanted us to rent a camper but we took my nephew and two nieces and we just weren't all going to fit in a pop up camper. (which was the only thing that our van could have pulled) it was a quick weekend but I think that the kids had a fantastic time.

3. i have good genes or so we have been told. I posted this picture on my dads 60th birthday and it was commented two or three time how they want whatever my parents are taking. this picture is straight off of my phone.  no editing. my parents don't look even close to 60.

here is a picture of the originals.
My little sister, mom, me and my dad
we got to spend some time together, just the four of us, the last weekend of the month. it was my dads 60th birthday

here are my other links:

June

May

March

What I learned in June........

1. my daughter can now count her age on two hands

 this was her last night as a five year old

here she is the morning of her 6th birthday. she wasn't feeling well. it was sad.

where did the time go

2. planning and preparing parties are fun for me but not so much for my hubby. it ended up being a hit though. see the party post here.

3. vbs is near and dear to my heart......especially when you find out that this is the last year our church will be participating in a traditional vbs. they are moving to an all day type camp. (good for dual income families and single parents) i love their heart

4. vbs is exhausting. it was a great week. the specific job that i do stretches me and pushes me out of my comfort zone. i met new people and had to speak on a microphone. aaaaakkkkkk. also it kept me busy, which was good because it distracted me from thinking continually about the fact that golden boy was at away summer camp. that he is even old enough to do that amazes me. that he was brave enough to want to go without knowing anyone impresses me. he is one incredible kid.

5. spending alone time with just one kid is so great. i love my little family of four. i love when we are all together. but for my hubby and i to get to spend time with just one kiddo is a lot of fun. here i am with little girl, we took her out to a fancy dinner and got dessert too

she asked if we could pose. I complied.

and here i am with golden boy, after we picked him up from camp we took him to the florida coast where we spent one night. we had a lot of fun with him. check out this post for that adventure.

What I learned May

That i can paint: my friend Kelly invited me to a paint party. I have only ever been to one other of these. it was strange going but overall i think we both did pretty good and now we can say we are painters.

here is the before. the instructor sketched a bit of a layout so we knew where and when we were painting

here are the two of us in different stages of our painting

here is another stage of my picture

trees added

i didn't like my swirls. they looked weird to me

the finished product

and both of us with our finished paintings

WE ARE ARTISTS!

that i could be a farm girl: I went on a field trip with my daughters class to a local farm. fully functioning farm and I love every single but of it. I even got to milk a cow.

that we can have chickens (we will see if that happens): In keeping with the above farm theme I found out that we can indeed have chickens. I am hoping that works out.

that camping continues to be my favorite: this was the second year that we went camping with my parents and had a lot of fun. we added another day to the trip so that made it nice too. we ate some great food and went on a nice hike. and of course when Bear and Golden boy are together there is going to be fishing.

I am still in love with steel city pops: last year when i found our we were getting a steel city pops i wrote this post about all of the flavors that I wanted to try. (really i just want to try them all) but this month i had my first Popsicle of the summer, Avocado. it was amazing and reminded me oh how i love Steel City Pops. my other post lists some that i still have not tried but to add to the list here are a few more:

Cherry Sour Cream

Blood Orange

Champagne White Tea

Lavender Lemonade

Mango

Raspberry Lemon

Strawberry Balsamic

this is the last month that I will have a five year old: how did we get to this point. I mean wasn't is just yesterday that she was born.

What I learned in April...

1. Working out is hard work and not my favorite thing to do.
I have been working through my pin boards on Pinterest and am realizing that i am not crazy about this whole working out thing. I do enjoy the arm routines that I have done but everything else.....ugh. i can leave it. but i know that i am getting older and i need to stay healthy.
Here are my boards:
Awesome Arms Board
Workouts Board
Lean legs Board and Flat tummy Board

2. The end of the school year is rapidly approaching and I am ready of it, but also, not.
with only 15 and a half days left the race is on to finish out this year strong.

3. Walking with my friend has been one of my things I look forward to each week.
i met her when my son was 2 and i tell people that her daughter was his first friend. they were always so fun to watch play together. we don't attend the same church anymore but i love that we can still connect almost every week over a hour and a half or so of some intense walking and talking. she is a runner but i am thankful that she humors me and chooses to walk with me once a week. i am so blessed by our time together.

4. Watching my son play baseball gets better every game.
check him out here at one of his recent games

5. Hard work pays off.
little girl has been getting better and better at gymnastics every week. her coach was out for two weeks and she has been working on a bunch of different things with her but her cartwheel was one of them. over the two weeks she was off, little girl has gotten surprisingly better at it. she practices more. i think she was afraid of really getting those legs up and over and what would happen but one day she just did it. there was a lot of hooting and hollering on my part. i was pretty excited for her.

What I learned in March

Hi I am new to this, so here goes.......

I have occasionally hopped on over to Emily P. Freeman's Blog.

I have read three of her books and have loved every single one if them. Because i am an occasional reader of her blog, i missed the "What we Learned....." series. I happened to catch it this morning and think it is something that i want to jump into this year. Sure i am two months behind but that is ok. I am fine with that. #beingflexible

I think i need to be a more regular reader of her blog though. especially since her books where go great.   

1. Mrs Meyer's everything is my favorite. I may have an addiction. the honeysuckle is probably my favorite right now.  Learning how to incorporate more all natural products into our home.

photo credited to Myquillyn at The Nester

2. My skin hasn't been this clean in so long. My little sis has been selling Younique make up and I have purchased quite a few items from her. Before this I rarely wore make up. Since buying it i wear it almost every day. it isn't an overwhelming amount either. I still wash and moisturize my face with the same stuff that I have used for awhile but then I apply the primer and either use the pressed powder foundation or the liquid foundation which has been dubbed "liquid gold", and truly it is. I love it. The bronzer i use is Hermosa. I have three of the Lip Stains: sleek, sappy, and shy, two lipsticks: upscale and affluent and the splurge cream eye shadow in "Dainty"

If you are at all interested in trying out Younique makeup i am hear to say that you will not be disappointed. My sister can help you out. you can find her Younique page here or find her on Facebook here.  I am learning how to better use make up and still look natural with it. not going to overboard.

here i am wearing the primer, powder foundation, bronzer and the lip stain "shy" with a bit of the lipstick "upscale" over it.

3. Baseball started for my little guy. I have a love hate relationship with baseball. I love watching my little guy play. i hate how long the season it. I am trying to relish in this time because i know that it will go quickly and i won't have the time back. there may be a day that he doesn't want to play anymore, so i am trying to soak up all of his play time and enjoying being on the sidelines cheering for his team.

4. Easter has become one of my favorite holidays. The past few years I have done the She Reads Truth Lent studies (2016) and have loved them so much. My early years growing up we were Catholic. We went to Mass, we gave up things for Lent (and didn't always stick with it), we went to Catholic school. It wasn't until I was in third grade that we started attending a  non-denominational church and learned about having a realtionship with the God who created us. At that point we stopped doing everything that we had done the Catholic way. Giving up something for Lent was not something that we practiced anymore. Three years ago when I did my first SRT Lent study I gave something up and it had been the first time I had done it in years, since I was a kid. Another thing is love about it is that I try for the most part to keep it personal. Sure there are a few people that know about it but I don't walk around talking about and say what I gave up for Lent. I mean, that is not what it is all about right? It is something that you sacrifice, that helps bring you closer in your relationship with the Lord. not something that you need to let everyone know that you are doing and compare how your gift is greater than someone elses or feel less about what you gave up. I think this act of giving up, as an adult has really helped me to focus on the Lord during this time and carry it over into day to day life after Lent.

5. Spend the time with those you love because you are never guaranteed tomorrow. My Nana-in-law went to Heaven at the the end of March. She is now whole and celebrating with our Lord.