Life with Three: 3 Things Easy, 3 Things Hard

One of the biggest gifts that blogging has given me, is the opportunity to look back and read what life was like a few years ago. When I read those old posts, that are filled with our normal everyday life, I'm always glad that I wrote them. For someone else, those posts might have been a snooze fest, but for me, they're treasures. 

Words+Photos. 

I'm so thankful for the opportunity to write down what our "right now" is.

It's almost been 3 months since I became a Momma of three, 4 and under. 

So, what's been easier that I expected and what's been harder?

 Life with Three: What's been easier that I anticipated

•Sleeping. I sleep pretty well, thanks to Eliza and I don't feel sleep deprived like I thought I would. When I was pregnant, I dreaded the sleepless night, but thankfully, it hasn't been too bad. Again, thanks Eliza!

One benefit of having the kids close in age is that they all still nap every afternoon. With them napping at the same time, I have time for reading, getting caught up on laundry, blogging or whatever.

•Going places. Going to the park, Costco, Target, church, the grocery store and all of those other important places has been easier than I anticipated. I'm not saying it's EASY, but it hasn't been super tricky, like I thought it would be. I think a big part of this is the fact that we just do it. We need to get out and go and since we do it, it doesn't really scare me. 

•Keeping up with laundry and cleaning. Again, this isn't easy and my house would definitely not pass a white glove test, but I feel like I've been able to pretty much keep up with it. 

 Life with Three: What's hard right now

•Having time for me. Getting up early enough to shower and get ready in the morning is super tricky these days. Finding the time to take care of myself, eat well, and not feel like a total frumpy Mom is hard. Pretty much daily, I get pooped on, peed on and spit up on. And you wonder why I wish showering was easy.....

•Keeping up with Paisley. She's 2, going on 20 and most days, she's way ahead of me. Daily shenanigans include: hoping out of her crib, after her nap and trying to change her own poopy diaper and unraveling a roll of paper towels, because she was going to "clean up" her spilled cereal, and let's not forget the emotions. Oh boy, she keeps me busy!

•Only being able to be in one place at a time. It's moments like when the sun is shining and the kids want to play in the pool, but I'm sitting and feeding Eliza and the dog needs to go out and dinner needs to be made and someone's knocking on the door, that make me feel like I'm spread really thin. Often, everybody needs something, but there's only ONE of me, that's one of the hardest things about this season. 

Now I'm off to make smoothies, feed a baby and figure out what's for dinner.
What's easy in your life right now and what's hard?
♥ Angela

Father's Day Weekend

After tucking the kids into bed and then tucking them in again, I warmed up a cup of Peppermint tea and thumbed through an old photo album, filled with pictures from when I was a little girl. This picture below is of my Dad and I. This dress was one of my favorites- so much so that my Mom saved it for me and now it's hanging in my girl's room, waiting until Eliza is big enough to fit into it.

We had my Dad over this weekend and barbecued hamburgers, which happen to be one of his favorites. My relationship with him isn't one of those relationships that a Hallmark card easily sums up. Our relationship was good when I was little, pretty absent when I was a teenager (my parents divorced when I was 12) and then over the last few years, our relationship has grown again.

There are so many Father's Day posts where the writer is all like "You're the best Dad ever. You've always been there, you're the perfect example." My post isn't really like that. My post is maybe more about redemption. A happy post, sharing that even broken bridges can get fixed.

I've learned that as soon as I let go of the way I think things should be, I'm content. I don't have that perfect relationship that most of the Father's Day cards speak of, but I do have a relationship with my Dad that is filled with grace and understanding. I feel like I kind of get him now. He's quirky and darn it, I'm quirky too.
My card to him was a homemade one, with my own words. Words that gave an "IOU an Ice Cream Date". I enjoy being around him and so do my kids. It's good and I'm thankful.

This weekend, he looked me in the eyes and told me to remember all of the good stuff and to forget all of the times he messed up. If only my teenager self could have seen the renewed relationship, grace and understanding that would later come.........

***There's always hope! For you, for me.

After we ate our burgers, we headed out into the backyard and had homemade ice cream sandwiches. As you can see, they were a hit with Paisley.

Before her ice cream sandwich, this chair was white. Seriously.

Today we celebrated my husband. He's definitely a fun Dad because he decided that he wanted to take the kids to Chucke Cheese on his special day. I go there out of obligation and he goes there because he wants to have fun with them. It's obvious who the fun parent is, isn't it? Ha!

Wrapping this up, I've got to share a couple pictures of our baby birds. We're going to be sad to see these little guys go!

Last night I had a dream that our screen door was left open and when they flew away from the nest, they flew into our house and pooped ALL over. Like, the floors and walls were covered with gigantic super-sized bird poop. Glad that was just a dream!
♥ Angela

Tiny Prints Birth Announcement

Back in March, when Eliza was still kicking around in my tummy, I started dreaming about her birth announcements. In this post, I shared a few of my favorite announcements from Tiny Prints and promised that after our sweet girl was here, and we got settled in, I'd share the announcement that we chose.

Well finally, I'm sharing her announcement. I love it SO very much. I'll be sending these to out of town family and friends who we don't see very often and of course, I already put one in her bedroom, because I just love looking at it.

{front}

{front and back}

Tiny Prints has the best announcements, thank you cards, invitations and photo gifts. Today only, they are featuring all of their Thank You Cards for 50% off. Such a great deal!

To view more of their Birth Announcements, click here. Eliza's announcement exceeded our expectations!
♥ Angela

This post is sponsored by Tiny Prints. As always, these opinions are 100% mine and I'll only write about products that I genuinely love. 

Buckets of Treasures and a Robin

Tonight my husband worked late. I have a cold and feel awful. The kids had yogurts, granola bars and carrot muffins for dinner. Just when I thought it was going to be the longest evening ever, we decided to go outside and spend our time before bed hunting for treasures.
Best idea ever.
 We filled buckets with flowers, rocks, leaves and whatever else they wanted to claim as a treasure.

Directly above our kitchen window, a robin built her nest. We've been having the best time watching how she sits on her eggs and leaves for only a few minutes. We even looked up Robins online and read all about them. I never knew that learning about a bird with my kids would be such a thrill, but it really is. We're totally attached to this bird, Paisley was even asking about her while we grocery shopped the other day. We love her and we've named her Robin. Clever, huh? Ha!

Tonight we noticed that she was flying off and coming back with food, over and over again. I think the eggs must have hatched because she looked like she was feeding her little ones.

When we spotted her nest, I was afraid that our noise would totally freak her out. I guess we aren't as scary as I thought because she's stayed and she seems pretty comfortable with our craziness.

I'm just aching to see into that nest and see the babies, but there's no way we can really do that without totally freaking her out. So, I'm trying to tame my curiosity. Seriously, I think I'm worse than the kids.

♥ Angela

Birthday Cake Cookies

Hey there! How's your week going so far? At our house, it officially feels like summer vacation has started and it feels so good. Eliza has been sleeping super well at night- 3 nights in a row with a 7-8 hour chunk, we've been outside a ton and today we're going to get the rest of the garden planted.

I feel so behind on gardening this year, but I'm trying to be okay with it. Our peas, lettuce, cabbages and onions are thriving, but the zucchinis and pumpkins still need to be planted. Today the gal at the Country Store said we still have lots of time so,  I'm choosing to believe her and rest in that.

A few weeks ago, we had dinner at a friend's house and I was in charge of dessert. I decided to make two different types of cookies, a lemon one that hopefully the adults would love (I'll be sharing that recipe soon) and these sprinkle "Birthday Cake" cookies, that were more suited for the kids.

This cookie recipe is super fast to whip up and these happen to be some of my kids favorite. They're soft and they taste like a Party Cake in a cookie. It doesn't get much better than that!

Birthday Cake Cookies

1 (15.25 ounce) box Funfetti Cake Mix
2 eggs
1/3 cup vegetable oil
1/3 cup powdered sugar

4 tablespoons Sprinkles

DIRECTIONS:
Preheat oven to 375 degrees.

In a bowl, mix together the cake mix, eggs and oil. In a small bowl, combine the powdered sugar and sprinkles. Drop spoonfuls of dough into the powdered sugar mixture, roll it around and form into a ball. Place on the cookie sheet and bake for about 6 minutes, watching closely and removing when the edges just begin to brown.

Leave cookies on cookie sheet for about 5 minutes, before transferring to a wire cooling rack.

Makes approx. 2 dozen cookies.

Have an extra happy day.
♥ Angela

Weekend Shenanigans

This weekend I left Eliza for the first time and went to get a cut and color. When I left, I literally started crying. I know...you'd think that I would've been happy to be out alone, but not so much. When I drove away, I felt like I left part of me at home, it was so weird. I was so nervous, wondering how she'd do. Of course, Super Dad rocked it and our baby napped almost the entire time I was gone. When she awoke, she drank some bottle-which has NEVER happened before, I didn't even know if she'd take one. With lots of text updates and check-ins, I survived just fine as well. Actually, I really enjoyed sitting there, reading the celebrity junk magazines that I never read. 

My hair hasn't had color on it in over 4 years so, these new blonde highlights are a fun change. I was feeling a bit frumpy and sometimes change is good.

Here's a picture of what happens when my curls get combed out. Hello, super fro. 

Why you SHOULDN'T comb out curls.........

The weather here has been so nice and we've been outside a ton. The other night, I was out with Eliza, right before bedtime. While I picked peas, she hung out with me.
One more awesome use for a wheelbarrow.....

'The Artists Daughter' is one of the many books that I'm reading this summer. Finally, it seems like I'm getting into the habit of taking time to read. This book is the one that I'm going through with a group of women from our church. I've never been part of a "book club" type of thing before, but I feel like this group of ladies is going to be a huge blessing.
Here's to coffee, a good book and Bible time with friends.....

Saturday morning we went to a garage sale that was raising money to cover the funeral expenses for a family in our community that recently passed away in a car accident. So sad. At the sale, I found these frames and while the kids napped, I painted them with chalkboard paint.

After the paint dried, the kids colored the frames with chalk and then I framed some of their artwork.

I hung the frames in the kids play room area, that's really needed to be decorated. There's still so much that I'd like to do with this room, but the kids love these frames and I love seeing their artwork on the walls so, we're headed in the right direction. 

Progress.

Another treasure I found at the garage sale are these tea cups. The succulents were given to me for Mother's Day, from my Mom and sister and I've been meaning to plant tea a cup garden for a long time. But, you know....it's not like I've been busy or anything.

Finally, the tea cup garden is complete. 

A weekend happy...

Red poppies on the table. 

We wrapped the weekend up by going on a long overdue date. With our third wheel, we grabbed some Subway and headed to the beach.

This man is an amazing Dad....and I think he's pretty attractive as well.
I'm blessed. 

What was the best part of your weekend?
♥ Angela

The Summer to Just Be

We had dinner in the backyard last night. It was the second time this week that we've spread out a picnic blanket, kept the kitchen clean and ate something simple outside. Last night it was egg salad sandwiches, which seemed totally acceptable for dinner, when served on paper towels and a striped picnic blanket.

 After dinner, while the kids played with neighbors, Jeremiah chopped a little firewood and then made a fire. We invited the neighbor kids to stay for s'mores and before long, the backyard was a flurry of activity, and sticky s'more faced children.

As the kids played around, I laid on a blanket in the shade with Eliza and stared at the blue sky. As I laid there, with my wee one, I realized that it's maybe been years since I've just stared at the sky. I'm always doing, going, moving, from one thing to another. There'a always something that needs to be done and honestly, I'm pretty good at keeping up because I never stop...to just be.

My word for the year was Enjoy and even as we've drifted into June, that word has still floated around in my mind. I'm convinced that this season with my little ones, is not only for surviving, but it's also for enjoying. The word "Be" is my word for this summer. With many unfinished projects surrounding me, it'd be easy for me to power on doing-doing-doing, but God's been really telling me that  this is my season to be, to slow, to enjoy.

This summer is the only summer we'll ever have with a 4 year old, a 2 year old and a little baby. It's my season for pushing kids on swings, having campfires with my family, breaking out the picnic basket routinely, feeding my baby in a lawn chair, saying "yes" when my kids want to show me new tricks and intentionally getting together with friends.

I've realized lately that those of us who are always so busy being "do'ers", might be missing out on some important moments, because we aren't slowing down to be a"be-er". Often I refer to myself as a recovering Type-A because that's not really how I want to be. I don't enjoy the fact that I always want to have everything done. Learning to stop and just be is a challenge for me, but it's something I'm striving for.

This is the summer to be with my kids, without distractions, to realize that multi-tasking can wait, to be aware of the blessings around me, more than what's on my list.
Happy Friday, friends. Maybe take some time this weekend to just be?
♥ Angela