Last Company Coffee of 2011

Today is the day for the last Company Coffee for the year and I am so excited about Rachel's Small Things coming up this year. And also for the big things that we will be doing as well! Yay! I haven't really tried to create as much Sanctuary here at our new place as I did the at old one. And we moved in July. Yeah. I think that pretty much sums it all up.

As it is right now, my house is in major need of a thorough deep clean, I have window treatments that need to go up. I finally did find some that are in our budget and much like the ones that were already here when we moved in, so that is exciting for me. Now I just have to wait til Hubby gets home after work today to show him.

Although the Sanctuary aspect of our home is missing lately, the kids have definitely enjoyed our little projects and work times together this semester break. We have made and decorated Rice Krispie treats (as opposed to cookies) and we have plans to make and decorate sugar cookies and gingerbread houses. These are projects that we work on while Hubby is at work because they stress him out and the kids and I would prefer to not stress him out.

We had a wonderful Christmas and I hope you all did as well. We have had three Christmas celebrations so far. One for Hubby's mom's side of the family, one for Hubby's dad's side of the family, and then our own little family. Tomorrow, we have one more with my mom and brother. I don't know yet if we are going to my mom's house or if they are coming over here but either way, it should be a great time as well.

We have a very full month. Four family Christmas celebrations, two violin performances, one piano performance, Wolf Scouts, Webelo Scouts, Daisy Scouts, working in the classrooms, field trips, illnesses, company in from out of town, you name it. And I love it!

So without further ado, I will turn you over to the other ladies at Company Coffee! Go check them all out and maybe link up yourself! It's a great chance to get to know some great ladies! Have a very Happy New Year!

Wedding Prep - Flower Girl Dress Shopping - Take 1

As promised, I am back with photos from the dress shopping for a flower girl dress. I have decided that I am going to use this photo (to the left) in every post about the wedding. Because it is a picture that the bride-to-be loves and is a flower that she had wanted to use in her wedding until she discovered that the image was a created one, not a photograph.



 But moving on to the pictures now. I cropped the pictures down to just the dress which is something that I wish I had thought of doing before. It really allows me to see each dress individually instead of looking at the smile that my daughter is surprisingly NOT wearing in most of the photos. You'll have to trust me on this. She was tired and hungry and a little bit shy. Which apparently adds up to not smiling when the camera is near her. Away from the camera, she was bouncing and skipping and twirling. Children.

Okay, this is the dress that we are most in love with at this point. It's gorgeous. And the beading on the sash really closely matches the beading on the bride's dress. I am in love with this dress and am really hoping that this is the one that we end up choosing. In the end, it's up to the bride, but at this point, she is also in love with this dress. I will just have to remind her how much we love this dress when we go to look at other ones. We are planning on shopping other stores over the next few months to have Oralee try on dresses and decide which one we absolutely love.

Oh and yes, you do see a veil in the back of this photo. My mother-in-law was holding it above Oralee's head and trying to get her to smile for the picture. But obviously, Oralee will NOT be wearing a veil (although I totally think she could...)

  

This is another dress that we liked quite a bit. I personally love the thick piping around the bottom hem of the tulle, but my mother-in-law and future sister-in-law were not fans of it and that's okay too. Especially since we are all smitten with the dress above.

One other thing that I liked quite a bit about this dress was the sash. It is tulle material but it has a bow and is decorative. When we took the dress off the rack, the bow was in the front center, but the sash is totally removable and when I put it on Oralee, I positioned it to the side to see how it looked and I quite like the look of it that way.






Due to multiple clothing changes, Oralee's hair got quite static-y and I brushed it and was going to put it up in a pony tail to try and alleviate that problem, but no one had a pony tail holder with them. I didn't even have my wallet with me. I was really flying by the seat of my pants! So in a pinch, I did what I could with Oralee's hair, which was a bun with her hair pulled through to secure it. It lasted until the next outfit change and then it was down again. Of course, I couldn't get it back up again after that, but I just loved the way her hair looked so I had to take a picture. I think I am going to do her hair like this more often. How cute is that?!

We had other dresses that we tried on, but I only took pictures of the ones that we liked the best. Lots more dresses to come though! Brace yourself! You will be seeing a LOT of wedding between now and then! :)

Wedding Prep...

My brother-in-law is getting married next year to the most amazing woman. Dan and Jess have been dating for three or four years now and I am so excited for their upcoming wedding! I had been hoping for a couple of years that he'd just propose already and then last year (I believe) he finally did!

So, now we are on to wedding prep. I get to be a part of it, which is super cool to me. Hubby and I didn't have a wedding, so I missed out on all the fun festivities that Jess is planning. And my little Oralee is the flower girl. Tomorrow, we meet with a florist and a bakery and start shopping for flower girl dresses. Of course, we won't actually buy the dress until next year when they are getting married, because Oralee is only five right now and will likely change sizes by then.

I am just so far beyond excited about this whole thing! Jess is amazing and I love her to pieces! She is my sister, even though she hasn't yet become my sister-in-law. We don't hang out (we live about 50 miles apart and we don't travel each other's way very often) but we get along supremely well!

Next year, they are getting married on Koren's ninth birthday. He is ecstatic about it! I mean, how could he not be? He gets to be a part of a HUGE party on his birthday (it isn't his party, but he gets to go to it), he gets to dress up, he gets to stay up late, and he gets his first aunt! ♥ Love that boy!

Hubby has two younger brothers, I have one younger brother. We have no sisters. Jess is greatly needed! :)

And tomorrow, we shop! Can't wait! May even have some pictures to show for it.

Daisy Party

This past Monday was our Daisy meeting. For those of you that may not know, Daisies are the youngest group of Girl Scouts, made up of Kindergartners and First Graders. My Oralee is a Kindergartner. And this past Monday, we met with her other Daisy Scouts and celebrated Juliette Gordon-Low's birthday. Juliette is the founder of Girl Scouts and her birthday is October 31st. She founded Girl Scouts 100 years ago. So this is an important year in Girl Scouts.

We made a card for Juliette and we celebrated all of the girls' birthdays. It was quite a nice time! We also discussed (and earned!) the petals for "being a sister to other Girl Scouts". And the girls also decorated some shirts. It was a lot of fun and Oralee did a fantastic job!

Here is the (VERY!) decorated card that the girls made for Juliette:

I just love the creativity of the girls! They were so into decorating that card! It is quite the change from working with Cub Scouts the last 3-4 years, let me tell you!

Also we got preliminary information on Cookie Sales! We are doing direct sales this year - for the first time! The girls will have cookies that they can sell (and deliver) right away! No more card orders and waiting til March to get your cookies (unless of course, we run out! And even then, we would try to fill the order by getting it from the office or another troop or something. I am really excited about this! Oralee already has probably close to $100 in sales lined up for January 13th. This will be an awesome thing for her! She is so quiet and shy and I think it will really do her quite a bit of good to do the sales and build up her people skills and confidence. She did quite well tagging along with the boys while they were selling popcorn for Cub Scouts.

Very fun and exciting times!

Such Great News

I have already mentioned it briefly <a href="http://catalina-at-home-at-work-at-play.blogspot.com/2011/11/thirty-thankful-days-days-11-15.html">here</a> but recently Hubby has been offered more hours at work. This is great for us! My hours were pretty much set in stone, but I was on call all the time and often would bring (unpaid) work home with me. Recently, I have had some time off from work and during this time, Hubby had been working more hours and has had the time and opportunity to really put his best foot forward at work.

His boss pulled him aside and told him that he had asked around about Hubby and the feedback he had received was very good. Boss said that the only negative feedback that he received about Hubby was that he didn't work often enough (wasn't scheduled enough). So Boss asked him if he would be interested in more hours at work and even asked him what hours he would want to have if given a choice. Hubby said he would prefer to work Monday - Friday closing shifts. That way he would still have his Saturday evenings to spend with his friends and his Sunday evenings for time with our friends as a couple. I can always get out with my friends on Sunday evenings after we spend time with our other friends, if I want to.

Some other really nice things about this would be the increased money that Hubby would earn (he makes 50 cents more per hour when he closes) and the possibility of having a predictable schedule in an industry where predictable schedules are not always the norm. And I would be able to possibly stay home with the kids full-time or just work a few hours each week/on call hours.

I just really hope that the whole thing works out the way that I'm wanting it to. It would, of course, mean that I would be on my own from dinnertime to bedtime with the kids and that I would need to figure out how to coordinate our activity schedules to make that work out. But even still, it would be a small price to pay for the ability to do stay home. During the morning, Hubby would be sleeping and that would allow Jeriah and I time to spend together just the two of us. Then in the afternoon, while Jeriah is at school, that would give me time to spend alone with Hubby or to go in and volunteer during those hours. I would just have a lot of time to get things accomplished around the house if this came about.

Then, in the evenings, we would just follow our normal schedule (although it would be a little more routine simply because I would always be the one doing it - two people never have the same exact routine when left in charge) and I think that would benefit everyone greatly! I have a very Type A personality and am all about scheduling and planning and organizing and my kids also thrive best on a fairly structured schedule.

Well, I'm off. I just had to share this with all of you! Wish us luck!

Thirty Thankful Days - Days 11-15

Click to go to Day 11

Day 11: Today I am thankful for good friends. My best friend of 18 years came into town tonight and we had time to spend together. We were going to just go out the two of us, but at the last minute, we decided to bring our hubbies along as well. And I am so glad that we did! Shea and I had a great time hanging out, chatting and catching up and the guys had a good time as well. It ended up being a pretty late night by the time Hubby and I got home (around 3 am) because we ended up going shopping for a couple of things afterwards and then visiting with another friend at her work (she works 3rd shift) and then coming home. Hubby had to take my mom home along with my two oldest boys (who she allowed to stay up til 3am!) and I promptly fell asleep on the couch. That is why this post is so late in coming.

Click to go to Day 12

Day 12: On this day, we went over to my in-law's house to watch the college football game and even though my mother-in-law and I had a bit of a falling out earlier in the week, we had a nice visit and talked about house remodeling stuff and various things. In the afternoon, she and father-in-law went to watch a movie and allowed us to have a couple of friends come over to visit and play cards, so we did. When they got back from their movie, we all sat around and played a card came called Pitch. It was so much fun and I was thankful once again for friends and also for the kindness from my in-laws.

Click to go to Day 13

Day 13: I was tired. But tired doesn't even begin to cover it. I was exhausted. On Day 11, I had been up way too late (3am) and then ended up waking up around 4 and not being able to fall back to sleep until almost 6, then got up with kids around 7. So about two hours of sleep that night. Then I was awake ALL day on Day 12 - I even laid down with Jeriah to get him to nap and didn't fall asleep! So by the time we got home on Day 12, I was exhausted! The kids went to bed without too much fuss and I crashed hard. I woke up off and on about every two hours but was actually able to fall back to sleep. I woke up for the day around 7 on this day, but thanks to my Hubby was able to take a 2 hour nap. (I let him sleep in til noon.) That nap was so refreshing and necessary! It was fabulous!

Click to go to Day 14

Day 14: That was yesterday. I was thankful for my mother-in-law and her willingness to help me out with time crunches and kids' activities. You see, we live on the north end of town. The older boys, Cephas and Koren, have music lessons on the south side of town at 6:00pm. That's around 10 miles from where we live - or a 30 minute drive. But Oralee also had a Daisy meeting to go to at 6:30pm - the same time the boys get out of music lessons - close to our home. It is not even remotely possible to do both things unless Hubby is home and he wasn't. Because he had to work a closing shift. So my mother-in-law came to my house and picked up all three boys so that I could be with Oralee at her meeting without having to try to chase Jeriah down. She picked them up at 5:00 and then dropped them back off at 8:00. It was really nice that I had her to be able to do that for me. Otherwise, at least one child would have had to miss something and I didn't want for that to happen.

Click to go to Day 15

Day 15: That is today but I already know what I'm thankful for today. This morning when Hubby got home, he told me that his boss wants him to pick up more hours at work. Ideally, the boss would like Hubby to close 5 nights a week, which is good money for us because Hubby makes an additional 50 cents per hour on closing shifts. So today I am thankful for that - and the fact that if this happens, I can stay home full-time with the kids or at the very least, work part-time or even just PRN shifts. It is something that I am totally hopeful for but we will have to wait and see if that is something that will come to fruition.

Thirty Thankful Days - Day 10

Today, I am thankful for time to myself. I had a very rare opportunity this morning to have the house all to myself. There was NO ONE home except for me and the dogs from almost 8 am until nearly 3pm then from 3pm til around 4pm.

In that time, I was able to get a number of things done. I did some laundry, gathered dishes, gathered trash, unloaded the dishwasher, reloaded and ran the dishwasher, cleared off and wiped down all the counters, cleaned the inside of the microwave, cleaned the stove, straightened up everything in the dining room, cleared off and wiped down the bar area, cleared off a bookshelf and moved it, cleared off an endtable, wiped it down, cleared off the couch, dusted the entire living room, top to bottom, washed the living room windows inside and out (double-hung windows that both lean inwards!), cleaned the window sills and frames, dusted and wiped down the bookshelf and put new items back onto it, cleared out the kennels, cleared off the entertainment center, wiped it down, reorganized the shelves, vacuumed, hung window treatments in the living room and front room, changed out a light bulb in Oralee's bedroom. Okay, changing a light bulb may not seem worthy of sharing in a list like this but I think any light bulb change that requires a pair of slip-joint pliers gets to count for SOMETHING, thus, it gets included. And if I ever find out who designed the lighting system in this home....grrr.

So anyhow, I got all that accomplished before noon. So I treated myself to a relaxing rest. I didn't sleep though. I laid on the sofa and texted with a friend. I felt like I had worked hard for a break. But then I kind of didn't get back to it much for the rest of the day. But I feel like I have an amazing starting point for tomorrow!

I am thankful for the solitary time that I had today, for the work that it allowed me to accomplish, the relaxed time it allowed me to spend this afternoon. Sometimes things like that just have the power to rejuvenate me. I feel fired up and ready to tackle more tomorrow!