Yes, yes. I'm a mess.

It's time for a confession.

I'm a mess.

Quite literally, I'm a mess.

Our house is a mess. My hair is a little flat and frizzy, and my blog is a construction zone.

To make up for it, I decided to throw in a pretty flower picture. (above)

I happen to believe that throwing pretty pictures into just about any blog post will redeem any other blogging faux pas one might have. And in case you haven't noticed, my blogging as of late has been sporadic at best. Right now, in fact, I should be writing a blog post to wrap up the final adventures of our summer, but I'm so much a mess that I just can't bring myself to do it.

So, tonight, I decided to confess what the sam heck is going on around here.

It all started about a month and a half ago, when I spent my last day as a daycare provider. I think I've mentioned before (vaguely) that we had some career changes on the horizon, and this would be that of which I spoketh. I left my career in corporate America... No wait... That's not me; that's Nicolas Cage in The Family Man. What I meant to say is, I ended my day job as a daycare provider to embark upon starting my own business as a web designer.

I very much enjoy designing websites. If you've been around here for more than a year and witnessed the metamorphosis of my blog, you may have surmised as much.

Anyhow, web design is the new frontier for this cowgirl, with a side of teaching piano lessons.

So, basically, ever since the end of July when I ended my illustrious daycare career, we've been in one whopping state of transition. We've transitioned Little Blue Eyes into being a kindergartner. We've transitioned the kids into different sleeping arrangements. I've begun to think about the transition of having a new baby arriving in about four months and spent several moments thumbing through baby clothes in preparation for the little one. (Yes! That's right... I'm still pregnant!) We've been rearranging things around the house, organizing, sorting, packing up things for Good Will, etc., etc... (And it should be noted, in my increasingly rotund state, all of these things take me longer than they normally would.) And, last but not least, I've been transitioning into my new career rolls.

Mmmmm. Rolls. I'm pretty sure I should've spelled that 'roles'. But now that I've made the typo I can't stop thinking about how good a cinnamon roll... No! No! A pecan caramel roll! Yes! Yes... a pecan caramel roll sounds soooo good right now.

Sorry, I digress. Just consider that a little glimpse into my psyche now that I'm gestating a wee one in my womb. I love food. I love to eat food. I love to even just think about food. It gives me joy in my soul.

And here I am digressing again...

It's no wonder I can barely gather my thoughts enough to write a coherent blog post.

All I want to say, really, is I'm sorry for the current mess around here. Well, I'm not really sorry for it. I'm actually thankful for it; excited for it; thankful for this new chapter in our lives. However, I am sorry that my blogging has been negligent. And now, in case you haven't noticed, I'm in a state of current blog-design overhaul, with a goal of getting this site all spiffed up, as well as my new web design business site, before I officially launch myself as a web designer.

So that's where I'm at. Thank you for being patient. Please continue to be patient. And I hope you are doing well. One of these days I plan to become not only an avid blog writer again, but also an avid blog reader, so I can catch up with y'all.

Events of the Summer - A Little Getaway

It's a strange sort of morning.

Strange because it rained and thundered last night.

Strange because it's still gloomy and breezy outside.

Stange because when I look through the screened-in window, I keep thinking it looks like it's raining. I'm sure it is actually raining. I swear I see raindrops falling. And then when I look at the sidewalk I see no water droplets and determine that it is not. Does anyone else have this problem when looking out screened-in windows?

Strange because my little boy has started kindergarten this week, and our schedules are all kiddy-wompus. While I have actually enjoyed the last couple days of getting up early and sending him off, I realized last night that he needed to stay home today. He has a cold with a little cough, he's been having growing pains in his legs and arms, he got a chancre sore on his bottom lip, and last night he was just utterly beside himself with exhaustion. This kindergarten business is hard stuff.

Despite being under the weather, he is up playing with his sister this morning, happily reunited for a day. And what are they playing? School.

So, it just seems like a good morning to sit and eat my toast (with homemade triple berry rhubarb jam, btw... scrumptious!), sip a little tea, and blog a little.

So let's get back to what I've been writing about... The events of the summer. Today I wanted to share with you a little getaway we took in July, with the kids, to a cozy little German town.

A cozy little German town with... A Holiday Inn. And a Holiday Inn with... A pool.

My husband, God bless him, keeps them busy in the pool for hours. They jump in, and he catches them. They jump in, and he catches them. They jump in, and he catches them. They jump in...

You get the picture.

It makes them very happy.

It was also a Holiday Inn with... Room service!

Room service made me very happy.

We only stayed for one night, so after our night of pool time and room service at the hotel, we toured the town the following day. It was especially fun for Mr. Blue Eyes and I, as we used to live in the town and it's where we were married. We showed the kids the somewhat scary looking apartment we lived in the first year of our marriage...

I think everyone should live in a somewhat scary apartment once in their lifetime, especially one where the upstairs neighbor has snakes as pets. It builds character.

We took the kids to the restaurant where I worked...

Miss Peaches had her first taco salad, and since she loves to assemble her food, this was quite exciting.

We toured the charming little German town...

Toured the local brewery (because that's what you do while on vacation with small children)...

...where the kids and I enjoyed the sweet libation of root beer, and Mr. Blue Eyes enjoyed root beer as well as non-root beer.

We even did a little shopping and squeezed ourselves into a small dressing room while Mr. Blue Eyes was trying on shorts...

Somehow this is my favorite picture of the whole trip. It may end up being our Christmas card this year.

It was a lovely little getaway. I so enjoyed it.

Up next... A smattering of other events of the summer to get us up to speed and back to the present!

Events of the Summer - Birthday Party!

In the middle of July we celebrated Miss Peaches' 4th birthday, and basically it was... wonderful.

Why so wonderful?

Wonderful for so many reasons...

Wonderful because we just love our little girl.

Wonderful because for one blissful, shining moment in time, my house was clean.

Wonderful because we had pancakes.

(I think the adults were more excited about that than the kids!)

Wonderful because our house was adorned in splashes of princesses and pink.

Wondeful because it's just wonderful to be surrounded by family and friends.

Miss Peaches, the budding little culinary student that she is, was in on the action of preparing some of the food...

(helping with the cake... buttermilk strawberry... yum!)

(constructing fruit kebabs)

...which, in addition to the cake and fruit kebabs, included cupcakes, pancakes of three varieties (rainbow sprinkle, chocolate chip, and blueberry), juicy maple orange ham, cheesy hashbrown casserole and deviled eggs.

Not to toot my own horn or anything, as I was the creator and cook of the whole menu, but...

Yum!

I think I could eat that meal every day of the week and twice on Sundays.

There was birthday cake...

A pile of guests...A pile of presents...

(Yes, that's me and my baby bump in the pink stripes!)

There was bike riding and playtime with a bunch of her favorite people...

And a puppy in a tu-tu...

Can a girl ask for anything more on her 4th birthday?

She even took time to get a picture with her old mother...

Sigh. It was such a lovely little birthday party.

(I may 'sigh' and comment on how lovely our events of the summer have been for all of these posts, so be forewarned.)

Up next... A little family getaway! Stay tuned!

(I told you it's been eventful around here!)

Events of the Summer - Lake Time

Well, hi there!

How are you?

And where has the summer gone?

I'm really sorry I haven't been in touch. The past month and a half has been a whirlwind of activity, events, photographs, landscape projects, gardening, parties, lakes, pools, sandals, puppies, kittens, lions, tigers and bears.

Oh my.

Not really the 'lions, tigers and bears' part, but the rest is true.

I wish I'd had time to blog it all along the way, but here we are, blogless for almost two months, so obviously that didn't happen. Instead I'll get you up to speed with a little synopsis of some of the bigger events via a smattering of blog posts.

Up first: Lake time!

Over the 4th of July (yes, like six weeks ago... could I be more behind?) we spent a night at my sister's lake cabin and we. had. a. BLAST! Well, the kids has a blast. For me it was mostly just relaxing. Which is sort of a blast, as far as I'm concerned, just in a low-key sort of way.

The kids swam and swam and swam and swam...

They caught their first fish...

Little Blue Eyes and Mr. Blue Eyes went tubing...

...while Miss Peaches and I were quite happy (or not quite so happy, in her case) to just stay in the boat...

There was ice cream...

Raspberry lemonade...

Wet dogs...

And fireworks over the lake...

Sigh. It was such a lovely little lake getaway.

Up next...

Miss Peaches birthday party! It was all about princesses, pancakes, pink, and perfection. More tomorrow!

Still Here!

Quick FYI: I'm still around! Blogging has simply been at the bottom of the list of things to do these days... So much activity with all this summer weather! Also, wrapping up some personal business details, and busy checking out Squarespace's new platform, Squarespace 6! So... I'll be back soon! Hope your summer is going well!!!