Dad's Day

I always knew Matt would be the best sort of dad but it's still been a blessing to watch him love our kids through the years. When he walks through the door at 6:30pm, all three kiddos make a break for him. The nightly fight is who gets to sit by Daddy at dinner. And even on nights when he's working late they always make sure to tell me as I'm tucking them in, "Send Daddy in to say good night."

In honor of Father's Day, I wanted to pull some pictures of Matt and the kids from the past 6 1/2 years. I started looking through my files and realized I have a approximately a bajillion so it took some work to narrow them down. I grabbed my favorites - the ones that I felt captured some important moments, both big and small.

The moment he first became a dad...

the joy of his first son...

  holding a newborn daughter and realizing he was going to have to give her away...someday...

...and realizing her baby blues weren't in fact going to turn brown.

Always playing...

(even after a hard day's work...)

snuggling...

and goofing.

Flying high with his princess...

passing on Macker wisdom to his little man...

...and cherishing the baby stage one more time around.

  AND happily sharing his birthday cakes with one...

two...

...three little ones.

Happy Father's Day, Matt.

We love you.

forty ♥

June 19, 1971 these two crazy kids walked down the aisle.

So glad they did and so glad they chose love all of these years.

Thanks for the example of what it means to be married...

Happy 40th anniversary, Mom & Dad!

{last} t-ball game

Dylan had his last t-ball game of the season this morning. Here is a little glimpse into how we have been spending our weekday evenings and Saturday mornings these past couple of months.

Playing "pitcher". We are always very serious about our t-ball-ing.

Determination. 

[The boys graduated to coach pitch halfway through the season.]

The sisters found a new hangout spot to beat the heat.

Medals: always a bonus.

"Can I have my picture taken with Dylan??" -Ella

Dylan's teammate and buddy Gibson.

Watching t-ball is very entertaining because there is a lot of room for error - great if you're in the stands, not so great if you're one of the coaches. It was fun to watch the teams get better as the season progressed (by game 8 there were even some legitimate outs) and we'll see how many more games on these fields are in our future 

(Ella is quite enamored by the little girl teams with their pony tails and visors...we just might be watching two kids play next year!)

let's take the "work" out of workout {Six Month Mark!}

Today marks the end of Week 26 of our workout challenge.

26 weeks, 5 workouts per week, 4 friends: 520 workouts in all!

Everyone is still standing and it's been quite a ride.

I have a feeling we are just getting started.

Here is some of what I have learned in the past six months:

1. Just start. If we hadn't made the choice to say yes 6 months ago, we wouldn't be where we are now. Take it one step at a time. Even when it's hard, overwhelming or scary. Especially then. 
2. It really does take a village. In our culture, we are very individual-based and it seems weak to depend on other people. Let me be very clear: I would NOT have made it past week one without these girls. Get yourself a community. Now.
3. The clothes matter. This might be a girl thing, but you feel better when you workout in something that makes you feel good. Added bonus: great workout clothes don't have to be expensive (Target and Old Navy are two of my favorite sources).
4. I DO have 15 minutes a day. One of the biggest excuses out there is that there isn't enough time. I have found out that I really do have more than enough time especially when I manage my time well. I have more energy and am usually more productive on the days I workout as well.
5. Variety is the spice of life. Since my last update, we have also discovered bike riding, walking, canoe-ing, hula hooping, and 10K training. We have paddle boarding and water aerobics on our summer to-do list as well.
6. Everything exercise is spiritual. True story. We are meant to live our lives as whole beings - it doesn't work to segment things off and pretend one area of our life doesn't effect the others.
7. Yep, I'm worth it. To all you moms: we pour a lot of ourselves into other people. This sounds so cliche, but you need to invest in yourself too. You'll be a better wife, mom, worker, friend, I promise.

The first one of us had a birthday this week which means our 31st year is winding down and we're looking ahead to 32. We were discussing over dinner last night what the past 6 months has meant to us. We have all grown a lot and some of that is due to our experiment with exercise. We started out by wanting to push ourselves physically and ended up pushing ourselves mentally and spiritually as well.

Year 31 means something different to each one of us but some common themes are...

saying yes

becoming aware of the possibilities

intentional living

finding our true selves

giving, choosing & living life.

Proud of what we have accomplished in the past six months. Proud to call these girls friends.

And really, really excited to see what is next.

big brother extraordinaire

I've been in a reminiscent sort of mood lately - I recently took this picture of Dylan pushing Mady around the neighborhood and then remembered a similar shot I took of Ella and him several summers ago.

Dylan is such a great big brother. Yes, he bugs his sisters but mostly he takes great care of them - he saves half of his birthday treats from school to share with Ella when he gets off the bus. He helps Mady get her shoes on so she can get outside (her favorite!) just a little bit faster. And he is always eager to help out by giving his sisters a push in the stroller.

He just needs frequent reminders NOT to drive the stroller like a race car ;)

front closet + paper piles clean-up

It's Memorial Day weekend and I finally crossed a couple of items off my organizational to do list: the front closet and our paper files piles.

We have three coat closets in this house (no mudroom to speak of but many, many coat closets). We use one for the kids crafts/games, one for coats (crazy!) and one as a catch-all for just about everything else - winter coats, the vacuum, scrapbook supplies, a filing cabinet, extra shoes, small electronics, etc. Basically it was a giant mess and I dreaded opening the door.

{Please excuse the lack of a before picture - trust me, it was bad}

After.

I have been gathering ideas from organizing blogs these past few months, trying to figure out the best system for us. (The post that first got me thinking: this one from Young House Love. The post that really got me moving: this series from IHeart Organizing.)

 

Since the only coats I need to store in here are kid's coats, I figured it would be OK to add a small bookshelf ($20 at Target). Before everything just sat on the ground in a big pile which was not helpful. This closet now neatly holds everything we need it to: paperwork, scrapbook supplies, stationary, exercise equipment, electronics, a cooler, and the vacuum. It's still a catch-all but at least it's an organized catch-all (thank you, Mr. Label Maker).

For the paper portion of the closet, I borrowed a lot from this post about organizing files in binders instead of filing cabinets. I couldn't resist these cool binders from Target and the file boxes (for papers that are waiting to be filed) are from Ikea (can you say cheap?!) 

I also made a big effort to go paperless a few months ago. As I was sorting through our mess of papers it was amazing to me how little we actually needed to save - most of the information is available on-line if we ever needed to access it.

 

I think I am sold on this binder method - it just seems easier to pull one of these off the shelf instead of looking through a filing cabinet and they take up a lot less space. For now, I still have a file box sitting on the floor for some of the items we rarely need to get at and all our old tax returns are in a black box sitting on the shelf. {Next up on my organizational to do list: a recipe binder as featured here - original credit goes to H-ville mom/blogger Kamarah).

The papers that I need day-to-day easy access to I keep in these folders on my kitchen counter. Just the simple task of labeling some file folders (that I already had) has made things just a tad bit less stressful around here.

Long story short, this is working for us - there's a place for everything, we're no longer buried in paper, and I actually enjoy opening this closet door. 

Happy long weekend! 
 

preschool, class of '11

So, so proud of our little preschool graduate. I can't believe she's done with this phase already and that I won't be picking a child up from Maple Tree Preschool next year (for the first time in three years).

Daddy and her celebrated this morning with a special Daddy-Daughter breakfast at the Rainbow Grill before school. Big Brother is proud of her too :)

Ella and her buddy Xavier before the graduation ceremony.

A little shy on stage but she still sang her heart out (compared to her brother two years ago who practically fell asleep up there).

Construction paper graduation hats + diplomas = adorable.

A preschool favorite: Every day is a victory!

Our little Ella Bella, moving on up!

proof!

When we looked at this picture I took of Mady yesterday, Matt and I were both struck by how much she looks like Ella. I remembered taking a picture of Ella around the same age (Ella was closer to two, Mady is 18 months) on the same spot on the counter, so I dug it up to compare.

Below is proof our blue-eyed blondie and our brown-eyed girl came from the same gene pool (although I do have people tell me from time to time that they look like each other).

For whatever reason (serious spunk?) both pictures are slightly blurry (and please ignore Mady's black eye) - but they have the same goofy grin, cute little chin, scrunched up eyes, and fuzzy mullet hairdo.

Sisters. Wonders never cease.