Life in the Slow Lane

This morning I received a box of pictures from Shutterfly. How many you ask? FOUR HUNDRED PICTURES. We don't keep up with the printing of pictures anymore with digital cameras and phones, but when I took my pictures off my old iPhone, I figured it was time to get them printed! I just looked through them all, and I must tell you. There is something about having pictures in your hands. Flipping through each, turning them to catch all the extras. It's a feeling you just can't capture looking at a screen. And because of my ability to look at each one in this way, a wave of emotions and memories has come over me. It's just 3 years of pictures, that I've seen plenty of times on my 'photo stream', but today, they are so much more. Because of them, I: Yearn for spring and summer even more. Miss my mom. Look forward to baseball season. Am amazed at how beautiful our yard has become. Cannot believe how big the kids have gotten in such a short amount

It just took me over an hour to change my blog layout! When did that get so complicated on Blogger? Either way, it was time for a change, and I can't wait to change it to a SPRING layout! I'm so not down with winter. Life has been so hectic lately. Juggling kids, work, home life has been tricky, and I can't put my finger on why. Maybe we are all busy in our own little ways, and that coming together as a family is the hard part, trying to squeeze it in amongst everything else. It's all good though, and we are all happy, happy, happy! Oh, did I mention I got engaged? Yea, guess that's kinda a big deal :) It's been about 2 months since the actual YES, but I haven't really gotten into bride-mode. There's plenty of time for planning(and sisters to help), and it will come together all in due time. Good things come to those who wait, right? Is it weird that as busy as we are in our house, I still want to do more? I'm thinking perhaps a little s

So many people have hopped on the Elf on the Shelf bandwagon this year. I was inspired to do it by watching my friend last year. She worked really hard to make some great memories with the elf, and I figured I could do it with no problem this year! Whew, I was so wrong. The Elf(Jack is his name) is a LOT of effort. It's no fun if he just sits on a shelf, so trying to be creative, at night, when exhausted, ain't easy. Not to mention the nights we got all comfy in bed, then realized he hadn't moved yet. Definitely not my favorite silly thing to do with my boys. BUT, they really loved it. They would come downstairs and search for him the minute they woke up. They would talk about it throughout the day, and tell anyone who would listen about Jack being so mischievous. So I need to remember that it's not about us grownups enjoying it,  it's about making those memories for the kids. In no particular order, here's our elf in review for 2012. I only added some of o