Team Tuesday: New Kits for St. Patty's & Tool Kits

Rhonna has released some fun St. Patty's Kits, and I've just begun to print everything out to sprinkle my house with a little green fun. Hurry over and grab a Lucky Kit and get a Free Printable to display in a frame for some quick fun home decor

Lucky Brush Kit

$5

Lucky Printable Flags Kit

$3

Rhonna has also come out with more fun tools for her Tool Kit Collection, so much you can do with these. Over on her blog, you can see what Jing has done with the Mini Seals! 

Mini Seals Brush Kit

$6

Mini Stamps Brush Kit

$6

Mini Textures Brush Kit

$6

What's happening in the garden

Everything is going great! We even have a little baby tomato popping up out of the yellow flowers on the Lemon Boy tomatoes we've planted. The arugula is coming in crazy, and the spinach is finally taking off. We have more veggies and herbs to plant in the cucumber box, and we've just started breaking ground on the corn patch. More progress to come! 

Foto Friday: Week 25

It's this guy's birthday today:

And I'm glad inform everyone that the bad part of a fight is over, and the good part of a fight {the making up part} in in full force. I must admit, as much as I hate feeling like garbage, nothing breathes new life into a relationship like working through a problem together. I was mulling over that fact in my head the other day, and I realized that I want the freshness in our relationship to last longer than the just the days after a problem. I want this good part to continue on. I don't want to slip back into our normal routine, and feel like we don't appreciate one another enough. So, I came up with a plan to keep this "make-up" going.  A "relationship treasure hunt" if you will. Cheesy? Yes. Fun? Yes. Will it work? We'll see; and if you'd like to try it and see if it adds more excitement and newness into your relationship, then it's a win-win!

I made us a Spice Jar.

designed using Rhonna Designs Junqued Frames // Rhonna Designs Mini Seals

Ours is just a mason jar painted copper, but you could use any container you want. I came up with a bunch of things for us to do together {I came up with 66 things}, printed them out on two slips of paper each so we each can pick one of things throughout the year, then folded the papers and stuck them in our jar. We each pick one out every Friday and have the whole week to do what it says on the paper.

You can either come up with them together or by yourself and surprise your man. I would share my list, but some of them get a little steamy and I wouldn't want my family members who read my blog to get throughly grossed out, so I'll just share a few:

In addition to the jar, we're going to keep a Spice Journal to put photos of our experiences, put in our love notes to each other, etc. I think it's going to be so exciting and push us to put effort into our relationship on a weekly basis.

Feel free to try this experiment out and let me know how it goes! In the meantime, here is the rest of the Foto Friday entries:

Meg

Hilary

Kristyn

Christine

Personal Day

This weekend was bad. I mean it was an awful, terrible, no-good, very bad last few days. My kids were awful, Braden was out of town, the kids were sick, I didn't get any sleep, and last but certainly not least Braden and I got in the biggest fight of our lives. Rival only to the New Years Incident of 2009, which was pretty bad. I am saddened to say, that I officially lost my shit. And now, I'm fairly certain it's going to take a little while to mend.

Isn't it strange how fragile life is? Think about all the time, and effort and hard work goes into building someone's life. I mean, everyone has a mother that has devoted her life completely to caring for that person. People most likely have friends and brothers and sisters that love them; and many have children who depend on them. But in the end, none of that matters to Death. It comes to us all, but there is no "life meter" that measures how good someone is, or how much they deserve to keep on living, or how many people will miss them. It doesn't matter. When it's time, it's time; no matter what anyone's plans are. I know that God has a plan and everything happens for a reason, but I know that I will never understand the reasoning behind how much goes into building a life, and how little it takes for it to end.

I think it's the same thing for relationships. Any relationship really, but marriage is particularly fragile. No matter how amazing your husband is, no matter how hard he works, no matter how much you love him and you know that he loves you; one incident, one bad decision, one weekend can throw everything into turmoil. It doesn't seem very fair.

For those of you that read other people's blogs and think how perfect their life is, I want you to know that a blog usually only highlights a portion of someone's life. Every single person has bad things to deal with, and no marriage is perfect. Different couples have different problems, but I believe that the ones who make it are the ones who believe that their relationship is worth fighting for. Anything worth having is. And while I'll still probably be a little blue for a few days, I believe that I am really lucky to be able to fight with as good a man as Braden. I wouldn't want to fight with anybody else.

Sorry for the downer post, I just wanted to keep it real here, ya know? So, for a pick-me-up, I had a Personal Day yesterday. I got a pedicure & a manicure, and got a haircut & new color. I spent all day, all by myself. Unfortunately, while that sounded like a good idea- I spent the whole day sad and lonely and was not really cheered up until I got home to my family. I realized that nothing out there was going to make me feel better. The only thing I need is being with the people I love the most- my kids and my husband. I hope that if anyone else is in the same boat, know that you are not alone, and everyone has crappy situations to deal with. Even the luckiest people.

More Garden Work

Sunday was Gardening Day again over at my parents' house. We grabbed a couple of bags of compost on Saturday from Singh Farms, then my mom dragged them home and dumped them in our newest bed since now that I'm pregnant she won't let me lift anything. Those things are like 100 pounds, so I guess that's understandable. Anyway, we started on Box 3, which is our designated "cucumbers box"

This box is much smaller than the other boxes, so getting it all staked and strung in rows went by super fast {which is nice since I have to do it crouched}. We got the dill and the kale in the ground, but have to take a trip to the nursery for the rest. Also, I really want to build little teepee trellises for the cucumbers to climb on- I've found a couple really good ideas on Pinterest. 

1// teepee 2// edged trellis 3// cross trellis 4// chicken wire trellis

It's Valentines Day!

Our Baby #6 mail announcements

So, for those of you that missed the announcement- we're having another baby! And this one makes #6 for us, so while it's not my first rodeo, I am excited to bust out all the cute ideas that I have been hoarding that involve babies! Plus, I'll take any excuse to celebrate so, Hurrah! We found out the very last day of February {which is my excuse for my long absence here} and had to come up with a creative way to tell our families before we made the public/FB/blog announcement. Once everyone called and said they received their mail, it was a go to tell the world! This is what we sent out.....

Foto Friday & A BIG Announcement

This is what happens when you just can't fall out of love {even after 7 years and 5 kids}

Other Week 23 entries from the girls:

Meg

Hilary

Kristyn

Christine