Family and Lifestyle Blog
When they say the years fly by, they aren’t kidding. Hard to believe this young man is now in 7th grade. We are extremely proud of you, Leeland. We are proud of the way you try new things. We are proud of how you keep going, even when experiencing adversity. We love you and have enjoyed watching you grow as a baseball player and as a person. We can’t wait to see what God has in store for your life.
Congratulations on completing 8 years of Little League play!
Okay parents. How many of you get a little frustrated with the whole Elf on the Shelf craze at Christmas time? Me too! And, with a toddler at home, I wanted to do something extra special. Last year, I decided to get help with our elf on the shelf and I bought a kit from an account I found on Instagram. (www.Instagram.com/craftyholidayhelper ) CraftyHolidayHelper, Jaime has a small business focused on holiday crafts for families. I am so thankful to have found Jaime! Her craft kits are amazing!
I love having holiday parties for our littles. Christmas, Halloween, Valentine’s Day, Easter and Fourth of July are holidays we don’t miss celebrating! In addition to adding Mardi Gras, we also added St Patrick’s Day with a party box and scavenger hunt from CraftyHolidayHelper to kick us off!
Jimmie is in awe of everything. He loves the rainbow centerpiece and all of the tiny details. My older kids said it’s not a party if other people don’t come. I disagree! I think Jimmie does too. It’s a party if you say it’s a party! Happy St Patrick’s Day, everyone!
El Momma, Rebekahmemusic and CraftyHolidayHelper collaborated on this post. Thank you for your support!
Does anybody remember El theme weeks? Click here for a refresher if you weren’t with us then. Recap: We had a theme for every week during the summer when the kids were little. We had simple themes like WATER WEEK, ZOO ANIMAL WEEK, WEATHER WEEK and more. It was super fun and kept us all busy.
We haven’t had theme weeks since the Els got older and summers got much busier. But, I feel like our year round holiday tree is sort of moving us back in the theme week direction! And, I am here for it.
The Valentine tree was a super easy transition from the Christmas tree. We published our first Valentine’s Day Gift guide here, so it was great to be in the theme of Valentine’s Day from mid January through Valentine’s week. Next up, Mardi Gras.
Check out two Videos below highlighting our GF King cake and Mardi Gras tree!
We transitioned the tree from reds and pinks to gold, green and purple and added Mardi Gras ornaments. On Shrove Tuesday, aka Fat Tuesday we celebrated with dinner and our first attempt at a Gluten Free King Cake. Click here for the recipe from Gluten Free Jules. This cake was so delicious!! And could easily be made as a gluten free coffee cake, using sugar in place of the green, gold and purple sugar.
We are having so much fun with our holiday tree. Comment below to let us know what you think. Any ideas for the St Patrick’s Day tree?
Valentine’s to Mardi Gras TREE
Do you have suggestions on how we should decorate our tree next? We will likely decorate for St Patrick’s Day next, followed by Easter. Any ideas after that?
Love is in the air. We are thrilled to be publishing our first ever gift guide, just in time for Valentine’s Day. We are focusing on gifts for him, gifts for her, gifts for kids, babies and teachers. We can’t wait to share our finds for Valentine’s Day.
At some point in the last year, I found this totally over the top account on Instagram- turtlecreeklane, and I loved it!!! Momma of five (three grown children and two younger) who loves loves loves to decorate. And, honestly has the means and creativity to go all out. I have taken inspiration from Jenn at Turtle Creek Lane and this year, I am trying out her pinch and twist method when decorating our tree! Check out my quick video tutorial and notes below and let me know if you give it a try.
Placing Ribbon on the Christmas tree 🎄
Today was too much.
💛Today was too much sun, too much sand, too much personality and maybe a little too much family time.
But, in the most important ways today was perfect- because we had each other in the most beautiful setting and for a moment it felt like life came full circle after the last time we were here in July of 2017 when it was the 6 of us and we were expecting Mary-Linda. 💗
I am amazed and in awe of where our lives have changed and been transformed since that time four years ago.
We are all squeezing this precious 🌈 baby Jimmie a little tighter tonight.
It’s only February of 2021 and it’s already been a doozy.
But, who can keep track at this point? In the latest crazy events, we got snow, sleet, ice and deep freeze temps across Texas that lasted for a few days. That, in and of itself was unusual as it occurred across ALL of TEXAS. It was very cold here on Monday, February 15 and while we were experiencing record breaking low temps across Texas approximately 60percent of us were without power. No electricity. No heat. A lot of our friends and family were without power the entire first day. We lost power in the evening around 5pm and were powerless for the following 39 hours. Around 7pm that first night, we also lost water. Not water pressure, but more like someone turned off the water for our entire block and much of the city at the same time. Yesterday morning, power was restored for 6 hours and then off again for 8.
So, here’s a few things we did and what we are continuing to do to try to weather this very strange time and storm. Please comment with somethings that you forgot or that you did that helped you weather this storm!
Hope you are all safe and able to get any damage repaired soon. We had one pipe burst in our garage and are working to have that repaired now, so we can take showers! Cleaning with baby wipes is just not acceptable for 3 days straight! Also, I won’t even begin to share about how bonded we are as a family, because of our new knowledge of everyone’s bathroom schedule and potty habits. The things you learn and go through when you don’t have running water!
If I’ve been asked once, I have been asked a thousand times. How do you get your kids to …fill in the blank? Examples are: eat vegetables, eat a variety of foods, try new things, sleep in, talk early, be so verbal, perform in front of people, participate in activities they don’t want to do (at first), stay in an activity that they asked to sign up for, but now want to quit and so on?
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