Denim Daisies

 Hello! Today is election day 2024 and we've got Harris/Walz vs. Trump/Vance it will definitely be a historic election and we are both checking the news regularly and avoiding updates simultaneously. Grant showed me a cartoon from I think either the NYT or WSJ that will likely be the cartoon of the year and it depicts a dad voting and his daughter behind him asking "who are you voting for dad?" and he responds "You". I tear up just thinking about this cartoon because it is so relevant for us as a family.  We will show up, we will advocate, and we will keep doing it for our entire lives. Not because we will "win" because there is no winning. There is just continuing, to paraphrase Steve Irwin, to run up the football. On a lighter note, we made our sausage gravy with vegan chorizo and oatmilk last night and it was AMAZING!!! Next time we'll add a light green salad on the side but it was perfect.  This morning it was Ina Garten's gruyere omelets a

 Hello! So this was a really fun weekend for the boys. We had our usual activities and had do do some change ups with some health stuff, but each boys got to have a sleepover with my parents and they LOVED it. I was still kinda happy though when they each wanted the other at bedtime and I love their close relationship even though I'm not a fan of the "let's chase each other around the house" game that mommy has to veto. Grant was also gone for the weekend for Army stuff so it was especially nice to take that time apart to do one on one time with each boy, though I always prefer to have Grant there, it's fun to find ways to make these times special as well.  Some fun pictures from friday at pick-up with my parents. Tonight is breakfast for dinner so we are making vegan sausage gravy with a vegan chorizo from TJ's and oatmilk and then vegetarian biscuits. The chorizo is AMAZING. I'll take some pictures to share tomorrow and I'll "church it up"

 Hello! We had such a wonderful time last night, I was convinced that it might be a rough holiday due to high winds and rain, but even though there were high winds earlier in the day and it rained a little on and off throughout trick or treating, it was a fantastic evening! We had our usual thursday pizza, thank you Kendra from the Lazy Genius for the encouragement to 'decide once', and then just before 6pm we all put on our costumes and headed out for some fun. Our first stop were our amazing friendly Lisa and Dustin who live right next door. We figured this would not only be fun, but would give us a chance to get a nice family photo and would be the least difficult for Jamie. Next was our awesome neighbors K & K who have always been so welcoming and sweet with the boys. We are truly grateful for our amazing neighbors!!! Then we headed off down our street which is kinda 'the place to be' around Cincy for Halloween trick or treating! :-) Jamie was really happy, but

 Hello! Last night/early morning was a long one. I absolutely love doing volunteer work with the zoo to help preserve these beautiful and amazing species, though the midnight to 4am shift can be tough. It was particularly fun this morning because my mother slept over to train up on this work and so it was fun having girl time at a strange hour. 🙂 Our current idea for all decorations is that we invest in fun and quality items but only get one to two things a year and slowly build up. This way we are budget friendly and also going for quality that stands the rest of time and doesn’t fill the landfills every year, but still have a lot of fun with celebrating the seasons and holidays. 💛 Halloween is, of course, the current season and our theme for our overall decor is Disney/haunted mansion with some just fun and cute accents inside. The decoration we got for this year was a series of banners that look like the stretching walls in the entry elevator and I LOVE it!!! The only other thing

 Good Morning, Thank you Marie Kondo for coining the "brings me joy" statement. It has been a good thing to fall back on and when things that I am doing to bring joy are no longer working it might be time to take a pause or even remove that entirely. Writing every day began to feel more like a chore than an outlet and I'm not always the most creative to begin with unless it comes to power query or excel so creative writing for fun is new for me.  That said, I think that break was exactly what I needed and I want to be able to have the memories of this time in life for years to come. Not being on social media (or at least active on the accounts that I haven't deleted) makes that slightly more challenging, but I think this is a healthy compromise.  Below are the things that have brought me joy for the past few weeks while I took a pause from writing in no particular order: 1. morning quiet time - I've done the Bible Recap this year and this has been a really positiv

 Hello! So this was an eerily quiet weekend for us because swim was cancelled for the boys and we didn’t have a ton going on which felt amazing!!! We love having an active schedule, but it also felt good to relax, visit all the playgrounds and also find out that Leo is surprisingly good at Mario kart. 🤷‍♀️ The boys also had a living room camp out with Grant and, while Jamie joined me upstairs to sleep in a bed after a couple of hours, Leo stayed almost the whole night with Grant in his sleeping bag Friday night.  The Bengals also had their season opener yesterday and our friends came over for the first half and so I made a few snacks, one of which was cake pops! I hate making cake pops because it feels like too many steps and too much work, but the boys love them, so I found a hack where you use little Debbie’s cakes and it worked perfectly! Just crush up a few little Debbie’s cake in a mixing bowl, roll them into balls and refrigerate, and then dip in semi-sweet chocolate. Super easy