I Finally Did It!

For about 10 years now I have wanted to get my nose pierced, but I always hesitated for some reason or another. I guess I assumed that the desire would go away because did I actually want a hole in my nose?!? Then, I decided to go for it on my 30th Birthday (which was two and a half years ago) but I was nursing Declan and they won't do a piercing if you are pregnant or nursing. So I had to wait. Then, before I was finished nursing D, I got pregnant with Inara. So, I had to wait some more. Then when I was I was finished nursing her, I would finally be free to do it. If I still wanted to.
Well...she weaned herself about a month ago and I realized with excitement "I can get my nose pierced!".  I asked my dear friend Kim to join me for the occasion...we spent the whole morning together, went garage sale-ing, had a leisurely lunch, then...it was time to get the piercing.
I was super nervous as we drove to the tattoo parlor...I asked Kim questions the whole time since she has her nose pierced too. She was encouraging and supportive and everything you want someone to be when you make a decision like this.
Without going into all the details I will say two things: it HURT and, it turned out to be exactly what I had hoped for. I looked in the mirror when the piercer was finished and teared up when I saw the final result because I was so happy. And for about a day and a half afterward I would just look at myself in the mirror and smile.
It is so freeing to do something for myself that I have always wanted to do. And it actually makes me feel beautiful. EVERY TIME I see myself I think "Wow. I'm so pretty". And that is NOT something I used to do very often.

Melinda, the piercer @ Epic Ink..she is amazing!

There's the needle going in!

Done!

The First of Many

I recently completed a project that I am really proud of. It is the first project of this kind that I have ever attempted and completed.
Since moving to our new house in June, I had been wanting an outdoor table for my kids so they could have a place to sit if they need a break while playing, or a place to eat lunch or dinner on nice days. I didn't want anything plastic...I was thinking something along the lines of a wooden picnic table. I decided to hit up Craigslist first just to see if there was anything out there (I don't go on Craigslist too often) and it payed off!
I emailed the seller and arranged to come look at the table that same evening after Sean got home from work. I was a little worried about how we would get the table home since our car is on the small side, especially with the kids' car seats. BUT as it turns out, the family selling the table lives TWO blocks away from us! How amazing is that? We loved the table, felt like it was a reasonable price, and Sean was able to carry it home.
I ran out to the store the following day to get some paint, cherry red to be exact, sanded down the table, painted it, let it dry and now it is happily residing in our backyard.
I look forward to many more projects of this kind to work on in the future.

Here is the table before:

And after:

Summer Activities

While Summer is certainly far from over and I intend on eking out every last second of warm weather and long days, I thought I would write a post about what adventures we have had so far.

We discovered a small but fun new park just a few minutes from our house, with water & sand play areas. The kids loved it and we plan on going back soon.

Declan was able to enjoy his first ice cream cone. He's had ice cream before on occasion (we are not super big into sweets) but he had never had ice cream on a cone. He thought it was pretty awesome!

We attended the Storytelling Guild's 48th Annual Children's Festival in Jacksonville. It was a pretty hot day and very crowded, but we had fun nontheless.

Our first Family Vacation was in July and we had a blast! If you missed the post about that and are interested in reading it, you should be able to scroll down past this post and find it since it was the last post I published prior to this one.


Summers in Southern Oregon can be VERY hot, and we can also experience many thunder storms. A few weeks ago, the kids and I just happened to be playing out side when one began. It was really neat to watch it, and to watch their faces as they listened to the thunder and saw the lightening.

Christmas in July is a yearly event our friends The Pepins put on at their home. It is an all day extravaganza where we watch Christmas movies, listen to Christmas music, decorate cookies, and have a big meal at the end of the day. Super fun!


One of our favorite places to go is Touvelle State Recreation Site. It lies right along the Rogue River and is simply beautiful. You can go on a walk, have a picnic or play in the water.

At the beginning of August we took a trip to CA to visit my family. We had a fairly relaxed time, which was a nice change from our usually busy visits. We had s'mores, played in the sun, had a tea party and went swimming.

So there you have it. A quick summery of our Summer (see what I did there?).