Maya's New Coloring Blog!!!

I am very excited to announce that Maya now has her very own blog! She has always been fascinated with art, especially coloring and painting. She will literally spend hours coloring picture after picture using exquisite detail. She creates so many pieces that we never have enough room to display them, so often times they get filed away in her art folder without having the opportunity to be enjoyed. Recently she decided, all on her own, that she wanted to have a blog where she could display her art for everyone to see! She was so cute! She named and designed her blog all on her own! I'm really quite proud of her, everything on her blog is exactly what and how she wanted it. Be sure to check it out!
www.coloringpopsout.blogspot.com

A Day At the Beach

We recently discovered the beach at the lake in Day Break. It's so much fun! The kids and I went for an afternoon and it almost felt like we were at the ocean in California, we just needed the huge waves!

Playing in the water!

Buried alive and Sand Castles!


Soaking up the sun!
Water fight!
(The small splashes of water between Macie and Maya is Matt trying to escape the inevitable attack!)

Camp "In"

The other night the girls wanted to have a compout in Matt's 2-man tent, however, they did not want to sleep "outside". Matt and Jackson, being the awesome brothers they are, resolved their dilema by setting up the tent in our upstairs hallway. The girls loved it! At first I didn't think they would go to sleep because they were so excited, but after they read their stories they each snuggled into their blankies and fell right to sleep. So cute!!!

OCD Heaven!

I know this is silly, but my new food storage shelves give me such a "high" every time I look at them! I recently joined my friend's food storage program and have been very happy with the fruits of my bargain shopping labors! I just love getting a good deal! (Another one of those weird things that I literally get a "high" out of! When Mark was in law school we were extremely poor and I did anything and everything I could to save money...some of the things I did were quite funny and ingenious...my Dad still makes fun of me for being so "cheap"!)

Anyway, it wasn't long before my great bargains started giving me quite the dilemma. After only a few weeks of starting this new program my pantry was absolutely full. We have a cold storage area in the basement, but it only had one small shelf and it, too, began to overflow with food, so much so that I just started piling grocery bags of food all over the basement floor! It started making me so anxious that I wouldn't even go downstairs to get the food I needed for recipes! Ridiculous, I know! So I finally broke down and bought some shelves from Costco that I totally love! Mark and Matt put them up for me and then we all stayed up until wee hours of the night organizing our food storage. I love it so much! Seriously, I love to just go look at how organized it all is, it makes me so happy... one of the highlights of having an OCD personality!


These pictures were actually taken a few months ago. Our food storage has grown significantly since then. I love being able to grocery shop right from my own basement! I would put an updated picture, but unfortunately I spilled water all over the camera while in Arizona this weekend so we no longer have a working camera:( I think I'll have to get a new one, which I'm HAPPY about...Mark, not so much! The old camera took the worst pictures! If anyone knows of a GREAT camera, let me know!

If anyone is interested in the food storage program you can check it out @ dealstomeals.com