Find Your Happiness

While we were in Indiana, Mom and I felt pretty brave and we went to Sam's Club. On a Saturday. Armed with TWO toddlers. The cousins did well but it definitely required some entertaining on my part. If God ever decide to bless us with multiples, He must really think I am capable of parenting them... because that would be a lot of work. The very last picture is bad pretty blurry but I am trying to share more photos even if they make me cringe knowing they are not "perfect" (technically speaking). I really want to show how much fun these two boys have whenever they are together. They were blowing raspberries one second and then started head banging the next. I didn't have time to fix my settings and had to snap the photo or the moment would have been lost.

As of yesterday late afternoon, we are back in Georgia. However, it will be a while before we get back to our routine because I am feeling crappy today, which really started yesterday. I woke up with a sore throat and low grade fever. I suspect I got sick from all those snuggles with my niece Isabel :) (She was sick a few days earlier.) But thankfully, Nathaniel was a good travel buddy and even napped for almost three hours. And I'm not going to lie; I sped the last hour because I was just miserable and wanted to be home as soon as possible. Nathaniel likes to put winding toy in between his teeth and let it go round and round. He looks silly but whatever keeps him entertained, right?

Three years ago, my husband went to MCRD San Diego for Marine Corps bootcamp. Since then we became a family of three, have celebrated three years of marriage, endured four major moves, lived in three different states, became first time homeowners and have been promoted twice. I still don't know if this is the career for us. If you ask Dean, he'll say yes in an instant. Some days I'm all for making it a career. Some days I just want to pack our bags and move back to Indiana. Thankfully, we still have at least a year to go before we have to make the decision about re-enlisting. So for now, I'm just going to try to enjoy this chapter of our lives. I'm proudly wearing his company's t-shirt today. April 20, 2009 Indianapolis International Airport Bible. Song Book. His and fellow recruits' paperwork. Clothes on his back. And a newly opened chapter.

Don't you just love the hand placement? He has perfected the "lens hand," too :) (Messy face from eating crackers and Nutella. Yum!)

Nathaniel and I safely arrived yesterday late afternoon here in Indiana. God definitely watched over us and was with us throughout the travel. We started early and left around 6:15am, just as my husband left for work, too. We were blessed with great driving weather and very minimal traffic. When Nathaniel napped after only an hour (10a-11a) with five more hours of driving to go, I was for sure we would have a bad rest of the trip. But he did great! His brain on the other hand is a different story. I am sure it is mushed from watching Monsters, Inc (twice), The Incredibles, Dora the Explorer and Word World. He is not allowed to watch TV for the rest of his life ! Well... maybe again in two weeks when we're on our way back to Georgia ;) My nephew Daniel is spending the evening and all day tomorrow with us since my sister is on call at the hospital tonight. The dynamics between these two is so much better compared to when we were last here (December). They rarely fight and in fact, ...

Nathaniel and I dyed our Easter eggs today. I really wanted to give natural dyeing a try this year but with Hubby working the Augusta Masters, I just didn't have the extra hand/help available. So I chose to use the Kool-Aid method that I found from Hey! Jen Renee . I bought 7 different Kool-Aid packets and they were still cheaper than the pre-packaged dye kits. And I probably could have even bought less flavors since I was able to achieve more colors by either soaking the eggs longer, removing them right away, or diluting the solution. I used mason jars and old bottles because they came with lids. As you can see, one second Nathaniel was showing me "pay-ple" (purple) and the next second, he was picking it up. Can you imagine the mess if we had used disposable, limpy cups? Yikes! Nathaniel dropped helped put the eggs inside the jars, which cracked them a little bit. Oopss. And while we were waiting for the eggs to soak in the colors (which doesn't...

Last year, one of my favorite bloggers and amateur photographers posted a Good Friday tradition in their family. It consists of making a salt dough to symbolize Jesus' tomb and placing Him there on Good Friday (today). Tomorrow, we'll go check to see if Jesus is still there (and He will be) and then again on Sunday. Jesus won't obviously be there because He has Risen! Nathaniel is obviously still young to fully understand the concept but you can't deny that it is still a lot of fun. He rolled the salt dough into logs and said they were snake. He also tried to eat it and quickly realized it's not good eats (all four ingredients are safe and natural!). Even our dog Riley joined in on the fun! And it's never really early to teach a child about one of the most important things in Christianity: Christ's death for the salvation of our sins! Four hours of slow, low heat baking later (well technically, three days for us), we painted the salt ...

Me: Hey babe, can you drive me to Augusta to pick up a plant? Someone is giving them for free! Hubby: Ok, what kind of plant? Me: Katniss! Hubby: Why, of course...   If you haven't read the series, well what are you waiting for?! They really are more than just kids fighting each other to the death for survival. And it's nothing like Twilight so don't be fooled with the Team Peeta and Team Gale stuff. (Although if you ask me, I'm Team Peeta all the way!) Source: Pinterest I really enjoyed the movie adaptation as well. I think it helped a lot that I went in knowing the movie will never be as good as the book. And it has been a long, loooong time since I've been this excited and pleased with a book turned to movie. (Last ones were Harry Potter 7 Part 1 and The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo)   Source: Pinterest Katniss is also known as arrowhead because of its leaves and Indian potato because of its edible roots. They are aquatic plants but v...

Since high school, I have always wanted to donate my hair to Locks of Love . But every time the weather starts to get hot, I end up chopping my hair to just below shoulder length. I gave up the idea in college and in my early years as an RN and just never thought I'd have the patience to stick with it. Well, it has been a year and half since I vowed to really do it this time. It helped a lot that my hair stylist resides in Indiana and I refuse to have anyone else cut it. The one time I did in California, it was such a mess. Here I am with semi-wet and unstyled hair. I've given up blow drying it since it takes more than half an hour and that's just not realistic when you have a toddler. Instead, I've embraced and emphasize my naturally beach wavy-hair. But I am finally getting it cut next week! I am going back and forth between getting it cut to my old college hairstyle (short & layered) or going bold and try a different style and/or cut super short. I know ...