I didn’t mean to take a break from blogging this week, but it has just been super busy for us. This week was non-stop go, go, go! I can’t even think of anything that was particularly different from our normal weeks (what really is normal is beyond me), but I just felt constantly busy.

This week also marks the start of the Soul and Glow feuding because they discovered how to fight! Oh boy! That means the start of more refereeing for mommy. Oh and True’s second tooth fell out! So there you go I guess… we did have a few changes this week. These things are just coming back to me as I type!

I went over to my parents’ house to drop off the girls for piano lessons (my brother teaches them) and my sister looked at all our shoes and said, “Oh my gosh! They all describe your personalities perfectly!” I think her statement is very true. This particular day Glow had an obsession with that hat and insisted on wearing it everywhere (see here). My girls are such cuties and sweeties (when they’re listening to me).

Happy Friday friends! I’m hoping next week to get some fun Halloween stuff up in the space… so cross your fingers I find some time!

on me: tee, everlane. necklace, shop miguez. camo jacket, c/o old navy. short, thrifted (distressed here). on true: tee, aa. shorts, thrifted. boots, c/o old navy. on brave: tee, misha lulu. shorts, target. shoes, c/o old navy (those polka dots sneakers are adorable, also worn here). on soul: top, c/o old navy. leopard pants (oh she always wants to wear that!), gifted. shoes, c/o old navy. on glow: dress, handmade etsy. hat, dollar store. moccs, freshly picked.

The tomato harvest was going good and strong, but then the extreme heat came and spider mites started coming out and it was an uphill battle from there. We did get to enjoy a lot of tomatoes though (I was making pico de gallo all the time!), but you always learn something every year. The end of last tomato season we noticed the bugs, this year we were able to identify what they were and how to best deal with them. Next year, we will be prepared on how to deal with them, unless of course, something else happens and we have to adjust to that. There is constant learning and adjusting when it comes to gardening, so much depends on weather and bugs and you really can’t control those. Since we’ve started cultivating our own edible garden, we have such an appreciation for those farmers who depend on their crops for their livelihood. It is not easy and you just never know what factors might come into play to affect your garden.

These are also the last few pictures of this side of the garden looking like this. It is going to undergo a minor little change. The beds will be raised up higher or might even change in material altogether. This side will no longer be for our seasonal harvest, but will have citrus trees growing and all our rotating seasonal fruits and veggies are going to the other side of the yard, where the trees currently are (those will get moved too!). We are constantly learning by trial and error on what works best for our garden. Sometimes I wish I had a magic wand to just wave and have everything done, but gardening takes patience and lots of research, so until that magic wand is invented, I’ll keep exercising the patience part, and I’ll let Ben do all the research.

1. My four girls waiting for pizza. As usual, Soul doesn’t want to take a picture next to them.
2. True’s smile before it’s forever changed from her first tooth falling out.
3. Raisin toes from a 2 hour long bubble bath.

These are a few sweet snaps from the last few weeks. I never upgrade my phone and always just get phone hand me downs, so I was pretty much late to the whole iPhone (instagram) game. The newest iPhone has me intrigued with its new camera features and I wouldn’t mind an upgrade since I’m eligible for one. I’m wondering if it will lessen the need to carry an SLR around sometimes. Anyone upgrade yet, and if so, what are your thoughts on the new iPhone 5s camera features?

The Zombie Run this weekend was fantastic (post to come soon), as I knew it would be, but Sunday I was just flat out exhausted that I literally slept all day. I’m the biggest anti-napper as I think naps are a waste of time (for me) because there is too much to do, but I straight up napped all day long.  Lately, my body has been feeling really exhausted. I’ve been having bad allergies, so I take non-drowsy allergy medicine, but I’m wondering if it’s having the adverse effect on my body and making me drowsy. I can’t drink coffee because if I do, instead of waking me up, the stimulant makes me sleepy, so I’m wondering if the stimulants in allergy meds are the ones making me tired. It really is so strange! Whatever it was, it was great to have a lazy day in bed! Are you a napper or do you tend to be an anti-napper like me?

I was trying to make cake for our dinner club on Thursday and it came out an epic fail (I made it before, see here). It was for a birthday celebrant and I still wanted to have something, so as soon as I got home from swim classes and before everyone came over, I started making another. It was then that I realized that I forgot the baking soda and 1/2 cup of oil! HA! It wasn’t even edible! It was way too dense and tasted nasty! Well, the new batch came out great, dangerously so that I keep eating it now, and everyone at dinner club loved it.

This week’s learned, links, and thankfulness…

Glow has suddenly become a little more feisty! It’s that #2 I tell you!

I’m so thankful for our dinner club crew. We get together weekly and I always feel so blessed after a night of laughter and sharing life.

I like the show Revolution and am glad the new season started, and I tried out Blacklist and I kind of like that show too! We don’t have a television, so I’m thankful for Hulu.

I’m running the Zombie Run again today and I’m nervous!!! It’s so fun, but so scary!!! See last year’s here.

This looks like fun to make with my kiddos.

Love this article on multi-racial families. I say our kids our “Whitamexipino,” so I think it will be interesting what they identify with as they get older.

My baby sister is amazing. She’s one of a kind and you just know God is going to use her for great things. She shared in this post what her next step is going to be, and I am super sad because she will gone for 11 months, but excited for how God is going to grow and stretch her for the journey ahead.

I was able to get most of the house under control and I’m thankful. All the laundry is done and put away, floors cleaned, and carpet vacuumed, but I still need to clean bathrooms. We’re constantly purging and it feels so good to do that. I have a weakness for chairs and shoes, but other than that I’m not much a collector of trinkets and what nots. While I do have some collections, I think I do a pretty decent job at keeping it at bay. Too many little things kind of make me itchy, or if I look at a part of our house and can’t mentally pack what’s in that spot quickly, that makes me itchy too. Do you tend to be a collector or more of a purger? What are some of your tips to prevent hoarding tendencies?

Last week we were pretty swamped (in a good way), so we just needed an afternoon of fun and exploring together as a family. Therefore, Sunday afternoon, we headed out to the LACMA. Ben and I hadn’t been in several years and we wanted to check out some of the outdoor installations because we knew the girls would have a lot of fun with them.

There were two main ones we wanted to take the girls to see, which were Urban Lights and Penetrabile. They had so much fun running through all the lampposts and they especially loved the yellow plastic tubes! They kept walking and running through it, pulling it, hugging it, and even Glow tried licking it (oh boy!). Obviously, they really loved it. It’s such a simple piece, but so striking and so fun! I asked Ben if we could make our own version of it for our backyard because the girls would for sure love that!

We also checked out some of the Greek and Roman Art they because we studied that in our ancient times history lessons. We will definitely be back to explore because there is just so much to see; there was no way we were going to cover it all in one afternoon. Next on our list will for sure be the Levitated Mass!

My two big girls are looking “stylish” in their denim skinnies and boots. True’s been really cute of late when it comes to dressing. She’ll say, “Mom, I like fashion. Does this look stylish?” Also, I’m wearing the Old Navy Rockstar Skinnies in coated wash, which I wore here and here, but I liked the fit so much, I ended up getting it in the coated wash too (BTW- my printed denim skinnies and my coated wash never did that odd weird stretch out too much thing as the day wore on, but reviews say go up a size, and I say don’t, just get your normal size). I like that Old Navy carries petite sizes (I’m a shorty) and it saves me the trouble of having to hem my jeans. I actually got the coated wash, showed Ben, but wasn’t sure I could pull it off, so I returned it. That night Ben says, “I really liked those and I think you could totally do it!” So I went back to the store the next day to get them back (thankfully, they didn’t sell yet). Then, I tried on a pair of the mid-rise rockstar skinnies and fell in love with those too and got a pair. After having 4 kids, that mid-rise helps my soft tummy area stay inside where it’s supposed to be, if you know what I mean! Gosh, I’ve been consistently working out 4-5 days a week for almost 4 years now and that mom belly on me just never goes away. I guess it’s my souvenir from that journey. I’m thankful for mid-rise/high-waisted bottoms because it helps hide it, and I’m especially thankful for Spanx! Anyone else with me on that?!

on me: rockstar skinnies, c/o old navy. top, vintage. denim shirt, madewell. shoes, shoe mint. on true: top (it’s actually a dress and see it here on soul, all their clothes are shared!), little bean. leopard skinnies, c/o old navy. glitter boots, c/o old navy. on brave: top and tunic, vintage. denim skinnies, c/o old navy. polkadot hightops, c/o old navy. on soul: dress, misha lulu. ballet slippers, c/o old navy. on glow: dress, vintage. shoes, c/o freshly picked.

*This post was sponsored by Old Navy. Check out Old Navy’s latest fashion lineup in store or online at oldnavy.com.
Thank you for being so supportive of this space. I have so much fun doing this and opportunities like this are only possible because of all of you, so thank you!!! 

The weather forecast predicted no rain on this day, so I took my SLR with us on the hike. There’s an overload of pictures because every view and step of that hike was just ah-mazing! Ben and I didn’t to anything to celebrate our anniversary on the day-of, so we said we would reserve a special day for us while we were on vacation to sneak in a little date to celebrate. We had originally planned to explore Taos together and eat yummy food all day long, but once we learned about this hike, we were both game and wanted to accomplish something like this together.

We hiked to the top of Wheeler Peak, which is the highest point in New Mexico. It was 15 miles round trip and we were gone from 7:30am to 4pm, but oh it was so worth it! There were so many times when it felt like we were never going to make it to the top. It was long and steep, and we’re totally amateur hikers, but we kept going together. We kept going up, and up, and up, until we finally made it! We were in the clouds once we got to the top, but we did get a little bit of sun long enough to have our packed lunch together as we admired everything around us. Once it started getting chilly, we made our way back down.

Going down was less huffing and puffing, but definitely more strain on the legs. As we were going down, I kept finding pretty rocks (some pretty large) and I would have Ben hold them (and I held a couple) to take home as souvenirs. Ben had to keep telling me, “No more rocks!” By the time we got back down and into the car, we were both so exhausted!

It felt so good to do something like this together. The hike was a nice break from the noisy chaotic day-to-day lives we lead, so it gave us lots of thinking and praying time, and best of all, we were together. We enjoyed the silence and loved being surrounded by nature. I totally got bit with the hiking bug and want conquer more mountains together! Ben’s foot was hurting a bit from the hike, so he’s a little more apprehensive about it, but I’m thinking if we try out some trekking poles, that might help alleviate some of the pressure and strain we put on our legs and feet. I really just love the challenge of the hike and want to do more. I was so nervous and nauseous in the beginning because I didn’t know what to expect, but once we got our rhythm, it felt good. I know we need to get more practice and maybe the right gear, but I want to keep hiking mountains. I totally have Mt. Whitney on my list now, but I’m not sure how long it’s going to take until we’re ready for that one. I say we climb that for our 10 year anniversary!!!

Any of you legit hikers? That feeling you get once you reach the top is exhilarating and I want Ben and I to experience it again!