Motherhood is a roller coaster. It’s exhilarating and scary all in one. I’m thankful for it and I learn everyday how to grit my teeth and trust God through it. I love it, but I know I need to continue to consciously fight to respond correctly and have joy in the midst of the crazy. And with 4 girls, there are a lot of crazy! I’ve been reading The Excellent Wife book with some other girls from our church family and it’s been so encouraging. I go through the day just trying to keep my head above water that I forget the joy. My focus is to just survive. I’m praying and learning how to do all things with joy, even if it means cleaning up the same mess ten times (this happens a lot!). I make a lot of mistakes and need a lot of grace and forgiveness. These girls are growing up fast and I don’t want them to learn from me to merely exist, but I want them to consciously have joy in God through all they do and do things that count. These are just some thoughts of things I have been focusing and praying on.

Here’s to a brand new week!

on me: shirt, kohls (for 10 bucks and I had a ten dollar gift card!). skirt, kohls (like 3 years ago). necklace, salvage life. on brave: dress, homespun vintage. crochet baubles, ava mae & ruby lu vintage. on true: dress, misha lulu. headband, frankie & sue. on glow: dress, gifted from grammy. where’s soul? she didn’t want to take a picture.

This week’s been great. Despite being a shorter week since Monday was a holiday, it felt really long. It’s also been crazy hot, so we stay inside and there’s been a lot of learning, playing, and cuddling in bed (of course, there was fighting and yelling throw in the mix somewhere too).

This week’s learned, links, and thankfulness…

I asked Soul her prayer request and she said, “That I trust God and my mom won’t lell (yell) at me.” So cute and funny!

Glow had two falls this week and busted her lip twice. That girl is so clumsy!

I’d love to make these crowns with the girls.

I don’t know if I could pull off a jumpsuit, but this one makes me wish I could.

These comfy dresses (that require no ironing after wash) look so fun for kiddos! Excited to have City Kid on board.

Love the fashion style in Le Catch. Most pieces are not in my price range, but it’s a fun blog read.

Thankful for my sweet husband who comes home and surprises me with ice cream. I love ice cream!

This vintage tapestry bag is cute and on sale!

The Salvage Life grand opening party is on Sept. 21st from 6-10pm (see invite here). I’m going, I think you should go too! Plus, there will be drinks and cupcakes and live music from Me & Mr. Cassidy, so you won’t want to miss out on this fun evening! RSVP to [email protected] so Beth knows how many cupcakes to have!

Oh! Officially signed up for the Zombie Run on Sept. 28th! Anyone in SoCal want to join? The bigger the group, the better! See last year’s zombie run here.

Happy weekending friends. We have nothing planned, but the next three weekends will be busy, busy, so we welcome having a restful weekend.

Vietnamese Chicken Pho. It’s good every time. This time I made the broth just using chicken breasts (tastes just as good!). It was a lot faster since I didn’t have to de-bone and there wasn’t as much fat. I’m definitely going to do it this way from now on.

Black Bean Soup. Another favorite of ours. During this cooking week, I made a batch so big that I stuck a couple bags in the freezer. I took it out and had instant dinner!

Week of 9/9 – 9/13
Monday: Spaghetti
Tuesday: Tacos (or Sopas)
Wednesday: White Chicken Chili
Thursday: Leftovers (for dinner club)
Friday: Pizza/sushi night

I had diverted a bit from my planned menu. I was craving soups, which is pretty crazy because it’s over 100 degrees outside. I’m strange like that sometimes. We also didn’t have dinner club this week, so I didn’t need to make a giant batch of anything so my plan for this week is changed to next week. What was your favorite meal this week? Mine was the Pho. It’s just so good!

We did 3 family day hikes together, and one was about 5 miles long (roundtrip)! For that one we took the Williams Lake Trail, put Glow in the backpack and the three big girls walked it the whole time. They did such an amazing job and didn’t complain one bit! There were inclines, switchbacks, rocky and slippery parts and the girls did all of it. Ben and I were feeling so proud.

It was a gorgeous trail and there were a few change of sceneries, so it kept it interesting. We did take breaks to have some snacks (and catch our breath), but everyone was loving it. I don’t have many pictures because the forecast was predicting rain (we were brave to venture out despite the coming rain), so I didn’t bring my SLR. I did have my phone and snapped a couple photos as well as my polaroid, so both of those were enough to document our first official family hike.

We got to Williams Lake and the girls did their thing of throwing rocks. We knew there was a waterfall about a mile more, and though we were all spent, we thought, “What they hey! Might as well…” So off to the waterfall we went. We were all paired off most of the way. Ben had Glow, I was with True, Brave and Soul would alternate between Grandmama and their Auntia Suzi. On the way back though, Brave was lone ranger and insisted on leading the pack. I think she was so proud of how they managed this long hike (we came praising them for their job well done!) that she wanted to show us that she could lead. Her little legs kept her at least 40-50 feet ahead of us (she was always in sight). From start to finish the whole hike took us about 5 hours.

The weather was perfect and to be surrounded by so much beauty was just so other worldly. Makes me want to sell our house in the suburbs and live in the mountains, which we would gladly do if the opportunity ever presented itself. Just thinking about this special hike with my girls, Ben’s mom and sister brings back so many good memories and gives me a heart of gratitude. It was such a joy to accomplish something like this as a family. This was the start of all us getting bitten by the hiking bug.

I’m way behind in blogging this, but I think that’s been the theme of my life lately, but I have 4 kids, so that’s kind of an excuse, right?! I took tons of our photos on our vacation, so there is a lot to sift through. Plus, I journaled the whole time we were there, so I feel like I documented all the details I wanted to. It was just such a meaningful trip and now that I have finally had some time to go through the photos, I wanted to share it here too.

We went to New Mexico and stayed at Snow Bear Inn in Taos Ski Valley. This area is special because Ben and his family would vacation here year after year when he was a child, and they came one last time together the summer he moved out to California (right before we met!). We made the long drive from California and Ben’s mom and sister made the long drive from Texas for our first family vacation together. It was bittersweet because this was the first time they all went without his dad. Ben’s father passed away a year before we were married, so coming back to this place that holds a lot of memories for them brought a flood of joy and sadness. We didn’t stay at the exact cabins they used to stay at (they are no longer available for tourists), but we took the girls to see them. It was so special to see Ben’s mom be able to share this spot with her grandchildren!

Oh man, that Rio Grande Gorge Bridge is insanely scary. You don’t want to look down! I know the bridge is probably safe and all, but your imagination can really run wild and make you a big ‘fraidy cat. Despite the long drop, it was an amazing view (if you’re brave enough to look out!). That steel bridge is quite impressive too!

Actually, we went to see the bridge twice. The first time it was raining and lightening was nearby. We were on the bridge when suddenly you could hear a bit of electricity and then all of ours hairs stood straight up. It was a sight to see and we were laughing at each other until Ben’s sister’s boyfriend filled us in that it probably wasn’t too safe to be on a metal bridge with a lot of electricity in the air, which is the reason our hairs stood up. We quickly all made our way back to vehicles. Whew! That was a close one.

We also went to see the Earthship Community and the Rio Grande Gorge for a little picnic lunch and animal watching. We saw a beaver and a few birds, but we spent most of our time trying to skip rocks across the river. The girls were totally loving that! They call it “ploppers!”

New Mexico is just so breathtaking and I wouldn’t mind coming back summer after summer. I wish I could rewind summer a bit and relive our vacation. We had such a good time together. I’ve got more to share about it because it’s such a beautiful place and it’s hard to condense its beauty (and all the memories we made) into one post.

Anyone else want to rewind time to their summer vacation?

Just like that they started school again. We homeschool, but they go to a local school for enrichment classes one day a week. It’s a full day for the girls from 9am – 3:30pm. Since they’re in first and second grade now, they have all their classes together. They are both really excited about that because apparently playing together at home isn’t enough. These two are best buds for sure!

They picked out their outfits for the first day of school and True basically wanted to wear this whole get up again, and Bravey chose to wear her Spider-Girl dress with red pants. This was their first day last year, and this one was two years ago (it’s not the first week, but the second week). It’s fun to see their fashion sense evolve.

They were both happy to report they had a good first day of school, so we celebrated by going to John’s Incredible Pizza (an arcade and pizza joint place in one). The kids were skeptical at first because none of us had ever been there, but I think they were sold by their all-you-can-eat dessert. Ha! Moderation, kids, moderation. We all indulged in lots of pizza tasting (they have tons of flavors!), it’s not the best, but it’s a nice try to offer some interesting options. They had one with chicken breast, so that scored some points with Ben. After our tummies were full, we set out to play games.

Yes, we were there for the girls, but Ben and I did manage to play a couple of our favorites too. Skee ball is my number one and Ben likes the basketball one. We ended up with 282 tickets and the girls picked whoopee cushions and we got Glow a pair of star glasses. It was just too much fun and we left way past bedtime. One week of the new school year done, and a few more to go…

on true: shirt, gifted. skirt, c/o old navy (from this post). shoes, old navy (gifted for her birthday). on brave: dress, mom-made dress (see here), pants, c/o old navy. shoes, gap.