Her birthday was almost a month ago and I am just finally getting around to sharing it. We did a party 2 weeks before her actual birthday (post to come), but on her actual birthday we just went to the beach as a family, had a picnic, and played. We were the only people on the beach for a bit, and then even when people came, it was just a couple or two. It was such a beautiful day. All the girls loved playing in the sand and Glow was so content to just sit there and watch.

I packed us some sandwiches and baked mini banana bread, one with nuts (True’s allergic) and one without, and that’s how we sang Happy Birthday! Glow goes bananas about bananas, so I thought she would like banana bread. Nope. She didn’t. At least she liked the sandwich and the tomatoes we packed!

I can hardly believe it’s been a year since she was born. It went by so fast! It always happens that way, doesn’t it?! She’s such a little joy and so easy! She doesn’t walk yet and her mode of operation of late has been bear crawling everywhere. She’s doesn’t always want food from mama anymore and she gets really excited about her Papi. All the sisters dote on her incessantly and we all love her so, so much. We are so thankful for this year God has given her! She definitely is the completer of the little Ben-Ruby collection. I think this family outing was the perfect way to celebrate our littlest love!

Oct. 1 & 2nd is a busy day for my family, particularly my parents. My sisters have back to back birthdays and they are 3 years apart. If you ask middle sister, she says she was jipped a birthday because she didn’t get one due to the busyness of the baby sister being born. Baby sister will complain that growing up she didn’t get her own birthday because she had to share it with middle sister. Now that I am a parent and understand the meaning of the special day my child was born and how much joy I take in making it special for them, man it must have been tough to have to celebrate two back to back and make it meaningful for each.

Monday night, Ben and I partied like rockstars with my family and actually stayed out until 11pm! We were so tired the next day. A gal from our church family was so kind to sleep over and watch over my little ones because they aren’t quite ready to party like rockstars. I can’t believe my baby sister is 21! So weird! It feels just like yesterday that I turned 21, except when I did, I didn’t spend it with my family (or Ben) because I was way across the ocean traveling through Italy with my BFF and some other friends. Middle sister turned 24 and we didn’t see her this year because now she is married and was spending the day with her husband. I love my sisters and thank God for giving them another year!

Now that their birthdays are done, I am excited for my birthday! Mine is on November 3rd and I love birthdays! I still give my parents wish lists and I love the little surprises Ben does. Thus, the countdown in our homes begins. Finally got around to narrowing the tons of photos I took on Glow’s first birthday, so will be sharing that this week!

This week’s learned and links…

Soul is an adventurer. This girl has no fear.

True finally smiled for picture day at school. Only because everyone cleared the room and let me behind the camera.

True and Brave love sweeping. I am going to milk it for as long as the helpful hearts lasts.

This party is getting me excited for the holidays.

Honored to be named one of Babble’s Top 50 Design Blogs for Moms. Thank you to my readers for coming here and caring about what goes on in our space!

Love this little ladybug sweater. So many good options from Zoodies for Halloween. Can totally be worn after too!

So excited to see someone tackle my Paint-by-Numbers Pillow I did for ABM!

Inspired by this window covering.

If you’re a size 8/8.5, these are way cute!

Dana’s new book Fabric A to Z is a must for anyone who sews! It’s the best sewing resource book ever. No joke.

The end of this week finally feels like Fall! Yippee! The forecast finally has cooler days ahead and I am pretty jazzed about it. The girls have spent the last couple mornings outside and our walks to the park will resume (and hopefully happen a lot this season). This week will be busier than normal because my best (guy) friend is getting married and there is lots of wedding prep to do! Ack!

Supplies needed: scissors, pencil, black and white card stock (or poster board), string of lights, hole puncher, and black cats & friendly ghosts template (click on link to download, but can totally make this any size you feel will work best for you and your lights).

Directions: 1) Cut out template. 2) Trace onto card stock and cut out. 3) Hole punch the eyes. 4) Attach to the string of lights by putting the lights through the eyes. 5) Hang up somewhere spooky!!!

So easy and fun! Totally my motto when it comes to DIYs! We did this while Soul was napping and the big girls did the tracing and cutting. I punched the holes (and took the pictures). They’ve been wanting to decorate for Halloween and this was the solution. I just need to get some little pumpkins to put on the mantle and I say we’re all set.

I remember when I was little and wanting to decorate my house for Halloween. Once I traced multiple copies of my foot onto construction paper, cut it out, went out to the driveway, and attempted to tape it to the concrete leading to the front door of the house. I don’t think it stuck very well and ended up just bringing them all back inside. I also dreamed up making fake tombstones to put all over the front yard, but poster board doesn’t really survive too long in the grass. Those were my Halloween decorating dreams as a kid. If you celebrate Halloween, how do you decorate?

Oh man. My last family meal post was over a month and a half ago, right before Ben went on vacation. He was on vacation for three weeks and during that time, I handed all my cooking duties over to him. He is much better in the kitchen than I am! We didn’t really meal plan and he was just going with the flow. There is one significant difference when he is in charge of the kitchen… we eat a heck of a lot more vegetables. Seriously. We all love it too. I think one of you commented once, that you meal plan around your vegetable dish. I really like that. I think that will be a new goal. Well, for next week. This week I am going with my usual and next week I will plan my meals around a vegetable dish. Thank you to whoever shared that tip (if it was you, please let me know here so I can properly thank you!).

The pictures above are just a little sampling of things we have eaten these past few weeks. Besides a lot of veggies (though I get too many pictures of them), we had a whole lot of homemade pizza. The girls got really good at making them (see above pictures). With Ben back at work now, I have slowly started taking back the reins in the kitchen again, so expect my regular meal planning menus to be back.

Week 8/8 – 8/12
Monday: Chicken Fried Rice and Bok Choy
Tuesday: Leftovers
Wednesday: Tequila Lime Chicken and Steak Fajitas
Thursday: Chicken Pho (my friend Liz gave me a recipe that I am so excited to try out!)
Friday: Wedding food (My best guy friend is getting married this day, so we’ll be busy celebrating!)

With it being Autumn and all, I probably should start getting into the seasonal foods, but it’s still unbearably hot over here that I can’t imagine anything but Summer, so it’s preventing me from getting in the Autumn spirit. Ugh. We even had lunch the other day and for music the girls requested their Rudolph album. With it being over 100 degrees outside, though I obliged, that just felt wrong. When the weather does finally cool down, what are some good Fall recipes you recommend?

This week they came home talking about volcanoes, earthquakes, and gemstones. I really love having this opportunity to send them to classes one day a week for enrichment.

Here’s a funny conversation I had with Brave the other day… Brave was sitting at the breakfast table staring into space, she was obviously in deep contemplation, so I was curious and asked, “Brave what are you thinking about?”

Brave replied, “I can’t decide if I want to be a ballerina or have a vintage (though when she says it is sounds like ben-tage) shop.” That’s my Bravey!

on true: pants and shirt, misha lulu. shoes, vintage. on brave: dress, c/o little esop. shorts, misha lulu. shoes, toms.

A new series of the 10 friends project has officially begin. I got the nerve wracking job of starting it off. The task this time around is to take a photo, that is mailed to us, and style it in any way of our choosing and then pass it along.

I got the photo from Twig last week and had various ideas of how to style it. True was my little helper and brainstorming ideas along with me. We thought of painting a picture of it and then having the original photo in the background, or styling it on the wall with the girls looking up, but nothing felt right. As we were playing with various ideas of dressing up our photograph, we decided to gather inspiration from Rene Magritte (we love him!), and thus this is what we came up with. It is inspired by his Son of Man painting.

The task isn’t limited to using just the photograph, though we chose to do so. I can’t wait to see how the next person changes it up! In the end, one lucky follower will receive a large canvas print of the final work! If you wanna learn more or follow along, just check out here to see who is coming up next in the line-up. I’m honored they asked me to be part of it and to be in such great company! Can follow along @madebytwig or #10friends on instagram to check out what’s going on!

Speaking of friends, my friend and jewelry designer Lisa Leonard has something great to share! Her family was chosen to do a reality show called Life by Design. Watch the trailer here. Her family is the sweetest and they have such an amazing story to share! If you want to get more info, just visit her blog!