This week’s learned, links, and thankfulness…

Glow does the cutest little happy dance.

Love this pouf from Tiny Toast.

This butterscotch monkey bread looks amazing.

The girls manage to make their room crazy all the time! Even though it drives me nuts, I’m thankful for the memories they make playing in there.

Brave has really improved so much in her reading. Her favorite book lately? Old school Spiderman comics!

Thankful for friends who I get to share my struggles with.

I want to make this with the girls for February.

My sister is really one of a kind. Her wisdom and faith is so encouraging.

What’s something you learned or are thankful for this week?

This week was crazy busy; I felt like I could never catch up! Last week I was sick, so things were out of sorts, and we got behind in some schooling lessons, so this week was spent catching up, but I felt like I couldn’t. Just when I felt like I had a handle on things, life happened (as it always does), and it didn’t go the way I planned. I have two Christmas projects to share with you, but I haven’t had much time to get to this space. They’re really easy though, so if you have a free afternoon between when I get those post up and Christmas (free afternoon, what’s that?!), you might want to make them!

This week’s learned, links, and thankfulness…

I made oatmeal pecan pie again, but this time I cut the amount of sugar to 1/2 cup and added a little bit more oatmeal, and I think it’s way better this way!

It’s so hard to find a trustworthy general contractor/handyman, but I think we found one. If anyone in SoCal needs one, email me and I’ll share you our find. We’ve had him do a few things for the house, and so far so good. He’s honest and competitive in his pricing.

That picture above is my mommy, me, and Santa many moons ago! #mymomstilllooksthesame

Ben injured his rotator cuff and is in a lot of pain. I’m praying he feels better soon.

How delicious does this caramel dutch apple look?!

We’re so excited about Christmas and to be with family we haven’t seen in awhile!!!

Check out the Misha Lulu Surplus Store for all her new goodies. She has prints and dolls up for sale.

The biggest news of the week (in our home) is that we brought our refrigerator back in our house! We moved it to our garage a year and a half ago when we put in wood floors, and we never brought it back in. Our friends all laugh at how ridiculous it is that we go back and forth to the garage all day long.

Anyone watch The Sing-Off?!! Our really good family friend’s nephew is in The Filharmonics and they are so good! Ben took the girls to a Danika Cares benefit concert a couple weekends ago, and my girls were fans ever since, especially my Brave!

We’re looking at window coverings for a couple windows in our house, but I can’t ever commit to something. Woven shades or shutters? And why are they so darn expensive?! It’s insane. Maybe I’ll just forever stick with my burlap and cheesecloth solution.

Thanks for reading my random ramblings!!! xoxo

Due to all the flowers we picked for our fall potluck, we had lots of fresh flowers in the house this week. We have really been stopping to smell the roses a whole lot. They smell so good! When the girls see me sniffing one, each one will say, “I wanna smell! I wanna smell!” The tallest rose on the right smells the absolute best. I keep making Ben smell it and I tell him that I need a perfume that smells like this. I’m not really a perfume gal, but lately I’ve gone out after I’ve done some cooking and have thought, “Oh man, I need perfume because I smell like food.” Maybe it’s time to start searching for a good one. I remember my mom buying perfume and buying cologne for my dad, but Ben and I have never been into that stuff. Though after getting high on my roses, I would really like to find a scent similar to them. I’ve also got a sensitive nose though, so the wrong scent can also give me a headache. Anyone have a good light scent to recommend?

This week’s learned, links, and thankfulness…

My sinus infection is back. Ugh. But I’m thankful for medicines and doctors that help make things better.

Soul is swimming on her own now. Yay! We’re still going strong with swim classes (twice a week) and have no plans to stop in the winter. By summer, they should be pros!

We got our new sink and faucet in! So excited!!! Ours has been broken since January and it’s so nice to have one that works again.

I want to make a healthy version of this recipe.

I’m dying over how gorgeous these bags are.

I’m so excited about thanksgiving and hanging out with family.

My sister is just awesome. I’m still in disbelief she will be leaving us for 11 months (when she comes back True will be 9!), but I just know God is going to use her, and I can’t wait to hear her stories.

I was so encouraged by my friend Frances’ blog post. My heart needed that.

Have a good weekend friends! Cleaning bathrooms are on my agenda this weekend, what’s on yours?

This week was a crazy week. Full moons. My hormones raging. The girls being kids. Life being life. Everyday I’m learning how to find the right balance. Sometimes, I’m way off and those days turn out wacko and some days I get it just right, and all is mostly well in our household.

This week’s learned, links, and thankfulness…

I’m always amazed at True’s tenacity for reading. She goes to at least one full chapter book (sometimes two!) a day!

Read the article on Removing Children from the Internet. It has some good points to think through. Ben and I had a good discussion on it and how it relates to us.

This pumpkin doughnut looks amazing!

Baby sister’s boyfriend, Andrew Ho, had his work featured on the Huffington Post. That is such a big deal!

I’ve been seeing a lot of ways to doctor up pumpkins in the blogosphere, but I think this by far is the prettiest way.

I think someone who wears a size 6 should get these cute fringe boots.

I asked Soul the other day if she wants a nice new mom or to keep this crazy mom. She said, “I want my crazy mom.”

We tried cookie butter for the first time ever!!! That jar is dangerous thing to have in our house.

I’m hoping next week is feeling a little more balanced for us, particularly for me because I’ve just felt really crazy all week! Anyone feeling like that too lately?

Holy moly it rained! Then it cooled off. It was just 100 degrees last Sunday and I’m hoping that was the last hurrah of summer. I’ve been in cozy sweats since Wednesday, so I’m kinda feeling good about it.

This week’s learned, links, and thankfulness…

I love these girls, even with all the chaos that ensues daily, I’m so thankful for them.

We had an impromptu girls’ wine and cheese night this week and it was awesome.

This chair is just so rad. If it came to live here, I wouldn’t mind.

This wedding proposal and wedding all done in the same day is really so sweet! I love what they said about what makes their relationship tick. That’s what makes my relationship with Ben tick too.

If you’re a 9, I love these vintage ankle booties (great price too!) or these woven ones for a size 7 is awesome!

We’re planning a trip to San Luis Obispo soon, so send over your recommended places to eat and visit please!

I loved that I actually got to wear layers this weekend. Yay!

My baby sister started her World Race blog. I can’t believe she’ll be leaving us in a year. I start to tear up just thinking about it.

I’m probably going to the Oh, Hello Friend 5 year party on Friday, anyone else going to go too?

Happy Monday! I hope your weekend was fabulous. Mine was as I got to clean my bathroom and we took the girls to Disneyland!!!

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?