This crazy week involved a few deadlines for me, two late work nights for Ben, shingles for Soul, some Spurs wins and losses, and a major craigslist score. There was good crazy and bad crazy all day, every day.

This week’s learned, links, and thankfulness…

Soulie loves her older sisters a lot, but she often doesn’t know how to show that love when they’re around!

If I don’t write a daily to-do list, I don’t get much done.

True graduated her swim level and she moved on up! I’m so glad these girls are learning how to swim properly and pool safety.

This strawberry cream tart looks ah-mazing and I want to make it soon!

Thankful for friends who keep an eye out for things I am looking for on Craigslist. Thanks O! 

Don’t forget to check out this sponsor and enter in the giveaway!

So happy the BFF is on summer break that means beach trip days are coming! Woot! Woot!

The post about “The Good Mom” my friend (and pastor) PJ shared with me (and a few other gals) was a good reminder that my heart needed. I love this statement he made… “Your “success” as a mom is not measured by your capacity to keep everything in order; it’s determined by your ability to trust that even in the chaos, Jesus is beautiful – and even in the mess, so are you.” It goes on to say, “In the end your kids care far less about how presentable their dinner is and far more about how healthy their mom is.” That is all so true. I definitely struggle with all of that! I easily find my satisfaction and joy in making sure my girls are well-behaved, know responsibility and rules, and have everything neat and tidy and when it isn’t, I’m pretty much all out of sorts. This post reminded of how I really need to readjust my ideas of motherhood and fix my eyes on the cross more.

Wanna know something? We totally buy those microwaveable dinosaur shaped chicken nuggets! And you know what else? They taste good!!!

Whew! We survived another year of homeschooling. Oh me oh my, hurray!!! I got my undergrad degree in Child and Adolescent Development and then went on to get my California Multiple Subject Teaching Credential, taught in a public school, but somehow being the teacher to your own children is a whole different ball game. It’s definitely more challenging! Though when I look at what they’ve learned and accomplish this past year, I’m so proud to be part of all that.

This week’s learned, link, and thankfulness…

Homeschool year 2 done and now we’ve got a 1st & 2nd grader! Woot! Woot!

I have various projects piling up, so though school’s done, it will be a busy June!

Love my t-bar clogs from Lotta. I’ve been wearing them everyday this week.

If you’re wear a size 7 shoe, don’t miss out on these vintage beauties!

I am more sane when I get quiet prayer times, so thankful for those moments to pray. I need it.

Tomorrow’s a special day for Ben and me. It’s the day I became his girlfriend and we’ve been together for 11 years now! I really should finish writing up our love story. How he asked me to be his girlfriend is a seriously good story. Well, at least it is to me.

We are VERY excited about last night’s San Antonio Spurs steal in Miami! Ben and I were on such a high after the game last night and I kept watching replays of this play this morning. Tony Parker is amazing and I think he looks like Ben. Our house will be full of craziness for the next week and a half until the NBA championship is settled. Go Spurs go! #beattheheat #3moregames

It’s Friday. School’s done. Spurs took game 1. June 8 makes 11 years. Game 2 is on Sunday (so nervous!). I think this weekend is starting off great! Woot! Woot!

The biggest news of our week is that we got a piano! And piano lessons officially start for the girls on Thursday. I’m excited and they’re excited about it, so maybe we will have another Mozart and Beethoven in the making. I’ll do a later post on the piano and what I learned as I was consulting with various piano technicians as I was searching for a used piano. You can see another view of the piano on my instagram!

This week’s learned, links, and thankfulness…

True and Brave have pretty good fluency in reading. I’m amazed and thankful that I can be part of their learning (though it is hard as heck!).

Don’t wake Soul up from a nap in the car. She’s scary!

I’m thankful for Danni’s and Annie’s honest blog posts. Contentment and mom guilt are definitely things I wrestle with too.

With summer here, I’ve been checking Treehouse Kid & Craft and Kiwi Crate for some summer kid projects! Both sponsors that I adore!

I can’t believe it’s June. We’re so excited for some of our summer plans. Any of you have a vacation in the works?

Crystal Lewis has a kickstarter project going on. I’ve been a big fan of hers for. like. ever. and I’m excited for the possibility of a new album. If you are too, I say you go check it out here!

Thankful there’s one week left of homeschool! We’re going to end the school year with a poetry night. The girls have been hard at work learning poems all year long. I think they have about 8-10 memorized.

This hanging chalkboard would be great for a little summer learning and drawing! Plus, it’s only 10 bucks!

We’ve got real summer heat this weekend, so we’re spending time working on indoor projects and maybe watching a movie! What are your plans this weekend?

This littlest love is so sweet. This weekend is all about celebrating mamas and as crazy as I feel sometimes, I’m so thankful to be a mama. I’m also thankful to be blessed with my wonderful mom and mother-in-law who I have learned lots from. They are both full of so much love and wisdom and I’m thankful for the influence they have had in my life!

This week’s learned, links, and thankfulness…

Glow has officially moved out of her infant car seat into a convertible one. After using the same car seat for all 4 girls, that thing is getting kicked to the curb. It’s kind of a sad moment.

True has moved up into a booster seat, hence why Glow gets the new car seat.

I think the girls have learned that I mean business when I say something.

Brave is ready to graduate to the next level of swim class. YAY!

6.5ers these nude sandals are sweet for only $18 and 7.5ers these sandals are cute and only $13!

I love all the well curated kid items from Salvage Life! My girls would love it all!

Thankful for my girls who still excited about Mother’s Day even though my crazy mom moments should probably exempt me from the holiday.

Thankful for being able to talk about God, Christ, and forgiveness with them and how excited they got to hear my pray.

I’m thankful for the weekend. We get to catch up on projects, go on another adventure (trying to do more with the kids), gather with church family, and then celebrate the mothers in our lives. I’m kind of excited about my breakfast in bed tomorrow morning! Hope you mamas out there have the happiest day on Sunday!!! xoxo

This week was great! No one was sick, we got to hang out with friends, did lots of schooling, and filled in the other times with cleaning and catching up on life things. Oh and we started it off with the San Antonio Spurs moving on to the next phase of the playoffs. Woot! Woot! If Papi’s happy, all his girls are too!

This week’s learned, links, and thankfulness…

Love how True and Brave’s writing have really improved over this past year. Their penmanship is so much more legible and their stories filled with lots of details. They really are ready for the next grade! I can see how they’ve grown so much from the beginning of the year and we are pretty much done with some of this year’s curriculum, though we still have about a month and a half left.

Soulie. That girl is the girliest of my girls. She wants nail polish, lipstick, blush, necklaces, bracelets, and rings all on her birthday. It’s still 6 months away, but she’s already started plotting it out.

The heat (and wind) has been crazy lately! Today it got up to 99 degrees! Cray cray!

Love our Mightee Kids Tees. I love how you can get a cute tee for your kid and educate them on some of the difficulties other kids around the world face using the tee (and a card that comes along with it) as a learning tool. Last month was in support of autism and this month is to help soccer balls and build fields for kids in Africa to protect them from wars, drugs, and child soldiers. The tee designs are super cute too! I really love the concept behind these rad tees.

I want to get Gwyneth Paltrow’s new cookbook. I heard it’s a good one! Anyone try it yet?

I want to try these anti-break colored pencils. Our colored pencils are always breaking and we seem to run out of colored pencils all the time because of it.

Beth shared with me her new shop full of her colorful paintings. This one is my fave. I’m always encouraged to see people doing things they love and thankful that the internet really helps you get your work out there.

This week I was being all hormonal and Ben and I got in a fight because I didn’t think he cuddled me enough! HA! Us girls are just so silly sometimes, aren’t we?! Sometimes, most times, I’m just plain crazy!

Thankful for Friday nights because that’s when Ben and I do our dine-in/movie date nights in our bedroom (and I go pick up some fro-yo too). I always look forward to it! It’s an easy way to get quiet together time when it’s not so easy to get in a consistent date night.

We have a family outing planned for tomorrow afternoon, so we’re excited about that. It seems we’re always up to our ears in house projects that we don’t get out enough as a family. Tomorrow we’re making time to do so. Hip, hip hooray! The weekend is here!!!

This week was an off week for us. I got sick, some of the girls got sick, lots of deadlines, Ben’s work has been super stressful, and then to have the horrific evil that’s unfolded in Boston has just made this week a complete off week. For many of those directly affected by the tragedy, their lives will never be the same and I imagine they might have many more off weeks ahead to finding that new normal for them. I’m praying for healing and peace for all those that have been affected.

This week’s learned, links, and thankfulness…

As Glow grabs the mini DVD player she says, “Wa wat.” Translated: I wanna watch. Sorry kid. Not for you. We let the big girls watch shows on it, especially this week when everyone was feeling cruddy, and this baby of ours definitely takes notice of everything going on.

I finally made it to the doctor to get some things checked. I’m thankful for my temporal, good health.

Soul loves swimming so much and every day around 5 o’clock asks, “Is it swimming class today?”

How amazing does this apple streusel breakfast pizza look? I’m definitely making this soon.

7.5-ers! Look at this adorable and reasonably priced, nude, ankle strap sandal! So cute!!!

Last week at the flea market, I got some vintage grain sacks from my favorite European linen seller. I did a nice deep clean of them and now they’re sitting pretty in our family room.

Our pastor shared this funny video with us! If you’re a parent, I’m sure you could relate. It’s funny stuff.

My last post had me thinking about how this generation may definitely be more worry warts about certain things than maybe previous generations before us. For Ben and me, we just tend to be more cautious about it, but I know my parents didn’t worry about plastics used and hand sanitizer when we were kids, but we’re alive and kickin’ just fine. I think as parents, we just have to do what feels best for our families. We’re all learning things all the time and adjust based on those things. We learn more about GMOs, hydrogenation, and other things we may be exposed to and while we can’t control everything, we do what we can. You’re not a bad parent if you use a microwave or didn’t think about what kind of hose you use for your vegetable garden. I’m sure we’re all doing the best we possibly can for our children and for that we should always be proud.