Summer 2016: slow + simple

Oh this life, I love it and I want it to slow down just a teeny bit more so I have time to just bask in each moment before we are on to the next one. I really do feel fulfilled though, even in the ups and downs, the rushing from one thing to the next. I have learned a lot recently just by reflecting on what God is doing in our lives and discerning what He wants me to do with what He has given me. I've been looking at screens less, reading the Bible and just being with my people more. Doing my best to slow down and simplify life. On "paper" it doesn't look very slow or simple but it can be just by way of shifting our mindset, letting the Lord lead the way and really just saying "no" more often.  

The last two months have been very busy but it was followed by Ben going on vacation a couple weeks ago and it was 9 days of intentional laziness. We just enjoyed each others' company and only allowed a handful of social interactions outside of our household to keep it slow and simple. It was the perfect way to wrap up a very full summer. We are also intentionally kept the rest of this month as quiet as possible as well as we head into a new school year. Malakai just started 2nd grade and Desmond is now in full day Kindergarten. 

Desmond doesn't turn 5 until the beginning of October, just missing the September 1st deadline by 5 weeks. We decided to go through the process of petitioning for him to start school "early" and see how it went. We didn't put any pressure on him or even tell him about it. When it came time for the mandatory IQ test in early July we just said that we told the school how smart he is and they wanted him to show them what he knew. He had a blast doing the activities and answering the questions. I really enjoyed listening to his answers from the back of the room. He had to score in the 90th percentile to qualify for early admission. We didn't get results until a month later. While we waited to hear back we continued to be prayerful over the situation, that if he got in it would be what should happen and if he didn't that we were meant to keep him home for another year of Pre-K.  We were excited for him when he was accepted for early entrance but also a little sad to not have him at home with me all day. I will miss the easy hours of play with Desmond while Aurelia napped, and watching him run across the street to help our neighbor with yard work. I know he has been craving a structure that has been increasingly difficult to provide with baby sister in tow. Des is so ready for school, he has shown it with his eagerness to go and his excitement about it when he comes home.


Aurelia and I have 6 hours to ourselves 5 days a week. I keep saying I won't know what to do with myself. I mean it because it will be a lot of free time opened up during her naps, but also because I have so many things I'd like to accomplish I'm not sure where I should start! Most of all I am just excited for some quality one on one time with my girl. The boys however, I will have to be more intentional about quality time with now. We plan to really slow down weekends when October hits. September is full of family birthdays, or what I like to affectionately call #SeptemberBirthdayFrenzy -Between Ben nearly half of the immediate family birthdays fall in September. When you start counting our extended family that number just gets bigger, which makes for quite the busy time! 

The next 6 weeks are also going to be quite full now that both boys are in fall soccer. We have back to back practices twice a week and I don't even know the game schedule yet but there will be 14 games over that time. I was unloading our minivan at our first double practice earlier this week, filling up the wagon with chairs, waterbottles, toys and a picnic dinner while the boys changed into their cleats and I thought to myself...I have reached official soccer mom status. It cracks me up because it's not really my thing, but it's theirs...so it gets to be mine now too. I love watching these kids discover what they like and what they're good at. 

So I bid a fond farewell to the long days and late nights of summer and hello to the bustle of fall!

Summer 2016: Mid-Summer

Two months ago I declared to my husband that I wanted this summer to be as slow and leisurely as possible. He laughed a bit because we were already deep into wedding preparation. It was such a joy and privilege to be part of my sister's big day as she married her high school sweetheart at our good friends' house; but having such a large event behind us definitely felt freeing. It was a bit fleeting though because we just moved on to the next thing and the next thing both mentally and then physically. After Amanda + Kyle got married we started planning for our yearly 4th of July camping trip with my family. We were also mulling over whether or not Malakai's upcoming tonsillectomy was necessary or if we should wait and see (more on that later), and preparing for Malakai's birthday celebrations. Remember the part where I said we were going to have a slow and leisurely summer? Well, that hasn't happened yet and we are more than halfway through! I had the best of intentions but life with littles never seems to slow down. We have made efforts to not overschedule ourselves and despite all the big stuff happening we have had a lot more little moments and relaxing evenings to ourselves than in summers past.

I've written several blog posts over the last couple of months (that I had alluded to in my last post) but none of them are quite done. I keep thinking of photos I need to take (and upload and watermark and position perfectly) to finish off each post and thus they sit unpublished. Again, I had the best of intentions. I do think those posts will be shared some day, but who knows when. It all really depends on what happens next. I'll back track a bit to recap our summer...

Starting with May, even though it's technically spring. I have to say that May is one of THE busiest months we've had over the last couple years. It's so full of end of the year activities at Malakai's Elementary school, at our church for the kids' programs and we started swim lessons at the end of the month. There was Mother's Day, Ben went to a Hillsong concert in Portland with the worship band and a guy's night out with our church life group, Desmond had a gymnastics party, Malakai had a limo ride and choir performance (back to back), a jog-a-thon, a skateworld party and we had 3 kids' birthday parties to attend. Plus the weather here was very warm and dry so we started packing in house projects and I got my garden going. I threw my sister her Bridal shower and then got to planning her bachelorette.

In June we started swim lessons and wrapped up church events with a volunteer BBQ, we went to Kid's Garden Club, I woke up at midnight to get my kids registered for VBS (yes, that's a real thing), took Malakai to the dentist for what we thought was a broken tooth (oh no problem, just part of his jaw bone as his 7 year molars came in...), continued swim lessons twice a week, Malakai went on a very long field trip to Wildlife Safari that Ben was able to attend with him, I threw my sister a Bachelorette party that consisted of laser tag, painting and hot tubbing, We attended more back to back events for graduations, camp opening and Father's day, I took a treat to celebrate Malakai's birthday in his classroom, we gathered together with our huge life group, we had a fairly quiet Father's Day that Ben thoroughly enjoyed, then we went through the whirlwind that was my little sister's beautiful wedding day, Malakai had his first friend sleepover at our house, his pre-op that got us wondering if he still needed surgery, I cut my hair off after having grown it out over the last year for the wedding.

At the beginning of this month we took off camping and we started it with Ben having a day off at home to help prepare and that worked out so nicely that I may insist we do that for every trip we ever go on because preparing on my own is pretty much hectic and no fun, we played at camp and the let the kids get dirty and eat too much junk, we watched fireworks from our culdesac with the neighbors, the next night Malakai had an impromptu first overnight at his friend's house, he also came down with an ear infection so we had to go back to his ENT doctor and ultimately decided to have his surgery, I kept attending a Bible study that had started in February and is wrapping up at the end of the month, Ben and I celebrated 9 years of marriage, we went to a garden party that night which was basically a double date with my parents, the next day I got the stomach flu and the rest of the family went to my nephew's 2nd birthday party, we had birthday party 1 of 2 for Malakai with just his school friends which was the rainiest day in July I can remember, then Desmond and Malakai attended a week of VBS, I prepared our house for Malakai's upcoming surgery and planned out the details of his 2nd party, we celebrated Malakai turning 7, took the boys to their first theater movie (Finding Dory), had 2 doctors appointments, a play date and swim lessons and then Malakai's surgery. The one thing his surgery did for us (besides the health benefits for him of course) was force us to slow down. I have had tunnel vision on my sweet first-born for the past 5 days. All my energy was focused on making sure he was healthy and comfortable, and that brings us to today...whew!

Wow, look how slow our summer has been... 

Summer always goes by entirely too fast. For August we have a camping trip with Ben's family, then Malakai goes to day camp, we go to Portland for a weekend trip and then Ben has a week of vacation where we have ZERO planned and I am convinced it will be the best week of the summer. No house projects, no long drives, nothing. Just being together and laying low. Then just two weeks of summer before my baby turns 2 and my big kids are starting school again. If I'm not careful to intentionally keep slowing down I'll blink and it'll be mid autumn! 

Seaside mini-vacation

Over the summer some of our best friends, Michael + Megan, invited us to go on vacation with them to Seaside. They were gifted a week stay at the World Mark Resorts the previous Christmas. We didn't have enough vacation time to go during the week in October so we joined them during the weekend at the tail end of their trip.

We were excited about having the minivan in time for the trip, but the check-engine light came on the Thursday before. I took it for a quick free diagnostic and it was having a cylinder misfire. We knew we didn't have time to get it looked at before leaving, but Ben's parents generously loaned us their Tahoe for the weekend, so we were still able to go!

On Friday when Ben came home from work we loaded up and got on the road as soon as possible. We made a stop about halfway through at Bridgeport Village to eat a picnic style dinner I had packed and let the boys move their legs. They have a great play structure in the center courtyard. We climbed back in the car and headed to Seaside. It seemed like it took forever, it was nearly 8pm when we arrived. 

Once we got there we moved some things around to accommodate our needs in the extra room to get settled. We let the boys stay up late to wind down from their excitement and visited with Michael + Megan. Things got complicated when we went to put the boys to bed because I had packed only half of the baby monitor. Thankfully my techno-guru husband figured out that we could do a FaceTime audio-only call between our phones and mute one so we could hear them but they couldn't hear us. It worked great!

We stayed up late talking and poor Ben had to go in several times to soothe Des back to sleep, but once we went to bed he stayed asleep for a good long while. The next morning the boys came running out to the living room, where we were sleeping on a murphy-bed, wanting to play. We were SO tired. 

After a leisurely morning and a great breakfast made by Michael, we decided to head out to the beach. It was a short walk from our room to the beach access since the entire resort is right on the Seaside Promenade.

{the view from our room and a view of the resort from the beach}

{lots o' selfies}

In addition to half the baby monitor, I also forgot sand toys. So we brought some dishes and big spoons with us instead. They worked well-enough and the boys (all 4 of them) had a blast playing in the sand. It was warm and only slightly breezy, a beautiful day on the Oregon coast. 

We ate a really late lunch after cleaning off all the sand before heading out again. Michael + Megan had planned to take the boys on the carousel by all the shops down the street. Malakai only wanted to ride on the bench so he had to wait a couple rounds, but Desmond went on right away. He looked nervous when it started moving but got more comfortable and seemed to have a lot of fun.

Afterward we walked by the shops and Michael bought a bunch of deep fried desserts that we all tried. The consensus was that they were disgusting. Desmond fell asleep on Ben's shoulder on the walk home, so we let him snooze while we relaxed and thought about dinner.

The boys ate dinner and went to bed a few hours later. We ate a really late dinner and stayed up talking into the night. 

Sunday we woke up to clouds and fog that wouldn't burn off. We relaxed most of the morning. The boys colored, played video games and read. Michael made paper airplanes for Malakai and he was instantly hooked.

{checking out the foggy beach}

We took the boys to the small play area and game room at the resort and then decided to go for a walk on the promenade.

{caught instagramming}

{Michael, Desmond, Megan, Ben, Malakai, + I}

Malakai got sick of walking pretty quickly but we enticed him to go further by pointing out the swing set on the beach. Megan got this adorable picture of us that I just LOVE.

On our walk back Malakai + I found a caterpillar. After Kai tried holding it, Michael set it free.

{the boys LOVED air-hockey, Megan + I keeping each other warm, Kai with his new friend}

We relaxed some more back in our room until dinner. Megan and Michael made some amazing meals  (including Puerto Rican style plantains!) and introduced us to some yummy snacks over the weekend. Megan also read stories to both boys a few times which they loved. She even brought a childhood favorite of her own to share with Malakai called Mr. Pudgins.

After dinner we packed up our circus and headed home, but not before Megan loaded us up with a ton of food to take home with us and the most amazing brownies of all time!

{sunset from our room, back on the road}

We loved every minute of it and count ourselves blessed to have such awesome friends that would invite us to come share in their vacation with them.

every July

Every summer July passes us by in a whirlwind of events. I find myself thinking once we get past a certain event, things will calm down...but they never do. This month we went to the coast for Independence Day, celebrated our 6th wedding anniversary, we had a handful of informal get togethers and playdates, Ben was promoted at work and had his 1st vacation in 2 years, Kai turned 4 and we had a party to celebrate, Ben's company celebrated a big anniversary so we've attended several celebratory gatherings (BBQ, formal dinner, baseball game), I chopped my hair shorter than ever, we visited a camp at Triangle Lake and Ben got to wake board after missing out last summer, we took the boys to a "Touch-a-Truck" event, Kai had his 1st dentist appointment, and we attended a rehearsal and wedding for my cousin at which Kai was the ring-bearer.

{last night at my cousin Valeena's sunset wedding}

There hasn't been much space between events to blog about what we've been up to in much detail. I'll do my best to break some of it down and post some pictures. Maybe. But the best place to keep track of our goings-on and see pictures we take is on Instagram. You can find me at ShanLeAnn, Ben at bensonpeculiar, and he also posts Malakai's quotes and things at KaiThoughts.  I rarely use the DSLR anymore, but do want to remedy that if things ever slow down enough. 

So, is it just us or is July crazy busy for the rest of you as well? I suspect it's easy to fill up with events when you're an Oregonian with only 8-12 weeks of relatively dry and warm weather. 

Happy summer, hope you're enjoying it as much as we are!

February 2013

I can hardly believe spring is here...I mean, where did February even go?

Here is a bit of a recap of how last month went for us....

On the 2nd, Ben turned 28. We celebrated by going out to breakfast, but then after nap I headed up to Portland. I had a bachelorette to attend, and my sweet husband gave me the go ahead to miss the evening of his birthday for it. I'm telling you, he's one generous and patient man.

I had a blast at Carina's bachelorette and felt about 10 years younger, if only for an hour while we were out dancing. I also started a 2 week vacation. I figured I was going to be away from my job for 2 weekends, I might as well take off the days in between and spend some focused time with my boys. It was WONDERFUL.



The next day, I headed back home as soon as I could to continue Ben's birthday weekend celebration. After the boys woke up from nap we headed to Ben's parents for a Superbowl/Bday party for Ben. Just a little party with both of our immediate families.

The following weekend was THE wedding. Carina and Reid's big day was one of my favorites of all time. Ben and I left the kids home with his parents for the entire weekend (which was a first and made me nervous- mostly because of their sleep habits). We stayed at my High School best friend's place and had a great time catching up with her and her husband. We had the rehearsal, dinner and then stayed up late talking with Linds and Adam before crashing and then SLEEPING IN (glorious!).

Then February 9th, Ben dropped me off at the Crystal Ballroom and I dove into the preparations that were already underway (While Ben cavorted around Portland by himself, and thoroughly enjoyed it). Things moved quickly and the wedding started just after 5pm, beautiful ceremony, cocktail hour, dancing, dinner, dancing. Ben and I had a really fun night, and we realized it was the first time we really danced together. I passed out shortly after we got back and then the next morning we were off to visit a Portland church and we even ate lunch before rushing home to our boys. It was so good for us, our marriage, our kids...our whole family. The boys did GREAT and Ben and I felt rejuvenated and were so relieved to discover that our children didn't disintegrate without us.

A few days later we took the boys to see Liz's lambs. They get bummers every year and invite everyone to come out for a feeding to see them. I love it just as much as the kiddos do. Ben was there, he just did all the photo taking...

All month we had about a million different types of appointments that kept us quite busy (more on that later and NO I am not pregnant again, haha). Then I came down with some weird stomach thing (yes, I'm SURE I'm not pregnant) and then the next day Ben was out with the stomach flu. Then we had some sort of food poisoning a few weeks later. Hm, perhaps my cooking is killing us slowly.

The weather was randomly dry and sunny and we spent some afternoons and weekends outside. We mostly let the boys play, even though we have a LOT of yard work to catch up on.

Malakai went back and forth with potty-training all month and I wanted to tear my hair out or throw him a party a handful of different times. Yeah, it's been a roller coaster ride.

Desmond is talking up a storm, he started repeating just about anything he hears. He's such a little parrot in that regard. He also LOVES to mimic anything Kai does, so we've had a lot of talks with Malakai about setting a good example for his brother. Good example- cleaning up toys, playing gently. Bad example, running around and literally bouncing off the walls, climbing chairs to reach things on tables. Sigh.

Things at work have been different for both Ben and I. I don't really like to go into details about our workplace joys or woes too much here, so I'll just leave it at that. We are both gainfully employed and while it's often a struggle to make ends meet due to our long term debt (we have ZERO debt outside of our home and student loans, but those 2 things are more than ENOUGH), God always provides somehow and we are able to make it work.

So...that was our February, a short month packed with more activity than should actually fit.

Camping with a Toddler (while pregnant)

Over the 4th of July Holiday weekend we went camping, as we usually do, with some of my family. For as long as I can remember we camp along the Oregon coast. For the past 10 years we've been going to Carter Lake with is near the dunes, 2 miles from the ocean, and right on a small lake. It also has generously sized camping grounds so we get two next to each other and camp all together.

Last year was Kai's first camping trip and this was his second. I was somewhat nervous after the sleeping issues we had with him last summer and being pregnant this time around. Plus, he wasn't yet walking, just cruising last time! Although we did a fair amount of chasing him down we had a great time overall.

We packed up + arrived Friday evening. There were a lot of mosquitos and it was much colder than it had been in town so we put on some layers of clothing + bug-away spray. Then we went to check out the lake just down from where we were camping, which ended up being Malakai's favorite place to walk to. For the entire trip if he saw someone walking that direction he chased them so he could tag along.

That night getting Malakai to sleep was fairly easy. He cried a bit while Ben tried to calm him down but then he fell asleep on my chest. I had to wait until he was in a deep sleep to move him off of me or he would start hollering all over again, but after that he slept the whole night with no problems between Ben + I on a mattress in my parents' pop-up tent.

The next morning we were up bright + early at 7am. After hanging around camp we put on our swim clothes and headed to the lake. Malakai loved the sand and the water. He would have dove right in if we let him. There were some people fishing nearby and a lot of big kids in the water so we stayed close to the shore. He ended up getting so sandy that we had to give him a cold water shower before changing him for his nap. Since we didn't have a contained place for him to sleep Ben or I napped with him in the late afternoons. Having a later nap time worked well with how late we'd end up going to bed. It would stay light til nearly 10pm and then we'd break out the s'mores and not really get to bed til 11pm or 11:30 each night.  The second night he laid himself down in between us, said "nuhnight" and was out within minutes. What a milestone!

Malakai loved on Aunt Deedee + Uncle Mark's dogs, especially Chief, my cousins made up a game similar to pictionary to pass the time, and we snacked all day every day. Malakai also had an obsession with the step on the pop-up tent and enjoyed his mega blocks, play tent and sand toys from time to time.

On Sunday we vetoed the 2 mile walk through the dunes to the beach and found the drive up access. There was a small dune to climb which left me a bit breathless but it was a ton of fun to watch Kai experience the ocean. He wasn't too fond of the waves but he enjoyed looking at it from afar and playing in the endless piles of sand. He made a habit out of crushing everyone's creations. He wore himself out so much that he fell asleep before we even started the car to head back to camp.

That night some of my family were planning on heading about an hour north to see an early fireworks show but that all changed when the boys discovered a fire on the beach. Right behind our campground is a giant dune that once you get to the top you can see the ocean about 2 miles out, which is where the fire was, in the grass. Everyone (except myself + Kai) went up to see what was going on.

911 was called but the authorities got mixed up and were told the fire was at the lake when it was at the beach. My dad showed them where to go and my brother and his friends actually went down to the source. Apparently some girls were camping in the beach (illegal here) and started a fire in the grass with their camp stove. They were too scared to put it out so they called 911 but then stuck around and were trying to put it out once it had spread. It went from 2 acres to nearly 4 acres quickly and some of our camp neighbors said they finally got it under control around midnight that night. It didn't sound like anyone was hurt and thankfully we weren't close enough to have to evacuate.

Monday I attempted a new camp recipe. Usually for breakfast we roast biscuit dough over the fire and smother them with homemade strawberry jam, which we did the first two mornings. Our last morning I wanted to try making omelets on the camp stove the way my uncle makes them. They started out great but apparently I needed thicker zipper bags because 2 out of 3 of them broke. I think we'll be sticking to biscuits in the fire.

After breakfast we cleaned up camp + headed home. We got home around 3pm and were unpacked and showered by 5pm. The entire weekend flew by and was a complete success. Malakai was so busy the whole time that he slept great and sleeping on a semi-firm mattress kept me from having too many aches + pains to enjoy myself. (unfortunately today after a night in my own bed I woke up with spasms and really bad sciatic pain).

Next year, with a 3 year old and a 9 month old we may just visit the campers and make it a daytrip. We'll have to wait + see!

How did you spend your holiday weekend?








P.S. this trip would not have been nearly as successful without the help of our family and especially Ben who spent a lot of time chasing after Malakai. (getting me out of a camp chair takes too long for grabbing kiddo from dangers, ha!).

clean + pack

Nothing too interesting to report today...only because I don't have to the time to blog. One of my besties from College, Carina, is coming to stay with us for a few days while she's on vacation. I'm so excited to spend some time with her and catch up. I haven't seen her since February, which is actually pretty recent for how often we go to the Portland area where she lives. She will probably be the last guest in our spare room before it turns into a play room (but we're planning on getting an air mattress so we can still have overnight guests...among the toys). 

In preparation for her coming, and for the long weekend coming up, I've been scouring the house and getting things organized. Clean clean clean, pack pack pack. Sweep, vacuum, dust, wash, fold, scrub, stack, organize...

We are going to attempt camping again this year. Having an (almost) two year old instead of an (almost) one year old should make some things easier and some things more difficult this time around. Add being in my 6th month of pregnancy and we may have a recipe for disaster. We're praying for fun instead. Feel free to pray with us, we could use the fun getaway. 

Once we get back we'll be celebrating our wedding anniversary, having a garage sale, then celebrating Kai's birthday, another bestie's wedding and planning for my baby shower. This summer is FLYING by!

What are your plans for the long weekend?








Don't forget to enter the two giveaways I have going on right now. One for Barielle nail strengthener that ends tomorrow and the other for an EcoMom gift card that ends on July 5th! Entries are low right now, so your chances are high!

2010

This started out as one of those "year in review" posts. I was going to posts photos and a month by month recount of our year. Then, life got in the way. I also realized, that if you wanted to know what we did month by month you could just click on the posts to the lower left. So...instead of waste my time + energy on that, I made a photo collage to represent our year. It took me 10 minutes.

We just had a glorious 5 day vacation. We ate, took naps, visited with family, and I got older. Tomorrow Ben goes back to the office and I have an appointment. Back to the real world for us.

When I catch a few minutes I'll update in more detail, especially about my fantastic birthday surprises courtesy of my most wonderful husband!

rainy lake weekend

This past weekend we spent a couple days at the lake with Ben's family. It was the first time that all of his parents, siblings + significant others had gathered all at the same time. 

Despite the cool weather Ben went wake-boarding on the glassy water late Friday morning just after we arrived. 

Malakai was a bit scared when the boat would get up to speed. He was very clingy, but got better with each ride.

There was a unique outdoor shower. It was oddly refreshing to take a hot shower in the cool rain. 

We saw more of the toddler in Malakai as he wandered around everywhere. He's so curious about everything. He kept walking up to the campfire and blowing on it. I honestly have no idea where he got this from, but it was hilarious.

Just before we headed out on Saturday night, since Ben had to be at church bright and early on Sunday, I was determined to have a s'more. There was a pause in the rain so we all headed out. Of course the rain started back up as soon as I started toasting my marshmallow and by the time I was finished everyone else had run back inside and it was pouring down rain harder than it had all weekend.

{So I stood outside in the rain with my s'more- a true Oregonian}

Now that our lake weekend has come + gone I'm really ready for the fall weather. I'm embracing the chill by baking goodies, having tea in the afternoon, and cuddling up under soft blankets at the end of the day.