our beautiful life: 2014

First off, we kept this Disney Trip a secret from Summer for about 6 weeks. We told her the day before we left by giving her a suitcase filled with stuff for the trip and stuff for the plane. This was so much fun to do :)

oh sunshine how I have missed you.

Adam and I took Summer to Disney World last week.
London stayed back here with my parents, shhhh don't tell her ;).
This trip was a blast! So many great memories made.
We stayed busy and did something fun everyday.

Top photo was when we were here last time, Summer was 2.5 years old.

Bottom was this time. Summer 4.

Here is about a 6 min video of some clips from our trip.

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I think Summer is definitely at the propper age to set some "daily" do's!

I found this cute chore chart on pinterest and I loved it. I took out 1 thing and then changed the rest to my liking. you can find the original version here.

We will be starting this on monday, cant wait!

Then I also loved this little "bedtime" routine. I also changed a couple things on this for our style. but you can find the original here

I added the "my Fathers angels all protect me" to the bottom of the page because it is a dear song Summer learned in preschool last year from her teacher & we sing this daily.

It is called

"The Angel song"

They're all above me, above me

Beneath me, beneath me

Before me, before me

They're all around me, around me

My Fathers andels all protect me

Everywhere.

They ended each school day singing this song.

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I recently discovered thee amazing, ChatBooks!

I love it! I mean love!

This app is amazing for INSTAGRAM. which, these days is perfect for me! I don't take my nice camera out much and most photos (all photos) are taken on my iPhone. I started making a shutterfly book and did my pages "instagram" style (square) since thats what shape the photos automatically comes from instagram. dont get me wrong, I love shutter fly but, lets be honest, I have a couple hundred photos on instagram and it is pretty darn annoying to remember to "upload" the photo through my shutterfly app on my phone, then when on a computer I need to go onto shutterfly and find the photo, then upload it to my book, try to place them all in order, then retype a caption. SO ANNOYING. By the time I get all my pictures on there, I have been sitting on the computer for over an hour (who has time for that?!) and the book is at like $60.. ouch.

BUT THIS amazing chapbooks automatically saves all your instagrams and tracks them by date, saves your "caption" and puts the photos in order. When you upload 60 new photos, you will get alerted that a "new book" is ready to be ordered. you get 60 pictures each book. I just ordered my whole instagram series, so I got 6 books and I will definitely be buying more and more through the years.

ALSO, you can download the app on your phone and you DO NOT have to have an instagram account to use this, you can start a "new book" from scratch. Upload the phtotos from your phone and make a new book that way.

Seriously. Love this!

you have to try this.

just click here

your welcome ;)

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Some real helpful organizing tips for those of you who have younger children in the house who are always wanting a snack 24/7.

I put these snack containers together for the pantry and fridge.

They are both at a reachable height for Summer to get something out of it herself.

(If you don't want your kiddos to grab snacks themselves you can always put these out of reach but still have easy to go snacks ready!)

In these containers are healthy snacks, ready to go & portioned out to however many Summer can have.

FRIDGE HAS:

pea pods

string cheese

carrots

cucumbers

and orange

PANTRY HAS:

(everyday snacks)

granola bars

fruit bars

gold fish

crackers w/ peanut butter

animal crackers

I also keep frozen grapes on hand in the freezer. These are great to grab when heading out the door and are so delicious and healthy.

this takes me forever to do but in the long run it is so worth it!

First, take them all off those annoying little branches.

Next, WASH YOUR GRAPES! They are so dirty and get handled so much. I wash mine with veggie & fruit spray, but I have also used just a "drip" of normal dish soap before too... it's better than just water.

Then, for Summer's baggies, I cut all the grapes in half. A slow, but important step to me. I would be panicky every time she was eating grapes if i did not do this, it is way too easy for them to choke on those things.

btw, fred is my husband, Adam. it is a nickname I gave him years ago when he played "Fred" in scrooge. so let's not get any rumors started ;)

I like to have Summer's paper, markers, crayons, colored pencils, stickers, glue, stencils, coloring books and the list goes on, organized in their own rightful place.

Thank Jesus for my labeler. LOVE IT.

I like to consider myself a pretty organized person. Definitely when I became a mom... or maybe I should say, especially when I had my second child, I had a very huge need to get my life organized. My first priority for the "file cabinet" is Summers precious art work. because to me, it's priceless. Now, if you do not have children, I do not expect you to understand. & yes, even though some of it looks a bit odd and questionable, it doesn't make it any less important when I know that Summer put it together and thought a great deal about what exactly it is she is drawing.

like this for instance.

You see a messy, out of control circle / lines / spikes / messy marker blob, right? Well I will have you know that this happens to be one of Summer's "roller coasters", the bigger and messier the circle is, the bigger and scarier the roller coster is. I know this because she makes these pictures every time we color together and makes sure to tell me "This is a very big scary roller coaster mommy!" or..."this is just a baby roller coaster, its not scary, so you would like it mommy!" She puts thought into what she is drawing, knows exactly what it is, and cares that you know what it is as well. So yes, these are saved in the file cabinet. Cause all too soon she won't be making these cute pictures anymore and will be moving onto new pictures & growing up far too fast for me.

NEXT.

These are Summer's preschool worksheets she comes home with. They each take the turn of hanging proudly in a special spot in the kitchen, then they go into the file cabinet. These are the things that also make me so proud, because being her mommy, I know exactly just how very hard she works at this.

One day after "Kids time" Summer came home with these 2 sheets. Seriously made me laugh out loud because I know her teacher must have asked her each question and Summer answered all these by herself. Too cute, considering most of them are wrong.

ALL ABOUT MOMMY

Just to clarify.

favorite food-

steak or italian (spaghetti)

favorite color -

I think blue is pretty safe to say :). good job Summer!

favorite movie -

hahaha I love her answer. I think I would say..Desperate Housewives. I know this isn't a movie. I do not care. I also do not care Summer got this wrong ;).

(I only watch this show when children are asleep, I repeat, I only watch this show when children are asleep.)

as you can tell, I literally watch children movies and shows all day long, or as long as little ears and eyes are still awake, it's all G in this household.

Favorite person-

ding ding ding! & London & daddy ;)

Favorite place-

I wish I got to go to the movies more... but lets be honest, movie theaters don't happen much these days ..Lets go with Disney World.

NOW TO DADDY.

favorite food-

steak

favorite color-

blue (apparently, this family likes blue)

favorite movie

haha!! gotta love what Summer's answer was! The Godfather.

favorite person-

mommy (Tarah)

favorite place-

the lake

well I only posted those because, well, let's be honest, those are much too cute to keep to myself ;)

Yes, these are safely in my file cabinet ;)

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This post is dedicated to my sweet, loving, energetic daughter, Summer.

She turned 4 years old August 24th and I still haven't blogged about it. Better late then never.

We had a huge birthday party for her (again) this year. Yes, I go all out, cause why not? Its so much fun and I definitely enjoy putting together these birthday parties.

It was FROZEN themed of course.

I do wish I would have taken a few better pictures of everything but the time just got away from me.

So here is what I got.