Little Moments

Tis the season of getting so busy you forget to enjoy the season. So I am going to be more intentional about catching little moments. There may not be time for lots of words but lots of words aren't always necessary anyways. I LOVED doing the "picture a day" blog with my sister this past winter while she and her husband spent four months in South Africa. Our pictures ended up telling some pretty big stories.

So here are my pictures of the day...

My weekly before-school breakfast date with Hudson (he did his own hair for the occasion) ; )

We're working our way through the Little House on the Prairie series....one of my favs growing up.

Hope your day is full of sweet little moments!

Arian

The Gnomes

I just added a new print to the shop! A cute little gnome couple requested by a friend a looong time ago (thanks for your patience, Lanna) : )

We've made our Christmas crafting list and are haaaard at work around here, making Christmas presents, creating a nursery, and making a home in our basement for our new housemate. Plus I have hopes of adding a selection of cute Christmas products to the shop....cards, gift tags, a 2012 calendar. I won't lie, I've shed a few tears of "overwhelmedness" recently. 4 1/2 weeks til my due date and still so much to do. 

Today I will take deep breaths, take a walk, be grateful for what I DO get done,  be gracious about what doesn't get done, order pizza if it makes things more peaceful come dinner time, and be thankful for sunny skies and lots of brights leaves still clinging to the trees.

Arian : )

Just a heads up!

Hey! Just a quick heads up to let you know that print prices will be going up from $12 to $15 this Thursday. Just didn't want to catch you fine folks by surprise!

Arian ; )

Family Projects

 I'm finally getting a little better at meal planning which means we've had some pretty fun meals lately. Like our living room picnic with the tents we just made with with the boys.

Jude and Hudson picked out their fabrics and helped us drill holes and sew edges (instructions on super-cute blog here). It was a fun, one afternoon-long family craft project! And already quite a few snack times, dinner times, story times, homework times, and snuggle times have happened under these tents.

 They are going on our go-to list for handmade kids' gifts for sure.

We're pretty deep into quite a few family projects at the moment, actually.

One major one is turning this less-than-homey corner of the basement into a cozy guest room for a college friend of ours who just moved in with us for a little while.

And the other is turning this embarrassingly cluttered closet into a cute, tidy, vintage nursery before Eli's quickly approaching arrival (7-ish more weeks!)

So, yeah, we're quiiiite busy around here. Daily trips to the hardware store and the fabric store...lots of thrifting and re-purposing. Fun but tiring but worth it in the end : )

Arian

Great, Great, Great.

Over the weekend we took a trip to visit what's left of the house my great, great, great grandfather built some time in the mid 1800's. Pretty amazing.

Happy adventurers.

My mom, grandpa, sis, bro-in-law, my boys, and my man : )

Here's a picture of what the house looked like back in the day.

 The house is full of amazing textures that tell stories of generations of inhabitants.

Papa--age 91. He's pretty much the man.

Jude holding a picture of George Henry and his wife who built the house-- his great, great, great, great grandparents. Wow.

George Henry's signature is still scribbled on the wall!

My sis and our matching baby bumps....30 and 32 weeks along : )

Jude the turtle whisperer.

It was quite a day. There was just something so cool about being pregnant and watching the boys hear stories from their great-grandpa while exploring the home their great (x4) grandparents built.  Generations past, generations to come!

Arian

The Weekend

 Our week of eating dinners outdoors and celebrating our hybrid version of Sukkot ended with a full day of eating, relaxing, and playing outside with lots of friends and family.

 Dinner was a gourmet hotdog feast! Everyone cooked their own hotdogs over the fire then loaded them up with various combinations of our 20 or so topping choices.

We decorated our back deck as our 2-level Sukkah. Not exactly a "temporary hut" but it worked for us : ) As our boys get older, I'm thinking we'll attempt some pretty epic sukkahs, like the ones they make for the Sukkah City competition in NYC. Or perhaps more like these temporary huts. Either way, it will be fun.

For decorations, we put flameless candles under lots of the vintage insulators I got from my grandpa's house. We covered the tables with paper and crayons and fall flowers.  We made autumn fabric buntings, crochet square buntings, yellow duct tape buntings, and paint chip buntings (yay, buntings!) and we hung lots of these little flameless candle lanterns we made from baby food jars.

It was pretty sweet. When God designs a party, it's a good idea to celebrate it : )

Well, today is my birthday (woohoo!) I think I will eat a cupcake for breakfast and then take it from there : )

Arian

Books, Tea, and Movies

We had such a great, quiet weekend...the first weekend in a looong time that wasn't filled with lots of people, traveling, or big events (though we LOVE people, traveling, and big events too)

We got to stick pretty closely to our "normal" weekend family rhythm. Saturday is house cleaning, Crossroads, and family dinner out at a fun restaurant. And Sunday is rest & play.

And watching a movie all cuddled in bed together is an Armstrong family weekend favorite.

So this weekend we read lots of books together (yay for hours in Barnes and Nobles and a fresh stack of books from the library), got cozy together, built couch cushion forts together, drank lots of tea with scones/biscotti/cookies together, and just enjoyed being together. Good times.

Hudson spent his allowance on a new book light. I have a feeling this boy will be a lot less reluctant to head to bed now : )

Arian : )