A Sunday Afternoon at the Dominique's

Its Sunday afternoon.

The Olympics are on.

The Detroit Tigers are playing.

Outside its not too warm and slightly breezy.

A perfect day to eat lunch outside, maybe go to a park, possibly the zoo, have a cookout. 

A lazy Sunday....

...not really...

Down came the border.

Out came the countertop.

Out came the leaky washer and the squeaky, over heating dryer. 

Down went the new floor.

(This picture shows just how bad the washer was leaking.  Ruined a good portion of the wall.  Good thing I'm married to a handy man that can fix those problems.)

In went the new door to the garage.

(The old door to the garage had a two inch gap at the bottom with a piece of carpet hanging on the back side to keep the cold and bugs out.  Not very efficient or effective.)

Gorgeous, isn't it?

Now I just have to choose a wall color to go with my awesome new light fixture.  I have a little time as we're also changing our standard squared off doorway from the laundry room to the kicthen into an arch.

Very productive Sunday I'd say.

I'd also say I have the best husband ever!!

Big News

This is big news I tell you.

B-I-G!  BIG!

Huge News!!

The kind of news that stops your heart for a second and begins beating in the next with a whole new path in life.

Yeah. 

That type of news.

And you're hearing it here first on 'Simplify.'

Are you ready for it?

The big news is.......

.

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Jacob held a bug!!!

AAAAAGGGGGHHHHHHHHH!

You might be wondering why this is such huge news in our little world and I'll explain.

Jacob does not like bugs.  Not in the least.

I have a video somewhere of Bree chasing a sobbing Jacob with a worm.

Lightning bugs are only "safe" if they are in a container.

Its so bad that I haven't taken them to the Butterfly House for fear of giving my child night terrors.

Yes I realize that he is only holding a locust shell but I can see the confidence building behind his eyes and can predict whats going to happen.

Today its a locust shell tomorrow its a worm.  After that spiders will be his new best friends and mice will be trapped and secretly kept as pets.   In a few short summers chasing snakes will be his newest fascination and I'll be terrified to clean out his pockets before throwing them into the laundry.  Dead animals the cats bring to our doorstep turn into science experiments and the words "Hey Mom!  Look what I caught!"  will send chills down my spine.  The ever present stench coming from his room will drive me nuts but a little part of me really won't want to know what it is.  And when that day comes I'll look back and know that it all started today...with a locust shell.

Its Christmas Baby!

Merry, Merry, Happy Christmas in July!

The Christmas Spirit is busting through me so much so that I'm going to do my first give away!!

(Only took me 3.5 years of blogging and 388 posts to do this but there's no time like the present, right?)

So what else would a winter loving, Christmas enthusiast like me give away?

None other than this:

A custom made by me 'Let it Snow' 2x4 block set. 

But wait!  There's more!

Since it is Christmas in July I'm feeling extra generous and am including 2 snowflake coffee cups as well:

So how does this give away work?

Leave me a comment on here or on the facebook link.  Just let me know that you follow my blog, what type of posts you enjoy reading or what you would like to see more of.  Everyone who leaves me a comment by midnight on July 26th will get their name put into a hat and one lucky winner will be drawn out on Friday.  I'll announce the winner on here then happily deliver it to your house or skip off to the post office to mail it to you.

Whats the catch?

No catch. I blog mostly for myself - a virtual scrapbook if you will - so when I fall behind it only effects me, right?  Not so much.  In the randomness of places (grocery store, work, funerals) someone will come up to me and mention how much they love the stories I post about our lives.  Its a reminder to me that although I blog for my memory's sake, other friends and family out there are watching my children grow up, that maybe I'm inspiring someone somewhere to try something new. The comments will be a long lasting reminder of how many lives I'm touching by doing something so simple.

There you have it.

1 - 'Let it Snow' block set with two snowflake coffee cups given away to one lucky commenter (and yes I double checked to be sure commenter was a word.) 

The hardest thing you have to decide is whether you're going to keep it for yourself or give it away as a present.

A Valuable Lesson

"I will honor Christmas in my heart and try to keep it all the year."

- Charles Dickens

A few weeks ago we had a garage sale. 

Seemingly junk was purdged from our lives only to find new life at someone elses home. 

The bonus? 

We had a little extra change in our pocket.

$82.10 to be exact.

And what do you do when you have a little extra money lying around?

You do a little Christmas in July shopping.

Monday morning Bree, Jake and I headed out to Walmart to take advantage of back to school prices and variety to purchase items for packing into shoeboxes for

Operation Christmas Child. 

Here's what we bought:

With our $82.10 we bought enough items for three shoeboxes.  Each shoebox contains:

-insulated lunch bag

-matching drinking cup

-Crayola Crayons

-Crayola washable markers

-Crayola water paints

-glue sticks

-glow in the dark stars (for the ceiling)

-toothbrush

-flossers

-Band aids

-5 small play-dohs

-Uno card game

A new tradition has been born in our house this year.

Every summer we have a garage sale.  Sometimes two.  From this summer on we will prep for our garage sale with the thoughts of just how fortunate we are in all that we have.  We will let go of all those "someday" and "once in a blue moon" items knowing that the money made will go towards brightening a child's Christmas.  We will keep the Spirit of Christmas in our hearts all year and, more importantly, let our actions show it. 

153 days until Christmas!

When Life Trumps Blogging

These are the excuses events that bring blogging to a halt:

It may be a little difficult but do you see the discolored streaks running down the walls?  Wonder what that might be?  Well, its none other than toilet water.

Yeah. Toilet water running down my walls. Soaked through the two rolls of toilet paper. Purple towel drenched. In pools on the floor. And splattered all over the curtains.

How?

Well the wonderful city of Wauseon was flushing out the sewer drains in our neighborhood and apparently we had a birds nest type blockage in the vent in our house which caused pressure to built up until SPLASH - toilet water spewed out of our toilet onto every surface in the bathroom.

And we have two bathrooms.

It was a wonderful way to spend the day.

Not really.

But we have been spending a lot of our summer days doing this:

and this:

We've been eating a lot of this:

and collecting these:

Long summer days means we need to catch up on this:

And summer get togethers mean these are never ending:

And neither is this:

But maybe once we get this installed, it won't be so daunting:

However, I never mind doing this:

I spend a lot of my time here:

And try to spend more time on here:

I've spent a lot of time doing this:

And as a family we've spent a lot of time here:

And when we're home you can find us doing this:

Of course, summer wouldn't be complete without a lot of this:

And some of this (whatever that may be):

(You can't tell, but Yoshi was very, very glad the sprayer wasn't hooked up to a hose.)

So there you have it. 

 Our summer, thus far, in a nutshell. 

 I look forward to life slowly down as Fall approaches and I can get back to blogging.  Of all the artsy-crafty things I do, scrapbooking is not one of them.  Blogging is the one way I chronicle our day to day lives and mark the milestones of our fast growing children.

So stay tuned this week as I have a lot of catching up to do.

Happy 4th

Since I forgot to take my camera to the fireworks last night, we'll spend this day reminiscing back to Bree's younger years.

For your listening delight, this is Bree's firework experience from 2009.

OBX - A Week in Picures part 2

He had no desire to be in the pool...

...but if you pulled him out, he wanted to be back in.

The beach was always a safe bet.

One of the many thrilling things about being on the beach was waiting until dark to catch ghost crabs.  Bree had no fear reaching out to pick these things up.  I, on the other hand...

...happily stood by and took pictures of these, um, wonderful creatures.