Happiness Week 39

I was hoping to show you a lovely photo of my frames all filled up with beautiful pictures of my smiling family. Sadly, that's not gonna happen. The frames are up on the walls but I'll be lucky if they are filled by Christmas at this rate. The rainy weather is coming, I swear, and maybe that will feel like a better time to be stuck on the computer for hours and hours. Right now we are trying to get stuff done to the yard to prepare for winter. I already told you about that so I won't go into it again.

We are definitely in the school grind with homework, soccer and paperwork galore. The kids are doing well. In case you missed it, check out this video of Ainsley riding a trike at school! I think this year we feel a little less "out of place" in Redmond. It's a nice place to live. There are trees and green everywhere and the leaves are changing color and are about to fall. There are a number of farms nearby. I hope to make it to one of the pumpkin patches with the kids but couldn't resist buying a $2.99 pumpkin from Trader Joe's to set next to the front door to welcome October.

October is my absolute favorite month of the year. That's why we picked it to get married.  It'll be 16 years on the 19th. Ainsley turns 6. Steve will be mixing sound at the annual Salmon Days Festival for the last time, after 31 years 29th year(he was just a teen). And of course there's Halloween.  It'll be busy but fun.

I hope you have a fantastic week whatever you have going on in your life.

Daily Happiness Photos - Week 39

9/24 Mulch Day

***

We had 20 cubic yards of mulch delivered to the house for the gardeners to spread. They finished all but 2 yards that Steve spread this weekend. I'm hoping this cuts down on the massive amount of weeds and yardwork. Please, pllllllease let it work! 

09/25 Found Rocks

***

There are parts of my yard that are lined with rock. It's an interesting detail of the landscaping that I rather like. I was considering getting more but wanted it to match. Plus I didn't really want to pay for it. So I was very happy to find that there were already rocks there, probably buried the last time the yard was mulched. All I had to do is dig them out and put them back on top, though it took quite a lot of time that I'd have rather been doing something else I was very please that it's done.

09/26 Adrian Making Up Pokemon

***

Adrian's a smart kid. He's memorized so much information about Pokemon; their traits, evolsions, powers, attacks, health points....and there are hundreds of the things. Now he's making up his own and they are pretty cute. I love that he's excited about this and working hard at it. It's so fun when he comes and shows me a new creation.

09/27 Tucking the Kids Into Bed

***

I love tucking the kids in at bedtime and our special way of saying goodnight. Evie's always hated to go to bed. I used to have to climb into bed with her. Thankfully she eventually she outgrew it but on a tough day I will still do that sometimes until she falls asleep. We learned of the tragic death of a child in the community today. It's SO sad. Our hearts go out to the family. We gave our kids lots of extra doses of love today.

09/28 Terracotta Pot

***

When Steve and I were on our honeymoon (in Spain and Portugal) we had the best chicken paprika baked in a clay pot by a sweet lady who was friends with the Englishman who ran the Pensione in Salema Portugal. It was a meal I won't ever forget. After a little research (I'll spare you the backstory) I found this beautiful Italian roaster at TJ Maxx, for a fraction of the cost that it's sold through this website, Bram, in case you want to know more about clay pot cooking. I'm saving it for a Christmas present to myself but it's going to be really hard to wait to use it. 

09/29 Sling Shot

***

I made Adrian this slingshot with the suede from my old gardening glove.  It seems only proper that a boy ought to have one. Hopefully he doesn't break a window.

09/30 Getting Rid of Kid Junk

***

Adrian has a captain's bed. That means he has tons of drawers filled with more bits and bobs than you can imagine. Because he can always quickly shove things in the drawers to "clean his room".  Who was the idiot that gave him hundreds of rubber bands, marbles, magnets and let him use his allowance and birthday money to buy gobs of trading cards? Oh yeah, that was ME!  It took the entire day but we got him organized. And we brought out 2 bags of trash and recycling too. Now he has space in his drawers again and we found lots of things that were "missing". All that makes me happy and I hope I won't have to do it again for YEARS. I just have to ask where the heck do all the Pixie Sticks come from?!

**********

To view a slideshow of the entire Happiness Photo Project click here. Confused about what this is or why I'm doing it? Click here for an explanation of what it's all about.