Wishing everyone a wonderful Independence Day and hope you enjoy your time with family and friends. I would also like to say a huge “Thank You” to all of those serving our country now and those who have served in the past. Without them, we certainly wouldn’t be enjoying the freedoms we do.

We were lucky enough to see a fantastic fireworks show up close with our friends and neighbors last night. It’s always great when you don’t have to fight large crowds!

Enjoy your day and all the goodness it brings.

Amy

I know we all say that “time sure flies”, but man, it’s going a little too quickly. You shut your eyes for a minute and so much time has passed when you open them back up again.  I cannot believe we’re in February already.  Stop the clock!!!!

I hope you all had a great January. Ours was a little busy, as the winter months usually are for us. In January, we celebrated my son’s birthday, my youngest daughter’s birthday and also celebrated my oldest daughter and son-in-law and their sweet baby with a shower in St. Louis with family and friends. That’s a lot of partying going on in one month!  I’ll share details of Ellie’s birthday party, which was a lot of fun, and the baby shower in a post very soon. Stay tuned for those.

Since time is passing so quickly, I can’t sit around and not get things done. This month is about organizing and continuing on my decorating journey.

I’m going to enjoy a cup of coffee for a moment and get started on my projects.  I’ve got a lot of plans, including painting, wallpapering (?) and re-arranging.  What’s on your to-do list for February?

Amy

Hi everyone,

As is typical fashion for me, I’m a little behind on life!  Haha, I’m not sure how things really get done on time around here.  But because it’s still the New Year period, I’m good, right?

Anyway, I truly hope you all had a wonderful holiday season and New Year celebration.  Our family had a great holiday.  As some of you know, we built a house last summer and were able to enjoy this Christmas in our new home.  For Thanksgiving, I was blessed to have all my kids home with me.  After we celebrated Christmas in the new house, we traveled to my family in St. Louis.  It was loud, chaotic, fun, silly, full of love and we so loved every minute of it. Being able to spend time with my family means so much and I’m so appreciative that my parents let us stay with them!  (I’m sure they count the minutes until we leave 😉 )

One thing I told myself for this new year is that I need to focus on myself and my interests.  I am a self-proclaimed “people pleaser” and that gets in my way a lot (I probably use that as my excuse).  I have so much that I want to do and I’ve put them off for so long now.  I’m putting it out there for you to hold me accountable to get things done.

So that being said, one of the things I have put aside is my blog.  So much has been going on in my life that I want to share, so I’m going to get to it.  The biggest thing is our new house.  I’m going to be doing a couple posts on the process of building our home and the end results.  Although I have a lot of decorating that I want to do, I have to remind myself that we’ve only been here for 4 months.

Ok, I don’t want to bore you, just wanted to touch base and wish you all a Happy New Year and let you know that I’m back!  (Yay you).

I’d love to hear how you’re tackling 2018, please share with me.

Until next time,

Amy

My son was home for his Fall break this past weekend and I brought him back to school. Because he attends school in Indiana and we live in Ohio, I decided to stay over to avoid a 10 hour drive!  

When we got back to campus, he proudly walked me around to show me where all of his classes are. I even got to see the car he’s making in his Epics lab. It was so heartwarming to know he’s very happy here and seems to be in the right place. That’s all we can hope for for our kids, to be happy in their moments. 

We enjoyed a nice dinner and then I dropped him off at his dorm to do that studying he was supposed to do over break!  I’m not gonna lie, sitting in a hotel room by myself was kind of like heaven!  I miss my husband and my little one, but mindless time alone is a luxury. 

So today, I take my time getting ready and then head to Starbucks to get my coffee. Of course there’s a line that stretches a mile long. (How do these kids afford this every day?). I relax with my coffee and wander outside to see all these kids shuffling to and from classes, all while basking in the beautiful weather. I love to people watch and a college campus is a great place to do that. As I’m looking around at all the people, I make a huge observation, hardly any leggings on these girls!!!  

I know, why am I checking out what they are wearing?  I wasn’t really, but just happened to realize that the majority of girls are wearing jeans and pants, not leggings. I don’t know about you, but everywhere I go at home, practically every girl/woman is in leggings. And pretty much every one of those girls/women should NOT be in leggings. This is where I thought that’s all I’d see, on a college campus. I’m pleasantly surprised. 

I’m going to enjoy these last moments on this campus before I head back home. I can leave my baby boy this time knowing he’s ok. He’s happy, he’s healthy and he’s growing. I’ll only have a few tears this time because I always miss him, but this time, they’re tears of joy.  

Enjoy your day and find the beauty in the small things. 

Until next time. 

Did the Easter Bunny hop by your house?  He made a quick stop here and hid some eggs while he was here.  Unfortunately, it’s still a little too cold here to have an outdoor Easter egg hunt, but, he found some hard places to hide inside.  Our little one should have fun.

We hope your family has a Blessed holiday and enjoy time with your family and friends.

Happy Easter.

It’s Christmas Eve, 2015!  The weather says otherwise outside though, which I’m thoroughly enjoying.  I much prefer warmer temps than the bitter cold we are used to having here in Ohio.  It does make it hard to get into the Christmas spirit, but we are managing just fine.   Right now, we’re waiting on Jake to get home from his dad’s house so we can celebrate Christmas before we head out of town in the morning.  This is one of the pitfalls of divorce, splitting our time!

Ellie is patiently waiting, not really understanding that Santa is coming a little early so we can get on the road first thing in the morning.  It’s tough to maneuver Santa coming before she goes to bed, but, we’re going to try it.  We’ve been watching the “Santa radar” so she can see that he’s on his way. We have set out some goodies for Santa, because regardless of what time he gets here, he’ll still be hungry and thirsty!  And, as being a true Carter, Ellie insisted that Santa prefer beer and brownies!!  (Thanks for that Elle!)  I’ll let you know how it all turns out.  I’m sure once she sees her gifts, she really won’t care what time or how they got here!

We’ll be heading to visit family in the morning for the holidays.  I’m very excited and blessed that we’ll be able to spend time with our family.  The only ones missing will be Grace and Matt! 🙁  I’m finding as the older I get, the more I want to be around family, which I guess isn’t the worst thing!!

So, from all of us here at the Carter house, we want to wish you all a blessed Christmas.  Whether you’re with family or spending some time alone, we hope it’s magical.

With only a few days before Christmas, there is probably still lots to do on your list:  buy the gifts, wrap the gifts, bake the goodies, plan the meal and so on!  So much to do.  I’m sure you’d like a simple, easy and fun dessert to have available.  The kids love these and they are the easiest things to make.  I made some for my daughter’s class at school, they were a hit.  What’s fun about these is that you can change up the theme of them for each holiday, as I’m sure you’ll get asked to make these all the time!

Just four simple ingredients is all it takes and I’m sure you have most of it in your pantry already.  You can find the recipe here, Marshmallow Pops.  I found the sticks at Pat Catan’s, which is a craft supply store here.  It’s just like Michaels and Joanne Fabrics.  You may even be able to find them in the grocery store.  The sticks are sturdier that straws but if you can’t find these sticks, you could certainly use straws.  There are a ton of options in the paper straw world right now and those can be found pretty much everywhere.

I used dark chocolate, it’s healthier you know!!!  (That was my justification to eating several).   I purchased the jumbo marshmallows to use, since they are bigger and more impressive!  And you can use any sprinkle you have.  I did find that the colored sugar sprinkles didn’t show up on the chocolate as well as the “jimmies” did.  But, use what makes you happy.

I hope you get the chance to whip these up for the holidays, but if not, find some time after the rush is over and sit back and enjoy a “guilt-free” snack.

Happy Holidays and please don’t blame me after you’ve eaten a few too many  🙂

Till next time.

All right, we’ve all had those moments where we just don’t want to pay attention to the kids anymore!!  You’ve told them a million times to stop doing something and they just keep doing it!  I have to say that my patience level is very low for things like this.  (I really am trying to get better, but my old age is not allowing it!!!).

Today is one of those days, I have a million things on my agenda, with new deadlines thrown my way!  And, oh yeah, it’s Christmas time. With all the craziness that this time of year brings, I really do try to find the spirit of the season and remember that no matter how crazy I feel, I truly am blessed. I also have my sweet little Ellie to put it all in perspective for me.

Another day of preschool brings another day of “knowledge” learned.  Today was the rolling of the eyes with the whip of the wrist!  But along with these not really so new lessons, comes the comments of “Don’t worry, Mom, I’m o.k.”.  I just had to giggle and pray that I wouldn’t be making a trip to the emergency room, as that is not on my agenda today.  So, like most caring parents, I just sat and watched her climb the “mountain” and took pictures!  The best was the smirk I got after she thought I wasn’t paying attention.  And just so you all know, I was watching her and making sure she wouldn’t get hurt!

Being a mom is stressful and demanding and enjoyable and a true blessing, but there are those moments when we want to turn it off! That doesn’t make us bad moms, it makes us human.  I’m going to go enjoy the rest of my crazy day and I hope you all do the same.