door project

Over the summer it was pointed out to me that our front door needed a face lift. The door needed to be sanded, re-stained and sealed. I hate sanding. I hate the feeling of wood dust on my skin, the way it gets in my hair and up my nose. No matter how many times I shower after I sand, I still feel dusty.
But, as much as I hate sanding...I love the look of freshly stained wood. I worked during nap time..slowly sanding by hand.. removing the dust and grim. The after picture is the result of many weeks of hard work and I'm pretty dam proud of how it turned out.

happy birthday dadi

We spent a special day celebrating a very special Dadi at the Safari Park. The day was quite the adventure. It rained off and on and the park had a power outage. Due to the lack of power, many of the restaurants and larger animal exhibits - tigers, lions and gorillas were closed. Oh, and the bathrooms were as dark as dungeons. 

While in bathroom, an older lady was sharing with her friend how when she was a little girl they didn't have electricity in their home. Every night, she and her sisters would light kerosene lamps and or use candles. It's hard to imagine life without electricity. Not sure if I would want to.

With the cooler weather, the animals were active. We enjoyed watching the elephants splash around in the water, rhinos taking mud baths and giraffes galloping across the savanna. 

Even without the power, it was great day. Happy Birthday Dadi. We love you. 

real rather than perfect

"What would happen if we shared our real rather than our perfect?" - Nichole Nordeman 

Today, I had a moment of real rather than perfect. 

I'm not a fan of sharing the real. I like the perfect. 

This morning, I bravely got out the craft supplies for the kiddos. The plan was to make fall sun catchers. Prior to starting this project I checked pinterest for ideas, supply lists and samples. Pinterest had many exemplary examples with adorable children dressed in their finest sitting around gorgeous craft tables. I'm not sure who dresses small children in their finest for crafting, but apparently some people do. At our house, we craft in our pj's - that is if those under five are wearing anything besides their underwear at all.  

Lucas was excited to start. However his excitement was short lasting. And Alara just wanted to see how many pieces of tissue paper she could shove into her mouth before I'd notice. We were able to make at least two sun catchers before the kiddos decided that enough was enough and it was time for something else. 

I'm embarrassed to admit, but I got frustrated that my children weren't crafting like they were suppose to. As if there is a right or wrong way to craft! Our sun catchers didn't look like the examples provided by the perfect mama's with their perfect kids sitting around their gorgeous craft tables. Ours were real. But instead of embracing the real, I threw an internal tantrum striving for that unrealistic perfect. And sadly, by striving for that unrealistic perfect I ended up stressing myself out. What was suppose to be something fun and simple ended up being something more. 

So here I am sharing my real.

So what if our sun catchers didn't turn out as expected. I think they are better. They have personality. I am going to enjoy those flawed but beautiful sun catchers created by a two beautiful children.