Here's a few pictures...

Here are the 3 Loop-kins on the first day of school. Declan started 4th grade, Teagan is in 2nd and Maren is in Transitional Kindergarten. This will be the first time in over 9 years that I will be home alone during the day. Bliss.

 

I ordered a light for over my sink, it plugged right into the recessed can! 

 

This is the before:

 

This is the after:

 

I had high hopes of getting all of my Halloween decor put out this weekend, but didn't.  We did get some irrigation on the citrus trees we planted up the hill, but that was about it.

 

I'm still wading through my pictures on my camera and need to spend some time getting organized so I can maybe start blogging again!

 

If you came by and read this, THANKS!!

I'm excited for FALL!

Can you tell?  I told Greg I'm decorating for Halloween/Fall on September 1st.  It's by far my very most favorite time of the year!  I used to love Spring, but with allergies, we had a falling out.

So, many things have been going on, and I took a break from blogging about life to just living it.  Just a recap of the past few months:

 

~ A month of swim lessons for all Loop children.  Turns out they are all fish.  This cam just in time for....

~ A Mexican Cruise for my Mother In Law's birthday.  Fun was had by all.

~ Missing my Teagan for almost a MONTH, she rode home with Grandma to Arizona after the cruise.

~ Getting a visit from my brother and Dad, whom also delivered my Teagan back to me.

~ALL 3 Loops starting school last week!

I've got a "to do" list a half mile long, but will be back to post pictures and other tid bits of interest in a few days!

Introducing Lily White!

I mentioned our new car a few posts back, here she is.  All pretty and clean, here is Lily White!  She is a 2012 Toyota Camry SE (which means she's zippy).  She's already been to the car hospital to get a new gas tank and rocker panel (due to a road hazard puncturing her tank and cracking the rocker panel...).  This is after we picked her up and she had just been detailed.  Did I mention we live on a dirt (well, now muddy) road?  She won't look like this for long.

Why Yes, It IS All About Me!

In light of turning 39 last week, I thought I would do a post just ablout ME!  Those of you who read this blog probably know me, and the few that don't, well, you kind of scare me!  Any how, I thought it would be fun to look at the changes I have gone thru in the past decade!  I actually had a difficult time finding pictures of me, as I am usually the one taking the pictures.  I'd like to discuss the multitude of bad hair styles and fashion faux pas I've committed.  This should be fun - feel free to play along.

I guess I'm lucky that: 

1. I only have digital pictures dating back to 2002.  Prior to that no one needs to know about because I'd be embarrassed.

2.  That Amy never develops her pictures because she'd be one of few who would have anything on me anyway!

Let's begin!  Okay, this is me in February 2002.  My friends Keeley and Kathie.  I'm not embarrassed about anything here.  I was young....  Any my hair went to the right.  This will be important later.

Here are Greg and I in Seattle in July of the same year.  We look good!  We rode our motorcycle up the Pacific Coast Highway to see Bart in Seattle.  Good times!

Only 2 short months later, but I am newly pregnant with Declan here and have a drastically different haircut.  I like this though, I'm still not embarrassed.

Here is my baby shower, in March of 2003.  I'd deliver Declan in about 6 weeks from this picture.  I can see that I was getting my eyebrows tinted.  This is a luxury, I give up as you will see in later pictures.  Hair still parts to the right.

Okay, this is the beginning of a bad hairdo here.  I don't know if I started going to a new hairdresser, or quit going all together and this is the above 'do' grown out?  Color is rough too.  No tint in to the brows.  September of 2003.

Must have seen the picture of myself and got a haircut.  This is at a playdate in March of 2004.

In the summer of 2004 we went to Chigaco.  I think I got my haircut prior to the trip and decided I wasn't going to mess with my hair, it's getting pretty short.

Declan and I at Rawhide for Easter 2005.  This is the full blown short boy haircut that Greg hated.  He said when he rolled over at night he thought he was in bed with a guy!  I was pregnant with Teagan here and looking for low maintenance hair.  Were you all too scared to tell a pregnant gal she had a bad do?

October 2005, I must have finally caved to all the pressure and decided I was not going to cut my hair.  Or get it colored. 

By June of 2006 I was out of the woods with the short bad hair.  Phew!  Can't believe I made it through!  That is my sweet Teagan.  Now my hair parts to the left.  Mystery.

Besides looking older, I think I am pretty much still looking like this.  Although, here I am pregnant with Maren.  This is March 2007.

The following picture I only posted because I clearly have no eyebrows.  I miss them.  Easter 2007.  Even all squinty, I don't have the crows feet I do today....  You'll see.

In this picture I was making up for all that time I had no eyebrows, so I went overboard.  January 2008 with Miss Maren.

I'm not sure why I had Greg take this picture of me, I think I had just bought these sunglasses and the faux Coach at one of those illegal purse parties.  Seems like a good idea to post that, huh?  LOL!  This is how my hair looks naturally.  Kind of like a mop.  March 2008.

By October I was back to horsing around with Declan and Teagan.

This was the only picture I could even find of me in all of 2009.  It's October, an entire year later.  No eyebrows again, but Maren sure is cute!

Here I go again with the over board brows.  Greg calls it 'creepy' but I think I look better with than without.  You be the judge.  This is my birthday 2010.

Maren took this picture of me in September of 2010.  Faded brows, no make up.  Oh well.

March of 2011, decent brows if I do say so myself!

This is the most recent picture I have, December 2011.

Well that was fun. Thanks for looking. Sometimes I forget that it is really all about me!

p.s. I forgot to take a picture of Lily White, and now she is dirty, poor gal.

Christmas Happened Here too!

Here are the 3 little Loops in their Christmas jammies.  They got to open them on Christmas Eve.

I took this picture of the tree on Christmas morning, before the festivities began.  The mass of presents was overwhelming the room.  Santa sets his presents out in the open for each child to see.  So far this hasn't posed any problems, but I can see this might in the future....  Maren got the princess doll house and Teagan got the American Girl Doll.  Declan is in the clear with Lego's.

I actually took this picture of Teagan with her doll in matching dresses after the presents were all opened, so they are a little out of order.  I'm artistic like that.  In the foreground you see Declan, with his Legos and Maren is playing with her presents while wearing her new Ariel mermaid dress up. 

This is when Declan first walked into the room and saw his Lego Pirates of the Caribbean Black Pearl ship.  He was thrilled.  And to think he doesn't believe!

Maren got princesses for the dollhouse.  If it's princess, it's all good in her book!

Nellie (left) and Jack (right) heard that Santa has reindeer.  They had to keep an eye out in the event that Santa made the mistake of landing them in our yard.  They are both really good at chasing deer of all kinds.

Declan in in Lego fortress of happiness.

Turns out that watching for deer is exhausting.  It's always good when you have a pillow to rest your weary head upon.

After Christmas we decided to get a new car.  We'd had Tallulah the VW Passat for almost 12 years and she was getting tired.  We sold her and got a new shiney pretty zippy car.  I'll post a picture of "Lily White" tomorrow! 

Thanks for coming by!

Some Halloween, a sunset and a Birthday.

Declan was Jack Sparrow for Halloween.  It wasn't initially what he wanted to be, but once we got to Target and he saw his options, this was the best one.  I made his pirate boots out of felt.  Surprisingly enough, he was the only Jack Sparrow that I saw while Trick-or-Treating in Georgetown.  Cool make up courtesy of Greg, and I quick made the felt beard, braided with beads and stuck to child's chin with glue dots!  When I would catch a glimpse of him in the rear view mirror, it didn't even look like him!

Teagan was Super Girl.  She opted out of any make up, but rocked her cool costume with authentic red boots.  I actually thought her costume was darling.

Maren chose to be a Ladybug.  Up until the time I took this picture she was not going to wear the wings.  Then decided to put them on for the photo.  Greg drew her eyelashes on.  She was thrilled!

Here are the 3 of them.  Georgetown beware....

I painted the girls room lavender.  I made the little butterfly pictures on the shelves.  Their room still needs something else on the walls, but I haven't decided what yet.

I also upgraded Declan's bedding to more 'mature' plaid.  He liked the car bedding he's had since he was 2, but I was ready for a change.  I'm going to do something on the walls in here as well, but I'm thinking horizontal planking or something along those lines.  I'll have to think some more on that...

Greg called me out to see this beautiful sunset.  When we first moved in here, we busted our tail getting things done during day, in hopes of relaxing out on the deck before the sunset was gone.  We recently realized that we haven't sat out on the porch and watched the sunset in awhile.  I ran to get the camera, hoping to get some shots before it got too dark.

I love that I have a knack for catching a dog whizzing in many pictures.  I should go back through to see if I can do a post of all dog whiz pictures.  Won't you be on the edge of your seats waiting for that?  LOL!

Then we celebrated Greg's birthday with Lemon cake.  I tried to make the little blue candles into the shape of a "4" since I had a "5" candle.  But the kids were quick to point out that I had 55 on Greg's cake.  I love that they are old enough to start pointing out my faults.....

Been Busy Bees Over Here!

Well.  We've been sanding, drilling, prepping, painting.  All the while taking kids to soccer practice 4 nights a week and games every Saturday.  Toss a little (ha!) laundry, the occasional grocery trip, volunteering at the school (I'm the room Mom for Teagan's 1st grade class, and I run a book club in Declan's 3rd grade class) and general household chores leaves me no time for blogging.

But because I would like to see the progress we've made, here are some recent pictures of the house!

We have had the house/porch painted, new screens and shutters.  This is looking down to the house from the garage.

At the beginning of summer I bought outdoor fabric yardage to sew my own pillows for the patio furniture.  I am really good at sewing zippers in pillows now, after making at least 20 pillows.  Many, many thanks go to my Mom, who cut all the fabric into the sizes I needed for the pillow forms I bought at Ikea. 

Won't you come sit on my porch?

Remember when it looked like this????

I've also been busy decorating for Halloween.  From years past you know this is a big deal for the Loop kiddos.  I've been also going thru closets and donating unused/unneeded things.  Seems like I always have a pile waiting to be taken to Goodwill. 

 

You can see the "Loop Art Gallery" on the wall there, I took individaul pictures of the art and finally took it all down.  It was up since summer, as were the tissue pom-poms I made for Teagan's birthday party in June.....

I'll be back with more pictures when I get a chance to take them, but thanks for looking for now!