Happy Anniversary & A 1st Dinner

On Sunday, August 17th we celebrated 2 things: Mom and Dad's 46th anniversary and Aunt Sheila's first dinner out Our Vintage House.  That is my official pet name for our house. 

And this picture is just because I love my dining room.

Isn't it the cutest?

And I love my kitchen...

...and fruit pizza!  And yes those are SC peaches that are in season and delicious as we speak.  Heavenly!  Especially when paired with berries.  What could be wrong with any of that?

The Fam.

And it was a first for Aunt Sheila trying Peach Cider.  She can cross that off her bucket list. :)

We had grilled chicken that was marinated in my favorite: Yoshida sauce  (I like to cut the chicken breasts in half length wise and...thickness wise?  Not sure the best way to say that!  I like to make them little and skinny for maximum marinating),  twice baked potatoes and green beans.

A picture of the happy couple and...

playing Blurt made the night one to remember.

Aunt Sheila is now from SC

I now have an Aunt that lives in SC.  As of August 13, 2014, not all my aunts live in VT.  Aunt Sheila arrived with my mom and dad a week and a half ago and has been settling in every since.  Jake and I went over before she got home and got a few things ready for her arrival.  We are so glad she is here!!!!1

Jake is now officially taller than Nee, but not me..yet.

First time opening the door with her key...

It had been a while so she had to check it all out and remember what it all looked like!

Darn!  I missed the hug of happiness! 

I never thought I would have an Aunt living in the same town as me!  It only took 38 years to come to pass. ;)

More pictures I have been posting of Jake...

I have been posting a picture of Jake every day counting down the days until he turns 13.  Here are the days I haven't posted here on my blog....I looked back and realized I haven't kept up with it since August 6th...Pitiful.  I am officially catching up people!!!!...But they may not be in order.

I love all of these pictures!!!  I am some how missing some days and I will try to figure out which ones and post them also.  I can't believe my child is almost a teenager!!!!

A Vow...

I solemnly swear to put more of an effort into documenting our lives on this blog I created for that purpose , that I have been grossly neglecting for quit some time now.  I will catch up and then keep up.  I will write  words(not just post pictures), meaningful thoughts, and memories.  I will post pictures more promptly.  I will do better because documenting our lives sweetest, saddest, most exciting, and most disappointing moments is important.  I will do this because I love to and I need to make it more of a priority. 

My thoughts on laundry..

*You know you are doing it right when you are hanging up a clean shirt you wore yesterday and got dirty.  That is record time laundry turn around!

*But you still really aren't on top of it just because you washed that shirt if you did the loads in the wrong order...For instance what I am living this very moments:

When you go to take a shower and there are absolutely no clean towels (not even a hand towel-we are using a washcloth as a hand towel right now...) in the house...and then you realize you have no clean underwear any way so you have to wash the clothes and towels before washing yourself.

*I am in awe of mother's of big families.  And by big, on this particular topic, I mean more than I have--so 2 kids or more is big.  Because I have way too much laundry to do and if you have 2 kids you just doubled the dirty kids clothes pile and that is a lot of extra work.  I would gladly do it if I had more kids but I don't have too.  So, mom's of big families you are my hero....And come to think of it I don't even do my child's laundry any more so...I...am...a real slacker.

*Vinegar.  I put it in every load.  I heard it takes that musty smell out of old towels-which is all we have by the way because towels are expensive.  I don't want those cheap ones that just push the water around on you.  I want the towels that dry you and those my friend are not cheap!..Any who!  So I tried the whole vinegar in with towels and it worked amazingly well....So I was doing the laundry another time and there was a  stinky, really old, basketball man sweaty shirt that stunk like years old body odor after I washed it.  GROSS!  So I put it in the wash again after using half a bottle Febreze on it and it still stunk.  And then I thought trash can or vinegar?  One last try.  Vinegar in the load and it came out destinkified.  I wish I knew that before I threw that other stinky one out the week before...

*I am mad at Sam's Club because they stopped carrying my favorite laundry detergent: Arm and Hammer plus Oxy Clean. Curse you Sam's Club...

*There is nothing better than fresh clean sheets or any laundry that you dried on the line outside.

*When I am feeling really domestic and I get the clothes out of the dryer right away and I fold them on my beautifully made bed and then put them right away I feel awesome.  If I wait until they are all wrinkly and have to turn the dryer on for another 10 minutes to try to fluff them up and fold them while watching a show right before going to bed they will most likely stay in the living room in the basket for at least 24 hours before I grudgingly put them away because the whole process feels like an epic fail so, why complete it?...Try to live with my brain for a day and it may drive you crazy!

Words...Not so much...

I remember a time when I used to come here to my blog to write a few words and not even with pictures-just words.  Now is not that time.  I am seriously behind on the whole memory/picture thing so I am just photo dropping...Soon there will be words.  Now there will be pictures with just a few words.

I have been posting pictures of Jake every day in August so far on Facebook and Instagram in honor of him getting ready to be a teenager.  Really is it is just an excuse for me to look at all my favorite pictures of him and wonder where all the time has gone.

August 1st (note to future self:  these are all the versions of the pictures I posted on Instagram so I changed the tones and stuff on all but the 5th and the 6th)

August 2nd

August 3rd

August 4th

August 5th

August 6th

I got new pillows at Ikea.  I think (actually I know because I went back and looked at my my old posts to check and make sure I haven't already posted this.  I kind of blog in my mind while vacuuming and cleaning the house and forget if I have actually posted things or not...) there may be a picture of one in another post but not the whole view of the room. I love them.

Sadie loves to photo bomb my pictures but when I try to take her pictures any other time she will not hold still.

Jake loved propping up his mildly sprained ankle the end of last week while doing some school.

Aaron likes to fall asleep on them while "watching TV".

On an entirely different note:  It rained really hard the other night and when I let Belle outside (we dog sat for the Martin's last week while they were at the beach and she was not a fan of going down the stairs to the back yard so I let her out the front door) I found this.  They are still there.  We live in the county now so the city doesn't come by and pick up our yard stuff anymore if we put it by the curb...I am trying to figure out what to do with them...I keep forgetting to ask Aaron.  Maybe I will remember tonight.  If not he will read this tomorrow and tell me. :)

Sadie was a little jealous of Belle at times...

..but she was nice enough and to share her bones with Belle while she was here.

I went to a wreath party last Saturday and this is the fabric I used to make my wreath.  Well to start it.  It took a while and I still have to finish it.  I will post a picture when I finish it.  First I need to get some more mini glue gun sticks.

You know you live in the South when you literally say a prayer that when you open the attic stairs nothing scary will fall out...Like a snake.  No I have never seen a snake in the attic but our old neighbor told us he found a snake skin in his attic once and the home inspector said he had a snake fall down on him once when he opened the attic pull down stairs...So we prayed before we opened it and everything was okay.  I love this first picture.  You can see the tension in poor Jake.  That's right I made him open it.  That is a bonus of your son growing up.  He gets to do the scary stuff to protect me now. :)

And that means the Rubbermaid containers can stop going back and forth between the hall and the spare bedroom.

When I go into Jake's bathroom and see that he put his gum on the Q-tip box I get a little grumpy.  There is, after all, a garbage can in there.  Plus you will note that there is a glass canister that has Q-tips in it...also on the counter....so in theory the box could have been put away.

 And when I see that the day after he cleaned his room it is starting to look like this already I get a little more grumpy.

 But then when I ask him to empty the dishwasher, he does it with out complaining, and then fills it back up with out me asking it all evens out. :)

And last, but not least:  today is National Root Beer Float Day!

Jake's friend Wilson was hanging out with Jake.  Poor Wilson didn't know I take pictures of everything. :)

Okay. Now if I can just take the time to finish posting pictures of VT (since we have been back home for a month now...) and NH I will be caught up...I may just post the pictures and forget words all together...We shall see.