Blessed by our friends.

Have I ever told you that I have I have amazing friends that bless us and help us out in daycare pinches?

These are the friends that have watched Lucan for us when we've either had daycare cancellations or other conflicts: Emily, Jessie, Sarah F, Leah, Nicole, Abby H, Katie, Bree and Kurt/Gina. All of these are kind people who let us infringe on their days and their schedules.
So this is a little tribute to those people who have helped us out!

Emily - I love that you call us your Des Moines family. You are kind-hearted, generous (you are always giving us your boys' castoffs which are fantastic) and considerate. Don't worry, we don't mind that your prayer requests are the same week after week :)

Jessie - we know how to share a laugh and turn a listening ear to the other person's personal/financial/daycare/working mom's/family's woes. You keep me in check. You are the fun mom who always has some fun, interactive activity for your kids. And I've run into you or your children at Target more frequently than any other person I know. That must say something about both of us.

Sarah F - you have a sweet disposition and a certain thoughtfulness that is not replicated in any other person I know. And you are always my first pick for Bible trivia. If you change your mind about wanting to homeschool other kiddos (ie: Lucan), he'll be at your doorstep the next day.

Leah - if anyone was a super mom, it is you. I know we all pick the areas that are important to us and where we are going to focus our energies on, but you seem to be excelling in quite a few areas. I have one of those "I don't know how she does it" mentalities about you. Case in point - your fruit pizza.

Nicole - congratulations on being the most well-spoken and intelligent person I know. Really. But in addition to being well-spoken, you are also unexpected. You like Jay-Z. And prefer to drive in manual. And love clay-mation (which kind of freaks me out). Yes, Nicole you are unorthodox but that's what makes you Nicole.

Abby - you have a sly sense of humor that I appreciate. I don't actually see you much, but you are a fun gal. Despite your 9:30 bedtime :) And even though your kiddos are older than Lu, you'll say yes to watching Lu (even when it disrupts your life) because you know life is hard without family in town.

Katie - you are a big-hearted (and big-haired, which I will forever be jealous of!) gal who is always on the go. You are talented and have the gift for making everyone feel loved. There's something to be said for the girl who makes everyone always feels like they are a friend. (sorry about the x on your face Jon, but you aren't part of this post)

Bree - you make me feel normal. Like a normal mom living with normal life among a herd of boys. You are considerate of other people and their feelings. There's something to be said about people who think before they speak. I need more of this!

Kurt/Gina - Lucan loves you both so much. He loves Gina especially (the other day at lunch we were praying for our friends and Lu had us pray for Gina twice. And he calls Kurt "Kurtin" - I think it comes from referring to you guys as Kurt-and-Gina. Lucan is always much happier when we give one of you a ride to small group). You both are some of the most genuine people I know.

Thank you friends for watching our son when we've been desperate. You don't know how much you have helped us!

*all pictures were taken off of facebook. If you don't like them, well you probably shouldn't have had them on FB to begin with! 

Michigan Trip

Although I am far from being ready to do a post on our Fourth of July trip to MI, here are a couple of collages I've put together.

Mandy is my best friend from college and we are fortunate that Lucan and her daughter, Bridget, are close in age - about 6 months difference. They've met a total of three times, which is pretty impressive as the kiddos are only two and we live 475 miles apart. But each time we get to see each other, it's more and more fun to see our kids interact.

This was Lucan's first go-round with a popsicle. You can tell that Bridget was more experienced with them as she sat, very daintily eating hers. Lucan, well, half of his fell on the ground after not biting it and only licking. Silly Lucan. 

Mandy and I both had Independence Day outfits for the kids. I had visions of having this adorable keepsake picture of both of the kids holding hands in their cute outfits. Instead I got the above.

Lucan was apparently hungry and crabby. They kind of go hand in hand when you are a part of our family. Lu did not want to be told where to stand and rolled in the grass kicking and crying. I sat him next to Bridget - MISTAKE. He was still upset and whapped her upside the head. Which lead to the forth picture - Bridget crying. And that's my story about July 4.

More pictures to come!

Swap Party

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A couple weeks back my friend Nicole and I co-hosted a swap party together. Nicole was the perfect co-host as she has a beautiful home and is probably one of the few people who is more organized than I am! (side note: it would be a fallacy to say that I'm not an organized being; however, I have a husband who is the exact opposite of me. The concept that everything has a home and should be put back in it's respective home is a foreign concept to dear husband. But he's thoughtful and God knew what he was doing when he brought us together. We're a good yin/yang balance. That being said, don't ever come over to my house unannounced and expect tidiness!) Anyway, Nicole does a great job of balancing being an English teacher at two colleges, being a freelance editor, and making time for her husband, energetic 4-year old son and their Boston Terrier. And of course being a very talented blogger with an eye for the aesthetic.

It was a lot of fun and something new for our friends. The swap party idea was something that I had seen floating around the internet and in several blogs. I had been kicking it around in my head for months and it took partnering with Nicole to finally bring the party to fruition. She's good at the details. I knew that all of us would have at least one item to swap, but I thought it would be an even better reason for everyone to get together without any of us spending a lot of money. The trickiest part of the whole thing was probably convincing people their stuff was good enough for the swap - many of our friends thought their stuff was too trashy. None of us are Kennedys or Rockafellers, so I don't think anyone expected any of the items to be of large scale grandeur :)

Nicole and I organized the swap into three catagories: clothing/accessories, home furnishings, and kitchen items. Originally we had told people 5 items per person, but as we started getting mixed feedback about the number of items people were bringing we decided to not limit the items. We also had originally requested that people try and get their things to us ahead of time. This was causing some difficulties for people, so we allowed everyone to bring their things with them prior to the swap. I think that if we would have had a huge number of participants or items, this choice might have been a little chaotic, but it worked for our party. Any unswapped items at the evenings end could be left in a tote by the door for Goodwill or could be reclaimed by the owner.

We initially sent a save the date email about one month prior to the party and then sent an official Paperless Post email invitation about 10 days before the actual party. We followed Real Simple's suggestions for hosting a swap party and I think it worked pretty well. Everyone drew numbers as to the order in which they got to pick their items. This number correlated with the number of items they brought to swap. For example, if you brought five items, you got to draw five numbers, thus getting to take home five items with you. Some wives were given strict instruction from their husbands if there were any flat screen televisions or Blueray players, to make sure they got those items first. Husbands are silly :)

Nicole and I also provided munchies: Mint Milano cookies, Jelly Belly jelly beans, mixed nuts, pita chips, chocolates. Nicole made some yummy raspberry shortbread bars and I made classic chocolate chip cookies and a new lemon bar recipe (I'll post the recipe for the lemon bars at a later time). We also provided decaf coffee with some fun creamers and pink lemonade. Nicole and I followed a black/white/pink party theme, so we had some pretty pink accents. Nicole's husband, Josh, said that it clearly was a girls party. Apparently pink is abhorrent to guys :)

All in all, it was a fun evening. We all stood around the kitchen mingling and chatting and seeing what each other picked. Household items proved to be the hot items of the evening - we had everything from huge potted plants, decorative bowls, to shower curtains. Clothes proved to be a little tricker. The party served as a great excuse for spring cleaning and I look forward to doing another swap party in the future, perhaps with different swap catagories. One woman's junk is another woman's treasure!

The photo collage is courtesy of Sarah Franczky, of Franczyk Photography

Fab Friend

My friend Sarah and her two boys dropped off flowers for Erika and I at work. How lovely are the flowers and how lovely is my friend?! At first we thought they must be from our husbands - haha, the joke is on us. :)

Mini-vacation: Holland

Holland as in the country?? No silly - Holland in Michigan! Not nearly as exciting, but just as much fun! Lance and I just returned from our trip to visit our dear friends Mandy & Aaron. I met Mandy as a sophomore at Northwestern and we've been good friends ever since. She was the maid of honor at our wedding 4 years ago. She and Aaron are so much fun, I wish that they lived closer. I didn't really know Aaron very well until they got married, but he is very similar to Lance in tastes and disposition. Again, I wish they lived closer! Last fall I mentioned that we might come and visit, which of course Mandy took to mean "we're coming to visit!"

We had a great time with them, touring Holland, sampling fun restaurants, shopping, mini-golfing, banana-grams and Wii games. All in all it was a blast and 4 days (with 8 hour travel days) is not enough. Now it's time for them to visit us!

Here are some photos from our adventures in sand dune buggy rides

Lance, Aaron, Mandy preparing for the sand dune buggy ride in Sagatuck, MI. It was wild - later that night I was still finding sand on my body!

This was the tone of the entire ride - very corny and silly. But fun!

The whole group mid-way through the ride!

Sunny day and sunglasses

The guide had suggested running down a sand dune. Granted the only way back up is hiking ... the boys were the only ones foolish enough to embark on this adventure. They did say that it was a lot harder coming up than going down!

View through the canopy of trees - very restful.