Little Happy Things No. 6

(via)

I swear one of these days I will be more consistent in writing my blog. But with everything going on right now I'm guessing now is probably not it. ;) Until then, I'll keep trying. 

::Having fun with trying new foods. I've had duck, romanesco broccoli, persimmons, and basil mayo in the last month or so and loved all of them! 

::Valentine's day. It's almost as good as Christmas to me, and this year a big bouquet of flowers showed up just like on our first Valentine's day, SIX whole years ago! I am very spoiled. :)

::Buying a house. I guess this isn't really a "little" thing, but it's a very happy thing! We are smack in the middle of it right now, with the inspections finally set for next week. We could use lots of prayers that they all go well, but we have high hopes and are so excited to move! 

::The new plant sitting on my windowsill. I bought him at IKEA yesterday and I'm already thinking he needs friends. He keeps me company while I wash dishes. 

::Painting mugs with porcelain paint! I need more dishes to paint. 

::New matte nail polish topcoat from Hard Candy (at Walmart). It's awesome. 

::Derik yelling last night when I picked him and Jack up from grandma's house: "You're my mommy! Hi mommy! My mommy!" 

::Making time for reading and drawing. 

::Making lists. 

::Planning out how we're going to decorate and update our new house. :)

A Photo-a-Day in January

On Instagram there's been a challenge going around to take a photo a day in the month of January. I decided to go for it, and had a great time. Keeping up with something like that is hard, but while it was a challenge, it actually helps my photography and creativity improve, and helps me conquer something else I struggle with: consistency. I'm the kind of person who hates schedules, but even something as small as taking one photo every day has helped with things like remembering to vacuum the floor everyday (seriously, who thought carpet in the dining room would be a brilliant idea?!). I was sad to see the project end, but super excited when I found out a new list of photo-a-day topics was created for February!

Without further ado, here's the list of topics for January, and all the photos I took! 

1 // You

2 // Breakfast

3 // Something you adore

4 // Letterbox (the creator of the challenge is Australian; this is what they call mailboxes!)

5 // Something you wore

6 // Makes you smile

7 // Favorite

8 // Your sky

9 // Daily Routine

10 // Childhood

11 // Where you sleep

12 // Close-up

13 // In your bag

14 // Something you're reading

15 // Happiness

16 // Morning

17 // Water

18 // Something you bought

19 // Sweet

20 // Someone you love

21 // Reflection

22 // Your shoes

23 // Something old

24 // Guilty pleasure

25 // Something you made

26 // Color

27 // Lunch

28 // Light

29 // Inside your fridge

30 // Nature 

31 // You again

Little Happy Things No. 5

I so enjoyed the holidays this year! And even more fun was seeing Jackson and Derik so excited about Christmas. :) They've also figured out how presents work now, and ask almost every day when their birthdays are, and remind me about certain things they'd like. Top on the list at the moment are Cars 2 Lego sets, "the ones with Finn and Holly, mom, ok?" :)

::My new kitchen appliances and cookbooks! Luke bought me a fantastic Kitchen Aid, in exactly the color I would have picked! I want to use it constantly. If anyone wants to come over and bake, and then TAKE HOME the stuff we make, hit me up. ;) My parents got me some cool new cookbooks. And Luke's parents bought me a deep fryer. We've made doughnuts, french fries, doughnuts, and fish and chips. And more doughnuts. And mostly I'm feeding them to other people, so I can stick to my New Year's Resolution. ;)

::Drinking fresh pressed juice from a jam jar. 

::The photo-a-day project I'm doing this month. It's on Instagram (clicking that will take you to the app) and when I'm finished I'll post them all here. :)

::Exploring houses with my boys. :) We're finally starting to look for a house! It might take a while or it might not, and we've found some we like and some we don't. It's so much fun to look! I decorate each house we go through in my head, and there are a few right now I can't seem to stop daydreaming about.

::My inspiration wall above my desk. 

::Finally losing 10 pounds. (Actually, 13.) I've been working out really hard lately, so I can hopefully meet my goal of 40 pounds this year, and I would love to completely blow that number away. Less doughnuts, right? ;)

::Stocking up on new art supplies (Sharpies! Graphite pencils!) and sketching more. 

::Making a conscious effort to read God's Word every day. 

Merry Christmas!

Merry Christmas to all my lovely family and friends! :) Once again, I had every intention of sending Christmas cards this year and even designed 4 different ones to send off, but then, as always, life happened. But I think spending days baking cookies with my boys and taking them dollar-store-shopping for presents is a good way to spend my days, don't you? So here's my DIGITAL Christmas card to all of you! I hope you all have a wonderful Christmas spent with family and friends, and of course your fair share of cookies. ;)

The last two days before Christmas for me are consisting of baking lots more cookies, batches of toffee and fudge and puppy chow and dude crackers (i.e. the infamous Oyster crackers that my mom made for the dude's Super Bowl party every year). And watching Elf and drinking hot cocoa. And reading the labels on each Christmas present my boys bring me to tell who it's for. And reading the Christmas story to my boys. :)

Little Happy Things No. 4

Luke had a meeting sprung on him yesterday, so we took an impromptu trip down the hill. I had 7 hours to kill so I drove to Newport Beach. I haven't been to the beach in over 2 years but the beach really feels like home. The sound, the smell, the feel of salt water in the air. Then I killed more time at IKEA where my mom and I solved Christmas-present-to-grandchildren-across-country problems, and then Luke finally got done with his meeting and we hit up Disneyland one last time before Christmas. :)

::Salt water air.

::Doing whatever I wanted to for 7 hours. I explored Newport, drove on Highway 1 up to Huntington (which smells really weird, btw; I know because I was driving with my window down.), and found lots of places to explore in the future.

::Hole-in-the-wall places, like Alta Coffee in Newport. Also, they have a wall of mugs that frequent customers can bring and leave. I wanted to be a frequent guest.

::IKEA meatballs

::Walking around Disneyland without worrying about anything. Not even caring how long the lines are or what rides to go on next.

::Luke not minding me standing in the middle of Main St. at Disneyland to get a panorama.

::How something small like a wrapping paper tube can be the most exciting thing to a little boy. They became light sabers with the help of painter's tape. :)

::Presents arriving and getting wrapped and stowed under the tree.

::Little boys getting so excited about the present they're giving daddy, and showing me which present is mine at grandma & papa's house.

::Lights strung on top of my kitchen cabinets.