list 8: Being Thankful.

what I am thankful for

1.  healthy children

2.  a warm home

3.  bangs

4.  new & old friends

5.  my Oklahoma accent

6.  my Keurig (because one cup is really all you need.)

7.  Winter Oreos

8.  our church

9.  spiced tea recipe in my grandmother's handwriting

10.  homemade Chex Mix

11.  DVR

12.  a dentist who says, "Your kids don't have cavities."

13.  finally enjoying exercising {Thanks, Cory.}

14.  learning to eat only 1 Oreo instead of 8

15.  Christmas movies

16.  my mother's amazing ability to quote "Christmas Vacation" in any situation ("You serious, Clark?")

17.  good books

18.  early Christmas presents

19.  Elf on the Shelf

20.  unexpected compliments

21.  hot tea on a cold day

22.  Glee

23.  online shopping

24.  making shrimp 'n rice on Thanksgiving instead of turkey

25.  P.J. Salvage pajamas

26.  my son finally discovering the Beatles

27.  blogs (especially mine.)

new.

I almost deleted this blog.  Almost.  I was tired of it.  Tired of the way it looked.  I'm a girl that likes to rearrange.  Change it up.  Push the couch around and scrape up the wood floors.  If I'm tired of something, I just get rid of it.  Hoarding isn't a problem for me.

But there are times, like now, when I enjoy my blog.  I like the creativity of it all.  I like having a place to spout my opinion, share pics of my kids, and occasionally write something worth reading.  I like having an easy way of updating my friends and family.  At one point in time it was a gallery--a place to display my "professional" writing for the world to read.  But let's face it.  The only people reading are my close friends and a couple of cool people who just happened to stumble upon it by accident.  {Thank you, by the way.}  So I changed it.  Updated it.  Gave it a redo.  And I hope you like it.

I was mama wants more for a long time (and my blogger address still goes by the same name.)  But the truth is I don't want more.  I have enough.  I'm am crazy blessed.  I actually have too much and it was all starting to give me a headache.  (If you read my last post, you can see that there's an obvious pattern happening here.)

So enjoy the sunshine from out here in California.  Like whenever I rearrange my living room, there's no guarantee that it's going to stay like this.  I've got to live with it awhile to make sure I like it, so there might be more tinkering to come.  For now, here it is.

simple.

::  nytimes ::

I would live here in a heartbeat.  This cute little farm house so small and festive.  It's darling.  And my family would have it filled to the brim with crap within a couple of hours of moving in.

I'm tired of the crap.  The crap is getting to me.  And what bothers me most of all is that most of the crap is mine.

I spent three hours last weekend cleaning the pantry.  Just the pantry took three hours.  And it's not even the messiest part of the house.

I know what some of you are thinking.  "Steph, I've been to your house and there's no crap to be found."  And do you know what I say back?  "Yes there is.  I just hide it really well.  I only let you see what I want you to see."

(Hence the pantry full of crap.)

So this week I'm purging.  The Christmas lists have started.  The grandparents have already started buying which means more crap is just around the corner.  So while I still can, I'm going to simplify.  Less crap equals less cleaning.  Less cleaning equals more time to do the things I like to do.

Like buy more crap.

Halloween Party Pics

My great friend Karin and I decided to throw a Halloween party for our kids this year.  It might have been at my house, but she gets ALL the credit for the cute party ideas.  Okay, not all.  I'll take the credit for the vomiting pumpkin, but even that was stole from some blog that I visited (wish I could remember which one to give them the credit, but I've slept since then.)  Truthfully, most of our ideas came from familyfun.com.  Gotta love it.

The kids had a ball.  After the Golfer/Rugby Player left to take 6 crazy boys trick-or-treating, Karin and I spiked the punch and handed out candy and leftover cupcakes and donut hole "eyeballs" to the neighborhood ghosts and goblins (or should I say, princesses and superheros.)  But I have to admit, my favorite part of the evening was when a teenager, taking an "eyeball" from the bowl, looked at Karin and said, "This is the kind of house I always wanted to grow up in."

Made me sad and happy all in the same moment. Either that or it was the vodka in the punch. Probably a little bit of both.