Pretty little things

My hubby called me yesterday saying he had a surprise for me, but wouldn't give me a hint as to what it was. So when he got home and handed me a little package, I was surprised that it contained this sweet little apron. I was delighted! I have been wanting a pretty apron for a long time. He came across this one on the Internet and said he just had to get it for me.  He said it just looked like me.  What a sweetheart!

I love aprons and I love to wear them throughout the day.  However,  the ones I do have, have been worn and washed to death.  This one will be perfect for Spring and Summer.

I love the fact that my hubby often surprises me with pretty little things. He always understands me and my old soul.  I love the fact that he just gets me!

Quirky Kids

I love my kids but they have the funniest little quirks. One of them is that they can not have anything out of order in their rooms. I have purposely never allowed them to have toys in their room so they wouldn't get distracted from sleeping. So, their rooms are always tidy. But if something gets out of place, no one can rest easy.

For instance, I found this the other day outside Katelyn's room.  It is the book I was reading to her and her empty water cup. I had mistakenly left them on her nightstand. She can't go to sleep with something out of order in her room, so she put them outside her door.

She is not the only one with night time quirks. Danny was crying the other night and Jason went to check on him. He was crying because one of his draws was left open! As soon as he shut the drawer, Danny was fine and went to sleep.

He also needs his cuddle blanket folded in thirds and tucked under his chin!

I love my kidlets and discovery what makes them tick! It always makes me smile.

Searching for Simplicity

Over the past few years, I have been searching for ways to simplify our home life.  One of the areas I struggle with is laundry, lots and lots of laundry.  Always multiple loads each and every day.  I came up with a practical solution which was changing all the material items (not clothing of course) in our home to the color white.

White is an easy color to wash and if it gets stained I can use a little bit of bleach.  Now our cloth napkins, dish towels, hand towels, bath towels, sheets, crib sheets and our comforter are all white cotton!  This saves so much time and I don't have to do multiple loads of laundry every day!  Plus, white is so easy to replace or add additional pieces.

I would love to hear how you simplify things in your home.

Happy Monday Friends,

This weekend I took an inventory of my storage stockpile and my freezer stockpile.  This menu comes from what food I have in the freezer!  As always, trying to save money for our future! 

Monday:  Baked Tilapia with roasted cauliflower

Tuesday: Pork and Saurkraut

Wednesday:  Turkey Burgers and red onion jam

Thursday: Sesame Noodles

Fun Friday: French Bread Pizza

Saturday: Pork Cutlets and Broccoli

Sunday:  Baked Buffalo Chicken Wings

Happy 35th Birthday Darling

My darling and the love of my life turns the big 35 today! As his wife, I am so proud of this man. He works so hard and always puts us first.

He is my dream come true. I love him more each day and thankful the life he provides for us.

 

My honey with our little lastest creation!

In the Garden...

Currently, the garden is sleeping.  But we have big, big, BIG plans for the her this Spring.  While we are in the final stages of planning, we have already ordered all the seeds and berry plants!  Can you tell I am just a little bit excited?

I have big plans and so does my hubby.  I know it is going to be a ton of work for him, but he is amazing at building and recreating my dreams.  I am one lucky girl!

So, in the next few weeks, we should be showing you a brand new raised garden.

Don't ya just love a snow day!

 

I have never met anyone who loves snow as much as my darling hubby!  He lives for cold and snowy weather.  That's why we plan on retiring to Maine when we are older.

 

Hope you are staying warm on these cold winter days.

Meal Plan Monday

 

 

 

Good Monday Morning.  I am back to giving my meal plans for the week.  My hubby always loved when I did this so he could look back at the meals that we have had to see what he wants for the upcoming week.  The past two months, I have actually planned out an entire month worth of meals and it works out rather well.  I came up with a system and for the most part, we are sticking to it!

 

Here is our menu for this week:



Monday: Simple Tuna Noodle Casserole (this one is for my hubby who loves it!)

 

Tuesday: French Onion Soup by America's Test Kitchen (I have never tasted better..worth the work)

 

Wednesday: Homemade Rotisserie Chicken with roasted carrots

 

Thursday:  Cobb Salad with homemade dressing (clean eat)

 

Friday:  Chicken Tostadas (clean eat)

 

Saturday: Baked Tilapia with brown rice (clean eat)

 

Sunday:  Chicken Broccoli Braid

 

God Bless,

Lori





Eternal Spring Fever

I'm not sure about you, but I get Spring Fever every year around December 26.  Once the holidays are over, my mind races with thoughts of tasting my first garden tomato and the sweet smell of lavender in the air.  Yup, I've got gardening on the brain.

This year, I started early.  Actually, I started in December reading gardening books.  While most people where holiday shopping, I was spending my evening pouring over fruit, vegetable and back yard orchard books and loving every minute I might add!

Since this is the first Summer in five years that I WON'T be pregnant, my honey and I have decided that it's finally time to add on to the garden.  Right now, I think we are going to redo the entire vegetable garden so it will give us a place to walk as well much more usable space.  We plan to have four raised beds and two of them having trellises for peas and green beans.

This year, I am planning on using Mel Bartholomew's square foot gardening method.  If you haven't heard of this method, here is a little brief summary.  I love, love, love it.  I think because it is a great way to organize and keep your garden weed free!  Did I mention organize?  LOVE-LOVE-LOVE IT! 

The books above are just a few that I read.  Out of all the books, (and there were many) I did fall in love with one particular book.  One that I kept ordering over and over again at the library.  The book Landscaping with Fruit by Lee Reich is a MUST read.  Not only are the pictures G-O-R-G-E-O-U-S, he simply explains how to fill your yard with fruiting trees and bushes.  Now thanks to him, I HAVE to have some fruiting bushes, right?  So along with the extended vegetable garden, I will be adding Nanking Cherry Bushes, Alpine Strawberry Bushes, getting more blueberries and if my husband's not looking add a red currant plant or two! 

If you get one book at all this Spring, I simply request that you look into getting the book Landscaping with Fruit.  I promise, you will want to rush out and plant every type of fruit tree and bush once you have read it, I know I did.  Jason has had to talk me out of several things already! 

 

Returning to My Magnolia Cottage

Currently my magnolia tree is covered in snow and the last time I blogged it was blooming.   I know I have been away from blogging for far too long.

What we have been up to lately is organizing our home to run smoother with six people, managing our money and taking better care with what we eat and finding time to exercise.

After this last baby, I wanted to set personal goals for myself.  Besides the usual lose weight goal.  I didn't want to just jump head first into my personal goals like giving up pop, take out food and junk food and exercising daily, all at one time.  But, I did need to start some where.  If I did too much, I was destined to fail.  So my hubby and I decided to take things month by month...and they are working!

First of all, back in October, my honey got a great deal on bottled water.  So, he had 11 cases of it delivered to our door (free shipping).  That was the end of drinking pop for me.  I quickly started drinking the water in place of the pop that I was drinking.  I used to drink a TON of pop.  Like, if pop was a drug, I was addicted.  So getting off of pop was the first thing I did.  By the middle of November, the bottles were all gone and I just drank filtered tap water now.  We are now a pop and soda free house! 

Next, we decided to stop fast food.  It was so easy to run through the drive-thru to full fill my pop addiction. However most times, I wouldn't just stop for me, I had to get the kids something, right?  So, the month of January, we have put an end to the drive-thru.  Guess what, not only did I last an entire month of not going through the drive-thru, but we made our budge goals. FIRST TIME ever!  All because we stayed  away from the junk food.  I had no idea how much going through the drive- thru here and there would effect our budget!  BUT EGADS..it did!

It is amazing how that all works hand in hand.  I also feel so much better with out the pop and the junk food.  I joined the lovely website called My Fitness Pal to keep track of my exercising and food in take.  I didn't work out every day of January, but I am working towards that goal.

So, that is what is going on here at Magnolia Cottage...I like to call it, Getting my act together.

Stay Tuned,
Lori

Happy Birthday America!

                                                           My little Firecrackers!

Hope you all have a wonderful Fourth of July! 

Here he is:

Our family is growing once again. Introducing "Monkey Joe" born June 20, 2012. He weighed in at a hefty 9 lbs. and 7 oz. and 21.5 in. in length.

June 20th has always been a special day for me. First it was my Grandmothers birthday and also
my brothers anniversary. I have always loved that it was also the first day of Summer. So when I found out that his due date was the 20th, I was very excited. So, I scheduled my c-section for that day.

However, I wasn't the only one who liked that day. At 2:30 in the morning of my scheduled c-section my water broke. So, he came right when he was suppose to. My surgery went great... In fact my nurse just came in and told me all the nurses call me the poster child for c-sections! I am hoping we can leave the hospital earlier then normal. I miss my other little ones.

Here is a picture of two of my three gorgeous men:

Just a few more hours...

In just a few more hours, ok, more like 45 hours, our new little man will be joining our clan. We are so excited to meet him and see his little face.  What will he look like?  Will he look like me, will he look like the other kids, my hubby or his older brother (who doesn't look anything like the rest of us).

We are more then ready here in our home. To the point I think I have actually washed paint off the baseboards because I have scrubbed them so much. Last night My Sweetie was cleaning our carpets and said to me, I was being a bit too obsessive about my house being cleaned. Then I stated something to the fact that I was nesting. His quick response to me was that I have been nesting for the last four years...and I said, I have been pregnant for the last four years! To which we both started laughing.
My bags are packed and the babies clothes are all washed and ready to go. I just pray that the older children will do okay while I am away. I am sure they will be fine with my In-Laws, it's more me. I start missing my kids when I go to the grocery store at night. In fact, if I hear a baby cry at the store, my heart starts to ache every time! I just love my little growing bigger every day family.

I pray my next post that you will be seeing new pics of our new little guy!

Simple Pleasures...

Is there anything better than picking fresh fruit from your own garden? The children picked these fresh raspberries this morning. These are the first of what I hope will be many, many more raspberries.

It was hard for them not to just stand by the bushes and eat them all. But could you blame them?

Some days I just want to say...

Our latest project sneak peak...

This past Winter, My Sweetie and I ponder the many projects that we wanted to accomplish this Spring. A new and bigger deck, a fence, more garden space, landscaping in the back...and the list went on and on. One thing we kept coming back to, is a large playroom and space for the kids.

We will soon be having 4 children being aged four and under and we were desperate for a place for them to play with their toys. We have tried to keep their toys at a minimum over the years and only getting them 2 or 3 toys per Christmas and birthday. However, they still add up and we needed a place for them to be used and to be organized. I have never liked toys in their bedrooms, because I like knowing where everything is located  and organized. So part of our finished basement seemed like the logical choice for their playroom.

The planning started at the beginning of April. We started looking for deals online and picking paint colors. I looked all over Pinterest for ideas and inspiration and found a few I incorporated.  Mostly the room was designed by My Sweetie.  Plus, he added his own technological flair to help keep the kids safe!

Here is just a sneak peak of what we have accomplished so far:

The room is actually 95 percent done, with just a few more shelves and a chalk board to be put in place.  I can't wait for you to see it!

Memorial Day

Today I am celebrating my anniversary to My Sweetheart.  As I look back over the years, I can't help to think about the quote on my brothers wedding invitation from 20 years ago that read, "Today I Marry My Best Friend, The One I Laugh With, Live For, Dream With, LOVE."  I have always loved that quote.  However, it wasn't until I married My Sweetheart that I realized how often I would ponder that quote throughout our days together. 

I am so thankful for My Sweetheart and what a blessing he has been in my life.  When we got married I didn't think I could love someone as much as I loved him.  But as the years have passed us by, I learned I was wrong.   He has made all my dreams come true and I grow deeper in love with him daily.  My heart aches for him while he is away at work and I still get excited when I hear the garage door open and see him walk through the door. 

He has made my world complete.

Thank you my love and Happy Anniversary.

Mornings....

Mornings around the cottage tend to be set to a slower pace. Sissy boo (3) gets up early with me and we head out to water the gardens. She waters the flowers or helps pull weeds. I more or less supervise.

Recently someone asked Sissy boo what she did with a scoop, she quickly answered, "Help Mommy work in the dirt!" I love that answer, because it's something just the two of us do together. She even planted all the veggies this year.

One of her favorite things to do in the mornings is to pick ripe peas. While she was the one that planted them, she has also been the only who has been enjoying them. Sitting on the deck with a big bowl of sugar snap peas has been her breakfast of choice for the last few days.

Mornings like this make my heart full... I am truly blessed.

The Scent of Spring

For the last few weeks, I have had a vase full of lilacs in my kitchen window. The scent has permeated the house in almost a cleansing fashion.

However,I have had my doubts about our little lilac bush. For the past three years,I have watched my little bush stay the exact same size, small with just a few blooms. So this year, I had given up hope of getting the large lilac bush I saw in my gardening books. I even did a bit of research to find out what type we had. We even talked about moving the bush into a sunnier location.

One day after work, my Hubby came inside and said you have got to come out here and look at the lilac bush. Something had happened this year, it was now three times as large and full of blooms. The blooms are so fragrant I can be in the very back of the house and still smell them.

Needless to say, I have enjoyed every moment of its beauty and fragrance this year!