What's Up Wednesday

Time is flying and it's already the last Wednesday of the month.   Crazy!  Today I'm sharing what we've been up to this month with What's Up Wednesday.  I'm linking up again with Shay and Mel.

What we're eating this week

We've been eating steak, steak fajitas, and chili.  Taco's are in our near future along with a Mexican lasagna.

What I'm reminiscing about

We are slowly getting our stuff together and thinking about school starting shortly and I've been reminiscing about the kids when they were younger and just how fast they are growing up. 

Look at my babies.  They were so little.

What I'm loving

Lazy summer nights.

What we've been up to

We've been soaking up the last couple weeks of summer.  We've visited family and played on the lake.  We've cleaned out closets and went school shopping.  Our summer break is almost over. 

What I'm dreading

This!!!

Waking the kids up early for school!  I dread this!  They dread this!  But there is no way around it, so wake them up early, I will.  Sigh!  They have to be on the bus before 7:30 in the morning and my kids move so incredibly slow in the morning, that I end up waking them up at 6:15.  I even have them shower at night so it's one less thing to do in the morning.  Now is a good time to practice my positive thinking.  I will not dread waking them up early... I will enjoy it.  ;)

What I'm working on

Emma is turning 8 on Monday, which means I am in the middle of planning a couple of parties.  She is having a sleepover with a couple of her friends one night and then we are planning a family birthday dinner another night.  I think I have everything ordered, now to finish getting all the groceries and clean the house.  I'll be keeping the parties pretty simple.  She picked out this theme and we ordered the supplies off Amazon.

What I'm excited about

I'm excited for Gracie's volleyball games and Jesse's soccer games.  We've enjoyed our summer, but now I'm ready to watch them play their sports.  It's so fun to see how they improve with each year.  Emma decided not to play soccer again this year, which I am okay with.  I don't want to haul kids to practices and games if they aren't even interested.  So she'll ride around with me and help me cheer her siblings on.

I made Gracie stand still for a picture before practice. 

What I'm watching/reading

I just finished reading Song of Songs and I'm about to start in on Acts.  GoodMorningGirls.org is starting Acts the first of September and it helps keep me accountable.

Life seems to busy at the moment to sit down with a novel.  Soon though!  

What I'm listening to

This morning as I'm finishing up this post, the house is relatively quiet.  Gracie's getting ready for practice and the cows are mooing out my window.  Odd mixture, but completely normal around here.  Ha!  :)

What I'm wearing

Lots of jackets and wraps.  The weather is definitely changing around here.  It is cold in the mornings and doesn't warm up until afternoon.  By then it's too smokey to be outside for long, so I'm back inside the house with the AC on.  Brrr!!!   So it is officially jacket season for me.  Ha!

What I'm doing this weekend

My little sister, Leslie turned 30 at the beginning of the month and my sister, sister-in-law, Mom and I are all looking at going and spending the evening celebrating with her.   Girls night.  Wahoo!  We're a little late, but late is ok, right.  It's like a birthday month that way.  ;)

What I'm looking forward to next month

EUROPE!!! 

Dan and I are headed to Europe this next month!!!  I am so excited, as I've never been overseas before.  We will be in Sweden and Finland.  It's business for him, and I get to tag along and tour with the other spouses.  So excited!!!

What else is new

Just trying to get everyone ready for school, sports and for Dan and I's trip.

What is my favorite back to school tradition

I know everyone does it, but my favorite tradition is the back to school pictures.  I think they are so fun to take, and to be able to look back on all the years past.

I hope you're all having a great week so far!

xoxo

5 Tips To Blogging

Today I'm sharing 5 Things that I've learned about blogging.   These are all just my opinions or observations.  You may disagree with all of them, and if it's working for you, then continue on.  But for new bloggers who are looking for some insight, this would be my helpful 5 tips.

1 Are you a no-reply blogger?  When you leave a comment on somebody's blog, do you ever get a response back, or do you have to go back to their blog to check and see if they've responded?  Read more about it here.  It is one of the easiest things you can do.  You leave a comment on somebody's blog and you don't have to go back to see what they wrote.  They can reply by email to your comment, and you can reply back to them by email as well.  This my friends, is how blogging friendships are made.  Because ain't nobody got time to go back to each blog you commented on, to see if they've replied back.


2.  Respond to comments on your blog.  Nothing is more annoying than leaving somebody a nice comment or asking a question and never hearing back.  Now, I can see if you have a large blog and have tons and tons of comments, that it would be near to impossible to reply to each and every comment.  No judgement!  But I've seen bloggers with 3 or 4 comments, and they never, ever reply.  They also are probably busy, and that's okay, but... they better have an amazing blog, or chances are, I probably won't keep going back.


3.  Write about what you have a passion for.  It will show in what you write and those usually end up being the best posts.


4.  Be careful how much advertising you promote on your blog.  I understand that everyone wants to make a buck, and that's all good and fine.  But, make sure that readers can see what your blog is all about.  It's really hard to get a feel for someones blog if when you visit it for the first time, an advertising window pops up in the middle of the screen.  Then when you close that down and there are advertisements all up and down the side of their page, along the bottom and top of the post,  it's really distracting.  If I'm too overwhelmed and can't figure out what the blog is about... I'm usually out pretty quickly.


5.  Be yourself!  Tell your own story!  I don't want to read 5 blogs that are all the same.  Our lives don't all look the same, and that's what makes finding new blogs so fun to read.  I'm just one woman living out in Montana with her family, but in one day I can read about different women's lives from around the world.  Some are younger, older, single, have big careers or stay at home Mom's.  So yes, our lives might seem pretty different, but we are each just living our own story the best way that we can and how fun, that we get to share it with each other.

What would you add to this list?  

A day in the life

Yesterday was the day that I planned to try and document my day.  It didn't quite go as planned, since I ended up working, and working longer even then I thought I would need to.  So I might do another one here soon.  But I thought I'd go ahead and post this day anyway. 

I finally crawled out of bed and headed for the coffee at 6:30.  I love when my house is still dark, and just a few soft lights are on.  

I grabbed my coffee and sat down at the computer for a couple of minutes to check the weather and news.  This is when I usually post on the blog and read up on others.  But I didn't have too much time to linger, because I had to get ready to head into the pharmacy to work for a couple of hours.

Showered, dressed and onto my second and last cup of coffee for the day.

 The pharmacy is usually always busy when I am needed to fill in, so there is no time to snack.  So I needed breakfast to tide me over.  I made a fried egg with toast and swiss cheese.  Something quick.

I put frozen chicken breasts in the crock pot with some water to sit and cook while I was gone.  Sometimes I put bbq sauce on instead of water and sometimes I use chicken broth.  I wasn't sure what I'd end up doing with the chicken so I just used water this time.  I planned on being home around lunch time and figured I would have time to figure it all out.

And off to work I go...

They ended up needing me to stay longer than I planned, so I had to run across the street to the gas station to get something to eat for lunch.  No time to dawdle, so I just sat outside the back door of the pharmacy long enough to eat and head back in.

I got off work around 3:00, picked up my mail and some Subway sandwiches for the kids.  They wanted an early dinner, so it worked out perfect. 

I got my plants watered... stop looking at the weeds.  :)  They are on my list.

I got my chicken shredded and put back in the fridge.  

I got the laundry switched...

and going again.

The kids already ate, so Dan and I just added a little bbq sauce to some of the chicken and made a quick little bbq sandwich.  I'll save the rest of the chicken and make chicken tortilla soup.

My boys were watching wrestling. And my girls were on the computer playing games.

I hadn't read my bible yet, so I crawled in bed early to sit and read for a bit.  I was supposed to have finished reading Song of Songs last week.  I'm all caught up, but I have to say, even though I've read it quite a few times now, I really don't understand that book in the bible.  Anyone?

And the unwritten rule in the house is that if you aren't in bed when Mom goes to bed that you have to tuck Mom in.  I'm usually in bed by 8:30 at the latest, even if I'm just going to sit and read for a while.  The kids aren't usually ready then, so I'll let them stay up until 10:00 some nights since Summer's still here.  Once school starts, they'll be in bed by 8:30.

I'm all tucked in!  :)  I looked at my phone for a bit and then it was lights out.  Yes, you're reading that right.  It says 8:45.  Haha!  I couldn't stay awake any longer.  Dan just sits and reads on his ipad.

I didn't get a lot of time in with my kids yesterday.  :(  By the time I got home, it was time to get my stuff done, and they all went and found their own things to do.  Seriously this is what it's like when your kids start growing up.  You have to go and find them, because they all just go off and find their own things to do. 

Hopefully I can do one more of these before the kids head back to school here in a few weeks.  My day isn't too exciting when my kids aren't in it much.  But it was just another day in the life of me. 

XOXO

Friday Favorites

I'm linking back up today to show you my very random Friday Favorites with Andrea, Erika & Narci.

 

~ONE~

I found these shoes when we were in Spokane, but they didn't have my size.  Dan found them online last night and ordered them for me.  Sweet husband!  :)  I'm hoping to take them with us when we go on our trip.  I am the worst at returning things, so I pray that I love them!  What's so hard about filling out a return form and mailing things back?  I don't know... it just is for me!  I'm working on getting better at this.

 

~TWO~

This is my favorite coffee creamer.  If you haven't tried it... try it!  Yum!

On this day I headed to the grocery store, because this was the only thing that I knew I needed.

 ~THREE~

This Book...

I wrote about it a bit in my last post here.  If you are wanting an easy read, then this one is perfect.

 

~FOUR~

I wish I had remembered and taken a picture of her, but Emma passed her deep end test at the pool.  I am so excited for her!  At our pool, you can't swim in the deep end or jump off of the diving board until you pass the test.  Not even if you are with your parents.  In order to pass the test you have to be a strong enough swimmer to swim back and forth across the pool doing a crawl stroke without stopping.  Then you have to jump off of the diving board and swim to the side with no assistance while also doing the crawl stroke.  And my girl did it.  :)

Once she passed, she was too busy swimming in the deep end.  So here is an older photo.  :)

~FIVE~

Here's a couple funny things that I've ran across this week and thought I'd share with you.  

I hope you all have a great weekend.  I think we are sticking close to home and will hopefully be enjoying a little bit of cooler weather that they say we might get.

Secrets of a Charmed Life

I just finished reading Secrets of a Charmed Life, a couple of days ago and it was really good.

Without giving any spoilers, this story is about an old woman who sits down with a reporter for the first time to tell her story.   She takes you back to London during World War II, when she was just a young girl.

This book has a story that is different than anything else that I have read before.  If you are looking for a nice easy read, I would definitely recommend this one. 

Have you read anything by Susan Meissner before?  I'm anxious to see what else she has out there.

Our Weekend

When we woke up Saturday morning, Dan decided that we should all head over to Spokane to do some back to school shopping.  He didn't have to twist my arm.  ;)

Gracie's been wanting a pair of white pants for the last year.  I kept putting her off because really who can wear white pants and keep them clean?!  But whatever... she is now a proud owner of white jeans.  This was also a proud moment because she is such a tiny thing, and pants never fit.  Well... Sister must be growing, because we found these in the women's section at Gap, and they fit.

Dan was paying for shoes at this store, so the kids waited for him while testing out clubs.  They need lessons.  Dan wants to teach them how to golf, but is usually too busy.  I want to teach them, but I need lessons myself.  Ha!  Someday!  

Emma didn't seem as interested in the golf clubs, but she thought the golf club head protector thing was cute.  Ha!  

After shopping, we headed out to dinner at Buffalo Wild Wings.  Dan and a couple of the kids had never been there before.  

We all played a music trivia game and Emma smoked all of us.  She had no idea what she was choosing, but I guess her guessing skills are top notch. 

We still have 4 weeks before school starts.  Crazy!  This is the latest that I ever remember them starting.  Instead of waiting for the last minute to get all of our stuff together for school, we're trying to do a little at a time, so we don't break the bank all in one outing.  Back to school shopping is expensive.

Cows come home...

  It's that time again.   

The cows crossed over the highway and back onto the ranch.

They've been out to pasture, but now it's time for them to come back home.

They'll eventually be moved to the back pasture where they'll be fed through the winter.

But for now, they'll stay out in the field and eat that down.

 And for me, it's another little sign that the seasons are getting ready to change.