Pieces of Me

Summer Cut!

Before:

After:

There were a few tears shed as I cut it...but he's cute no matter what!

Happy Birthday to Ella and I!

This past weekend I celebrated my birthday and my daughter's 7th birthday.  She was born on Feb 27 and I was born on Feb 28.  (I won't say how old I am but let's just say I was 29 the day she was born--you do the math).  We had an incredibly fun weekend!  Friday afternoon was her birthday party (a few pictures posted in a prior post) and Saturday we headed down to Roseville, California for some shopping and a hotel stay.  Weight Watchers was forgotten about for the weekend and we did some good grubbing too! 

We headed back Sunday afternoon and met up with family at Chevy's for dinner and gifts and cake/ice cream.  Monday was back to reality for the kids and work for Aaron but I stayed in my vacation mode cocoon as it was my actual birthday.  I slept in, watched lots of TV and had my favorite Thai food with my mom and bro.  

Celebrating continues as I head out with my girlfriends tonight! 

Happy Birthday Ella!

Happy Birthday to my sweet baby Ella who turns 7 today!!! 

Day 25 of My Favorite Things

Merry Christmas everyone! 

My Favorite thing EVER?  My husband and my kids.....I LOVE YOU GUYS!! 

Halloween Recap

Halloween was a full 10 days ago and for a Halloween obsessed person I am embarrased to say I'm only now posting our Halloween photos!  I'm also only now reluctantly taking down the Halloween decorations... I'm planning to hold out a few skeletons and popping santa hats on them... ha. 

So this year the Lee family had a coordinating costume for this first time ever!  (As alluded to in this post....Costume Mission Accomplished)  We became the Zom-lee family!

Ella as Miss Zombie Queen (with her King)

Jacob as the star football player/brain eater

And their proud parents

Lisa and Aaron's Love Letters....

Sadly we recently received the last of our 'love letters'...."Lisa and Aaron's Love Letters" was a project that my mother-in-law put together at our wedding...September 5, 1998.   All the attendees were given a piece of paper and wrote us a letter, marking on the envelope the date it was to be delivered.  Over the years we have had such fun receiving them...this last one is from Aaron's brother and wife.  The details in it are amazing to read 12 years later!  As an added bonus Jaime included a time capsule of sorts and wrote a list of current events and prices of items.  The price of a gallon of gas on our wedding day...$1.25...sigh....

Costume Mission Accomplished

I'm not going to say what we are going to be this year, but I will give a sneak preview.  I will also say for the first time ever we are 'matching' as a family.  Best thing about our costumes this year?  We found them for a whopping $20 total...for 4 costumes that 'match'.  Any guesses?

Kid's Activities....

The Cub Scout Pack we are involved in was honored to be involved in a flag lowering and raising ceremony at the big giant flag off I-5 last week.  They included involvement with the local fire, police and military personnel which was extra special.

 

 We can't get enough of the pumpkin patch!  School field trip to the Hawes pumpkin patch this time....lots o fall fun and more pumpkins were collected up.

And who doesn't love a nice soccer game in the pouring rain?

 

Umm and while uploading my pics I found this....Aaron must have taken this last night after our family movie night.  Explains why I woke up confused where I was and with back pain early this morning. 

I love October!

I have decided that October is my favorite month and Halloween is my favorite holiday.  I'm going to attempt make a post every day between now and Halloween to share all my favorite things fall and related to the Halloween season. 

Sunday we had our annual "Lee Family Harvest Fest" and had a great time!  Ella even said multiple times, "This is my best day ever!!"  The basics of the day include each year a trip to a local pumpkin patch, pumpkin carving and harvesty food.  We had that all covered well!

This year we invited Grandma Jeanne and Uncle Jeff to join us, though Jeff ended up having to work at the last minute.

The family pumpkin patch trip for this year was the Nash pumpkin patch.  It was a beautiful, cooler, overcast day...perfect for a day at the pumpkin patch.  We all found our perfect pumpkin -- Jacob was quite intense on finding just the right one and even came prepared with gloves.  After wandering around the patch, snacking on kettle corn and fresh lemonade, and visiting the petting zoo we headed back home.  Grandma and I got crafty with some pumpkins using glitter and rhinestones while the kids and Aaron carved them more traditionally.  We then had a TASTY DELICIOUS dinner that consisted of pumpkin bisque, salad, green beans with bacon, and butternut squash with pesto.....MMMMM...... We finished the day off with pumpkin pie and whipped cream while watching haunted house shows on the Travel channel....so fun!

  

Happy anniversary to me!

I realized a few days ago that this month is the 5 month anniversary of my 'Pieces of Me' blog!  5 years!  A lot has certainly changed in 5 years but yet some things feel like they've stayed the same.  What I find funny is that 5 years ago I had a 1 year old and a 3 year old and yet I still managed to post quite regularly to this blog, LOL!  Now that I have an 8 and 6 year old (Look at my babies up there!!)  there just is not enough hours in the day and this blog has certainly fallen down on the priority list.  Maybe it's also because I have added WAY TOO MUCH TO MY PLATE as of late.    These past couple of months have been completely freaking insane out of control a bit busy, but some of our activities are coming to a close and I'm refocusing priorities, so the schedule has been letting up and blessing me with more free time. 

I was recently reflecting on the happenings since school has started.  Just a basic rundown (for my own sake-you can skip it!) of the past couple months:

• Soccer practices/games (Jacob)
• Cross country practice/meets (Jacob & Ella)
• Daisy's (Ella)
• Cub Scouts (Jacob) & I am the Pack Committee Secretary which means extra meetings/time
• Art Docent for Jacob's class - has been really fun-it's out of my comfort zone and I'm learning a lot myself
• School volunteer (for both kids)
• Sewing class (Ella) - she's a fashion designer in the works
• Redding Handmade - I have somehow fallen into the role of co-leader of the team..Oops!
• Began doing the P90X classic workout....love it and can honestly say it's one of the best workouts I've ever done and am currently on week 5 with only missing ONE yoga, cuz it sucks workout
• Anniversary trip to Petaluma with Aaron (ahhh a glorious getaway that left us with a permanent reminder of the weekend and our children that will forever be with us.  And bonus, some of the best food we've ever eaten on a vacation-not one bad meal the whole weekend)
• Political involvement with the Redding Fire Department -- do you need to know who to vote for?  OK, I'll tell ya!  Francie Sullivan, Sandra Speer and Ken Murray for Redding City Council and vote NO on advisory ballot measures A & B
• Juella Designs - Business has been going great but I constantly wish for more creative time to work on new pieces...in addition to my online shop, I have been participating in local shows and getting my products into more local places.  I also have a special collaboration project that deserves it's own post shortly. 
• Daily life - Oh yeah all the usual appts, chores, committments--Hey, what's up with the kids wanting to eat dinner? 

Commit me please.  Naw, not really...thankfully it is getting to be easier times.  Back to BALANCE is the name of the game.  The game being life. 

I do want to get back to regularly posting to my blog.  Why?  I actually find that I enjoy the writing.  When I'm exericising I find myself composing blog entries in my head, unfortunately most of them never see pen to paper keyboard to screen.  I do love it when people comment on my blog and new followers are always a bonus, but the real reason I started this blog was an online journal of our/my daily life.  I print the blog yearly and keep it in a binder, since about the time I started this blog I also stopp ed scrapbooking with my thousands of dollars of scrapbooking tools, supplies, crap.  As my kids have gotten older however, I've focussed less on them because of their own privacy and more on me...egotistical?  I don't think so.  And if you think so, stop reading!  Anyhow I do love to write and share just like I love to read other people's blogs.  I have a list of blogs I read quite regularly that I will one day have to share.  It's like my own person reality TV channel and I love it -- I love to be inspired and they're always changing and always there for me.

So anyhow...long story short.....happy anniversary to me!

Photo above taken at Cub Scout Family Campout this past weekend