week in the life

I'm am starting something new today, Ali Edwards' "Week In The Life" project. For one whole week, beginning today, I will be documenting our every day lives through lots of pictures and note-keeping from hour to hour. In the end I will have this awesome glimpse of what our lives look like day in and day out. I'll be printing the week in my first ever Shutterfly book as well.

Know how I started the day in pictures? With a picture of me still in bed. Yep, and I look fantastic let me tell ya! But that's the kind of stuff I'll be capturing. Also taking a daily pic of our living room, kitchen, and my desk. Scary, but keeping it real.

I am SUPER excited. Never mind that I have a hundred billion other things I "should" be doing, this is important for my family. I'm so excited to give this to them and maybe make a yearly tradition of it.

So good luck to me! Have a great week everyone!

quote love

Source: lollipops.bigcartel.com via Debbie on Pinterest

the weekend lens

Second weekend of summer vacation -
4th of July and a four day weekend for Daniel. There was a good mix of getting stuff done around the house and having fun.


Friday morning - Daniel came to swim class with us. The kids were excited all week that Daddy would be there on Friday. It was also the first time either one jumped off a diving board. Both were terrified, but they lived to tell. They'll do it again.


late Friday afternoon - Daniel had it with the heat and bought a pool. I knew it was going to go on our patio. I did not know it would be set up four feet from our door. I also still don't understand why it wasn't set up about 6 feet to the left...


Friday night - I'm afraid armor will not help little Kung Zhu in an arena surrounded by dinosaurs. Sorry Kung Zhu.


Saturday afternoon - Another mystery to me... Set up pool and THEN remove the patio's fiber glass covering. Hmmmm??? And yep, one slat decided to puncture the pool cover. I'll take that over puncturing the pool that is holding 900 gallons of water 4 FEET AWAY FROM OUR BACKDOOR. Daddy did have a captive audience, that's for sure.


late Saturday afternoon - Progress is definitely being made in removing cement.


Sunday afternoon - July 3rd was just nice. And my husband got a haircut. Yay!


Monday morning, 4th of July - Woke up to find this beauty on our kitchen table. Seriously, the most perfectly shaped beautiful pumpkin, in JULY!!! We didn't intentionally plant pumpkins, but Daniel found something growing a few months back in our backyard where he was clearing weeds. So he planted it and here we are! Now what to do with it...


Monday morning, 4th of July - Had to buy a flag pole for the first ever flag we have put up! Flag belonged to my family growing up.


Monday night, 4th of July - Per tradition, the Gallagher and Lee families celebrated the evening with good food and fireworks. The fireworks that surrounded our house, big and small, were amazing. It was awesome. Good times.

first day of swim lessons

We are now three days into swim lessons. Emma is focused and determined like her usual self. She's also enjoying the process. Love that! Ethan is a much more willing participant this year - he's combining his brave little self from last summer with lots of smiles this time around. They are both doing great!





No tears this year and lots and lots of smiles from this little guy.

Wow, what a delightful change that is!





As I sat on Tuesday watching them, I felt so grateful to be there at that moment, watching my kids learn how to swim. It is a very moving experience for me. Its one of those proud mama moments. Knowing how to swim is HUGE and important, and its also something that I'm not good at. I fear the water. I can swim well enough to get to the edge of the pool, but other things about being in water terrify me. I don't need my kids to be fish. But I do want them to be comfortable in the water. I want them to enjoy it. And I want to know that if they were to fall in, no matter how deep it is, they could easily get to the edge and/or tread water. Right now, at ages 7 and almost 5, that last one is number one on my list.

the weekend lens

Trying something new... "The Weekend Lens" is inspired by the great Ali Edwards. If only I had a smidgen of her ability to consistently document her family's life through photos AND words... I capture our lives through photos more than well enough, but I fail to actively and consistently document it.

So the weekend - It might be packed. Sometimes. But its short. Seems like a good place to start! What I'm doing to simplify this process for myself: Forget processing my raw images. At least for this kind of post. Just using SOOC (straight out of camera) jpgs and processing them the best I can, as quickly as I can. Also journaling in list form or somewhere along those simple lines. I over-complicate stuff like this. So I'm really making an effort to keep it simple and get it done. Perfect is nice. But perfection is my hang-up. We'll see how this goes...

Our first weekend of summer ~


Saturday afternoon - Let's start the summer with a splash! "Brownie" swim party. Perfect weather. Great lead in for swim lessons which begin on Monday.


Late Saturday afternoon - While the kids and I were at the swim party, Daniel was home chopping up tree stumps. He was beyond tired. And the rest of us, well, we had been outside in the sun, for three hours... We were all pooped. I fell asleep in Emma's bed and woke up to one very quiet house. Ethan was asleep on the couch and Emma asleep with Daddy in our bedroom. It wasn't quite a lazy Saturday at home, but we were sure napping like it was!


Sunday evening - A belated Father's Day dinner with Daniel's family. So happy to have Vivian and her husband Kwan Young back from New York. They're here to stay! Haven't seen Kwan Young since Emma was one year old! SUCH a nice guy. Great to have them back!


Even later Sunday evening - Watering our dead grass with the kids' water play supply.

Other things to remember about this weekend -
How I love having company over because it forces me to clean, and clean is always nice.
Daniel hacking away the trees out of existence.
Daniel beginning the labor intensive process of cutting away cement in our backyard.
The very orange pumpkin and the red ripe grape tomatoes we have growing in our backyard.