Friends

My dear friends- sorry it's been a while since I've posted life over at the Norman's has been crazy with a birthday party, starting work, and can I just say 4 kids. Homework for them is getting harder and they are so busy with projects and blah, blah, blah!

We are starting to plan our ski vacation up to Park City and I can't wait! The kids are counting down the days and maybe I will make them a cute count down calendar for it!  That is a great idea right? Well I want you know I am still going to post but it will have to wait a few days when my schedule calms down. I hope you all are planning cool trips with your kids and crafting some beautiful spring crafts because Easter is right around the corner.

Road Trip to Miami

Call me crazy, but I took my girls and one of their friends to Miami. We went on a road trip. We had actually planned this back in October because the Justin Bieber concert was going to be there, so my oldest wanted to go to that and then the new American Girl store opened up. It gave me any excuse to get out of the house for a long weekend and have some girl time. Well that is what I thought would happen, but in reality everything went a different way. To be brief and spare you the boring details it went a little like this- mouth sores, stomach bug, attitudes and spending too much money. We went to South Beach which was very pretty and the water was this amazing blue. Then, we went to the AG store and oh my is it adorable. (more on that in another post) I swear I feel like a little girl again when I go in that store. Finally, the older girls got to see their dream guy- Justin Bieber. The concert was so cute and he dances so cool. But oh my those girls can scream! It is so cute seeing so many girls just falling for this guy JB. Oh, to be a teenager again! (no thanks!)

This is the start of our trip and can you tell everyone is still pretty excited. Gabbie is with the blanket on her and I think this was the start of not feeling well.

This was our destination! So far to go.

This is the final car ride back home and the end of our trip. Everyone is tired and grumpy. The teenagers on hiding in the back of the van. Silly girls.

So that was our fun weekend packed full of excitement, headaches and so much more! 

Smash Monday #1

I am having so much fun with this SMASH book that I really hope I can keep up with this all year long. I was telling my oldest how cool this is and I wish I had done something like this when I was her age. An example of some themes that she could do might be one for every year in high school, another for summer of 2013, spring break 2013, or anything like that. Kids these days take pictures all the time, so much more freedom without the expense of film like when I was a kid. They don't realize how lucky they are to be able to document their lives through these phone cameras now or any of those social media apps that they are using. What I want to do on this blog is start a SMASH Monday and I will show you what I have added or bought for my book and hopefully you will share yours. You don't even need to go out and buy one if you don't want to you can simply make one too. But let's share the progress of them and see how much documenting and memories we are cherishing along the way. Life is a wonderful journey and we need to document this road we've chosen. So here are a few pics of my SMASH book. You might notice I have quite a few things written about Gabbie, she's my third, but January is her birthday month so I wanted to make that month mostly about her. I am getting my pics printed right now too, so I don't have those in there to share yet. But happy SMASHING!

 I labeled all the pages by month because that is how my book is set up. That way I know how many pages I can dedicate per month before the month even begins.

This is a page from our Miami trip weekend and the concert for JB. I wrote down the story of how everyone was sick that weekend so I won't forget and how hard that trip was for me. 

This is the adorable cover and I put a tag on it with a label of the year so my family or I can use it as a quick reference in the years to come. But this is the start of the SMASH book and now I just have to add a few pics from January and that month is complete.

Mama is Running again!

I got my Mojo back! I am so excited that I started running again. When I was a kid I used to love to run because I could beat most of the boys and then in high school I was involved in so many other activities that kept me physically fit that I didn't need to run often, so I kind of gave it up. Then before I knew it I was an adult and having kids and started doing aerobics and the stair step and running again wasn't happening. But after my 3rd child, Gabbie, I found that I really wanted to get back into shape and I was really watching what I ate and started to sign up for 5K's then 10K's and it felt GOOD! Then I got pregnant with my 4th, Olivia, and I still ran until about 6 months pregnant then life got really busy. I went into grad school and with 4 kids it was just life. Anyways in October I went on this life changing diet and have lost so far 20 pounds. Now the whole family has joined a local gym so we are all in this together, which makes me feel so connected to them because we are all getting healthy. They are being so supportive. My children are all fit and healthy, but it is so nice that they are helping me out because they know how much I dedicate my time to them. HAPPY MAMA!

Last week I was reading an article my son had to read for school and it mentioned being "heart healthy" and that doing some exercise for 30 min 5x week is what it would take to get this. Well I don't know about you but I want to be around for a long time to watch my children grow up into wonderful adults, so I decided that I am doing this 5 days a week. So this week I started to RUN and it felt so wonderful! I actually could keep up a good pace and was not out of breath. Then my shins started to hurt the next 2 days of running and I was told I need a new pair of shoes because my other ones a worn out, so that is what I did. I went shopping and found these adorable pink shoes. I ran in them yesterday and it felt like I was running on a cloud. I can't wait to sign up for a 5K and then maybe next year at this time I will run the Disney marathon! Who knows....

This is going to be my new motto! LOVE IT!

Valentine's Craft

So Olivia and I were sitting around the other day and of course I had a million things to do, but she only had one thing in mind and that was to play with Mama, so I thought CRAFT TIME! Love that time during the week when she is willing to craft with me and not play princesses for about 30 min. So I cut up some squares that are about 1x1" in colors of pink and red and drew a heart on an 8x8" white paper and had her clue them in the heart. Well of course my thought was to clue them in the heart, but her idea was to clue them anywhere on the page that she thought looked cute. I also found some red heart stickers for her to put on the card as well. I wrote "Happy Valentine's Day" on it and then she was set for her homemade card for her grandparents when we see them next week. Once I told her she was making the card for them she was so excited to make it so beautiful. So, here is the picture of the Valentine's craft and hopefully you are thinking of cute things to make for your loved ones too. 

Chalkboard Labels

These adorable chalkboard labels make me want to label everything in my house! I found them at World Market and they were just the thing I was looking for. This summer I started to try some new baking recipes and they all called for different flours. So now I have a collection of all-purpose flour, cake flour, self-rising flour, etc. but no place to keep them. I thought I could store them in individual jars but how do I keep them all straight- right because they all look the same, then I came across these labels and knew my problem was solved. They are really thick and durable so I thought they would be great for the kitchen & they even came with the chalk, which made it that much better. So I put cupcake liners in one large mason jar and the other jar has flour in it. I feel so organized and cute in my pantry now, so that makes me happy.