3 Things and a Little Life Lately.

Three things I want to share with you today: 1. My friend Sara made these impossibly cute hot chocolate stirrers. I mean, just look at them.  My kids would go gaga over them. At first I thought it was on a peppermint stick – which it’s not – but that would be an amazing idea to add to it. Find out how to make these adorable Hot Chocolate Stirrers at Sensibly Sara.  2. I’ve been trying to do more videos lately – which I know you love me because you’re still around after watching the first one. There is a learning curve that is steep and I’m still working on it.  But one of the projects that I really love is so simple that I want you to do it too! Check out this video to see what I’m talking about.   It’s one of my favorite projects that you can find detailed written instructions for here. 3. Speaking of Valentine’s Crafts…. This is one of the projects that I’ve been working on and I’m going to share with you next week.  And now.. a Little Life Lately…. This past Thursday we loaded up the car and our youngest child and met my in-laws half way to drop her off with them for a week or so. The following afternoon we dropped the remaining three older kids off to go to a winter retreat with our church. So…. if you’re following and doing the math it means that WE HAD NO KIDS THIS WEEKEND! Considering we have 4 girls living here, age 8 to 18, our home isn’t very quiet. But this weekend, you could have heard a pin drop. It was a much needed break. My husband and I slept in, went out to dinner and were able to work on some projects. But of course, quietness is temporary. Monday morning we picked up the oldest girls from their retreat and made a mad dash back to the halfway point to pick up our youngest before the winter storm arrived and stranded her in Fort Worth for longer than we had intended.  On the way to the meeting place, 2.5 hours away, these two girls talked so much about the retreat that I had to stop at Buccees to buy Excedrin. I’m not joking.  It was an abrupt end to the peaceful tranquility of a kid free weekend.  We raced back and before we even reached Houston, which was at 65 degrees, we got a notice that school had been cancelled the next day for a snow day.  I’m not joking X 2.  It was 65 degrees on Monday and when we woke up Tuesday it was 30 degrees and sleeting.  It didn’t matter if it was sleet or snow, these South Texas girls were thrilled to play in it. See that girl dressed in the rainbow unicorn onesie? Here’s the last time she saw snow: My heart melted faster than the snow. Why do they have to grow up?  And yes, my backdoor is open because kids… and there’s still green mildew on my house that we need to clean because of Harvey and my kid has socks on her hands instead of gloves because we live in Houston where we wear flip flops year round.  I have never seen this much sleet and snow in 14 years of living in Houston and I don’t think we’ll see it again for a long time.  Maybe.. just maybe… God saw this mug I posted earlier this year with this free cut file “Let it Snow” design and decided to play a little joke on me.  Guess what? It worked.  Oh look, one of my kids do own gloves? No, wait… those are mine.  They had 2 days off of school because Houston doesn’t have salt trucks or many 4×4 vehicles but tomorrow they go back. They had a blast in the snow and sleet but it’s melting and I’m happy to see it go for 14 more years.  I’m looking forward to this weekend when it will be 80 degrees again.