Easter 2017!

Hey Friends! 

So it was our first Easter in our new house/town and it was pretty good! 

Sometimes I forget I am the mom now and I'm supposed to make the holidays magical! So here's my mom fail of the day! 

Our little town apparently does an Easter egg hunt every year and it's a huge deal. So I knew that it started at 10 am but there is always something that slows us down and this time I couldn't find their Easter baskets. So I ended up getting to the hunt at about 10:07 which is pretty awesome in my book but it wasn't awesome in the Easter bunny's book! When we started walking up everyone was leaving!! I guess they start right at 10 and the kids just go wild and all the eggs were gone!

I felt like such a doofus! But luckily the Easter bunny was still there and they were handing out prize bags so the girls got those but no eggs! River even ran way out into the field searching for them! But now we know and we will be EARLY next year! 

After we left I went straight to the store for some eggs so we could have a family egg hunt. YOU GUYS the bag of those little plastic eggs was $6! I guess I'm cheap but that seems like a little much for something I'm just going to throw away or use only once a year but whatever! (eye roll) 

So we had our own egg hunt Sunday morning and they loved it so I guess that's worth $6 ;) 

By the end of the day the girls sugar crashed HARD and not the "oh how cute they fell asleep in their chair" crash it was the "holy cow, our neighbors are gunna think we're abusive because of how loud their screaming" crash. So that was fun! #momlife

All in all it was a good day :) And I love Jesus and think He's the best. 

Phone pic

Phone pic

At the Easter egg hunt! Violet is wishing her mother was more on top of things haha!

I love the dress and rainboots combo!

Her Peppa boots!

Real life table-scape. Not pretty but very delicious!

Hope you guys had an awesome Easter! 

xoxo

Dani

Where I've Been.

I know not many people read this blog but this post is like a new beginning, fresh start, for me type post. 

When we first bought our house and listed off all the DIY's and such I was really excited to start this blog and document our progress and what we do around here and all of that fun stuff. But I didn't factor in life and my own personal issues. I had big dreams and even bigger expectations of myself and of how our life was "supposed" to be. 

The reality though is that I have depression. I've had depression for 11 years now and I've had good times and really bad times. Due to this and other personality flaws I am not very consistent. So we've started projects and started plans but we haven't really followed through with them. 

ANYWAYS... I am going to talk about my depression and my journey and stuff like that in the future but this is not the post for that. 

What I want to say here is that my husband and I have found a way to essentially cure my depression without any medications. So being depression free I have all new motivation and energy to do the things that I want to do and that I am interested in. 

Another really exciting thing that Tyler and I have decided is that we are going to stay in our TYNI cottage indefinitely. We have come up with a floor plan that will suit our needs (which I will share in the future) and we are really excited about it!

Staying in this house equals so many awesome things. Like a very affordable mortgage ($200 less than what we paid in rent). More freedom to travel and do fun activities. And an all around smaller space to clean and maintain. We have also come up with a 5 year renovation plan that we will be able to do everything and remain debt free! I can even go into more depth on our decision to stay here in another post. 

So I'm writing here to let you know you will be hearing a lot more from me and I'm glad to be back. Happy, Depression free, and with a fun new plan! 

thanks for reading! 

xoxox 

Dani

My Break From Social Media

This year I've been making a lot of really great changes and I've been coming into my own in a way. I've been becoming more confident I've been loving myself more and I've been all around more grateful. However this past week I've been noticing something a little off. Like my life just needs a little more fine tuning. I've always been a very social person and in being social I have cared a great deal about what others think and feel. That in it's self and in little doses is a good thing. You have empathy for people and you can better understand other point of views. I have taken this to an extreme though where I see what others are doing or saying and it stifles me. I see that someone is doing something different than me and I feel like I should be doing the same. I see someone has a different clothing style or home decor style and I feel like I should change to like those preferences. It seems as if I have lost myself. I don't really know what my preferences or opinions are. I don't really know how I like my hair or what kind of hobbies I like. And while I'm writing this I know it sounds so weird that I could not even know those things but it is true. I feel like I'm an expert on what the Internet and people that I follow on social media like but not on myself! So the solution for me is to take a break from social media. I've deleted the Instagram and Twitter apps off my phone. I've logged out of Facebook on my laptop and I've unfollowed a lot of channels on YouTube.
My goal is, is to treat social media as a tool instead of entertainment. I found that whenever I was bored I went for the path of least resistance and entertained myself with my social media sights. When there is always all of this other stuff that I want to do and learn but I just put it on the back burner.
After I deleted all of my access to social media I made a list of all of the things that I think I would like as a hobby, skills that I want to get better at, and just simple entertaining interests. I also downloaded a few apps that had to do with my interests.
After a few days of doing this it's been pretty great. I've instinctively reached for my phone a few times forgetting Instagram isn't there but I don't really miss them. I've been able to start learning Spanish and I've been practicing piano. I've also been a ton less distracted when playing with the girls and talking to Tyler. I don't feel bombarded with others opinions and preferences so I've been able to find things that I really like and enjoy. I think this was one more door that needed to be unlocked before completely becoming myself. My creativity is flowing and I'm excited for more learning and growing.
I won't be deleting my accounts but I will be using them differently. I only want to use them to keep in contact with people and to keep my friends and family updated with our life. I really like the Internet and I am really grateful for it! I just want to use it for so much more than comparing myself to others.

xoxo Dani

Snow Week & Happy 2017!

Hey Friends!

This week/year has been pretty good so far! I am actually really excited for 2017 for a lot of reasons:

1. My favorite number is 17

2. My birthday is 02/17 so it'll be 02/17/2017 this year. Which just looks cool!

3. I've learned a ton about myself in 2016 and I'm excited to put all of that knowledge to use this year!

I've got lots of goals but let's be honest those are kind of boring ;)

This first week of the year we have had snow upon snow upon snow!!! This past Wednesday we had a full on blizzard! We have huge snow drifts right outside our big front window and our roof has at least a foot of snow on it! The plows that come into our little town don't come down our road so we've had some really kind neighbors dig our car out and plow our road for us 3 times this week! These people are such amazing christlike humans I feel really lucky to live here. We've played in the snow a lot this week and I'm definately in need of some snow pants, waterproof gloves, and boots! 

We also finally got the trampoline we got from Santa set up outside! (He had it set up for us in our living room Christmas morning) 

It's been a good start to a good year :) 

they love eating the snow

violet's new thing is playing in the sink

she'll bring over her little stool and splash in the water 

she loves to tell me "no" contantly

playing in the snow wore her out

house hugs!

xoxo, 

Dani