Home- I Love This Place

Our home isn't the nicest on the block. It's not even the 11th nicest home on the block. It's what some people would call basic. It's brown and pretty beat up.  The driveway is cracked and uneven. The yard is more weeds than grass. The kitchen cabinets are peeling. We don't even own the home, we rent it. BUT it's our home and I love this place.

I've tried hard to make it a home full of noise and love and fun and comfort and acceptance and safety.  I've also tried to make it a place where my kids want to be.  I hope it is a reflection of our values, our whole tidy up, but don't worry if it's spotless or if you spill something,play and enjoy life,eat meals together as often as you can, a little friendly competition is a good thing but dude cheer each other on, paint something/write something/play something, it's okay to fight or disagree but talk it out and then go jump on the trampoline together kind of values/vibes.

I took some pictures with my fancy new-ish camera this past weekend of our basic home and some ways we like to hang out there that don't involve phones, iPads or video games (even though we have those in our home too and the struggle is still real to get my kids to not be obsessed with them):

Breakfast on our beloved front porch.

Dogs have become essential to making our home our home. Rufus and Cosi are part of the family. You can never be lonely (or sad for too long) with these two pups around.

The trampoline is new to us and the kids are loving it.

My friend is moving to England and asked if I wanted her trampoline, Foosball table and air hockey table.  I went to take a look at them in her house and said "oh my gosh, yes thank you I love them and you and ahhhhhh!"  

Here's the thing, they looked a lot smaller in her very big, nice house. We got them to our basic much smaller house and Tim was not digging the idea at first.  But I convinced him that the kids are only young once and we needed to have a Foosball table instead of a dining table or space because it's way more fun.  He reluctantly agreed and we pushed our dining table to the corner and set up the awesome Foosball table.  The kids play it all.the.time.

A little air hockey before bedtime is always a good idea. We found a corner in the boys' room for the air hockey table.

Lunch on our beloved front porch.

One of our favorite card games is Five Crowns. 

Rummikub is one of our all time favorite games, we've loved it for a few years now.

Sometimes some of us just want to lay around and not play anything and that's cool here too. That's a quilt that my grandmother made a long time ago, I love that my kids now use it.

Santa brought the family a ping pong table for Christmas last year and we crammed it into our unfinished basic basement.

I mean, there's no way the kids can be bored here right? I always keep board games out and at the ready for whenever someone wants to play.

I like how colorful the board games and even their boxes are.

Our basic home with it's lack of nice furniture and pretty lackadaisical cleaning schedule and emphasis on playing around isn't for everyone.  But it suits us, it's why we love this place.

Check out some other pictures I've taken 

with my Fancy New Camera:

Belle Isle With My Fancy New Camera

Baseball and My Fancy Camera 
Pure Michigan With My Fancy New Camera 
Everyday Kind of Small Town Family Fun w/My Fancy New Camera

The Zoo With My Fancy New Camera

Time Goes By Fast & What I Know For Sure

"Life goes really fast," JT said as he tied his tennis shoe getting ready to get on the bus for the first day of school.  "I mean it seems like I was just in second grade."

"Yeah buddy, it sure does," I told him and kissed the top of his head.  "Isn't it kind of crazy, you are growing up?!," I smiled. "Have a great day today," I told him as he headed off to the bus taking him to fourth grade. And then I watched Wade trail after him, so excited to start kindergarten.

Ahhhhhh. It does go fast.  I'm feeling that so hard this week. Time and life and kids growing up and no more babies and new wrinkles and teenagers with phones and all of the kids in school and my kids thinking Tim and I are "so old" and Tim and I feeling so old and holy shit is it Friday already and oh my god.....it's enough to make some of us who are little prone to anxiety panic a little.

Maybe all these feelings of vulnerability and anxiety are why I am enjoying our new trampoline so much. Yeah, trampoline. A friend of mine gave it to us and we are loving it. There's really nothing like jumping around together and being silly and ridiculous and exhausted to make you feel happy.

There are a few rips in the net that I have to fix, I know.

For some of us with a little extra energy, the trampoline has helped burn some of it off.

The kids helped me put it together while Tim was gone this past weekend. I feel pretty damn proud that we did it without Tim.

What I know for sure this week is that life and time are moving fast but it feels good to jump and be silly and enjoy every minute we can.

A cool part about the tweens and teens having phones is that they like to take slow-mo videos of the kids jumping and then they watch it. I would have LOVED that as a kid.

Here's what else I know for sure right now:

• I love rainbows. Did you see the picture of the rainbow in NYC on the eve of the 14th anniversary of 9/11. It was beautiful. Click here to see it. 

• My kids are getting so independent. Yup. I have three that are old enough to walk to the store on their own and even ask "do you need anything mom?"

• I LOOOOOOVE this song. It's my theme song this fall.  I mean with lyrics like "learn to forgive, learn to let go....don 't be so hard on yourself" it's just so good. And the video has a drum line-type solo and I f-ing love it.

• Yeah, yeah, yeah, everyone is growing up around here, but we are never too old to dress up and play pretend Harry Potter style.

• I like extremely violent TV (I really didn't see this coming, I'm not really a fan of violence). I am obsessed with the TV show "Sons of Anarchy." My sister and brother told me to watch it for years and I never did until this summer. Thank god for Netflix because Tim and I are in LOVE with watching this show. It's violent and upsetting, and such good storytelling. We are in the middle of season three out of seven. (PLEASE DON'T TELL ME HOW IT ENDS!)

• Abraham Lincoln was pretty amazing. I am also obsessed with Abraham Lincoln. After visiting the museum of his birthplace in Kentucky this summer I became so interested in his life. I've been reading and watching and learning so much about him. He is fascinating.

What do YOU know for sure this week, right now?  Tell me about it, share the knowledge!