"It's not having what you want, it's wanting what you got." Sheryl Crow Soak Up the Sun

So I haven't kept up with this like I wanted.... for over a year now. And it is killing me because I don't scrapbook or print pictures regularly (who does anymore other than my grandparents? And in light of my slacking, good for them!) and I want memories so this is probably the easiest thing for me to do for now.  So I've been meaning to get back to this for me but I have to admit I have had a little extra motivation.

My friend Nataly from The Busy Budgeting Mama is throwing this Ohio Valley Blogger Conference this Friday at Ikea. I love Nataly, I love an excuse to see her espeically since she moved to the other other side of the city, I love Ikea and she included these awesome swag bags (I don't yet know what is in them, but I'm sure it is a lot of awesomeness).  Oh, and then my wonderful friend Nicole whom I've know since high school is going too.  You can find her at being.messy.beautiful. So they both got on me and although I knew I was totally out of my league, I agreed to go.  Holy smokes, these ladies going are on top of their blog game so I am just going to smile and enjoy the company, food, drinks and swag bags. I'm secretly also hoping for a shopping discount....
I figure if I'm going to this thing I should at least get one post up right?

I'm all about the the simple moments... I think that is what my last blog post over a year ago was about, but a few Friday's ago I was reminded not only is about the small moments, but just enjoying what you have.  It really hit me that night.

We were going to have a simple night of grilling hot dogs and sausages for dinner and I made this awesome raw kale salad that is now one of our summer veggie favorites.  Jacob had been wanting to do a fire with the kids for a while and even though it was pretty warm, we did.  Then he thought, let's just grill the hot dogs and sausages over the fire.  We forgot we had long metal skewer so Aurora helped him find some sticks in the yard and he whittled the ends down and we put sausages and hot dogs on sticks to cook.

And the kids cooked and ate and played and cooked and ate and played and we all enjoyed the night and relaxed.  The absolute great part about this was that I forgot about the half of our yard, directly next to the patio we were playing on, which has been in shambles for close to a year. What was supposed to be a quick project, turned into a not so quick project and as Jacob took on a new role at work, that added to it taking even longer. For the past 10 months it had been hard for me to go outside and not think about getting the yard finished.  Here is the thing, it is mostly aesthetics.  The project thus far has given us a flatter yard with a nice concrete patio for the kids to play with ride on toys which they love and it gives us a sitting area around their play area which we and they love.  Also, despite about 1/3 of the yard being dirt, we have plenty of grassy yard left for the kids along with the patio.  It was so nice to have an evening where I didn't think about what still needed done, but I just enjoyed what was done, what was there.  Perhaps this was somewhat easier knowing that 1.5 weeks later the collapsed retaining wall would be replaced and that would allow us to do the rest of the yard... but I still learned something.
We ended the evening with Jacob spraying them with the hose to clean them off, which they loved and it it just turned into spraying fun.  So much fun, Jacob let them spray him too.
What a good time we had enjoying what we had.