Last week we saw the first real sunshine we had seen in a long time. Beautiful, GLORIOUS sunshine! It was the first day in weeks that I literally jumped out of bed, excited for sunlight. There was nothing to be done except to fling open the blinds and stand at the window soaking it all in. Dreaming of the freckles that will dot my face as this never ending winter turns to spring and finally in to summer. I am totally affected by light. I NEED it. It makes me happy. So it was a happy day.

For a moment a cloud nearly spoiled my parade when I realized I didn't have any adorable yellow flats to match the sun...which makes me wonder what on earth has come of my wardrobe. But, that is another day entirely.

So, I decided I'd make myself a flower for my hair. A red one. With polka-dots...

We were so excited to get outside and enjoy the weather. We spent most of that day running around and my car ran out of gas on I-35. (First time that’s ever happened to me. Let’s hope it’s the LAST!) We were rescued by a nice highway patrolman. Besides a little humiliation, we were fine! We came home and played. Gid rode his bike. and rode. and rode. Ashelyn played in the last bits of snow. I just sat back and soaked it in.

We’ve pretty much been playing since then. It’s been so nice to have things to do! To feel TIRED at the end of the day, not because of boredom but because you actually had a full, wonderful day. Thanks Spring for giving me a boy who is tired enough to stop moving and snuggle his Momma. I love it.

I promise I have a lot of stuff to update. And lots of fun things coming up.

Around Christmas, I decided that giving up computer time (in the basement, out of "eyesight") was a necessary sacrifice to improve the state of my house and the amount of time spent playing with my two adorable kiddos.

But, I will say this....

There's going to be a new member of the Doan family...

















Anyways, I'm getting a shiny new laptop in the very near future so I can blog from the comfort of my cushy couch, or kitchen table, or (let's be honest) my bed.

Be back soon!

Since I am always behind the camera. Here I am… making an appearance.

Dear Blogger,

Whatever you've done to your picture uploading is driving me crazy. insane. batty. LOCO. I can't get my pictures to go where I want them to go for the life of me. And that in turn effects where the text goes. Nothing is right. It's just a mess.

I just want you to know that Live Writer kicks your trash. It makes my life easier and I luuuurve it. I can type a post up exactly as I want it, edit my pictures to perfect size, add watermarks, and fancy things up all in one place. And what do you know it publishes it right to this here blog for me and LOOKS how it's supposed to. No tricks. No confusion.

I'll be using it from now on. {Don't worry... we can still be friends.}

Sincerely,
Misty

Jake is home with the kids and what do I get when I get back????

While I catch you up!!! WAYYYY back on labor day weekend, we went camping. It was nice to really "rough" it for a weekend.

Okay, Okay so we might have camped in my SIL's yard and called her house the "lodge." BUT, we did sleep in tents and had dinner and breakfast cooked on the fire. So, in my opinion it counts! We rode around on the motorcycle and the go-karts and had an all around BLAST.















Something CRAZY happened though. I fell in love with Jake's Trail Bike. So much so that when I
said I wanted one, and he said, "Look on Craigslist." that I did and we bought ANOTHER ONE. See, that's her in the picture up there. I call her Betsey and let's just say she's getting QUITE a makeover. Jake assures me she'll be done this weekend in time for round 2 of our camping excursions, so I'll share pictures of her new look then. But my boys have been hard at work... SEE!


















Gideon is quite the helper as you can tell.

Here's a few more pictures of the camping fun:

Hey all!

I hope you had a wonderful Labor Day weekend! We sure did around here. Unfortunately, I now have to spend the EN.TIRE.DAY cleaning my house that was neglected over the holiday.

For a wrap-up: I bought something REALLY AWESOME... and we went CAMPING... and I have lots of great pictures to share after I finish uploading and editing.

Until then, here is my latest jewelry creation:

Did anyone else ever watch Kenan & Kel??? Man, this picture brought me right back to myself as an annoying 13 year old going, "I do, I do, I do-oooo!" (Either you get me, or you don't.)

Everything has been insane as usual around our place. Jake has been working evenings, which means he's home to help with business stuff and kid stuff and more business stuff during the day. I really enjoy it... until its time for him to leave. Then I remember that I have to tackle dinner, bath time, and bed time all by myself. I pretty much just wish he could be home all the time. haha!

Screen printing has been keeping us SO busy and I have been adding to my plate with lots of my own projects. Which I promise I will blog about eventually. It's just so hard when the only camera you have is your phone.

It's been crazy around here.... Things WILL slow down, I'm sure of it! :o)

All is well.

Just a little peak at one of the things I've been working on....

So I've been working on some things lately, nothing is even CLOSE to being finished... but they're keeping me busy none the less.

People keep needing t-shirts printed, plus we hired another new employee so in the middle of training and paperwork and orders... I'm swamped.

BUT, I've decided since I spend so much time around a screen printer, I might as well put it to use for ME. Soooo, I've got a really cool idea for Christmas gifts in the works. I'm pretty excited, and I think everyone I'm planning on gifting them to will be pretty stoked.

Also, I finally got all my laundry folded. My kids actually napped AT THE SAME TIME yesterday and it was an amazing relief to empty out those laundry baskets! :)

It's girls night tonight!!! We're getting pedicures and mine is MUCH needed. Can't wait girls!

That's all for now, just wanted to pop in! What's keeping YOU busy at the close of summer?

But since I didn't manage to find my sanity for long enough to take a picture of the event I'm about to describe, you'll have to deal with words.... and it's worth reading. TRUST ME. Let me begin.


It's a lovely 7:30 in the am. I am bouncing with joy because I woke up before my kids, managed to shower, and talk on the phone with my mom all while they are sleeping in their little beds. (This NEVER happens.) I am enjoying the peaceful quiet of my house and head to the living room to clean up the blankets/pillow/dishes left over from movie watching last night. Dishes go to the sink. Pillows return to their homes. Blanket #1 is neatly folded and tucked away. Then comes Blanket #2. The horrible, no good, rotten blanket that looked too good to just put away. So I wrapped myself up in it and was preparing to plop down on the couch with a good book.

Then I looked down...

(I have no idea why. Maybe God needed a good laugh??? I'm fairly certain he's got a great sense of humor and was laughing hysterically.)

ANYWAY...

Then I looked down... and there on that blanket that was snuggled up around ME was the most gigantic spider in the history of the world. (Okay, maybe just the Doan household, but seriously we're talking Godzilla on 8 legs here.) I screamed like the stupid girl that get's trapped upstairs in a horror movie. I flung the blanket off me. I screamed more. The spider scurried to the corner. I'm jumping around with the heebie-jeebies trying to figure out what to do. I don't kill spiders... Jake kills spiders. I don't even like to kill flies. (It's the whole business of cleaning up their squashed guts...but more on that later.)

(I should probably note that my screaming woke up Ashelyn and so at this point she's been crying in her crib the WHOLE time this is happening. Gideon is just watching me from the safety of the hall wondering, "What the heck happened to Mommy?")

Instinctively, I grab a flip-flop. I'm set to strike and then suddenly realize this spider could eat through this wimpy flip flop in an attempt to get to me. This WON'T do. The next biggest thing I could find within my reach was a library book. I still can't muster up the courage to just give the thing a good whack... so I hurl this book across my living room . Obviously I was incapable of rational thought, because once you hurl something in close proximity of Monster-Spider, a missed shot requires you to go fetch it.

Realizing my book-hurling isn't going to cut it, I puff up my chest and bravely march the 6 feet to the corner and decide, maybe I can just drop the book on the spider?! That way, my hand isn't ACTUALLY close to it. I try this about 3 times. Carefully dragging the book back into my reach with my foot after each failed attempt.

"This is it," I say, and I finally render the death blow. This is when it gets really difficult. You know spiders, when they die their legs curl all up and it's disgusting and horrible. The WORST.

Now, back to the whole hating to clean up squashed dead things business. I decided that my bravery for the day was completely spent, so I took my ottoman, shoved it over to the corner to cover up dead Godzilla. (Don't judge me! At least now my kids can't get to it.)

Jake is going to have to deal with him later.

***No library books were harmed during this incident.***

SEE!!! I also like to call it "Diet Killer"
Then I remembered the other one hates cheese.... Maybe go with classic spaghetti??? I dunno, I might just make her suffer (really???) through it! Who hates cheese anyway?

-Saturday we're going to Omaha!!! We're soooo excited to go on a little family trip. We got a great deal on a hotel from my friend Stacey and pretty much our only plan is to go to the zoo and see the aquarium.

Gideon is VERY excited about the Monkeys.
Jake is excited to see the fish.

-In other news... I am NOT pregnant. I had a crazy dream that I was (and it didn't help that I was super emotional/tired, so I freaked myself out). My Mom had a crazy dream that I was. My mother in law has been wishing I was since Ashelyn was a month old. :o) Just thought I'd clarify that so far... no prego. But there will definitely be more adorable Doan babies in the future.

-Since I am bound to my house by the whole no-car business I really have NO excuse to put off the laundry any longer... so I'm off to do that. Happy Thursday all!

Hello again. I'm happy to see that I'm not the only one taking a vacation from blog-land. And I must say, it's been much needed and FANTASTIC.

I've been majorly bummed since my camera bit the dust, but luckily my phone takes pretty decent pictures. (Also, I've taken the liberty of swiping a few from family or friends that have been at the same places.)

First up: Independence Day! We had such a great weekend. We kicked back, up in good ol' Kidder, MO, at my sil Sarah's house. It was probably one of the mellowest and most enjoyable holidays we've had in a long time. It was one of those no plan, go with the flow type of weekends and it was a blast! Thanks for having us Galbraiths!

Hey all! Hope you had a fun weekend! We had a great one!

Friday, we went to the Elder's Quorum BBQ. It was great to get out with a bunch of friends and let the kids play. Although, we did get quite a few mosquito bites.

On Saturday morning I hung out with my Momma since hubby had to work overtime that day. But, he managed to get off a little early and we went up to Kingston, MO to see a civil war reenactment in the afternoon. Silly me forgot my camera. So, I got ZERO pictures, but Jake's cousin Megan got some good ones of the fun. Check her's out here. It was really fun and both the kids loved it. I couldn't believe how calm they stayed with all the cannons going off! We spent the rest of the evening at Jake's Mom & Dad's house enjoying their company.

Sunday Jake woke up with his eyes and face all swollen and a really sore throat. I figured allergies, but he says he never has allergies. So he took some dayquil and spent the day at home snuggled up with Ashelyn under his favorite quilt. Gideon and I did the church thing and were SO excited that Laura and Abbie came to play with us in nursery. You seriously start to feel so alone after awhile!

Today is business as usual... screen printing to get done, shopping to do, and dun, dun, dun... NEW COMPUTER should be on my doorstep sometime today! I can't wait!

Oh, and here's another picture of my blondness... complete with a bird on my head. :)

Happy Monday all!

Yesterday I drug out the little baby pool we bought for Gideon way back in the day and we had some fun in the sun! I've got some serious water babies. They were hilarious. Gideon ran and ran around through the sprinkler and the little pool and Ashe pretty much just belly flopped herself right into the pool and splashed to her hearts content. It was great!
Oh and uhhh... here's a horrible blonde picture of myself. It's all I've got so it'll have to work.
On a completely different note... My awesome Momma is a gardening super star and quite a seamstress and because she spent her whole weekend doing those two things she blogged about it and decided to do a summer giveaway. So here I am blogging about it, trying to spread the love.

You could win this pretty pretty table runner:
Yay! Head over here to enter!

• My cousin got married and it was wonderful and she's so dang happy!
  
• I'm now blonde. REALLY blonde.
• My computer died. Actually it's really just the video card but until that's replaced I can't see anything on my computer which makes blogging impossible.
• We repainted our kitchen. Hooray!!
• I got to see Jade and that rocked.
• Ashelyn is walking. Just about 5 steps at a time, but still... WALKING!
• I'm trying to use fruit snacks to bribe Gideon into being potty-trained... I'll let you know how that works out.
• We've been screen printing like mad men.
  
• 11 month olds and cheesecake DO NOT MIX. At least not in large quantities.
• I've read 16 books in the past month. Don't tell my husband. :)
• Gideon LOVES Bambi. Who would have thought?
  
• Ashelyn has figured out "talking on the phone." Pretty much anything with buttons is now a phone to her and she picks it up, puts it to her mouth and says..." Da. Daaaaaaah. Momma Bub." It's cute.

That's all for now folks. Hopefully I'll be back in the action soon!

P.S. Kristina P. thanks for checking in on me! You're a blogging rock star you are!

Alright, so I've been doing this a lot lately. I just don't know why I'm so busy... it seems crazy to me, too. But, basically I've got too much going on the next few weeks to even consider blogging so I'm just not gonna do it. I promise to still keep up with my reader but comments probably just aren't gonna happen.... *sigh* On that note, here are some fun pictures...