Lately in pictures

Because lately I have few words...

Garage Sale

Our house has been feeling really cluttered lately.  Our house is small to begin with, and we have waaayyy too much stuff which leads to a very cluttered house.  Luckily, Jon's brother and sister-in-law just moved and were planning a garage sale to clean out old stuff.  They invited us to put some stuff in the sale and I am taking full advantage of this golden opportunity.  We actually have a lot more stuff to get rid of then I thought.  My main problem has been holding onto things of Linus' because I'm really struggling with how fast he's growing up.  I'm just not ready to get rid of all this baby stuff yet.  I did put on my big girl britches though and get rid of a lot.  I also kept a lot.  Baby steps I say.  The tagging items is the worst.  I grew up in the boondocks and you just don't have yard sales in the boondocks.  Hopefully  we get a good turn out and make a little money.  Honestly I'm just glad I finally had an excuse to clean out the garage.  ;)  Here's to cleaning out the clutter!

Quiet time...

Ah life.  Always interesting.  Except lately not so much lol.  We've had a nice quiet couple of weeks around here.  We spent a lot of time with friends and family just making memories.  Jon turned the big 3-0.  In true Jon fashion he refused any kind of party and requested Mexican food for dinner.  I have to say it's been nice to have some down time with no big plans.  August tends to be the calm before the autumn storm lol.  September through December are so busy for us!  And with that I'll leave you some photos. Night all.

A little of this, a little of that

This weekend flew by!  Also, can we talk about how it's August!  How did that happen?!  This year has flown by.  I always heard about how fast time goes once you have kids, but it's unreal.  This weekend was beautiful and we took advantage of the nice weather.  Jon and Josh went canoeing on Saturday for some much needed father/son time.  It's Josh's last weekend before school starts and it was nice for them to get some alone time.  We spent the rest of Saturday outside playing and having a fire.  Sunday passed in a blur of laundry and coffe lol.  I did take some momma time while Linus napped.  We also went to visit Oma and Opa.  Linus lived picking (and eating!) tomatoes, and we realized that Josh is now taller than most of the people in Jon's family.  All in all not a shabby weekend.  And now the pictures!

Fair Week

Ah fair week.  There is nothing in the world like a week of fried food, animals, and insane heat.  I am a ten year 4-H member of the swine variety.  My love of pigs goes way back ya'll.  Every year I have two goals for fair week: 1. See pigs 2. Eat an elephant ear.  My needs are simple lol!  This year was the diet year Linus was really into the animals and it was so fun to watch him interact.  He wasn't so fond of the goats, but he loved the piglets!  Taking after his momma! ;)  Please excuse the mosquito bites on his face.  They are monsters this year!

Our weekend...

...consisted of mall cruising, photo booths, homemade Peach Melba muffins, dinner at Tokyo, playing in the rain, dinner with the in-laws, and a new record player.  How was yours?

Millions of Peaches...

Monday was a really good day.  My mom and dad came to Seymour for a visit!  They don't get down here often so when they do come I always try to take them to something new.  Today we went peach picking at Huber's Orchard and Winery.  We had a blast!  But oh my was it hot.  And humid.  And hot.  Despite the heat we really did have fun. Linus loved picking the peaches off the trees!  We had lunch at the restaurant there which was delish!  The fried rolls, oh the fried rolls.  With apple butter.  But for real...  Anyway it was a good day.  

Warts and all

I want this to be a real place.  I feel that in this digital age, it's far too easy to gloss over the unpleasant and make your life look like it's always rainbows and unicorns.  Life is messy.  I want this blog to be a keyhole to a life well lived and that includes the unpleasant parts.  The parts that you'd rather hide away.  We all have them and j think it's about time we start sharing them.  Personally I know it makes me feel better when I see another mom dealing with a toddler mid tantrum.  I feel sympathy for her because I've been there.  And I try to remember those moments when I'm dealing with the messier parts of life.  I am not alone. Everyone's life is messy.  That's not to say this will be a negative space.  On the whole it will be a positive one filled with times I want to remember.  But I'll also include the times that aren't so sunny.  Because let's face it, those are the times that make us human.  And I like being human.  Warts and all.

Rain rain go away...

Indiana has seen its rainiest June in record.  Now July is on track to set a new record too.  I have a feeling we are going to go straight from house bound due to rain to house bound due to snow.  

Poor guy just wants to play outside.  This year has been weird, weather and otherwise.  I spoke it is the year of the sheep on the Chinese calendar which is supposed to be unlucky.  Maybe there's something to all that.  All I know is I'm officially ready for fall.  And after this summer, it better be a dry and long lasting fall lol!

Lemonade...

We've been drinking a lot of lemonade this summer and I've been looking for ways to change it up.  I love simple old lemonade, but after a while, it gets a little blase.  So I've come up with a couple very unoriginal ideas for our lemonade lol.


Lemonade Iced Tea
 - lemonade mix
 - cold brew ice tea bags
Make your lemonade as normal.  Add a cold brew tea bag (several brands of tea have these) for 3-5 minutes.  Squeeze out excess liquid from tea bag and toss it.  Stir up your brew and drink over ice.


Passion Tea Lemonade
 - lemonade mix
 - Tazo passion tea
Brew a single bag of Tazo passion tea.  Make your lemonade as normal.  Once the tea is cooled, add it to your lemonade.  Serve over ice.

Two easy peasy ways to fancy up your lemonade!

Our Loss Story

This will be short and simple.  Figured people might wonder about our loss, so I'll try to cover as much as I can.  We found out we were expecting again about a month after Linus turned one.  It was a bit of a surprise seeing as Linus was so young, but we were excited nonetheless.  Everything was proceeding as expected, morning sickness, ultrasounds, the like.  After my second trimester quad screening, they called me in for more testing because my tests came back with an elevated risk of down syndrome.  I had the Panorama blood screen done and waited an excruciating 2 weeks for the results.  We found out that we were having a girl and she had Turner's Syndrome.  It's fairly rare and they don't know what causes it, but most babies with it do not make it to term.  Sure enough at our anatomy scan they found fluid around the baby's heart, lungs, and abdomen.  We were sent to see a specialist and genetic counselor later that week, but when we had the ultrasound, there was no heartbeat.  I was admitted to the hospital and induced and on May 22nd after 8 hours of labor, I gave birth to our baby girl.  It was the single hardest thing I have ever done.  Recovery was pretty straightforward and thankfully short lived.  I went back to work after a month and life goes on.  

Introduction

Long story short yes?  My name is Sarah.  I'm married to Jon and we have two boys, Josh aged 13 and Linus aged 1.5.  We also have a baby girl in heaven who we lost this year at 20 weeks gestation.  She's kind of what got me started wanting to blog again.  See I used to blog a few years ago and basically got out of the habit.  Lately, I've been feeling the need to get back into it. Life is fleeting and I want to capture as much of it as I can in a place where my loved ones can always go to get in my head.  Although, really that's a scary place to be lol! I really enjoy chronically out adventures in a tangible format and a blog seems like a great place to do it.  As to what this blog will entail, probably everything.  Obviously it will have stuf about my family and our life but I'll also probably have recipes, videos, anything I'm into, basically this is going to be a place for me to unload all the chaos in my head!   So...long story, kinda short!