I went THRIFTING today. I love thrifting. Especially after months and months of staring at Inspirational clip outs I’ve hung on the wall to motivate my inner decorator.

I got some amazing deals.

This mirror was marked $5 but I wasn’t willing to pay that, even though I REALLY wanted to get this mirror (5 year old calls is a Meer-Air) for my daughters bedroom, as we’re redoing the decor and taking it from nursery to big girl this weekend.

So I offered $3, they said $4 and I said, I’ve got three. Then I paid and walked out a happy girl.

When I got home, I did this to it.

Then we went to another thrift store and there happened to be a bookshelf in the corner that caught my eye. It was for sale however I couldn’t buy it because they were using it for display. You can imagine my confusion. And then I said that outloud. No, really, I want to buy this bookshelf today. I’m willing to give you cash for it. How much is it?

Then she said, $20 … probably $14.99. And I pressed harder. NO, Really, I want this book shelf.

This is why:

She finally said I could buy it (for $20) and let me take it home, when I got it there I did this:

Better photos coming in the daylight. I was too excited about these not to show you tonight.

Some other great finds I had I took home were this awesome little cast iron skillet. I love cast iron, so much. But I only have one skillet that I use Every. Single. Morning and some times 2 or 3 times a day. This one is smaller but I think I’m going to like that for when the kids just want some sausage for a snack or I need a quick pick me up fried egg at 3 pm. (Only paid a quarter, even better!)

These “bar glasses” were a set of 10 for $6, I only needed six so I split the set with my mom.

And this SAHWEET stock pot (think LOBSTERS!) was marked five bucks, I paid two.

This light fixture is going in my daughters bedroom after I paint it and find matching globes for the lightbulbs. (Etsy here I come!) Now, I could paint this the same color as the mirror, or go with a an ivory … or even dark purple. I don’t want to go crazy with the color in her bedroom, as we’re trying to stay away from the childish theme … but shout out some good accents. Maybe this is where I incorporate yellow?

At the same store that I bought the light fixture we found some fun stuff but didn’t purchase, here’s a looksee.

These light bulbs were $2 a piece and I almost bought three of them to make a light fixture over our dining room table (when the kitchen remodel is done … and it hasn’t started yet, and won’t this year … so I was thinking way ahead) but then I talked to one of the men working there and apparently they burn more than 300 watts a piece … so, bad for the environment in a little dining room. I put them down, but they’re SO cool.

This filing cabinet is only $50 – I can see this in a crafting room. A room that I do not have. But if you do, you should totally make use of this!

Molly, my sister, found a potential new front door. I love it! I’m a sucker for mission type furniture – and those windows? In love.

Now, to round out the fabulous day here’s my inspiration for my daughters bedroom … and photos of the transformation are coming soon … but here’s a sneak peak:

What have been some of your favorite thrift store finds? What about the best steal of a deal?

I haven’t been that good at remembering my camera this winter, partly because for half of it I was trying to sell it and then when someone said – I want to buy it, I’m coming to get it tonight – I panicked and changed my mind. I don’t yet have another camera to replace it, so … bad idea.

But the winter is pretty hard for me to get excited about photos. Not because it’s not beautiful but it’s pretty mono-tone. And I stay inside a lot. Or the lighting is fluorescent and then it’s just … really?

So I love that we’re getting outside more and the sun is shining to boot!

One of my favorite things to do with my camera is to follow my little people around and just click away. I rarely look through the view finder … I just aim and shoot at knee length, street level, eye level … whatever looks interesting.

Some times all I get are feet. But that’s ok with me. I love those little feet.

And the way they amble along the sidewalk.

The way they stand next to each other, having a conversation all their own.

Those are the feet that are going to, one day, take my Little’s somewhere new. And if I always aim at their smiles I’ll one day forget that those feet were carrying them all along.

22 months ago, exactly, you held him in your arms for the very first time.

Your hands have held me, and kept my daughter safe.

Countless joyful afternoons were spent swinging on your arms, feeling the breeze whisper on my face as you flung me back and forth – always careful, always strong.

Today, he felt it too.

Here’s the fam:

We went up north to The Parent’s cottage a few weeks ago and spent the time hanging out making donuts and marshmallows from scratch. YUM.

In order to eat those marshmallows we needed a fire. So I took it upon myself to lick the flame.

I may have paraded around giggling after the whole “I build fire!” thing, but it was fun … there’s a technique to building a fire – one with air flow and oxygen. It was good times.

Then we waited for the flame to die down and give us some coals in which to roast the marsh’s …

And our weekend was complete.

So have I photo’d you out yet? How about I tell you a story.

Jessica, our oldest, just turned five. There is an entire category on this website dedicated to her and I might be partial, but she is amazing.

Right after Oliver was born we loaded up our little family in our in-laws mini-van and took off on our first family vacation to see very good friends of ours get married on the 4th of July in Grand Marais, MN. We were in the throws of learning how to navigate two small children, only Jessica wasn’t very small. She was 3 1/2 and completely full of life and objection and personality.

She was also full of hope, love and affection for her baby brother … although she didn’t always appreciate the amount of time he took away from her. And I couldn’t blame her.

Jessica is larger than life in real life. She really is. And not everyone can handle this, or her. Not everyone has the patience to listen to her tales or has the heart to watch her grow second by second as she magically transforms from child to lady.

But I do. And I have a fierceness about me when it comes to Jessica. I want to protect her and show her and make her strong. I want her to have all the information I didn’t have and I want her to know the things that no one dared tell me about what it meant to be a lady, what it meant to be a woman – the power we hold and how to harness it. How to be in this world without being of this world.

I don’t even know if this is a normal “parent thing” – I would assume it is … but Jessica is different. She really is. And few people catch on to that without my saying something first.

It was about this time (first family vacation/4th of July) that I started to get anxious about Jessica. About her personality and about how to still enjoy being with our friends while still being sensitive to Jessica’s growing curiosity … and understanding of relationships.

She was to the age where she understood that someone just didn’t want to deal with her when they tried to politely tell her “I’ll play with you … for 3 more minutes but then I’m going to sit down and talk to someone else.” It crushed me, literally broke me, to see her understand that what they were really saying was “You’ve taken enough of my time, and it’s valuable … and I’d like to spend it elsewhere now.”

She started getting brushed off. She started getting older. And it was more pronounced with a new baby around. She lost her cutesy baby image – and started getting smart – which isn’t actually what a group of people want in a small person. They want a ham or comedian. They want to be entertained. But Jessica wasn’t willing to play by their rules. Sure, she knew how to ham it up and LOVED to entertain but she gets it – she can read the emotional temperature of a room and she knows if you’re engaging her or just idly standing by … waiting for it to be over.

So I have all of this going on inside of me … wanting to make her way in the world easier, less bumpy and less rejection filled. I wanted to go ahead of her and take all the sticks and stones off the trail. I wanted to make sure there was nothing lurking behind the trees and that the sun was shinning through the canopy above … when someone threw me a life vest in parenting and recognized Jessica for who she was.

We were at the reception of our friends wedding when someone came up to me and asked if I was Jessica’s mom. That little girl? Running and playing with the other kids?

Yes, I said. Timid. Worried.

She’s fantastic! I mean it! She’s incredible! You have a wonderful little girl, I can’t believe it. You must be so in love.

I … I … I am. Thank you! Wow, thank you so much.

I can still count on one hand the number of people who have approached me like this. Sought me out just to praise her. And she’s so worth it. All of it. All the praise in the world. She deserves it all.

But at that wedding reception in a small, beautiful town someone gave me permission to believe in it loudly. To name it. To protect it. To cultivate and grow it. To nurture her … her very being.

The stories I remember loving as a child are the ones I was told about my own parents childhood memories. Also I loved stories about myself as a baby or younger self. I loved to hear them over and over and over again.

I still love to hear about my parent’s childhoods – they were so starkly different than my own and now as we “write” the stories of our children’s lives … the difference is even greater.

Clothes. That one word is what brought this whole conversation on in my head.

My grandma would make my mom and all her sisters a dress for the first day of school and they’d all get to buy a new pair of shoes – which also had to be worn on Sunday’s.

One new dress. They also all got one more new dress come Easter time. (Right mom? I’m not making this up am I? I’m pretty sure thats how the story goes, comment away! Do tell!)

When I was younger we made a HUGE deal about school shopping – we’d get in the Ford Aerostar Minivan circa 1989ish and drive ALL THE WAY to Grand Rapids (an hour away) to hit up the big shopping mall. And the Payless.

We each got a couple of new outfits and a pair of shoes or two.

Now, shopping with my kids? I actually don’t get into it that much, when they need a size up in pants or a couple of shirts I hit up Target or WalMart or the local consignment store. I love second hand shopping for our clothes because it saves so much money – but tonight as I was going through my GoogleReader I came across a store that was targeted directly at my 5 year old.

The only store that was targeted towards me when I was shopping with my mom was the candy store and the toy store.

Don’t worry, this isn’t a rant … it’s just odd to me. I’ve been in a mall as an adolescent and the only store I was interested in was the Claires or the coffee shop with the cute boy working behind the counter. And now I’m in a mall and I’m interested in the chain stores for their clothing or the baby stores for their clothing.

I haven’t yet walked into a mall and specifically been interested in a tween store, one that I could shop at for my child and actually buy something in her size. It’s a little bit sad. Another chapter done.

We take a lot of photos in this house and Jessica, our 5 year old, has started to ask to use the camera too.

This summer we let her take charge of the Nikon for the first time.

Turns out she’s amazing.

So this past week she was BEGGING me to use my camera again … here’s her tour of our house on any given morning. I love the way she sees things.

Or is it Raising Children As Foodies?

Since undertaking the monumental task of fixing my blood sugar issues we’ve done quite a bit of reevaluating the foods we buy and serve our children. It’s been a long journey, actually – it started about 4 years ago when I went to a Wholistic Health Counselor for the first time. But it’s been a slow going process, one that I teeter and then totter to either side of the fence.

No more.

In order for me to stay healthy I must be firmly planted on “the other” side of the fence. The weird side, the difficult side, the side that cares if my kids are eating organic cheerios or not. It matters to me, it has to. And we just plain don’t eat cereal, at all anymore.

You can imagine the conversations we have in the grocery store when our 5 year old asks us if we can buy some Captain Crunch? Maybe Fruit Loops? Or her absolute favorite “Cheesy Chips” also known as Dorito’s.

There are a lot of No’s. No we cannot, no we don’t eat those things, how about apples instead? Strawberries? Let’s look for some asparagus.

I’m not a nazi, but for a while I had to be because if it was in the house I would eat it. There is no tricking me into thinking it’s there “for someone else” – it was there for me. It was staring at me and the temptation of “things I can’t have” was greater than any kind of will-power I possessed. So, I was a nazi, we did not have it in the house at all … I HAD to get better.

This is coming to a point. I promise.

Lots of time has passed since the nazi stage of my fight with sugar and we’re happy to announce that come this spring I’ll be redoing a blood test that will confirm what we already know. I have my blood sugar issues under control, once and for all.

I still cannot eat the foods I had to eliminate on a regular basis and I probably never will but I can have some here and there and my body knows how to regulate it. Did you read that??!

I NEVER THOUGHT I WAS GOING TO GET HERE. I DOUBTED IT FROM THE VERY BEGINNING!

Folks, here’s my proclamation. God is good.

So this has changed a lot of the way our family functions around a dinner table and this past week we got to bring Jessica’s birthday treat to school so I asked her what she’d like to bring to the class.

Her words: “Mom, I think the other kids would really like brownies, but I really want carrots.”

Pride. Full of it. I love that girl. I love that she knows the difference and cares about it. I love that she cares for herself.

Push came to shove and when we went to buy the treat, we ended up with Dorito’s … but carrots were still served and I love hearing how she regularly asks why the snacks at school have so much sugar? Don’t you know, it’s not very good for you.

Ever have one of those days where you wake up and think … UGH!

Which might quickly turn into a case of the grumpies?

Or maybe even a case of the angries?

And then some one hands you a lollipop and everything is right with the world?

Yea, that was my morning.

Only – the lollipop was a mom asking me if I “was Jessica’s mom” as I was waiting to pick her up from preschool. I don’t know what it is about that question, but I LOVE it. I love being “Jessica’s mom” and being asked if that little firecracker of life was charged to my household to care for and love.

A resounding YES one thousand times over. YES YES YES.

Number 30 on my life list is to watch Jessica meet Ariel in person, in Disney World.

Folks … Check, check.