simple moments >> found inside

I think this is my first post in only black and white photos so I hope you guys enjoy them. Participating in Simple Moments with Brooke from Myreal.Everyday.Life . This week we had to photograph Found Inside moments...

We have been spending most afternoons inside because the sun hits the front of our house hard. I'm okay in spending it indoors as long as we take advantage of the not-so-hot weather during our mornings and mid-days. While indoors, I usually let the boys watch some Netflix while I craft, DIY, clean up house or start supper. Such is domesticity. Anyway, enjoy. 

A midst renovating and re-organizing our shelves, the girls play hide & seek. 

This guy cannot sit still in these yellow chairs. He will make bridges, jump from one to the other, do the splits, build 'beds', turn upside down...Oh, how I remember those days! 

What my floor looks like most days: empty sippy cuts thrown a strew, toys everywhere, cats & cat hair everywhere. And dust. UGH. Oh dust. Why do you keep coming back, dust!?!? P.S. I hate you.  

And this guy... cannot give up his blanket. It's 77 degrees always in this house and he thinks it's cold. 

Ms. Prim always the curious watching my cursor on the screen, while Ms. Rue licks her butt. 

simple moments is about finding the small things that make up our everyday, things we want to remember and be thankful for. it's the little bits of our lives that might not be remembered when we are gray and old. so we document it, on paper, with a photo, in a journal, through a blog.

quicky quivers - a diy

the family I married into, is obsessed with guns. and bows. and knives. after all, they're from the texas.

and frankly, even though I wasn't raised that way, i've come to really like that. guns and bows that is. 

i secretly wish i had a bow so i could pretend to be Katniss from The Hunger Games, because let's face it, she's amazing. or even better, Merida from Brave!!! {you guys don't even know how bad i would like that} but since owning a bow would require me to have targets to practice on, it's just not a feasible plan in my life right now. 

so when i walked by this bow & arrow set at the party store, i had to get them for the boys. all the other sets we have have no more arrows--it was time for some new ones! 

unfortunately, the set doesn't come with a quiver, and more often than not, strewn arrows get my eye twitching like crazy when it's time to pick up toys. 

so i present, the easy peasy, toddler quiver for your bow and arrow set! 

ever since i received that new table, my sewing projects have breathed life again! and i am so thankful for having it even though our living room is quite crowded now. i decided on a whim to whip these up. the husband said, 'that is awesome' in a very approving way, so i was very pleased. and the boys were too! 

you can see it's not perfect, but it's amazing what you can do with left over fabric and 20 minutes! now, i'm not posting a diy because i really stink at writing out directions, let alone following them, so i will leave you with a simple template. if you have basic sewing skills and a brain, you can figure it out pretty easy. and please, don't be shy if you have any questions!

: : : : : : Quickie Quiver Template: : : : : :

Linking up to Today's Creative Blog

this week

Ahhh, so this is what went down this week. I feel so fulfilled lately, it's hard to pick and choose which moments to share with you that won't bore you to death! Haha! 

And you know I gotta start my day with a fruit smoothie {licuado, in Spanish}! This one was extremely delicious because of the pineapple! It was a golden pineapple and so juicy! The husband and the oldest are the pickiest eaters, so me and Jonah get to enjoy this stuff all to ourselves! Just mix, 

• Handful of strawberries
• Handful of cut-up pineapple pieces
• Ice
• 1/2 cp milk
• 1 tsp of vanilla
• Sugar to taste

Put it in your blender and voila! Awesome-sauce.

And Andrew, the oldest, is ever so excited about finishing home school for the year. But I swear he still enjoys his little worksheets that prompt him to use his creative noodle. For example, a chicken is not called a chicken when you're teaching a toddler to read. It's called a hen. Because it rhymes with ten. And men. And pen. You get the idea. 

So when we had to draw lines from our word to our picture, instead of lines, he drew chicken feet. Certainly made it much more exciting and I got a laugh out of it.

And then he drew waves to connect the picture of the boat to the word. And scribbles from the picture of a pen to the word. What a goof. 

The littlest one, Jonah has been begging to do school as well. And while I don't have a curriculum, the internet is my best friend for finding things for him to do. I helped him gather things of the same color and stage them for this photo, I made sure to let him know that they are blue in some hue or another and named them all off...It was all fine and dandy until he took that blue marker and traced his hand all over my table. 

{By the way folks, our handcrafted journals {pictured top left} are totally up on our etsy store: ShopWitty. Go check them out HERE or click on the widget on the sidebar} 

And when the boys do really good in school, they get rewards such as Skylanders and iPad time. 

The Houston summer is so near that I could cry. Our perfect weather is gone. I can't go outside without sweating. So when the boys beg to go outside, and play their little hearts out with neighbor kids, they need a quick cool me down. 

Have I told you my Jonah is a little fish? He loves bubbles and becoming a prune. Our patio, or should I say concrete slab, is uber small but it doesn't hinder our ability to use it! 

This week, the boys watched an episode of some cartoon where they teach you to use a camera and so they begged to take pictures with my camera. I usually let them handle my girl, but with a lot of supervision. After all, it's my baby. And Jonah managed to capture these beautiful faces below. 

We are the silly Wittys. Nice to meet you. 

Oh and this week, we had some major food-faux-pas. Chicken---Oh, how I despise cooking you! 

It's best I just stick to my normal awesome made-up recipes with beef and tortillas and salsa and remember to add a margarita. That's better! 

This week was also for project completion! Well, almost completion! I have so many projects that I don't know why I get myself into them. Why can't I just be boring like all the other people on my weekends!?! Oh, that's right, because it's boring and unproductive--my polar opposite. Two of my projects involved paint and sewing. 

Welcome to my happy place. Next weekend, more journals and screen printing!

more than satisfied

You guys, I obviously have a fascination with my plants. Like, I loooveee them. I don't know what it is, but they bring me joy every. time. I take care of them like my actual babies {humans and felines! I only birthed two humans, but you get the point, right?}

Anyway, I didn't actually want to bore you to death with more flower pictures this time around, I had other bloggy plans. But I felt to totally put these on {paper}. 

Uhh, it's going to sound weird, but plants are teaching me a virtue: patience. Like the kind I wasn't blessed with.You don't know how many times I've waited for these flowers to bloom only to have to wait another day. 

Like my Dahlia down there... {the peach orange colored one}. My most expensive plant and it only blooms once every two months {I think}. Talk about the wait! But when it does bloom? Those colors make me want to go to the nearest Lowe's and get that same exact hues to paint my entire living room. 

And then there are these....

My calla lilies. I've never actually planted them, I was gifted them already blooming. So when they "died", I was quite upset. I re-potted the bulbs, waited, waited, and waited some more. And holy peanut butter balls, I shrieked one morning when I saw the elongated white blooms starting to develop. And now, every time I walk past them, I feel pride. I don't know whether to cut them off and put them inside my house or just leave them be. They went from tiny & little to long & gorgeous. 

And it only took patience, water, and sun. Some way, somehow, I can think of the relevance it has to parenthood or how God see us as His children, but I don't feel quite adequate enough to venture into that spiel...so...I'll just leave you with this: GOSHDARNIT they're so beautiful and that's all that matters!!!

what you used to be like

Jonah. Jojo bear. You're two right now. You will be three on July 4th. Our Independence Day baby.

You are our youngest, for now. 

You still suck your thumb. And even though your blue blanket has been put away for months now, you've taken up a plush Spider-man blanket as a replacement. 

But you only use it for bedtime now, instead of all the time. Your daddy says he doesn't mind you sucking your thumb because he did it as a little boy. I am the one who slaps that thumb away, just like Moomie taught me to do. You hate me for it. But I do admit, you look incredibly cute when you do it. 

You'll thank me later. I promise. 

You are the funniest two year old on earth. I am biased of course. But the way your little devil eyes light up when I caught you doing something you're not supposed to be doing is such a hard thing to discipline. Why are you so darn cute? It makes the Mom-job hard on me, son. 

Oh, and the things you say. I keep a notebook by our computer to write down all the silly & inappropriate things you boys say. Here are just a few you have said this year:

That last one, you said to your Awana leader. Needless to say, I was a bit embarrassed but she loved it and was still cracking up about it when it was time to come pick you up. 

You are scared to jump off of things, but love to hop around like a bunny. It takes you a little while to warm up. You love the water, whether it's in the bathtub, the pool or even the sink, you would stay there forever if you could. 

Our little fish. I don't know how many times I have had to tell you to not drink the bathtub water. 

You are such a little shadow. Ever since your older brother started drawing his monos you decided it was time for you to draw too. And you create the most amazing monsters!! Just the other day you drew a Mr. Potato head with a rainbow. It was nothing but a masterpiece. I am keeping it forever.

Little dude, you are not afraid to get dirty. You have that Witty gene that doesn't care if your fingers are messy. You are such a frickin' ball of dirt and sticky, it drives me nuts. There is no keeping you clean, son. 

This picture below is such an appropriate example of what I am talking about.

Jonah: face painted in a Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle way, smeared all over face. Plus blue icing from a cupcake with a stuffed face. I didn't even want to look at your dirty fingers to see how bad it was.

Andrew: No face paint and a grimace on his face because he had icing on his fingers. 

This picture just about sums it up.

You know it's bad when even your daddy cleans your face off because it bothers him. Jonah, son, you are gross. And you don't care. You love it. You are happy. And that's all that matters to us. 

You would think that in the picture below you would be so pumped that you would say something like, "Yes!" but no, you said, "You want a knuckle sandwich?" And this has been you, we dare not confront you anymore because we have black eyes from where you have punched us. You are a mean little dude. So fierce. And so strong, you've been known to show off your strong muscles to strangers. Dude, you are a block. And who can resists your big buns in the tightest little Hanes. I love when your undies eat your chunkiness right out of your sides!

You turn everything into a competition. 

You love to race and don't dare lose because your whole world crashes. Your shoulders slump. You turn around in defeat. And you give the saddest little face that is near to tears. How do we teach you to do your best and not be discouraged by defeat? To get up, try again and try harder?

Oh, Jonah baby. I love your independence. I love that you speak up for what you want to do and for what you want. You are easily satisfied and you ask for so little.

I love the way you laugh and you make us laugh. You are so goofy and silly. The word pancake cracks you up. The way you can't say your "S" makes it hard to sometimes understand you, but it doesn't stop my heart from melting. I am completely in love with you. ALL of you. 

Right now, you love:

Smores PopTarts

Pancakes {it's what you ask for every meal}

Spider-Man blanket

Thomas the Train

Chance & Bryce {cousins}

Mickey Mouse

Going outside

Dirt & water

Getting regular clothes to wear as your pajamas

and our cat, Rue. Because Prim is mean {your words}