Homegrown

I'm a life-long country music fan.  I have some all-time favorites like George Strait, Kenny Chesney, and Martina McBride. I've been thinking recently a lot about Zac Brown Band's newest song, Homegrown.  I love the simplicity of the lyrics and the picture that they paint.  I want to live this song as my reality.  Check out the lyrics and song on YouTube if you haven't heard it.  My favorite lyrics are below:

I got some good friends that live down the street
Got a good looking woman with her arms 'round me (clearly this would be a good looking man, Brent, for me:))
Here in a small town where it feels like home
I've got everything I need 
And nothing that I don't

It's the weight that you carry from the things you think you want

Doesn't it sound wonderful: less or no distraction from "the things we think we want", enjoying the company of those we love???

It's country music that makes me think I should live in a small town...reality, however, reminds me of the lack of convenience I'm used to having lived in Rochester my entire life:)  Even if we never move to a small town, I think I can implement some of these concepts:)  I am especially aware of this after cleaning our storage area recently...talk about "the things we think we want"...that then end up in the storage area.

Freaky Fast and Fun-Filled February!

I have been quite absent from our blog in 2015 which I believe is a symptom of two things:  posting short, every day updates on Facebook, and being busy and tired.  And, February was certainly busy!

Coming into February, Brent and Luke were both full swing in their basketball seasons.  Brent played city league one night a week and Luke had one practice and one game a week.  I've been watching Brent play basketball since we met in 8th grade, and it's my favorite sport to watch, so basketball season is fun for this family:)

The first week of February brought a getaway for this momma!  I met my friend, Krista, for a mom's only weekend in Denver.  Why Denver?  No big reason other than it's central for us both (Krista's in Arizona) and we could both get reasonable flights:)  We arrived Saturday, February 7th and returned home Tuesday, February 10th.  We had a hotel downtown (near the convention center) and explored the 16th Street Mall, Civic Center Park area, and a little of Lower Downtown.  We had glorious weather, 70 degrees and sunny, so we were able to walk everywhere we went!  Krista and I also have a mutual friend who recently moved back to Denver, and Janet was so very generous to pick us up on Sunday for a day trip into the mountains.  We spent the afternoon in Georgetown, a super cute mountain town with little shops run by locals.  It was quiet, historic, and we enjoyed some killer desserts at Mountain Girl Bakery:)  Once back in Denver, Janet drove us around some more of Denver and we had dinner in the Wash Park neighborhood.  It was a wonderful trip and a great chance to catch up with two lovely ladies.  It was also a good reminder to me to save our money up now so we can snowbird when we retire!

Day 1

My dear friend, Krista

16th Street Mall all aglow

Shopping and dinner on a beautiful night

 Day 2

Dinner with Janet, our lovely hostess and driver,
after our day trip to Georgetown

 Day 3

First ever Big Gulp...I love pop:)

Exploring Lincoln Park

Capitol Building in background

City and County Building

Colorado Convention Center

Mr Blue Bear peaking inside

Love how his head is cocked:)

High Fives!

Day 4

Saying goodbye until June

Back in Minnesota, Luke had a fun-filled weekend of two birthday parties in the cities at indoor parks (Sky Zone and Grand Slam) for a friend and cousin and Brent took the few days off that I was away and got to hang at home with Nora while Luke was at school.  So, really, it felt like a mini-vacation for all of us!

February also brings lots of celebrating to our house with Luke's birthday!  This year he chose a party at Prairie Walls Climbing.  He and six of his friends enjoyed two hours of rock climbing and bouldering with an instructor.  It was a great place for a bunch of boys to burn off some energy in the midst of a cold February:)

Fun bunch of monkeys:)

Since we had cousins in town to join in Luke's birthday party, we also celebrated the Picker family birthdays with dinner together at North Mr Pizza.  We all came back to our place for desserts in honor of Luke, Mekhi, Annie, and Audra's birthdays.

Tea party for one, in a room full of people:)

Greg and Annalise

Help coming in from above from Ethan;)

Mekhi shares a birthday with Brent's late Gpa Roger

Mekhi, one of the February birthdays

These three:)
All the same age for seven days each winter.

Heels on her feet AND hands!

As if we didn't have enough going on the weekend of Valentine's/President's Days and Luke's birthday, we also bought a new-to-us day bed for the kids.  Luke and Nora been sharing a room since this fall (at Luke and Brent's request) so we had been looking for a day bed with a trundle so we could fit two twin-sized beds in what used to be Nora's room.  This purchase also marked the end of using our crib/toddler bed for Nora (and most likely for our family).  Nora has adjusted well to the twin bed and the kids love being in the same room together, even if Nora does want to chat with Luke till 10:00 every night;)

Twin bed with twin trundle underneath

Twin trundle out for both kids to sleep

We saved the last of Luke's birthday celebrations for the weekend after his birthday.  We had lunch at Baker's Square with Beckmanns and Moyers and then all took in some Chuck E Cheese fun.  This was Nora's first experience and she was very overwhelmed at first.  By the end, she warmed up to a tiny carousel ride and enjoyed herself.  Our niece, Piper, seven months old, loved taking it all in and had no apprehensions about the little rides:)

Piper riding without fear

Nora needed a hand to hold

Found something interesting 

Luke and his cheerleaders

Big girls:)

Compliments of the Chuck E Cheese Sketch Machine

In the midst of all of the fun, Luke also had a busy month at school with "I Love to Read" month activities as well as two fundraising efforts: one for the American Heart Association and the other for childhood cancer.  Luke loves having a goal to work towards, so he had fun with all of the "extras".  I also had a very busy month at work with an accreditation visit for our department.  And, finally, Nora decided to pop through all four of her two year molars (read: crabby girl)!  It probably goes without saying that we didn't spend a lot of time at home relaxing in February:)

So, now do you see why it was a freaky fast and fun-filled February?!?!

FULL Friday!

It was a FULL Friday!  

Nora and I started out the day at Those Great Informational Fridays (TGIF) with PAIIR.  

Water table fun

After class we stopped at Papa and Gma's and saw this cutie!

Piper snuggled under a blanket covering her floor gym

Peaking out from under the blanket to see who came to visit:)

 Then, Mom and I brought lunch and spent the afternoon with my Uncle Jeff 

who's recovering from surgery.  

Beautiful visitors in Jeff's yard

 Once Brent got home from work, Luke and I headed out for Welch Village to introduce him to skiing.  I wasn't sure how I'd feel on skis after many years, but thankfully it came back to me like riding a bike.  We took our time down the first hill so Luke could get a feel for being on skis and learn how to control himself a bit.  He fell a few times when trying to slow down/stop, but the second time down he said he wanted to go at his own pace and didn't fall again going down a hill all night!  I was very proud of his self confidence.  By the end of the evening, he even tackled a few blue hills.  

First ski lift ride 

Beautiful moon tonight
Wish my phone pic did it justice

More confident on the ski lift

The end of a very fun and successful night!

A full Friday with wonderful people:)

Nine Years!

Nine years ago, Brent and I were blessed with the opportunity to become 

parents to an incredible little boy.  

Luke Gabriel Picker is a kind, inquisitive, sensitive boy 

who loves sports, video games, board games, and being a big brother.  

Nine years has brought a lot of change and growth.  

At nine years old, he's weighing in at 75 lbs and has stretched to 4'6".  

A long way from his 8 lbs 11 oz birth weight and 21.5 inches:)

It's hard to believe he's beginning his last year in single digits, 

but we have no doubt we'll all enjoy the journey together!

How Do You Eat An Elephant?

This year I decided to make "resolutions" (I prefer "goals") on a monthly basis.  I made this decision for a few reasons...

• I've learned that I do better accomplishing tasks when I have a deadline in the foreseeable future (think: cleaning the house before guests come;))
• I also gave myself a major guilt trip over a large task I said I'd do for my extended family two years ago that I had hardly started.  

SO...this brings us to...How do you eat an elephant?  One bite at a time.

First things first, I took the large task of scanning old family photos for my extended family and broke it up into bite-sized pieces.  If I stick to my plan, I should be done in July.  

I decided to take a similar approach with tasks around the house that I constantly put off.  I plan to tackle at least one a month.

I even took this approach on a big project at work that had no specific deadline but was going to to take a lot of time.  

I'm happy to say, that for the first month, with two days to spare, I succeeded in meeting all of my goals!  At home and work!

Slowly but Surely

I have a rather extreme hesitance to hanging things on our walls.  I can have an item, know where I want it, and it can take me a year (or more) to get it actually hung.  I can't pinpoint the source of this "fear", but I'm proud to say that today we hung several things that had been on my list for over a year.

I'm horrible at taking before pictures when we do anything different at home, but if you've been to our house in the past few years, you might notice the difference.

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I asked Ric Rozsa to paint these four canvases for me over a year ago!  I am so excited to have them up for all to enjoy:)  I love the colors and how the tree portrays the changing seasons.

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I got the idea for this towel rack about two years ago.  I found the door header (the cream wood) at Gold Rush in August 2013, added the hooks, and it's also holding a canvas print I bought at TJ Maxx years ago (which has never had the privilege of being hung).  

Finally, the towels have a home in our guest bathroom!!!

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The next is a debut of our new "home gym" too!  We invested in a treadmill in November so we could drop our gym membership but still stay active year round.  We've made great use of it. In the first month we logged about 120 miles!  This was previously our guest room, but we did a lot of shifting around in November to make space and it's all worked out great.  Today, we added the shelf next to the large picture so we could hold remotes, hand towels, etc while we're on the treadmill.  (There are holding spaces on the machine, but they can get jostled while running/walking since our there is plush carpet under it.)  We also shifted the Michigan scoreboard/clock to a better location with the treadmill.

I have to say, I'm feeling VERY accomplished today, simply because of a few "new" functional and fun things hanging on our walls:)