~ 9 years old ~ Oh my !

Congratulations sweet cuddly boy of mine, every day you become more independent, easygoing, smarter, humerous, happy and special  !

Our Wedding day

10 years ago I married my best friend and we shared that special day with friends and family, looking through the wedding day pics I remember it wasn't the perfect day I had envisioned (not good when you're a controlfreak) but spending it with loved friends and family made it perfect for me and I let it all go..... I have been in  <3 with my husband longer than I have been without him, pretty special !

 

Forever in my heart

A sketch for the Dutch Dares goes online today and I scrapped a very special photo of my grandmother and me on my wedding day. Today she would have turned 92 but unfortunately it wasn't meant to be. But she is forever in my <3, the only grandmother I had and i think about her and miss her every day.

I really like how it turned out, haven't had that in a while. I put the eulogy that I held at her funeral in the envelope, words I never want to forget......

11 already ???!!!

Congratulations sweet son of mine, every day you are becoming more wonderful, goofy, happy & special person !

My Nanna ~ Mijn Oma

My nanna (Ali Rosbergen - van der Ende) passed away last friday, she was 89, and we will be saying our goodbye's to her today.

It's hard to be honest I've been numb since friday .... I will miss her, she was the only Oma I had and for the boys it's their first loss to deal with so that's pretty difficult too.

I've had many sweet messages when i told people via FB, and one person said this and I thought it was so true as I did feel that. I hope when I have grandchildren I can make them feel this too, I know my parents make sure my boys do !

Grandpa's and grandma's are special, they are unconditionally proud of their grandchildren and as a grandchild you feel that.

This is a totally spontanious picture a friend took on my wedding day as I was chatting with my oma.

Organizing a household

So we've been trying hard for the last year to get our house decluttered and more organized and I must say (I haven't thought this for the longest time) but we're making progress. It's a very slow and painfull one you see it's going way to slow for my taste... But even with baby steps we will get there one day.

One of the things that helped us get on track this last year was a menu planner. After using it this past year and me switching to low carb food the planner just wasn't working as it could so we adapted it, made a dry erase version by putting it in a frame and there you have it our menu planner 2.0. If anyone's interested I can email it to you so you can adapt to suit it to your lifestyle.



We also made a home management binder ( I was so inspired with the ones I saw on pinterest) in which every bit of info we could need that is at our fingertips (which would normaly be everywhere and nowhere) . Things like emergency contact numbers, finance info, insurance refund forms, stamps, id & library cards, discount coupons, school information, fave take out menu's, adres list etc.

We also made a new calendar for 2012 ourselves. The family planner that we usually bought changed in format and we didn't like it one bit. We couldn't find one that was similar or if it was that fitted our budget (purchase and shipping costs :( were too much) so again we made one ourselves. It's based on this calendar below (i will show our version as soon as we've assembled it) and if you're interested I can email it to you, again so you can adapt it to suit your lifestyle and family names.



And instead of buying the boys a weekly planner, they will be getting a dry erase version (still in concept) with their chores on it so they can check them off and re-use it the next week. Less paper :) Will share when they are done.

Gwen McCrae Keep The Fire Burning

22 years and we still keep the fire burning

One little Word

I am aiming to work hard on my one little word this year, I chose the word EMBRACE.

I want to embrace that I cannot be perfect, embrace that I can let go more and let the flow take me along, embrace my loved ones more, embrace the fun things in life more, embrace the slow proces of decluttering my house (Rome was not built in a day i am told), embrace blogging again (looking at my stats I have been blogging less and less since 2006 when I started), embrace that I have to say NO even if people don't like it (i cannot be friends with everyone), embrace my blog more, embrace my body more, embrace 2012 !

What's your word for 2012 ?