I fell in love with this guy when I was nineteen, and it's been so much fun to journey through this life together. Over ten years later, our life looks so much different. No longer are we living off of ramen (I can cook now!), no more classes, and these two munchkins. They are our most exciting journey. Our greatest joy, and sometimes our greatest challenge too. When Billy is being his restless toddler self and refusing to go to sleep at night? Cory will go upstairs and sing him to sleep (which never works as well for me). Isia is always asking for "just her time," so he often takes her on errands and out to lunch- just the two of them. He knows how to love his family and, as you can see, they love him right back!

(words and inspiration via Soulemama.com)

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If you've been following our journey for awhile, you already know my belief that creativity doesn't have to cost a lot of money. Some of our favorite projects involve household materials, like suncatcher lids and toilet roll garlands. People were creating long before craft stores, using excess materials they already had. So I'm always looking around, trying to bring a creative second-life to things. My children have caught onto this, and I often get in trouble with Isia for trying to throw anything away. "Can't you fix it?" she'll ask, "Can't you make something out of it?" And I love that, even if it means I have to hide things away (like her dress up shoes that were recently broke beyond repair) to dispose of when she's not looking! Here are a few thrifty drawing materials that have been favorites lately:

And these are some old appliance instruction books I found during spring cleaning (for appliances we don't even have anymore!). On a whim, I handed them over to the kids who Loved them. I thought the text-filled pages might damper their creativity, but they definitely didn't. Isia, soon-to-be-kindergartner, especially enjoyed interacting with the areas that were already there and making them her own.

(words and inspiration via Soulemama.com)

We are in the midst of some butterfly hatching (more to come on that front soon), and we made these in the midst of waiting for something- anything- to happen with the caterpillars. I think Isia was a bit incredulous that they actually would become butterflies, so we made these to remind ourselves they would be (smile).