Go to Bed! Except Wait...I Miss You, So Maybe Don't??

Let’s talk about bedtime. No not your bed time or mine, but when OUR kids go to bed. Its like magic once you’ve said the last goodnight, filled the last cup of water and finally… you can breathe. Let’s be honest, my husband and I eat most nights at 9 o’clock at night because we find it more relaxing to enjoy our meal when the kids aren’t around. I know, that’s sad, and fairly unhealthy. But it’s kinda our reality in this busy season. Some days we feel like we are simply SURVIVING until bedtime so that we can finally live. Oh, and when did they start in on begging us to stay up late? Don’t those tiny demons know what they are really asking? Asking me to give up the 2 hours of my day that I get to be irresponsible. Asking me to sacrifice time on my couch, in my sweats, with MY show. No Peppa Pig or stinkin’ Blimpy allowed. Don’t get me started on Blimpy. That guy has to go. (Does he remind you of modern day PeeWee, anyone??)

Our week days start at 6 am, and we give, and work, and serve them and others all day. So 15 hours later, at 9pm, when its finally still and quiet…darnet, I want it still and quiet. Sometimes I wish my husband would recognize that those two hours of quiet isn’t an invitation for sex, nah. It’s simply mommy’s personal quiet and Netflix time. (Heartland anyone??? Just me???)

Ok, in all fairness, this is a wee bit extreme. Maybe I feel this way sometimes. Most days are so long I sincerely can’t WAIT til bedtime. But it never fails, 10-15 minutes of quiet and my mom heart starts to miss them. Starts hoping they are having sweet dreams. My mom heart wants to go snuggle them, kiss them one last time. Because heck yes they are exhausting, but I’d rather be exhausted for this love than anywhere else. The other night I went in and snuggled up next to Reese while she was asleep. I wondered, a.) how creepy would it be for her to wake up and see me staring at her?? and b.) does she know HOW deeply she is loved?? I also prayed, “God, please help her to always be good. To always seek YOU. Lord… PLEASE don’t let her do the stupid shit I used to do before I found Asa.”

And THEN I wondered, “Does anyone else cuss when they pray?!?” I don’t do it REGULARLY, but let’s be real, it happens.

Anyway, I digress. Our kids are 5 and 6 years old currently. People ask if life is ‘easier’ (what does that mean??) now that they’re “older.” No, no it does not mean this. Sometimes life seemed more simple when our daughter was a newborn and our son was a toddler. Now they have opinions and REAL voices and they know how to manipulate and beg and LIE (don’t get me started on that because trust me, that’s a future blog post in of itself….) Right now we are teaching them how to read their Bibles, how to pray, how to treat each other (I feel we’ve always tried to do that…??? But it’s nooooooot working sooooooo maybe someone else should give it a try???) Our days are long. We’re tired. We balance 5 million bajillion things. Sometimes, all we want is bedtime.

Except we don’t. Being a parent might be addicting. How can you be so damn tired, wore out, frustrated, annoyed, impatient, and on the last straw a hundred times…yet, also love being needed SO incredibly much. This is life. Right here, right now. My motherhood. And I suppose it’s safe to say that I love every crazy tiring minute.

Springtime Refresh with Mixbook

I’m a professional photographer and I’m a MOM. That means one thing: I LOVE PICTURES. I’ll never forget when I got my first DSLR after graduating college. I had big dreams, but I never really imagined that I would someday be photographing weddings, working with brands, and documenting my OWN children’s lives. That part is one of the most important to me. In 2012 I had my first baby, I blinked, and somehow I now have an almost seven year old and a five and a half year old. The days are sometimes long but the years are incredibly short. Thanks to my camera, and Mixbook, I can freeze so many moments in time and remember my babies in whatever stage I photographed.

I think I heard about Mixbook from another blogger friend of mine, back when she used them for Christmas cards. I loved how they turned out so much and really wanted a new canvas for our living room, so I reached out to them. Not only was their customer service beyond helpful and fast, the quality of the canvas was incredible. I am a huge stickler on quality, Y’all. If I take a blurry photo, that’s one thing, but if my photo is clear and crisp, I fully expect my prints (even large ones) to be too. Mixbook didn’t disappoint! For as long as I can, I will be using this company for my canvas needs (and prints!).

When we first moved into this house, there were a LOT of blank walls. We unpacked boxes and had everything put away in a matter of hours (not even kidding), but I can remember slinking down against the kitchen floor looking into our living room. This big giant wall stared back at me, screaming, “FILL ME WITH PHOTOS!” but I had NO idea where to start. Leave it to my husband to always save the day…he started grabbing picture frames we had and laying out a design right there on the hardwood floor. After we finalized how we wanted it to look, he told me to order prints. Let me tell you…that took a looooong time for me to decide on. I have thousands and thousands and thousands of photos on my hard drive—and I had to narrow it down to like, 20. Ha! Needless to say, we got the job done and as much as we love it, this spring we were itching for a refresh. Our kids have changed so much in the almost 3 years we’ve been here, and a lot of new memories have been formed. “Let’s order some new prints,” I told Ace.

Some of the most important memories that I wanted to have on display were of my horses (I still can’t believe I finally own not one, but TWO), and our pups. Our beautiful Chocolate Lab passed away on April 15th, and we wanted a few more of our favorite photos to hang of him. One of the coolest new additions is the metal print in the very left corner of that top photo (the Christmas one)—we really want this wall to have different textures, colors, and patterns. The metal print is a 20x16 and we chose the flat option (you can also get curved.) Once again the quality is on point, the colors are vivid, and we really love it! (Can I be real for a second? The two Christmas themed photos next to each other messes with my OCD tendency something fierce, buuuuut my husband re-arranged this wall and hung all the new photos on his own? So I really can’t complain.)

The super cute photo of toddler Pierson and Reese kissing on the front steps is one of Mixbook’s poster prints. I love how much variety there is when it comes to printing. You can even get 5x5 prints specifically for printing off your phone; cute square prints to hang anywhere! Beyond this gallery wall, I ordered my mom a calendar for Christmas this year; due to crappy sickness, we couldn’t make the trip to Michigan, but I watched her open it on FaceTime and she absolutely loved it. I also got some 4x6 prints for my classroom gallery wall, and my students love seeing all our family photos, especially the animals :)

It was after our Chocolate Lab passed away that I was finalizing our order, and let me tell you, I did it COMPLETELY wrong. I ordered the wrong sizes, only a few 8x10’s, and my mind was complete fog. The next day Asa checked our Mixbook account and texted, “Babe…did you realize you didn’t order these right?” I figured I had, as it was late at night and I had not been feeling well. I hurriedly reached out to customer support and asked if anything could be done, and guys, they were wonderful. They helped me cancel that order, fix my changes, and everything turned out wonderfully!! We are VERY thankful to Mixbook for helping us have these tangible memories. Y’all should head to their website, they do photo books, calendars, and a variety of cards. (They’re also who we ordered OUR Christmas cards from this year!) As a professional photographer, I will always recommend this company to my clients. You can’t beat their customer service and the quality of whatever it is you choose to order!

*Thank you, Mixbook, for partnering with us for our living room refresh! We love all the photos SO so much!*

An Eggscellent Easter Spread for Your Sunday Meal!

Cheesiest caption ever—but seriously. As you all know, my husband is the Chef in our family, and he did NOT disappoint with our recent [early] Easter spread. This year we decided we wanted to host some friends and get together, so that’s what we did! My number one request for basically every formal (or informal, who am I kidding) meal my husband makes, is that he makes his amazing Deviled Eggs. I posted a story on Instagram about it and asked if anyone else was as obsessed with them as I am, and did you know that in Australia, no one really eats them!? This sweet gal said, “No, but I’ve also never really had a deviled egg before, they aren’t popular here.” I told her that she desperately needed to change that, OR she should fly to Kentucky so my husband can prepare some for her the right way. Easy, right? ;)

My mother-in-law actually took the kids to a movie for some of the afternoon, and so it was REALLY nice to have a meal in our formal dining room fellowshipping with some of our favorite people, without them interrupting. I love them to death, but let’s face it, sometimes you can’t get much catching up when you have a busy five and six year old present. (They did show up towards the end though, and they were equally as happy to see our friends and eat their Dad’s delicious food.)

While we tend to have too much food no matter the holiday (no complaints there!) we like to keep things pretty simple. For our Friends Easter, we enjoyed a delicious ham, honey glazed carrots, green beans, baguettes, deviled eggs, and another favorite of mine…mashed potatoes! We also indulged in the desserts, and went with a yummy Kroger Carrot Cake, and cute Easter themed sugar cookies. YUM!

If you’re looking for some Easter inspiration, I hope this helps! If you need to pick my husband’s brain for recipe ideas, or any further details, don’t hesitate to e-mail me. He really is an amazing cook and I am SO thankful for him!!

Here are a couple of the items Asa (my husband) whipped up. You’ll have to tell me if you re-created any of these ideas or how this post inspired YOUR Easter planning! Happy Holiday, sweet friends!

Everything found in this blog post was purchased at our local Kroger, but it was not sponsored by them. I just wanted to show you what we did for this meal and thought it may be helpful to know where we got everything, decorations included!

Life with Six Indoor Pets, Yes...SIX!

If you are new here, hi! We are the Glass Family. We have been married for ten years, have two small children ages five and six, and we also have three cats, two dogs, and two horses! [Clearly the horses aren’t included in the ‘indoor pets’ status, but if I had it my way, they definitely would be] ;)

So, what’s our home like? When you hear ‘Golden Retriever’ and ‘Lab,’ you automatically think floating hair balls, right? Well, yeah. That does happen. We have been asked, “Do they shed a lot?” Well, yeah, they do, ha ha! We make sure to vacuum, a LOT [thank you trusty, cordless vac!] and we generally love a CLEAN house. “But, Ashley, is that even possible with as many animals as you have?” Yup! It sure is! Daily we make it our priority to put clutter and toys away, run the vacuum, and dust surfaces. I recently partnered with Swiffer and Febreze to help get the job done, and Y’all, without their products, my home wouldn’t be nearly as clean as it is. We have hardwood floors throughout the first floor and in the upstairs hallway. I am SO dang thankful for the Swiffer Sweeper Dry and Wet Mop! [Do you have one of these?!]

One of the things I love most about this mop is how quickly and efficiently it DOES pick up those floating hairs and loose pieces of dirt. It’s incredibly easy to use and it leaves our floors super shiny.

Our dogs daily sleep in our bedroom. When they were younger and before our older guy Humphrey was prone to having accidents (sigh), they had free roam of the house. When we did it that way, it was nice because there wasn’t one designated dog space, which never left that distinct ‘odor.’ Not that our room reeks or is disgusting, but if you own dogs you know that if they’re shut in a room (especially if you have more than one), when you open the door you can SMELL their dog scent. Thankfully, Febreze Fabric for the win, which also if you’re a pet owner you probably (hopefully?!) already know of this product! We use this incredibly often—it’s 100% safe to use on our rugs, bedding, and even the dog bed that resides in our bedroom too!

While I could go on about these products for a very long time, the last thing I want to mention for this post is my favorite dusting tool. Swiffer Dusters Heavy Duty Pet is 10000% ideal for ALL dusting purposes. It traps and locks up to 3x more dust and allergens, and I love that 360 movement really traps all our pesky dust in, even in small nooks and crannies. (Side note: sometimes our cats think that this is a toy for THEM?! So you should probably be prepared to shoo your cute feline friend away while trying to dust your own surfaces. It always makes for a good laugh while cleaning though!)

So, yes, we have SIX indoor pets. But our goal is that that wouldn’t be super noticeable when you walk in our front door. We aim to keep our floors and furniture hair and dust free, and that there wouldn’t be any pesky pet odors. Swiffer offers easy-to-use sweeping, mopping, and dusting cleaning tools for virtually every household surface. They’re quick and help you not sweat your pet so your family can spend less time worrying about the mess and more time playing with your pet. And Febreze makes it so that our home is always fresh smelling, no matter where our pets sleep :) Where can you get these products? We always get them at our nearby Kroger, where we get the vast majority of our cleaning/household/grocery related needs!

I am curious what you use in your house when it comes to cleaning products? Leave a message in the comment below and fill us in, maybe there’s something I should add to our must haves!