Moran Family Fun

Our plans for Spring Break 2016 kept changing and at one point it didn't look as if we were going to be doing anything more exciting than staying at home and working in the yard this year, but we finally nailed things down and spent a few fun days in Philadelphia. After our three days there, I can now say that the City of Brotherly Love is a new favorite of mine. Beautiful buildings, tons to see and do, and delicious food almost make me want to trade in our quiet rural life for the city. For me, the best part about driving to a vacation destination is stopping anywhere that looks interesting along the way. The only trouble with that philosophy is that what should be a three hour drive takes over six hours. On this particular drive we mostly stopped for food, first we backtracked to find the Krispy Kreme we didn't see soon enough to stop when we drove by it initially then we visited a Swiss Chocolate Factory in the Pennsylvania countryside. The chocolate factory was a let d...

Sometimes it seems as if there isn't much to share here because our life is simple and not that exciting most of the time. While gathering pictures for this post I realized that we actually have a lot of fun things going on and there are so many small moments in our days that I haven't been recognizing. As much as we may want it to, life doesn't slow down it just gets busier. I decided that we need to learn how to recognize those lovely moments and just see how much living we're really doing in the Moran house!   Abigail participated in the county spelling bee! Since she's an eighth grader this was her last chance for spelling bee glory. By some divine stroke of luck Jared and I were both able to be there to watch her compete that night. She made it through the first three rounds and was in the top 10 of all the spellers before getting out on percolate - I wan't surprised that she hadn't heard of and didn't know this often coffee related word. ...

Everyone knows that sleeping in church isn't exactly right, but at one point or another we've probably all been guilty of doing just that.  I'll share later how Samantha learned for herself why falling asleep in church isn't such a good idea. First though, a quick recap of February and the many fun happenings the shortest month of the year brought to our family. Why yes, that is a big square of missing carpet in our family room! Due to an unfortunate incident involving spilled milk (but no crying) and the resulting odor of said milk, I became desperate enough to actually take a box cutter and remove a six foot square portion of our carpet and the pad underneath. The smell was finally gone but the only solution for the missing carpet was to replace the carpet in the entire downstairs! Since that was a project we had planned on doing at some point anyway, it wasn't such a big deal. The hardest part was finding a carpet place we liked and choosing the right c...

I recently celebrated my thirty-eighth birthday and maybe at some point I'll stop looking forward to my birthday, but right now I still like getting older and celebrating the day I was born each year. There are certainly some aspects of aging (hello crow's feet) that I'm less than thrilled about but for the most part being in my late thirties is pretty awesome! I am beyond excited to sew up this pattern that I've been wishing for since last spring. It's Lisette for Butterick B6168 and I am in love with the details in the dress! The cross over bodice, the little cut out detail at the neckline, and the slightly empire waistline. I've already purchased two fabrics to sew this dress up a solid sort of cayenne pepperish linen/rayon blend and a red and black floral on an ecru background. I can't decide if I want to sew both views so I'd have a tunic and a dress or just use both fabrics for dresses. Either way, I'm looking forward to finding the tim...

Somehow we managed to keep this cutie alive and happy for eighteen years! And since Madison's so special, her birthday deserves it's very own blog post instead of being lumped in with all of the other February happenings.  After dinner at Texas Roadhouse we stopped by our local Toyota dealer to pick up her very own car! Our salesperson was sweet and as a birthday surprise pulled our new to us 2004 Corolla up to the front of the dealership and attached a bunch of colorful helium balloons to the side mirror. Maddy didn't hesitate, she hopped right in and sped away! In reality it's only kind of her own car because sometimes I drive it and sometimes Jared does and most days Madison ends up behind the wheel of the van.  We've needed a third car for a while with three drivers working at three different places. Life has been so much nicer with that extra car. So far we've been happy with it and Madison has loved being able to drive to and from school and work e...

The first month of 2016 was a busy one! Rather than write a novel, I've decided to share our month in pictures.  Here we go! January 12 is International Kiss a Ginger Day! We love the sweet red headed members of our family and hope that they felt the love on the 12th and on every other day of the year. Samantha is our least gingery ginger, but was also the only one who would consent to be a part of Emily's quest for the perfect Kiss a Ginger Day selfie. I'm a change junkie. I start to get the urge to shake the things up a little bit every couple of months. I need a bigger change every couple of years. I blame it on the nomadic life I've led. January's change was pulling up the carpet on our stairs to reveal the lovely hardwood floors underneath. When we first moved in we removed most of the carpet upstairs, but we didn't consider that the warm oak flooring might extend to the staircase. One evening I peeled back a corner of one step to take a peek an...

It’s been almost two months since Christmas? Two months? I’m trying to get back in the habit of documenting our life and sharing my feelings here on the blog. It’s something that I love, but haven’t made enough time for lately. Around this time of year in 2009, when I first started this thing, the plan was to write a post each Sunday and I think it’s time to get back to that blogging schedule. Sometimes, I wait to post because I don’t feel as if anything interesting enough has happened. Other times, plenty of interesting happenings have transpired but life is so busy that I don’t take the time to write about them. You know, like Christmas or New Year’s.  Anyway, this post will be a big catch up for the happenings of the end of December and January and then I can think about sharing what’s been going on in February! After Samantha’s birthday, the rest of December is really all about celebrating Christmas and the New Year. This year we finally did what we’ve been saying w...