good times on baranowski bush road

This past weekend, the five of us traveled down to Brenham for the annual Baranowski Family Bonfire. While we were there, I heard someone mention that this was the 30th anniversary of the bonfire and family gathering. Wow! It is so much fun to be part of such a great tradition!

Jeff's family has been in the area for several generations (hence the name on the street sign) and there are more great aunts, great uncles, cousins and second cousins than I can keep track of even after 9 years. Jeff's grandfather, Charles, was actually born somewhere around there along with his many brothers and sisters, 12 to be exact. The land has been passed down through the generations and has been kept up in recent years by Jeff's Uncle Edwin as a country house and place to escape from Houston. Each year, the weekend before Halloween, he is generous enough to play host to extended and not-so-extended family members. Everyone gathers throughout the day and spends time catching up, eating and ultimately, watching the bonfire.

As we were not able to make the trip last year, we were so pleased that Jeff's grandmother was able to meet Ethan for the first time. I was able to snap some great pictures of the 4 generations together. Our kids had a great time playing in the dirt, going for 4 wheeler rides and watching Jeff's cousins shoot off rockets high into the air. The weather was perfect and the weekend was great!

purging closets

On a recent trip to my sister-in-law's house, she confessed the she had recently found her whole house cluttered with excess stuff and had been cleaning it out. While I didn't notice any of her clutter, her comment sent me back to my own house with a fresh pair of eyes. In our house, we are fortunate to have lots of great closet space. But with my new eyes, I could see that even all of that great space was now filling with our own excess.

So, this week I started in on Ethan's closet. I loaded up a storage bin with baby hooded towels, a baby carrier, clothes, a freebie diaper bag from the hospital, and some baby blankets. I also filled a trash bag with old burp cloths, tiny socks, broken wipes cases, even an old smoke alarm that had been replaced long ago.

My next stop was making my way through the girls closets. Their closets are a bit trickier and require more thought and organization. I am saving some of Avery's outgrown things for Hannah and I am saving some of Hannah's outgrown things for a friend. So, I took a deep breath and started making piles, piles of things to keep, piles of things to donate and piles of things to trash. At the end, I had another storage bin filled with clothes to donate, one to send on to our friends, and one bound for the attic.

This morning Jeff and I tackled our own closets, the coat closet and our big storage closet under the stairs. Together, we filled a large trashbag of clothes to donate, threw out stained and torn things, gathered up old shoes and even put aside two shoeboxes of old receipts bound for the shredder.

Now, the question is where did all of this stuff come from? It's mostly a rhetorical question since I pretty much know exactly where each and every little thing in my house came from. But, when you put off purging and organizing for a long time and just keep stuffing the closets, it all adds up. Like 9 Easter baskets worth, adds up. The good news is that now that we've finished our closet purging, I feel so much better...lighter somehow even. I love the fact that I can walk the length of our closet under the stairs now, its a really good feeling!

Next on my list? Filtering through all the toys before Santa comes...

howdy ya'll

Yesterday afternoon we took the kids to the State Fair. It was kind of a rainy morning but by the time we made it down to the fair, the actual rain had pretty much passed us by. Since we were getting there right at lunchtime, we made a quick stop in the horse barn before heading to the Food Court where we feasted on corny dogs, nachos and frito pie. Collectively, we thought that the fried butter sounded pretty gross and though the fried peaches and cream sounded interesting, we didn't try any. We wandered instead through some arts and crafts displays before watching a pirate high dive show. Our next stop was the Midway for some rides for the girls. Hannah enjoyed the spinning teapot ride, Avery did not. Avery enjoyed the airplane ride, Hannah was terrified. After giving Hannah her first taste of cotton candy and Avery a major sugar fix, we were on to the petting zoo. My favorites are always the goats, they are so fun to watch (especially the playful babies). We also saw a 13 week old giraffe who was already 7 feet tall, a pig and her piglets, some calves and even a zebra. The car show was next on our list of things to see. Avery and Hannah enjoyed climbing in and out of various vehicles and testing out the seat belts while Jeff and I compared sticker prices and gas mileage. As we walked, we saw some folk dancers, heard some music and visited Boris the 1100 lb hog. Before we knew it, it was time to head home. Next year I hope that we can stay longer and see a bit more but for this year, 5 hours was about our limit.