Braustin Nation

It is full blown Christmas at the Carmens! The boys have been busy with holiday crafts, decorating and drawing. Because the colder weather draws us indoors and off our scooters and bikes (though we still go on walks these days in the bike trailer all bundled up)  Our house these days looks more like this: We’ve had so much fun doing all the typical holiday crafts and baking with the boys! We went to Queensgate Gardens where they got to meet Santa and make their own ornament. We also made a Costco ginger bread house (you guys this thing is $9 and prebuilt!), snow globes, sugar cookies, decorated foam gingerbread men... the holidays are the best to fill your time up with kid activities.                                                Finally, and for the first time ever I have a dedicated crafting space. We are still in our apartment saving and waiting for the perfect house to pop up, and paying down medical bills. In the meantime, having this space has been so amazing. Austin found me a

 Last week was the one year mark of our move to the Tri Cities! It almost seems like ages ago because it’s been such an amazing change for all of us, despite the whole 2020 catastrophe and pandemic. It’s absolutely insane to think that Toddler A has lived half his little life here in Washington, and also lived about half his life in a Pandemic. In fact, he was crawling before the Pandemic and now he’s walking, talking, .....running at the speed of light away from Momma.... Austin is absolutely thriving here. He has found a firm that is growing constantly and pushing him in exciting new ways. There’s a ton of opportunity here and it makes us so excited for the future. It’s been interesting and sometimes rough in some regards because a move to a different job can take a bit to become stable, and then Coronavirus hit —but through it all the above is still very apparent to us that this will be our forever home.  Just seeing the above photo of my boys a year ago makes me so proud of the dec

 Summertime in the city! But not really a big city. More like small rural cities! I just got that song stuck in my head.  Eastern Washington has been a hotspot for COVID due to essential workers (we have Del Monte, Lamb Weston, Tyson... to name a few big food places). Naturally, we are still in a modified Phase 1 of the 6 phase opening process. Phase 1.5 is what we call it here. Restaurants are allowed a certain percent capacity, but only outdoor seating. Today, I finally remembered to call and make a reservation as the limited seating is very popular! We also have money to eat out this month, so we found ourselves celebrating. The boys loved it, and so did we. P.S. those Little People books with a ton of flaps and imagery are the most perfect "waiting" quiet time - keep to yourself - item for babies to R's age.  Plus, today it was only 82 degrees today versus the 100+ series we've had. Our air conditioning broke during the heat waves this year! If you know me, 81 deg

Thank the heavens for command hooks! Whenever we move to a new apartment, those bare walls cause such a dilemma. It’s too much effort to hang things (and clean up after holes etc. after the fact) when we are not sure if we are staying at a specific apartment. At the same time, boring!  So was the story here. But after being at home and covid really shutting us in, I broke out the Velcro command hooks and holy lanta do those things hold, lol! I had some in the last place we lived and they came off clean as well! I really do think hanging things helps places to look like home. If the place isn’t the same, at least your walls and environment are.  While down in Sacramento with family, my Mom had some curtains that didn’t work out for her, so she gave them to us.  It all started with hanging those curtains, and the rest of the living space took off. I’m currently painting some veggies for the blank space above the dining table. Most everything is printmaking and watercolor from my college