Home- I Love This Place

Our home isn't the nicest on the block. It's not even the 11th nicest home on the block. It's what some people would call basic. It's brown and pretty beat up.  The driveway is cracked and uneven. The yard is more weeds than grass. The kitchen cabinets are peeling. We don't even own the home, we rent it. BUT it's our home and I love this place.

I've tried hard to make it a home full of noise and love and fun and comfort and acceptance and safety.  I've also tried to make it a place where my kids want to be.  I hope it is a reflection of our values, our whole tidy up, but don't worry if it's spotless or if you spill something,play and enjoy life,eat meals together as often as you can, a little friendly competition is a good thing but dude cheer each other on, paint something/write something/play something, it's okay to fight or disagree but talk it out and then go jump on the trampoline together kind of values/vibes.

I took some pictures with my fancy new-ish camera this past weekend of our basic home and some ways we like to hang out there that don't involve phones, iPads or video games (even though we have those in our home too and the struggle is still real to get my kids to not be obsessed with them):

Breakfast on our beloved front porch.

Dogs have become essential to making our home our home. Rufus and Cosi are part of the family. You can never be lonely (or sad for too long) with these two pups around.

The trampoline is new to us and the kids are loving it.

My friend is moving to England and asked if I wanted her trampoline, Foosball table and air hockey table.  I went to take a look at them in her house and said "oh my gosh, yes thank you I love them and you and ahhhhhh!"  

Here's the thing, they looked a lot smaller in her very big, nice house. We got them to our basic much smaller house and Tim was not digging the idea at first.  But I convinced him that the kids are only young once and we needed to have a Foosball table instead of a dining table or space because it's way more fun.  He reluctantly agreed and we pushed our dining table to the corner and set up the awesome Foosball table.  The kids play it all.the.time.

A little air hockey before bedtime is always a good idea. We found a corner in the boys' room for the air hockey table.

Lunch on our beloved front porch.

One of our favorite card games is Five Crowns. 

Rummikub is one of our all time favorite games, we've loved it for a few years now.

Sometimes some of us just want to lay around and not play anything and that's cool here too. That's a quilt that my grandmother made a long time ago, I love that my kids now use it.

Santa brought the family a ping pong table for Christmas last year and we crammed it into our unfinished basic basement.

I mean, there's no way the kids can be bored here right? I always keep board games out and at the ready for whenever someone wants to play.

I like how colorful the board games and even their boxes are.

Our basic home with it's lack of nice furniture and pretty lackadaisical cleaning schedule and emphasis on playing around isn't for everyone.  But it suits us, it's why we love this place.

Check out some other pictures I've taken 

with my Fancy New Camera:

Belle Isle With My Fancy New Camera

Baseball and My Fancy Camera 
Pure Michigan With My Fancy New Camera 
Everyday Kind of Small Town Family Fun w/My Fancy New Camera

The Zoo With My Fancy New Camera