Blogaroni and Dees

swinging into garage sale weekend

2012-01-06T23:58:00.002-06:00

this morning i had a MOPS steering meeting, then we gallavanted all over town picking up plastic utility tables from our friends who were willing to let us borrow them for a garage sale. woo-hoo! it's good to have friends with tables!

after we picked up M from school, we headed out to Landa and Papa's house so the kids could vacay there for the weekend.

mama and daddy have a garage sale to manage. yay!

on our way to get M, i had to giggle at rosie's 'skinny jeans'. poor tiny thing can't even fill them out the way she's supposed to. :0)

i promised the kiddos a treat on the way out, so we stopped at a gas station for goodies. we had to wait a few minutes on the grandparents to get home, so we played outside in the sunshine and ate.

tried to get a good picture of the sweet littles, but the cards were stacked against me. :0)

then when they got home, we moved the party to the backyard. i knew traffic wouldn't be my friend anyway, so i stuck around and snapped. :0)

stinkerman was trying to kick me. notice his two different shoes! couldn't talk him out of it.

bless my kids' hearts...they just love having pictures made. haha!

had to document stu. he ate skittles on the way here, and when we arrived he was coated from head to toe in skittle-dyed sticky slobber. can you tell he was loving it?!

sticky fingers.

pretty rosie!

that boy loves his landa. :0)

i left finally, sat in traffic, brought home a romantic whataburger dinner for J and i, then we set out pricing and organizing the sale in the garage. (i kid about dinner...but it was really kind of nice! when the kids are gone, we usually eat out. but it was a little sweet to be at our table together alone. and since we don't eat out much anymore, the food was a treat!)

this sale is going to be so fun, i think! it's not all spread out yet like it will be on the driveway in the AM, but it looks so great so far. everything is organized like a department store, and everything is up on tables since we have so many. so i think it'll look nice! and it really wasn't that much effort. i'd been collecting stuff in the garage for months, so all we had to do was price it (made easier with pre-printed stickers) and group it. i hope it'll be good!

of garage sales, teenage museums & twilight windows

2012-01-05T23:31:00.001-06:00

today after school, we went to my daddy's so i could go through 'my room' and collect stuff for a garage sale we're having this weekend.

'my room' is the room i grew up in in our house, and it pretty much looks the same as the way i left it on november 16, 2001, the day before we got married. except the center of it is filled to the gills with furniture and boxes of stuff we don't use or need.

my sweet, long-suffering daddy. he's lived there 10+ years now without all that space to use! haha! i love him so. :0)

so i was able to let the kids roam free and play with grandpa and barbara while i sorted through boxes and collected things for the sale. gosh, there's so much stuff! but the job went a lot smoother with my built-in babysitters. :0)

i couldn't help but get nostalgic while i was working. so many memories in that room! it's like an adolescent museum! not many kids' childhood rooms are still intact. it's as if time froze there. i love it. i'm so grateful i was able to keep it that way.

the afternoon sunlight coming in was so pretty, too. beams coming in on my cluttered dresser...

(which, for the record, was never that cluttered when i was growing up. it's become sort of a dumping ground this past decade.)

that photo on the right? my dance team photo for senior year.

the framed white thing with corsage on the left? that's the corsage J gave me at our junior prom when he was my date. and the framed paper is a poem he wrote me about us growing up together. he gave it to me when he brought me back home after prom. that's our picture from when he picked me up in front of our house in the bottom right of the frame. it's all been there since the day after our prom. so april or may of 1993. i'm so thankful he got me a silk flower corsage. it never died! :0) so prophetic, really...that's the only silk one i ever received. any other one from any other boy was real flowers that eventually died.

that yarn braided head hanging on wall to the left? my mother's mother made that for me when i was a little girl to hang my bows on. M fell in love with it, and she brought it home tonight. it caused me to recall how crafty my grandmother was. always knitting, crocheting or crafting something. and she sent me her works all the time. so it's no wonder i love to make things!

the lovely white dresser? from the white canopy bedroom suite many, many little girls of the late 70s and 80s had. :0) i hope to one day put it in an entry way or use in the girls' room.

when i made it around to the closet, i could not resist spending time with my dance team uniforms. i knew it was time to introduce my girls to these...

oh, the sacred pom-poms. and oh, how they loved them!! made my heart so happy.

i worked until dinner time, and J joined us about that time since he works nearby. daddy and barbara ordered pizzas, and we all sat together in the formal dining room and ate, talked and laughed. the dining room windows were open, with curtains now sheer--a new barbara touch! i've always loved sheers!

i couldn't stop looking toward the window. i've always had a thing for passing homes in the twilight and being able to see into the house with their lights through the open windows. always a bonus when you can see the families interacting, too!

it made my heart happy tonight that we were one of those homes. we rarely used that dining room growing up since there were only three of us, but i always, always longed to use it. so it was special for all of us to be in there together tonight. anyone who passed by would see a happy family like i like to see.

i couldn't help but think that it would be ours sometime soon. i cannot wait to have people over in that same room, and perhaps at the same table. nothing's more meaningful to me than a house full of people, food and laughter. that spirit lingers on long after the company has left. i can't wait.

i love my family!

new year, new way of doing things

2012-01-03T20:01:00.001-06:00

today was M's first day back at school after the holiday. time to get back in the swing of things!

i was so proud this morning. for some reason, the first day back after a break, it feels like we're starting all over again. like i'd had two weeks to unlearn all the old habits and bad practices i'd let us get into prior. so this morning, i got everyone up about 15 minutes earlier than we used to before break, and our morning went so much incredibly smoother than normal. no yelling, no annoyances. we had fun together, and there was even margin left for free time and snuggles when they were needed. so i'd say this year is already off to a great start. time to start new practices and better habits. so we'll be getting up those 15 minutes earlier every day!

after we picked up M from school, we went straight to the park. it was such a beautiful day! i'm loving our mild winter to far! usually we're cooped up because it's too cold to be outside.

i love the faces and expressions this spinning cup elicits! it gets going so fast!

always amazed at how adventurous they are...

what a blessing to have time to go do this. i had a blast watching my babies run free. and i was awash with appreciation for my husband and for what he allows me to do. i texted him almost in tears, sending him a picture of our children having fun outside, and thanking him for the privilege of being home with them to witness every second of their lives.

oh, how i enjoy being a mother. i could not love these children more. thank You, God, for this glorious day!

lots to do on january two!

2012-01-02T22:46:00.001-06:00

today daddy had to go back to work after his glorious two-week Christmas vacation. boo hiss! :0) but seriously, we love, love, love being a public school family...all the vacations we get together are marvelous!

so to take our minds off of daddy being gone, and to celebrate having one more day together with M before she goes back to school tomorrow, we had a day of fun. we blew off naptime and had lunch at the mall. then we rode the carousel with my three 'free ride' coupons i'd been collecting. then we played at the play area!

ok, so it was a feat just to get all three in one place. so i can overlook the fact that they're not all looking at the camera or smiling. haha!

i couldn't get over how cute stu looked. and how big! he's beginning to change a little and look more grown up!

then after all this, we went home, changed clothes, packed up and went swimming! and the best part...since there were no swim classes for the holiday, we got to swim longer! they had extended open swim hours for us since nothing else was going on in the pool. lucky us!

we also ran into mrs. moreland and her children, as well as miss patricia from our church's childrens' department. both of whom my children happen to love! miss pat even left her cardio machine to come talk to us as we walked in. and she made it a point to come to the pool to see the moreland kids and us before she left the gym. we love miss pat and the whole childrens' staff at our church! they are so caring and loving, even outside of the church building. it gave me a new appreciation for them all. she didn't have to take time to come see us. but it was meaningful to me, and the children felt very important and loved, too.

we came home and made some nachos for dinner. which is always a favorite for my little people! and daddy came home fairly early, too (or 'on time', i suppose is better put). which he tends to do on his first days back. :0)

needless to say, everyone went to bed easily tonight. what an excellent day!

december daily 2011: as the sun sets on 2011...

2011-12-31T21:59:00.002-06:00

when we went to pick up the babies from their grandmother's today, we surprised them and brought their new bikes with them so we could go to their local park for a family bike ride!

in addition to my many photo quirks, i have an affinity for pictures of J putting helmets on. i have no idea why...

i could not keep my eyes off stu tonight! oh my word, he was so incredibly cute! he took to his bike right away. he was rarin' to go. he took right off without the rest of us before the girls could get on their bikes.

i wish i had videotaped him. he was adorable. the way he just zoomed off, and the cute way he 'pedals'! big strides. so confident! he does a great job balancing his bike, and there are times when he has both feet up briefly and still keeps the bike up. this special training bike without training wheels is really working, i think!

our first little collision. we hadn't gotten very far. i can't imagine it'll be our last. :0) rosie had some hesitations braking on her bike. we'll have to work on it.

stu would get pretty far ahead of us, turn his head back to us and call, 'follow me, guys!' oh, how i love that sweet boy.

rosie hung back most of the time. i stayed back with her while my adventurous ones forged ahead.

our first bridge! going up was fine, going back down was a different story. :0) we really will have to work on braking.

then it was run time while J loaded the bikes. we rode around till it was almost dark! the sunset was incredibly beautiful.

my heart in thirds...all running in a row. :0)

have i mentioned how pretty the sunset was?!

none of us were really ready to go home. we had such a good time! i pray this is the first of many bicycling adventures for us. i know it was special to J, as he grew up cycling and racing with his family for many years.

i just love how our children prefer being outdoors and active above anything else they could choose to do. and i love having margin in our life as a family to be able to go out and do fun things like this as we please. i need to be more intentional about protecting our time in this way.

God is good. today was a perfect day to end 2011 on. i find myself not quite ready to leave the comfort and familiarity of this year, but i suppose i have no choice. on to 2012!

last hurrah of 2011

2011-12-30T23:24:00.000-06:00

today we took the gang out to J's mom's so we could have a night out. when we got into their town, we met them for pizza at napoli's, our favorite independent pizza place!

i love, love, love small town decorations at Christmas!

a nativity scene. on city property.

LOVE. IT.

stu loved it, too. i was afraid he'd knock something down! haha!

when we got back to landa & po-po's house, it was so beautiful outside that we played out back.

i love these three happy sweethearts!

stu's graduating to the big boy swing.

after we left, we ran some errands and then met up with nikki and thomas in rockwall for dinner at their saltgrass steakhouse. so fun to double-date and hang out without kids! we could actually finish conversations!

J and i ran some more errands after that, then we tried to go watch the MMA bout at a local wing bar. but the crowd was much too large. so we ended up at starbuck's instead, where we read and talked.

i love time with my man, even if it's out marking things off my to-do list!

picture-perfect great-grandparents

2011-12-29T20:50:00.000-06:00

today, J and i had dental appointments back to back, but we met up in between so i could take the kiddos out to take pictures with mamaw, papaw and their other great-granddaughter makenzie. that was such a great idea! i'm so glad mamaw set that all up for them.

it went great, except for stu crying and wanting to sit on my lap in the beginning. except i was dressed in jeans and not in the photos. haha! luckily the photographer introduced him to a stuffed animal fox that made him all better. he didn't want to leave it behind, poor guy!

and a huge nod to J--i went to the dentist first, which meant he was left alone to get three picky, grouchy, opinionated kids photo-shoot ready. he's completely capable, and he did great, but i still feel bad. :0)

everyone looked so nice! after we were done taking photos, i took the kids outside for a bit to run off some energy while mamaw ordered her pictures.

in hindsight, i'm really bummed i didn't put a black bow in rosie's hair instead. the white one stands out too much, and it's too bow-cluttered with the one on the front of her dress. oh well. something tells me mamaw doesn't much care? :0)

stu's jacket. swoon.

afterward, mamaw and papaw took us to dinner at grandy's. i haven't been there in forever, and i was so pleased to see that it hasn't changed much! it's just like it was when we used to eat there all the time as a little girl. my daddy loves that place, and he and i have been there a lot together. and when i was a little girl, it was a frequent friday night eating-out place for my family!

the food was so good, especially the rolls, but the company was even better. we love our mamaw and papaw!

dream houses

2011-12-28T16:18:00.005-06:00

today was such a fun day. a nice departure from all the holiday madness! :0)

this morning, i got the chance to have a meeting for our church's womens' ministry. a few weeks ago, i was selected as one of the five ladies on our womens' ministry events team, and i am so honored! we will serve a three-year term. i don't know any of these ladies on the team very well, so i was just tickled at the chance to meet them all! we sat down over coffee at starbucks, and the weather was so sunny and perfect. it was lovely sitting there with the sun streaming in around steaming cups!

our group is so fun. we're a dynamic bunch! or maybe just loud and talkative! LOL. but i guess those are good qualities in an events team.

we came up with one idea after another. it was great fun to plan and dream. and recently i've been praying a lot about my participation on the team. oddly enough, i've been feeling like maybe i made a mistake. i've been doing events for so many years, do i really have anything else to contribute? i was afraid i'd get there and not have any input. but boy was i wrong. God answered my prayers in a big way. in fact, i was afraid that maybe i talked a little too much! but my ideas seemed to be respected, and in fact our first event of the new year is going to be one of the ones i contributed. it's just a simple 'mug & muffins' gathering, just like we used to do back in college in campus crusade for Christ.

at times i found myself opening my mouth to make contributions i hadn't ever thought of before! i left feeling so excited. i haven't felt used by the Lord in such a way in a long time. this is going to be a great year for the women in our church. lots of fun events, lots of service too. i can't wait to see what God does among us!

i had to leave a bit early so J could go to a funeral for one of his colleagues. on my way home, my daddy called. he doesn't usually call just to chat, so i figured immediately that something might be up. and indeed it was. he called to tell me he'd asked his girlfriend barbara to marry him! i'm so happy for him! they are for sure having an actual wedding, but the details aren't set yet.

and quite possibly the best news of all--for me--he is giving us his house once he and barbara move. what a huge honor! it is such a wonderful thing to get to live in the house you grew up in, i've always thought. i've always wanted to do it.

i just feel so incredibly blessed. to be able to move back to our hometown and be closer to all of our family and our schools and jobs. amazing. wonderful!

thank you so much, my sweet daddy. there isn't a daughter out there as loved and cared for as yours. :0)

we'll definitely have more space. we're moving from a two-bedroom to a three-bedroom. big living room, dining room, and a much larger kitchen. two patios. huge front and back yard. master bedroom big enough to put a lovely sitting area in.

i'm just so excited!

the thing that thrills me the most (besides a big beautiful yard to dig in and landscape!), is all of the space the children will have. now their toys can go in their rooms instead of in the living room.

the first thing i thought of was M. for the last year or so she's been dreaming of getting one of these:

ahh, yes...every girl's dream. the barbie dream house.

and now we just might have the capacity to give her one.

that may be the first housewarming gift we get for ourselves! :0)

december daily 2011: happy birthday to us!

2011-12-26T21:59:00.001-06:00

one of these days i'm going to post the entire long, drawn-out story so i can just re-post it on this day each year.

but at least it's a fun one to tell! :0)

J and i were born today in the same year.

in the same hospital.

two hours apart. (sorry, mama landa, that you got the rougher birth story between our moms! haha!)

our hospital-issued baby photos have serial numbers in the top corner. ours are consecutive.

how fun is that?!

we met in fifth grade, hated each other through middle school, pretended we didn't love each other in high school but went out as friends on occasion, remained close friends through college, then ended up dating when we were well out of college and into careers. we got engaged six months after beginning our courtship, and were married six months later. because when you know, you just know. :0)

that's our story in a nutshell, but there's so much more to tell. but alas, another time.

J spent the day at his dad's house doing some work for him all day and into the evening with eric. so it was me and the littles all day. they were so sweet--they sang 'happy birthday' to me all day! then there were tons of facebook well-wishes to read and reply to. that started last night, and it's one of my very favorite things about my birthday now! i try to give a personal reply to every single one. i got several sweet phone messages, too.

the kids and i had a semi-grouchy day for some reason, honestly. i think it was mainly being tired out from Christmas. we stayed in all day in our jammies and played with all of our new toys.

M complained of not feeling well most of the day, and this evening she really amped up--crying that her ear, head, throat and neck were hurting. i discovered she had a fever, so i had to call J to see what he wanted me to do. he quickly left his dad's to come take her to our local after-hours clinic. i felt so badly pulling him away from the work he wanted to do for his dad, but the alternative of taking all three kiddos to the germy doctor's office in the evening wasn't appealing to either of us.

turns out our sweet girl has strep. she's been complaining of her neck and head hurting for the last few days, so now i feel badly. i have no idea how long she's been really sick! i'm hopeful she didn't pass anything to anyone over Christmas. but it's just not until our kids get really down and have an actual fever that i really begin to believe something's wrong.

J took her to braum's while her antibiotic was being filled at the pharmacy. i kept the littles up a bit past bedtime so they could see them when they got back home. they were sad that they didn't see J much all day. sometimes staying up a little late is warranted. :0)

so for the next few days we'll be taking care of our sweet firstborn. this is not how i planned our vacation, but i'm thrilled that this week is pretty open for us and the busyness of Christmas is behind us! i'm looking forward to a wonderful week.

december daily 2011: stolen moments with stu

2011-12-26T07:08:00.001-06:00

Christmas night, after everyone had gone and the babies were being bathed, i found myself with nothing to do for a moment, so i sat down on my bed. it felt so nice to relax and be alone! which is unlike me...normally, i have to be with other people.

stu wandered in shortly thereafter, and he climbed up on the bed with me. i'll never forget that precious, quiet moment with my boy. i snuggled him close for a long time. and he let me. in all his freshly bathed, little-boy-jammy-clad sweetness.

i realized i'd not gotten to really see much of him over the last few days with all of the activities and family we had going on. i laughed to myself when i jokingly thought, "i'm tired of sharing my boy. now he's all mine again!"

and of course, i had to whip out my camera and snap a shot. :0)

i love my sweet boy. and our big ol' crazy, wonderful family.

december daily 2011: Christmas with Papaw Dees & Uncle Eric

2011-12-25T21:39:00.001-06:00

after Mamaw's, we came home for naps and i cleaned up a bit. Christmas night we had our last celebration, with papaw dees and uncle eric!

rosie and J having a cuddly moment opening up papaw dees' gifts.

uncle eric got the kids headlamps. they loved them! they had them on all night! now we just have to hope no one blinds anyone else. haha!

uncle eric so graciously put together the girls' baby doll pack & plays.

i giggled at sleepy stu hidden down there on the floor playing among the mess! love the glow of the tree.

he loved the police car papaw dees got him! looks like the barbie car might be in trouble with the law. haha!

stu hamming it up with papaw dees.

we had such a nice time! J made sausage gravy and rice, which i thought was crazy weird, but he assured me this was a staple dish they ate growing up. no one complained, so i guess it was ok! :0) it was actually pretty good. i had to seize the opportunity for my favorite, biscuits and gravy, so i made myself late to the dinner table by deciding to make scratch biscuits at the last minute. it's becoming an addiction for me! haha!

eric got J and i some great new music. now we're ready for a roadtrip here in the near future! haha! and papaw dees got us some awesome new equipment for our glocks. i can't wait to try it out!

thank you, guys!

what a great Christmas this has been. we are beyond blessed!

december daily 2011: Christmas at Mamaw's

2011-12-25T14:20:00.002-06:00

a very special Christmas tradition: Christmas morning at Mamaw and Papaw's house!

J's family has been doing this since he was a little boy, so it is such an honor to continue the tradition with our children. we get up and go there as soon as we're done opening our family presents.

stu was so cute when we got there...insistent that he use the spiderman umbrella he asked santa for! he'd been talking about wanting one for months.

and quite possibly the best thing about Christmas morning at Mamaw's, aside from the company...

...Mamaw's breakfast. i LOVE mexican breakfast! her salsa is my favorite! i ate till i was stuffed.

the lovely Christmas tree before mass chaos ensued...

the vultures were gathering. haha!

so excited about the microscope tia glory bought us! i can't wait to share my love of biology with my children.

toy story character flashlights. these kids haven't put them down even after we got home!

mamaw helping rosie put on her snazzy new purple boots.

i couldn't help myself. a series of photos i caught of stu and papaw playing with grabbers. :0)

my heart just delights in the way stu loves his papaw! i think it's mutual!

stu loved toting around his new rolling lightning mcqueen suitcase.

our full day catching up with M.

...and stu.

(i cannot tell you how much i love watching him lay down and play with cars.)

such a fun, fun day! but still more to come!

thank you so much, jacinto family, for spoiling us as usual.

december daily 2011: Christmas with Grandpa

2011-12-24T23:45:00.000-06:00

after church, daddy and barbara took us to red lobster for dinner. and then they came home with us and gave us tons of presents! not a bad deal! haha!

barbara ordered us a bavarian cream cake from swiss colony. i was so tickled. no one's ever mail-ordered food for me before! i love gifts like that. and it was so delicious!

the girls got their purple unicorn pillow pets they've always wanted. they didn't leave their sides the rest of the night!

i realized this year that we might encounter something i've never considered: one sibling always opening a gift first, thereby revealing what the other two are getting before they even open it. i'm an only child myself, so this hasn't ever entered my mind.

J and i got to see one of our favorite comedy writers, seth myers, on tv one night this week, and he and his brother told hilarious stories of Christmases where they'd play a game with each other trying to open gifts faster than the other and yelling out what it is to spoil it for the other one. we laughed so hard listening to them talk, but it wasn't until this year that i considered our own children may end up in the same boat! :0)

grandpa was definitely the hero of the night. :0)

i don't know what time we finally got the kiddos to bed, but it was late. they were wired! and they had no idea what they were in for...this was only the first of three more Christmas celebrations to come! haha!

daddy and his babies (and all their new pillow pets!) before bed. getting ready to settle down for their long winter's nap.

J and i didn't have to stay up too late wrapping gifts tonight. he'd already put the kids' bikes together earlier in the week, so that shaved a lot off of our to-do list. i had to prepare a couple of dishes for our other celebrations with family, so i got that done, too. i'm sure we won't skate by and have it this good every year. my guess is gifts are going to get more complicated as the children grow up, and we'll have to spend more and more time assembling them!

but for now, merry Christmas to all, and to all a good night!

december daily 2011: the best Christmas pageant ever

2011-12-24T22:42:00.002-06:00

M performed in her first Christmas program at church on Christmas Eve!

our church has two special Christmas services on Christmas Eve: a high-energy, kid-friendly service for children in the afternoon, and a more formal candlelight service in the evening. she had the chance to be in the childrens' nativity scene last year, but she politely declined. :) this year she had the chance to sing in the kids' choir, and i was so happy she wanted to do it!

before the show with her oldest best church buddy, caroline. i have a feeling God has a lifelong friendship in store for these two! they're a hoot together. and they could totally run the world. haha!

my big girl.

love her cute style!

our worship center stage before the show. it is so lovely each Christmas!

proud daddy before the service.

the kids' choir takes the stage.

and M on the end. doesn't she look enthused?!

had to throw this one in. i love catching random kids doing goofy stuff in our pictures!

J moved up closer to the stage, and M finally saw him. you can see it in her face. :0)

another bonus shot. love the girl's face on the right! :0)

stu kept himself occupied with some friends in the next row.

the best part...the four year-olds in the live nativity scene! i wonder if rosie will be in this picture next Christmas? :0)

it's become a tradition at our childrens' service...glow sticks at the end instead of candles!

this year we were also given red gift bags as we walked in. we couldn't open them till we were told at the very end, but inside we found party hats and noisemakers. confetti fell from the ceiling, and we had a big time celebrating Jesus' birth!

what an absolutely wonderful time to be in church...the day of Christ's coming to earth. and this year was so special to me; all the grandparents were together under one roof. i love my little family!

december daily 2011: deck the {church} halls

2011-12-23T13:25:00.001-06:00

i just love our church all decorated for Christmas!

big tree that's always in the main foyer right as you walk in.

information desk all pretty. our Advent sermon series this year was 'gate 25: anticipating God's on-time arrival this Christmas', so a lot of the decor around the church looked like airport signage. our creative team is awesome!

and if anyone's interested, you can find all of our pastor's 2011 sermons here:

http://www.pantego.org/spanclass5ConnectingbrbResourcesbspan/2011SermonSeries/tabid/536/Default.aspx

the rest of the upstairs lobby. (it was dark, cold and a little gloomy this day.)

our stage had the same airport signage, lots of decorated Christmas trees, clusters of pretty poinsettias, our Advent candelabra, and piles of vintage luggage.

it's always one of the things i anticipate most each year...how will the ladies of our church decorate next?! the sunday after Thanksgiving, after the last service of the day, all women of the church are invited to have lunch and work on the Christmas decor for the Advent season. i've not ever been able to make it to one yet. but hopefully next year!

december daily 2011: looking at lights

2011-12-23T07:05:00.003-06:00

last night J surprised us and took us out to look at Christmas lights! he took us to interlochen, a hoity-toity neighborhood near us that usually goes all-out each year with their displays. the crowds get so huge--the lines are normally hours long. and i've never, ever been before! such a treat to check off something on my list of must-do things! :0) it's been a local tradition for decades now, and i can't believe i'm just now going.

we waited in line a long time--almost two hours--even though we got there right about the start time. we'd gone to the starbucks drive-through prior to going, and we were early at that point. then M went and got a peppermint disc lodged in her throat, so J had to scramble to the back of the car to help her with that. which in turn made us later than we wanted to be. it was so scary feeling helpless while he helped her grapple with the mint, but in the end she was just fine. we continued to the light display because she told us she felt fine and we felt like she was ok, too.

poor kids...we had to wait in line to get in so long that only stu saw the whole thing. rosie saw about half of it, and M fell asleep very early on.

right before we got into the neighborhood, we'd been sitting still in traffic for some time. rosie announced she had to go to the bathroom. so J took both girls and they walked to the park next to us and used the porta-potties there. i was so nervous they wouldn't make it back in time! but all was well. J had to scoop them up and run with them briefly, so he was a tad tired. haha!

it was a fun night. kids in their jammies, (me in my jammies, for that matter!), yummy coffee, Christmas tunes, and pretty yards to look at.

though some of the displays were spectacular, i've gotta say that i'm just as happy driving around my own nearby neighborhoods looking at lights. i'm easy to please!

it's usually our tradition to go to the 'prairie lights' drive-through light display on the lake in our home town of grand prairie, but this year we went this route because it's free. prairie lights is $20 a car now.

when we got home, M began to cry when she realized she'd missed the lights. it tore me apart to see her so genuinely sad! we'll have to make it up to her later this break.

our poor kiddos...we're lucky they were jammy-clad and ready for bed. i think it was almost midnight when we got them in bed! but fun memories for sure.

december daily 2011: time out for fun

2011-12-22T23:13:00.000-06:00

ok, today i began feeling the crunch. so what did i do? took the kids out for some fun. haha!

J wasn't feeling well; he's had congestion in his chest for some time now. so i left him home to rest. i took the kiddos to run some errands. we stopped at taco cabana for lunch--their request!

my kids can rock some tortillas and queso.

we needed to go some other places, but nicole had opened her home for a few hours for cookies and coffee to anyone who wanted to drop by. how could we say no to that?!

she may need to make this a tradition. it was such a sweet time! we got to see all nine of her trees in her house, and she fixed me a cup of coffee and presented it to me like this:

so fancy! i love it when it's time to pull out the special dishes!

leigh ann, a friend of mine from elementary school, dropped by too, so it was great to see her and her two girls. i haven't seen her in forever!

i think one of the reasons i loved this afternoon so much was because it reminded me of the open houses that are so popular in wisconsin and michigan where my mother's family is from. whenever there's a big event like a graduation or holiday, people will host an open house party at their home. a few hours for guests to come and go for refreshments and visiting. it's such a sweet tradition that i wish we did more here! it's true the south is known for its hospitality, but they know how to be gracious up north, too. :0)

i left nicole's with a full heart. it was just what i needed to re-focus. i was beginning to stress out about Christmas prep, but being there with friends put things in perspective for me. i need to take time to enjoy the season and take it all in! so though i didn't get a lot done today, i still felt great.

then tonight, stu got a fresh haircut for Christmas. here are my handsome guys!

december daily 2011: tree's finally up!

2011-12-21T21:36:00.003-06:00

we're a little late, but today was the day!

J finally put the Christmas tree up!

(we had a nice day in our jammies, so the kids had some interesting get-ups on while they decorated. but i love their spunky styles!)

and this year...stu's very first year at putting the star on the tree! we've begun the tradition of letting each child have a turn putting the star on each year, and it was his turn in the rotation. M will go next again next year since rosie did it last year. (i had to write that here so i'll remember for next year! it's a very important job to my girls. haha!)

once business was done, the boys of course had to clown around...
this is my favorite picture:

silly boys!

so tonight i am enjoying the lovely glow of the tree lights. it's my favorite sight of the season!

this year, we discovered most of our pre-lit white lights had burned out, so we thought we'd go with just colored lights. but it just wasn't the same for me. they were too dark. i needed my white/multi-colored combo! so my sweet J went out tonight in search of the impossible-to-find white lights. but after a couple of different stops, he finally found what we needed. and now our tree is complete!

december daily 2011: seeing santa & some friends

2011-12-20T22:15:00.000-06:00

we're a little late with everything Christmas this year for some reason. and oddly enough, i'm not stressed a bit about it! :0)

we finally made the trek today to go see santa. it was a pretty spontaneous decision on J's part. he just decided this morning that's what we were going to do!

we went to our favorite mall, the shops at willow bend in plano. it's so worth the drive! no traffic or crowds, and the santa is great.

it was a beautiful, sunny day!

my little tribe waiting in line. stu had a blast looking at all the other babies around him!

we got there much later than we wanted to, so the line was long. J got the kids some sonic to snack on for lunch.

finally it was our turn to go into the snow globe! that's another reason we love willow bend so much. getting to play in the falling snow is a blast!

while J paid for our pictures, the littles checked out the fountain.

bathroom break before we left. silly girls always want to sit in the toddler chair on the wall!

one of the highlights of our day? running into janet and greta! while we were in line, i decided to text her to see if there was a random chance she was there. and i'm so glad i did! they just so happened to be there! it was such a sweet surprise to get to spend a few minutes with her.

J paid me the sweetest compliment. he said as he watched us talk to each other, he thought we looked like we could be sisters! :0) love that. janet is beautiful!

then in the evening, more fun. we met the morrises and their boys at pizza inn for a buffet dinner! our kids had a blast at their own table.

lots of time-outs spent at our table ensued. :0) they were all so wired to see one another!

so happy to see so many friends on our break!

december daily 2011: daddy's in full nap mode

2011-12-18T13:08:00.000-06:00

have i mentioned how much i love Christmas break? especially when we have a whole week off before Christmas? it's only the first weekend of break, and daddy's already in nap mode. he's so good to oblige all of our picture taking! love that silly man. :0)

december daily: Home Group Christmas gathering 2011

2011-12-17T23:29:00.001-06:00

tonight was one of my favorite Christmas traditions: our church Home Group (or Sunday School) Christmas dinner!

this year it was held at our friends brooks & jackie's house, who have actually changed churches but still join us for home group when they can. i especially love having home group at their house because i know there's a great chance we're going to end up having a singalong! both she and brooks play piano and have led choirs for decades.

one of our other wonderful traditions is putting together gift baskets for the widows among our group. it's so fun to collect little gifts to put in them, and then all the home group ladies retreat after dinner to assemble them!

somehow i always end up stuffing the baskets and arranging the items inside. i guess J's eagle scout precision packing ways have rubbed off on me. :0)

elaine and brenda always wrap the baskets and make beautiful bows for them.

here we are in action.

and the finished products. so lovely! it is such a blessing to bless these special ladies in this way.

this year, it was just me and my girls. right before we were due to leave the house, we discovered stu had a fever. so he and J stayed home. i wasn't too worried about them, though--we'd cooked a pot roast in the crock pot earlier in the day, so i knew they were fed. :0)

the girls and i had fun eating brisket, yummy jalapeno tortilla rolls and artichoke dip among other things. and our area pastor's wife was there to visit at the ladies' table, and she was such a help to me feeding and entertaining my kids. i love sharing the fellowship of our group with our children!

then it was time to sing Christmas carols together, and that is just so special to me. the room was so softly lit, i had my girls snuggled up beside me, and the room was so full of love and Christian fellowship. so often i found myself just being quiet and taking it all in. observing. i've realized more and more since mother died that tomorrow is not promised. we never know what Christmas will be our last. so i want to enjoy each day to its fullest.

we have no idea what our group will look like this time next year; whether we'll all be present here anymore. so i will enjoy the time we do have together.

God has blessed us so much with these wonderful Godly people to do life with! our life wouldn't be nearly as full without this church family God has placed us in.

december daily: happy birthday, mamaw!

2011-12-17T08:01:00.001-06:00

today is a special day...it's J's grandmother, and our childrens' great-grandmother's birthday!

HAPPY BIRTHDAY, MAMAW!

for today's link on our Christmas countdown chain, M made this one special for the day.

balloons, a smiley face, her version of '17' for the date, and her attempt and writing 'mamaw!'

we hope you have a wonderful day, mamaw. we love you!

december daily: we made it!

2011-12-16T22:09:00.000-06:00

we reached it! finally! Christmas break is here!

we were up too late last night getting homemade goodies ready for J's office staff and for M's teachers and administrators, too. i've decided this may just be an annual ritual for us--busting our hineys the night before a break getting this done. note to self for future Christmases: do as much as i can to avoid this! it's so hard! :0) this year we made homemade chex mix. yum!

on our way to school this morning, a wonderful gift. the sun was out! we've had a long string of cloudy, rainy days. i was so happy to see some rays this morning! it was as if God was saying, "good job, R! you held on till friday, and here's your reward.'

after we went to M's school, we went to J's to see his faculty perform for the students. i thought rosie looked cute today! she made me excited for valentine's day to come. :0)

i know i say it all the time, but i just get beside myself with pride and love for my man when we get to see him in action at his school. here he is getting the program underway. i'm pretty sure the boy was born with a mic in his hand. he's so good before an audience!

and here he is headlining the last teacher-faculty skit of the show. he and some of the other male teachers/administrators performed 'run, run rudolph' like a rock band. i can't remember the artist. but they were great! a fun rock song for the kids. it's always so fun to see a group of big, grown men acting goofy to get some laughs and bring some joy to their students.
i was just flooded with pride and gratitude for all of the great faculty there at J's school and in public school in general. they have such hard, thankless, low-paying jobs, but what they do is so very important to the future of our world. what a blessing to have so many dedicated workers who choose not to give up on the system! we're so proud and honored to be in the trenches right along with them.

this evening, M had her first-ever birthday party for a classmate. and what a fun one! we went to one of our hometown's swimming pools, and it was a super-fun party.

the little girl's mom served good old fashioned nachos. as in liquid nacho cheese. yum!! a favorite guilty pleasure of mine.

there were several friends from her class there, and it was a joy for me to sit back and watch her interact with them outside of the classroom. she seems to be a well-liked, popular kid. love that! she's so social!

J swam with rosie and stu--it was a blessing that they were invited to come, too! i'd planned on swimming right along with my family, but J ended up giving me a huge gift by being in the pool with the kids. i ended up having lots of good chat time with some of the moms from M's class. i didn't expect to have such a great time! we had some good talks and i got to know these moms a lot better. it reminded me of why we chose public school in the first place: not to abandon it like so many of our Christian friends are doing by choosing trendy alternative forms of education, but to be active in it to bring Jesus to our circle of school influence. what a huge, incredible, privelege of a task! i was so grateful for the opportunity to get to know these ladies better. oh, how i pray for more opportunities to bond with them and build relationships with them!

this was a special party not only because it was M's first school one, but it was also for her very first school best friend's birthday. i remember my first school friends so fondly, and i have the honor of being friends with many of them still to this day. so it's fun for me to dream and pray about M's future friendships. that little girl's going to be a little dynamo for the Lord!

at first when we got the invitation to the party, i was a little leery about such a party on the evening of the last day of school before Christmas vacation. but it turned out to be so perfect! M had had a class party this afternoon, so she was beyond wired when she got home, as were the littles for some reason. so it ended up being the perfect way to end the school term. all of our kiddos were wiped out when we got home! so bedtime was a cinch!

our little Christmas vacation is shaping up quite nicely.

december daily: Polar Express Day

2011-12-15T12:10:00.001-06:00

we've been working on a school project for M the last couple of weeks. a cardboard box to decorate as a train car for their polar express parade!

today was polar express day at school, and M got to wear jammies. J bought them for her especially for the day. she was so excited! they are white flannel with pink and silver sparkly ballerinas printed on them.

the littles and i went up to school this morning to see the parade. what fun! so many creative children (or parents, in many of their cases. LOL! it's so obvious to see which ones moms and dads did)!

M chose a pink with purple polka dots theme. originally she wanted to make it look like a unicorn with purple spots, but J talked her out of it. so they went with this. she was so proud!

then rosie wore it out of school. :0) sweet middle child can't wait to start school herself!

we had fun seeing the parade, but it became deeper for me as i watched. tears filled my eyes. i felt so blessed to be home with my children. to be available every day so that i won't miss special events like this. i kept thanking God over and over again for the privilege to do this. this life does not even come close to working for us on paper. but we trust the Lord that this is His will for our family, so we have seen Him make it work in miraculous ways.

i kept thanking Him for directing J's heart this way as well. i know so many working mom friends who do it solely because their husbands want them to. i am so blessed that J recognizes God's direction this way in our life, and it pleases him a great deal to be able to work and give us this life.

this gal doesn't need anything for Christmas. i get my gift every single day mothering my children at home.

december daily: gifts from nature

2011-12-14T14:47:00.000-06:00

it's wednesday, december 14, and we're finally getting color in our neighborhood! i had to stop and take a few pictures when we brought M home from school.

our oranges, reds and yellows are so lovely. but they only last a couple of days.

it was just beginning to rain.

M modeling for me.

in a couple of days, our yard will be covered in layer after layer of leaves that we'll rake and jump in. it seems so odd to have fall color this close to Christmas. but i consider it a wonderful early Christmas gift! :0)

december daily: the best gift of all...and it's free

2011-12-13T08:53:00.001-06:00

we got the best gift ever sunday morning. M informed us over breakfast and our pre-church morning devotional that she had asked Jesus into her heart the night before just before she fell asleep. what joy! we have assurance now that our sweet firstborn will join us in heaven when the Lord calls her home, and she'll enjoy everlasting life in God's presence.

'But what does it say? “The Word is near you; it is in your mouth and in your heart,” that is, the word of faith we are proclaiming: That if you confess with your mouth, “Jesus is Lord,” and believe in your heart that God raised Him from the dead, you will be saved. For it is with your heart that you believe and are justified, and it is with your mouth that you confess and are saved.'
~Romans 10:8-10

then yesterday she drew us this picture. she told us it was her heart--what it looks like now with Jesus in it. :0)

sometime in march, our church will hold one of its bi-annual Baptism services. we do offer them individually all year round, outside in our Baptistry after our worship services each sunday, but these two special services each year are absolutely wonderful and inspriring. many of the people to be Baptized get interviewed on camera, and we get to see and hear glimpses of what God is doing in their lives. so perhaps M will join that service and be Baptized then. so far she's a little nervous about it. we'll see! we know that Baptism is purely symbolic and that the prayer she prayed was all that was necessary for her salvation, but we would just love for her to share in the experience.

we're just thrilled with the news. glory to God!

december daily: 'don we now our gay apparel'

2011-12-12T20:34:00.003-06:00

Today begins the last week of school of 2011. And it cannot come soon enough! Haha! For some reason I am exhausted this year. And I haven't even done any Christmas prep!

To celebrate, J's school is having dress-up days and special treats for faculty each day. Today is scarf day, and I just swooned over and over after he got dressed.

There is nothing I love more than a man in a sweater vest. Seriously.

Now, my man can dress. He's always been great and comfortable at dressing up. But, much to my chagrin, he is not a sweater man. But he humored me two years ago and let me dress him in this one to wear in our Christmas card.

That's probably the last time he wore it. So for him to pull it out again on his own free will was a Christmas miracle! :-)

Let's just say he doesn't feel at his most masculine while wearing it. Haha!

Silly boy...doing his best Flynn Rider smolder from the movie 'Tangled'. :-)

I'm not sure when I'll see the sweater again. But I'll enjoy it while I can! ;-)

december daily: tia betsy's ladies' Christmas brunch & dinner with friends

2011-12-12T11:21:00.002-06:00

it's an annual tradition. one of my very favorites!! J's aunt betsy's ladies' Christmas brunch! each year, she invites her friends, family, co-workers and church family to her house and puts on a huge delicious spread for a great morning of fellowship. there's nothing sweeter than a gathering of believing women! so much laughter and love.

the girls tinking around on her piano. i think M really woud like to learn how to play!

our sweet cousin liberty.

stu and liberty's brother landry.

my girls and i.

as always, it was just a lovely time. it's the one day a year when most of the ladies in J's family are together, and after so many years being there, i'm getting to know and look forward to seeing betsy's friends and church family as well.

J spent the morning running, then he went to mission arlington with the guys in his men's Bible study to deliver donated bicycles to low-income children for Christmas. how fun is that?! he had a wonderful time.

that afternoon, the littles napped and M and i made brownies from scratch. it was my first time to make them that way, and the recipe was insane! two sticks butter, 4 cups sugar, 4 eggs...man! but they were good.

when J got home, we went over to carollee's for dinner. she made an awesome chili and cornbread dinner, and our kids got to run and play all evening.

we drove up, and her beautiful decorated house took my breath away!

that family is such a blessing to us!

this day couldn't have gotten any better. we cherish time with our family and friends, especially during this special time of year.

december daily: Christmas spontanaeity

2011-12-11T09:03:00.002-06:00

friday afternoon when i picked M up from school, i had a couple of drive-through errands to run. we did that, then we made a sonic run for happy hour because i had a splitting headache and coke usually helps. i made the command decision to get an extra cherry coke and take it to J at his school.

it's always a hit or miss thing. sometimes he's available, a lot of times he's not. so it's a big gamble. but in this case, it was a gamble i'm glad i took!

we saw him in the office right when we walked in, and he wasn't occupied with a parent, student or meetings. so we were able to hang out and play in his office for a bit, and then he left on time with us to take us to dinner at don juan's! so fun!

it was such a wonderful treat to get to spend that time with him. we love that man!

on our way home, i drove the kids by what we call the "Christmas house" we pass by each day on the way to school. it was special this time because it was night time and all lit up!

we were thrilled to see 'our house' ablaze at night. this family goes all out--they begin decorating before TG, but they don't actually light it up till the day after.

though my personal Christmas decorating style is simple and understated, i am thankful for the 'griswold' types out there! my heart does delight in the gaudy decorations i see, even though it's not what i'd personally choose for myself. :0)

december daily: my grown-up Christmas list

2011-12-11T00:38:00.003-06:00

dear santa,

i know you're not real (though unlike many of our Christian friends, WE choose to embrace you with our children!), but if you were, here are the crazy, completely out-of-reach things i'd tell you i wanted. :0)

-enough money to pay off our debts and buy a cute little older modest ranch-style in north grand prairie. go big or go home, right?!

-plane tickets to visit carolyn and sarah in florida and my mother's family in michigan and wisconsin whenever we want to.

-the cheapest thing on this ridiculous list: a DSLR camera. i know, i know...i always said i'd never get one. my point & shoot takes great, wonderful pictures!! i love it and have always been pleased with it. but now the DSLR would be even more useful for catching better pictures of J during his races. i don't even care if it's canon or nikon. i don't know enough about cameras to know a difference. but i know it takes much faster pictures, which is perfect for all these fast people in this little family! haha!

so my list is short this year, but i make up for that in expense, don't i?! :0) it's fun to pipe dream. :0)

love,
R

december daily: deck the tables

2011-12-10T13:30:00.001-06:00

Yesterday was our last MOPS meeting of 2011, and as Hospitality Chair I decided to make it extra festive by having some of our moms decorate our tables for Christmas. I had the privilege of decorating three. What fun!! I have more tableware than I thought! And J hasn't even gotten our Christmas decor down from the attic yet, so it was a really fun challenge for me to see what I could pull together from our everyday things. Bring it on! :-)

Our speakers were all moms from our group talking about a variety of holiday topics from floral arranging, local events, shopping deals, to fun family tradition ideas. It was such a great meeting!

Here's a little glimpse of my creations:

This one might be my favorite. Truly pulled together at the last minute, we ended up calling it the 'natural table'. :-)

The center was a fake wreath with mason jars at different heights with votives lit inside. I tied jute twine bows around each jar. I thought it was cute! I wish I'd gotten a good picture of just that. I may totally use it again at home. The candles in the glass jars were so pretty!

My settings. I had to alternate because almost none of my sets are complete. These are placemats my mom gave me from a trip to SC. They're special to me because they have pineapples on the other side, a symbol of hospitality. They came with the legend on a piece of paper, and she said she bought them for that reason for me. So I treasure them. To be thought of as hospitable is wonderful! One day, I'd love to decorate a kitchen in pineapples. :-)

The plate is my mother's mother's Depression glass. The saucer and cup are our everyday china.

And here are the reverse settings. These placemats are our everydays. We registered for them as wedding gifts. :-)

Another very special table.

This centerpiece is a premiere!! I've never used it before. The tea pot is my mother's mother's. The cups, saucers and red cups were recently passed down to me by J's mom. They were given to her by her grandmother, Mama Ninfa.

I think the little tea lights in the red cups are so lovely!

What's fun about the rose china is that I already have some from my mom. What a treasure to have two sets of pieces from two lines of our families!

These settings I bought when I was a single career girl living in Dallas. It's one of the few complete sets I have.

This table features the candleabra that we had our unity candles in at our wedding. I swiped the red berry garland from some autumn decor we already had. A fun, surpisingly cute touch! The china is my daddy's mother's, who M is named after.

On the outset I was just decorating tables. But I was taken a little off guard at how sacred it all became to me. How much history and legacy is contained in an ordinary set of dishes. Something so functional and pedestrian.

But not to me.

It almost took my breath away at the privilege of having all these pieces in my possession as I unwrapped and set them. That our families have entrusted me with them. Rest assured, dear family. They are in very good hands. And I appreciate them more than you know.

It was also a bit of a grieving time. To think that I have all of these pieces from all of the wonderful women in my family line who have gone before me.

All in the same room.

Decorating the same function.

But none of them here anymore to be with me in person.

What an incredible daydream imagining them all there with me at that brunch. The thought takes my breath away.

But that was just not meant to be for me, and that's ok. I trust the Lord's plan.

I'll just have to wait for heaven.

We may not use these dishes, but what a banquet it will be. All these special ladies...

...and me.

december daily: singing stu

2011-12-10T07:52:00.000-06:00

Stu is cracking me up this year! He's at such a fun age where he gets Christmas now. He's really impressing me with his Christmas song skills, too. He loves singing them! Of course, any normal 2 1/2 year-old doesn't get every lyric correct. But that just makes him all the more adorable. :-)

A couple of my personal favorites right now:

'Jingle bells, jingle bells
Jingle all the waaaay.
So much fun
It is to ride
In a one-horse oafen sway-HAY!'

Although, just this week his sisters hammered him about singing it correctly, and it finally took. But I will forever miss his original version.

And...

'We miss you a meh-wee Cwissmas,
We miss you a meh-wee Cwissmas,
And a happy New Yee-ah'

Sweet boy. Always music to my ears, correct or not. :-)

2011 garden in review

2011-12-09T17:23:00.001-06:00

this was a tough gardening year for me. i pretty much spent the year in trial-and-error, trying different plants in pots to see what i could keep alive. turns out, not much. haha! the summer was just absolutely brutal. we even lost the side holly bush we'd grown to really love.

my greatest accomplishment? getting a few little things to grow from seed. it's my goal in life one day to grow mainly from seed. to me, it's like mastering baking from scratch.

i loved these beautiful zinnias!

these have never been my favorite flower, but after seeing them thrive all over the place locally this summer, i'm a convert! i'll definitely plant these along the small side beds of the house when it's time. i was so excited that these grew despite my not planting them at the right time of year. it was bittersweet, though. i waited much too late to plant them, so they weren't around very long for us to enjoy. our first freeze pretty much wiped them out. and these are so fun because you don't know what color you're getting until they bloom.

i planted a couple of knockout rose bushes that are faring ok. i'm not sure what the cold is going to do to them. one of them is looking better than the other.

i planted a few mums in the ground, and after a few freezes now they're not looking so good either. but maybe it's time for me to cut them back until their season returns? i may try it and see how that works. what's puzzling is that i have a mum from last year under the covered patio in a pot that's taking off again. i wonder what accounts for the difference?

my japanese fern made it through the summer, but it was a complete miracle resurrection! it looked completely dead. hoping it fares well through the winter.

i planted a hosta in the front yard, and so far it's looking a little sad, too.

what i'm excited about is this recent discovery:

a little sprout coming up in the pot i'd planted a failed attempt at carnation seeds in! but it looks like i may get one after all! the leaves look like carnation leaves, i think. but we'll see! hopefully i can baby this one through the winter and coax it to stay alive.

i'd bought some viola seeds to try in the front beds this winter. i'd read that they're pansy-hardy but fuller and more colorful. but i didn't get the seeds planted. i assume now it's too cold in the ground.

my next step is to pull out the warm weather annuals that have kicked the bucket to clean up the beds, then plant some pansies and dusty miller. i want to re-mulch, too. time to tidy the beds up for winter!

i can't lie, though...i'm already thinking ahead to spring planting!

december daily: the warmth of the season

2011-12-08T22:20:00.004-06:00

my girls are so funny. they know how to travel in the cold weather! their winter coats are too big for their carseats, so we often just pile blankets on them in the car. this year, they had the great idea to put their princess snuggies in the car to wear while we're on the go! :0)

rosie was all snuggly warm on our way home from the MOPS brunch on the 2nd.

december daily: brunch is my love language

2011-12-07T21:11:00.001-06:00

friday, december 2, my Mothers of Preschoolers chapter held its annual Steering Team Christmas Party! one of our veteran Steering moms, Heather, hosted a lovely brunch at her new house this year.

i love her new house! it's in an older part of our town, which is exactly the type of neighborhood i want to live in. long ranch-style one-stories, classic custom home styling, and lots and lots of trees!

her breakfast nook window was so unique and pretty!

super-cute coffee spread

her spread. oh my stars. so good! i still think about her quiche. the swiss cheese in it was delicious! i'd never think to pair it with eggs and ham.

look at these plates. at first glance, i thought they were a classic lenox china pattern. but they were plastic! genius. i've never seen anything like them! gotta love costco.

i can't believe i didn't take any pictures of us. or the favors she gave each of us--pound cake baked in a mason jar! so cute and yummy!

this year, rather than our typical ornament or gift card exchange, we had the brilliant idea of doing a freezer meal exchange! all of us brought a frozen dish and the recipe card, and we picked cards and 'stole' them just like a regular white elephant party. so fun! i had to giggle to myself thinking what a 'woman' thing this was to do at a party. i don't even feel like a grown-up! when did i get here?! haha! but i left with lots of new meal ideas.

we picked up our kids, and rosie wanted her picture taken. sure thing, sweet girl!

belly covered in stickers. :0) she's in a growth spurt these days. she recently moved up to a 3T pant. she's getting so pretty!

then she asked to take some pictures, and she got this one of stu. pretty good!

i love ladies brunches. but Christmas ladies' brunches are pretty much heaven to me!

if you give a boy some sandwich supplies...

2011-12-07T14:18:00.002-06:00

we came home from Bible study today, and i began making our lunch. i wanted a sandwich. stu wanted to help. so i put out all the supplies and let him make it for me.

here's what happens when you let your 2 1/2 year-old son make your lunch. :0)

if you turn your back, he'll eat it. :0)

when did my boy get SO BIG?!

so i put out another set of supplies so he could make one that was actually for me. here's how it turned out:

love that sneaky little turkey!

december daily: frozen assets

2011-12-06T15:59:00.002-06:00

we're keeping Christmas low-key around here. i'm trying to keep lots of margin in our days, and i'm keeping my expectations and to-do list low. i want to focus on fun and making memories.

one of the things i've been doing is getting my children involved in the kitchen. and i've been making a lot of cookies, etc., for no reason other than simply getting them in there with me! i've been making a lot of new recipes just to try them, and i'm also doubling lots of things so i can freeze them to have onhand throughout this season. it's working beautifully!

i began this process back in mid-november. this is planning ahead that's lots of fun!

this is going to be a delicious Christmas. :0)

december daily: hometown holiday

2011-12-05T13:02:00.005-06:00

we had our hometown's annual Christmas tree lighting on thursday, december 1! we were blessed to be able to meet J for dinner at our favorite hometown place, don juan's, then we headed over to city hall for the festivities.

M took a picture of us. not bad! but it was crazy-humid, and my hair was a wreck. but it's been awhile since we were together in a shot.

after the lighting, the crowd took a 'santa stroll' to the farmer's market where our school children sang some songs and we awaited santa's arrival. the lights were so pretty!

pretty silver decorations hangning.

i love the market square water tower!

waiting for santa...love my little tribe.

santa arrived in an antique fire truck. it was our town's first-ever firetruck! stu was loving it.

i love this picture of little man. he's so still in awe of the truck and santa, but it's blurry with people moving around him.
each elementary school in the district had a tree to decorate, and we stopped to see J's campus and M's campus trees.

i just adore our main street, so i snapped lots of pictures of it all decorated.

love the fonts on our antique store's windows.

a shop that's been in our town forever. pretty lights!

rosie in front of the antique store. it was so funny--M noticed right away that the penguin painted in the window had both a mouth and a beak! none of us even caught it! sharp girl. :0)

one of our pretty office buildings. there's a great coffee shop on the first floor!

the courtyard of that same building.

i love my hometown and all of the fun stuff there is to look forward to each holiday! such a blessing to share this all with my children.

december daily 4: a running start to Christmas

2011-12-04T23:36:00.005-06:00

I've come to terms with the fact that I'll probably never be in church for our first Advent Sunday. This is the second year in a row my honey decided to run the Dallas White Rock Marathon, and it always falls on the same Sunday.

We left the house around 5am, and the race began at 8. I spent those pre-dawn hours waiting it out in our nice warm car. :-) I couldn't see anything from where I was, but I knew the action had begun once the helicopters started circling overhead.

We can always anticipate this race being cold, but this year it was also miserably wet! It has been raining here for days.

It was so fun having so many friends running this year! It gave me lots of people to watch and cheer for at the finish. One girl we know bowed out completely due to the weather!

When I did finally venture out, what to my wondering eyes did appear but FAIR FOOD!

The race is held on the Texas State Fair grounds, and the food is legendary. What a fun surprise to be able to eat it even though the Fair closed for the year in October!

I also found the World Vision warming hut, which is where J based at. He ran with a team from our church that was raising money to provide clean water in Africa. J raised about $200 without really trying. I'm so proud of him for running with a purpose! And he looked hot in his orange WV running jersey, too. ;-)

Then I found it. The highlight of my day. My reward for standing out in the cold rain for 7 or so hours.

The famous Tx State Fair Fletcher's corny dog!!!

MY medal. On a stick.

At 9am.

Texas icons. The Cotton Bowl and the Texas Star ferris wheel.

Fair Park decorated for Christmas.

Once again, thankful J forced me to buy these ugly black snow boots in Michigan last year! They're not pretty, but boy did my feet stay warm and dry! (Note to self: I should probably invest in a {tasteful} pair of skinny jeans if I plan to rock these all winter Ha!.)

Drill team position, for old time's sake. :0)

Before we left this morning, my honey made me a nice hot thermos of coffee. So while I waited in the car, I had a lovely little time in the Word. (The Bible study we were covering this morning in church.) Love my thoughtful man!

Dreary, gray Dallas skyline. Though it was cold for the runners, it actually wasn't too bad for us spectators. I didn't need my coat. My fleece jacket, scarf and gloves sufficed. Maybe it's my tough Swedish heritage that makes me able to stand the cold more. Or maybe it was all of us specatators packed in like sardines watching the finishers! Haha!

So far, this was my least favorite finish line. It seemed much shorter than last year, so those of us watching had to pack in deeper. Which was not fun when you factor in all of our umbrellas, etc. Note to self, though: next time it looks like I'm going to be watching J in a rainy race, I'll go the raincoat route rather than umbrella. I'm just too short for it. I had people tell me that they couldn't see over my umbrella. I'm 5' tall, people! Seriously?!

I had a pretty good view until the very end. A couple of taller people moved in next to me, and they were hanging over the rails which blocked my view. (Did I gripe at them? No!) So I missed J's coming around the final curve toward the finish line. Which is my favorite thing ever. That's my perfect time to take lots of photos of him. And I missed it. I didn't actually see him until he was right in front of me. So it was hard to juggle a camera while waving, jumping up and down and cheering.

And when I finally did get my camera out, it totally failed me. I was so sad! It wouldn't open at all.

But later tonight when I uploaded my photos, I realized that I actually did get one shot.

Behold, my love's shoes headed toward the finish line...

I've never been so thankful for the paid race photographers onhand in my life!

All of that aside, I'm so proud of my man. I was laughing today thinking about how much collective time I'll likely spend in my life waiting for him at finish lines, but it's so incredibly worth it. It never, ever gets old!!

december daily 3: Christmas countdown chain

2011-12-03T13:21:00.004-06:00

this morning, M and i found ourselves with the whole house to just she and i. when i picked her up from school yesterday, she was complaining of not feeling well, pale and almost in tears. then she threw up in our car JUST as i was pulling into the driveway. (rats! missed it by seconds. haha!)

turned out she had a good 101+ temp, and she spent the evening laying on the couch. she never got sick again, but her fever stayed. shortly before bed she ate a good bit and perked up a lot. her color came back, which made me feel better. by morning she was good as new.

the bad news was she had to miss 'breakfast with santa' at J's school this morning. he took rosie and stu since they were well. so while they were gone, i got a few quick chores done while M watched a movie, then i let her set our agenda. it came as no shock that she chose crafting!

we sat at the kitchen table and colored, cut and glued for a long time. she was so impressive--she planned things out by sketching first, then she set out cutting and gluing things together. she made J a really neat sun-type craft for Christmas. it's big. i have no idea how we're going to wrap it. but i know he's going to love it!

after that, we made the Christmas countdown chain we're a few days late on!

we decided we'd number each link, which M did all by herself, and we made a special link for mamaw's birthday in mid-december. we extended the chain to the 26th and M made a fun link for me and J's birthday that day. she was so proud of her work and so excited to see the chain get longer! she cut the red strips out herself, and i cut the green ones.

i love crafting with my girl!

december daily 2: school Christmas store

2011-12-02T14:06:00.000-06:00

i had a full-circle moment this week. a time-honored tradition passed down from one generation to the next...i had a child visit her school's Christmas gift store for the very first time!

with M starting school, i often wondered if she'd get to experience it like i did as a child. i wasn't sure if schools did that fundraiser anymore. so when the note came home the week prior, i was tickled! i have such fond memories of going when i was a schoolgirl.

i wondered if M would be the same way i was...and she was very, very close to it! when i was a little girl, i'd either give my mom her gift as soon as i hit the car after school, or i'd at least spill the beans right away. or i'd get home, wrap the gifts and hide them, and then a few minutes later make my parents open them because i couldn't handle the suspense.

M didn't give us our gifts. she didn't even mention it until i asked her if she had fun shopping on the way home from school. it was at that point that she wanted to tell us, but i made her keep it to herself. so she gave us 'hints' anyway. hints that pretty much told us what we were getting! :0) when we got home, i had to get the bag of gifts out of her backpack (without looking at them) and hide them so she wouldn't go get them and give them to us. and she hasn't mentioned them yet!

i remember only one thing i bought at the school gift store as a child. it was a big gold necklace for my mom with a heart-shaped slide on it. it hooked in the front behind the heart charm. classic me: my mother doesn't even like hearts. i got it for her purely because i liked it. :0) and i don't think it ever even made it to her jewelry box. i'm pretty sure i made it mine. haha! but my sweet mom was always giving and unselfish that way.

it is such a joy to see my children grow up and enjoy the same fun traditions and rites of passage that we did! and to teach them the spirit of giving. God gave us some wonderful children!

december daily 1: ramblings of a mother's heart

2011-12-01T06:55:00.003-06:00

Welcome to December Daily 2011! I first saw this concept from my friend and college discipler Kim a few years back, and it's become one of those traditions I really look forward to at Christmas! Each day this month, my goal is to post the holiday memories we made that particular day and to share favorite traditions and memories from years past. And also fun favorite things of the season just to keep things light and for posterity. My desire is that my children would have a written account of who I was--even down to the trivial. :)

I am so exited for Christmas this year. Stu is at an age now where he gets it, so now our whole little family is in synch and ready to celebrate.

Now more than ever, especially with Stu's being more mature, my hope is that I would be able to impress upon my children the true meaning of Christmas. This is the first year that all of my babies are on the same page, though at different levels of understanding. So it's a delicate balance. And I really want to go beyond the fisher price plastic nativity and the chocolate advent calendar. So this has become an inimidating task for me.

Yes, it's a sweet story that a baby was born in a stable, and stars and wise men and angels and gifts, but how do you effectively weave in sin and our need for a Savior to little ones 6, 4 and 2? I just want to effectively connect the dots for them.

I'm not sure. Just things to ponder. And perhaps this is a yearly process. A journey. A build-up as the children grow and mature each year.

And what a great exercise this will be for me. As I wrestle and pray through these things, I know God is going to do some mighty teaching and fine-tuning of my own mothering and faith. Motherhood is so sanctifying!

I just know that these years are so crucial. I must make good use of every opportunity. These are just the prayers of my mother's heart this season...that I would be obedient and attune to however God would choose to manifest Himself through me to my children.

To 'make ready a people (or in my case, three children) prepared for the Lord'. Luke 1:17. And my mothering mission statement in general.

Merry Christmas, y'all!! May God manifest Himself in your life this season as well.

the best-laid plans

2011-10-10T23:22:00.001-05:00

today was a pretty ordinary day. M went to school; the babies and i hung out at home recouping and trying to re-group and clean up after a fun-filled three-day weekend. we'd had plans to go to a playdate this morning, but rosie actually woke with a teeny temperature, so the day took a different turn.

that ended up working well, though. things are a mess here after our busy weekend, and the littles needed some extra rest and downtime.

after we got M into school, rosie requested her picture be taken. and you know i jump at that chance! :0)

my sweet baby girl is in a constant growth spurt these days, and she's getting so big and grown-up looking!

then stu surprised me and asked me to take his picture, too.

i was sort of dreading our evening; J was to be away until after the childrens' bedtime. but his plans took a different turn as well, and he ended up back at home with us a few minutes after he left!

it was such a welcome change of plans all around. we had a lovely little evening at home all together. things were unusually peaceful around here, and we relished it. while J was getting kids ready for bed individually, i had the other two playing in stu's crib with a quilt over it like a tent. they had flashlights, too, and they were having a ball! i don't know why i never thought to do that before.

sometimes the best days are born from fallen-through plans!

sunday celebration

2011-10-09T23:41:00.003-05:00

today was a bit busy, but it was so fun! church in the morning, a stop at a friend's house to drop off some buckets of white garden rocks we're giving her (which i'm SO glad to finally have found a home for!), then landa and po-po stopped by to bring us some furniture we're so excited about, then it was PARTY TIME!

we got to help jillian celebrate her sixth birthday! her actual birthday is the 17th, which was the day our doctor tried to induce M and the day she was due! but M ended up not coming until five days later.

these two friends have a special birthday-week bond. we're so thankful the Lord allowed carollee and jason to adopt sweet jilli!

the party was at asi gymnastics, which is always a favorite for our babies. we giggled at them in line--look at the stairsteps we have!

i couldn't help but think of the von trapp family!

of course, rosie was in high mommy mode. :)

M swinging above the foam pit! neither rosie nor stu did this, but they did hop in from the side.

is there anything more fun than the parachute?!

our happy friend!

stu and his cake. on the way there, he kept telling us he wanted his own cake. i guess he's finally getting tired of sharing with us at parties! my boy is wising up.

you can always count on him to find balloons to play with.

our present. i love to wrap and make pretty bows!

sam was her party leader, and we've had him as party leader at nikki's boys' parties at the rockwall location, too. he's so fun! he decided to wear my bow on his head once jilli opened the gift.

we're so thankful for a day of fun worship, family and celebrating friends!

MOPS and mini-pumpkins

2011-10-07T21:03:00.002-05:00

today was such a fun, busy day! we started off with a MOPS steering team meeting for me. stu wasn't so thrilled, however. even on the way there he was teary saying 'mommy, i don't want to go to mops' in his most pitiful voice. and when i dropped him off at his class, he cried and clung to me. so weird! it is so out of character for him to act like that. but i was told it didn't last long. he calmed down within minutes of me leaving him.

after our meeting, which was so productive for such a short amount of time, a big group of us went to a nearby popeye's chicken that has a huge indoor play area for our kids to play. we love it there because it's spacious and there's almost always no one else there. so it's easy to keep track of our kids and keep them safe.

i'm all for unplanned fellowship! :0) it was a nice cap to a nice meeting.

by the time we left, naptime was blown out of the water, so we just came home and played for a bit. when it was time to go get sister from school, my littles were worn slap out. :0)

i had to snap a shot of rosie and all her stuff. passed out cold! haha!

after we got M back from school, i decided to be extremely daring and take all three to the grocery store. i had things i needed to get, and getting out to the store over the weekend wasn't at all appealing to me. so i ripped the proverbial band-aid and got it done this afternoon! and i have to be honest...it's a nice feeling to have it out of the way for the weekend!

at first the kids weren't thrilled about going, but when i let them pick out their own mini-pumpkins, their attitudes suddenly changed. :0)

play day

2011-10-06T22:53:00.002-05:00

today we got to do our first playdate with nikki since our oldest kiddos started school! what a surreal experience! it was such a calm day by comparison. things are much quieter when we just have our littles!

we met our buddies at galleria. we met earlier than normal and had to leave earlier than normal, too, so we could go back and pick up our 'oldests'. and actually, that was kind of nice! things weren't as crowded that way.

the galleria had the ice rink all decked out for the big tu-OU game this weekend. the dees family says 'boomer sooner'! :0)

the babies loved looking down at it!

we got back to M's school in plenty of time. we were able to go play at the playground until she was released!

i was so shocked that my littles would climb up this 6-7 foot slide. and they actually slid down without hesitation! amazing to me!

there's no way you could get me up that thing. :0)

i think stu may have loved the steps more than anything...

how does our garden grow? time will tell...

2011-10-05T21:19:00.003-05:00

the weather has been so beautiful lately, especially in the mornings when we take M to school. for the last several days, we've been playing outside as soon as we get home from her school, not even going back into the house till lunch time!

i've been using this outdoor playtime to work on my flower bed.

it doesn't look great by any means, but i'm just so glad to have it started! i've been wanting to get this planted for years now! :0)

we planted two knockout roses in the back (i wanted more, but there are a lot of water pipes and electric lines to avoid in the same area. so that is a challenge to work around.), then three mums, then two lantanas on the outer corners. we'll see how it goes! my green thumbs are crossed! haha.

then we worked on sweeping our porch. it was covered in leaves! rosie loves to help. she even swept our neighbors porch! sweet girl.

i did some cleaning up in the backyard, and rosie and stu wanted to plant in the flower pots they painted this spring. i had some leftover zinnia seeds, so they each planted one.

i love this picture. it's so fun to roll up our sleeves and have some good, not-so-clean fun! it's so good for my uptight soul. :0)

warmie round-up

2011-10-04T23:42:00.002-05:00

today we stayed home and got some stuff done. mainly, dragging out the winter clothes tubs to see what still fits and what needs to be replaced. doing this always, always makes me feel good about myself. i love planning ahead, but i rarely get it executed in my head. i don't like to be surprised at the beginning of a new season and end up scrambling to get the children what they need.

i am so grateful. it made my day. rosie and stu's coats will work for them for another winter! and rosie's was a hand-me-down anyway, so it's a double-blessing to be able to use it again for another season when it didn't cost us anything to begin with! she was so excited, too. she loves it!

i found a nice coat at wal-mart last week that i think i'll get M. it's only about $25, and it looks so warm! and the most important part: it comes in pink. :0)

stu became attached to his coat, and he wore it for the better part of the afternoon. silly boy!

he proceeded to play the day away in it.

i watched him play cars for a long time. he's fascinating! :0)

i got all of rosie's clothes tried on her. note to self for future seasons: pop in a movie, and she's pretty compliant. haha!

stu, on the other hand, only made it through his shirts before he melted down. i still have all of his long pants to go with him. :0) but we're doing good. he should only need a few more long-sleeved tops and a couple of sweatshirts or fleece tops to get him through the winter!

taking care of my family is one of my favorite things to do.

"She is not afraid of the snow for her household,
for all her household are clothed with scarlet."~Proverbs 31:21

old-school sammy

2011-10-04T22:04:00.002-05:00

confession.

my new obsession...

we recently introduced our children to the simple, elemental beauty that is the bologna and (processed) cheese sandwich!

i don't know why i never did before. i think now that i'm an adult, i have this stigma associated with it that it's unhealthy. i always buy deli lunchmeat and cheeses instead. but i grew up on these, and they're just as good to me now as they were when i was a kid!

it's also helpful on our budget. for obvious reasons, it's super-cheap! haha!

the best part: sticking chips into my sandwich. i don't know who introduced me to this concept. i think it was an elementary school teacher i had at some point, but i can't remember who. but i do know this: i'm inexplicably addicted! it's so good! i think it's a texture thing for me...i love the crunch. :0) i've passed this trick on to my girls, too.

later this year, i'll be hitting that birthday that tips me closer to forty than thirty. i have to do what i can to feel young! haha!

of portraits, witches & hot cocoa

2011-10-03T23:21:00.001-05:00

the girls were coloring after school today, and M created this awesome piece. i overheard the following conversation:

rosie: i love your picture! is that a witch?
M: NO! it's MOMMY!

wow. i wasn't sure how to take that! haha!

and in other news, i had my first cup of hot cocoa tonight. it felt a little chilly, so i went for it! haha!

J threw this mug for me way back before we were married. it was in winter of 2001, i think. he came up to my office and brought me a starbucks caramel macchiato in it. it might have been february back when his school district took a week off in february and april instead of a traditional march spring break?

at any rate, i love it. it's one of my favorites. and i'm so glad to be busting out the cocoa again! :0)

unloading a cough and a truckload of pumpkins

2011-10-02T21:05:00.001-05:00

we had a lovely morning in sunday school today, but we decided to skip big church because i still could not stop coughing. so on our way home, after a quick stop to sam's, J dropped me off at our doctor's few-hour sunday clinic. (what a hint! haha!)

i really did need to go; i've been coughing for about two weeks now. but i'm such a man when it comes to these things. i do not want to go unless it's absolutely necessary, and now that our co-pay has gone up to $45, i reeeally don't want to go! haha!

for the last couple of years i've had adult-onset, allergy related asthma. a few times a year i'll get to where my throat constricts a little bit from the allergies, and there's a perpetual tickle that only coughing will relieve. but that only lasts for a few seconds. so i keep coughing. usually my inhaler will take care of it.

at times i do get short of breath, and that's when it gets scary to me. and again usually, the inhaler will take care of it, but it seems like annually in april and october i get in a bout with it where the inhaler just isn't strong enough. so to the doc i go.

luckily, i get the same treatment most times, and it's effective within an hour or two. i get a steroid shot and a z-pack antibiotic usually, but this time this doctor gave me a cough medicine and additional steroid pills as well. so i'm happy i went to see him!

it took things a little longer to kick in this time around, but i do feel much better.

when i was done at his office, i walked out the door to wait for J to drive around to get me. (he'd driven through the adjacent mcdonald's, and he and the kids had lunch in the car under a tree. it was such a nice day!)

while i waited, i saw the most welcome sight! is there any better harbinger of fall?!

the adjacent methodist church was out unloading their pumpkins for their annual pumpkin patch! it's a tradition here in our area! i think it's common for methodist churches to do this as a youth missions fundraiser. one of my sisters' husbands is a methodist youth pastor, and i know this is a big deal to their church each year. it's such a neat thing! and this particular church near us does such a nice job with it. so many photo ops and a really fun time! i'm looking forward to getting my littles out there again this year.

it reinforced my need to get well sooner. there are so many fun fall activities i don't want to miss out on! :0)

bouncing into october 2011

2011-10-01T23:31:00.002-05:00

one of the great things about texas...we get to celebrate october 1 outdoors!

we made plans to go to carol & jason's for dinner, and the water was too cool to swim tonight. so they aired up their little backyard bounce house instead! how cool is that?! now our kids think we need one. i told them maybe it would fit in grandpa's backyard, but no way in the one we're at! haha!

happy girls!

silly kids...going down the slide face first. M now has a scraped chin to show for it! thankfully, she's ok. and of course, that didn't stop her!

you can see, most of my pictures turned out to be blurry action shots. these kids don't stay still, and it was twilight so the lighting wasn't great.

love my little man in his mizzou jersey! that one's for you, uncle eric!

all the kids dressed themselves. check out rosie's get-up...halloween-colored stretchy pants, her slip showing outside like a skirt, and the new halloween t-shirt mama landa got her on top! i crack up each year at how my kids latch on to their holiday t-shirts.

but she was so proud of her ensemble! i could tell she felt sassy. :0)

action shot again. so blurry!
she about broke my heart as we were getting ready to go in. the kids had played even after it had gotten dark. carol had been pushing her on the swing, but she had to go do something. for a long time i could see rosie just sitting on the swing and didn't think anything of it. when we were ready to go in, we called her to come, and she came walking toward us slowly and crying. when we asked what was wrong, she said in a soft, sad whimper: 'i was waiting for somebody to come push me, but no one came'.

tear my heart out.

there's something just to tragic and painful to me when rosie gets hurt or disappointed. i can't describe it. it just hurts me to the core. i almost cried myself.

so J scooped her up, held her tight and walked her slowly toward the swing. he gently put her up on the swing, and he pushed her on it while the rest of us got ready to go in.

isn't that just like a daddy to swoop in and make it all better?! i really love opportunities when we can change things for our children. when we can make things right in their worlds. to step in and be the hero. i know that as they get older those opportunities are going to get fewer and farther between, so i will seize them when i can.

steppin' out with my babies

2011-09-20T22:55:00.001-05:00

when daddy's away at Bible study, and mommy has chick-fil-a gift cards and free-ride coupons for the carousel, what does she do?

she heads to the mall for dinner and play with her sweeties!

my babies loved the night out.

rosie's getting better at looking at the camera for me instead of turning away!

after all that, we headed to the play area and played some energy out.

i'm so thankful for the gift of coupons and gift cards! it's a blessing for this tight-budgeted little family to get to get out and have some fun.

upwardly mobile

2011-09-19T22:45:00.004-05:00

the weather today was beautiful, so when we got home from school we just stayed outside and played! we were out even when J got home, and we continued to play even then. we didn't go in until about 8pm--past bedtime! and we hadn't even had dinner yet! :0) i always get so proud of myself when i can buck the schedule and just have fun.

when we play outside, the kids almost always end up in the back of daddy's truck. this time, though, all but stu climbed in all on their own! and he got much further than i would have guessed!

J got up in the attic for me to bring down our tubs of kids' winter outgrown clothes to prepare for the consignment sale later this week. and of course, my adventure-loving babies wanted in on the action.

when J was done, he let them all climb up the attic ladder one by one. i was amazed at them--no fear. they all climbed up completely on their own. i only went behind them to 'spot' them. i was a nervous wreck! haha! but i was just so proud of how brave they are.

M was so funny--the whole time she was reassuring me 'it's ok, mom. i'm ok. you don't have to worry!'

something tells me this isn't the first time i'm going to hear that reassurance from these little ones. :0)

sweet sunday

2011-09-18T21:15:00.004-05:00

this has been a lovely sunday! church, home for lunch, i had more time with J home so i was able to cook a big dinner, and the girls and i made chocolate cake and...

BUTTERCREAM ICING!

usually i make the kind that contains neither butter nor cream, but this time i tried a wilton recipe that has both butter and milk in it. i think it's my new favorite kind! we got fancy this time, too and did a two-layer cake with buttercream in the center. SO GOOD!

i love cooking with my girls and slow, family sundays.

'people run'

2011-09-08T21:28:00.002-05:00

this afternoon, M was working on some art after she finished her homework. i was amazed to find this:

a running picture for daddy! and she didn't even ask me for help spelling 'people run'! pretty good, if i do say so myself!

then she staged it and got it all ready for me to take official pictures of it. silly girl!

i bet this one's going on daddy's office wall for sure. :0)

funny man

2011-09-08T10:20:00.004-05:00

we've been having fun with stu at mealtimes the last couple of days!

the lighting at his end of the table at lunch yesterday was too good to pass up. :0)

whenever you see him with his brows furrowed and his lips puckered, he's 'giving you the smolder'. we have the famous scene in the the movie 'tangled' to thank for that!

then this morning at breakfast stu was hamming it up for us with his jam moustache.

...and the smolder!

love this kid.

he's a charmer and an entertainer for sure!

wordless wednesday

2011-09-07T23:07:00.001-05:00

on saturday, it was haircut day for daddy and stu again!

M's first teacher gift

2011-09-06T19:38:00.000-05:00

over our long labor day weekend, M worked each day on a little gift for her teacher:

she seriously pulled it out and worked on it a little each day beginning on friday!

so this morning, she asked me for a bag to put it in. not a grocery bag, she said. a gift bag.

which she decorated.

the bottom part made me giggle. she said she drew this to warn anyone who might want to steal it. haha!

had to throw in some pictures of miss rosie. she was looking soooo cute this morning!

even though, as krista later pointed out, she was wearing white after labor day. gasp! haha! i was willing to overlook it. anytime i can get my girls to remotely match, i consider it a victory. :0)
my sweet littles on this sunny, cool morning.

M's teacher told me this afternoon that she showed all the other teachers her gift and bragged about it. she said that kind of thing really is the best gift she could get!

love my little girl and her big, big heart.

on labor day, we work at having fun!

2011-09-05T22:06:00.000-05:00

it seems like this was our first fall-weather weekend of the season! we took full advantage today. we went to the park as soon as we were done with breakfast.

here we go again...me and my "walking ahead" pictures. :0)

love these little shadows. :0)

my sweet girls. before this, M helped hike rosie up there!

LOVE this photo. i'm going to crop it, make it black & white, and i'm going to hang it up with our summer photos next summer!

M loves to spin.

love this picture, too...my trio in the same frame!

the new play equipment is interesting!

can't believe how brave my babies are. rosie got up here all by herself!

daddy getting in on the act.

i got a chance to swing, too. i can't remember the last time i did that! here was my view.

i spent a lot of time just feeling the breeze and the warm sunshine, staring at this huge tree. and listening to it. is there a calmer, more serene sound than hundreds of leaves rustling? i love big trees!

i couldn't help but think of psalm 1:1-3

"Blessed is the man who does not walk in the counsel of the wicked or stand in the way of sinners or sit in the seat of mockers. But his delight is in the law of the LORD, and on His law he meditates day and night. He is like a tree planted by streams of water, which yields its fruit in season and whose leaf does not wither. Whatever he does prospers."

i recalled one time in college when a dear friend's (equally dear) mother told me at a party we were at that she would use that tree imagery in the verse to describe me. what an honor that was! it was quite possibly one of the most special things anyone has ever said to me. i'd never say she was right, but it is just so sweet to be thought of that way. :0) at any rate, to God be the glory! any good anyone sees in me is all Him.

J on swing duty. double duty, actually! he had both rosie and stu.

my sweet littles in pretty sunny backlighting.

at the park, i was thinking through my to-do list. i had a couple of stops to make at the mall, and i remembered we had chick-fil-a gift cards and carousel coupons, so J and i headed that way! who needs naptime anyway? haha!

my precious little family on the carousel.

stu giving his mama a wave.

mama sat it out. all the rotating makes me queasy! and check me out with no makeup and my hair not done. shameful! haha.

and after all that...it was time to hit the play area!

three-day weekends are the best!

putting the squeeze on this day

2011-09-04T22:30:00.001-05:00

today. was glorious!

woke up knowing the temps were significantly cooler. we've been expecting it this week. had J check his bedside table clock before we even got out of bed, and the outside temp read 75. inside it was 78 in our room. i cannot remember the last time the temp was higher inside here! love it!

got up to get ready for church, and the house smelled like the cinnamon cake i'd made the night before for sunday school. it was the perfect scent to wake up to!

when we finally made it outside to leave for church, i just stood there in the open garage and felt the lovely cooler air. on the way to church, i couldn't keep my eyes off our car temp reading as it dropped from 99 in our garage to about 82 outside. i have been giddy all day!

church was wonderful. M came with us to 'big church', and i was just so impressed with her bahavior. she's so still and quiet! the music was wonderful--there were twice as many people singing on stage as there usually are. the sound was so loud and beautiful--i thought the roof might blow off and the Lord might return right then and there! but alas, not time yet. :0) but i really enjoyed it. i almost couldn't keep it together it was so moving. and loud. just how i like it!

we came home and had a fun hodgepodge leftovers lunch. then we decided to blow off naptime and go SWIMMING! J came with us, and we had so much fun. since we were both there, we were able to take the kids to the deeper ends of the pool so they could practice swimming. the littles had fun jumping in to us!

we came home, had a cheap frozen pizza dinner, and just had the best evening together! no agenda. no plans.

while i made dinner, the kids ate a snack at the window so stu could look for 'the bad, bad wolf dog'. we had seen a couple of dogs in our neighborhood while we were leaving to go swimming, and somehow stu got it in his head that one of them was a 'wolf dog' even though he never actually saw them. haha! i just thought they looked so cute here. i couldn't help but take a picture. :0)

J set to work trying to fix my shark steam mop after dinner, and the kids watched tinkerbell.

then i brought in a huge box we recently acquired (more on that later), and the kids went to town playing in it! i knew they'd love it!

and then--about 30 minutes before bedtime--i let my children fingerpaint at their request.

stu loved squeezing out the paint himself and giggling at the 'toot' noises it made. :0)

rosie's creative hands

was it a huge mess? yes. did it delay bedtime a little bit? yes. was it completely out of character for me? definitely.

but i just chalked it up to squeezing every last bit of life out of this day that we could. :0)

one more day of our long weekend...can't wait to do the same thing tomorrow!

a sweet start to the three-day weekend

2011-09-02T14:08:00.001-05:00

i was worried about J this morning...he wasn't getting up at his normal time, and i was afraid he was going to be late for work! but turns out he had a late-morning meeting and was going in straight there, so he had the morning to spend with us before we had to take M to school!

these are my favorite mornings next to those where we all have nowhere to be. :0) he was with us for breakfast and even while the kids were getting ready to go. i love an extra set of helping hands!

the best part--he decided to follow us to school to take M! she felt so special to have daddy there!

oh my goodness...the littles were so hyper in the halls this morning! they were exicted to have J with us, too.

after we got M to her class, J still had some time left before he had to leave. so he took the littles and i for doughnuts at a nearby shop. i left my phone in the car, and i forgot my camera, so no photos. which is a bummer...sunny doughnut stores have such good lighting! ha!

as we were finishing up, the store owner came out from behind the counter and brought us a plate of assorted chocolate doughnut holes. yet another blessing for a morning already full of them!

today was a great start to the three-day weekend. i've been looking forward to it for some time now!

welcome

2011-09-01T12:09:00.003-05:00

i don't care if it's 200 degrees today.

it's september 1st...

...fall is officially welcome in this house. :0)

summer garden notes

2011-08-25T14:57:00.004-05:00

I love gardening. Or maybe more the idea of it? This summer I had especially bad luck. I tried several perennials, and I even tried many things from seed. But for some reason, it all went bust. It's easy to blame the weather. We've been well above 100* here in Texas for a near-record number of days, and our lack of rain has us at drought status.

I find myself looking forward to fall, especially for a fresh gardening start!

But as a mental note for next spring/summer, here's what I think I'm going to try. Based on what I see growing well here locally despite this oppressive heat!

Zinnias
I've never been a big fan, but they're so beautiful right now! Tall plants, and the multicolored pom pom flowers look so full. They remind me of hydrangeas or carnations when they're growing in large concentrations.

Sweet potato vine
I've always wanted to try this. Right now it's growing like crazy! It trails or mounds so beautifully. And it's so versatile--I love it among a variety of plants, but I think it's so so pretty by itself, too. The light bright green is my favorite! So cheerful! I wonder if you can start these from an actual sweet potato? Maybe I need to try it!

Lantana
This stuff grows and grows! It almost looks like a bush sometimes. The flowers are usually so plentiful. I got a few yellow plants toward the end of the summer, they died before I got them planted, but we cut them back and now a couple of them are coming back again. Hooray for second chances!

Knockout Roses
I've wanted to try these for ages, and I found some last month at Wal-Mart for $7 a plant! That's a steal! They were looking pretty droopy, so I guess that explains the price. :0) These are perennials, but I'm going to wait till it gets cooler to get mine in the ground so I can get them built up a little better before I transplant.

Come quickly, Fall! I'm antsy to get planting again!

miss arty-pants :0)

2011-08-24T18:25:00.002-05:00

tuesday while stu and rosie were painting, i sorted through some of the huge pile of kids' artwork i have accumulated on top of our craft cabinet. M is really getting good!

i've been torn for so long about artwork. i really want to keep it all; that's my nature. i treasure every little thing they create. but space is a commodity, so i've decided to maybe photograph all of it and only save the really, really special stuff. then maybe once a year i could go through it each year and cull it again.

or not. :0) i may not have the heart to cull anything!

here's her elmo.

i had to help her spell it on the back. :0)

this was the front of a card she drew.

this one i saved. it's a picture of me, and it says 'mamamamamamamama' across it. when i asked her about it, she said it depicts when she needs me and i'm not listening and she has to say 'MAMA! MAMA! MAMA!' all over again to get me to listen.

gulp...convicted! haha!

in this photo, she was teaching rosie how to draw the US and Texas flags.

she drew this great car!

she went through a house period. :0)

this one just makes me happy. :0) it kind of reminds me of caillou.

a butterfly!

love this flower she painted me.

practicing her letter 'J'!
love this one...a beach! she's always wanted to go visit a beach. i hope one day we can make that dream come true for her!

i love my little artist!

fun with my littles

2011-08-23T14:01:00.010-05:00

After we took M to school, I decided we'd go to the park! Our early mornings have been so pleasant lately!

Yesterday we just did errands. Today, it was time to enjoy my two littles. :) It's only two years or so until Rosie goes to school...I have to savor this time with my two babies!

Taking turns spinning. Rosie loves to go fast; Stu just prefers to go slowly.

So proud of my daredevils on the big slides.

We came home, ate lunch, then painted at Rosie's request.

Stu has an interesting technique. He doesn't actually paint, he picks at the watercolor disks till they come out and he plays with them in the water. He sat in my lap and worked so seriously. He even talked to himself the whole time!

I made him show me his hands. He was a big mess--concentrated watercolor all under his nails!

Toward the end Stu had begun putting paper napkin in the water, so things had gotten pretty soggy and yuck. When I decided it was time to clean up, the water was a murky mess and almost all the paints were gone in his tray. Though I have to admit, the colors that were left over turned out sort of pretty and Fall-ish!

It was interesting when we went to pick M up from school. When the littles told her we'd gone to the park, she was a wee bit upset. She wanted to stop and play on the way home, but by then the temps were close to 110. I'm so looking forward to Fall when the temps will permit on-the-way-home-from-school trips to the park!

where does the time go?

2011-08-22T14:15:00.001-05:00

one week old

for fun, i found this picture from M's first august 22. it was 2006, and she was exactly 10 months old. how funny that she already had school supplies on that day!

and today, my big girl began kindergarten...

sunday highs and lows

2011-08-21T23:30:00.002-05:00

we made it to church on time--for maybe the first time since we've had children--thanks to our getting up earlier to get ready for the school routine we've begun recently!

all three of my littles moved up in sunday school as part of our church's 'move-up sunday'. stu moved out of the nursery building and is now in the childrens' building! which means we all get to be in the same building during sunday school hour! no more dividing and conquering between two buildings for drop-offs!!

we were on time to sunday school class this morning, too.

thankful to be back into our sunday school routine, period. it's been three long weeks for me! the first week i was working in the nursery, and the two following weeks were 'summer break' weeks and none of the classes met. i rely heavily on my sunday school class...i love them and miss them terribly when we don't meet.

all three kids loved their new classes. M moved up to the kindergarten side of the building, and she's only in class for one hour. the second hour the kindergarteners are expected to begin going to church with their families. we've been prepping her for it, and she did great!

stu bounded in to his class even though it was new. he didn't look back. we weren't sure how it would go. he'd been having a rough time going to class beginning a few weeks ago all of a sudden. but i think maybe it's his being in childcare in that building for ladies' Bible study that helped him to be ready for the change today. he actually went running to that room's door instead of the one he needed to be at!

rosie enjoyed her class, too. no apprehension from her. i was a little anxious how my sweet tenderheart would do.

church service was wonderful. we began a new series on personal evangelism, and the teaching was great. it was a special blessing to have mamaw and papaw sitting with us, and landa and po-po came, too.

our annual commissioning of students, teachers and administrators was today, so it was very meaningful for us all to be together since J's family is deeply embedded in the education system. at the end of the service, all educators and students get to come to the altar and we pray a special prayer for them all. M wouldn't go up with everyone from our family. i was disappointed. sad that that photo op didn't happen, but oh well. :0) it's always a proud sunday for me--i am just so proud of my family's history of service and ministry in the public school system!

after church, we all went to el fenix for lunch. chips, tortillas, and tortilla soup. mmmmmmm!

the kids all did great at lunch! love how stu hams it up for everyone.

came home, got the littles ready for a nap, and M and i played battleship then colored while J napped. i let her pick the agenda. turns out the littles never went to sleep, so we all ventured out to run errands.

got some extra spending money when we sold some extra books and CDs to half price books! so proud of all of the kids' behavior. stu was so cute sitting on a stool 'reading' to us. :0)

frustrated at M's school. they are having color dress-up days all week this week, even tomorrow. don't they know tomorrow is a prime photo-taking day?! what if i don't want my baby in brown for her forever first day of school photo?! she only has one tank top with a little bit of brown in it, so we ran to a store to try to find something. she pitched a fit not wanting to wear what we liked, so she decided to wear the tank top outfit J picked yesterday. (with an unbottoned shirt on top.) totally not what i want her to be wearing in her first-day photos, but i am working hard to laugh it off and love her for being true to her own little personal style. haha!

mad that we wasted that time shopping. it made us get home later than i wanted to, which meant late dinner and late baths. didn't get the kids to bed until about 9:30, which for them is very late. spent the evening grouchy and mad at myself for not being in control of our schedule tonight. not how i want to spend my baby's night before school!

tomorrow is also 'brown' themed show and tell day, and i'm so proud of M for thinking of an awesome one. J brought her home a fossil from his trail run yesterday, and she wants to bring it! betting she'll have the coolest one there! :0) i had to giggle listening to her and J discuss fossils so he could make sure she knew what she was talking about when she presented. she did GREAT! i'm amazed at how much she knows about fossils! when did that happen?! haha!

we eventually got the babies ready for bed. stu wanted to snuggle with me and he fell asleep on me while we said our bedtime prayers! oh, what a treasure. :0) my busy boy doesn't want to snuggle too much anymore!

not looking forward to the morning. i'm not sad, i'm just wincing thinking about the chaos that i'm expecting at the school when i arrive. i don't love chaos. i'm praying that everything goes smoothly in the morning! i don't want the chaos and confusion to make me grouchy and possibly affect M's special day.

still have miles to go before i sleep. mad at myself about that, too. grr!

J has to run to the store for me tonight. my big girl's breakfast request? eggs, toast, and...pop-tarts. she's requested spaghetti for dinner. she can have whatever she darn well pleases. haha!

tonight is our first-ever 'school night'.

tonight i have to pack my first school lunch.

tonight i get to write my first-ever lunchbox note.

feeling wistful as i kissed my firstborn preschooler goodnight for the last time tonight! tomorrow morning, i'll be kissing a kindergartener good morning. :0)

now i can say i've eaten the head of a sock monkey

2011-08-20T22:45:00.001-05:00

one of the things i am the most thrilled about for M starting school is all of the new friends she can make!! that was probably my favorite thing about school, especially me being an only child.

i am blessed to maintain great, close friendships with a lot of the girls i met early on in school. they are some of my most cherished friends!

today, the babies and i had the privilege of celebrating krista's daughter's eleventh birthday at her house. (J was out running 18.) i couldn't help but recall meeting sweet krista later in elementary school. and we've been close friends ever since.

she makes cakes, and she did this super-cute sock monkey for the party today.

my kids...you can bet they're the ones who will be commandeering the snacks and candy at a party.

until more friends join them! :0)

me and my girl. :0)

when it was time to sing happy birthday, krista lit the monkey up with sparklers. i confess...i was a little nervous. :0)

i love how my friendships have grown through the years...and how now my friends' children are friends with my own!

rainy saturday fun

2011-08-20T10:07:00.001-05:00

a week ago this morning, i awoke to a strange sound...RAIN! J got up before the sun to hit his 24-mile training run, so i was lucky enough to witness the glorious sight.

and then i promptly crawled back in bed. :0) we'd been out late the night before, and i knew there was a good chance the kiddos would sleep late given the dark skies, and i don't know when i'll get the chance to sleep to the sound of rain again, so i nabbed the opportunity.

we slept until about 8:30! whoop whoop! :0)

J ended up having to street run instead--the trails were closed. and he cut his run short and came home early. we were excited!

after lunch, it was still raining a bit, so we went out to play in it. seize the day!!

i idly pulled a few weeds in the back flower bed, and i discovered they were coming out much more easily than i expected, so i seized that chance too and went to town. everyone helped, and even J came out to join us. we got so much work done in a short amount of time! i was thrilled!

rosie spent most of her time pulling weeds. M did a lot of work putting piles of weeds in the big trash can. but she and stu also had a lot of fun with the hose. :0)

the back bed isn't pretty for sure, but it's a HUGE improvement from the way it was when we went out. you couldn't even see the steps for the weed cover!! i am still amazed at how quickly we cleared it out. there were only a few actual weeds, they were just very widespread. and the roots were amazing, too--they were so deep i had to pull up brick steps to dig them out! and huge, long and thick! the girls gave us lessons in root systems and loved studying them. i wish i'd taken pictures.

i have BIG plans for mums all along the brick walk side of the steps this fall. i seem to be able to grow that pretty well, and they take off and fill out very quickly.

i am SO excited about fall planting! i'm hoping J lets me splurge a little on some fall flowers even though we're tightening our spending a lot. i've failed at almost all of my summer planting. i hope just because it was so hot. i may have to ask santa for a lowe's or calloway's gift card or money for a trip to a local nursery!

taking his job very seriously. cleaning the garden tools.

running back and forth through the hose. and laughing up a storm!

saggy wet pants!

we had so much fun out there. i love our family time! especially when we're accomplishing things to boot!

lessons in sleep

2011-08-19T07:45:00.001-05:00

We've been getting ready for school full-force around here. One of the things we've been working on is getting our sleep schedule tightened up.

I'm not sure if it's a blessing or if it's going to become an issue, but our kids have traditionally been late sleepers. Usually they get up between 7-8am. But with school start time and the little bit of extra distance we're going to be traveling to our neighboring city, we're going to be getting up considerably earlier.

It affects not just me and M, but my two little snugglebugs, too! Since we'll all be in this together.

Initially I was a little worried. Of all the kids, M is the most difficult to roust out of bed. :)

And it affects me, too. Though I tend to get up earliest anyway, I'll still need to get up an hour earlier to do the things I want to do: get fully ready and spend time in the Word and prayer. Unless I go to the gym right after drop-off...then I can go in running clothes! Ha!

Yeah...y'all know that's not happening with me. :)

So we've gradually been moving up wake time this week to ease into this. I admit I've not been as structured as I wanted to be...I'm still in summer mode! We are making some strides, though. But there have been some unforeseen side-effects from this that I am loving!!

It's giving J and I more time to talk in the mornings as we get ready together. It's favorite time for both of us!

He's here when the kids get up and is able to wake them up which is sacred tradition for him on the weekends.

He's also able to hang out with them over breakfast. More opportunity for Daddy ministry!

And my favorite thing...we're actually getting ready earlier and getting places on time! And I'm not rushing the babies and getting frustrated with them. It's the most wonderful thing!!

I'll admit...this morning I am tired. I need to get to bed earlier. I've continued to stay up till 12 or 1 in the morning, and that's not going to cut it. My body simply has to get adjusted to going to sleep earlier.

We may have to get M to bed earlier, too. She's been looking pretty tired in the mornings.

We'll see how this all fleshes out, but so far this is looking nothing but beneficial for us all around.

So for now, I'm off to grab my second cup of coffee and go soak up our last Friday of the summer!

meet the teacher night!

2011-08-18T19:10:00.002-05:00

tonight was 'meet the teacher' night in our school district!

before that, we took don juan's to J's school for lunch. thursday is taco special day!

after we ate, the kids took the opportunity to tear up their daddy's office. haha!

rosie wore a bow in her hair today. she was my favorite for the day. HA! kidding. but it did make me so insanely happy. i just love my little girls in bows!

stu in his daddy's chair. what's funny is the 'mr. dees' namplate in front of him! :0) there's a story behind that nameplate. a separate post for another time...

time for us to leave and let daddy get back to work!

on the way home, i stopped by M's school to check out the lay of the parking land of her campus. it's changed some since J was the assistant principal there. we were there driving around for just a couple of minutes, and as soon as i left to go back home the kids began asking when we'd be going back. i had an excited crew!!

and about ten times an hour for the rest of the day, rosie asked me if it was time to go to M's school yet. they were so cute!

we decided to skip nap time. instead we decorated a box to bring M's school supplies to school in.

then it was finally time to go!

M wanted to push stu in his stroller.

the whole thing was an amazing mess of chaos. lots and lots of students and families, plus siblings, and the halls here are tiny. but we managed to find our way!

class lists were posted right when you walked in the school. we didn't get the one kindergarten teacher we know personally, but we trust God's hand in it!

M and rosie honed in on the toys in M's class right away.

stu wanted to get out of his stroller so badly, but i wouldn't let him since it was so busy. so the girls gave him something to play with.

in the kindergarten hall, the students were supposed to make a handprint craft to decorate the bulletin boards. at first M wanted nothing to do with it, but once J joined us after his own campus' event, she warmed up to it. :0)

once J got there, the crowds began to die down as well. we let stu get out of his stroller to roam the classroom. one of the unexpected things i noted was how much stu and rosie loved being in there! they gravitated immediately to the play centers in the room, and they simply did not want to leave. i am so excited for my children...they are such great learners, and they're ready to begin their school careers for sure!

then J and M went back into school to bring her supplies back to her class together. i was proud of she and rosie's crafty work! :0)

what a wonderful family day we had. and i was proud of me. i didn't get sad or shed a tear at all. i just love where our future is going!

tuesday trip to the mall

2011-08-18T14:00:00.004-05:00

tuesday, i packed up my little tribe and we hit the mall. my goal is to cram in as much summer fun as possible this week! :0)

my goals were:

1) to ride the carousel with my free-ride coupons

2) play at the play area and

3) splurge on a chick-fil-a lunch.

two out of three ain't bad, right?! i left our coupons in the car. then we went to the play area, and it was closed and torn up for remodeling. again. seems like at this mall it was JUST re-done!

so i had some very disappointed kiddos on my hands.

we were able to get to the mall's dollar store, and i found all the tablecloth colors i need for our MOPS decor this year:

is that not the happiest color scheme EVER?! :0) love it!

then i bought the babies a consolation prize of party favor toys. i learned something new: when buying them a treat, that's the cheapest way to go! four of each thing in a bag for a buck!

savoring each and every moment of being an all-preschooler mama. :0)

one year

2011-08-17T21:48:00.006-05:00

about this time of night one year ago, i stood in a hospital room and watched my mother slip very quietly away.

it was sad, yes, but also very sacred. to have had the opportunity to witness both a soul entering and leaving the world in one's lifetime is an amazing thing. i treasure seeing my children come into this world, and i treasure being present when my mother's soul left her body as well.

mother left this world the same way she entered it. peacefully, selflessly, unassumingly. but her impact was much bigger than she'll ever realize.

i've been well aware that this anniversary was looming. i wasn't sure how i'd handle it. in general i've been blessed with the most peace of my entire life this year. God has been so good to me in that regard.

today, however, threw me for a bit of a loop.

i've found myself watching the clock all day and reliving where i was a year ago today. and the dangerous part: i've been questioning everything i did or said. criticizing my 'performance' on that day. especially when it came to this evening. around bath time with my children, 5ish, i noticed i was really feeling anxious and uneasy.

it's been almost like watching an old familiar movie and, despite knowing the ending well, finding yourself longing for the outcome to be different that time.

around 5:00 a year ago, doctors came to us presenting the idea of installing a balloon pump and a heart catheter in the hopes that it would improve mother's heart performance. mother pretty much left the decision up to us. so J, steve and i went back and forth. i prayed and prayed silently, 'wisdom, discernment...wisdom, discernment...'.

and the Lord answered, 'try Me'.

steve and J asked me what i thought, and i shared with them what the Lord spoke to me. we reasoned that we needed to try whatever we could to help her live longer.

we realized there was a chance that the procedure could backfire and she could die ('could kill her' is the exact phrase i used, if i remember right, which i immediately regretted using in her sweet presence. but i know she didn't think anything of it), but at least we would know we had fought the best we knew how.

i really didn't expect that she would die from it. typically i get a good sense for these things. that time, i was wrong.

i was so sure this would work that when the nurses came to pick her up and take her to pre-op at about 6pm, i was pretty flip in the way i said goodbye to her. i remember thinking that they were taking her away a little too quickly and with not enough privacy for us to be with her before the procedure. it all felt a little rushed. it seemed so routine and benign. they didn't give us a few minutes alone with her. so i gave her a kiss, told her 'i love you so', looked her in the eyes and then said, firmly, 'fight'.

my last word to my mother was 'fight'.

(seriously?)

my mother never wanted to go through with the procedure. i knew it. i could see it in her face. she looked so tired and small from the moment the doctors suggested it. i knew she didn't want to do it, but the Lord told me we needed to try. so we did.

at about 7:30 a nurse came to us in the waiting room to tell us the procedure was done and she was headed back to her room. we met her there, and i just sank inwardly at the scene. no one told us she'd be hooked up to a huge, loud machine. no one told us what the catheter tubes in her legs would look like. (we were assuming they were tiny and not visible.) no one told us she'd have to be angled in the bed at almost a stand. we were told she was in a 'twilight' sedation, but to us she was much more 'out' than that. she just looked miserable.

she said a few words to us with great difficulty. her breathing was labored and sounded artificial from the machines. she seemed heavily sedated still. we were able to feed her ice chips, and i got to spend a few minutes alone with her doing just that. we did talk a little then, but only to figure out the logistics of the getting the ice into her mouth. :0) i felt so badly that i couldn't just do it; i had to get her input. (there i go...always criticizing.) but it was an honor to help my sweet mother get some relief for her dry mouth.

when steve and J returned, i began to feel ill and overwhelmed from the scene and had to leave the room. soon after heather arrived with a pizza for J and i. so he and i ate with her in the waiting room. we ate and talked, and after a nice visit i felt a sudden pull back to her room. it was about 8:30 or so, and it was apparent that things were not going well. mother was unresponsive, so we called the nurses. everything moved so fast; it was so loud and unceremonial. crude. we were told mother would likely not recover, and we needed to make a decision whether or not to resuscitate her. we'd discussed it with her the day before, and it was clear it was not her wish to be resuscitated.

it was the hardest decision of my life, but we gave the ok to turn off the machines and cease the medications. and i stood beside mother's bed as she quietly left us for heaven.

steve held her hand. J stroked her forehead. i didn't touch her. i considered it hard in those moments, and i knew i did not want to remember that sensation. my mother's touch has always been soft and warm, and that's all i want to recall. so i gave myself permission not to touch her.

today, however, i began to question whether or not that was the right thing to do. i have no idea what it is about this day, the anniversary. any other day, i would just feel peace.

mother was facing us, to her left. she looked so peaceful and lovely, like she was sleeping. i watched her pulse fade away in that little concave place she always had in her neck just above her chest. i talked to her, told her i love her, and spoke Scripture that i still don't remember to this day.

i was alone with her just prior to her passing while steve ran to get heather and J, and i whispered in her ear that if she was ready to leave, she could leave.

today, i wish i'd told her to stay then. :0) i know nothing would have changed, but i just wonder if she needed to hear that her baby didn't want her to go. maybe.

today, i've been reliving the surreal things.

what it felt like to be with someone whose being transitioned from 'is' to 'was' in a matter of seconds.

the feeling of leaving mother's hospital room for the last time. after her yearlong bout with leukemia and her breast cancer when i was in middle school, i was no stranger to being with mother in a hospital room. it had become old hat. the hall from her room to the elevator suddenly got very long.

the emotional mixture of relief that mother's pain was over, that we had resolution to the unknowns of her disease, and sadness that she was gone. but absolute joy in knowing where she was and Whose care she was in. and the beautiful assurance in Christ that we would one day see her again.

the lonely feeling of walking out of the hospital doors with the realization that i was suddenly motherless.

the way i couldn't cry.

the numb state i was in when we returned home.

the way i remember being in the shower but don't remember feeling anything.

the way i laid in bed with J speaking Scripture that was on my heart.

the thanks and praise i gave to the Lord silently as i fell asleep. i'd never been so grateful to Him in my life.

i know all of the doubt, criticism and anxiety i've felt today are not from the Lord. these are merely disractions from satan, and i recognize them fully and reject them. it's just such a weird thing to me that they would crop up on this anniversary.

i had a great day today despite it all. sweet nikki came over to keep me company; she'd asked me weeks ago if she could. i love my wonderful friends and the way they take care of me. :0)

we ordered pizza, and our kiddos played and trashed this little place while we talked and talked. some of my favorite times with my friends!!

nikki even brought me some gifts. so sweet!

a gorgeous frame! ahhhh...pearls... :0) she knows me well. haha!

and this super-fun dish brush! how cute is she?!

i made this bag tag for baby harrison's preschool backpack:

stay tuned...information about my upcoming business coming soon!

after they left this afternoon, the kids and i made paper spiders out of our hand tracings. we got the idea from a 'barney' halloween movie. we're going to make more and hang them from light fixtures. love my girls...we're getting a jump on our fall decor! haha!

it was a roller coaster of a day. my mother-in-law made my day tonight by calling at bath time and complimenting me on my mothering. love her.

strangely, in some ways i'm sad to see this day come and go. for some reason it was a comfort to be less than a year away from mother's passing. as if the further away i am from that date, the less i'll remember her maybe? i don't know what it is.

i am looking forward to tomorrow and returning to the peace and strength that rules me on most every other day. i don't know where they went today.

what my kindergartener needs to know

2011-08-16T09:00:00.001-05:00

I can remember a few days after we brought M home, I began to freak out about teaching her. I frantically researched child development material, I had J bring home a lesson plan book so I could begin planning HOW I'd teach her, and worst of all, I felt extreme guilt if the time I spent with her (which, as a homemaker, is 24/7) wasn't productive teaching time.

I'm not sure where I picked up these ideas. I'd never been involved in things baby/child before.

I worked with her on the usual developmental things my pediatrician recommended. I picked and chose some things from my books. But I never went into hyper-teaching mode like my nagging feelings tried to dictate.

The one thing I do recall doing was simply talking to her all the time. From day one. I spoke to her and used grown-up vernacular. I explained what I was doing at most given times. I sang to her, read to her, counted to her. Asked her questions, just as if she was one of my girlfriends. I made sure to emote well so she might understand tone.

It was quite a sight when we were out! I got some funny looks for sure.

But my 'plan' didn't do any harm. She has turned out to become quite the little communicator! To God be the glory.

Then at about age 2, I began to panic again. I began acquiring books on kindergarten, and I decided I needed to begin teaching her those fundamentals before she went to school.

The furthest those books made it was to my desk. I never cracked them open.

I used to feel guilty about it.

Until yesterday.

I realized yesterday that M is more than ready for kindergarten, and with minimal preparation from me. Had I gone through all of those books with her, she'd likely be bored in school all year!

So yesterday, 'What Your Kindergartener Needs to Know', et al went where they needed to go. In the donation box.

Along with my guilt.

I decided, here on the eve of kindergarten, that what my kindergartener really needs to know is that she is loved madly. To have a strong sense of self. To have a home and family that it's safe to fail in. Confidence. Freedom to be who she is.

And above all else, to know and love Jesus.

In all those things, I have done my job and will continue!

Does she happen to know the alphabet, her numbers, colors, directions, plus simple math, reading and spelling? Yes. Can she color in the lines? Yes. Those were all auxiliary developments she reached on her own. I am so proud of her!

But I'll leave the rest of it to the professionals. Today I'm especially grateful for teachers and the public school system for giving me the freedom to focus on loving my girl and growing her up in the Lord these first 5 1/2 years of her life. I'm looking so very forward to partnering with them in her formal education and our family's ministry!

monday mental inventory

2011-08-15T09:20:00.001-05:00

today is monday. what an inner trainwreck i am!

ok, not really. but there's potential if i let my mind go there.

i've just been inwardly shaking my head and giggling all morning at how much life stuff i have going on this week. it's like the perfect storm for anxiety, freaking out and a good old-fashioned mental meltdown.

our weeks are pretty low-key in general. not a lot of life stuff going on. but when it rains, it pours!

not because i want to dwell on it or start a pity party, but because i want to remember life as i know it this week, here are 'the majors':

-J's gone dave ramsey crazy the last couple of weeks. we're not using any credit cards anymore, we're not spending any money, and we're cutting out all the frivolous spending in our life. which is fine. i know we need to do this. but it's just been a huge adjustment in a very small amount of time. but i'm game!

-in all of these much-needed financial changes we're making, J had two separate truck repairs come up last week. one we filed on insurance, one ended up with him needing two new tires to the tune of $320. (cash.) i'm not worried; i trust the Lord to take care of us, but it's amazing to me how quickly satan works to thwart our plans when the Lord calls us to live better!

-my firstborn goes to kindergarten next week, and there are so many emotions i am experiencing with it. i want to cram in all the fun i can with her this week. i want to make up for all the mistakes i made in the first five years of her life in this one week we have 'left'. i want to spend as much one-on-one time with her as i can. i want to make sure she knows how to tie her shoes. i want to prepare her for every possible life scenario school will present to her. and the list goes on. you get the picture: all irrational, impossible stuff in one week. :0)

-the one-year anniversary of my mother's death is this week, and though i'm definitely not in the throes of depression, there is a certain amount of reflection and pondering going on.

so i inwardly smile and shake my head at all of this. because i know Jesus. i trust that He is going to take care of all of this, and all i need to do is look to Him.

classical conversation

2011-08-11T14:19:00.001-05:00

On our way home from Bible study yesterday, my girls requested the classical station on the radio.

'OK, kids...twist Mommy's arm...'

Kidding. I happen to LOVE classical music, and I'm thrilled that my children do, too.

We were lucky enough to catch Vivaldi's 'Summer' movement of the 'Four Seasons'. The 'Four Seasons' happens to be one of my all-time favorite works. Summer isn't my favorite movement, but I'll take it.

I noticed that the Dallas Symphony will be performing it in February, and I'm really hoping to go! I've never heard it live!

M noted that the music sounded 'shivery' and 'wiggly' to her. And she's absolutely right! I was so proud of her observation.

She also wanted to know which instrument the cello was, so I got to point out its melodies to her. Another proud moment for Mama...I played it from third through eleventh grades!

She also announced she wants to be a singer when she grows up. No offense, symphony! Haha!

My mind has kept returning to our conversation about the music yesterday, and it makes me smile.

I think she's going to have a BLAST at her fine arts school when it begins in a matter of days!!

deals & steals

2011-08-10T23:00:00.001-05:00

while on a playdate at galleria last week, we ran into old navy to take a looksee. i fell love with these jackets! i think jackets may be me most favorite clothing article ever. in any season.

these first two i saw on the old navy website for $25 each!

these next two were the ones i saw in-store. they're listed online at $40, but i think in-store they were $30 regular price. not bad!

this red one is my favorite!!

i'll take one of each in XL, please. HA!

and then...we were at sam's after church on sunday, and i finally found an affordable picnic table! i've been wanting a smallish one for the backyard, but the wooden ones are soooo expensive. i found this plastic one for about $100!

now if only the weather were right for any of this stuff! ha!

morning blessing

2011-08-09T11:00:00.002-05:00

this morning was just about perfect. J had occasion to go into work later than normal; he had a training at a closer campus. i got up with him, so we had lots of talk time while we got ready together. love that.

then the kiddos got up earlier than normal, and he had gotten ready early, so he was able to get them up.

and then we did the rarest of things...we sat down and ate breakfast together.

before that, while J was in the kitchen pouring his bowl of cereal, stu ran right up to J's legs and looked up at him asking to share it with him. my little man in his construction truck jammies, looking up at his big daddy dressed up in his suit. it was the cutest thing. i couldn't get to the camera fast enough, so i didn't get a picture.

that time with J was just precious. and as usual, we all stood at the door to see him off for the day!

i don't know how it's going to be remotely possible, but i really do pray that we can find a way to do this when the chaos of colliding school schedules begins.

and now we can't wait till he gets back home. :0)

spaghetti monday

2011-08-08T22:00:00.001-05:00

not a remarkable day. i still wasn't feeling 100%, so we mostly stayed in. our one outing for the day was to aldi for some groceries. the last time we went there, we stopped at QT gas station first to get drinks, and as soon as i mentioned we were going to aldi today rosie asked if we could stop at QT first. their drinks are still on sale for the summer, so i said why not? it's an inexpensive little treat!

when we pulled up, there were two motorcycle police officers in the parking lot. stu was in awe...double-whammy for him: a motorcycle AND a police officer! two of his favorite things. :0)

i ended up spending way more at aldi than i intended or thought i would. i am a sucker for a good deal, especially on produce. and we hit the jackpot! unfortunately, my timing was bad in that J had texted me this morning telling me to get prepared for an extended conversation on money tonight. oops! but i can't wait to hear what the Lord is teaching Him and how He's directing him in decisions for our family!

we came home, ate a fun lunch, played some, and the girls and i played a rousing game of go-fish. so far i'm not a fan of teaching children how to play games, but somehow we made it through and rosie legitimately won. M was not happy at all. she kept pouting that the only thing that was fair is if she wins. oy vey...i've got a long road ahead with that girl!! :0)

the littles napped a good nap, and M and i played with play-doh in between laundry and me cooking up four pounds of hamburger meat to freeze for when school starts and our evenings get busier. it was a nice, cozy afternoon for us!

J came home earlier than normal--even before the littles woke up from their late nap! i love nights like that! i'd already begun dinner, too. we had spaghetti. it was a fun time together. everyone ate so well--M had two servings, and stu had three! everyone ate well enough to get dessert, too...chocolate pudding. so we were all champs!

i realized, watching J clean up stu after dinner, that i've never documented how that process goes. it's an involved one with him. especially after spaghetti!

we put him up on the table to brush off all the food onto the table.

then J cleans his hands and face with a rag. most night we strip him right up here on the table, too. we did it tonight--he had spaghetti all over his lap!

tonight was an especially messy-faced night with the pudding. he was covered with it all over his mouth! he was cracking us up the way he was trying to lick off the chocolate after each bite. he'd stick his tongue out so far in an attempt to get every last bit of it! mostly he just succeeded in spreading it further and further. :0) he's been doing this the last two mornings too with his cinnamon toast.

during dinner, he kept making this face saying it's the face daddy makes.

it was even funnier framed by pudding! i didn't take these till after dinner, though. (and incidentally, i've never seen J make this face. haha!)

he and J had a good laugh about it while i was taking pictures.

after dinner and clean-up, we went through the girls' shoes to figure out what fits, what doesn't, what will get saved for rosie, what will get donated and what will get consigned. the kids had fun with it, trying on each others' shoes!

while J got each kiddo ready for bed, i got to snuggle in my bed reading with the other two. which is always some of my favorite time with them! i always feel especially blessed to be a mom at that time of the day. i love those sweet babies!

i'm thinking we'll keep it low-key tomorrow, too. i just can't seem to shake this junky sinus crud!

low-key sunday

2011-08-07T22:15:00.001-05:00

despite feeling pretty crummy, today was a nice day! woke up with a raging sore throat. i couldn't get out of bed, i was so tired. i think i hit 'snooze' three or four times! J offered to take the kids to church and let me stay home to rest, but i sensed that i needed to be there today.

we got the kids up, and out of the blue stu has begun adding an 's' to his plural words. he wanted J to get all of the pillows and stuffed animals out of his crib for him this morning--for some reason he's been wanting to drag them all with him into the living room in the mornings lately--and he told J to please get his 'pillowses'! it was so cute! he kept using it throughout the day, too. 'carses', etc. i don't know where he picked it up, but i love it. :0)

i was so grateful. when we got to church, he did his usual run to his sunday school classroom door. no tears this time. the last month or so he's had a rough time at drop-off to church and my weekly Bible study. i hate that!

instead of our normal 'divide and conquer' drop-off strategy, J and i decided to take all the kids to their classes together. we were already late, and i didn't care if i missed the music in worship this week. this sinus junk has me completely tone deaf! it's so freaky when that happens.

the sermon totally kicked my spiritual butt. it was about money, and it was so convicting. i think i have more doubts and questions for God now than i did before i went in to church, but i still am filled with so much joy and peace. i'm just along for this ride!

we stopped at sam's on the way home to get a few things we needed, and even J remarked that he'd been very moved by the sermon. and that's saying something! so i knew for sure then that i was meant to be there this morning. i love my man and i can't wait to see what God does in our life together!

we came home and had a good sandwich lunch. i did not want to eat. i wanted to take a nap as soon as we got home. in fact, my medicine has me so groggy i was tempted to nap in the car on the way to and from church! but i got lunch ready for my little family and ate with them, and then i fell asleep on the couch right afterward. J had gotten the littles down for their nap, and i woke up every 15-30 minutes or so and kept falling right back to sleep. i could hear he and M doing something different each time i woke up: puzzles, watching a movie, playing go-fish, working on lego mini-kits, eating a snack. i couldn't help but smile. my children are well taken care of for sure! i know it was sweet time for those two.

God bless my man...he sacrificed his own weekend nap time both saturday and sunday so i could get some rest. i never nap and he always does, so i was so grateful to him for letting me snooze.

i woke up a couple of hours later feeling tons better and got dinner started. J and i had leftover beans and cornbread from last night, and i made the kids eggs and muffins.

i was done with dishes early, so we started baths early. we got the kids ready for bed a little earlier than normal, and i helped J with PJ selections and getting the kids dried and dressed. he'd been so sweet to let me nap, so i figured i could help him out with bedtime prep.

i got some one-on-one time with the kiddos while the others were in the bath. i read books with the girls. stu and i played with the go-fish cards. he was picking them up and putting them back in the box. he told me, 'just a minute, i'm going to clean up this mess. i'm a big helper.' i love listening to him talk and am so impressed with all of his words!

these pictures sum up the mood of our day very well. just chilling out! these photos are the kids all piled on J's recliner watching a short movie before bath time.

it was a nice, restful weekend. just what we need for the week ahead!