March Update in Pictures

Ok, so in March I took 4, count them, 4 pictures...all within a 2 minute window. So sad. As mentioned in the last post, I got an iPad 2. I love it and I've taken some pictures on it as well. At some point I'll be savvy enough to get those pictures into this here blog thingy. K? Until then....

Oh yeah, and don't look for April. In April I took ZERO pictures. Next comes May - a birthday month...there are bound to be some pictures, right? Right??!!

February Update in Pictures

We are still here. I now take so few pictures, that I will just use the few I took the past few months to update on what we've been up to.  I'm going to miss so much, but this is the best I can do right now. My mid-year resolution (is there such a thing?!) is to take more pictures and update the blog regularly, now that I've figured out how to do it on my iPad (I think). I know, I'll believe it when I see it too...

Cute, right? Look at those eyes. Caroline is 7 months old!

Thomas is a great helper and an even better big brother! Here he is helping me get Caroline in the morning.

He usually tells Caroline good morning, then gets her new diaper ready. He puts it right on top of the wipes every time. :)

Another sweet picture of Caroline, for good measure.

Thomas posing with his potty training reward chart. It worked. He's potty trained. That was fun (not really).

A rare shot of me and my kiddos. Check out the cheesy smile on that one! :)

March is up next.....did you see that coming??

Fort Night

Not to be confused with fortnight, meaning a period of two weeks or 14 days. (Did you know that? ...neither did I.  Thanks Merriam Webster)

My guys are camped out in Thomas' room tonight.  Daddy and Thomas have enjoyed making forts in his room recently and tonight they made a fort to sleep in.  After supper and a bath, they hung out in the fort to watch Thomas's new Veggie Tales movie, King George and the Ducky.  I joined them in the fort for dessert.  We made s'mores in the microwave.  Yum!  These are those times that make me feel happy.  Happy to be married to my husband, and happy to have a sweet sweet boy named Thomas.

The outside of Fort Thomas

Dessert time in the fort

Goodnight. :)

An Ode to Gaga AKA "Grandma Floppy Socks"

At dinner tonight, Caroline wanted to channel her Great-Gaga.  Not the singer...the best Great-Grandma in the whole world.  Gaga likes to wear her socks half on, half off.  Makes sense, right?  Keep your toes warm without making the rest of your foot hot.  Maybe someone should market that.

Cutie little feet

The cutie pie attached to those feet

Here's another idea...someone should make baby socks that STAY ON!

One Thousand Gifts

Lately, I have been (slowly) reading One Thousand Gifts by Ann Voskamp.  This book is a challenging read for me in many ways but has been wonderful so far.  Her style of writing is so beautiful, but for someone who sometimes struggles with focus and comprehension, it just takes a while.  Is the content worth it?  Yes.  The basis of the book is "living fully right where you are".  The word that weaves throughout the book is Eucharisteo.  "He gave thanks."  Thanks with grace and joy.  You should read the book.

Any who, it is a lovely and sometimes sobering reminder to live with grace, joy and constant thanksgiving, on the good days and especially on the bad days.  Ann started to list 1,000 gifts.  Things she could be thankful for.  She started seeking out things to be thankful for.  Things like "jam piled high on toast", "crackle in fireplace", "bandages and pain relief."  She intentionally looked for joy in her days and, as I understand it, still keeps a list well beyond 1,000.

I've contemplated doing the same, but I'm awful for getting excited about something, spending lots of time getting ready for it, doing it for a week or two and then it trails off.  I don't want 1,000 gifts to be a project, I think the point is to make it a way of life.  Find joy.  Be thankful to God, who has blessed us with the house that needs cleaning, the food that needs to be washed from dirty dishes, the children who need...everything.  I struggle to find joy in the mundane and thankfulness in the frustration my day brings.  Last night I read about Ann witnessing a particularly frustrating interaction between her boys over toast and getting mad, really mad.  God reminded me through this book:

"Straw comes in all shapes and the back of a camel can be weak and it's toast and surely there's something behind it that I should seek out but I don't even care.  It's my own face that obscures the face of God.  How can I help this son of mine see when I can't see?  The parent must always self-parent first, self-preach before child-teach, because who can bring peace unless they've held their own peace?  Christ incarnated in the parent is the only hope of incarnating Christ in the child - yet how do I admit that people made in the Image can make me blind to God, my own soul contorting, skewing all the faces?  Why gouge out your own eyes when crusading for Beauty?  Pain drives us to the mad acts."

God, today I pray that I can find joy and grace and beauty in the midst of it all.  Help me to see and help my children see.  Remind me to self-preach before I child-teach.  Help me to hold onto peace and share it with the little ones I'm with.

O Christmas Tree

We had a wonderful Thanksgiving this year.  We celebrated Papa's birthday with Papa & Oopsy at their house on Tuesday night.  On Thursday we spent the first half of the day at Meme's and spent the rest of the day in Elm City with The Williams' family.  Good food all around!  Since Shawn had Friday off, we went ahead and got our Christmas tree up and decorated.  I don't think we've ever gotten a tree that "early", although, according to Target, Christmas started just a hair before Halloween.  There is a local church that has a tree lot to benefit missions.  We got there early Friday morning and found out they didn't even open the lot until Saturday.  But because any good fundraiser never turns down a sale, they let us pick one of the few trees that had been unloaded and unwrapped and loaded it right into our trunk.

Meme came over to help!

Caroline had a front row seat

Daddy helped Thomas put the star on top

Okay, so maybe Thomas helped Daddy


Thomas says often, "Mommy, isn't our Christmas tree just beautiful?"

Today's Weather

I know it's been too long (as usual).  I have a few posts that are from ages ago that I'm still working on finishing and posting.  One of those is Caroline's birth story.  Yes, she's here and she's 3 months old.  I'll get to it when I get to it, I guess.

Just wanted to share a cute Thomas story from this morning.  As we were talking about the weather this morning we started talking about how it stays comfortable in our house.  I explained that the vents in the house make cold or hot air that either cools or heats our house, based on what it's like outside.  He was listening pretty intently (for a three and a half year old).  Then it went like this:

Thomas: "Mama, where does God live?"
Me: "God lives in heaven"
Thomas: "I'm gonna go to heaven and tell God that he needs to put some vents outside"

I love the way a child's mind works. :)