I'm writing this in a blog post instead of posting directly to Facebook because I know there are some readers who aren't on FB and won't be able to comment there.  Our house has three bedrooms -- two downstairs and one upstairs. The Husband, Ella, and I have been sharing a room since she was born, and Jack has his own room. The upstairs room has been a guest bedroom, but it's not used often because we only have an A/C window unit up there, and it's either horridly hot or frigidly cold most of the time.  Because of many reasons, The Husband and I have kicked ourselves out of our room (namely, I want my child to sleep and her father is the loudest turning-over-in-his-sleep-person out there), and we've been sleeping on the pull-out couch.  It's not the most comfortable sleeping arrangement, and after about a month of this, The Husband said enough is enough. He moved our bed upstairs.  I have a big problem with my children sleeping downstairs and us being upstai...

Warning:  this blog post contains poor-quality pictures from the late 90s and early 2000s of girls with sad style (both hair and clothing).  Viewer discretion is advised.  It's my best friend's birthday today.  I have known her since 6th grade.  This girl knows me, and I know her. I know how she'll respond to a text before I even send it. She knows how to set me straight when I'm being moody. We share a love of good books and fun window-shopping trips. We can talk for hours about nothing and everything.  We kinda rock this friendship thing.  We have been BBFs (best buds forever, duh!) for over 20 years. Geez, when did we get old?! What follows is a brief recounting of a few memories brought to life in horrible quality pictures of pictures.  You're welcome.  I went upstairs last night to page through my old photo albums--those things we used before we had a camera in our phone with 1000s of pictures saved to it--and f...

They were wearing hand-me-downs, and they both looked terribly adorable, and their smiles were squeezing my heart JUST so, and. Oh. My. Goodness. So, I sat them on the bench and took some pictures with my phone before jumping in the car to head to church.  I took four of each before my phone told me I had no more space.  I was bummed I didn't have room for a shot of them together.  I deleted one of each that was blurry with movement, and these are the moments captured.  Ooof my heart.  I love our porch.  I love that bench.  I LOVE these little people.  The LORD is good to me, and so I thank the LORD.  Over and over again.  "Behold, children are a heritage from the Lord, the fruit of the womb a reward." Psalm 127:3 This one I cling to and hope for as my children grow.   "I have no greater joy than to hear that my children are walking in the truth." 3 John 1:4  I will do my best to continue ...

I stepped outside in the early morning mist. It's going to rain today. A lot, I think. The air was heavy with moisture, and there was only a whisper of a breeze. I wanted to see my weed garden, and I wanted to see if the amaryllis had bloomed yet. As of yesterday afternoon, it hadn't. To my disappointment, it still hadn't, but I was delighted to see that the second spiderwort had.  Working in the flower bed yesterday, I thought it might be soon because of all the tiny buds I saw, but I was surprised to see the small flowers weren't bluish/purple like the first plant. They're white. Sweet white blooms. Three of them.  Free beauty.  Ok. It's now Friday morning. 24 hours after I started writing this post. Two kids under two happened. Apparently.  And, honestly, I don't even know where I was going with this post.  It began raining after lunch. It poured and stormed and thundered. Jack slept through it. Ella slept some, but not as much as she normally does.  Aft...

This. Girl. Has. My. Heart.  I love my early morning quiet time with her before the rest of the house is up and moving.  On the way home from church I noticed that one of our neighbors had thrown out almost the exact same storage system I got at the consignment shop the other day. So, after lunch, I walked down there to investigate. The owner was outside, so I made sure he didn't want it. He said that his grandkids had outgrown it, and he offered to walk it down to our house. It needed a lot of cleaning, so I set all of the bins out in the rain to get a good soaking. We'll see what they look like in a day or so.  After naps today, I decided that Jack could explore with some cloud dough that I made a month ago.  Smart gal that I am, we did that little activity outside.  Ella wanted her picture taken, too. She helped.  Then, Jack decided to play with the water in the bins and containers. That was great fun, and besides being very cloud-doughy, he also got soa...

You know the flowers I moved the other day?  Well, I fixed my hot chocolate and then headed outside to check on them this morning before I got Jack up for breakfast.  Here they are, alongside the amaryllis bulb I planted the next day. I'm aware amaryllis flowers usually bloom in December, but this one had already started growing out of the bulb. In the empty pot. In the garage. In the dark. So...I went ahead and planted it.  Each morning after breakfast, Jack has Art time (play-doh, coloring with crayons or markers, painting, stickers) for 30 minutes before playing in his room.  This morning, I pulled out the gallon bag of stickers his Nonny gave him, and he set to work pairing up stickers that matched. I guess technically today our Art time was Math time.  Also, he's 22 months old today! I can't believe he's almost two years old :(.  After running errands as a family, I popped some bacon in the oven (300* for 28 minutes...my reminder for next time!), and i...