Halloween

Last night, we had some friends over, had a nice fall dinner, and took the kids trick or treating.  It was a nice time for the adults, and the kids had a fabulous time. 

Elizabeth, Jane, Noah, and our neighbor, Addie.

Clara loved Noah's NASA hat.

Elizabeth was super cute.  I'm loving this picture of her.

Off went the three Musketeers!  Trick or treating we go!

I like this picture.  It looks almost as if she's a fairy tale character walking on a forest path.

This boy had a great night.  He completely embraced trick or treating and was running pellmell down the street yelling "TRICK OR TREAT!" at the top of his lungs.  I loved the childlike exuberance and fun!

 

Did you notice the half of a ball on a stick?  He made it.  He called it his candy launcher.  Ha!

What a happy kid.  I love it.

My little Cinderella Jane.

Happy friends.

 It was a great night!

Not Pretty

 So I took my nice camera with us when we went to play after Mother's Day Out today.  I figured I'd try to get a few fabulous play shots of my kids while we were there.

Ha ha ha ha ha!

It was not what I hoped.  Consider the following:

Clara crying, Jane trying to give Noah bunny ears, and Noah rebelling against the bunny ears.

Every mother's nightmare: the baby tries to climb the stairs every chance she gets.

Slumped shoulders.  I don't remember the problem, but I do remember "Oh Mo-o-om!"

 And the one that takes the cake:

This is what we call Jane's "Ugly Face."

She uses it whenever she is not getting her way, although it's not always accompanied by fist shaking.  I am often heard to say, "Jane!  Take off that Ugly Face!  Go throw it in the trash!!!"

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And that was our play time today.

Just a little dose of reality here on the blog.

Reorganizing a Bit

Hey y'all.

How do you like the little tweaks I've made to the ole blog?  Was anybody else sick of that book background?  I have plans for some more tweaking later, but until I have time for that, I needed to get rid of the brown and brighten things up a bit. 

I'm particularly enjoying the Labels cloud to the right--it's been fun to go back and read my posts from a long time ago.  So far, I've labeled all the recipes and travels, and I've gone back two years for the rest of the labels.  Since there are more than 1100 posts so far here, I cannot promise I'll go through and index all of them, though!

Reading those older posts and looking at pictures of my kids from a year or two ago makes me wish for a time machine.  If I had my druthers, I'd get to go hug them at any age--to pick Noah up when he was a baby or a preschooler, or to return and savor the periods I didn't appreciate at the time.  It makes me want to be better about documenting them and savoring the time I have today and every day. 

Another update I made to the blog was that I got rid of the links to anyone's blog that had not been updated in a while.  There were some that had no new posts since 2010 (ahem).  It was time for a cleanup there.

So I just tweaked a few things here and adjusted a few things there.  I already like how much fresher it feels.

Until later!

Weekend in Waco

As I was going through some unpublished posts, I ran across this one from last May.  I can't believe I had not thrown some captions up and published it, because I really like some of these pictures!  Not only are there some good shots of family, but I also took a little quiet jaunt outside and had a bit of fun experimenting with my then-brand-new DSLR. 

A nice photo of Andrew.

Fam.

Noah and Aunt Emily.

I. Love. This. Shot.

Clara and Grandpa.

This is another of my favorites.

Nathan's parents' property.

I had no idea that these wildflowers were so prolific in late spring.

Hello there, little bee.

(Also, I finally posted pics from Jane's 3rd birthday party here.)

"House"

Jane takes playing House to a whole new level.  She doesn't just play House; she builds her house.

 She uses every material available to her.  Every cushion, every blanket, every chair.

She has tunnels and doors and rooms.

And, in her eyes, it is never big enough.

Design Conundrum

I'm having a design issue with an area in our house, and I need help!  Hello, there, internet!  Come to my aid!  Give me advice!   Bring me inspiration!

Early this summer, we had a massive garage sale with my parents.  One of the things we got rid of was our breakfast table, which we bought long ago, within the first week we moved to Boston.  When we bought it, we were living in Harvard Square and had no car, and for those of you who are familiar with Cambridge, you will appreciate that Nathan carried that heavy table all the way from Central Square to our apartment in Harvard Square in order to get it home.  Now, this table was perfect for our life in Boston.  It was round, 42" across, and we bought two chairs with wicker seats to go with it.  Two sides of the table folded down so that we could set it against a wall with no wasted space.  In our first tiny apartment, the table served as a kitchen/dining table, and in our second, roomier apartment, it had a cheerful little place near the windows in our kitchen.

In our new house in Houston, this table still fit.  Our breakfast area is fairly small, and even a 42" table with chairs fills it up (the standard size is 48").  But by the time we sold this piece, it had seen better days.  The leaves which folded down were sagging and no longer sat flat when we had them propped up, which we now needed to do to maximize the eating space.  This meant that with all the wiggling at our table at dinnertime, Jane's soup sometimes ended up on the floor.  And the other reason it wasn't really working for us anymore was because it only had two matching chairs, and there are now five of us.  Plus, the seats of the chairs were wicker, and although that's not the worst thing--fabric would be much worse--kids' food did get stuck in there regularly.

So I've been searching for a replacement table and chairs for our breakfast area, to no avail.  Here are my criteria: I want a table that is 42-45" across, because I think 48" is just not going to leave enough room for chairs to back in and out.  I need it to be a pedestal table so that we can fit more than four chairs around it without bumping into table legs.  And I do not want leaves that fold down, because eventually I would have the soup-falling-on-the-floor problem again.  I also don't want to spend a bunch of money on this table, but I don't want it to be a piece of junk, either.  And my last qualification is that I would really like chairs with wooden seats.

So here's my Conundrum Number One: can five or six chairs even fit around a 42-45" table?  Has anyone tried that?  I'm even wondering if we can all eat at a 42" table--we were squeezed pretty tightly before, and there were only four of us.

Conundrum Number Two: If I cannot find the right round table and chairs in my price range, would a rectangular table work in my space?  I haven't figured that out yet.  The area is quite small, and you need to be able to walk around it to get to the laundry room and back door.

Conundrum Number Three: Other than Craig's List, where can I find an inexpensive set?  I have scoured Craig's List for months to no avail.  I've also looked at Target, Joss & Main, Pier 1, and several other places.  I like this table a lot, but I can't convince myself that it's a good idea to spend that much (plus chairs), since we have a lot of other projects around the house that we need to do.

Help, friends!  Do you have any thoughts?

Clara's New Stats

I just realized I never posted Clara's new stats!  These were taken a few days after her birthday:

Height: 30.5" (90th percentile)

Weight: 21 lbs. (69th percentile)

Still long and lean!

She Couldn't Be Cuter If She Tried.

She wanted to wear boots to ballet this week.

"Fall" in Houston

So earlier this week, as I was watching the morning news, the weather girl came on and gave the forecast for the next few days.

"It's going to continue to be hot and humid into the weekend, with highs into the 90's through the rest of the week," she said.  "But once Sunday gets here, it's going to feel like fall!  I can't wait!"  Then, she added, "I'm going to pull out my tights and put on a pot of potato soup!"  "Ooo," I thought, "Tights and soup?  Weather like that will feel amazing!"

Then the high and low temps for the following several days popped up.  I want you to guess what the forecast high was for the fallish day.

65, maybe?  That, to me, would feel like fall.  But, let's be realistic here; we're in Houston.

Okay, so maybe 72?  It's been so warm lately that 72 would be fantastic!

Nope.  The high for the day in question was 84.  EIGHTY-FOUR.  Really?  Who puts "tights" and "soup" in the same sentence as "84 degrees"??

I'm still laughing about it.  I guess that if we're anything, we Texans are optimistic.  We take what we can get when it comes to cool weather.

Touched

After a long day, I walked into my room to find this on my nightstand:

I had totally forgotten that on our way in from the car this afternoon, as I was just trying to get everyone to walk to the front door so we can go in and I can put Clara + the bags down, for crying out loud, Noah ran up to me with this and said, "Mom, I picked a flower for you!"

This is actually a crepe myrtle bud.  We pulled up a few crepe myrtle trees in our front flower beds two years ago when we moved into our house, but the dang things keep popping up.  So, when my sweet little boy brought me a flower, I thought, "Those dang crepe myrtles again!  Dadgum flower!"  What I actually said was: "Thank you, Noah, that is sweet!  Will you carry it inside for me?" "Sure!" he said.

When we got inside, he asked, "Do you want me to plant it with your flower?" referring to my potted hydrangea.  "No, Buddy!" "What about in the vase?"  In the water with the sunflowers? "No, Kiddo.  I'll take care of it in a minute."

Which I promptly forgot to do, in the busyness of unloading the car and taking care of hungry and attention-seeking kids.

On top of it all, I was pretty short with the kids this afternoon, due simply to tiredness.  Their messes and noise and low-level disregard for the rules--all of which is pretty much completely age appropriate--was driving me crazy.  And I didn't realize my tiredness was the cause of my crankiness until late in the day, and then I felt pretty crummy about it and had to apologize to them.  (And then follow it with a tickle fight, which really does make everything better!)

So when I walked into my bedroom and saw that Noah had found a spot for my flower--right next to my bed where I was sure to see it and enjoy it--I was very touched.  I was cranky, and he was loving.  I sure am thankful for that.

I am thankful that we do not always get what we deserve.  That with some people, we love them and they love us, no matter what.  That God loves me more than I deserve and leaves me figurative flowers all the time; I only need eyes to appreciate them.

But, mostly, I am thankful for Noah today.  He is pretty wonderful.