On Taking "too many" Pictures

It's that time of year where I make birthday videos.  With the kids birthdays only one month a part, I'm delving through pictures and video from the past year from now until October 1, and it's making me so thankful for pictures.  They memorialize moments in time that would otherwise get lost in the shuffle.  

I remember that I took a road trip with the kids without KJ up to North Carolina last October, but seeing this picture this morning brought back so many more details and all the feelings of that autumn morning.

This picture made me remember the way the mist was rising and the canopy of leaves we drove under and my thankfulness for getting to be in one of my favorite places even just for one night.  

And this night of hanging out with cousins would probably be completely forgotten if it weren't for pictures.  I don't think I would have remembered this fun little night of pizza and sword fights.  John David was totally getting ganged up on, but I don't think he minded.

The one million pictures you leave behind for your grandchildren may be overwhelming, but they won't be sorry to have them.  Not one bit.

Tuesday Morning, no wait, it's Wednesday

Last week I started this great routine where I blogged first thing in the morning, and I had all kinds of great ideas, but I am coming up empty this morning.  I'll give you a rambling update of things I've been doing and thinking about instead.


Doing:

• Of course I've been taking care of James and Luke.  For James that involves putting together Thomas the Train puzzles with him.  He LOVES them.  I found four more great wooden puzzles at Target on Saturday, and he's displaying a brilliant mind in putting them together.  Just saying.  For Luke it involves spreading out a blanket on the floor with toys because he is working his way toward crawling and spending a lot of time on his belly.  No blanket = spit-up on the carpet.  He's making great progress!

• Laundry  I washed and folded two loads yesterday (it is a big accomplishment for me to wash and fold on the same day.) and ironed for quite a while.  I was wondering where Ella's school clothes ran off to, and I found them in the bottom of the ironing basket.
• Reading  The Three Musketeers.  I'm reminded of why this book was the first to replace Gone with the Wind as my favorite in high school.  It's really good.  And funny.
• Watching TV  After fixing our old television all by himself for $5, KJ mounted our new TV on the empty wall in our bedroom that has needed decoration for 3 1/2 years.  It's been the most wonderful thing.  I know some say it makes you stay up later and sleep less well, but I've been going to bed earlier and most of the time falling asleep earlier, too.  There are some nights I go to sleep by 9:45 now, and that never happened before the TV on the wall.  
• Doing The Firm workouts again  I took up jogging over the "winter," and I really enjoyed it.  I completed a Couch to 5K plan, but since I've been able to jog for 30 minutes, I've grown kind of bored with it.  Maybe I'm just bored with my neighborhood route, but I've started interspersing it with my old Firm workouts, and since I haven't been doing strength training much since I started jogging, I am sore.  My abs hurt rolling over in the middle of the night.

Thinking:

• about the summer  We're taking the kids to the beach for a few days.  James has never been, and it's our first real vacation as a family of four.  We went to Disney World when James was 3 months old, so he wasn't really a participant, and that time we were also on an entire family vacation.  This is our first time just the four of us.  I'm excited.

• Free summer movies  Our local movie theater offers free movies for kids during the summer.  I'm planning on taking James for the first time.  I love it when my kids have "first" experiences.  It's so fun.
• Having Ella home again Yippee!!!
• Our story never ends.  I really love serial story-telling.  It's what turned me into a TV-watcher as well as a reader.  I was thinking last night about how much I hated it when stories end and how I hate letting go of characters and plot lines.  I thought about how all stories have to have an ending, but then remembered, Wait!  Ours doesn't.  That made me happy.
• It's time to start the day.  I better go get cleaned up and wake up James and fix him breakfast.

Happenings

KJ informed me that there are people waiting and longing for a new blog post from me.  I think he means that he is.  I told him I had been thinking a lot of things recently, but they seemed too private to just throw out on the internet, so I wasn't sure what I would write.  He said, "Write about how great your husband is."  Okay.  Off the top of my head...


KJ willingly and graciously, and because he knew I would enjoy being lost in a story, gave me all of Saturday afternoon to read The Hunger Games.  I know I'm behind in just now reading it, but I just hadn't gotten around to it, and sometimes I resist fads.  But it was definitely the kind of book that you can't put down and that you spend several hours reading, and say to your husband, "I don't know if I can stop to make supper," and if he's really wonderful like mine he says, "I'll take care of supper" and comes in to give you kisses and smile at you while you read.  KJ is great like that.  That's a small taste of how he loves me.


In other news, my wonderful and beautiful 22-inch monitor computer is alive again.  We've had a lot of stuff broken lately, but it serves to make us more grateful for what we have when it is repaired.  It is really hard to edit pictures on a 10-inch monitor.  It is also fun to ponder the ways of God and how He controls the threads of our lives.  The church member who has been helping us save our hard drive's contents works at the University and has a graduate student from China working for him.  Justin very kindly brought over the disc we needed to re-load Windows 7 last night, and we were able to share a meal together and make a new friend.


Yesterday afternoon I moved an old desk that was in James' room out to the living room to put the computer on it, and I am quite enjoying it.  I turned on re-runs of a television show I'd seen before and joyfully edited some pictures on the big screen.  

my brother, sister-in-law, and their dog, Harvey

I'm looking forward to some more time at the computer this afternoon.  

Last night we brought out the Resurrection Eggs for family time.  It was so special opening one each night with Ella last year, and I knew James would be excited about participating this year.  We've planned it where they each get to open one every night until Easter morning.  James really enjoyed it too much.  He was ready to open all the eggs and cried and cried when I put them up so he could go to bed.  Poor guy.

Ta-da! There's your blog post, KJ dear.  Now I'm off to have a productive morning looking to the ways of my household.  

Here are some pictures of our first night opening Resurrection Eggs last year.  In looking up that post I remembered another piece of important information.  We got our internet speed upped for a reduced price!!  Looking for an old bog post has never happened to quickly...

Friday Randomness

It's shaping up to be a full and fun Friday today.  I'm so excited to have Ella home from school, and I get to go to Birmingham this afternoon for a photoshoot with my brother and sister-in-law and will hopefully see my mom, too.  Joy all around.  :)


I got my car back exactly one week after it was stranded in Birmingham.  Hopefully I won't be stranded anywhere tonight...It's a good thing I charged my cell phone last night.


Our new harddrive for our computer also came in on Tuesday, and we're hoping to get it installed tonight.  The absence of our big computer explains the absence of England pictures this week.  


We got our Federal tax return in yesterday.  Yay!  Good for us since all of our electronics have been breaking lately...


This is James' favorite YouTube video.  He watches it daily.



I love these words:


Delight yourself in the LORD, and he will give you the desires of your heart.  Commit your way to the LORD; trust in him, and he will act.  He will bring forth your righteousness as the light, and your justice as the noonday. (Psalm 37:4-6)

A Heart Full and Thankful

"...and His mother treasured all these things in her heart."

- Luke 2:51b -

"If I loved you less, I might be able to talk about it more."

- Mr. Knightley, Emma, by Jane Austen -

"...speech is for the convenience of those who are hard of hearing; but there are many fine things which we cannot say if we have to shout."

- Walden, Henry David Thoreau -

Those are a random assortment of quotes, I know, but they were all running through my head this morning as I thought about what I could say about our weekend.  It was a really good weekend.  Yesterday especially was a day of having my soul satisfied by God's Word and sweet communion  with His people.  And as much as I love words, sometimes I don't like to use them.  And that just reminded me of one more quote.

"Matthew and I are such kindred spirits I can read his thoughts without any words at all."

- Anne of Green Gables, L.M. Montgomery -

From the quiet of my morning

I'm waking up this morning to the lovely lights of my Christmas tree.  As is their tradition, Ella and KJ put up the tree last night, and maybe we'll be able to finish decorating it this morning.  I can't believe it's time for the Christmas season.  I'm going to need to immerse myself in Christmas music and movies to make my heart realize the end of another year has come.  

And it is the end of my 20s!  That is rather hard to believe and is a huge milestone.  One night last week I was getting ready for bed, and I looked in the mirror and realized I would be 30 in two months.  Thirty.  That's heavy.  I went back in the den and informed KJ he was about to have a 30-year-old wife.  He said, "I know.  I've thought about it and wondered if I should do something special."  To which I replied, "Yes.  Yes, you should.  I think 30 deserves a nice party.  This is momentous."  But I still have a month and a half left of my 20s.  The 29th has definitely been a good year.  It's been a good decade all around.  

I'll confess that the passage of time does make me feel a bit melancholy.  Maybe I'll end those thoughts for the moment.  The drizzly rain and darkness has kept my household asleep for longer than normal.  It's so peaceful and quiet.  I should probably go prepare my heart and mind for the rest of this Sunday morning.  May you have a blessed day.

P.S.

Do you ever click on pictures on my blog?  Now, with just one little click, the pictures come up all nice and pretty on a translucent black background.  It's perfect if you want a closer look.

A somewhat stream of consciousness early morning blog post

Early.  I woke up way too early this morning.  But I knew there was small chance of me going back to sleep so I'm just embracing it.  You know, before I had children I never had any trouble sleeping.  I went to sleep at night and knew nothing until morning.  I slept 8 or 9 hours each night, and the only time I ever got less was if I had a research paper due in college.  


Since having children, my sleep patterns are very erratic.  I think it's because if I ever woke up early before, I could go back to sleep.  There were no responsibilities waiting for me.  But now I know that my children could be awake at anytime so why waste time lying in bed for 30 minutes when I can go ahead and be up and ready for them?  


Last night started out normally; we went to bed on time, but a late-night phone call informed us KJ's father had a virus, and KJ would have to preach this morning.  That news left him kind of awake for a while thinking about what he would do, which had me sleeping fitfully as well.  You would think I would sleep later since I went to sleep later.  Nope. Good morning 5:45 a.m.  


I can't believe it is August 28!  This month has gone by so quickly.  Five years ago today it was Ella's due date.  I was waiting, wondering what labor would feel like, worrying that I would somehow mess up knowing the right time to go to the hospital, with no way to fathom how our lives were about to change.  The sweet girl didn't come today, though.  She waited, and after one more trip to the doctor, we made plans for me to have labor induced on September 1.  

Where did that little family go?

It will be an exciting week around here, with lots of birthday preparations.  Ella has stuck to her guns about having a "surprise" birthday party.  Whenever I discuss plans with KJ, she covers her ears.  She doesn't want a preview of her birthday dvd, and she doesn't want to see party invitations.  I am starting to feel a bit pressured by her expectation.  :)  I remember at her party last year, she was drinking the sweet tea I made and said, "This tea is perfect."  That's what I'm going for again this year.  Perfection in her little 5-year-old imagination.  

And now that I'm sufficiently awake, I think a little Bible-reading is in order before the troops get out of bed.

Thoughts and Feelings

• I'm really thankful for the good trip home the kids and I made for Father's Day.  I love my dad and all the wonderful memories he made for our family growing up.
• I was happy to get to visit with my brother, Josh, and his wife, Nicole.  Aren't they sweet?

• I WAS feeling overwhelmed and stressed by the constant knocking at our door yesterday afternoon.  I barely made it out of the car after our arrival home before a neighborhood friend showed up, ready to play.  I'm trying to find a balance between our family's need for our own quiet life and having an open, friendly home.  I was feeling a little extra tense about it, though, because when we put James down for a nap, the doorbell rang, and when we put him to bed, the doorbell rang.  I have a sign I put out, but I haven't known it was necessary to do at 7 p.m.  I get tense when my baby's sleep is interrupted. 
• I'm wondering if I should go on an outing today or stay home and let KJ take my car since his car is cutting off when he stops at lights and obviously needs to go back to the shop.  He says he can make it another day.  Hmmm...
• I'm thinking about school options for Ella and lamenting the passing of nearly five years of being the center of her world, while at the same time wanting to embrace each stage of parenting and excited about the broadening of her horizons.  Sigh.
• I'm trying to teach James to share.
• I'm loving the sight of Ella's princess dolls riding around in the Batmobile.  Nice ride.
• I'm thankful to my mother for putting my flat iron, toothbrush, mousse, retainer, illuminating spray, and other toiletries in the mail today since I left them all at home.
• I'm thinking it's time I got up from the computer and started the morning chores.

News Items

"I know how you like news."

Mr. Knightley to Emma in 1996's Emma

"Well, I can't help feeling, Doctor, that you're making a mistake

 not allowing the woman to talk.
If she'd been around at all, she might've picked up some interesting news items."

Elwood Dowd to Dr. Chumley in Harvey

There were several mildly interesting/funny things that the kids did or said today, and I thought I would try to sift through my brain tonight in an attempt to remember them.  I make no promises.  The above quotes always flash through my mind when I think about "news" or "new items."  So...here we go.  

1. Ella was sitting up in a chair in our living room this morning playing with Princess dolls and suddenly asked me, "How do I look?  Do I look like a woman?"  What she wanted me to notice was the fact that she was sitting with her legs crossed.
2. James ate what I believe to be a nice-sized helping of charcoal ash this morning.  We were going outside to enjoy the sunshine and cool breezes.  I grabbed a snack and prepared to sit in the grass and read, If God is Good:  Faith in the Midst of Suffering and Evil.  I took a bite of granola bar as I was walking out the door and looked at James, waiting for him to ask for a bite.  When he opened his mouth it had a huge wad of blackness.  He kind of had a confused look on his face, too.  I went into freak-out mode because I thought it was bird feces (where was my faith in the midst of the evils of an adventurous eater?) and started a vigorous finger-sweep.  James commenced crying and carrying on, and I honestly think it was more because of my finger in his mouth as opposed to the bad taste of whatever he was eating.  He's behaved normally for the remainder of the day, so I suppose he's fine.
3. Ella and I read P.D. Eastman's, Go, Dog.  Go!, together this afternoon.  I read the words she didn't know.  Later tonight she re-read it by herself.  I was really proud of her.  Every so often when she got stumped on a word she would yell, "Mo-om,"  because I was back in James' room cleaning.  Then she would ask me about the word.  From that point on James began to mimic her calling for me.  Mo-om was quickly followed by, "Ma, Ma, Ma-aaa" ad infinitum.  It was only cute because he just knows a handful of words.
4. James really has been attempting a lot more words today.  He attempted nose, mouth, eye, as well as saying, "What's that?" and "All done."  Also lots of Ella's and Mama's.  He was a communicative little booger today.  
5. I don't remember what brought this conversation on, but Ella said today, "Mom, you can have another baby if you want to.  Elizabeth's mommy has a LOT of children.  She just keeps on having more and more kids."  Hmmm...
6. James obeyed me several times today.  The wind kept blowing our gate open while we were in the backyard.  He looked longingly at it and then looked back at me.  "No, no, James."  He looked at the gate and looked at me.  After a few minutes of staring out at the great unknown, he looked back at me, and I said, "Come to mama."  He dutifully trotted over to me and gave me a hug.  I was so proud.
7. After going through a couple of other Bible story books at bedtime, we brought out The Church History ABCs again.  Truthfully, it just came back by popular demand.  The first night Ella had forgotten that, "A is for Augustine," but she remembered that "B is for Anne Bradstreet."  Tonight she had them all down and before we got started said, "D is for John Donne."  I have to admit that this is my favorite family time book, too.  I especially love reading the extra historical tid-bits located in the back of the book.  I have to share tonight's, and then I'm done.  (Did you catch that pun?  I did not do that on purpose.)

"John Donne was poised for quite a career in London politics.  Then he fell in love with and married Anne More in 1601, against her father's wishes.  He happened to be Lieutenant of the Tower of London and had Donne jailed for a short time, prompting Donne to write:  John Donne, Anne Donne, Un-done."

Are you kidding me?? The guy's father-in-law put him in the Tower of London for marrying his daughter.  I just googled it, and this really did halt what would have been a successful political career, because he fell out of favor with all his father-in-law's peeps.  Wow.  I found that interesting.  But, perhaps Donne wouldn't have become a pastor at age 45 if it hadn't been for that little incident.  God is the ordainer of our paths, is He not?