Two

Two more days until I see Greg again... Today I need to make the starters for this bread, batches of granola and raw-nola, and a small grocery list to accomplish so that we can picnic in our hotel room.

Right now, I'm enjoying my current favorite salad (romain hearts, goat cheese, spiced dehydrated pecans, avocado) and taking a breather while my children wind down for naps and afternoon quiet-time.  Two days......

The three-day countdown...

It's been seven weeks since I saw Greg last.  In three days he will come home for the weekend, and we will be celebrating our 11th wedding anniversary on a little get-away in Austin. Our children will be farmed out to friends for two days, so it will be just us.  I'm trying desperately NOT to count down the hours, because the days are dragging as it is...but this makes me feel overwhelmed, uncreative, unable to manage a proper schedule.  I just want him to be here already.  It's funny how I can go for weeks...even months, functioning perfectly fine, managing our household and our lives, but then when the clock is ticking down the last few days to the next time I see him, I can't seem to think about anything else.  It's hard to fall asleep at night, yet all that I want to do is sleep until he gets here.  I'm a mess.  Unsurprisingly, I have no fun little pictures of our everyday lives at the moment...but I did find this great set of un-blogged photos from this past spring.

My friends Jenny, Lisa and I threw a bridal shower for our fun and quirky friend Pixie.  We went with a mad-hatter theme, complete with a silly photobooth, and it was so much fun that I intend to steal this idea for a future birthday party (for myself, of course.  Obviously.)

The prop collection is a set that I made for a friend's birthday party last year.  They are made out of printed illustrations (from here) glued with spray-adhesive to foam core, using skinny wooden dowels for handles.














Jenny, Lisa, me, Pixie


With my lovely friends Angela and Alicia




In pictures with Jenny, I am always on her right.  No need to break with tradition now.  Oh, and yes, I made both of those top-hat fascinators.  Details here.


From sweet...


To very....


VERY...


Strange, in the blink of an eye.  I LOVE my crazy friends!

All photos in this set (including more decor detail) can be found in the Flickr set here.

Whew, well at least that distracted me from the Greg Countdown.  For at least 10 minutes.  AGGHH!!!

Poppy, Nana and Keith come for a visit

For the first two weeks of July, Pete, Jill, and Keith came to visit us.  We always look forward to the times we get to spend with them.  It’s great to be able to share our lives and our amazing Texas friends with extended family.

Weeks out from their arrival the kids began making plans for a whole bunch of different adventures and special days to maximize play time with Poppy, Nana, and Uncle Keith.  From the minute they got here, it was virtual non-stop action.  

Because the timing worked out perfectly for me to travel to NY for Hannah’s wedding, I was only here for half of their visit.  In light of this we thought it would be fun for the children to dictate/narrate their perspective of the times they spent together, so without further ado, here’s (Andrew, Elijah, Lavella, or Jonah).

Elijah: "We're at the Splash Pool and Andrew was attacking me in this game and I was trying to keep the water gun!"

Lavella: "Nana is showing me how to float on my back.  Nana showed me how to hold my breath and keep my tummy up."



Jonah: "And dere's Keith!  And dere's me!  And write about me!  I am sitting with Poppy.  That's Elijah's apple."






Jonah: "I can't learn about it."






Jonah: "Keith give me that and I had a strawberry ice cream and Keith put stuff on it that is chocolate syrup."



Andrew: "We were at a lake and we were looking at bi-valves (those are two shells together), and we're looking at regular shells and fossils."


Elijah: "We had a live clam, and I even got a HUGE one that I found and it was alive! Even Jonah and Lavella got to keep some."









Elijah: "Poppy read us a lot of books!"



Elijah: "And Nana did too!"



Jonah: "That was when me and Lavella were in the 'carwash'!!"


Lavella: "Me and Jonah were turning around the thing and the blue stuff was soft and we got to feel it when no one was looking."


Jonah: "And Daddy was there!!!"

Lavella: "Daddy came to visit us for the weekend!"

Elijah: "It was really fun playing 'Clue' with everyone on the last day that Daddy was here!"












In the months since Greg left for school (January), my strength, endurance and patience have been tested as I've have faced so many challenges parenting and running our house alone.  Our friends here in Texas have been a wonderful support to our family, but it was a welcome relief to have Greg's parents take the load completely off of me for a solid two weeks and let me spend time with friends, grocery shop alone, spend time by myself, etc. Knowing that the children were safe and happy and the household was being cared for was an amazing thing.  Thank you to Pete, Jill and Keith for everything you did.  We had a lot of fun!

For even more pictures of their visit here, click through to the Flickr set.

Hannah's wedding part 2

One of my parent's friends took some fantastic photos of the wedding, so I grabbed them to share with all of you.  Thank you Nancy Lehman!


Christopher, looking all official in his tux


Caleb, walking my mom down the aisle


Rachel -- the cutest bridesmaid




Joy


Grace




Isaiah and Little Hannah (Hannah's new step-daughter)






My dad, officiating the wedding


Isaiah got a lolipop as a prize for making it all the way down the aisle


Caleb, Joy, Grace and I all sang "Sweet Shalome" at Hannah's request


Singing "Make You Feel My Love" (By Bob Dylan, as arranged by Adele)


I think it's pretty funny to see pictures of myself when I'm singing


Jonathan, reading Corinthians 13


The groomsman, etc.





These are my favorite two pictures -- love the expressions as Hannah and Shane look at each other









All of these and more are in the Flickr set: Hannah's Wedding Week