Easter

Our Easter Sunday was sweet.  Had a bit of a tough time getting through the Easter lesson in my 4 year-old sunbeam class without getting choked up every other sentence. Grateful for the sweet and simple truths of the gospel. 

The rest of the weekend was full of time with family and friends, and that is always good.

An egg hunt:

Baby chicks! What!? our dear Amanda brought them over to share with us on Easter Eve:

they're so fluffy!!!!!!!! oh, the cuteness.

And baskets, bedheads, and bunny ears on Easter morning:

 Happy Easter.

Making Plans

I have plans. Oh do I have plans! My plans have plans. Plans for decorating my house, plans for educating my preschoolers, plans for simplifying our busy, oft times too worldly life, plans for emergency preparedness. I have plans for a big, beautiful garden that will supply my kitchen with all I need to prepare healthy, natural meals, planned at least a week in advance.

But somewhere between homework and laundry and soccer practice and regular old cooking and cleaning, most of those plans stay just plans. And it can be pretty darn tempting to let all those unrealized plans make me feel less than great about how very little I seem to be able to accomplish most days. 

Then every once in a while one little plan becomes more than a line in my notebook and it's just enough of a boost to keep me making plans, and keep me trying not to sigh over the ones that will have to wait for another day.

Today, it's raining. Our plan to plant our garden will have to wait for another day. But two new little peach trees have been planted and are (hopefully) putting down roots. Malan dug one of the holes all by herself and all the girls helped fill the holes, tamp down the soil, cover it all with mulch and give our trees their first watering.

There is something so wholesome and good for the heart about planting things and hoping they'll grow. And if I can somehow manage to keep the proper perspective, I think that such is also the case with making plans.

Goggles

Memphis has been unseasonably cold. For memphis. Yes I realize there is still snow on the ground in my home state, but if I have to put up with 105 degree summers, I should get some early springs to go with them. Right? 

My girls put away the winter stuff and dug out the summer box 3 weeks ago. They, too, are eager. We have our crates and soil just waiting for the temps to rise enough to get our garden started. Tt snowed at soccer practice this week. Come on, sunshine, we are just itching for you!

Til then. . .I guess we'll be wearing our goggles with long sleeves and blue jeans.

Goggles. Always funny.

Tell me, are you as eager for Spring as I am? What warm weather fun do you have planned?

Getting Makey

Which is not the same as getting makey-outy, but it is likewise fun.

 Here is a photo rundown of our makings of the last little while, because along with creating horrendous messes, this is how we pass a great deal of our time round these parts.

Making valentines (and shrinky dinks) for our beloveds:

 

An impromptu performance of "Jack and the Beanstalk."

Leprechaun traps by Malan and Jane (Malan used traditional "fools gold" to lure one in, while Jane opted for a sensitive approach by utilizing reverse psychology and providing food,
a soft bed, and a tiny fuzzy friend to keep the short green fellow company.)

  We found this little beaut at an antique shop and made it over with a chalk board stove top for the Hale cousins for Christmas, along with some diminutive kitchen linens:

Olivia helped man the mod podge on these olliblocks. . .

. . .and Malan finished the doll she's been working on just in time for Maryanne's birthday. (Jane's doll pillow was a sweet touch, not pictured here.)

 Nothing like a project or two to see you through the winter doldrums.

Any fun makings going on at your place?

Spring Break!

I love love love love! having my girls out of school, so spring break made me very happy. We went to zoos and parks and gardens, and we slept in and made special breakfasts and had movie nights with the Hales. (And of course, when more girls are home, there is more drama. But that's a given, and I think just maybe we're handling that a little better these days.) Here are some photos from our week.

Petting stingrays, and getting soaked by a rogue stingray who wanted more personal space.

And a day at the botanic gardens:

Look! I exist. But still haven't managed to find time to do my own hair or put in my contacts if it's not a Sunday. Good thing messy buns and glasses are in?

Man oh man, I love a good week with my homegirls. Just 2 more months till summer break. I think I'll make myself a paper chain to count down the days. Any fun plans for when the weather warms up in your neck of the woods?

Since I Had My Camera Out. . .

Katie and I put up a vintagey old sheet and took some smashy-cake pictures of our dear sweet

  Maryanne who will be turning the big NUMERO UNO this Thursday.

Oh my sweet squishy goodness, Maryanne! You make your auntie proud.

Blogiversary

 Smart sciencey people say that the mere observation of an experiment changes it. And non-smart/sciencey I can see that the documenting of our lives in this little blog space has changed us. I've noticed more often the sweetness in our monotonous daily doings. I've tried to improve my scanty photography capabilities in order to try to better capture what I see in our life. And when I re-read what I've written, I remember. Tender moments, hard lessons, poignant insights, downright familial hilarity. Many of these memories are feelings I felt while I experienced the event and wrote about it and are not even obvious in the text. But I feel them again when I read it and I remember, and I learn from them, and it makes me better. And I think, if nothing else, the kids will get a kick out of all this when they care to read it.

So even though blogging is clearly the old (insert latest social media project), I plan to persist.
 I also still buy actual books, call me crazy.

This month, blog and I have been together 6 long years. Though we don't usually exchange gifts or even take notice, really, I feel like celebrating! And I feel like saying thank you, faithful readers, for following along, and for your kind/insightful/helpful/hilarious comments through the years. You are just the best.

Don't want to leave you without one little gem today. Can you guess what we are working on at our house right now?

 Tell me you'll still be my friend even though I sometimes let my kids do gross things because they are funny. 

And tell me potty training plus simultaneous binky annihilation is going to work. I need a pep talk.

Thanks friends. You mean s'dang much to me.

Being Home

A few years back when Caleb started medical school I admit I felt
downright jealous. It's what I'd always wanted to do after
 college, but what I'd always known I'd never do because I knew perfectly well I was meant to have
 and raise children.  No one told me I had to, I just knew it.  It's taken time and experience for me to
 come to a place of quite profound gratitude that, amid all the things my teen and twenty self got
 wrong, I nailed that one.

Nothing could be making more of me than this. I am stretched and strengthened and
  challenged and rewarded and so completely filled and fulfilled.

Little ladies, I'm trying hard to be what I should be for you, and I am so happy I get to be the one to supervise your sisterly play dates (and break up the occasional toy tug-o-wars) every day. 

There is nowhere I'd rather be.