HomeLife
How we spend our days is, of course, how we spend our lives. - Annie Dillard
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How To Win Friends & Influence People: Jr. Edition
We visited our favorite museum last week. Hands on! in Hendersonville. Thanks to my sweet dad our family can visit that wonderland any day we choose this year with our handy-dandy museum membership. (That sounded trite. It wasn’t. I seriously am so thankful for that gift and so thankful for the museum and I wish someone was paying me to say this stuff, but they so aren’t.) As I was saying . . . We played at the museum. I took a lot of photos using a new technique Page showed me the last time he and his family were visiting. Fox discovered paints and felt it was perfectly acceptable…
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Date Night: From the Home Front
Last night was Date Night. No guns or alcohol this time. A rather low-budget evening. Carrabba’s for dinner. (Only because we had a gift card, thanks to Look Up’s annual Christmas party.) Mid-dinner, a text arrived from Riley, our evening’s official babysitter. It was a photo of Magnus, perched like royalty on an old chair in our sunroom. When we returned home, Riley gave us the evening’s breakdown . . . photojournalist-style. (I guess my parents never had that luxury with their babysitters -eh?) First, there was music. And costumes. And dancing. And then, as is so often the case, music led to art. (Apparently Berg was drawing drums. To…
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a first time for, well, everything
I’ve made a lot of trips to the grocery store with many children. (And by a lot – I really mean a lot. As in, if you average just one trip to the grocery store per week since Riley moved in with us, that makes 520 visits.) It is not at all unusual to have five or six kids with me at every Publix tour that I pull. And in all those trips, those hundreds of trips, made with many small children I have never had a child sneak an unapproved item into the cart. I don’t really know why that is, actually. I just know it is not a…
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thank you.
Someone (okay, my cousin Sherry) gave me what I think might be the greatest compliment to my blog the other day. She wrote . . . “Your post always remind me of Steel Magnolias…this scene in particular…because I remember being in the theater and watching the funeral scene and crying and then all of a sudden this scene happens and I cracked up……………That’s how your blog is for me, it’s so touching and deep and thought provoking and I cry a lot and then you say something adorable one of the kids said and I crack up…..laughter through tears…………..awwwww. . . . .” It’s probably my favorite because it’s really…
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An Early Birthday
Do you like surprises? I heart surprises. Really, I do. (Well, good surprises. I seriously love good surprises. I’m like a surprise junkie. I can never get enough.) And it seems like for birthdays I usually find myself giving people what I want – surprises! Kevin’s birthday is this weekend and I have a few family surprises up my sleeve for him. But I couldn’t wait until Saturday. So I had a little early birthday date night last night for just the two of us. (I had been crazy sick all morning. As in, not even rising from the bed until after 3 p.m. But Kevin’s gracious help allowed me…
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an odd assortment
I’m still sick. I think it has been six days of feeling Far Less Than Normal. Kevin had strep throat. London had strep throat. The bottles of amoxicillin in the fridge have outnumbered the jugs of milk. A cacophony of coughing greets my every morning and accompanies me throughout every day. Sentences are hard to complete and some prerecorded episodes of What Not To Wear are calling my name. So I give you today – a list. An odd assortment of true facts that are only related because they all happened here at this house and they are all true. (Silly me, of course they are true. I called them…
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One Word.
I always find it sort of funny to write “I have a friend” when I have not met the person in real life. (Even though I do have friends whom I have never met in the flesh. Yet.) But I have met this person in real life. At Story. (Even if the meeting was short and I was afraid that Alece did not remember me from our e-mail exchanges. And I maybe acted a bit like a tongue-tied teenager. I mean, that might have been how it went down. Maybe. You know.) Ahem. Alece writes this beautiful raw and compelling blog, Grit & Glory. And she has this lovely idea.…
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Ringin’ It In.
I write a lot of posts about little kids. Our little kids. Because we have a lot of them. A lot of little kids. But we have a teenager too. And I’ve already shared about why posts featuring her name are less frequent than others. But we try to embrace these years of fashion and funk, tears and drama, breaking away and holding on in the same manner we embrace the poop and the broken pickle jars. (With a laugh and a joke. At least – the next day.) This New Year’s Eve might have found you toasting the past and the future with your friends, holding a fluted little champagne…
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it’s funny because it’s true.
The following conversation occurred during last night’s bedtime routine. Location: London and Mosely’s bedroom. Kevin: Good night, girls. London: Good night Daddy. I hope you feel better. [Kevin has strep throat. He feels not well. Very not well.] Kevin: [Overwhelmed with love for her consideration] Thank you London. I feel so blessed that you are my girls and how you guys show me that . . . Mosely: [Interrupting this tender moment.] I lost my lip. I think I ate it.
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The Times. They Were Good.
The house has been a little extra full the past few days. Full of Keigleys – like usual. Full of Phelps – not like usual but like a special unusual holiday treat. Full of laughter. And screams. Full of staying up late. And getting up early. Full of old “back in the day” stories. And current “in the trenches” tales. A visit to a restaurant with nine children. (Where the kids behaved beautifully. Despite the sudden, surprise mid-meal exit of one tooth from Hezekiah’s mouth.) We visited our local children’s museum and I left my camera at home because Page had his. And he is a wonderful photographer. We even…
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mid-week ramble. is that a thing?
Q Bitz Solo: A Timberdoodle Review
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Once Upon A Midnight Weary
Last night we went to bed a little late – visiting with some good friends. (More details on those guys tomorrow.) For now – let’s just focus on last night. Otto was sleeping in a pack and play in Kevin’s office and from our comfortable and warm bed I could hear him crying. The indiglo feature on my old school watch glowed 1:24. “If he is still crying at 1:40, I’ll go get him,” I told my sleepy self. It sounded logical then. I think I might have dozed off. 1:45. Oops. Still crying. Upon further investigation, Otto’s tears were justified. Somehow his sippee cup of water had been opened…
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Another Birthday Story. Different Birthday(s).
Remember how I said our stop in Atlanta was a soft landing place before making the haul to our next stop? That was true. (Because I don’t lie here – right? Well, at least not intentionally.) We drove nine hours to Florida two days before Christmas because we wanted to be a part of a fabulous birthday surprise for two marvelous people. Maybe you remember seeing their faces here before. Oma. Papa Dale. The matriarch and patriarch of our framily. They both turned sixty. And we made it (just barely in time) to see their surprised faces as they entered the room. And by “just barely in time” I mean…
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at this house
At this house things like this happen . . . We bake gingerbread cookies with joy and enthusiasm. Eager to get to shaping and cutting out our gingerbread people. Only to realize a few minutes later that the recipe calls for the dough to sit in the freezer for over an hour. Once that hour passes, children step up to the butcher block, less eager and with no desire to plow through multiple cookie cutting sessions. Which means that we ended up with one dozen adorable gingerbread boys and Christmas trees and two dozen gingerbread blobs.
