HomeLife
How we spend our days is, of course, how we spend our lives. - Annie Dillard
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The Great Sand Dunes National Park, Colorado (And Kristie Mountain Sports)
We first heard about them in an Okee Dokee Brothers video actually. (Which is why you’ll notice Otto is wearing his Okee Dokee Brothers t-shirt in these pictures. A little full circle, friends.) The Great Sand Dunes. This vast area of – well – piles of sand. But not at the coast. Not near an ocean at all. In the southern part of Colorado actually. The Great Sand Dunes National Park and Preserve. Bergen was the first proponent of the idea when I pitched it to the kids. “What if we visit the Great Sand Dunes after Lost Valley this year?” I asked them. Like…
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finishing flag football & what otto said
Last night we cheered Otto on as he finished his last flag football game of the season. (We missed two games due to our Colorado adventures so the season has felt pretty short.) It was his first venture into team sports and our family’s first venture into football of any variety. (I still have a hard time explaining how Otto performed if anyone asks. “He scored a touchdown,” I’ll say. “And then he caught the football in the end area for the throw that happens after the touchdown that is for a much smaller amount of points.”) We’ve got the best fans too. Before the…
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just recounting a day . . .
It comes with the territory. Post-vacation, summer bedtimes being lax and rise and shine times being delayed. Time on their hands and high humidity in the air. It all adds up around here to some pesky attitude issues. Some delays in obedience. Some just-about eye rolls. Some slooooooow to finish their chores. Some excessive complaining about doing incredibly normal things – like going to the grocery store and putting away your shoes. Makes a momma think the schedule might be more of her friend than she realized, even with big kids. I’ve given a few speeches already. Reminded a few certain individuals of impending consequences for continued delays…
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Five Finds Friday (pretty views, fruit salsa and skirts with shorts)
Hello Friday. I’ve seen a handful of you lately but it’s been a while since I documented you in this blog post. It’s back to the routine in a host of other ways – meals to prepare on my own, stories to write, kitchens to clean, work to do – so I guess it’s high time I stick to the schedule here too. funny The jokes we made in the car at Hour Fourteen on the Road on the last day. The new season of Kimmy Schmidt on Netflix. It’s not as funny as the first season – which I’m sort of thankful for. I have…
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Beyond Wildwood: The Reunion (the feelings part)
It was probably about two hours after we all said goodbye. Loaded into our separate rides and drove away. Somewhere on Colorado Highway 9. The mountains were being their beautiful selves. Maybe there was a song playing. I was lost in thought, not completely aware of what was happening in my brain and in my heart and in my mind. Until. I was crying. Not like sobbing, just like tears leaking out behind my sunglasses and I was sort of surprised and sort of on track. My heart was full and heavy and satisfied and restless. All the opposing things a heart can be. Especially a heart of one…
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Beyond Wildwood: The Way Out — just some things
All the miles have me off kilter. What day is it? What state am I in? Tomorrow we go off the grid, turn the cell phones on airplane mode, drive up into the mountains, put on cowboy hats, pull on cowboy boots, park the car, let someone else make the beds, eat three solid gourmet meals a day. I can’t wait. The last few days we’ve driven through hail storms. slept in less-than-stellar hotels, hiked in the Rocky Mountain National Park, seen so many elk that I thought at first were giant mule deer, visited the YMCA where I once upon a time spent the golden summer…
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on birthdays and cleaning up messes and this good life we’re living
There’s been so much celebration this past week, so much MAY, so many events and parties and this and that that it is a miracle we’ve coasted from day to day through it all. This weekend we celebrated Grandson The First turning TWO. (I feel extra shout-y tonight. I’ll try to reign in my use of the capital letters, but I’m not making any promises ya’ll.) Maddox enjoyed his little friends (mostly) and his cake and the sunshine and playing outdoors. And we all enjoyed watching him. Otto played his first flag football game (which I believe I mentioned yesterday). He scored three touchdowns (I think) and…
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Eight Years of Otto Fox
The only Keigley baby who can claim the title “unexpected”. The true baby of the family. He still can’t pronounce the letter “r” and none of us are certain if he has ever actually slept in any variation of his own bed. Otto Fox Wilder McDonald. Named after Otto Frank and Laura Ingalls Wilder and his grandmother’s family and a wild animal. Today he turns eight. Eight years since I gave birth to my only child born in the state of South Carolina. Eight years since I held a fresh-to-this-painful-and-beautiful-world newborn who shares my last name and my whole heart and who cost me extra weight and…
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five finds friday. (the kitten is cute and the brother makes me laugh and nothing impressive to eat)
What’s the point of even talking about the warp speed of my life right now? No – really. Someone tell me what’s the point?? (This is an unsustainable pace. Of which I will speak more about later. Or, better yet, of which I will begin to take action against. Soon.) Until that time, it’s Friday ya’ll. funny This is a long story. But I think it’s worth the read. (Obviously, I think this. I took the time to type it all out.) I made a terrible mistake. I told one of my brothers the wrong date for our family reunion. I told him the end date…
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On Why I Can’t Wait To Drive 3,000 Miles Next Week
Part of the reason why I cannot wait for our departure on this Beyond Wildwood adventure is because the last month or so has found me and mine shockingly busy. Unusually so. Schedule stacked sort of busy. The kind of busy I have spent the majority of my parenting years actively avoiding and orchestrating our family’s life in an opposite direction. I know some of this shift is natural with the rising ages of my children. Also, with the sheer number of children in my house. (Not that the number seems big to me.) Not even every child currently has an activity or a sport or a hobby they…
Keep Reading . . .
she’s right, he knows her name.
The Deal With Me & Low Cost Flights
pendulum swinger
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our number & our table
Perspective is a kooky thing. Even though I have six children and people told me that we looked like a preschool when all of the kids were little and we’d go anywhere – grocery store, zoo, gas station – I never thought of us as being a huge family. And then I’d see some mom in a restaurant wth a herd of children around her and I’d catch myself counting their heads and when I reached four or five or six, I’d think – man, that woman looks like she has a lot of kids. Oh wait. That’s how I look to other people too. Because it was my…
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What a Weekend: Making My Survivor Dreams Come True
My weekend stole Monday too. It was such a full and crowded and busy and fun and exhausting weekend that it just creeped its way right into the first day of the week and I couldn’t tell Monday from Saturday somehow. (Also, is creeped a word? I’m not going to bother finding out.) Friday night and Saturday I spent being a bit of a nerd. A TV show nerd. Or fan. Or whatever word is the word I should use here. (Someone tell me the words I should be using so I sound cooler than I actually am.) Former Survivor castaways were in town for a fundraiser…
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Five Finds Friday (the wrong jar, adorable art and a swimsuit mistake)
The weather this week has been so HAPPY and that helps everything. It’s Friday and we only have one more week of school and that is also very HAPPY. funny 1. This week London paid her sister to do her share of the lawn mowing because London prefers being indoors, clean, unsweaty. She gave her actual cash, plus a Lego. 2. Also. We had a picnic after church on Sunday and I grabbed a few snack items from our house and tossed them in a bag. See these jars? They were both in the fridge. Here is what is in them. One holds chocolate…
