our day

so i had something really clever and trixy to tell all about our day.
our day of christmas.
but alas, my brain is mushy tonight.
so i leave you with a collage of
the highlighted moments
so as to overly indulge your senses with our christmas delight.

(this was the most wonderful part for me. foster and i crafted some sugar-overdose-inducing cupcakes as our new "happy birthday jesus" tradition. needless to say, foster caught on quite fast when we got to the toppings.)

stealthy

i have a toddler (2.5 yrs). i also have a baby (11 mo).
it occured to me this morning that my "baby" isn't a baby anymore.
i watched as he carefully navigated his way around our ottoman with precise precision so as to not disturb his older brother who was peacefully playing with his thomas the train coaches.

this stealthy 11 month old maneuvered his way so quickly, that before his elder brother realized what had transpired, the trains were well on their way to being fully slimed in the mouth of my so-called "baby".

it came as a surprise to me that he is working his way into toddlerhood. why do we always feel slighted when they start to change? as if i didn't have enough time with him when he was constantly needing to be fed, changed, rocked for hours on end, burped, bathed, and everything that comes with caring for an oh-so-little one. but, maybe i didn't have enough time. he wants desperately to do what the big kids are doing, and i find myself desperately wanting to keep him little. perhaps my instinct to keep them little is a part of my own desire to reminisce about their littleness. i find myself looking back at pictures of their babyhood with a naive glistening look in my eye. somehow i don't remember the severe sleep deprivation that spread from early pregnancy through his first 8 months of life....nor do i seem to recall the labor intensive energy required to do all of the things that come with babies. funny how that is. it's easy to forget the hard stuff in light of such delightfulness. i would do it all again, and probably will, Lord willing. but for now, i'll try to remember each day how little they are at that moment so that tomorrow i don't find myself in the same reminiscent state i am in today :)

candyland

(thanks linds, for the awesome kiddy closeups. i'm officially jealous of your super great camera!)

the factory

no i'm not stocking up

in the event of a national

graham cracker house shortage

but i did spend the evening achitecting some delicious

fabricated houses for fosie and his little friends.

adorableness will soon be posted.

for now, my factory is closing up for the night.

i leave you with the awesomeness that is

my village of no less than 10 vacancies.

prime real estate located in the kitchitory valley

nestled between the sugar mountains and the utencil peaks

the fortress

the inhabitants

yesterday

have you ever had a day that was less than appealing?
one that left you frazzled, frizzled

frustrated
fragmented

that was me
yesterday

a desperate phonecall to a dear friend
brightened my evening

after a day of headache
she made it all go away

her kinditude
was beyond the call of frienditude

thanks to you sweet friend.
i feel like me again today.

the big cut

in an edward scizzorhands snip-alike motion

i was scizzoring at warp speed.

the scizzoring was going quite well.

the side and back hair was well trimmed.

not CUT, trimmed.

still keeping the esscence of long-headedness

but my snipping escapade turned disasterous in one foul slice.

just as my scizzor crunched down on his ever so-luxurious front locks

my not-so-patient patient finched

i made an attempt to counter flinch so as to continue my snippage

but the impending flinch resulting from my counter flinch

resulted in an unmistakable mistake.

i froze.

edward scizzorhands would not have been proud.

i began to utter those un-imaginable, un-desirable words

you know, the ones you never want to hear...

from your doctor, when your baby is on the brink of birth

from your tax accountant, when tomorrow is april 14th

from yourself, whilst you are cutting someone else's hair

"uh-oh"

the front-most portion of my son's head was ever unfortunatly shorter than the side and back regions.

this, my friends, is when scrappy home haircuts should be left to the professionals.

out came the clippers upon the realization that a side/back mullet will never come back into style

hair grows, right?

scrappy quota

after perusing my semi-cluttered christmas decoation bin

and feeling somewhat discouraged by it's uninspiring contents

i grabbed one of my more useless items, and made it not-so-useless

the single hole punch.

not just for the junk drawer anymore, folks.

i crafted my way into a massive kitchen disaster,

but made a fun little cut-glue-cut again-punch hole-tie string

project for foster and i.

well, really for me, as foster did more glueing of his fingers than anything else.

our tree is offically scrappy this year

our magazine "child-interest" inspired ornaments adorn it's greenery

thanks to my junk-drawer hole puncher and a 2 year old picture picker

font size equivalent = 5

Have you noticed the mail man doesn't bring exciting mail anymore? It's all supermarket ads, or credit card offers, or free mailing labels.

There is only one actual, real, handwritten, pen-and-ink letter I have received in my recent memory. It's from my husband. A man who loathes, nay, HATES writing.
It's just not his thing.
Give him a hammer, or a 4-wheeler, or an Xbox, but not a pen and paper.

My 5th anniversary gift this past August was the best gift I have ever received in my whole entire 30 (yikes) years.

Seriously, husbands, listen up. (if there are, in fact, any men reading this).

I nearly fell over when I opened a 4 (yes, count them) page letter. Not just any letter, mind you.
A love letter of encouragement...of life...of our lifetime of love.
Single spaced.
Font size equivalent = 5.
I tear up just thinking about it. It is the gift I will cherish always. If our house burns down, after saving my family, I will save the Bible my grandfather gave me, and this letter.

It was while I was reading this letter, tears streaming down my face, heart burning with anticipation for the next line of text, that I realized...no amount of sparkling diamond rings, emerald necklaces bedazzled with jewels, or flashy new Mercedes SUV's could bring me the joy that this letter brought to my heart, my soul, my inner most-being. For some reason, real words bring healing to my heart.

In an age of supermarket ads, credit card offers and endless emails, the pen and ink of the man most dear to me spoke to my heart and reminded me of what life is all about. It's the little things that matter. The day-to-day in-and-outs get us to and from the momentous moments of life.

I love the little things...or at least, I try to remember to love the little things in amongst the piles of dirty laundry, peas flying across the dinner table and a to-do-list that never seems to reach it's end. I hope we can all learn to love the things that don't require a credit card payment, because after all, at the end of it all, my 4 page letter will be part of a much longer legacy my hubby and I share together. And it didn't cost a thing.