belly, blanket and backwards bbq

{is it just me or is that picture up there so blurry it hurts your eyes?}

27 weeks!

Due to my history of early babies, my doctor is concerned about the high risk of preterm labor. I'm not having any contractions and I'm not on bedrest... Just taking it easy, staying on-island, and adding omega-3 fish oil to my daily dose of vitamins. With no NICU/PICU on the island, Ian needs to stay put for another 10 weeks. Will y'all pray for my little guy?

{I still can't believe I'm mom to 4 boys! Eeeeeeeeeee!!!}

My little sis had her second child this past week-- Jude Christian.

I am *sniff sniff* and honored that they would make Christian part of his name. Just writing that out makes my eyes well up with tears. {Thank you, Lele and JRay.}

This is the first niece/nephew that I have not seen almost immediately after birth. :( Hence no pictures of him to share.

But I did get off my butt long enough to make him a cute little doggie baby blanket. Yay me!

{It's a good thing the pic up there is resized, lest ye have the desire to zoom in and see the uneven stitches and laughable attempt at mitering corners.}

Many of y'all are enjoying the cooler temps that come with November. While living in Guam is a beautiful experience, summer is the season that lasts all. year. long.

It's warm, humid, and breezy here... So when you are wishing for autumn and the need for s'mores arises (and you live in a condo with an electric stove and no yard), you do what you gotta do...

Gather your supplies...

...and IMPROVISE!

A bit laughable but the results are still deliciously the same...

What is your favorite Fall treat?

And does anyone have any special tips or tricks for binding a quilt and getting those corners right?

history (again) and a haircut

So I have decided to NOT study Texas History with the boys next year. Thanks for all of your (y'alls?) input! I think we will focus on Guam and WW2 history found there and in the surrounding islands. I can't wait!

Speaking of history, I revisited an old hairstyle from several years ago. Here is my new do:

A little sassier than when it was long.

My hair was last cut like this back in the day...

August 4, 2008

The boys and I were trying to figure out my new laptop webcam. We took some snapshots and even a video clip to send to David while he was on a trip. :)

It's strange how I even associated my haircut with that time period. I never thought grief would extend its fingers into so many small details of my life and that something as simple as a haircut would require emotional preparation.

I am thankful for an understanding family and a husband who loves me enough to walk through the details with me. {I'm glad he likes my haircut too!}

P.S. I have no idea what "related" video links are going to display at the end of the video clip... so just ignore them.

imperfect pictures

Sometimes the best pictures are the ones that aren't quite "perfect"...

Food in mouth,

not looking at the camera,

looking for mommy,

smiling grandma

trying to wiggle away,

extremely bored

and not happy to be here...

REAL LIFE.

That's why I love it so much!

I challenge y'all to look back through your old photos.

I bet you find at least one that, although the moment might have been crazy and the outcome disappointing, it captured real life and the genuine dynamics and personalities of that time.

Do you find that you love it a little more than you did before?

bye bye snowball

We're having a garage sale today. It is time to clean house and get rid of some stuff.

I just realized that I have neglected to announce that we are moving to Guam for a year and a half! Why is it that if I post something on Facebook, I assume that everyone knows about it?

Hence the garage sale and getting rid of stuff.

We said goodbye to Snowball the other day. Nope, she didn't die. In preparation for our move, we decided to reduce the amount of work and worry around here. I'm a bit emotionally attached to Snowball. Yes, she irritates me and jumps the fence and stands smack dab in the middle of the doorway when I have an arm full of groceries, but I do kind of like her.

I remember when she was this little.

We wondered if she would ever grow into her ears!

And then the super happy day when my photo made the Top 10 at I Heart Faces.

But what really made me all misty eyed when we said goodbye to Snowball was that she knew Christian. Kind of silly, no? I have this video clip where Christian was surprised to hear Snowball scratching at the back door. *sigh*

But things are things and dogs are dogs and we can't keep things and dogs forever. Especially if we are moving halfway across the world.

I think Snowball will like her new family. They haven't returned her yet so that is a good sign!

holding on to things

We are in the process of getting our house in order. Reading Tsh Oxenreider's Organized Simplicity was a swift kick in the behind! It is time to declutter, clean out and simplify.

While talking about the project ahead of us, David mentioned wanting to park cars in the garage. Imagine that, cars... in the garage.

The IKEA shelves must go. Okay.

The air hockey table must go. Gotcha.

The foosball table must go. My throat suddenly constricted, eyes began to tear up.

I was surprised to find myself crying. I have walked by that foosball table a million times and never gave it a second thought other than noticing that it is in the way and collecting dust. As soon as David said it must go, the memory of Christian at 2 years old popped into my mind.

Austin and Noah would often play foosball in the garage. They loved teaming up against daddy! Never one to be left out, Christian would climb onto an overturned plastic bin to get in on the action. I was always nervous that he would get jabbed in the chest with one of those handles. By the time he was 3, he was quite the little player on his own, laughing as the ball would race back and forth across the table.

This must be how Noah had felt about the bulldozer.

So the foosball table is staying for now. We are going to clear a spot for it in the man-cave (aka our old school room and now David's TV and hanging out room). I'm sure it'll get much more use inside than it ever did outside. :)

While we look not at the things which are seen, but at the things which are not seen: for the things which are seen are temporal; but the things which are not seen are eternal. -2 Corinthians 4:18

I do know that this is just a house. And that the foosball table is just a thing. They are not my Christian!

I don't ever want to get so attached to things that they dictate how I live, where I live or how we enjoy our space. It would be a shame to waste grief on stuff that has no eternal value. I can't take those things with me, nor would I want to. Heaven is way better than anything we can possibly possess here on earth!

If the foosball table were to disappear tomorrow, I would not be heartbroken. Sure I'd miss the memory jogger that it is, but the table itself is not the root of the missing. The root is Christian. Not a day goes by that my mommy heart does not long for the feel of him in my arms and the sound of his voice in my ears. It makes me praise God even more for the hope that we have through Jesus Christ! I know that this is not the end. There is more... much more... in due time.

Do you have things you are holding onto? Do those things have a hold on you?

what i see

Want to see what I see?

I have to warn you, some of it is pretty and some of it is messy and all of it feels like summer.

View 1: from the balcony

It is mighty pretty, isn't it?

View 2: from the entryway

It is mighty messy, isn't it?

Housekeeping has obviously not arrived yet.

Notice that we brought the necessities like Xbox 360 and laptops with us. Even with that beautiful view, we appreciate our electronics!

View 3: from the hallway

I still get a little dizzy looking down to the lobby. We are on the 13th floor. The sign on our door says we are on the 14th floor, but I don't believe them. When you are riding the glass elevator up and your floor is the one immediately after floor 12, it's not hard to do the math. My dorky boys and I make some sort of crack about it every single day. :)

View 4: where we go to take a break from our room

Stunning views of Tumon Bay from those big windows, but we're too busy playing Skip-Bo to notice. Sometimes I spice up our routine by offering a candy prize for the champion of the day.

I'm a wild and crazy mom like that.

Please notice the Japanese tourists taking a picture of their food. They always take pictures of their food, even if the food is ugly. But tourists are a post for another day.

View 5: view of Noah-boah because he makes me happy and willingly complied when I asked if I could shoot him at 1.6.

What is the view like in your neck of the woods?

PS Noah needs a haircut.

routine and i called it home today

I referred to our hotel room as HOME today. As in, "Hey boys, when we get home we need to call daddy on the computer."

Maybe it was from the high of finding Starbucks ground coffee at Kmart?

A girl can get a little tired of the Nescafe 3-in-1 instant coffee granules after a few days.

And then when we Skyped with David tonight, he said that he couldn't wait to get home and be with us. :) I suppose that home really can be anywhere, so long as it is where we are all together.

(Well, almost all of us anyway... the absence of Christian has really been on my mind a lot today. *sigh*)

We have already established a routine here in Guam. It is as far from complicated as you can get!

6:30 AM - wake up (without an alarm clock!), eat cereal or oatmeal, brush teeth
7:00 AM - walk on the beach and swim
8:30 AM - snack (swimming makes you hungry)
9:00 AM - a little school (or not)
Noon - Go out for lunch (eating out gets old old old fast fast fast)
2:00 PM - beach and pool
3:30 PM - read or play a game in the room (Chess, Monopoly, Uno or Skip-Bo bc that's all we brought)
5:00 PM - supper (eat out again. expensive and blech. or eat Easy Mac or PBJ's in the room- yay!)
6:00 PM - sunset on beach, pool/hot tub
7:00 PM - back to room, computer time
9:00 PM - read in bed and go to sleep

While I don't miss all the busyness of going and doing we had at home (soccer, Scouts, guitar, stuff!), I do miss cooking and sewing and my king size bed! I know that will all be waiting for me when we get back to Texas.

In the meantime, I am going to enjoy the togetherness, sunsets, Skip-bo tournaments, morning walks, and not having to share my boys with anyone else! :)

Do you like your routine? Has the snow or cold in your neck of the woods allowed you to slow the pace a bit or does it just drive you crazy a la The Shining?

clothespins, stinky string and circles

The title pretty much sums up what I've been elbow deep in today.

(I am refraining from making some joke about being in deep doo doo because I am sure that would be unladylike and make me lose a few friends... or would I gain a few friends?)

As I was cutting out a bzillion circles, I kept wondering what the awful smell was. Did some rodent die and rot in the corner of my new room? *gasp* Did one of our hamsters meet their demise?!

Nope. It was just this STINKY(!!!) hemp string.

I'm decorating for my friend Dixie's baby shower. She is prego with her 10th child! :)

girl,
boy,
boy,
boy,
boy,
girl,
girl,
girl,
girl

.

.

.
and BOY!

With the circles and clothespins, I made these super-cute decorations for the windows and walls.

The focal point is the clothesline with the "Little Brother" shirt and his name...

Well, I thought it was going to be his name.

When my friend Laura came over to help me get my house in order, she saw my adorable sign and told me that "Peter" is not going to be his name. They changed their mind.

So I did what any good friend would do and fixed my mistake.

Brilliant, no?

This way, all of my bases are covered! Because they are sure to change their minds several times before the baby is born next month. With one of their children, he didn't have an official name for weeks after he was born.

Did you already have names picked out before you gave birth? Or did you take your time in naming? If you don't have kids, what are your thoughts on the whole naming thing?

friday night is all about fun fun fun!

My fabulously fun Friday night began with a delicious chicken salad that my kids did not want to touch, smell or look at.

It was a tough act to follow. We managed to keep our spirits high with several rousing rounds of Uno.

I am proud of my boys for maintaining their cheerful dispositions in spite of being trampled by the Queen-of-Cards.

(That would be me, in case you were wondering.)

(My boys don't know that you are supposed to keep score in Uno. We prefer the shortened version where you just play however many hands you feel like and don't worry about the high numbered cards. Don't spill the beans, okay?)

Then I dug out ornaments that I bought in *cough* 2007 *cough* and printed out pictures to put in them.

I propped the ornaments on the couch that matches the blue chair to take this picture. I fell in love with the design of the fabric, even though it is questionable to have a mostly white piece of furniture in my house.

Oh my, we are really getting wild and crazy now! I must remember that this blog is rated G/PG-ish.

Since I had my printer hooked up to my laptop and all, I tweaked a very orange photo and made it presentable.

I think this picture turned out very well, don't you?

It was taken on our trip to Niagara Falls... August 21, 2008. *sigh*

What a blessing to have these photos. God already knew how precious they would be to me down the road.

{awkward transition back to my blog post... my thoughts drive me crazy sometimes with their randomness and constant ups and downs. such is my life, y'all.}

To top off my Friday night, nothing beats cutting coupons!

I do enjoy the mindlessness of it. It's relaxing in a strange sort of way, kinda like typing... the clickety-clack of the keys makes me feel serene.

So how is your weekend? Wild and crazy or plain-family-friendly-yet-fulfilling like mine?

Sweet Shot: yellow kitchen

Goodbye, Spiced Pumpkin!

Helloooooooo, Bicycle Yellow!

And in case anyone (ahem, Bethany) was wondering if my counters were always so tidy, here is a more realistic photo of what our kitchen might look like on a regular basis.

(circa 2007-- my counters are always messy so why would I take a more recent photo of them?).

The yellow is awfully bright and cheerful, no?

Now I just have to figure out what to put over the hutch in the dining area... Got any good non-cluttery-looking ideas?

And nothing complicated because that's why the CEC pictures are still sitting in a pile. *...hanging my head in shame, y'all.*

It's Tuesday, which means I'm hanging out with Darcy again.

I Heart Faces: Pets

Hello, Snowball.

Yup, Snowball in June. Some of her favorite hobbies are squirrel hunting, barking at turtles, chasing tennis balls without returning them, and wrestling with Hank, our Redbone Coon Hound.

Isn't she beautiful?

To see more pets or join in the fun, run on over to i heart faces.

Woot woot! I made #8 with this one! That's two extra treats for you, Snowball!

loving my new coffee

My friends Zephyr and Nathan just started a new business-- Cane Creek Coffee.

Yes, COFFEE. Yummy coffee grown in the mountains of Western Honduras and freshly roasted in Tennessee. Coffee and Tennessee are two of my favorite things. Does it get any better than that?

Oh wait, it does. Did I mention that my friends have a coffee business? Great coffee and friends really do go together. Especially if said friends can supply my addiction help make my mornings bright and perky. :)

Since I prefer a dark, bold coffee, I tried their French Roast, Chocolate Almond and Cinnamon Hazelnut coffees.

But not all in the same morning... boy, would I have been bouncing off the walls if that were the case!

It was a tough decision but I would say that the Cinnamon Hazelnut was my favorite. Mmmmmm...

If you want to try something new and delicious, visit my friends at Cane Creek Coffee and order a free sample!

Do you have a favorite coffee?

(or are you a tea drinker? i don't want my proper friends to feel left out. do you have a favorite tea?)

I'm linking up with TidyMom today. Hop on over there to see what other peeps are lovin'!

Sweet Shot: hydrangeas and life

Out of all the flowers, trees and bushes we have planted around our house, the hydrangea is my most absolute favorite.

It's amazing the differences you see within the same bush.

Being positioned to where you receive more light bears fruit in both size and maturity.

And when a little extra acid is added... it changes your whole chemistry. It changes you from the inside out.

But grow in grace,

and in the knowledge of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ.

To him be glory both now and for ever.

Amen.

-II Peter 3:18

Study God's Word.

Grow in knowledge.

Grow in grace.

Bring Him glory!

Visit Darcy @my3boybarians to see even more of this week's Sweet Shots.

Sweet Shot: housework

I will be the first to admit that this is not technically a Sweet Shot when it comes to photography. The white balance is off and the composition is boring (among other things).

But when it comes to my plain old 35 year old eyes, seeing this kind of progress in only ONE WEEK is VERY SWEET indeed!

Before:

Day 1:

Day 4:

Day 6:

Day 7 (today!)-- looks similar to day 6, but there is drywall in that room now! And the covered walkway to the garage is almost finished.

In case the red shorts didn't catch your eye, see where the arrow is pointing? That's my man. He did all the electrical and a/c duct work himself!

The crew agrees that he's not bad for a white guy. :) And I'm sure everyone else would agree that it's not bad for a pilot.

I'm linking up with Darcy for Sweet Shot Tuesday.