How many?

How many pictures can one look at before their eyes glaze over and they leave your pitiful website bored by the events of your past 3 months?  my guess is about 50.  but I have 97 in this folder that I have named, "blog."  we'll see how it goes.  

I changed my mind.  I'm afraid it has been so long since i put up new pictures, that I need to go all the way back to June, in Houston.  Here is one of my favorite grown-up places in Houston - the outside patio at Tiny Boxwoods.  Terrible name for a restaurant, but a lovely place.

and we went there with a lovely lady.  Dr. Jodi.  People who visit us are forever worthy of being included on the loaf  website.  if i have forgotten you in the past, forgive me; i am making new resolutions.  Jodi is a terrifically fun friend and we are big fans of her.

here is ford this summer eating his first ever ice cream, or technically Ice Dream, cone at one of our many visits to Chik-fil-A this summer.  he was in heaven.  even now, he would rather lick the ice cream out of a bowl than use a spoon, because he thinks this is so great.

July 3rd.  My beautiful cousin Susan, got married.  How I love my children dressed up for a wedding, but the technical issues are such a challenge.  i.e. leaving the reception to take ford back to the hotel where he had a sweet babysitter, and then getting all the way back to the reception to realize that i had forgotten to take bobby doggie to the hotel, and then driving all the way back to the reception to find my other son completely high on coke and peanut m & m's.  I didn't even get to dance before it was time to go because we promised paige and frank that we would shoot some fireworks before we went home.

here were the best dressed men at the fireworks stand all night.

moving forward - to ford's first haircut from someone other than michael.  He had no problem with the experience. 

oh my sweet small group.  i just wanted to add a picture of you.  missing you. 

here was the house under heavy "prep" to put it on the market, these two along with my awesome mom were the hired help.  Hired means they worked pretty cheap - ice cream and a dinner.  I think they saved us hundreds of dollars in labor and hours.  I am still grateful. 

feeding giraffes at the houston zoo. 

sweetness.

more sweetness.  anke and matthias. 

houston zoo, we miss you.  we miss the dinosaur exhibit.  we miss the growing elephant family.  we miss the natural encounters house, we miss waiting for the Africa exhibit to open, but most of all, we miss Smaug, the komodo dragon.  he has been a good, somewhat frightening, companion to us over the years. 

even more, we miss going to the zoo with our friends.  here's harper and frank.  they are a funny pair.

George letting ford do what he does best - play with water in the sink.  a good man, you are, George.

and here is my favorite photo from the move.  i love how all the color drains out of frank's face when he sleeps.  I also think that this captures how we all were feeling on that drive. 

welcome home.  that's twice now in that same shirt.  I stopped wearing it so much after seeing these pictures. 

here is an area of our new park in fayetteville.  its a weird, Lord of the Rings looking castle area.  lots of sharp rocks and dirty water for toddlers to fall on and make a kid happy and a mama crazed. 

here is the view of our house from the school playground across the street.  as i type, frank is playing over there while i sit on the porch and watch him and listen for a sleeping ford.  pretty nice.

ford is an excellent pray-er at meals.  we are so proud. 

he is also still an excellent nudist. 

and here are GoGo and Stephanie - i love this picture.  i wish i remembered what they we laughing at.

perhaps they were giddy with excitement for the play put on by Virginia, Willa, Frank, and even Ford.  it was entitled, "Shootin' Shaun."  once again, we are so proud.  

 

 

 

 

 

here's frank's collage on his moving box house.  he worked so hard on choosing his pictures and getting them just right.  i especially love the photos of the figs and barack o'bama with a giant hand.

my favorite doorknob in our house

isaac and frank at Whole Hog.  i think this photo is priceless.  i always appreciate how our guests and friends love on the boys when they come to town. 

we close today with a typical scene on our front porch.  i sit here and watch the boys play in rocks and dirt and sand.  many days frank and i play that game from the movie, "Up."  We each pick a color of car and count them as they pass by.  We have learned that most cars are either white, black, or gray.  If you pick blue, you are sure to lose.

 

 

 

 

 

out of touch

so i see, based on the lack of comments from my previous video post, that you either have rightfully abandoned checking this site, or you did not care for the fayetteville women's chorale group at the farmer's market.  perhaps you had to be there in person.

today is friday.  it is 61 degrees in my house.  the heater here is apparently not working.  i have been told by my husband that i cannot complain about the cold, because i have been wanting to experience seasons for so long now.  i appreciate where he is coming from, but i most like to experience seasons out of doors and not necessarily in my house.  Ford keeps waking up with blue lips.  i ordered him a goofy sleep sack yesterday.  it should be here soon. this morning we ate our breakfast with hats on.

my cell phone has officially died this morning.  it has been on hospice for about 3 weeks now,  but as of this morning, i cannot seem to make calls anymore.  now is when i can say "A Ha!" to my husband who insisted that we did not get a land line in our new home.  if there is an emergency, i suppose we will just all die and then he will be sorry.  I would get the phone fixed, BUT as of monday i am due for a new phone with sprint - so i will save the money.  should you need me sooner, you try to call me, or call michael a lot,  or email me we just got the internet fixed this week, too.  i tried to do that Google phone thing, but it doesn't seem to work for me.  oh well, i don't know any numbers anymore anyway.  Do you remember when you had all your friend's and neighbors' numbers memorized?  i think we were smarter back then. 

i have missed you all and feel out of touch when i am not writing here.  My issue, as always, is a desire for photos and my poor photo management.  I have been steadily deleting last years photos in order to upload my most recent photos - so get ready.  its gonna be an onslaught of calloway cheese coming your way. 

Dark night

well.

its been a while.
sometimes when you have a hobby like this and you don't keep up with it for a while, it gets a little hard to get back in the swing of things. 

so to break the ice, here is video of a typical saturday at the fayetteville farmer's market.

does anybody else....

• have a toddler who lays on the ground and laps up water from puddles when they are thirsty?

•  or have children who say with the utmost drama, "If you don't let me have cotton candy, then i will NEVER have cotton candy again!  i don't deserve cotton candy anyway, i don't deserve anything!  Fordy deserves everything, he can have all my legos and all my animals!"

• or do you have a dog that lays next to you all sweet and sleepy and then proceeds to have the worst gas you've ever smelled?

• or do you ever need to make two pies by 6:00pm and have your house cleaned up for houseguest, yet you decide to sit around and write a stupid blog entry because you are afraid of the lemon merinque pie? 

i do.

love(y) lost and found

so we lost "doggie."  who is now, "bobby doggie" because ford has started calling him "Bobbieeee"  however, frank's bear is called Bobby because his cousin Hank's bear is called Bobby.  so in order to separate the bear from the dog, we call him "bobby doggie."  we also call him this because it makes us laugh.  say it out loud.  for real.  you can't help but laugh when you say, "bobby doggie."

last night I had my first BSF class (Bible Study Fellowship).  While preparing dinner and waiting for michael to get home so that i could run out the door, Ford was already a crying mess because he was hungry and tired and i could not find bobby doggie.  He still hadn't eaten when i left the house, and I could tell it might be hard to put him to bed.  I was, however, confident that bobby doggie was around somewhere and wouldn't be hard to find.

when i arrived home 2 hours later, frank was still awake and the dinner had not been put away, and i asked, "what's going on?"
to which michael replies, "i can't find the dog."

i start to be immediately concerned, because i assumed he was refering to Angus - because angus is the dog.  i go outside and start looking for him, and then it occurs to me that he was not talking about the real canine, but bobby doggie.  to which i explained that if you only would call him by his correct name, we would not have this type of confusion in the house.

michael had spent the past 2 hours unable to console ford and unsuccessful in finding that ridiculous piece of fabric that means so much to him.  he had searched inside and outside for over an hour and announced that he was done. 

Now here is the amazing thing, our good friends Alex and Don have been searching for a replacement doggie for months now just in case something like this ever happens.  and i just received bobby doggie2 in the mail just 3 days ago!  However...he is too fluffy and the tag has not been greased down with snot and drool yet, so as soon as i hand it to him, he launches it out of the crib.  (i will attempt to break him in on my own.)

Eventually, ford gave it up and went to sleep.  I asked michael if we could pray for bobby doggie, to which he laughed and said one of the funniest prayers that i have ever heard.
"Dear Lord, please help us find Bobby Doggie.  He is important to Ford, so he is important to us, I guess.  Amen."

around midnight, ford woke up because he couldn't find his friend in his bed.  he was restless and searching for him while he was asleep.  AND HERE IS WHERE BOBBY DOGGIE2 SAVES THE DAY.  Ford didn't notice the difference while he was asleep!  at least at first.

bobby doggie2 bought me at least a few hours of sleep, until around 4 when i had to sleep with him in frank's bed (as frank was already in my bed complaining of a hurt ankle. seriously, who hurts their ankle at 4:00am?) until morning.  apparently the only other substitute for a rag with a head is his mom's face that he plays with while sleeping.

it was a rough morning with two cranked kids and a mama with a dirty kitchen, no coffee and feeling anxiety about a missing piece of fabric.  I prayed some more, and then to my great joy, i started looking in the playroom closet, and there he was, all disgusting as always, hidden under a black cowboy hat.

Praise the Lord.  you should have seen Ford's face.  he held that germ trap up to his cheek like a lover who had been away at war.  he has not relinquished it yet.

see if you can find him.  bobby doggie somehow even made it into ford's baptism.

i'm thinking pretty seriously about learning to play the banjo.

today, i took my boys to Sephora

and it was fun.

they are ridiculous.  frank sampled almost every single perfume on the little sticks and brought each one to me with great joy at how "great" they all smelled.  His favorite was when he combined 5 different vanilla scents together on one stick.

meanwhile his mom just could not decide between two different perfumes herself.  I probably spent 40 minutes debating between something i love and have worn for years:

and something new that i really, really like, but seemed risky.

Its risky because when it comes to a perfume, i feel that it can really set the tone for how I will feel about myself and about the day or evening ahead.  I only wear it on special occasions and want the smell to match all of those occasions.  plus it's expensive and i can only buy one every few years.  perfume purchasing should not be taken lightly.

the only reason i am even at sephora is because my sweet husband has already purchased and returned two different perfumes that i have rejected as either "too old lady" smelling or "too sweet and sorority girl" smelling.  now i am on my own. 

i ended up finding another at the last minute, and decided it must be the one for me.

it has a nice orange fragrance mixed with basil.  after a while the orange fades and it just smells nice.  like a good soap.  i like soap.  soap smells good and not too overwhelming.... but I am still not sure that i will keep it.

but i am sure that frank and ford at Sephora was exhausting and hilarious all at the same time. (thankfully the sweet sales lady thought so, too.)  After frank discovered that there was a "man's" cologne section, he smelled most of them and then declared that he must have "the blue one." meanwhile, ford had gotten a hold of some cheek stain that i was holding in one hand while holding him in the other, and he managed to take it, and unscrew the lid, and had already applied "blushing bride" to his sweet cheek before i even noticed he had gotten hold of it.  and as i am blending it into his glowing cheek, i then hear:

"mama please, i just have to have the blue one, it smells sooo good."

"Well frank, cologne is expensive - and it is actually for men.  so when you are a man and have a job and have money, you can buy yourself the blue one."

"I can't wait to be a man! so then i can have a job and have money, and then i can buy MAN PERFUME!"

i won't even discuss his reaction to the nail polish.

late night insomnia style writing

tonight, in a state of exhaustion from dinner at chuck e. cheese, cleaning a vomit coated toddler, having a bourbon and diet dr. pepper, visiting with my most beloved sister, and catching up on my late night internet surfing - i collapsed in bed - only to find multiple tiny, pointy plastic sea creatures under my covers stabbing at my legs.

it is at these strange times, that i rejoice in small children.  and i stop to rejoice that i had a reason to go to chuck e. cheese, and a reason to get ice cream yesterday at 6:00.  I got to pretend to "get married" today about 6 times to both my niece and my son.  and i get to read children's books - i honestly think i like some of them more than grown up books.  I have found more depth and beauty in Eric Carle's "A Home for Hermit Crab." than i have in many 200 page adult fiction novels.  

kids are funny.  like when ford decided he must wear his new long sleeve t-shirt with an excavator on it - immediately - while still in the cart at Old Navy. he literally rubbed it on his belly until i put it on him, despite it being 90 degrees outside.  he then refused to take it off.  i had to break off the tag and hand it to the cashier.  i love the contagious zeal for life that these two have. i love how everything that frank does - he does 100%.  we get ALL the stuffed animals onto the couch with us, and then we put ALL the blocks into the boat we are building.  and then we put all of his army men into battle at the same time.  He is either ALL in or definitely ALL OUT of his activities.  I am never bored as a home staying mom of two.

damn.  i just found a spider on my foot.  curse you ozarks.

anyway, sometimes i just want a glass of chocolate milk, just like they do.  how happy i am to get to be silly and be a part of so much newness and fascination in two little boys' lives.

that is until i have to decide what the consequence should be of deliberately waking up your younger brother by stomping as hard as you can accross the floor of your shared room after i specifically reminded you not to wake up your brother.  this part does not make me happy, because i don't know what the consequences should be for throwing a bear at your mom when you are angry and disappointed.  i don't know how to deal with hitting and pushing your brother after he messes up your lego cars.  i don't know the answers to all these newfound situations we find ourselves in.  and i can't study for it, because no matter what i think i am going to say when i have caught you in a lie, or watched you deliberately disobey me, no matter what i planned on saying, usually something else entirely comes out of my mouth.

i don't have all the answers to my sweet, goofy boys.  but i am so glad to be here to watch it all go down.  and when i hear my oldest one say to his cousin today from the way back of the car, "my mama never lets me down,"  i sigh and smile and say well, i guess he's glad to have me here, too.

now i can't sleep becaue i am afraid a spider is in my bed.  i bet whoever said that we eat ____ number of spiders in our sleep per year probably lived in the ozarks.  i kill at least one to two daily.  at least they don't crunch like the roaches. 

p.s. as of friday - i officially have a working washer and dryer.  isn't that somethin?  now i have to resume my trips to the basement.  ugh

so if you like documentaries

and you can't watch them on Netflix, you can watch many of the American Experience programs online for free at this PBS site.

I feel like a geeky kid in a candy store. 

I have always wanted to see the one about the Mormons.  I can't wait to bust out the popcorn for that one!  Not to mention you can see my favorites on the Donner party and Influenza 1918. 

I'm not sure what that says about me, but I love history and I love it most set to pictures, music, and interviews.   


oh and the one on Jonestown does not appear to be listed, but it is jaw dropping stuff.  make sure your kids are asleep for that one. 

washer broken again. 

curses.

I am waiting for the washer/dryer repairman...

who was supposed to be here at 8:00am, but then changed his mind and said 12:00pm.  Which turned out to be terrific because, and i am not trying to brag here to my houston people, but it is really a beautiful day today.  i had forgotten completely how a late summer day feels when it is not too hot, but not cool, just warm, with the sun shining on you and a breeze.  breezes still take us by surprise.  Frank exclaimed, "mama, did you feel that cool breeze?? that's sooo refreshing!"  he tends to be a bit dramatic in case you had forgotten.

so what else is there to do on a beautiful morning, but go to the park?  as we approached the playground, we saw two boys that appeared to be around frank's age deep into an imaginary pirate game.  they were looking for "tweasure" and running and jumping all over the place.  I said a silent prayer, "Lord please help frank."  and after a few awkward moments of standing near the boys, frank was already shooting them with imaginary lasers that come out of his hands, which then turned into a battle, which then turned into hide and seek, which then turned into "what should we do now?" which is where a mama who wants her boys to make friends comes in handy.  I pulled out of my trusty backpack full of 3 different diggers and trucks and some ikea sand toys and offered them up to our new playmates.  I even showed them how to get water from the water fountain to get the sand all nice and mushy. 
Now that their friendship was cemented, ford and i explored a nearby backhoe loader, and had a snack.  and as much as i enjoy my sweet ford's company, i longed for a grown up to talk to.  how come it is so easy for 4 year old boys to make friends?  all they have to do is laser each other and talk about poop when the mom's aren't listening, and they are instant friends.   girls are so much more complicated.

but, as always, God is good and i was able to visit with some of the moms in the end.  we got some free passes to a nearby corn maze and pumpkin patch in october, and learned about different moms groups, and found out when these two other boys go to story time at the library.  it is these sweet little blessings that make my day.

that and documentaries that i can watch instantly on netflix during naptime while i clean my kitchen.  i really like those, too.

Here are two that are worth your time:
-Objectified.  it is about the designers who make the things that we use.  cool and interesting if you like that sort of thing.

-The Art of the Steal.  this one is fascinating about one of the world's greatest private art collection - the Barnes Foundation, and how it has come to a new home in Philadelphia.  it is riveting, which is amazing because it doesn't sound riveting, does it?  watch the trailer, you'll understand.

now i have wasted a perfectly good deal of our time, and still no repairman.  i won't complain though, it really hasn't been that bad.  i just humble myself and do the most necessary laundry in the neighbor's basement.  it could be so much worse.  i could be washing at the neighborhood "Hawg Wash" or washing by hand in the bathtub.  i never forget the days after Hurricane Ike, and my joy when michael hung me out a laundry line in the back yard so i could finally get our clothes dry.  how can i complain after living through all that? 

so i am in the same situation i was in a few months back.  i need to delete photos from my computer before i can add new ones to my computer, or i am afraid it is going to crash.  does anyone have any advice on their photo management system?  i.e. external hard drives, cd system, and how can i access them easily, etc.  i always feel like i will never see my photos again once i delete them from my computer.  i know this is stupid, but i really do need a system here. 

aside from that here is a look into my ozark life:

-we have had one playdate with new and old friends.  it was terrific.

-i locked myself out of the house on that same day, and then 3 hours later found the key in my shorts

-still no washer and dryer.  michael has graciously offered to sit at the laundromat tonight for 

us.  i will sort the clothes and stain treat them before he goes. our neighbor offered to let us use theirs, but i refuse to do 5 loads of laundry at their house after just meeting them.

-frank and i spent one hour this morning killing ants in the kitchen.  i am afraid that battle is far from over

-the wal-mart up near Rogers is so far the best grocery store in town, a bit of a drive, but i have found everything i need there (coconut milk, jasmine rice, Morning Star Chicken Nuggets).  best discovery so far: orange push pops

-my house slants.  it slants so bad.  when you come to visit us, you will have to let me know if you want your head uphill or downhill.

-angus won't come downstairs, he has settled into our upstairs and only comes down to go outside, it appears he is afraid of something in the living room

-ford has taken to leading us, very gently by the hand to wherever he wants to go or to do something for him.  this occurs about 30 times per day.  yesterday he led me to a chair where he just wanted to sit next to me for a spell.  this kid will melt your heart.  which is good because yesterday he found a tube of lipstick and coated his body with it.  gooey pink everywhere.  floor, toys, iron, rug, etc.  (let's not discuss that he was playing with the iron, i already know...)

-frank is loving the hills on our daily walks and is embracing all the free play time in the house while i unpack and clean and wait for repairmen.  this morning i came downstairs to an easter egg hunt he had set up for me.  the eggs were filled with various leggo body parts one had heads, one had suitcases, one had pants, one had guns - you get the picture.  then we could "put them all back together, and now we can put on a play!"  

it is not dull here.  i have found good coffee, love the farmer's market, found two excellent bookstores, and a place to get donuts. 
so far, so good. 

the basement

it is like silence of the lambs, except it isn't just a well in my basement that is wet and made of stone - it is the entire basement.  and my washer that looks lovely and fancy... and doesn't work.  and as i opened the door to the front loading washer today to discover the problem, i spilt gallons of soapy water on the floor.  actually that isn't such a bad thing as the whole place could use a good wash, but i didn't actually mean for all that water to get on my boxes of who knows what is down there.

did i mention yet the frogs?  two so far.  one was tiny, and the other that hopped out from under the washing machine, well it was a BIG, slow frog the color of baby poop.  he was clearly not in a hurry and was planning on returning to his special spot under the washer as soon as i left.  i'm sure we will meet again.  i think i am going to buy some rubber boots for my trips to the basement.  flip flop season is over for me.

and did i mention the invisible bugs that bite me when i go down there?  i swear that i have gotten more bug bites here than i ever have in houston.  so much for escaping the swamp, i just traded it in for the ozark woods.

and did i mention the crickets that climbed into our boxes, and hitched a ride inside of the uhaul from a hotel in oklahoma?  did i mention how those crickets have also somehow snuck their way into the basement? it gets noisy down there at night.

i hope the frogs eat them.  and then maybe one can turn into a prince, except not a real prince, just someone who can fix my washing machine.  it is a samsung and the directions are in terrible english, so maybe it should be a japanese prince.

yes.  that would be all right.

there is just too much to say

and too many pictures.  and too many thank yous.  I am blessed beyond words.  I have been so thoroughly loved on in these past weeks, actually in these past 6 months, actually in these past 11 years, that i am speechless.

I was looking at this blog tonight, wanting to remember what it was that i write about usually, because i couldn't be interesting or witty to save my life right now, but as i was scrolling back i found this post that i wrote back in february as i was looking towards michael's traveling days.


I certainly did not know at the time that these "3 to 5 months" of traveling would result in me selling my house and moving to arkansas AFTER living apart from michael for nearly 6 months.  I certainly did not know that when i wrote that post.  Surely he never would have taken the assignment if we had known that.  But tonight i am in awe from all that i have learned and experienced in this last half of a year.

for my benefit, and because i like lists, i shall now list some of the things that i have learned.

1. I am stronger, by God's grace alone, than i ever thought i was

2. I am a better mother now than i was 6 months ago.

3.  I am keenly aware of my selfishness and pride and need for the Holy Spirit's intervention on my behalf - as all of my sins are ever before me these days.  
As Leigh once said, "We are like a tube of toothpaste.  We don't really know what's inside us until we get squeezed."  Under pressure, i have not always liked what has come out over these past few months. 

4.  I don't have it bad at all.  i sometimes complain because i like to talk, but i am constantly reminded by all that i see and hear and read that my life is a breeze compared to about 99% of the rest of the mothers in the world.

5.  I have the best friends, best family, and best church community that i have ever known.  From my Kansas friends who pray for me and call to check on me, to my family who has re-arranged their summer to help us, to my friends in houston who have shared more meals, and read more books to my kids and in general kept me from going crazy for 6 months - i am eternally grateful and hope to one day be as generous to you as you all have been to me. 

6.  I once felt a lot of pride that i should be able to do things on my own.  i have mostly given up on that.  i need people.  i am relationally driven, lacking in organization, and am at my best when i am with others.  so there it is.  i need you people, and that's all i have to say about that. 

7.  i could probably count on 2 hands the number of times that i have cried in the past 5 years.  but i can safely say that i have cried or started to cry about 4 times a day over the past 3 weeks.  ridiculous.  i have to drink twice as much water these days just to stay hydrated. 

8.  Putting aside all of my emotions and love for my houston family, i am actually curious and nervous and a little excited to see what this next year in arkansas will be.  It feels like i am getting ready for a first date.  maybe that is why i have scheduled a haircut for tomorrow when i should be packing.  i feel like i want to be at my best when i go to live with my husband and meet my new home.   

What's Happening? Summer. vol. 2

(Ha. i found a post that i never put on the site from way back in june/july.  it is stupid, but at least it is something to read.)

oh boy.  the longer it takes to get to this website, the more overwhelming it all feels.

let's give it a shot.

 here is what happens if you leave your crayons in the car for more than an hour in houston in June.

a visit to daddy's job site in arkansas - our future home

pretty cool stuff.  worth moving for? how to answer that question?

frank has joined the "allergic to penicillin" club.  he feels very proud of this.  his reaction was so strong that even his eyes were a little burnt.  he joins the club with his mama, poppe, benjamin, daisy, dan, and don. he thinks this is pretty cool.

photos that crack me up from our father's day picnic.  it was hot and these daddies all love their boys, but somehow i was able to capture these photos that make them look like this.

benefit of going to VBS at First Presbyterian?

i'd say a free camel ride is pretty cool.  thanks, dan, for the moral support. 

two beautimous ladies.  i love those bellies.  can't wait to meet who is inside.

a site that is so common to me.  LEGGOs have invaded our lives.  how i wish to not step on them with bare feet ever again.

not a great picture.  but i wanted to remember michael's birthday dinner at Doe's in arkansas.  nothing brings in year 37 like a plate of beef and delicious fries.