the photos continue

yes, it is true.  for better or worse, i will keep posting pictures until i get to the one of the boys eating breakfast in their hats.

these are the ladies who i spend Labor Day with each year.  They are a pretty amazing group of ladies, and I love them.  (Sorry, Amy, I think you were in the creek taking another picture at this time.  You are amazing, too.) 

hot chocolate after school

kelly and the girls came to visit for a weekend in September.  Michael was away fishing.  It was hot, we were tired, and Kelly had the brilliant idea of taking the kids to Chuck E Cheese for dinner (with us getting good pizza after the kids went to bed).  It was actually really fun, and I look forward to going to the new Chuck E. Cheese the next time we need a family pick me up.  i love my sister.

the next weekend we began the first of our family adventures in arkansas.  Michael carefully chose a day hike to this beautiful waterfall/swimming hole.  It was really lovely - the pictures don't do it justice.

right after I took this picture, I heard michael yell, "ERIN!!"  Now michael does not usually yell my name, so when he does, it gets my attention.  I quickly climbed back up to where the boys were to discover that michael had slipped on a wet rock and fell with ford in his arms, straight into the water.  they were soaked and frank, having witnessed the event, was terrified.

they had to strip off their wet clothes

and i was overtaken with the beauty of the little swimming area.  Since we had not seen anyone on the trail or cars at the trailhead, i decided to just go ahead and swim in my skivies.  it was one of those super moments in life.  the water was cold and refreshing and my family was precious throwing their rocks in the water. 

that is until just about this time, when i was drying off and a family, or perhaps a church group, they were certainly religious (as the women were all hiking in long denim skirts), approached the little waterfall and looked over the edge to see us in all our skin and underwears just hanging out on the rocks. 

frank at least redeemed us.  he was the only one who was fully clothed.  he and michael built rock towers. 

the ride home

here is my new watch.  perhaps you have already seen it on me.  i love, love, love, love it.  so many times i have already gotten to use the calculator, and frank loves the stopwatch.  I can time his running back and forth when we are bored.  I have an alarm set to remind me to start getting ready to pick up frank from school.  I have always wanted a calculator watch since I was a kid, but I never felt cool enough to wear one.  Now I know that just wearing it makes you cool automatically.

Taryn.  sweet taryn.  Our most faithful visiting friend outside of our family.  She has been to every house we've ever lived in.  Frank believes that she comes to see him, i think.  After our trip to the farmer's market (where we saw the ladies singing), Frank requested that we all have a meeting after ford went down for nap.  Taryn was the secretary.  Bobby was in attendance.  I believe our discussion involved dinner plans and whether or not we would watch Star Wars that evening. 

and then we made her do this.  good stuff.

here is one of his latest drawings. 

an after school picnic at the park

the best little pumpkin patch in Kansas

kelly had another brilliant idea which was to go early in the season so we could get a good choice of pumpkins

I love how we all go to the pumpkin patch to get our best fall family photos

the sun is shining, everyone looks healthy and happy

but this is really the behind the scenes

someone gets tired and hungry

someone gets obsessed with his pumpkins

and some mamas get jealous of other people's pumpkin choices and force their families to stay even longer in order to feel better about her pumpkin picking.

the end result: too many pumpkins.  My new friend from Hungary says, "Tell me, what do you do with all these pumpkins after Halloween is over?  You are going to eat them, yes?"
well...i may have to now.  anyone have some good pumpkin recipes?

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