Links

Here are a few sites that I have been enjoying lately.

Our Best Bites -I'm pretty new to this site, but it's interesting and fun. Their Everyday Cinnamon Rolls are so easy and absolutely amazing. Sorry PW, you may have lost the top spot.

Make it and Love it -If you enjoy sewing or crafts check out this site. Her tutorial section is great.

Homemade Powder Laundry Detergent -I don't follow this blog, but a friend gave me this link for this recipe. So far I have been pleased with it and it is so much less messy than the last recipe I used that called for several gallons of water.

Homemade Yogurt -another site I don't follow. My sister-in-law gave me this link and I finally made yogurt last night. I love it! Much better results than other methods I have tried. Thanks Cindy!

Links

Here are a few sites that I have been enjoying lately

Friday Night

-We're making crayons (waiting for them to cool right now)

-Listing to the fan chosen top 500 Christian songs on WJTL. Interesting.

-Dreaming of club sandwiches. How does she do that to me?

-Marinating a steak for our "date" after the children are in bed

-Wondering if Isaiah will have his first t-ball practice tomorrow or if it will be rained out

-Happy to be home on this rainy night

Why I don't do this...Part II

Several days after taking the boys pictures I decided to try it with Callie. First attempt was not pleasant. I then took off her shows because I thought maybe they were too tight. She was much happier without shoes. She walked around in her socks for the rest of the pictures. Dirty socks are a small price to pay I guess.

Not happy

Much better

There were many distractions including weeds and small boys in rubber boots

Thank you Aunt Cindy for my beautiful headband!

It was probably a little too cold to have her outside in short sleeves...

I wish she was looking at the camera, but even so this is one of my favorite pictures. Blogger is not allowing me to type below the bottom picture, but that is another one of my favorites.

No, I still don't want to be a professional photographer, but all in all this picture taking experiment was a lot of fun -for me at least. My kids may have a different opinion. :)

Why I don't do this for a living...

I have friends that are amazing photographers. I love seeing their work, especially of children. My appreciation for them has recently gone through the roof. Several weeks ago I decided it was time for each of my kids to have their pictures taken. I was thinking of just taking them to Wal-Mart, but then I remember that I own a Nikon D90 and I thought why in the world would I pay Sam's offspring money they don't need when I could at least attempt to take these pictures myself.

Isaiah did pretty well. Nate on the other hand...

I think I see a bird

"You talking to me?"

"Yep, it's a bird"

I am so cool

Like my boots?

This is the one I finally decided on. What a ham.

Isaiah did much better and I have less funny ones of him...

The picture that is now hanging on our wall.

Callie was a trip. I'll post her pictures soon. Until then, all you photographers out there -you are amazing!

Second Honeymoon

OK, so it wasn't really a second honeymoon, but hopefully you are now singing that dear old song:

We're going on a second honeymoon,

I made reservations at that same hotel room

Ain't nobody gonna know where we go when we leave town

We're going on a second honeymoon

You know Jeremy and I were raised a lot alike when we got married and both knew this song. :) It wasn't a second honeymoon, but it was a full weekend away. Friday afternoon to Sunday afternoon. Amazing. Maybe we are getting old and forget, but we're pretty sure this is the first we have been away, just the two of us for more than one night since our first year of marriage.

We were blessed to be able to go to Spruce Lake retreat center. Neither of us had ever been there. It was such a restful, quiet (at least in March!) place. Just want we needed. My parents were visiting and so we left the kids with them. Thank you, thank you, thank you!! We did miss the kids, but they were still here when we got back. :)

We did not take a computer, no tv, no movies, no internet. Just quiet. Friday night we almost thought it was too quiet! Sososo good. After this weekend I'm thinking maybe the monks are on to something. :)

We had a great time together. We took our camera and took it with us on a hike. We took about a billion pictures trying out different settings. I know taking scenic pictures is much more enjoyable than seeing them so I won't bore you with too many, but since this is for my recording more than your enjoyment (sorry) I am posting a few.

On the hike. I looked at the map of different hikes before we started and saw the one marked "difficult". I hoped Jeremy would somehow miss that whole section of the map, but no, that was the one he picked. I knew he would. I love it that I know him so well. It was a great hike and I didn't even complain that by the end there was water squeezing between my toes from walking through so much snow. Good girl

Picture 10,294

Here we are on top of the mountain. I was trying not to laugh at the teenage boy taking our picture. He's friends were behind him the whole time saying "put the strap around your neck, put the strap around your neck." I guess our camera was a little more intimidating than we were!

Picture 111,878

While we were there they were tapping sugar maples. It was very interesting to see.

Picture 31,894,719,872,412

I'm sure most people wonder what in the world an old married couple does by themselves for a whole weekend (other than hike!) Here you go. We spent aprox. 5 hours doing this...

Yeah, we're kind of nerdy like that, but it was a lot of fun to accomplish this together. It was also a great time to talk.

Such a great time away. I realized again exactly how much I love Jeremy and that he truly is my best friend. I believe when we got married I said I was marring my best friend, but now 7 years into this journey I realize I had no idea what I was talking about. This runs deep. We are far from perfect and sometimes I know we express our frustrations about each other with each other more than we did when we first got married. But there is a deep knowing that comes only with time. Not time spent apart, but together. I am blessed.

Bubbles

Last evening Isaiah and Nathan were outside blowing bubbles. They were having a blast. Eventually it happened, Nate spilled his bubbles. I figured it would happen. Thankfully we had a huge bottle of bubbles inside and I was able to refill his little bottle. Back to blowing bubbles.

After awhile I noticed that Isaiah was now blowing bubbles from the fort. I briefly wondered how he climbed the ladder while holding onto bubbles, but he was fine so I went back to washing dishes.

A few minutes later I checked on them again. That is when I saw Nate, wearing rubber boots on the wrong feet and holding his bubbles in one hand slowly climbing the ladder to the fort. My first thought was to run out and help him, but something held me back.

I'm not sure why I'm even sharing this story. Maybe because to stand back and watch your child struggle to reach a goal is not easy to do. Especially when it's very much within your power to reach out and push him on up. Or even crawl up the ladder and blow the bubbles for him.

The thought of my children growing up literally makes me hurt. Maybe that's why I'm writing this down. So that I don't forget...

Nathan crawled to the top of the ladder, climbed into the fort and victoriously blew bubbles. All while his mom stood inside the kitchen watching him. He had no idea I was watching him. Now I think I'll just sit down and cry.