Simple Pleasures

Let me tell you about today... first day back to school after a delicious four days off, lost my voice with a class of kids that you just can't lose it with, picked up my little man feeling exhausted and irritable, came home craving chinese food leftover that my brother in law ate ALL of, fed the baby, scrounged up some turkey (for the 5th night in a row), watched as the baby picked up my glass of diet coke and dumped the contents on the hardwood floors, proceeded to watch as the baby smashed said glass on said hardwood floors, got aggravated, changed diaper, put baby to bed...

and then, this moment of bliss.

As I was getting ready to hoist my rapidly chunking toddler into his crib, I asked, "Do you want mommy to rock you for a while?" To which he responded, "Okay."

It's been months, maybe even a YEAR, since I rocked a lively baby into complete submission.

We talked for a couple minutes, we sang multiple rounds of "You are my Sunshine" (our personal favorite) to which Houston continually asked after my raspy rendition, "More?"

And then he was asleep. It took all of 7 minutes. But it was bliss at the end of an otherwise disaster of a day. God, I need to figure out how to get more of this in my life...

What simple pleasures do you have in your life that prevent mental breakdowns? Chocolate? Wine? Baby loving? Do share!

I need to get some of these Etsy prints in my life.

Thanksgiving in Pictures

Houston chills out (with his last bub EVER) watching the parade

Thanksgiving centerpiece... a little ribbon, and some Hannaford flowers go a long way :)

Turkey's in the oven! 6 hours of total cook time...

5 minutes later... Hew decides he needs an early nap.

Dad doing dishes in my Vera apron

Ross rockin' out to Beatles rockband

Trapped between Gigi and Meemaw...

Houston busts loose, ditches the sweater and dances off his turkey

You know it's Thanksgiving when... (a look back)

So obviously once people started showing up at my house, it became rude to log on to update my "You know" list.

So here is a belated update: You know it's Thanksgiving when...

- You're forced to come up with some creative centerpiece, only to be one-upped by your sister who hand-made turkey-shaped candle holders.

- Everyone is ready to eat, but can't, because gram (who happens to have all the pies, AND multiple dishes that need to be re-heated) decided to take an extra long shower and show up one hour late.

- Despite dozens of combined hours of cooking, your son's Thanksgiving dinner consists of one bite of turkey and one Oreo.

- Your father dons your Vera Bradley apron in order to finish washing dishes.

 - Everyone in the family is included in a round of Wii Beatles rockband.

 - The pies are toothpick-labeled with individual names.

- Too much ice cream from doting family = baby running laps in the living room... for 45 minutes.

- Despite the hours, the stress, the anxiousness, the chaos, you look back with a little sigh and say, "Now that was fun."


... pictures coming soon :)

You know it's Thanksgiving when...

You're forced to eat a lean cuisine because you've been up since 5am, and although you've tried your darndest to wait until 2 to eat lunch, you find yourself with a case of the hypoglycemic shakes.

You know it's Thanksgiving when...

Your mom hears you swear for the first time, because for the second time in 20 minutes:

You know it's Thanksgiving when...

as a good, Christian girl, you find yourself elbow-deep in a cavity of any sort.

It's HERE!

Throughout the day I will be updating on the status of my first EVER hosted family holiday, which just so happens to coincidentally be the holiday in which people expect lots of delicious food, which as you know just so happens to be my arch nemesis.

This is me, in my dream world, in about 5 hours.

Prepping for D-Day, err... T-Day.

T-4 days until Thanksgiving. Did I mention that we're hosting this year? First time ever? Yeah, about that. We are having 11 adults and Houston eating at our house, which my husband and I learned, is about one adult too many to fit in our dining room. Aside from hoping someone cancels, we reluctantly re-set the dining table and realized it just wasn't going to work in our small little room. Currently there are two 8-foot tables set up side by side in our kitchen. And abouuut that... I just returned my mega tablecloth to target to get two little ones to fit the folding tables. Justin said the tables were 6-feet each. Now I need to go back to Target to re-buy the big one I just returned, and pray to God that it has a match tablecloth to buy too. I can't help but wonder, if setting up is taking this much effort, how is actually FEEDING these people going to turn out? Namaste.

Gross/Gorgeous

I'm on day 4 of what has turned into a progressively disgusting cold. I'm at that stage of "coldness" where a face transplant is something I might actually consider (especially if Dr. Alex Karev were performing it, right?). Regardless, writing = too much time with my hands off of tissues. Thus, I leave you with this:

Hello, I'm here for your face transplant.

Oh Hey There, Soapbox.

I was at a workshop today that turned out to actually be worth my time, a rare gem lately. The presenter was talking about the "diversity" of kids in the classroom today. Aside from race, and language, and ethnicity, more babies are being prematurely now than ever before. More babies are born with drugs in their veins than ever before. And more children are being diagnosed with ADHD, autism, depression and anxiety disorders than ever before. Today's children come to school over-tired, poorly nourished (if at all), and from "print-free" homes. Some homes have more televisions than books - which would be absolutely shocking to me if I weren't reminded of this daily by children's reactions to being allowed to take my books home with them. I'll never forget at open house when a child in my class this year proudly showed his father his desk, including his school library book, to which his father responded, "This ain't a real book. It ain't got no pictures." Motivating, isn't it?

I thought of my own little munchkin at home, and how much he absolutely loves reading. And it's not just one book he's into... it's dozens. I should know, they are currently scattered all over the living room floor. He loves his "Daddy book" - a lift the flap book that's love is shown by it's haphazard flaps hanging precariously on each page. He loves Puff the Magic Dragon so much, he bawled when he accidentally ripped a page, crying "Oh noooo. Oh NO!" He loves books with textures and books with bright pictures. We go to the library almost every week - in fact, Houston's first real conversational sentence was in reference to me asking if he wanted to go to the library: "YESH! More books. Please?"On top of gazing at his favorite pictures, Houston has even started recognizing letters in print, excitedly scanning those little black letters in his favorite stories for "O"s. At one and a half years old, my son has had more exposure to literature than some students in my class who are 8 years old. It's no wonder our schools are failing.

As much as we say, "kids these days," kids these days really are different. And as much as I may feel like a "dunce" at home, there are certain times in life when I have to stop belittling myself and instead give myself a hearty slap on the back. Our kids are our responsibility. Not their teachers'. I can only hope that Houston's love for books always outweighs his love for "Sprout TV."