blessed beyond measure

My least favorite holiday does have a few redeeming qualities. Two in particular. Trey had decided on being a baseball player well over a month in advance, and in order to be able to wear his costume to school, completed an accelerated reader quiz on a baseball book. Pleasing Mama with the grades and Daddy with the looks! Aden was less decisive, enough that nothing homemade or already-on-hand could be used, and we had to rush order a costume for him. But he's gotten our money's worth out of it, wearing it almost constantly since it arrived on the porch. Adorned in his fire coat, he calls himself "Chief Aden" and speaks in third person. It was a good day. I was able to go to Aden's party at his preschool, and took a few pictures there. Aden's friend Noah had the exact same costume on! These three (Aden, Nolan, and Noah) stick together all the time. The whole crew. Aden's first crush, Presley. Trunk or treat was great as well, though may...

So exploration week four might have better been dubbed "fun and errand night". Still jaded by the recent flop of a farm visit, I wanted to go kind of anti-fall for our next activity. But an extremely busy week meant that we needed to go kind of get-stuff-done at the same time. Having been graced with a warm afternoon, we trekked out to play putt-putt. A last grasp at summer and a long-overdue fulfillment of something the boys have been begging to do for months. Of course, the place we had hoped to go, where I had free passes, was closed. Which is what happens when you live in a vacation destination, bleh. So we went for option two. Probably a better course, but not nearly as free. Next stop was to purchase items for our Operation Christmas Child shoeboxes. I knew going in that this was going to be a struggle. The boys are relatively new humans who have never seen or known true need, praise the Lord. Aaaaand they are also a bit spoiled , er, well, there's no o...

Wednesdays are big around here. For one thing, it's the one day each week that the boys get to spend with their Giga. Oh, how they love their Giga. But for another thing, Wednesdays are guaranteed late nights, the day just overflowing because of school for both boys, then the rush to get after-school work done in time to get to church for Awana. Hump day, she's a long one. But a good one. You would think that with all of this activity, the boys would be zombies by the time we finally crawl into the darkness and comfort of the car after Awana is over. Um, no . It seems their time spent at church kickstarts their second (third? fourth?) winds, and they just come alive , endlessly inquisitive and fully ready to overshare. And so I spend thirty minutes going back and forth between each boy, responding to whatever they have said or asked. A vast majority of the time, while I am in mid-answer to one boy, the other one is already taking his turn at speaking. Complicating t...

I love taking pictures. Despite not being a professional and really having very little clue what I'm doing, some of the shots I take wind up being good ones. At least in my own eyes. Photography for me is a seriously by-volume venture. For every hundred shots, I might get ten or so that I really like. Which leaves me with lots upon lots of outtakes. Like these. Oh bless Trey's heart, he was trying. Well, for a few of them. But sometimes it just doesn't work. At all. Picture perfect just doesn't happen. My muses are just not happy or distracted or driving each other too crazy to pretend to be all hunky dory for the camera. Such a shame. Those flowers were so sweet and friendly. Though in hindsight, a bit of a mismatched setting for my boys who, while generally sweet and friendly, would be (and look) more at home, say, atop a bulldozer. Hey, we live and learn. Next bulldozer we come across, now that will make for some top-notch photos. Yes, life has ...

This is kind of a stretch to include as an entry in Exploration Week, but it's gonna hafta do. Because for me, week three was spent having semi-grownup fun. That would be Jeremy Camp. And that would be Miss Kay. Extraordinary, don't you think? But it just so happened that they boys each had school field trips scheduled to the same apple orchard, just one week apart from each other. And I chose to go with them, to explore together and have a little QT. Of course, the QT applied a little more to Aden than to Trey. Pretty sure Trey couldn't have cared less whether I was there. Nonetheless, adventures were had. We learned about apple trees, how to make cider and apple butter, and encountered animals of all kinds. We picnicked (is that really how to spell that?) and frolicked about with friends way high up in the mountains. And a good time was had by all. Even me, who has never ever been a fan of field trips. Part 1: Aden Part 2: Trey