When we visited my parents’ in Louisiana a couple of weeks ago, Dad showed us Dovely Lady, a little grey dove who built a nest in an old flowerpot on a shelf in their garage. Dovely Lady has two beautiful babies who are quickly outgrowing the family pot! How cute are they?! All three of them will let you walk right up to them without batting an eye.
I think one-year-olds’ birthday parties are the best, at least in enjoyability (?) for parents. If we’re being honest, one-year-olds don’t care about having friends yet, so their parents just get to fill the guest list with their friends (and their kids of course). The hosting family for a party we went to this weekend actually built a “car wash” water feature just for the party, and also had a row of pour n’ dump buckets installed on their pergola, a slip n’ slide, two baby pools, a water table, and a bathtub o’ bubbles to boot. Not to mention they served these yummy sandwiches for lunch. Talk about setting the bar high for everyone else. My kids had an absolute blast and went home kicking and screaming and asking when we could go back. Good summer fun.:)
“Despicable Me”—where have you been all this time that I’ve endured our two Veggie Tales movies ninety times? A friend lent us this movie for the road trip to my parents’ house a few weeks ago. Love it. Steve Carrell’s voice talents for Super-Villain-with-a-Soft-Heart Gru are my favorite part, mostly because he is entertaining even just listening to him, as you have to do if you’re sitting in the front of the van or are driving and can’t watch the microscopic little television screen that we have in there. Gru’s enthusiastic little “minions” are pretty funny too. I am actually looking forward to “Despicable Me 2,” which is crazy since I am not generally a cartoon movie fan, let alone a fan of any movie with the number 2 behind it.
My brother, Ryan, just moved to Houston and is working for us this summer. It is SO good to have him here now! The kids call him “Uncle Ry-Ry.” I ask Ryan regularly (but only half jokingly) if he still wants to have kids after spending so much time around us now. His answer changes day-to-day sometimes…he is an honest fellow.:)
My sweet, sweet first-cousin-in-law (does that make sense?) mailed me a copy of Loving the Little Years: Motherhood in the Trenches. I just got it in yesterday and started tearing up just reading the introduction. I am such a weenie sometimes, you guys, especially right now with a new baby and a challenging, acting-out-because-of-new-baby not-even-two-year-old and a doesn’t-poop-on-the-potty-yet-and-doesn’t-care three-and-a-half-year-old. I mean, can you tell my state of mind a lot of the time by the number of dashes in the previous sentence?! Eek. Anyway, it’s a thin little book (already I can tell that this mom knows what it’s like and is going to be concise and down-to-earth), so I am hoping to read it in the next couple of weeks and maybe do a book review.
My siblings and I do this thing where we send each other pictures and texts during the day. Really silly stuff, usually, but it’s sort of amazing how good it makes me feel to get one of those little texts or pictures from my siblings. Kind of a reminder that someone loves you and is thinking of you. Plus it helps me to keep up with what everyone is up to and it reminds me to pray for everyone. 🙂 Anyway, sometimes we send each other “selfies,” just a picture of ourselves that describes how we are feeling at that moment. Wish I could say I am generally more confident and cheerful than this picture right now…but I’d be lying.:) And that’s OK. I am trying to be gentle with myself and enjoy the treasures of the season I’m in right now, despite the challenging parts.:)
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