a papa and his babies

because i spend most of my photo-taking time during the work week when it's just me and the kids, it's easy to miss out on all the photos of the papa with his babies. weekends have always been a little whirlwind in our house, as we desperately try to squeeze in all the fun + errands + naps we don't get to during the week, and this weekend was no exception. relaxing in my pajamas with a coffee in my hand while sunlight streams through the windows and everyone is making happy noises and without having to jump out of my seat every five seconds for something on a saturday morning is currently on my hope-to-do-soon list, but so far it's not to be. i don't know why, because i feel like everyone else in the world does this, but not us! haha.

our papa works so hard during the week, and so when he gets home in the evenings it's usually a mad dash to get in a few bites of dinner before it's bath and bedtime for the kids. usually there is no time for photos or relaxing around the table of any kind (little kids are unacquainted with this idea of relaxing at the table, or table manners in general apparently;).

but for a few moments there, friday and saturday afternoons, everyone was relaxing and happy at home and i got some shots of our papa with his babies. everyone else has said this, and it's totally true: seeing your man loving on your kids is just THE best feeling in the world. it makes me deliriously happy.

here are some happy photos to make you happy too :)

a weekend conference + guests

this past weekend we had some friends from athens, georgia, who came up for a weekend conference at church, over to stay with us. they have a 19-month-old who wilder was just absolutely thrilled to have for a play mate. we had a lot of family time at the table, as one does when one has babies (doesn't it seem like its constantly time to eat when you have a baby? but i guess i kind of eat all day long too so...), and it was such a blast! i loved having adult company around, especially since loverboy was busy with service for the conference all weekend, and we basically saw him at midnight every night--at least that's what it felt like. however, the amount of time we spent in the kitchen making food for everyone has me rethinking our desire to have 3 kids...and i didn't even make anything fancy (thank you trader joe's for the frozen waffles, thank you prego for the spaghetti sauce, thank you kroger for the granola, etcetera, etcetera)! i have a lot more respect for all the mamas who made me so many home-cooked meals growing up. anyways, i don't have a sunday best recipe for you, but i did make muffins, granola bars, and greek yogurt, so in my book that is a successful weekend of cooking;)

my favorite part of the weekend was putting the babies down for bed on saturday night, and we mamas left a papa in charge (of two screaming babies, ha!) and went to the meeting! it was the only one we made it to all weekend, and we got there late, but i enjoyed that meeting so much. we got God's speaking, and it was like rain in the desert for me. it's not that motherhood is a desert, really, but it is definitely harder to maintain your enjoyment of God when you are so limited in your ability to go to meetings, spend time with others in prayer, be awake early enough to spend time with the Lord, etc!

and also, the message, which was on Experiencing the God of Jacob, was just so applicable to this time in my life. i enjoyed that "the Christian life is a life of struggling with God to be transformed by God into a prince of God." and that, eventually, Jacob stopped struggling with God and accepted God's choice. we may not like what's going on in our lives, not like God's choice for us, but eventually, by allowing the Spirit to perform His work in us, by staying open to the Lord, we can be like Jacob, who ended his life with blessing upon blessing, who looked back with no regrets.

sometimes, it is so easy for me to be full of regret. but slowly i'm realizing that the Lord has sovereignly arranged everything in my environment for one purpose — to gain me, to fill me with Himself. it's not that i would be happier if i'd only done this that and the other. this, this life i'm living, is the Lord's choice for me. and here is where He wants me to find him. whenever the Lord speaks through the brothers at these conferences, i am so refreshed and encouraged to pursue the Lord and love Him.

another family trip to stone mountain

well hello there! how was your weekend? ours was pretty great, actually. i had my doubts because we were supposed to wake up real early to make breakfast for church (not the whole church, just the extra special ones who come to clean on saturday morning) and we didn't have any plans. i hate not having plans, because this can sometimes mean not doing anything. but! i sneakily got to sleep in on saturday morning (only fair since the baby kept me up like half the night). and then loverboy and i decided to get coffee and put our stone mountain pass to use. it's like we like it there or something.

see, i like being outside, loverboy said to me (not at all disparagingly, oh no), when i remarked how nice it was. you wanted to see people and 'things besides trees,' he reminded me. well! i like being outside too, just so you know. plus, there were actually a lot of people there. ;) the trees were just okay. but the weather! the weather! so dreamy. i plan to go outside at least once this week. ;)

because wilder does nothing by halves, he very much liked the whole thing until he didn't, and then he really didn't. loverboy finally took him out of the stroller when he began causing a ruckus, but i really didn't mind it. babies yell sometimes. what?

naps aren't just for babies

well what do you know, loverboy's proclamations came true saturday morning. we got up rather early for a saturday morning, which has been the baby's royal decree lately anyhow, and met the grandparents at stone mountain for a family walk. the weather! i could wax poetic about that weather. i could. but this weekend was so dang relaxing i just can't muster up the energy. this weekend was all about naps. naps and haircuts and mediterranean food in decatur and the baby sleeping in his own room for the first time. no more obnoxious shushing when we creep stealthily into the room at night, no more panic attacks when loverby snores, no more not daring to move in your sleep for fear of waking the small slumbering one. oh it was lovely.

happy walker, number 1

happy walkers, numbers two, three and four

and this one looks really good in track pants and hoodie. i declare it the grace family uniform from now on.

the handsome grace men.

out to eat at another restaurant! wilder wouldn't stop staring at me. was it the hair?

first time i've ever had my hair at a midlength on purpose. i think i like it. it's very mom of me.

in his own bed!

between naps we did some light reading. three dancing pigs say lalala!

is it just me or is this baby rather long and skinny suddenly?

xx,

naps-aren't-just-for-babies B.

blueberry muffins for the road

happy labor day weekend!



we're driving to florida tomorrow morning (8 hours in the car with a baby, please pray!) for a church conference. i'm excited to get out of the house for the weekend, because that means no chores or dirty laundry or house projects staring me in the face and making me feel guilty and annoyed all. weekend. long. it's going to be pure bliss. and hopefully it will make up for the fact that the baby has a thing about his carseat, for which i am extra grateful to my friend jen for sending wilder a new toy (perfect timing jen!).

because we're living on a smaller budget these days, i'm packing a cooler with food and made these blueberry muffins for breakfast so we won't have to eat out as much.

muffins are one of my favorite food groups. if i'm not much mistaken they make up the sturdy base of your essential foods triangle. i highly recommend you make yourself a batch of these, for they are delicious!

big beautiful muffins:
(aka dr. B's essential *blueberry muffins)

3 cups flour
1 cup sugar
1/2 tsp. baking soda
1/2 tsp. salt
1 Tbsp. baking powder
1 cup plain yogurt (or vanilla and honey if you choose)
2 large eggs
1/3 cup (about) vegetable oil
1/3 cup (ish) soy milk
1 stick butter, melted and cooled
1 cup blueberries*

preheat oven to 375 degrees. spray muffin tins.

mix dry ingredients in a medium bowl. beat eggs with yogurt and soy milk. fold into the dry mixture. fold in melted butter and oil. add in blueberries.

divide among muffin cups and bake for 25-30 minutes.

makes 12 regular muffins. or six jumbo muffins and seven regular muffins. i like to have options.

this recipe is adapted from a friend of a friend's recipe, by way of not having enough yogurt and thus adding in some soy milk and oil. also, you can substitute blueberries for any ol' fruit your heart desires! in fact, you can probably substitute in any ol' thing you want. this recipe is very forgiving! which is how i know it's a keeper.

tornados of laundry and other such housewifely things

it's becoming abundantly clear that "weekend" is code for "disaster" in this house. except for that one weekend where things were unaccountably smooth and drama free, our weekends as a family are akin to bad weather. f3 tornados, i lovingly call them.

despite the fact that friday's cool, good-mood inducing weather had me believing we were in for a snuggly, feel-good, romcom of a weekend, it was, as is often the case recently, the woody allen of romcoms. everything was a bit off, and there was neither a respectable amount of romance or comedy.

i knew we were in for it when on saturday morning loverboy announced there was a dead animal of some indeterminately largish size in the crawl space that is accessible through our closet, just outside of which our sweet baby was napping. 400 dollars or maybe 2000 to come clean it up! said the animal exterminator on the phone. do it yourself! said the diy pest control place down the road (fancy that). mom and dad come help! said loverboy. yay! said i, as i eyed the mound of laundry, pile of dirty dishes and a wee patch of rug just visible underneath the new-always-off-season-midsummer-shedding layer of lars' fur. i would like to take a moment to say: my dog is molting. like a bird. it is seriously mangy. the clumps of fur i find around the house could bed a whole host of rodents. he especially likes to molt in the nursery. yay.

excuse me while i forget how to talk abut anything other than this house and this baby for awhile. i'm in the middle of a new motherhood/home-owning crisis right. you should know, i was going to write an incredibly creative, entertaining post about this weekend, filled with humor and peppered with woody allen references, but instead, i'm here to say this weekend was crap and woody allen. brilliant, aren't i?

suffice it to say, my crisis is manifesting as a crazy cleaning person. i feel like the tasmanian devil, whirling madly around the house, looking for my sanity inside washing machines and dishwashers. and i know. i know i have no one to blame but myself. i know that i'm supposed to just let everything around me go to rot while i stare at my lovely baby. people keep telling me to ignore the mess, spend time with my baby, get to it later...but when? in 8 months? 15 years? when is it that you can clean? and also, when is it that you can stop cleaning? it's like as soon as things are relatively tidy, everyone needs to dirty some dishes/clothes/diapers because it's time to eat again. i find myself making lists of things to clean, because i can't keep up with the insane cleaning woman in my head that keeps reporting new things it's spotted that need my instant attention.

i used to be a master procrastinator. i studied for finals around midnight, the night before. i wrote my wedding vows in like fifteen minutes. heck, i applied for college the day applications were due! but these days, i am incapable of ignoring the laundry or dishes for a day. (to be fair, our baby's butt would be bare if i did, and we're limited on counter space as it is, so...)

i actually left the house sunday during wilder's nap time to try to find some peace and sanity, only to end up at target buying things like bleach, fabric softener and dishwashing detergent! and that was after a million loads of laundry, dishes and vacuums of the carpet! holy mother of cleanliness!! where does it end?! i'm pretty sure i birthed 10 pounds of laundry along with this baby.

to top it all off, we only got to lie our lightweight, mostly flat, side-sleeping little selves down on 8 mattresses. nowhere near the epic mattress-buying adventure i'd planned. i should be happy there were any mattresses at all, though, what with the cyclone that took over my weekend. maybe i need one of those vacuum robots. don't you love buster bluth? he's my favorite.

and that is all. about time, huh?

in the eye of the storm:

a sweet, blue weekend

our weekend in iphone photos: 

for some reason i have a hankering for soda these days. this boy is impossibly cute.

it's a date at lowes for some supplies.

saturday night we tested paint on our walls. talk about a wild and crazy night!

i might need a donut intervention. also, i totally killed it on the father's day present. just sayin' ;) 

i dub this the summer of blue.

my best boy.

coconut milk ice cream is where it's at (for another month at least). 

this weekend we practiced trying to fit a baby's nap schedule into all the things we had to do. mostly, we just didn't nap and the grownups ate lots of sugar. it was nice to celebrate our Papa Bear with a gift and time together on Sunday, even though it always feels like not enough. honestly i can't remember what else we did. it's all a blur of too little sleep and too many (never!) donuts. 

a little saturday movie

last saturday we made a little movie of our anniversary brunch and antiquing shenanigans. 

it's real wild and crazy. 

;)

*the music in the movie is Cuddle Party by Sirrus

so this is a Saturday!

today, all my dreams came true. for the past two weeks my recurring daydream has been to sleep in on Saturday morning, order a large cheese pizza and eat it all by myself, in my pj's.

and so today, i did just that. mostly that is — i could only eat two pieces of pizza before my shrunken stomach protested and i wasn't wearing pjs as i can't sleep in these days and had to run some errands beforehand anyways...but you get the picture. i've been relaxing. which might also mean cleaning the entire house and doing all the laundry. it totally counts. i even made myself oatmeal this morning — non instant. yeah.

so. my floors are mopped and vacuumed, my sheets are clean and the plants got watered. i think i can make it through another 6 weeks of work. i think. (prayers are also being accepted at this time.)

extra hugs and kisses to my dear loverboy who gave me a day off and went with our realtor by himself to find us a house.

now i go to continue the Saturday of all my dreams with three boxes of girl scout cookies. what? i'm pregnant! (i told you i had it made over here.)

the makings of a weekend

for the last two months we've been looking for houses every single weekend, and for the last month we've added birthing classes on top of that. suffice it to say, we've been super busy on top of our regular weekend activities. so saturday morning whole grain waffles with berries was a must to get us through the madness that is our weekends these days. i also can't complain about pizza at antico (totally worth the crowds even the senior citizen hour of 5 pm!). and today we tried a little hole in the wall mexican place, so that was fun.

but as usual, the weekend went by too fast and now it's almost time for another work week.

until next time dearies. 

xx

B