Bearing gifts.

Mom, Dad, and Katy were here yesterday, stopping for the day on their way to Waco to help Katy move into her new apartment. Can't believe my baby sister is a junior in college! Can't wait to go visit her in a few weeks and hang out just the two of us! They came bearing gifts (mostly stuff I couldn't take on the plane home from Asheville).

Hopefully they will not take much from us...namely the colds that Hadleigh and I are currently suffering from. Aren't summer colds the worst? Especially when you're still nursing the baby and nothing much works for your symptoms. I really can not wait to have a cold when I'm not pregnant and not nursing so that I can take NYQUIL! I love Nyquil. It does the job soooo well. But I have some new Robutussin that the pharmacist says is okay and we'll see how that goes. Anyway...back to the "gifts":

Found a very cutenew rug for Hadleigh's room (the Fiona one) that matches perfectly...I mean I could't have designed it better colorwise...except the size...wish it was an oval but a circle will do fine!

Yummy new pajamas for me from Pine Cone Hill in blue. Since I am sick, I am looking forward to spending a long evening in them starting sometime later this afternoon.

And a cute plastic ball that lights up, makes noises, and moves around that Nathanael just adores. It's designed to inspire munchkins to crawl after it...which is the phase we are now in. Nathanael is moving around "scooching" not quite a crawl but getting so close...rocking on his feet and hands...so fun to watch...I'll have to get a picture to show his progress. Got some video last night but I have NO idea how to get that on here...I mean, Blogger still doesn't want to fully cooperate with pictures!

Well...Katy, Mom and Dad...it was so great to see you...hope all the assembly is going well...and hope you are all free from the sniffles! Off to scrapbook!

Pictures from Asheville

Read about our trip in the previous post...could only get pictures to cooperate in a new post!

We are FINALLY enjoying some rain and thunder right now! So very thankful for it!

Asheville.

Hope you haven't been holding your breath for this :) sorry it's taken me a week!

Posting pictures on blogger lately has been an issue for me for some reason. hopefully not today! Update: apparently Blogger still doesn't like my pictures! I will add them to this post once it starts working for me! Sorry!

We had such a great trip! Lots of fun with both families...so fun to see Hadleigh and Nathanael interact with my siblings and all their grandparents!

Highlights from our trip:

-The Butterfly exhibit at The Nature Center -- it was so much fun to see so many butterflies, hold them, and see them in all the phases of their life in person!

-The Health Adventure's exhibit using golf balls for various "scientific" discoveries. But to Hadleigh (and us) it was all about the pink ball and the fun tracks they got to travel down!

-Going to the park! Hadleigh loves to slide, swing, run, jump from things (into your arms), slide, climb, cross bridges, ride see-saws,and did I mention slide?

-Going out to lunch...it is always a treat to get to have lunch with my mom (and sister and dad!)...we went to two of my favorite tea rooms {Chelsea's and Kathleen's} and they did not disappoint.

-Getting to see lots of friends and their children!

-Getting to go to a great scrapbook store while mom played with the kids in the car :) On top of that...there was a huge thunderstorm while I was in the store...huge! Shopping while you can hear the thunder is actually a lot of fun!

-Lots and lots of rainy mornings and/or afternoons! I love that storms blow into and out of the mountains so quickly...a beautiful clear day and a rainy day wrapped into one! Perfect!

-Hadleigh spent lots of time cooking with both Mimi and Kammy! Dinners, cookies, more cookies! She had a blast in the kitchen!

-Getting to be with my brothers and sister. We're not often all together at the same time...so it was so special to get to have a week with them at home too!

-I realized that I actually LIKE being outside ... as long as the weather is to my liking! We spent time of some sort every day outside ... in the garden, in the front yard, on walks, on the front yard swing, on the hammock, at the pool ... and it was SO enjoyable!

-Getting to watch Hadleigh's reaction to her first trip (since she was an infant) to a "big pool"! She loved splashing in the little pool at the club ... as long as she was on the steps...she had a blast...swallowed a little bit of water, which surprised her, but really enjoyed herself. She wanted to go down the slide in the "big pool" but we told her next time! And she just LOVED seeing the big kids "splash" from the diving board! Nathanael loved the water too...it will be fun to see them next year in it! (Sadly, all our pool pictures were mysteriously erased from the memory card. So disappointing!)

-Getting to go shopping! I found a round rug for Hadleigh's room (it will be here next week!)and fun pajamas at Porter & Prince, lots of books from B&N for Hadleigh and Nathanael, a magnetic paper doll kit for the planeride home, and a great Target find: a fun Dora sprinkler/hopscotch for outside...only $6! It's so much more fun to go shopping with someone you love!

-Our second weekend in Asheville was Asheville's annual Bele Chere weekend. It's a big street fair- lots of vendors, lots of concerts, tons of people! I haven't been in years and wasn't sure what to expect going with the kiddos but we went with Brent's parents and had an absolutely fabulous time! They have a huge kid-friendly zone with tons of amusement park rides (carousel, ferris wheel, mini-train, spinning swings, etc.) as well as a bunch of bouncy-castle type "rides". Hadleigh loves bouncing in the regular bouncy castle and then also on the bouncy obstacle course. She amazed us by being pretty fearless...she climbed up the huge wall (and then slid back down next to the steps) and then climbed "up" the other side where the slide was, and then slid all the way down. Again and again and again. She did not want to leave!

The only thing sad about our trip was not having Brent with us!

As always, we love Asheville and can't wait until Christmastime for our next visit!

Upon Reflection.

I've been thinking about the differences between North Texas and Western North Carolina since coming home. (Aside from the obvious...that it's a 450 degree oven here and a warming oven with a convection cold breeze there.)

I was driving home with Brent last night and I looked at the area behind our home (a new housing development) and said "Something looks different." Nope. Nothing different. No new houses. Just the horizon. In Texas, I see the horizon. In Asheville, the trees and mountains.

Because of that horizon, we have gorgeous views of the sunset from our house here. Stunning. Take your breath away beautiful. In Asheville, I only notice the sunsets if I'm at my husband's parents home up on a mountain. Not that they aren't there and beautiful...but they are just not as evident as they are here.

In Asheville, I pulled out my sunglasses ONCE. For about 15 minutes. And technically, it was on the way to the airport in Greenville, SC, so there weren't really mountains anymore. That's because wherever you go, there are trees. Tall trees. Trees that provide shade and beauty to the sides of the road. Ahhh. I love trees. Here in Texas, I put on my sunglasses in my garage before I pull out of the driveway. I put on my sunglasses when it is cloudy. Because it is still so bright. Now, we do have trees...just not any big ones in my neighborhood...and not really the kind that provide a whole lotta shade.

The sky. My dad still misses the sky. He spent the first 32 years of his life in Texas. It's really big here. You really can't understand this unless you visit. It's vast. It is one of my favorite things about Texas. And the sky is beautiful. In the day...so blue, full of clouds...at night...you see stars above you, stars on your left and stars on your right. In NC, if you go to the top of a mountain and look around...the view of the skyline in the mountains is beautiful too.

I love these two places ... the only two states I have ever called home. I love them for their differences! (But I'm still a little partial to my adoptive NC!)

Okay, I promise that the next post will have pictures of our trip and some details. I depended upon my family and their cameras for pictures, so I have to download them off the CD's they burned for me...and then choose some good ones.

Home again, home again,

jiggety jig.

Growing up we always said this when we got home from anywhere. An errand. A trip.
Now, when we pull into our garage I say, "Home again, home again" and Hadleigh says "Jiggety Jig!" It always makes me smile!

So we are back ... had a much better airport experience this time, thanks to a tip from my friend Hilary who informed me that I could get a pass for someone (my Mom!) to accompany me all the way to the gate and help with the kiddos and carrying everything! Then I got to preboard this time and had help from the nice flight attendant. (Then 2.5 hours of entertaining children on the plane...hmmm...) Imagine my surprise when (as the last off the plane) Brent meets us at the ENTRANCE to the plane!!! He told someone at the gate that he was an air force pilot, flashed his military ID and they gave him a pass! So I didn't even have to carry the car seat to baggage at all! What a sweetie. It was SO wonderful to see him. SO wonderful to see the kids with him...

This morning, we got a not-so-fun surprise when I got Hadleigh out of bed and noticed that her bed was swarming with ants. She has SO many ant bites, but it didn't wake her up and they don't seem to bother her at all now, thankfully. But I was SO upset...threw everything in the wash and called the Orkin man! Just so you know, they are not open at 8 in the morning. But they will be here any minute now to make sure that we are RID of ants! This is our first ant problem since moving here. But it reminds me of the ant problem I had in college in our last apartment senior year. Yuck. But hopefully soon this will all be behind us!

I will blog more about our actual trip when I get a chance to download pictures and finish getting our house (and my schedule!) back in order! Isn't it amazing how hard it is to come back after 2 weeks. So much to dust, so much email to sift through, and the stack of catalogs and magazines...phew. But I am unpacked and put away, so that feels good. Came home with all but one days worth of clean clothes ... but after a trip in a suitcase EVERYTHING needs ironing! So that's tomorrow. Hopefully after the weekend, things will be somewhat back to order! There is something about traveling and coming home that makes me want to get very organized!

What are you up to today?

Fireflies and stuff.

We made it! We're here...beautiful Asheville, NC!!!

The flight went so much better than I anticipated...so many people willing to help out a mom by herself with two kids (and way too much stuff for one person to carry!) You just have to appreciate the man who offers to carry a car seat to your seat and then latches it in securely. And the person who makes sure Hadleigh doesn't run back into the airport because the noise of the airplane at the entrance scares her, all the while, I am trying to collapse our stroller to check gateside and keep Nathanael from falling over.

So thankful for our helpful flight attendant...and for Mom waiting there for us...she was the light at the end of the tunnel for me!

It is so good to be "home" ... I"m just soaking in the mountains, the trees, the green, the smells of this place that I love so very much. We went for a walk tonight and Hadleigh caught her first lightning bug!

Fun to watch the kiddos interact with aunts and uncles and grandparents...excited about our visit...will post pictures later!

Not for the faint of heart.

Being a mother, that is.

We had an unexpected trip to the doctor this morning for this little girl.
Not fun at all. She has a UTI...which is tough to diagnose until you get a pee sample which is hard to get from an almost 3 year old because it hurts.

But she did better than I expected. And hopefully in 10 days, this will all be behind us. (hmmm...could the pool be the culprit???)

I do not like going to the doctor. It surprises me how well I do taking my children for check-ups, shots, and the occasional illness. (I fainted once after having a TB test...the summer before I went to college...shhhh....don't tell anyone else!) So it surprises me that I can hold my child calmly without getting weak and light-headed when they have to get their shots.

I hate seeing my children in pain...and I am thankful that God heals and that He has gifted doctors to help ease pain and help in His healing.

What are you thankful for today?

Savoring this moment.

After being passed by two storms this weekend, I am finally enjoying a little afternoon shower.
(It is really depressing to live on the edge of town and to see all the storms on the horizon and watch them pass you. Like, by an inch. Not fair.)

Not a thunderstorm, but still, the rain and clouds are most welcome here!

And so I am sipping my Earl Grey tea and eating my Pepperidge Farm cookies (French vanilla milanos are SO good!) and thinking of what a great day it has been. Hadleigh and Nathanael have been great today... got some cleaning done, errands done...and now it's nap time and I can enjoy these couple hours and do something for me! (Oh, and I got the sweetest email from Brent, asking if I wanted to get a babysitter for Friday...so fun!)

I find that I really need ME time these days...a little time to clear my thoughts by writing, reading, scrapbooking...something that is just a little bit of an indulgence. Not much. Even a couple quiet moments with a cup of tea will do it.

What moment are you savoring today?

Splash.

We put Nathanael in the kiddie pool for the first time the other night. He loved it! He would splash the water coming out of the hose into his face and get the most bewildered smile on his face! (Too bad we didn't have the camera out while he was in the pool...and it turned out to be a very cool evening for Texas, hence the hooded wrap!)




Of course, Hadleigh is a pro at the pool...this year she can hop in and out of it so easily. She gets so excited and then slips and falls and just thinks it is hilarious. I think we need to get her a slip and slide. She loves to look at her footprints on the driveway too.

I love how simple life is for a child. So carefree. So innocent. So fun.

The fourth.

Happy Fourth of July!

We'll be watching the Boston Pops Fireworks Spectacular tonight!
Wish I could actually be in Boston to see the show...last year it was amazing!!!
Also lighting sparklers (my favorite), grilling hamburgers, and playing in the kiddie pool!

I'm thankful today for our freedom...how about you?