sadie

Welcome, sweet baby girl...

Your family might be a little weird, but no one will ever love you more :)


XOXO
 

norah

She arrived on a Thursday in June at the end of a very long day
that suddenly felt not long at all.


She's all pink and tiny and a-little-bit-big, and cuddly and warm, and full of new.

 


She's eight pounds and thirteen ounces full of precious and nearly two feet(!) long, 
yet she fits in the crook of my arm like it's been waiting for her since forever.

She scrunches up her little face like she means business and then settles right back into 
a peace I only wish I could remember...

She's a bundle of pure joy, and potential, and hope, and love...
 

She's my second granddaughter, my fourth grandchild.  

She's my, fills-my-heart-right-up, where-on-earth-have-you-been-all-this-time, 
Norah Grace, 
and I'll be forever thankful for every bit of her :) 

XOXO

beagle lovin'

 

 
Well.  It's been another week filled up with unexpected and hard.  Last Monday morning I got the third call in about five weeks telling me of the death of a loved one.  sigh. 


Last night I crawled back into my own bed after spending the last week with my sister and family.  I've been so frustrated over these weeks to have SO MUCH to say but no time to sit and share.

I'm secretly hopeful that we can catch up in the next little while but I'm certainly not going to say anything of the kind right out loud!
 
 
I will say that if you wanted to pray for me and the fam it would not be wasted.  I'm a little spent, but my sister and her family are so very weary.  I've said it a million times, but without the love and strength that only God can give I don't know how people cope/survive/crawl out of bed when the hard comes knocking. 
 

I'm so very thankful for Jesus and how He lifts our heads...and hearts :)

 

 
 
Anyhoo.  As I look around at the mess and more mess lying on every surface of my home I have no choice but acknowledge there is no time for bloggy indulgence, so I leave you with these sweet pics of my biggest birthday boy with his new buddy, Jack.
 
All Shayne wanted for birthday number 18(!) was this yummy little beagle, and seriously, is there any better gift for one's Big Day than a new best friend?  We're thinking Nope!
 

 
 

I can't even believe my sweet nephew is 18 whole years old but well, there you have it.

 

 
Happy Monday :) 

27 is completely ridiculous

I've tried and tried to come up with a plausible explanation for my bloggy absence but let's face it, I have none.  I suppose this could be because there is no explanation. 

Apparently I've become slothful and lackadaisical during the rainy season here in the Carolinas.  I don't care what the locals say, I'm despairing of ever again experiencing more than 12 hours in a row of bonafide sunshine.  All that to say oh my word ALL THE RAIN.

But we aren't here to talk about the rain, now are we?  We are, in fact, here to talk about how my place smells like chocolate cake a full day after baking Katie's birthday cake.

And even more than that, we're here to talk about how today is Katie's birthday!


Happy Birthday, Katie! 

(I can't even believe you're so old no offense.)


Back to the cake.


Kate found this particular culinary delight on Pinterest and requested that I make it happen for her special, special day.  Now I'm not gonna lie.  It wasn't so much hard as it was time-consuming what with all the mini Reese's unwrapping and chopping.  Exhausting really, but apparently worth it as I might or might not have stuck my head in the bowl in order retrieve the last vestige of residual batter.  Of course I exaggerate.  I used my finger and a large spatula.  I should also warn you that the frosting includes such foolishness as heavy whipping cream, but really it couldn't be helped.  I was merely following my daughter's directive to go big or go home. 

Go big, is what we went with.

(Un)fortunately, it was as  yummy as predicted and I requested, nay ORDERED her to take every last bit of it out of my house immediately following dinner.  Ain't nobody got time for gaining 10 pounds in 24 hours on leftover birthday cake. 

She's on her own...I figure no one will be judging the pregnant birthday girl if she eats a whole cake in mere days.


Anyhoo, if you're brave enough, or thin enough, or have a treadmill in your living room, enabling you to cope with the danger involved, you can find the recipe here. 

Proceed at your own risk.

(You've been warned.)



p.s.  HAPPY BIRTHDAY KATIE!!  Thanks for introducing me to yet another something I liked but should never ever eat before never.


I love you, sweet firstborn of mine :)

six word saturday

Today is sweet Peyton's first birthday!

Happy Birthday Peanut :)

timhntty part one

It might appear by my recent lack of blogging that my life has fallen quiet and boring and devoid of fascinating minutiae.  

However, I assure you that would be an false appearance.


My life has been filled straight up with all manner of fascinating minutiae.

ALL MANNER.


For this reason, I decided to begin a little series this week I like to call 

things i might have neglected to tell you.  



(Clever is what I have never been called.)
 
(And yet, we remain friends!)  (Yaay!)


First things first.

Owen is two!


You heard me right! 
It has already been two whole years since this sweet thing joined our family.



I mostly can't remember life before he came along.    
Whatever did I do before I knew this yummy little bit of toddler perfection?  


Never ever ever could I have imagined the joy wrapped up in such a grody, stinky, sweet-as-sugar, clumsy, funny, smart, veryloud small-boy-bundle-of-delight package.



Happy bloggy birthday greetings, sweet heart-of-mine!

Naynay loves every grody, stinky, sweet-as-sugar, clumsy, funny, smart, 
veryloud speck of ya :)


  

the other birthday girl

Today she's 25.

To say that I love that girl is an absurd understatement.

Just the sight of her sweet face fills my heart to overflowing...and I commence smiling.

(Even without the mustache.)

Happiest of Happy Birthdays, sweet Kari.

Your mama loves you :)

p.s.  Thanks for the sweet pics Mary!

 

birthday girl

Today she's four.  

...four years of hugs and giggles and love and full-on delight.

...four years of more joy than I ever knew to wish for.

 

 

 

  

Happy birthday, Audrey Faith!

 Thanks for filling this heart - and life - of mine right up :)

on caffeine and ducks

Well I thought this might be a rambly kind of day and I was right. 

Woody never left his side, even while hurtling through the mine shaft.

Truth be told my head feels like it's going implode, likely because I"m kinda/sorta dieting and am therefore cutting waaay back on the Pepsi, which means I'm cutting waaay back on the caffeine.


I haven't really been suffering so much from the lack of fountain-Pepsi-on-ice, but the lack of caffeine is quite possibly going to kill me dead.


I'm not kidding.


Unfortunately, it appears the pounding misery has rendered me incapable of coherency.  I suspect work will be a delight this evening.


If any of you have any detoxing suggestions I'm quite happy to hear them, and try them, and embrace them as my own.  

In other news Shayne landed himself another buck today.  He was quite pleased.  I myself was proud but also struggled with the ick factor of seeing him drag said deer across the lawn with it's tongue all flopping out.


I know; I'm sorry.  Even if only in your mind's eye, you didn't need to see that.


Take a look at this yummy instead...

 


One more thing and then I'm going to take some more Excedrin and lie in a quiet place and long for the metabolism of my youth...


Duck Dynasty.


I cannot overstate the delight of this show.  

Hey Mom?  I suspect you and Larry would love it.  

Donita?  My-friend-who-hates-TV?  Yup, you might just love it.  

Pretty much everyone I've ever met in all my days?  I would say there's a 92% chance you will, in fact, love it.  


I was laughing out loud in the dark at 2:00 this morning at some of their shenanigans.  Such sweetly good-natured fun!  And OH THE DEADPAN DELIVERY.  

Sheer television perfection.



Duck Dynasty.  Try it.

These photos are in the category of having nothing at all to do with anything said here today.  


For future reference, when I'm old and have even less memory than I do today, these would be my sweeties sliding down the oh-so-scary, mine-shaft-themed slide at the pumpkin patch as we celebrated Audrey Faith's fourth birthday.


Because I never ever want to forget all the cute.
 

 

Happy Tuesday y'all!

 

feeling full

Yeah, I lied.


I honestly meant to blog all about the pumpkin patch but I'm not even exaggerating when I say I haven't had time.  We've had lots of work to do recently and by lots I mean more OT opportunities than I can reasonably take advantage of.  It's so frustrating because I'm 100% certain that when I have a boring stretch (I will have a boring stretch sometime, right?  Right??) there will be no extra work to be found.


Such is life, my friends.


Anyway, I log in for work in a big eight minutes but wanted to drop a line about my day.


Because everyone's schedules have been so pitiful and apparently we didn't get the memo that we're kind've old and should therefore be bored, I've been having lunches and brunches all spread out since the first of September.  While this is a little bit shameful it's also BIG FUN.  


This morning I met up with two of  my people and had a wonderful couple of hours just being together and catching up the tiniest bit.  We went to IHOP and I might or might not have eaten half an omelet and a few lot of bites of pancake.  With syrup.  And a Pepsi.  

(Of course a Pepsi.) 


(I should own stock in Pepsi.)


...They brought me sweet little gifts that were just what I needed in the way my people know how to do, and they filled up my heart just by being them.


I can only pray I half fill them up in the same way.  


I'm so very blessed!


Only two minutes left - gotta get to work...Happy Thursday :)

bittersweet. mostly sweet.

Yesterday one of my very dearest turned 50 years old.

Today her baby girl gets on a plane with her hubby to love Jesus in another place.

A place not at all close to here.

Not even a little bit.

I might be crying just a little on the inside...

what I did that time I turned 47

Photo by my Katie

I should be sleeping I know I should.

I'm pretty much undoing all my two-good-nights-in-a-row progress from the last two nights of sleeping like a regular person.

It's just as well.  There's no sense in getting all crazy and well-rested.

It would never last I just know it. 

Photo by my Katie

 

As I might have mentioned a few times recently, yesterday was my birthday.

It was a good one.  

I did a WHOLE LOT of not much and I enjoyed every bit of it.

Kari, Drew, & Peyton met me at IHOP, along with Robin, Rex, and the boys.  I had eggs and potatoes and bacon and pancakes.  

And on top of that, the verynice waiter gave me a blueberry pancake instead of a plain one at no charge because it was my birthday.  He told me not to tell, so please don't tell anyone, okay?  

(p.s. IHOP authorities?  If you're reading this, the verynice waiter was just exhibiting wonderful customer service so please don't be mad at him.  In fact, I'm thinking a raise would be nice.  He worked really hard.  We're a handful.)

Photo by my Katie

After brunch I moseyed over to the mall and found three shirts! (three!) on the clearance rack so I bought them all.  on the cheap.  I might have to start looking snazzy while I work if this keeps up.  It would be wrong to waste perfectly good clearance apparel.  

After that I stopped by Kroger and bought some cantaloupe and watermelon and Pepsi Cola.  

And Cherry Garcia (Did I mention MY BIRTHDAY??)

And then I came home.

And then I dropped the cantaloupe on the floor right after I cut it all up.

(sigh)

I couldn't really tell ya much about the rest of the afternoon other than I wasn't working which was DELIGHTFUL.  

Robin made taco salad for dinner and schlepped to TGIFs for my favorite vanilla bean cheesecake.

And it was very good.

All of it.

Every single thing about the whole entire day.

Makes a girl downright okay with being in her bonafide later-40s. 

Photo by my Kari

Happy Tuesday :)

p.s.  These pictures have nothing to do with my birthday but they don't have to because I think I mentioned about how I'm the birthday girl.

it's the (not so) little things that fill me up...

It's my birthday and I keep counting my countless blessings...

(A Thousand Gifts #1200-1214)

Owen flying down the hallway and leaping up into my arms, his happy grin filling his face

Audrey curling up beside me, patting my knee and reminding me, "you're my best girl, Naynay."

Back-to-back viewings of Stewart Littles with my best girl, while the boys snooze in their beds

...while the boys snooze.  in their beds.

Peyton holding onto my hand, or staring into my eyes, or smiling around his paci, or fingering my hair, or in any way just being Peyton

Kari asking her oldish mama to text her when she is safely home

Katie thinking of the birthday doughnuts

The girls walking through the door with - yep - the Pepsi to carry me through my assignment

The most delightful sons-in-law since ever


Movies and snacks and dinner and movies with my friend


Facebook love from the other side of the world 


The boys playing busily with their fuzzy robes tied tight atop their clothes, and Isaiah's casual "Oh hey, Aunt Nay's" and Elijah flashing me an "I love you" in sign language 


Shayne smiling and nodding when I attempt conversation

And, with a happy-birthday-to-me kind of delight - - -

Eight hours of sleep in a row 

Eight hours of sleep...In A Row!

Happy Monday!

love

Photo by Kari

Happy Wednesday!

Have y'all heard? Elijah's seven!

We celebrated by declaring it a No Pencils Day and heading out for some fun.  

First, he opted to spend quite a chunk of time at Pet Smart doing things like tapping on the aquariums and watching the fish scatter and lobbying for a mouse...or hamster...or guinea pig...or parakeet....or Heaven help me, a chinchilla.

I narrowly escaped with my common sense intact.  It's a lot harder to shoot down a birthday boy lobbying for a "classroom pet" than you might think.  

A lot harder.  

I was able to distract him with the promise of a tasty lunch at the location of his choosing, Chick-fil-A.

He was particularly pleased by his surprise "very special guests."

Mary heard there was a party and couldn't stay away.

Not really.  God just knew we all needed some hugs.  For real.  He knows stuff like that and quite often makes it happen.

It's because He loves us.  A lot.

After a couple of hours filled with chicken-y goodness and new friends in the shoeless zone we moved on to phase three.

That would be chocolate Ben & Jerry's with a side of Cherry Garcia for the teacher.

I sure do love this face...

Happy Birthday, Elijah!