dancing queen

Some ladies from church organized a night out to see this movie. I love musicals and this one is one I haven't seen. Those new to musicals should probably skip it. There are often painful moments in musicals where the audience just has to say "but its a musical." Lots of people like them, its just not a SuperHero movie.

Anyway it was sparkly, and ridiculous. I'm sure at some point in the next 15 days I will be caught practicing some of these dances. That's how these things seem to affect me. See that girl, watch that scene...

For the Display of His Splendor

I have great Hope. There seem to be lots of people around us right now who don't have hope at all, or just tiny glimpses of it. I realize that I am in one of the most beautiful stages of our experience here. We've welcomed two lives and have great Hope for a third in a few months.
But I've also chosen Hope and the more I choose it, the more I seem to have. That is so hard to explain to others who are struggling to have any at all.
I have great hope that the five of us are becoming Oaks of Righteousness.
We've had a terrible few years as well though. But the more we choose Hope, the less terrible these circumstances become. And the more whole we feel because of them. This is very vague I realize, but I wanted to record this time of life, of great Hope and Joy too. I pray that this abundance will always be as tangible. Hallelujah. Amen.

** Chuckle. I'm editing this after I posted it. I finished this thought and was feeling introspective, and a bit melancholy and tired. I retreated to find my husband watching the remake of Planet of the Apes, I can only hope out of curiosity. Now that's a Funky Bunch.

Brandon's only comment: "this is a really bad movie." Off to observe "ape"/horse/"human" wars...

immeasurable blessings

Portraits I made of my babies and me, the weeks I discovered I was expecting another. I'm due March 1st, I think...

If you come for guacomole, mister

you'd best jest bring yer own.

I been feeling the inner cowgirl in me, since I finished Leif Enger's Peace Like A River. Our church book club read it. I wasn't actually able to go, but I've been swaggering ever since.

I lost the stand over the guacomole. Time was I could finish one of these:

They are too sweet once the chips and dip are gone. But all natural!

My girl cleans up.

sweet Sweet

We love nicknames. Piper has had about 100 since her birth, and Zoe is quickly catching up. We string together any combination of compliment and the child's name that pops into our head at the time and viola, a nickname. Around our house its constantly "boogie, boogie doo, boogie bear, baby boogie, Piper boe, Zoe boey, bunny, sweet baby, pretty baby, Piper baby, angels, sweet Sweet, Zoe zos..." Anyway, that's not the point of this. The point is that being a people of nicknames, we are raising little people of nicknames and our newly two year old daughter has begun inventing sweet tiny nicknames for her family. What a beautiful sound they are to us! It makes me wonder how pleased the Father is with us when we call him by our own term of endearment. Anyway, one day after naps I heard Piper calling to me through her monitor. "Mommy-nay! Come here!" And she kept calling me Mommy-nay that afternoon. Soon she added Daddy-day for Brandon and Zoe-nay for Zoe. It is really very very extremely sweet to me. And now she knows I like it, so when we are having lots of fun, or dancing, or she wants something I'm Mommy-nay. (satisfied sigh).

Photos: once I saw these, poor little Zoe got a haircut too. My babies are born with gorgeous heads of hair and between five and seven months it all falls out in very disappointing patterns. Poor Piper suffered my uncertainty about cutting her long lock. Seriously, LOCK. Tiny Zoe is benefiting from a more relaxed and decisive mother. And yet, those pictures will have to show up another post. They are still on my camera.

We bought this doorway jumper on EBay from a grandmother who bought it from an Amish family. It is Zoe's favorite toy and it fits on the framing on our porch. Now that is living.

That last one is called "To Infinity and Beyond." Piper loves Buzz Lightyear. Autumn and her family sent Piper a Buzz doll for her birthday. Once he entered our home (in the fuzz,) he was immediately plopped in the middle of the room and presented all of Piper's best toys. I don't have a picture, dang it, but there was Buzz with a half circle around him of cars with faces, My Little Ponies, and various dishes from her kitchen. She was all three wise men for about three minutes. As far as nicknames go, he is sometimes Buzz, sometimes Buzz Lightyear - nothing fancy. Although, as far as art goes, he has become an inspiration. I guess art direction though, because art right now is scribbling and asking me to "draw a cat Mommy, draw elephant Mommy, draw monkey Mommy," and today (ba ba ba bah!) "draw To Infinity and Beyond, Mommy." To satisfy your curiosity I drew Buzz, or an angel, sadly I can't tell. I guess they are one in the same to a two year old.

Our documentation of little Brynn visiting with the Jones girls (Notice row 2, columns 1 and 2 where it looks like Piper is giving Brynn a helpful little whack.

Wacky

Whoa- so I edited a post that I started in February turning it into something new. The program didn't change my date. Proof of my intention to post on February 27th! Regardless, the 2.27 post should be considered from the future, say, May 13th. Also, I can't seem to get my spacing right below. And lets all say it together "its too late to think or see straight."

Where to start?

Today has been a long day. Brandon is in Houston tonight with his dad, mom, and brother awaiting his dad's emergency heart surgery. The news that he was having a triple bypass came as a shock and we are all a bit nervous. But I also feel peaceful and hopeful about it. Anyway, its tomorrow.

So I'm at the computer. It seems like I'm not here until its too late to think, or even see straight. It is relaxing for me to write but relaxing is happening in a lot of other ways right now. A lot of wind-down time is spent in the backyard (which has had a major overhaul this spring) after dinner, enjoying our flowers and vegetable plants and playing with the girls. But, I really need to write more. I feel like writing is kind of like eating vegetables for me: it makes me feel better and I like the idea of it, but when I'm tired, and that's a lot lately, writing and eating vegetables get shoved. Today (and I am embarrased to admit this) we are out of groceries, waiting on paychecks and Piper didn't want oatmeal for dinner. Brandon is gone and I wasn't that hungry so Piper and I shared (cringe) Movie Theater Buttered Popcorn. For Dinner. And that's it. She also had diluted apple juice and I had water. Since we don't have any vegetables in the house and our little plants aren't yet producing, I'm writing to feel better about that decision.

And I want to finally post all of the pictures of the girls that I've thought I wanted to post for Autumn and the Whites to see over on the other side of the world, and haven't for the last five months. So here we go.

Back to January -we made a trip to the Faulkner's ranch to see baby cows. The littlest cow that we saw was only a few hours old. That's Piper, Zoe, and an obviously very pregnant at the time, Brittney.

Zoe's four month photo shoot. Also from January/February.

In March I took engagement photos for Stephanie and Dave. They got married this past weekend, and sadly I didn't have my camera with me. I wasn't sad to leave it when we went to Dallas, but as always, was sad I didn't have it when I got there. While we were there for the wedding, we took the girls, Billy and Janice to see the Dallas World Aquarium. It was incredible - the best aquarium I've been to (out of maybe three - but one was in Spain). We saw SO many animals: monkeys complete with babies riding on momma's backs both caged and not, otters, a leopard, penguins, tons of gorgeous fish, flamingos, sharks, bats, and all kinds of birds. We want to go back.

We also dug up our yard and got some free dirt from the camp.

To the detriment of our neighborhood the pile of dirt took five weeks to leave our driveway.

Piper helped us in the backyard by watering and throwing dirt. She also followed me and carefully transferred all mulch that I'd spread to the grass. One of my favorite pictures from the spring time weeknights spent in the backyard:

Easter egg hunt:

Planting vegetables, Piper encounters a cow, Giddyup, Tractor Tractor, Zoe on the lawn:

Our beautiful girl turned two on April 24th. We had a party. The party was wild with 17 kids, and that many adults in all in our house avoiding the cold drizzle.

Sweet Zoe at seven months. This child is competeing with Jude K. for the most difficult to change a diaper. She is crawling and won't quit. So when I lay her down to change her diaper she immediately flips over. I've got her feet in the air trying to keep poo from smearing everywhere and today she literally was doing a head stand twisted in the air, while I tried to clean her up. She wouldn't lay down and kept flipping up into her head stand with her face on the table. She bolted after I took this picture.
Its now too late to think or even see straight so I have to leave. I promise to come back here before October.