love it.

My husband and my kids always give me such a wonderful Mother's Day.  Each year they ask me what I want and the honest to goodness truth of the matter is this...

I love to go to a quiet place in the woods, preferrably by cool, running water, and have a picnic.  Lounge around for the afternoon taking walks, laying on blankets and pillows reading and talking with gorgeousness (is that a word?) everywhere.

I woke up to a delish breakfast of french toast, fresh strawberries (that Gracie was eating), hashbrowns and an all-around-wonderful-gain-5-pounds-in-a-morning-and-love-every-bite-of-it-dining.

That afternoon after church we headed to King's Mountain and hung out together until it was almost dark.

Thank you, my wonderful little family...(actually most people don't think I have a little family...but that's a topic for another day...)

sweet. LIFE.

*tell a friend*

strawberry shortcake princess flowers and butterflies party.

Grace has been looking forward to this party since...hmmm...her last birthday.  She's been making serious plans since Christmas and asked everyday when we would make invitations for her party.

The thing is that we don't have big birthday parties every year.  We have fun family parties every year for each person's birthday but the big parties with friends and hoopla only happen on your 5th birthday, 10th birthday, and 15th (or 16th) birthday...so they are highly anticipated!

This was Miss G's 5th birthday.

We looked through books and got some ideas and then came up with this design together...we made a great inside and then got so excited about packaging them up in their little boxes that we forgot to take a picture of it.

(more pictures to come...)

party. LIFE.

*tell a friend*

wishes.

Birthdays around here start at breakfast.  You wake up and you get a present at each meal. 

The girls had been busting with excitement for a couple of days.   (Everyone has been earning their own money, saving some, putting some into tithing, and some into spending.  They all decided to put their spending toward a gift for Emmett.)

They could not WAIT for Emmett to open the things that they bought.  I love that my kids are so excited and enthusiastic about birthdays...it doesn't matter whose it is...they are totally thrilled about it.  So with every present there were all kinds of oohhs!  and aahhs!

There were homemade gifts, too.  Miriam made Emmett a little box out of paper and then wrote him sweet notes about his birthday and put them inside it.

The biggest oohhs!  and ahhs! came when Emmett unwrapped his BB gun.  Yes, folks, you read that right.  Emmett now owns a BB gun...followed by a fretful mom laying down the safety rules...a few times.  I can't believe it....

I am so happy that Emmett is in our family.  There is no one like him in the world. 

He is...

a kind older brother...even if he does know exactly how to push his sisters' buttons.

a voracious learner.

thoughtful of others feelings.

aware of what people need.

a loyal and true friend.

a thinker.

a planner.

an inventor.

someone who doesn't let obstacles get in his way.

independent.

sensitive to spiritual things.

a good listener.

someone with a great smile and a happy laugh.

great at excelling.

competitive.

a hard worker.

a blessing to his mom.

and a gift to his family.

He wished for a BB gun...and got it.

I wished for him to slow down the growing up...to wait for me while I get ready for him to grow up...to wait while I try to get used to him not being the baby that I held 12 years ago... and hoped that this day wouldn't come before I was ready...I didn't get my wish...

I did wish that he would grow up to be a sensitive, kind, and thoughtful person...that's a wish I'm getting.

older. LIFE.

**Tell a friend about this post**

Christmas wish.

One of the things Miriam wanted for Christmas was a gift card to the Build a Bear Workshop.  A few weeks ago we ventured to the mall and when she walked in the store it was Christmas morning all over again.

Miriam's eyes were big, her mind whirled, and her hands felt every thing as she ran around the store looking at each of the bears, bunnies, tigers, and frogs that she could invite home to sleep with her, cuddle with her, and pretty much get worn out with love.

The store also has all kinds of clothes, sunglasses, hair (yes, really!  little mini wigs!), underwear, bags, and anything else a child could imagine putting on a stuffed animal.  This, obviously, means:

Decisions. Decisions. Decisions. 

Sweet little Hoppy, the bunny, made the cut.  She's the one that came home with Miriam to get her very soft ears rubbed endlessly and eventually have holes worn in her that will need to be mended.

And, of course, Miriam had lots of help.

sweet. LIFE.

(as you can see, I'm messing around with some colors and post processing in these images...what are your thoughts?  love it, like it, hate it? do tell, in the comments...)

cereal.

Grace and I eat breakfast almost every morning together.  This morning was no different (this is not actually THIS morning...I'm still not able to eat much because I've got what Grace had...).  I planned to just take one picture of us eating together and then we got carried away and had fun taking pictures of every thing from the pouring of the cereal (I love that I have a picture now of Grace overflowing her bowl) to the eating.

Then Gracie decided she was done and left me sitting there alone then I just messed around...too long...and realized it was time to take Gracie to school. 

So what was going to be just one picture turned into this (this is a 10 second clip, make sure to click the play button below):

silly. LIFE.