The Bean Bag

Seriously. She's just too cute. The other day I went in to put clothes away in Kaylee's closet and this is what I found. After I put the clothes away, left to get the camera, and came back and took her picture, I actually went up close to her to make sure she was breathing because she hadn't moved a muscle the whole time I was in there. It reminded me of going in to check on a newborn. You know they're fine, but they're so still and sweet, you just have to check. Funny how dogs do become a sort of child to us, isn't it?

Ya' like that psychedelic beanbag? Kaylee begged for a beanbag chair for about a year and for her birthday last year I told everyone she wanted one. Nana Sue asked if I wanted the old beanbag that they've had forever. I have lots of memories of that thing. So she brought it up (Thanks, Sue!) and it had only been here for a few days when Libby claimed it as her own. She sleeps in there in Kaylee's room on that beanbag every night. And after all that begging, Kaylee hardly ever touches that thing. Figures. Although, I wonder if it has anything to do with the dog hair all over it?

What the...?

Sorry, I just couldn't resist that title. Have you ever seen the alltel commercial where they go to the wizard's house during dinner? Sean loves that one! The guy with the 'phro says, "What the?" That cracks Sean up and now he says it all the time. So it seemed to fit.

Sean wears ear plugs at night and this is what Piersen decided to do with them. I swear if this kid went to school, he'd be the class clown in no time at all. He can't get through dinner without acting up and trying to get a laugh out of us. He loves the attention!

Five Years

This photo was taken about five minutes after Sean proposed. I was so happy I thought I would burst. Today we are celebrating five years together. I guess you could say our courtship was a whirlwind of sorts. We went on our first date on May 14, 2003. He asked me to marry him on June 30th, and we were married on August 23rd. A little over three months wouldn't be long enough for most people, but we just knew. The first time we talked about marriage was on our first date!

I clearly remember the first time we mentioned love. We had been seeing each other a little over a week, and we were snuggling on the bed. He put his hand on my face and said "I love you" very softly. I just looked at him for a few seconds, and then he asked, "What do you think about that?" And I replied, "I don't know how, but I love you too." I still remeber our words exactly. It seemed incredible, even to me, that I could be in love with him so quickly, but I knew, without a doubt, that I was.

And that's how it has always been for me. Without a doubt. I answered yes without a doubt. I said I do without a doubt. I go to bed every night and wake up every morning without a doubt. I know that God made Sean just for me. And I am grateful every day. I love Sean more than I could ever express in words to him. But I think he knows. Because I think he loves me just as much. It feels so good to be loved so completely. I am truly blessed.

The past five years have been filled with such joy and love. I can't wait to find what the next fifty or so have in store for us. Happy Anniversary, Sweetie. Love, Babycakes.

Mistreatments

Do you know the Nester? If not, you are missing out on one of the funnest places in Blogland. (Yes, I know funnest is not a word. What are you an English teacher?) Anyway, her mistreatments are to die for. To. Die. For. So, even though I kinda know how to sew, I finally jumped on the mistreating bandwagon and made some of my own. This is my favorite: my new bedskirt. I use the term bedskirt quite loosely here. After we stole Kaylee's bed for our own and put it up on these riser things that Mary gave us, the bedskirt was way too short, and way too plain. Enter $1/yard fabric that I found at Wal-Mart. Three (or four, I can't remember) yards ripped down the middle makes quite an economical bedskirt, dontcha think? I just gathered and safety-pinned the ripped edge all the way around.

I just safety-pinned it right to the existing white bedskirt that was already on it. You know I'm too lazy to yank that thing out from under the matress, right? I absolutely love the way it turned out. It added a liitle oomph.


Next up is the living room window. Once again, I used $1/yard fabric from Wal-mart. I know, right? You can't see well in the pics, but it's the cutest little miniature brown-on-brown houndstooth. I just folded, folded and clipped.....completely a la Nester. It turned out so cute. I also mistreated the bookcases in front of the window, I used upholstery tacks and just tacked some leftover brown fabric fom the back door right to the top edge of the cases. It hides all of our school books and doo-dads and looks like a pretty little table in front of the window where I can put cutesy stuff.

Last, but not least, the back door. Same as the front for the curtains. This time with dark brown fabric. Uh-huh. One dollar a yard. I love me some Wal-Mart. The faux shade is leftover houndstooth from the front window. I folded about an inch under at the top and tacked it right to the wall. Than I hot-glued on some fringe and Voila! Instant prettiness on both ends of the great room for the grand total of about $20. (Please ignore the blue near the ceiling, I haven't quite finished painting.

Well, I hope you've enjoyed my little Nesteresque post. I am so grateful to her for all the inspiration. I wish I had some better pictures, but getting shots of windows during the day is not easy. And I was out of town all weekend, so I'm scurrying to get this included in her mistreatment party. Hope everyone has a blessed day!

Life in the Dirt Hole

Today, Sean is outside pressure-washing the house. And Piersen.........well, Piersen is outside smearing dirt on the freshly washed house. We have this nice little, let's call it a sinkhole, out in the backyard next to the house. We call it Libby's dirt hole. Because, although Libby is supposed to be an inside dog, she like to spend the entire day outside during the winter and part of the day in summer. And it's freakin' hot here. So she dug herself a nice, cool, little spot right up next to the foundation. Ain't that lovely? So when it rains it becomes a big mud puddle. And what could be more delightful to a little boy than a big inviting mud puddle? Not much, I'll tell ya.

Kaylee

Clearly, my baby is not a baby anymore. She is a beautiful girl who is growing up right before my very eyes. Every time I blink, she gets older, and even more beautiful.

Pancake Eatin'

We like pancakes. Well, duh!.......I guess everyone likes pancakes, don't they? But makin' pancakes on Sunday mornin' before church is just so darn fun. Don't you love our cute Vera Bradley aprons? Thanks, Robin and Lisa! And the gingerbread man apron Piersen is wearing was a Christmas gift from Old Navy a couple of years ago. Thanks, Nana! The kids love to help me and I love when they do. (HA! Did you believe that? I wish I loved when they help me...in reality it stresses the crap out of me when they are in my kitchen. But since I would like them to actually know how to cook when they get older, and, ofcourse, since they adore helping, I am trying really hard to learn how to love when they help me.) Anyhoo, as I was saying, I just love baking with my kiddos. And then we get to eat yummy pancakes. The best out there if you ask me. Here is a link. Go make them. They are the best pancakes in the whole wide world.

What really gives me a kick is how we all eat them differently. Allow me to illustrate.

Sean eats them with maple syrup now. (I find this amusing because I am the one who insisted we had to switch real life maple syrup beacause it was better, but I don't actually care for it. I would rather eat the thick, imitation kind. Weird, I know.) He spreads on butter, pours on syrup, and cuts them with his fork as he goes.

Mitzi spreads on butter and cuts them into uniform bites. Then she pours on the fake syrup, but only in small sections, because she hates for them to get soggy. Like I said, she's weird.

Piersen spreads on butter, cuts them himself with a fork and dips into the little puddle of syrup that he pours on his plate. (He doesn't care which kind.)

Kaylee never eats more than one pancake. And she doesn't use butter or syrup. That's because she is a princess, and her pancake is the only one with chocolate chips in it.

I love to see all of our differences intermingled with all of our similarities.

Going Granola Exhibit A

So for the past six-and-a-half months or so, we have been making homemade dogfood. Yes, folks, you heard me right. Or rather, I have been making homemade dogfood. It all started when I was reading Kal's blog one day. She linked to this really great blog with homemade dogfood recipes, and gushed about the wonders that it had brought about in her sweet guy Crash. So I went and looked. Bad idea. My mind started racing through all the horrible stories that I had read during the dogfood recall debacle. Then I started googling, and that's always a bad idea. (Well, a good idea, really, but come on...there are just so many horror stories you don't hear until you start googling crap.) We had been worrying about Libby's skin and coat recently, and we had always been concerned about her eating habits. Read: the girl just wasn't all that interested in food. Yeah, I know. What kind of dog isn't trying to attack you when you feed them, right? Not our girl. We had to beg and coax her to eat most of the time, and there were nights she just wouldn't even bother. And she was thin. The vet was always reassuring me that she was a healthy weight and that it was better for her to be slightly under- than slightly over-weight. But that didn't reassure me any. She was just too darn skinny. So, after reading about all the benefits of homemade food (um, and the higher price), I approached Sean with my facts. And I waited for him to say, "sorry about your luck." But he thought it was a great idea. He even praised me for making such an effort to take good care of our sweet girl. Seriously!?

Seriously. And we haven't looked back. That isn't to say it doesn't have its drawbacks. Like the price, which is slightly more than twice as much, I mean have you been to the grocery lately? And the time. It doesn't really take that much time, but when you already have cooking, housekeeping, homeschooling, etc., on your list it can sometimes (okay, usually) feel like a chore. I truly feel like it has been worth it, though. Libby girl has gained five pounds! And she likes to eat! Whereas before we were begging her, now she's in the kitchen before five-o'clock with a "where's my dinner" look on her face. And what a cute face it is, huh?

The bottom line for us was this: we took her in , took responsibility for her, and promised to love her and take good care of her. We wouldn't feed ourselves or our children canned, preservative-filled food every single day, so why should we feed our Libby that? If only she weighed fifteen pounds instead of eighty, it would be a lot cheaper to feed her. But we hope that the quality of her food will make her healthier and , therefore, less vet trips will be needed. And hopefully, we will prolong her life a bit. Afterall, larger breeds don't tend to live as long as smaller breeds. As a german sheperd/golden retriever/? mix, she's not exactly tiny tim, and we hope to keep her around as long as possible. It's been over four years since we found her at the pound, and she's a fixture around here. A definite member of the Barber clan. I can't imagine what the children will do without her one day, or us for that matter. Yes, we certainly love our Libby, and we feel really good about feeding her the best quality food available.

So cool!

Don't you wish your parents were as cool as we are? Dude, we let our kids ride their bikes in the house! Are we the coolest parents ever!? Okay, so actually, I am a poser and Sean is the coolest parent ever becasue it was totally his idea. And at first I went along with it even thought it kinda drove me bonkers, but now I'm totally down with it. Because I don't do summer. And bike rides outside in hundred degree weather are not my thing. I can't really handle sweating my butt off while Libby drags me down the street trying to keep up with the little speed demons. (I only do that at eight-o'clock in the morning.) But I can handle doing chores or surfing the web while they do laps around our great room. They get exercise and let off energy and I get to stay in the air-conditioning. It's a win-win situation. And it makes us look cool.

Only 13 more years, Buddy!

He looks so excited to be "driving", it just cracks me up. He is such a boy. Last night when he was taking a bath, Sean and I were talking about all his little boy ways. I can honestly say that I don't know any other boys who are as completely male as this child is. He is the ultimate picture of toddler testosterone. What am I gonna do when he's a teenager?!? When I was pregnant I prayed specifically for a rough-and-tumble little boy and the Lord certainly delivered. As much as I complain about him wearing me out, I'm actually overjoyed with and extremely grateful for my little man. I can't wait to watch him grow into a big man, and I truly pray that he will be a real man. Do you know what I mean? Have you heard Brad Paisley's new song, "I'm Still a Guy"? I find it very sad how feminized a great deal of men have become.I hope that Piersen will grow into the kind of man that God intended him to be. A man who loves Jesus, loves his family, loves his wife, and works hard. He is such a gift.

Blueberry Pickin'

So finally, after three years of wanting to, we went to a u-pick blueberry farm on Saturday morning. We had so much fun. The farm was only about fifteen minutes away on the way to Live Oak. I love when you get to the sign on the road, it says "follow the yellow dirt road". They don't spray so we were able to eat them right off the bushes. Yum! Mr. Orangutan Arms was able to get them off the very tops of the bushes where they were the absolute best. The sun makes them so sweet. We left with nearly five pounds of blueberries for $4. It's only a dollar a pound and kids 12 and under pick free. We also left with a bunch of mosquito bites and probably weighing five pounds less considering how much we were sweating. But it was well worth it. The three of them will especially think it was worth it when I make them a blueberry cheesecake!

Love

I hope all the mothers in my life had an amazing Mother's Day.

My day went something like this: I was greeted with a triple-grande decaf whole-milk four-pump caramel macchiato and freshly picked dandelions. Sean and the kids made gluten-free pancakes and scrambled eggs for breakfast. After church, Piersen had a nap from which he woke covered in puke. And he was in our bed. Yes --- lovely. Sean and Kaylee ran some errands and came home with yet another Starbucks (that actually was quite lovely...2 starbucks' in one day). And Piersen woke up around midnight, once again covered in puke.

Being a mother is hard. It's hard and lovely and fulfilling and heartbreaking and joyous and gut-wrenching and exhilarating and annoying and trying and wonderful and overwhelmingly amazing. And there is nothing in this world that I would rather be. To be honest, there are days when I just want to run away. Days when I wish that I could just have a few hours without someone screaming "mooooommmeeeeeeee". Days when the laundry and the toys and the dishes and the schooling and the attitudes are downright oppressive. Days when I wonder what God was thinking entrusting these amazing little creatures to stupid, bumbling me. But those days are the exception, not the rule. There will always be days like that. There will always be moments you wish you could take back or do over again. And that's okay. For all those crappy days, there are a thousand great days to make up for them. I love my children with a fierceness that only a mother can understand. And I love being their mama. And if I teach them nothing else, I hope they grow up knowing they are loved beyond measure.

See that little face up there peeking over her Daddy's shoulder? I'm her mama.