TBT

Throwback Thursday

June 2012

I've been seeing #tbt a lot on instagram, and I decided to do throwback Thursday for a blog post.  Clearly I love to reminisce because I've done lots of Flashback Friday posts.  Who doesn't like to look back and remember the good times?  I have to admit that this made me want another baby...not really but kind of, ha!  Let me be clear we don't plan to have anymore children, but seeing my boys this small made me miss them being babies.  I forgot how stinkin' cute they were.  Ben had just turned 1 and Will was 3 1/2.  The photos were taken at the Dallas Arboretum.

{Photos be the very talented Lauren}

Q&A

My new blog friend Michele at Moonfield Lane passed along a Liebster award.  That was very thoughtful of her!  One of the best things about blogging is meeting new people and realizing you have a lot in common (including the spelling of our names!).  I'm supposed to share 11 random facts and answer some fun questions Michele came up with.



11 Random Facts About Me:
1. I really like writing lists of random facts.  I wrote a list of 33 and 34 several years ago on my birthday.

2. Michele and I agree on this, Kathleen Kelly in You've Got Mail had one of the best jobs ever.  It's still one of my favorite movies of all times.

3.  I have a new movie to add to my list of favorites.  Silver Linings Playbook is now in my top 20 movies. It was so good!  Seriously, I loved it!

4. I went to the same school kindergarten through 12th grade.

5. No one in my family or friends knew that I had a blog for a very long time.  I was a secret blogger!  I confessed to my best friend, Angela, that I blogged and she admitted that she wanted to start a blog, too.  That was a fun coincidence.  We've made our blog journey together.  She has an amazing blog that is focused on interior design and DIY projects.  Even though our blogs are different, we still "get" each other and share a special bond because of blogging.

6.  I love to travel.  I have a bucket list of places I want to visit.  If I had unlimited income, traveling would be one of the luxuries in which I indulged.

7.  I'm a morning person and a huge grouch at night.  My husband is the exact opposite.

8. I like order and organization.  A place for everything and everything in its place :)

9. As a little girl, I loved dolls.  I had baby dolls, Barbies, and Cabbage Patch kids.  My grandmother was an excellent seamstress, and she would sew clothes for my dolls.  I still have many of the outfits and dolls stored in my attic.

10. My favorite color is blue.

11.  If I could shop at 3 places for all of my clothes, it would be Banana Republic, Anthropologie and Boden.

Here are my answers to Michele's questions.

What's your #1 guilty pleasure?
I spend a lot of time on social networking apps or websites (facebook, pinterest, instagram, blogging).
That's closely followed by the guilty pleasure of reading chick lit.

Why did you start blogging?
Several reasons:
I was having a hard time processing my feelings when my face was paralyzed after having Bell's Palsy.  You can read about that here. I also wanted to meet other women who had similar interests (interior decorating, fashion, parenting).  I was feeling lonely and isolated in the small town where I live and blogging provided the connection and encouragement I was looking for.  Now I blog because it's a place to keep a record of all the special things that happen in our family.

What's your favorite book?
To  Kill a Mockingbird

What's the worst job you've ever had?
I wouldn't say "worst" but being a YMCA day camp counselor when I was in college was challenging.  I worked at the Y in the summer of '98.  That year Texas had a record setting heatwave with almost a month of  consecutive days that were over a hundred degrees.  Most of our work was outside and it was miserable in the scorching heat.  I'm still not sure how I didn't have a heatstroke.

What's your idea of a perfect day?
Spending the day outdoors doing something with my family.  I'd love to be skiing in the mountains or hanging out on a beach.

What's the most daring thing you've ever done?
I moved to Seattle, Washington after I graduated college.  I didn't know anyone in the city.

How would you describe your decorating style?
cozy-cottage-farmhouse

What's your favorite desert?
Blackberry Cobbler

What's your least favorite household chore?
cleaning the bathrooms

Describe your worst DIY/decorating disaster.
When I was younger I had a terrible encounter with sponge painting.  To add to the decorating disaster, I'm pretty sure the color was country blue.  Please don't judge me, ha!

Name a designer or blogger whose style you admire.
Posie Gets Cozy, Holly Mathis, Jones Design Company, The Pleated Poppy, The Inspired Room, Urban Grace...
the list could go on and on :)

Hello Hard Work

Saturday was a good day.  We went to the land and cleared trees and brush.  

Hello hard work!

Even though I'm tired and sore, it was so much fun.  I felt a sense of accomplishment.

The land is where we hope to build our future home. There's a lot of work to be done between now and then, but we're slowly making progress.

Here's a path the boys like to walk on.  This path is where I'd originally envisioned our driveway, but that plan has changed since we met with a excavation contractor over the Christmas break.  It's going to be too costly.  It took me a while to reconsider where our house would be located and how we will access it, but now I'm very happy with the new location.  Concerning our future home, this was the first time I've had to choose sensible over expensive.  I have a feeling it won't be the last time I choose the practical option versus  impractical in this long process of construction, ha!

When the path curves this is what you see.

Papaw Jerry, Ben and Will

Maggie to the rescue!  The boys have so much fun with their cousin Maggie.  The boys were getting bored while we worked, but Maggie showed up and took them on an adventure.  Thanks to her we were able to get about 2 more hours of work done.  They had a great time playing and exploring.

Most of the day was spent clearing tree limbs that had been cut down and burning them.

Mark dragging a big oak limb to the fire.

Mark spent most of his time by the burn pile while I cleared limbs.

We hope that we can spend more weekends working at the land.  Next time I'll have to take all the supplies for s'mores because that's what Ben expected when he saw the big fire. 

Snow, Small Town, Etc.

Snow is such a big deal for Texans.

We had snow earlier this week.  It wasn't as much as we got on Christmas, but it was still enough to get excited about.  Will had a hard time concentrating on walking into school.  He wanted to stop and play along the way.  I don't blame him.  I wanted to play in it, too.

The cold weather is the perfect reason to wear my favorite, cozy infinity scarf.  It was made by my talented SIL.  I sure wish I had a crafty talent.  Maybe I'll take up embroidery.

Life in a small town is great.  

You see things like "onion sets and taters are here" written on the lighted marquee sign outside of  the local hardware store.  Let me give you city folks a lesson in country grammar, taters are potatoes.  Onion sets are tiny onion bulbs you set out in your garden in the winter and early spring.  (I had to ask my father-in-law just to be sure I described it right.)

Another neat thing about small town life is our local newspaper.  A friend was cleaning out her house and found some old newspapers she'd saved from her daughter's years in high school.  One of the papers happened to have our engagement announcement in it.  She cut it out and laminated it for us.  I thought that was so sweet.  I can't believe that this was almost 11 years ago! 

We don't have a dog, but my in-laws do.  Coco is such a good dog.  Will says that we will get a dog when we move to the land, and we'll name our dog Lad. 

Speaking of good dogs...

Will's had this puppy towel for a long time.  Even though he's getting pretty big we still use it.  I'll be sad when he's too big for it.

Ben LOVES pajamas!

  He's all about wearing his pajamas and he would wear them 24-7 if we'd let him.  He's moved on from his superhero-costume-phase to the pajama-24-7-phase.

My little digital natives.  Isn't life different for our kids than for us when we were their age?

I'm so tired on weeknights that the last thing I want to do after work is prepare a big meal for dinner.  Thank goodness my family likes to eat breakfast for dinner aka brupper.  It's so easy.

I took some frozen blueberries and mixed them with a little water, sugar and corn starch and brought it to a boil.  Once it cooled it was yummy on top of the waffles.

This was yummy too! 

My SIL gave me lots of my favorite tea for Christmas.  

Tea in my favorite Anthro mug is always a good idea.

My good friend, Kacie, let me borrow her beloved copy of Wuthering Heights. I started reading it on Christmas break, but sprained my ankle and didn't get around to it.  I've gotten back into it now.  I love a classic.  Today I had a doctor's appointment (routine visit for my allergies) and I had about 20 minutes to spare.  I ended up at Starbucks and had a lovely moment of peace and quiet that I usually don't get during the day.  It was so nice to drink my white chocolate mocha and read.

I joined the Barefoot Book Club ;)

My first recipe to make was the Raspberry Crumble Bars.  Mark and I loved them.  The almonds on top added just the right texture and crunch.  Ina really knows what she's doing...well, that's obvious!

Have a wonderful weekend!

If you want to follow me on instagram I'm @redbirdblue

1 Timothy 1:5

1 Timothy 1:5 (NASB)

 But the goal of our instruction is love from a pure heart and a good conscience and a sincere faith.

Mark and I have the privilege of being the teachers for the junior high students Sunday school class at our church.  Last week 1 Timothy 1:5  was one of the verses we studied.  If you'd asked me what memorable verse I could think of out of 1 Timothy, it would probably be 1 Timothy 4:12 (ESV) Let no one despise you for your youth, but set the believers an example in speech, in conduct, in love, in faith, in purity. There's no doubt that's an encouraging verse, but something about 1:5 jumped out at me when we studied it.

The verse was a like a checklist that I needed right now. 

We're getting ready to start our Ladies Bible study again and the thought of teaching that class gives me mixed emotions.  I'm nervous because I don't want to teach something incorrectly, humbled because my Bible knowledge pales in comparison to some of the ladies in our study, and most of all excited because I anticipate good things coming from this Bible study.   

As one of the leaders of the study my goal is 1 Timothy 1:5.  
I want to speak the truth in love.  
I want to have a pure heart.  
I want to have a good conscience.  
I want to have a sincere faith.

I know I have a lot of work to do.  I have so many flaws and feel really unqualified, but I'm willing to try.

By the way, we're studying the books of James and Jude.  I'll keep you updated on how it goes.

2013 Started with a Twist

You would think in 35 years I would have learned that things don't always go as planned. 

2013 started that way for me. 

I've been faithfully going to a workout class called P31 since August.  We had a week off for Christmas and then we started an intense week of workouts called the New Year's Blast on December 31st.  I'd been terrible with what I ate on the days I had off (one instagram friend appropriately called it Fat Fest 2012).  I also didn't exercise once during the break.  Since I had no self-control for over a week, I was really looking forward to getting my butt kicked in workout. 

I made it through Monday's workout surprisingly fine considering I'd been so lazy.  I was excited about working off all those calories I'd consumed during the holidays.  Day 2 of the workout was on January 1st.  About 10 minutes into the workout I was running a sprint, turned, and rolled my ankle.  I heard a loud pop and felt sick and lightheaded.  I knew it was a bad ankle sprain because it swelled up and bruised immediately.  Mark had to come to the gym and carry me to the car (very dramatic).  He's my hero!  Two reasons--he was able to carry me all the way to the car and he got up at 5A.M. to come and get me.  I have several friends at workout and one went to our house to sit with the boys so Mark could come and get me.  They took amazing care of me when I got hurt.  I'm thankful for those sweet ladies!

Once I got home I didn't feel as lightheaded and woozy, but I realized that I was going to be out of workout for several weeks.  I really like workout so that made me sad.  Yesterday I had a physical therapist examine my foot.  He confirmed that I had a really bad ankle sprain.  He recommended that I don't do any strenuous exercise (running, jumping, etc.) for several more weeks.  It's been over a week, and I'm thankful that I'm finally seeing some improvement.  The swelling and bruising have improved tremendously.  The first week was terrible--my ankle felt bad and looked even worse.  

Things I've learned from this...

#1 I hate a bucket of ice as much as I did when I was in high school. That's standard treatment for ankle sprains.  You stick your foot and ankle in a bucket of ice and water.  The pain of the ice bucket is about as bad as the sprain. Ugh!

#2 I'm a lot older than I think I am.  Sometimes I think my body will still move and react like an 18-year-old and I'm 35 not 18.  I must remember that!

#3 It takes longer to recover.  Goes with #2.  I had a bad ankle sprain like this when I was a senior in high school.  I recovered much faster.  This is taking a lot longer than I remembered.

#4 Moms don't have time to get hurt or sick.  Even though I was supposed to stay off my foot, there were still things that had to be done around the house.  Will and Ben didn't understand that my ankle sprain meant I was supposed to rest.  No rest for the weary.

Here's a pic of my ankle just after I twisted it.

Several days had passed.  You can see how swollen and bruised it is. 

I have a cankle!!!  Gross!

The next photo is really gross so don't look if you are squeamish. 

This was one of the worst days.  The swelling and bruising is awful.

Well, workout gear...I'll get back to you as soon as I can!

Happy and Excited

I'm so excited about my new blog design!  

I can't thank Danielle enough for patiently working with me to create a blog that I was proud of. I haven't been the best blogger in the last 6 months, but this new design has inspired me to get back in the saddle.  I'm going to try to do a better job blogging.  The reasons I blog have evolved since I started back in 2010.  The main reason I'm willing to spend so much time with this blog is for my boys.  I want Will and Ben to have memories of all the special things our family did together.

I haven't completed a New Year's Resolutions list for 2013 but blogging more will definitely be on it.

I can't think of a better way to start the new year for my blog than a happy redesign.

Christmas Break Memories

Christmas Break 2012 in Pictures

Ben as the Abominable Snow Monster

Roar!!!

Cutie!

Will's one tough little guy.  He started the break with strep throat (again!) but once he took his antibiotics he was as good as new.

I'm usually in such a hurry when I wake up that I don't have time for treats like hot cocoa in the morning.  I indulged since there was no one to get ready for school and no place to go.

We get out the messy toys since it's Christmas break.

Lots of Christmas traditions

Making cookies for Santa

Santa was very happy with the cookies the boys left him.

We had a good visit with my precious grandmother, Mama Winnie, in the nursing home.

She really enjoys the boys.  At this visit they colored for her.

I love this sweet photo.

More fun in the kitchen.

The boys made a Rice Krispies holiday train.

It ended up being more fun than I thought it would be.

We spend every Christmas Eve with Mark's family.  We have breakfast and then exchange gifts. 

I took Blueberry French Toast.  Recipe here.

These are the gifts from my very talented sisters-in-law.  They are both so creative.  One painted me a cool mug and the other crocheted this gorgeous scarf.

If the scarf was clean, then I was wearing it.  Love it!

Christmas morning chaos!

We ate lunch with Mark's brother's family on Christmas day.  Will and Ben love their cousin Maggie.

White Christmas!

This is the view from the front porch at Mark's brother's house.  If we build our future home at the land, then we'll be neighbors.

Mark and his dad watching it snow.

This is our backyard after a couple of hours of snow fall.

The boys didn't stay in it long because the wind was blowing and it was very cold.

Snow fort!

The boys had a good visit to the dentist over the break.

We watched Elf over and over and over and over!

Toys. Everywhere.

While watching the movie Will and Ben like reenact the World Grand Prix race from Cars 2.

Happy to cheer on our Aggies to a big win in the Cotton Bowl!  

Gig 'em, Aggies!  Whoop!

The boys let me pick the restaurant the final night of Christmas break.

La Madeleine 

We even did some shopping at Trader Joe's.  I stocked up on easy to prepare meals once I'm back to work.

I'm sad that Christmas break is over, but I'm happy to start a new year.

 

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