It's Monday

It's Monday and here's some randomness for the sake of being random.

#1

The Royal Wedding

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I'm still recovering from setting my alarm clock and waking up at 2:56A.M. to see the regal ceremony live.  I watched it in a sleepy daze on the couch in my living room.  My husband had no idea I was awake until I woke him up at 6:30A.M.  He couldn't believe I woke up to watch it all.  I had so much fun talking about it at work with the other teachers who watched it too.  I know some people in the blogosphere have said negative things about the wedding, but I have nothing but praise.  I thought it was magnificent. (Spoken from a person who had a $3,000 wedding budget, no joke!)  The ceremony was beautiful.  Kate was stunning and Prince William was dashing.  The Royal Wedding was everything I thought it would be and more.

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Surprisingly one of the things that struck me most while watching the wedding was the interaction between Prince William and Prince Harry.  I suppose since I'm a mother of two sons who are very close in age like they are, I couldn't help but feel moved when I saw them together.  I read that Prince Harry chose the sapphire engagement ring of his mother's, but gave it to Prince William because he thought it should belong to the future queen of England.  If that's true, so touching.  It appears that they have a very close relationship.  I hope that my boys will be that close as they grow up.  I can just imagine Ben being Will's best man at his wedding.  Makes me teary-eyed just thinking about it.

#2

Did you know I usually buy my own gifts?  I do.  I don't like surprises.  Mark doesn't care if I buy my own gifts.  If I pick it out, he knows I'll like it.  It works for us.  We don't really do big gifts for Christmas or birthdays, and we get little things for other special occasions.  For Mother's Day I purchased some lovely prints from Emily at Jones Design Company.  The Home print will go in the living room/entry.  The Rise and Shine print is going in the boys' bathroom once I to go to IKEA to get a frame.  I'll share photos when they are in place.

I should confess that I also bought a few items of clothing for Mother's Day too.  I love retail therapy, maybe more than I should.  Everything I bought was on sale.  Why am I talking about clothes on Monday?  I'll save that for What I Wore Wednesday.

#3

We've been studying Hebrews at church.  It's good stuff.  I need to collect my thoughts and share what I've learned so far.  There's so much that I've learned I don't know how I'll organize it all.  I should also mention that the ladies Bible study I've been attending is coming to an end.  I need to share all of the things that I've learned in it as well.  It was such a blessing and I look forward to the next study in the fall.  I can't wait to share all that I've learned with you.

My husband and I teach the 4th-6th grade Sunday school class at our church.  I'll leave you with one word and verse that have been on my mind since our study on Sunday morning.

Substance

Hebrews 11:1
 Now faith is the assurance (substance) of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen.

April Showers Bring...

May Flowers

It's May and the flowers are lovely.  It rained yesterday.  It's been raining.  We haven't received the torrential storms that have devastated so many other southern states.  Our rain has been beneficial and helpful to the plants and flowers.  We've had thunderstorm warnings and tornado warnings but nothing directly where we live.

Hosea 6:3 (NASB)

"So let us know, let us press on to know the LORD

His going forth is as certain as the dawn;

And He will come to us like the rain,

Like the spring rain watering the earth."

I could stop with that beautiful thought...

But I won't.

Here are some fun images of the boys.

Will loves to play in the rain.  Yesterday he wanted to splash in the rain puddles.  Once Ben saw Will playing in the rain, he wanted to play too.

Happy Boy

By the look on Ben's face, he's not enjoying himself.

On the other hand, Will is having a blast.

They were fascinated by the rain coming out of the gutter.
Really, who needs toys when you have rain coming out of the gutter?  They would have stayed there all day if I let them.

Sidewalk chalk in the rain, who says it's a bad idea?  Not me ;)

It's a little messy in the rain, but it still works.
My boys think mess is best :)

Cuteness!

Home Tour {Entry}

One of the main reasons I read blogs is to see how other people live.  You might also call that being nosey (or is it nosy?).  Since I enjoy seeing the homes of others so much, I thought it would be fun to show you our home.  I shared a sneak peek a while back here.

I'm slowly photographing our home so I can share it with you.  I feel like my home is a metaphor for my life--it's a work in progress.  I'm dedicating an entire post to share more thoughts on that in the future. 

Even if I feel like our home isn't complete or ready to show off, I have decided that I'd better start showing you photos of our home or I probably never will.  I'm just going to dive in and start the process. 

Here's my disclaimer before I start the process:  our home isn't perfect, it doesn't belong in a magazine, it's just a house that we're making a home.  I constantly dream up projects that I'd like to take on, but with work and raising two little ones the home improvement projects get pushed aside.  

I'll stop rambling and get to the photos.

If you walk in the front door this is what is in the entry.  Our home is so small that my husband laughed when I asked him what I should call this area.  He said it's the living room.  I guess technically it is part of the living room, but for the sake of the home tour I'm calling it the "Entry".

Something New

Hello Dear Blog Friends!

Did you notice something new around here at Imperfectly Wonderful World?

It's a new blog design!

It has been in the works for quite some time, and I'm happy to finally show it off to you. 

Thanks for hanging around here and taking time to share in this journey of good, bad and in between.

The ol' blog will be a year old in a couple of weeks and I may be getting sentimental and sappy as I reflect, but it's only because this blog has become a big part of who I am and so have you.

Much love,

Michele



The Thrill of the Hunt

The boys had 3 Easter egg hunts this year.  We usually hunt eggs at Mark's parents and that's it.  We had another Easter egg hunt with the kiddos from our church, but I forgot to take my camera to that one so I don't have any photos to share.  We also hunted eggs at our house this weekend.

Here are the boys at Mark's parents house.

Ben definitely knew what to do this year. 

As soon as Will found a few eggs he wanted to eat all of the candy.  He's not a greedy child because he could care less about how many eggs he had in his basket.  His only concern was getting the candy out of the eggs so he could eat it.   Notice his basket is almost empty.

Our last Easter egg hunt was this weekend.  I went a little overboard and purchased way too many eggs for three little one to hunt.  It just looked so neat with eggs all over the yard.  Mark and Durwood got tired of hiding eggs in our backyard.  Mark said they ran out of places to hide them so he started tossing them in the middle of the yard in plain sight.

Ben loved this yellow egg.

Will filling up his basket. 

By the looks of the overflowing baskets, Dade and Will were very successful.

The boys have had such a fun Easter this year.  We're blessed with a loving family, wonderful church and sweet friends.  They make special occasions even more meaningful.  I'm thankful for all of the memories we've made this month celebrating Easter.

Flowers and Fun

Sometimes I have so much to share and one of the best ways for me to do that is to compile it all in one random post.  It's Monday, and I'll be sharing my randomness with you and at lowercase letters.

#1

In January, I planted some hardy gladiolus bulbs.  You can read about it here.  I'm happy to report that the bulbs have turned into beautiful flowers.  I didn't know if they would produce flowers this year so this was a pleasant surprise.  The flowers are just emerging, and I think they will be even more beautiful in a few days.  Yay!  I have more flower photos to show you but that will be later in the week.

#2

I love my boys so much! 

Every time I hear Taylor Swift's "Never Grow Up" I get teary-eyed.  It's the sweetest song and my boys are at the sweetest ages. 

Will.

Will is 4.5 and we're talking about Pre-K.  I can't believe he's old enough to discuss pre-registration for Pre-K.  We still don't know if we'll send him or not.  He may just stay with his grandma one more year and then start kindergarten next fall.  Decisions, Decisions!

Ben.

Ben is almost 2!  It just seems like we were bringing this little fella home from the hospital.  Now he's an active little guy who thinks he's as big as his big brother.  Writing that he's almost 2 reminds me that I better get it in gear and start planning his birthday party.  Note to self--better get started on that ASAP!

My boys are the sweetest and so are my friends' kiddos.  We had friends over for the weekend and their little boy Dade is so adorable.

#3

On Saturday my friend Shelly thought it would be fun to buy the boys the new Crayola colored bubbles.  The boys LOVED it, but it was a HUGE mess.  The bubbles are washable so the mess wasn't permanent.  Here they are in the yard playing in the bubbles. 

To say they had fun is an understatement. 

Here's the evidence of the fun.  I thought they looked like freedom fighters in the movie Braveheart with their faces all blue. 

Ben had a blast, too! 

I wish I could show photos of the clean up process, but I was busy spraying the boys down with the water hose.  All of the colored bubbles came off and no one went to church on Easter Sunday with a bluish and orangish tint to their skin.

Happy Easter

Happy Easter!

There's so much I could share about all of the fun we had this weekend, but I'll keep it short for tonight.  Some of our good friends visited this weekend, and their little boy and Will and Ben had the best time dyeing eggs and hunting eggs. 

I must confess that I've never dyed Easter eggs with the boys.  It always seemed like such a big mess, and I figured they didn't know what they were missing.  Well, they had such a good time, that I'm sure I'll have to dye eggs every Easter from now on.  I'm okay with that because they were really good and surprisingly it wasn't very messy.

Colorful eggs

Shelly had the smart idea of covering the table with a trash bag, which made the clean up super easy.

Here are the boys concentrating on their masterpieces. 

Here's Mark, Durwood and the boys.  We had to interrupt some sporting event (probably the Rangers or Mavericks) they were watching on TV to force them to pose for this photo.

Sunday Morning

Will and Ben found their Easter baskets. 

Will's very excited about the Peeps.

Ben like his new animal book. 

Ben got Peeps, too. 

This was as good as it gets when I tried to get a photo of the boys after church.

Easter 2011



I hope you had a blessed Easter.