Pictures to Come.

We had a little get-together with friends for E's birthday last Saturday, which I will document pictorially soon. There was cake and presents, presents and cake, and lots of sweet friends.

In other great news, Katie came Monday to stay the week with us, which has been more than wonderful. We've shopped, played, eaten, slept, and watched hours of the BBC version of Pride and Prejudice. Picked up lamps for the sofa-table-turned-buffett and a rug and painting for E's room during our five-hour outing yesterday, during which the kids behaved themselves quite admirably. I was glad to be reminded that the world does exist outside my house in the middle of the day. I hadn't seen it in a while, so I had forgotten.

And lastly, Jude was introduced (passive voice, sorry) to rice cereal this morning. My camera battery kept dying, but with a little finagling we managed to get a few pictures of his awesome faces of disgust and confusion. Hooray for solid foods!

Grab Some Popcorn.

Note: Sorry this cuts off right before she opens her present--my memory card is always full. It was Mary Poppins.

The Shack.

A summer reading list update was woefully overdue, so I obliged. As you can see, I'm reading The Shack by Wm. Paul Young. (Not sure what "Wm." is. William? A title of some sort? Can anyone help me on this?) I was cynical at best about it at first, but both my parents read it and loved it and have been on me to read it ever since. So I am.

Before I finish it though I thought I'd see what you had to say. Anyone read it? Anyone like it? Anyone hate it? I'll reserve my opinion until I actually finish it.

And the other book, the C.S. Lewis and the Catholic Church one? That's another parent (in-law) suggestion, and a whole other story/blog post. It's interesting and provoking and convicting, as most things are that are connected to C.S. Lewis.

While we're on the subject, let me just say this: I've tried not to have favorite authors. I've tried to be broadly-read. I've tried to give other people a chance. But I just can't help it. I love him and I love everything he writes. He's the favorite I've tried hard not to have.

Sterotype me at will.

"Have All the Animals Gone Mad?!"

If you are not up on your Finding Nemo dialogue, then you won't recognize that tonight's title is a direct quote. If you are not up on your Doxology Mine, then you won't remember from the last post that E got Nemo for her birthday and has watched it an embarrassing number of times since.

Anyway, that whole first paragraph is completely irrelevant to the story I want to tell you tonight, except that "Have the animals all gone mad?!" was all I could think upon returning home from church.

And by "animals" I mean insects. Read on.

So la-dee-dah, I get home before Tony around 9:30 p.m. and have to do the Single Parent Struggle of how to transfer each kid from car to house. I take E in first, and plop her screaming on the couch. "MOM-MYYY!" Like I'm turning my back on her and leaving her there forever abandoned, instead of what I'm actually doing, which is walking the three feet back to the car to haul Judah--and his 200-lb. carseat--in. So I go get Buddy Man and bring him in and put him on the ground and proceed to close the blinds. I get to the third one and feel a searing burn on my shoulder. Ok, maybe not searing, but I've never been stung before, and I was getting s-t-u-n-g. So I flail about for a bit (determinedly keeping my mouth shut and my screams silent for the sake of my impressionable children--I know, I'm such a good mom), and hear some disconcertingly angry buzzing. The burning gets a little worse and then out of my sleeve falls a wasp. I then use the only thing handy to smush it, which also happens to be the worst possible thing to smush wasps. A rubber ball. I rolled it over that thing a million times and it still pitifully struggled to survive. I then started to feel sorry for it, because it only stung me because it felt trapped and it wasn't being "mean" and stinging is the defense mechanism God gave it and all it got it was killed, blah blah blah. So then I have to justify the wasp-murder in my mind. It could have, would have stung my kids. I had to kill it. For the sake of my innocent children, the wasp had to die.

Go ahead and shake your heads. Just telling you the whole story. I know it's just a wasp. Whatever.

So anyway, I sit down to feed Judah and periodically make sure I can still raise my arm above my head and that my esophagus isn't closing up. Like I said, I've never been stung before. I didn't want Tony coming home to a comatose wife. I don't think his heart could recover from such a sight. He would never forget that night. Not for the rest of his life. He'd never be right.

Ok, I think I'm finished. Sorry.

Needless to say, I am alive or I wouldn't be writing this. But that was not the only time our lives were threatened in this house tonight! Shall I tell on?

So Tony gets home and is getting around to giving kids baths and I'm sitting in our room on the computer. Elizabeth runs in laughing like she does when she's a little excited/scared. I hear Tony say, "Rach, come look at this scorpion-looking bug!" So I go in there to find...noooo, it's not a bug, it's a scorpion. An actual, real-life, I-thought-scorpions-were-deadly-poisonous-manflesheaters-only-found-in-the-desert scorpion. WHAT?! What is a scorpion doing in my house? UPSTAIRS! In my son's room! Have all the animals/insects gone mad?

The answer is apparently yes. They must be crazy if they think they can enter this house and live. Because they can't. And they didn't.

And I must say, scorpions have a lot more guts to squish in a carpet when you smash them to tiny atoms than regular earwigs or spindly spiders. Oh yeah, and they're also A LOT MORE TERRIFYING.

Since then, I have googled "scorpions in Georgia" (that's right, folks, I live in Georgia, not Mexico, not the Sahara, not any of the places I thought scorpions were limited to), and found that the Little Southern Devil scorpion (rightly named, I thought) is actually fairly common in this state. So add that to the list of things I didn't need to know.

It's 11:32 now and the hullabaloo has died down and everyone is asleep and hopefully dreaming scorpion-less dreams. I'm still awake and praying everyone has scorpion-less beds.

It's an eventful night when animals go mad and it's downright deadly when insects go mad. Even when they're not poisonous in the slightest.

You've Waited Long Enough.

Here's the mishmash update post for the most stressful, wonderful, crazy-busy month of my life. (That's only a slight exaggeration.) There's a few pictures of the new house (which my perfectionist self cringes to show you because everything's not, well, perfect), a few pictures from our trip to Memphis, and a few of the Birthday Girl and her sweet baby brother.

On the house: I am on the hunt for 3 occasional chairs for the living room (yeah, the fold-up chairs by the fireplace are not staying), a skinny buffet for the dining room, and two long, distressed, antique planks to make picture shelves for the dining room. Slowly, slowly.

There are no pictures of the upstairs because...because it's a wreck. Nothing is put together and it's driving me nuts. Sorry. I can't post pictures of things that drive me nuts. It just compounds the battle that is taking place in my soul.

On the birthday(s): At the end of it all, Elizabeth is going to end up with 4 (!) birthday celebrations. So fun. We--I--love birthdays around here. She had a party with the Fishers and the Goodwins in Memphis (Nos. 1 and 2), one day-long fiesta with us on her actual birthday in Atlanta (we went all out and blew up her little inflatable pool and let her play in the garden hose and I made her favorite food for every meal, which, of course, per Elizabeth, she did not eat), and on Saturday we're having friends for cake and ice cream, which is also doubling for a see-the-new-house party. Whew!

On the move: It was traumatic. We're all still recovering. That's all I have to say about that.

On Judah-man: Baby boy's rolling and sitting (with the Boppy) and talking and laughing at his sister and just being the best baby there ever was. Can't remember what life was like without him. Really. I tried.

On my big 2-year-old: What can I say. She's really into "coloring" on her MagnaDoodle thing, a present from the Fishers; every two minutes she wants to "Watch. Elmo." Which means she wants to watch Finding Nemo (Katie and Andrew gave her the movie and a stuffed animal that she now cannot live without); she sits at her table and chairs and plays with her tea set (all from my mom and dad), and wants YoBaby for breakfast, lunch, and dinner.

I love that girl. I can't believe God ordained us to be her parents and gave us the joy of watching her live. She is just so...wonderful. Just wonderful.

So. Pictures. Here you go.

The kitchen. It has a window and a gas range. I'm in love.

Living room view from opposite the front door (it's

to the right of the bay window). As I said, still

looking for furniture to fit this oddly shaped room.

E and Aunt Holly at the Fisher Celebration.

Opening presents! She was all about ripping some paper. She still didn't dive into her cake though, same as last year. She was content to sit with a spoon and dig icing off the top. Can't blame her--it was good icing.


Precious girl with crazy hair and her "Uncle Bud."

Trying to get her to say "NE-mo." Not Elmo.

Didn't work.

Oh yeah, I got a haircut. And dye. And bangs.

I love V at Daniel Shay's, so much so that I wait six months

to get my hair done--I have to make sure our

Memphis trips and her hours align.

Yeah, my hair was gross.

On our way back home, we stayed a night with some friends in Carrollton, GA.

The guys played golf Friday night while we played at the pool

and then we got up Saturday morning and hit Lake Wedowee.

(Still don't know how to pronounce it.)

Two of the girls with J.

Happy 2nd birthday Elizabeth!
(I'm getting around to hanging that door panel. One day.)

Her sweet table and chairs from Bebe and Bear.

I love, love, love birthdays.

Present ribbon as a hairbow makes for a happy girl.

The loot.

Birthday Monkey Bread. Mmmm.

Last night's pico de gallo. Is pico with corn actually a dish or am I messing with something sacred here? It was my favorite I've ever made. More sweet than hot. Sooo good.

What can I say about this? He has my heart.

There you have it! If you leave some comments, I might not wait a week to post again. Ball's in your court.

The Fast and Furious.

I use this phrase entirely too much, and it's generally always in association with our trips to Memphis. Accordingly, what are we in the middle of at the moment? A fast and furious trip to Memphis. Tony's cousin is back on furlough for about a month, so we scheduled this trip to coincide with when we could see Barrett, Jobeth, and their sweet baby girl Evangeline (don't you love that name?). So we're splitting three days between two families and endless extended relatives. Par for the course. Anyway, I did take pictures of our house, and then went off and left the camera cord at home. Boo me, I know. I promise I'll have them up soon though!

In the meantime, I have to go see my sister's new house, go buy some presents for E's Goodwin-family party tonight, and do what my mom calls a "drive-by" and visit her at Joseph. I love being with family!

Just Wondering.

Does anyone listen to my playlist? If you do, this post is for you. If you don't...well, you should.

Is it time to change it up? Like have a new song come on when you come to my page? Would you rather it didn't play automatically? Sometimes the first thing I do when I get on here is go down and hit pause, so I understand.

Also, while I've been painting my life away I've been killing this one playlist on my iTunes that has more Sojourn stuff. I just wanted to tell you again to go check their stuff out. It is seriously excellent. So worshipful.

Just wondering what you thought! This is also a shameless ploy to see who is actually reading. The comments have been lacking, people. Let's step it up.

The Hold Over Post.

Here's Crazy. Taking a last romp on the couch in

her tutu before we moved. Ah, happy day.

Don't tell Daddy that Jude had to play dress-up too.

He was feeling left out! I had to.

Big boy with a custom faux-hawk, compliments of Tony.


This was taken this morning. See the beautiful, stain-free, gorgeous carpet?! That's just a taste, my friends. We feel as if we've crawled out of a dark hole and into a new world of sunlight, backyards, windows, multiple bathrooms, and ceiling fans. It's a wonderful place.

When I get things semi-put-together, I'll be sure to post pictures. Right now I am finishing the painting (three days in a row, thankyouverymuch) and then I will finally get to the good stuff--stuff like arranging furniture (which is currently stacked in the middle of the rooms), hanging pictures and drapes, etc., etc. So excited about this new place! I really don't know what we did in that apartment for almost 3 years. But God is faithful and we are out and we didn't die. Aren't you glad.

More to come!