A thought to end the night.

As I'm blogging, Tony's watching TBN, which--off though they may be on many counts--they are so right by having Kari Jobe on tonight. Here's a snippet of her last song that just resonated with me:

I know that You are for me

I know You will never forsake me in my weakness.

What a promise! All those things I think I fail in every day, all those shortcomings and not-enoughs, pale in the light of God's constancy. He does not run when we don't live up to ourselves. He isn't scared away by our guilt. More than that, it is in our weaknesses we are made strong and His power gets the chance to be made perfect in us. How beautiful to be reminded.

Well, Hello.

I'm back! I know it's a bad sign when I want to begin--and have begun--almost every post with "I'm sorry," but...once again, I'm sorry. There are just not enough hours in the day to feed children, play with children, clean up after children, read Harry Potter, and blog. So blogging has been sacrificed. Please forgive me.

Here are some pictures!

E and Daddy at the Fall Festival at our unofficial new church, Grace Fellowship.

This is right before she got kicked in the face, and also right before
she got out of that moon bounce for good.


Buddy Man.


The craigslist chair! I love it more and more every day.


This kid loves loves loves his thumb.

Same pose. Every time.

Melts my heart. Every time.

And this girl loves ravioli! Hurray!
(A full serving of vegetables in every can. Whew.)

That's all for the pictures this go-round. We're in-between trips this week, yay, but my frustration is mounting with the laundry piles. I think I got a little ambitious on a load and now my washer is not washing. Argh.

In other news, we got a free haircut certificate for Supercuts in a late welcome-to-the-neighborhood packet, and yesterday, I used it. Boy did I use it. No pictures of that catastrophe tonight, sorry. That'll have to wait until I go back to my friend in Memphis with a bag on my head and my tail between my legs and get her to fix it. All I can say is, if you can picture what my hair would look like if it had been tied in a ponytail and then hacked off with an axe, you can picture what it looks like now. Yikes!

On the bright side, I think I lost five pounds! (From the haircut.) Hey!

Thanks for reading. It means a lot.

May the Lord bless you and keep you until next time.

Punkett Picking.

Here's documentation of our time at the punkett patch (punkett=pumpkin in Elizabethese, hello). Every day, whenever she catches a glimpse of the punketts on our table, she proceeds to list all the punketts we purchased. "Mommy punkett, Daddy punkett (which is the same pumpkin, the "bic punkett"), my punkett, Judah punkett." She's big into listing things, obviously; for example, if for some reason houses come up in conversation, we have to review all the people we know who have houses: "Omi house, Papaw house, Bear house, BeBe house, my house, Mommy house," etc.

And she's also all about lining things up. (My slightly OCD, struggling Type-A heart rejoices!) Periodically she'll gather her favorite small stuffed animals and baby dolls and sit them all on the second stair and talk to them. I think it's pretty much the most precious thing I've ever seen, second only to the times--like this morning--when she goes to her toy stash and brings Jude his favorite, a Snoopy golf club. (He likes to "bang bang," as E would say.) She has also taken to calling him "Jute" every so often, which is third on the list of Most Precious Things.

As for "Jute," in accordance with his ridiculously laid back self, he is completely unconcerned with what all the other babies his age are doing. He is content in every way to roll like a barrel to get wherever he wishes to go. He laughs in the face of quicker transportation and developmental milestones. What a little rebel I have. He won't even put his knees under him. Won't even try. That's OK with me though; I'd have cutie-patootie-rebel-child be a baby-baby for as long as possible, thank you. One thing I did learn with the previous child: they all get around to everything eventually.

So. The punkett pictures. 20,000 words later. Here you go!

UPDATE: If it makes it any better, I wrote this a few days ago (Tuesday, as you can see from the post date) but our internet connection failed me utterly and all I was left with was a draft. So I'm posting it now. In those few days, E has gone from "punkett" to "punkin." They grow up so fast....

Also, we are all fighting valiantly against sickness at this house. I'm fighting it by buying a chair off craigslist, pre-spending some birthday money that's coming...on my birthday, in a month. Pitiful, I know. Don't judge--I was sick to death of folding chairs in our living room! Surprisingly, this mode of defense is not working. Most emphatically not working. I'm about to have to go stick some tissue up my nose. You're welcome for that visual. Keep coming back for more, people!

If anyone is still reading...

...then I love you. And you must love me. You must, to still be checking this blog even though I have left you in the lurch so many times. The truth of the matter is--or the paradox of the matter is--that I haven't felt like there was much to merit a post, and yet I have been so busy that there's no time to post anyway. You know...busy cleaning and playing and cooking and cleaning and playing and cooking. And then when the babies go to bed and I finish the last round of cleaning, I drag myself, bit by exhausted bit, up the stairs and into bed. Thirty seconds later, E wakes up and I go lay down with her and get her back to sleep. Stumble back to bed. Then J wakes up. Go get him, feed him, stumble back to bed. E wakes up again, because in her sleep she has inadvertently pushed off the humongous stuffed elephant I've crammed next to her to fool her half-conscious self into thinking that I'm still lying next to her. Go lie back down with her. Stumble back to bed. Finally make it to morning to do it all again.

I'm tired. You get my drift.

And yet, every morning I am excited to go get them from their rooms and start another day. And every morning I wonder that I can still feel like this. As bone-achingly tired as I am, I find that I would rather get up and see them than roll over and go back to sleep.

I didn't sit down to write a cheesy post about how much I love my children or wax sentimental about my day-in--and-day-outs, but I think it's a small testimony that should be recorded about God's mercies that are "new every morning." I read that passage in a new light now. But isn't that just it about God? You can never come to the end of Him. You can never figure Him all out. When He starts to fit into a box--any box--I know it's time for me to rethink things.

Just some thoughts on a Thursday night. I'll get around to those home-y, recipe-y things I promised eventually. Maybe, just maybe, I'll break 5 posts in October. Maybe that's a bit ambitious. Maybe neither child will wake up tonight. Hmm.... Anyway, until then, here's to the cool side of my pillow and a new morning that'll be here before I know it.

Good night.