my dinner plan

i told you about my plan. to try, just one day a month, to make something new from Julia Child's Art of French Cooking. to breath some life into our dinners around here.



well, friends, i tried. Swiss Quiche was on the docket. now, pie crust and i do not get along. never have. i hope someday that we will reconcile, but so far...

yeah. so i was so excited with Julia's pastry instructions. a bit new. helpful. my hang up usually surrounds the rolling out/placing into the pie plate area. i had success! it looked beautiful in the tart pan, going into the oven for a pre-bake. i was so excited.

and then i pulled it out. the beans (used to weight it) had stuck to the bottom and the sides had shrunk and were now about 1/4 inch above the bottom.

tears.

quiche mixture went into a pie plate with no pie crust and i had to go run an errand.

husband calls and says that the beans are now coming off the bottom of the pie plate with no difficulty. should he try to pour the egg mixture into the shell? i say, sure. i am feeling hopeful.

then my phone rings again. "yeah. i think you should pick something up for dinner on your way home."

so... that didn't work. and i felt like a tiny bit of a failure. then began to write this post in my mind.

one of these days... piecrust and i are going to get some counseling. we're going to power through. one of these days.

on to the next.

a conference

i was so truly blessed by God while attending The Gospel Coalition's Women Conference  this past weekend. i am a part of a quarterly meeting of women at our church and our elders sent us to florida to soak in a whole bunch of truth together.





i traveled with 5 other women, from varying life-stages and perspectives. and Jesus brings it all together. we have everything in common because we share an ultimate hope: life abundant in Christ.



now, this was a hotel i will probably never be able to visit again, but it was so seriously dreamy. a pool. a lazy river. palm trees. a woman i don't know who every day made my bed. dreamy.





and then on top of that, we heard from so many people about our great God. it was staggering. His goodness and might is staggering.



i attempted (and are still attempting) to process so much truth. old ideas presented in new, accosting ways. things that hit me upside the head with their reality and lack of evidence in my life. here are just a few tidbits of ideas i'm dwelling on:

++ marriage is not about me. i need to be continually subordinating my wants and desires. subordinating me for us.-- tim keller

++ because Christ atoned for my mistakes/sin/disobedience/foolishness on the cross, and i said, "yes. thank You. i believe. take this small life of mine. it's Yours." God the Father looks at me and sees His Son. How He feels about His beloved Son, is how He feels about me.-- elyse fitzpatrick

++ i am the child of a God who is equally terrifying and holy as He is kind and gracious toward me. -- everyone i heard this weekend

these things aren't necessarily new ideas to me. but they settled in my mind and heart as things i need to think on. things i need to remember. things i want to form deep roots within.

the women that i attended this conference with are fabulous. and i got to sit with them after so many sessions and we processed. we talked about how God was moving- what God was saying to our small hearts. and it was/is all so good.





God is so patient with me, friends. He grows in me a desire for more of Himself and then He delivers. He constantly does all of the hard work for me. because He is my generous Father. Who gives good gifts. good good gifts.

boys

i just returned yesterday from a beyond-wonderful conference put on by The Gospel Coalition and my mind and heart are full to the point of bursting. i am processing so much and i will be back here soon with some of that. 

but for today, i have to tell you about a recent morning spent with these two boys:

samuel and bergen. i got the really good end of a deal with lacey: she got my girl, i got her boy and i whisked them off to a creek in the mountains where we searched for, found and identified water bugs. really good end of the deal. because by about 9:15 that morning, i was here:

yes, that is mist you see rising off of the creek in the early morning. it was one of those, i-can't-believe-i-get-to-be-here-seeing-this-beauty kind of moments. standing in a cold creek, in the mountains, flanked by two sweet and interesting boys. 

oh friendship. these boys have lessons for me to learn. they talked of things on the car ride up, taking time for space and silence when they were both ready. they tromped through the water equally together and individually. they laughed and listened to each other. i loved watching it all. i really really got the good end of the deal. 

summer!

summer is officially here. big bright beautiful summer



welcome.

i always wanted to start some kind of wonderful kick-off-summer tradition. i thought a backyard campout would be perfect for the longest day of the year. have i ever started this lovely tradition? no. do i have fabulous summer-y plans today? no. maybe the sprinkler will come out. maybe we'll read the 'summer' section of kate's fairy book. i have one piece of watermelon we can all split...

such are the well thought out plans of this momma today. you doing anything special to celebrate the coming of a new season?

happy summer, folks.

father's day

hope you had a lovely weekend. ours was quite nice. since i work on sundays, we celebrated father's day on saturday. samuel and kate gave their little books and their daddy was super impressed.

we went up to Flat Rock, stopped at the bakery for a potato pizza. then journeyed to Jones Gap State Park for some river-tromping. camera ran out of batteries, so i don't have pictures of that. probably the best thing for me, though. my hands were free and able to hold little hands and skip rocks.

i think these smaller holidays rarely turn out like you think they might. mother's day is never exactly what i thought it would be. it all comes back to those blasted expectations, as always. luckily for me, my husband isn't too big on expectations. he seemed to enjoy the day. we all did.

i know i've said it before, but i've got to say it again. i've got a good one here, folks. the best.

father's day books

if you're like me, certain holidays tend to creep up on you. "oh yeah... it's fourth of july... tomorrow..."

i am so proud of myself for thinking of father's day already this week. a major step of progress, people.

we made books. each kid picked out a color of construction paper (samuel-- yellow, kate-- black {full of surprises, this one}) for the cover.

i took 2 sheets of basic printer paper, cut them down the latitude-middle, folded each section in half, and the beginnings of a book were upon us.



i put the printer paper onto each piece of construction paper and cut around, giving the construction paper a tiny edge. those of you who are more precise can certainly measure. your lines will be enviably straighter than mine.



i folded that in half and ran the middle through my sewing machine. if you don't have one of those, you can use needle and thread, or hole punch and yarn/ribbon/staples- whatever works.

then i wrote in some questions for the kids to answer. my questions were:


my dad is_____ years old

his favorite thing to do is_______

with his money he buys_______

his favorite food is________

my dad knows a lot about___________

i love my dad because________

my dad loves to___________ with me

samuel took his and filled in the blanks- i asked kate the questions and wrote in the answers.

there were a few extra pages at the back where samuel drew pictures of him and his dad (kate was not in the drawing mood today). 

and... done. father's day gift. not made on father's day. wonders never cease. 

hands on! guest post

i was so very excited to be asked to guest-blog at the blog of our favorite children's museum: Hands on!

i wrote on flexibility in crafting with little ones. thanks for asking, Hands on!

check it out here. 

saturday

i know it was a few days ago, but i have to tell you about our saturday.

we went on a mountain adventure- per samuel's request. and on our way home, he said, "i love my life!"

we stopped at Bald Rock on the way up to caesar's head.





and then we made it to the top





it was a fabulous day. we saw birds, plants and butterflies. it was just us. we'd had a week where jason was gone a bit- doing good things- but no home with us. and i think packing someone up into the car and heading to the mountains is a perfect answer for loneliness. i love my family.



i'm heading up that way again tomorrow- bright and early- with two boys in my back seat. we're going to splash around a creek or two. it's a good life, folks. a good life.

stuff

happy monday to you. i don't have much today. just stopping in to say hello.

i've been working on some fabric- trying to get things finished for a show application. feeling some fresh wind of creativity- remembering how much i love fabric and sewing. i love all the colors our God has made and all the beauty He put around me. He is awesome, people. 

hope your week is off to a good start. a hope and faith-filled spot. i'm working on keeping my hands open- leaving it all up to Him. trusting Him. He makes good.

tornadoes

samuel has so many interests. most of them circle around some kind of science. so it didn't surprise me that he came home from the library with a documentary about weather. yup.

he watched it one afternoon and hours later, as i put him to bed, we had the following conversation:

"mom- we don't have a lot of tornadoes here."

-"no, buddy, we don't"

"but they do in texas."

-"yeah. they have a few more tornadoes in texas"

(pause)

"mom- God protects us, but people still die."

(my face falls)

-"yeah. that's true. God protects us, but sometimes people still die. and we have to trust God to make the right decision about where we are. sometimes He decides to bring people to heaven with them. and sometimes He decides to keep them here on earth."

(his face lifts- as though he'd forgotten about heaven and all the ways God cares for us)

sidebar: you know i've been working on my study about faith- about believing God for all He says He is and all He says i am. and that day's study was directly speaking about this, which i'm sure i'll come back and talk more about. but the gist was, what happens when you believe God can do something, like protect you, and He doesn't do it? what happens to faith? this is a question i have struggled with. and it was God's kindness that this question was one i had tearfully brought to Him already that day. 

- "buddy, do you remember a couple of months ago, daddy and i talking to you about our friend Dan?

"yeah"

- "he was sick and daddy and i prayed and prayed that he would be healed so that he could stay here with us, but God wanted Dan to be in heaven with Him. and i still have to talk to God about that sometimes because i feel sad that Dan isn't here anymore. i need His help remembering to trust that He makes good choices and good decisions."

"oh, yeah. okay."

and that was the end of it. he was ready to go to sleep.

leave it to this boy to remind me of the truth. trusting in His decisions- the reality of His constant hand- He truly has it all. 

dinner

i have got to step up my game over here, folks. got to.

there need to be more vegetables. more recipes. less throwing together of things. i need some more adventure- some dinner inspiration.



so here's my plan. i'm going to try to cook one thing out of each section of Julia's Art of French Cooking. Julie-what's-her-name made everything in the book in one year. i'm aiming for at least 12- one a month. that's the bottom line. i'd like to try to make one new thing each week.

i started with a spring vegetable soup with pistou.



i'll be frank. my expectations weren't hitting the ceiling or anything.

and i was so wonderfully surprised! it was delicious. fresh, light, chock full of flavor. it started by cooking vegetables in water for 40 minutes. no broth- water. so i thought it would taste like... you know, water. but i had majorly underestimated that pistou. garlic, herbs, tomato paste and yumminess.



loved it. felt a tiny sparkle of inspiration.

we'll see how this goes. it was a promising start.

school's out

it feels like we started so long ago. the first day of school.



i made a days-of-school chart. 180 days. and when i drew all those tiny boxes, 180 seemed insurmountable.  but then there we were:



one day left. his sweet fingers put the last sticker in--



and like that- the year was over. we did it. one whole school year at home. and my little cutie-pants has made it pretty easy on me. we've read, learned what adding and taking away means, looked at bird books and bug books. we've learned about frogs and gone to the zoo to see them for real.

i don't know what i really expected when this school year began. like so many things in my life, i was a bit ill prepared. and perhaps he missed out a bit because of it. i'll never know.

all i know here, at the end, is that i loved this year. hard days? sure. days where i couldn't understand why he was crying and why he couldn't understand that 'together' and 'adding' were the same? yes. but all in all: a good year. we had it together. learned together. i learned more about him, and of course, more about myself.

a good year.

i wanna be in texas

we are back from that beautiful, windy lone star state. what a trip.

we had barbeque. good ol' texas style brisket at the best place around.

(that's a serious grill, friends. and a lot of meat. a lot a lot)

there was a lot of sun, so a lot of water usually followed.

 it was a time of rest- of lazy couch sitting and porch-furniture crosswords. 

the girl got her hair cut by a sweet wonderful neighbor. 

and i could not get enough of this kid in this hat.

mom started calling him 'big tex' when he wore it. i couldn't stand it. he wore it in the car ride to atlanta. he wore it on the plane. he was so excited. 

jason and i got away for one night. took advantage of those free babysitters while we could (the chance doesn't come around much for us). i was reminded of how nice it is to be just the two of us. now, you know i love my babies. but they will leave me someday too soon. and the two of us who started this whole thing will be left. and i'm glad. 

hope your weeks have been lovely. welcome to june. we're wrapping up school here today- can't believe it. ready to enjoy some summer. trying to make some plans. a happy friday to you.