April in all it's glory

We have lived here less than a year and already I look forward to our semi-annual trek to Roundtop.  I have heard about it for several years from Megan and couldn't wait to join her.  I have not been disappointed! Rountop is help twice a year (with several smaller versions in between) in Roundtop, Texas.  It is a huge outdoor antique fair with one main fairground and multiple others scattered throughout the small town.  It is in a beautiful part of Texas, rolling green hills and enormous blue skies.  This was my first Spring trip to Roundtop which means the drive also provided us with hillsides and bounteous fields of the famous Texas bluebonnets.  Gorgeous.  Just so beautiful.  The fair itself is filled with cheap to ridiculously expensive novelties of the gorgeous, bizarre, old, new and creative kind.  In my two trips I haven't bought a single thing besides lunch but I take oodles of pictures.  Don't you think I need this raccoon somewhere in my house?  I didn't either, but I DID think that Megan needed to show him a little love, which she did.  I kind of wish that I had bumped her head from behind and actually made her mouth touch his creepy little dead raccoon nose.  That would have been funny.

I went with my mother in law and three of my sisters-in-law.  It was a really wonderfully enjoyable day with all of them.  They are pleasant souls and I am continually grateful for this extended family that has been so near and dear.  I'm sad we didn't get Jocelyn in this one, she drove on to get her little people home but naturally we had to stop and take pictures of baby Lovey in the bluebonnets.  Who wouldn't? I love that this time of year, there are cars pulled off all over the side of the highway, taking pictures of kids romping through the flowers.  It really is a sight to behold.  I am hoping to get the kids back out there before the flowers start fading. 

   More Roundtop fun, lounging about on custom furniture and diggin' the sod covered garden bench.

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Then my baby girl went and had a birthday.  Five was little, six is old.

 I have no formal tribute to Hazel this year except that I still love and adore her as much as ever.  She is funny and sweet.  She is goofy and silly and I just love being around her.  I took a video of a little interview with her, something that I wished I had started with all of my kids every year.  The video is a perfect capture of her silly sweetness.

Easy to please.  Easy to get along with.

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Clark and I have only bought a house once before.  I don't even really count that because we lived there for less than two years and besides some paint, didn't do much to personalize it.  We have lived in temporary rental after rental and so it feels luxurious to live in our own home and make the changes that we want to.  It is happening a little here and a little there.  One area in particular that had great potential was our little "solarium".  Its a pretty decent sized room right off the kitchen that was the previous owner's "pilates room".  It has been our craft room/office, and not a very good one.  Without enough storage space, things have literally been haphazardly piled in there next to a desk and shelf for almost a year.  Clark and I spent hours planning and re-planning, measuring, getting quotes and visiting Ikea to get a good layout down.  A couple of weeks ago, the work began.  We decided to do built in cupboards and shelves with a desk extending two walls.  I am so excited, I can hardly stand it.

We are doing all the work ourselves which means it is taking a little while, whenever I am able to pencil it in Clark's schedule.  He has been very indulgent this week, giving several late nights to appease my nagging.  The work is almost completely finished and I am in love.  I might just move in there when its all finished.  I will definitely be posting some "befores" and "afters" when it is finished.

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We are enjoying (mostly) the winding down of the school year.  I love that Clark finally has a job that lends him some flexibility.  Honestly, there have been times in the last year that we look at each other and say "really? There's companies that do this?" We cannot believe the effort put forth in employee satisfaction.  We are soaking it up.  Clark got to spend his entire day helping at the kids' elementary school field day.

He got sunburned.

But it was sure fun.

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Then something happening that I think Clark has secretly been hoping and dreaming of for years, his first father-son campout.  He was so excited.  It wasn't far from home and I was doubtful that Jonah would make it through the night.  I was looking forward to some fun "girl time".  We rented a movie and ate pizza and ice cream.  We were going to breakfast the next morning with cousins and everything.

I was not that surprised then, when Clark called to tell me that Jonah was being sent home with a friend of ours that had run out to the campsite to deliver something.  I was only slightly peeved that Jonah came home while Clark stayed to enjoy himself but I suppose he is entitled to some male bonding on occasion.

I told Clark to send me pictures and not miss anything.  I miss my little boy when he is not with me.

This was the first picture I got.  Clark said "first item of business, find a big dirt pile, sit down."  Jonah ate bean dip and played with sticks.  

I think he enjoyed his first camping experience, even if it was just 3 hours long.

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With the exception of the camping, Jonah has spent most of the month like this.  He had terrible allergies that led to awful congestion that led to a nasty cough that turned into pneumonia.  The poor kid has spent the last three weeks just not quite himself.  Crying to hold-me-but-put-me-down-but-hold-me, kind of disgruntlement.

I am hoping that the month of May brings fewer allergies, even though that means ugly summer is waiting at the door.

Look at me.  All caught up and everything.

Hm, looks to me like January thru March.

 Mia and I started seeing a chiropractor.  Mia was complaining about back aches (and one especially scary episode where she landed funny and was semi paralyzed for 45 minutes) and I have had neck and back pain for years from some disc degeneration.  He is now my new favorite person, next to Clark perhaps.  Mia is fully recovered and I am pain free for the first time in years.  He doesn't twist you or crack you or scare you by grabbing your neck like a ninja.  He fixes you and it is super lovely. He told us that they removed the skeleton's head because it scared the kids.

Because a headless skeleton is so much less scary.

 We mostly played in January.  Christmas break was spent playing with cousins and hanging out.  Shooting off rockets has become our new Christmas/New Year's tradition.  Maybe sometime I will have Clark guest post and tell you all about the time he was doing a presentation in his Gifted and Talented class and accidentally shot a rocket engine off in his hand.  True story.  What a special guy.

 In January Clark and I were lucky enough to get away for a couple of days to Utah for some special events for some good friends of ours from Virginia.  We stayed with my parents who showed us around their places of employment and fed us yummy food and made me feel so happy that I didn't want to leave.  So typical.  This is my Mom's office.  Jonah had little appreciation.

 Jonah loved hanging out with Papa and playing cars and reading books, and bonding with cousin Ollie who could be his brother, or at the very least, his, uh, cousin.

Cute boys.  Cute grandpa.

 Jonah played in the snow.  He liked it.

 We had a really great visit with my amazing and beautiful Grandma.  I wish I were small enough to get a ride on her walker - she cruises those halls at unprecedented speeds. I got video of her playing catch with Jonah - she had in him giggling until he couldn't breathe.

(Hi Grandma.  We sure had fun visiting with you!)

Clark thinks that just because we live in Texas we have to shoot guns.  He has taken great pleasure in skeet shooting a couple of times with friends - and in watching Abby shoot like some kind of pro.

Then we went and saw one of the young women in our ward in her FFA competition.  We learned all sorts of things about the judging and competition - what an amazing program it is.  I certainly wouldn't mind our daughters getting involved.

Unless they want to dress their lambs in fire printed mock turtlenecks.  That is where I draw the line.

 Jonah sat on a cow, with the permission of the owner, of course.  As in "oh, what a doll.  Does he want to sit on our cow?" I may be not so keen on guns, but sitting on cows definitely sounds like something you do as a Texan.

 This was our friend's pig, Pearl.  She did well in the judging.  And I bet she tasted delicious.

 Sometimes I make the bed as a way to get kids to get out of the bed.  And most times, it doesn't work, just in case you were wondering.

My accomplishments may be few and far between, so I have to recognize them where I can.  My darling niece Madeline, who is slightly obsessed with her dog Harry, has always wanted a "room full of puppies" for her birthday.  So I made 100 copies of a picture of her dog and we gave her, a room full of puppies.  She was pleased.

 The placing of these pictures was purely coincidental but go nicely together for the two things I wanted to point out about my eldest.  

First of all, she is old, and beautiful, and talented.  This was her at her first solo and ensemble competition for violin.

Second, my eldest is getting so old so fast that apparently her wardrobe can't keep up.  In my defense, I know I have bought her pajama pants more recently than these.  And would you look at the size of her feet?! Stay out of my closet! Something I say on a regular basis.  I don't approve of sharing clothes with someone more than 20 years younger than me.

I adore my kindergartener and all the fun things that happen in kindergarten, namely, the 100th day of school where we got to make her look old.  You can't see it in this picture but she is wearing baggy, nude colored knee socks.

We are living in the general vicinity of where Clark and I "grew up" (meaning I may not have moved here until I was 14, but they were my most favorite, formative years.) We lived in the same church congregation.  This ward was an incredible one, with amazing families and tremendous youth that made my teenage years full of good people and a great support group.  One of our favorite families was visiting in town so they hosted a little open house to chat and catch up.  Walking into that house was happy happy happy.  So many faces that I love and adore.  Good people.

School projects give me a great deal of satisfaction and anxiety.  Even though everything about this one was done relatively last minute, we pulled it off pretty well.  Mia made a darling Susan B. Anthony in her 3rd grade wax museum.

And now I am left with nothing more than the pictures on my phone that remind me on a daily basis how much I love my family.  I don't just love them, I like them too.  They are funny and nice and usually, a joy to be around.

 Cousins, up to no good.

 More school projects...I don't know how anyone with a single child accomplishes school projects without the help of siblings.

 My random health issues continue and as we eliminate one problem at a time, I feel like I am getting closer to a bill of clean health! First, we took care of the hearing loss.  An issue which continues to be a learning process even 8 months into hearing aids.  I both hate them and love them.

Second matter of business, take out the gall bladder.  Clark was good enough to accompany me on a doctor visit or two to keep both me, and Jonah entertained.

 Surgery phase one was to remove the gall bladder and fix an umbilical hernia.  Not only do I have a new belly button but nice people brought us delicious food AND I got to ride a cart around the store a couple of times.  So that was all pretty cool I guess.

Spring break happened the week after my surgery so I wasn't really up for a lot of out and about.  I did however, promise each of the girls a cousin date during the week.  Hazel and Jameson were our dates to Nonnie's Soda Fountain.  It's cute.  It's quaint.  Those two are adorable and fun.  They get along so well.  Watching them together is pure joy.

 I suddenly noticed a couple of weeks ago what other people see that confuses them so.  My two oldest really do resemble each other.  Imagine that.  Hopefully they will some day experience the joy my sister and I had with people that never knew there were two of us.

And this boy makes my heart swell, on a daily basis.

Daughters that can't resist a selfie with a Mom that likes to photo bomb...makes for a lot of useless pictures on my phone.

We are in close proximity to a mecca of antique stores.  A stroll through any number of them is pure entertainment for the quirky, the silly, the ugly, the cool and the beautiful.  Jonah makes a good antiquing partner, sometimes.

The month of March is rodeo season in Texas.  The Houston Livestock Show and Rodeo seriously was a determining factor in us moving back.  I love going to the rodeo.  I was horribly disappointed to miss going several times as I recovered from my surgery earlier in the month.  It was two or three weeks before I could get around comfortably with any kind of endurance.  But I did make it once.  The kids played hooky from school and we got in as much as we could.

And then we endured the month of illness.  Allergies were at an all time peak of horrendousness.  I was medicating at least three kids every day and then poor Jonah developed pneumonia and was not quite himself for a long while.

I walked into the little girls' room one morning and seriously had to stare for quite some time before I could figure out what was going on.  That there is Hazel's head and Mia's feet.  Despite what it looks like, Hazel is not six feet tall.

And that, my friends, pretty much gets everything up to speed.

I think.