from Rural to Redneck

This is my view out the window from my favorite cozy spot where I drink my coffee every morning. I love it. The rural mailboxes. The sun peaking over the hill. The inviting porch (well, at least on warmer days than this one.) I can see a bit of what/who's  passing by outside but not enough to feel intruded upon.

(I've been thinking for awhile that I should snap a picture or two. I finally did it last week while the windows were sparkly clean. I had about 30 seconds to work with.)

And then last Friday evening, we came home late. It was dark. We were exhausted.

This....

(photo courtesy of  Mr. Hubs)

 ....is what we found in the morning.

(My heart  softened  somewhat when we found the note from the older lady who apologize and offered to make restitution. We had assumed it was a crazy, not very smart drunk kid.)

Since we host the mailboxes for all of our close neighbors on our property, the men in a joint effort fixed us up "for now" with 

this arrangement.

The title says it all.

And while this may not be my idea of "home improvement" we may actually "fit in" to the neighborhood a little better now. :)

Apparently she's pretty sturdy. She stood up well to "Sandy."

*********************

 We are very blessed. We have some minor clean up to do (mostly leaves) but no real damage here. We never even lost power. I think my children were almost disappointed. They were just so fascinated with the collecting of candles and the flashlight battery checking regime. And oh the questions a bucket of extra water can bring on.

I used to say I like one or two good snowstorms in a year but I've decided I don't think I even really like the snow that much. I think what I really like is the way it stops the world. In this case rain did the same trick for us and we didn't have to do any shoveling. School was closed and we had a great 2 days with everybody hanging out together here at home. Nowhere we had to go, nothing we had to do. I think, it was even more peaceful than a snowstorm because everybody knew we were staying indoors. The relaxing together during snowstorms has been known to get lost under the pile of hats, gloves, boots, snow pants, coats and wet socks, here.

 We are thankful! 

There are lots of people dealing with much bigger issues than a broken mailbox post right now!

It looked different...

Sometimes in my little Mommy world I get these crazy ideas in my head. I come up with some grand idea of something we could do and I immediately "know" how much my children will love it and what great memories will be made. I envision the stacks of "Kodak Moments" that I will capture and blah, blah, blah.....

And then in real life well, it looks more like......real life.

Several weeks ago our little town celebrated 250 years with a fireworks display. I thought it would be fun to pack all my pajama clad munchkins  into the van, pop some corn and take in the show. After all we had to travel all of two and a half miles, what did we have to lose?

It was time to leave. Finding seven pairs of footwear is apparently a 10 minute process. One batch of popcorn doesn't look like enough. The coffee pot drips miserably slow when it's being watched. Finally, with a few rolled eyes and several impatient huffs we stuff everyone into the van and run through the typical "he took my seat" scenario.

Mommy is starting the question the wisdom of this outing that  begins well after bedtime. But my spirits are renewed when we pull into a perfect spot. Not much traffic and we'll have no problem viewing from the comfort of our van. Except I forgot to calculate that fireworks typically go more than 10 feet off the ground. Our mini van is not a convertible.

 So we open the doors and line up on the edge. Now we're all whiny cause we're cold. We fight over the popcorn, blankets, good seats and mommy's lap while we wait. Finally, everyone is settled. Until the first booming explosion lights up the sky....they all burst into tears, "it's too loud."

Thankfully they got used to the idea after a few minutes. It was just the initial unexpected volume that startled them. And it turned out to be a pretty impressive show for small town USA.

And when it  was all over, I was glad we went. I usually am. I just hope that when my children grow up they remember the popcorn and fireworks in a "Kodak moments" sort of way and not the spats and issues between here and there. And we'll chalk this up as another reminder to Mommy to keep the expectations low, or at least realistic, whether it's about 'Grand Adventures,' small people and their chores, getting umpteen things crossed off my 'to do' list or sleeping through the night. Real life rarely looks like the previews in my mind, but why is it so hard to remember that?

it's the little things.....

just some things that made me happy recently......

      little things. quite possibly boring things to you.
           
           but they felt like a little "God-hug" to me.

 {shoes. new. with tags. $1.00 at a yard sale. i thought they must have sat in someone's closet for awhile but I saw these exact shoes in the store this week.}

{what boys do with double stuff oreos. when they think their mama isn't watching}

{a bit of crafty fun = my new best friend}

{toasty toes}

{first attempt at homemade egg rolls. success}

{fall colors that welcome me home}

{i've been searching somewhat frantically for boots for the little miss for this fall with no success. today I discovered these in her drawer. purchased on clearance last year and forgotten. and so stinkin' cute too. made my day. and maybe hers too.}

{thrift store jack pot. $20.97 for a huge box of wooden train stuff. i new at a glance it was worth way more than that but i was more than a little shocked with the results of my google investigation. over $800 worth of stuff in there. should make one little boy a really nice birthday gift. shh! don't tell him.}

{road side freebies. dreams of what could be. and a husband who patiently turns around to go back and load.}

{it's amazing how many smiles you can get out of three little quarters}

Hometown Tourists

We had plans to be gone this weekend. We changed our minds last minute and decided to spend the weekend hanging out with the kids at home. We've been taking it easy, doing a few put-off-too-long projects and just generally enjoying ourselves.

Part of the reason for our change of plans was my little man's ongoing recovery from eye surgery on Wednesday. He's been a trooper from the start. He was not allowed to eat for almost 24 hours and I heard not one word of complaining. We're both looking forward to seeing is gorgeous blue eyes straightened and working the way they should.

The kids had off school several days this week for our local fair. I think they call it "teacher in service" days but we all know.....

The hubs took off on Friday too so we're soaking up a 3 day weekend. We've slept in.....gorged on tasty hot breakfasts.....sometimes closer to what some of us are used to eating lunch. We've tackled outside clean up projects, like cleaning screens, washing down porches and burning brush. We even got BOTH    bathrooms cleaned, ON THE SAME DAY.

With all that accomplished we decided a day off was in order. The kids earned free tickets to a local tourist attraction from the library's summer reading program. We donned our scarves and jackets and set out with camera ready. It was a beautiful fall day and not much makes little boys happier than trains.

Turns out little girls kinda like trains too.

We packed a picnic lunch to enjoy mid-voyage. (The trip is all of 45 minutes, round trip.)

We got a big kick out of the good ol' fashioned playground. My children barely recognized the see-saws and merry-go-round. Whose idea was it to take all the cool stuff off the school playgrounds anyway?

The big boy was fascinated with the information on the back of his ticket.

  **All men and boys are responsible to help shovel snow if needed.

  **Keep all heads, arms and belongings inside the train in case of Indian attacks.

 The advantage to being a "local tourist" is knowing that just down the street from the train rides there is the best little old fashioned ice cream shop. 20 plus flavors of hand-dipped ice cream on homemade waffle cones. Mmm. Mmm.

 

 Today's flavor of choice....candy corn....chocolate and vanilla swirl ice cream with actual candy corn pieces in it. My children thought they had won the lottery....chocolate mocha for me thank you!

And a cup of steamy Starbucks for the road home, just because. The other advantage to being hometown tourists is being able to take happy, sleepy children home and tuck them in there own beds.
Early.

But it's Monday morning now. Back to the races......no more getting up at the 'crack of 8:00'  :)

Hope your week is off to a happy start!

Made Me Smile Monday

{a  snapshot from my week. with or without words. something exciting. something ordinary. something special. something silly. just something. that made me smile this week. a memory to brighten my day. to make me smile again. even though it's MONDAY!}

I'm cheating this week. I couldn't choose just one, you get all 4.

 Little helpers who begged persistently to wash the dishes.

And really didn't do a bad job of it.

Happily sharing the earbuds 

 for a little Toby Mac jam session.

Brothers are Best!

Lost his first tooth.

Finally.

(At least he seemed to be convinced that it was taking way to long.)

A big brother who slowed down enough to take his little sister along

on one lap of the race.

She sure thought she was big stuff.

They bless my socks off some days.

And drive me looney others.

(we just don't take as many pictures of the latter :)

Happy Monday to you!

What made you smile today?

This week?

Birthday Girl Photoshoot

[I'm not really sure how it happened, I did this post last week but apparently it never posted itself.]

Warning: Proud Mommy Picture Overload post ahead.

Here are the results of our photo shoot with the Birthday girl. I love to fool around with photography but I really only know just enough about it to be dangerous. While I was shooting these I told my hubs, "I know enough to know that my lighting isn't right but I don't know enough to fix it." Kinda frustrating sometimes. So they're not perfect but we got a few keepers I think.

 This one is a fav!

Gotta catch a couple of silly faces.

It just so hard to hold that bright swirly thing and not be allowed to taste it!

Even though she's not looking at the camera on this one I love it.

My reason, she's lookin' at her Daddy and her face says it all!

Those little pink toes kill me.

We decided to throw big brother in on few, just for fun!

And then of coarse we have to play with the editing

just because we can.

Love that little tongue stickin' out. every. single. time.

I think I feel a canvas coming on.

(Part of me really wants to crop the edge off at the bottom where the background is turned up but how in the world could I ever crop those little toes off?)

And no girlie photo shoot would be complete with just one outfit. :)

So we'll take a couple more for good measure!

Love all the personality jumping out of this one!

And a close up of those pretty blue eyes!

Love you Sweet Stuff!!