My Happy Place

When I was looking through the pictures I took this week, I was struck by just how lucky I am. People talk about finding your happy place and I really feel like I have found my happy place. I love my sweet husband who does so, so much for all of us. I love my kiddos who make me laugh every day. I love our home. I love living in Texas. I really am in my happy place!

Happiness is having the windows open in the evening so that the cool breeze can come in…it’s also getting to look over and see Paul’s handiwork in those window seats.
Happiness is getting to wear rain boots and watching Abigail’s delight while jumping in rain puddles.
Happiness is seeing this little girl’s imagination practically run rampant. She was borrowing Joseph’s “tuba” (which Paul made for him years and years ago when he was going through a tuba phase). She ran and grabbed Paul’s sun hat, threw it on the ground, started “playing”, and then told me I needed to put money in the hat. That kid… 🙂
Happiness is seeing these two work together to do something fun.
Joseph needed to build a rocket using a two liter bottle to bring along to Primary Activities.
They hooked them up to hoses and launched them up in the air. He came home soaking wet, but he had a blast.
Happiness is seeing that my rose bush is exploding with roses right now. I love spring!
Happiness is getting to ride in the rocket cart when Mom has to grab a few things from the grocery store. Usually I can’t use these carts because their baskets are smaller and I tend to only go shopping once a week, so we end up getting too much to fit in the smaller carts. This time, though, I was doing a mid-week run, so we were able to use the rocket cart. She was so, so excited.
Happiness is finding joy in nature. I told Paul I was thinking of getting another piece of artwork to hang in our powder bath. Since I have a sort of a nature theme in there, Paul suggested I find one of the pictures I’ve already taken, have it printed, and then frame it. I picked this picture. It’s a picture I took a couple of Octobers ago, when Tracie was down to visit. We went to the Japanese Tea Garden and I snapped this picture of a crane sitting on an island in one of the ponds. The water around the island was so still (and the angle was just right) that it reflected the wall of ivy that is behind the pond. Consequently, it looks almost like an Impressionist painting, and I love it!
I picked a simple black frame for it so that it wouldn’t compete with the picture. The other things that I already had up there are a dragonfly cross stitch that I did, a fun ceramic succulent (or maybe it’s a flower, I’m not sure), and then a photo that a good friend of mine took of a hummingbird scratching its head. 🙂
I think my photo was the perfect thing to round out the decorations. Before, it felt like something was missing in that spot.
Happiness is getting to see birds in our yard who are probably waiting for us to leave so that they can eat more birdseed and cool off in the bird bath. 😉
Happiness is having your mom wind up your swing and let it go. 😁
She loves to swing. ❤️💕❤️

Spring Discoveries

We’re at the time of year that I really do love (even if the pollen does make me a bit sneezy). There are pretty flowers, interesting insects (and things that eat insects, haha), and the weather is warm but not yet oppressively hot. We had a decent week. Abigail was fully better, and Paul was as well (for the most part). Joseph seemed better, but then Wednesday he had a bit of a set back (after school, thankfully). I kept him home on Thursday and he has been so much better since then. I guess it was the virus’s last push. Consequently, we didn’t do much out of the ordinary.

I almost stepped on this guy when I was finishing one of my walks. Those are some impressive antennae!
I love seeing the wildflowers growing everywhere.
I’ve started walking/jogging to the park in our subdivision and back. One of my favorite parts of the park is the path that winds its way through these big trees. The shade is much appreciated on warm days!
I love it when the grass greens up again. My flowers are looking especially awesome right now, too!
My roses are beginning to bloom, too. Normally they bloom before now, but we’ve had a kind of chilly start to spring.
I pulled up what I thought was weeds…only to realize they were baby oak trees (see the acorns at the bottom?). It was cool to see (I think I’ve only seen diagrams in textbooks). I didn’t think about it until it was too late, but I suppose I could have planted these in pots (I’m not too sure what I would have done with them once they got bigger, though) just to see what happened. They ended up in the compost with the weeds that I’d pulled.
I found this anole lizard while I was unwinding my hose.
I kept gently shaking the hose to see if it would jump off, but it essentially dug in its heels, haha.
It finally did jump off and run into the mint.
The cool thing about anoles are they can change color, from brown to green. I sat there and actually watched the change happening for a bit…I wish I could have watched until it was completely green, but I didn’t want to freak it out.
Abigail’s teacher made them bunnies out of pudding containers. It was so cute!
Abigail was pretending to be an explorer. She’s wearing my dad’s old hat (there was one time we were visiting Mom and Paul needed a hat, so he borrowed that one and Mom told him to hang onto it) and borrowing Joseph’s binoculars. She told Joseph he needed to be a wild animal that she could look at. He asked her if he could be a sloth, haha. She agreed. 🙂
I was grabbing some food for dinner last night and I got caught in commuting traffic. As I came to a standstill and sat there for a bit, I couldn’t help but snap a quick picture of my view. This is about a mile from home. 🙂
One of the things that has been a bit of a struggle is that even with some pretty hefty weather stripping, water will still get into Paul’s office (under the door) whenever we get a big storm. Instead of dropping some serious change on a storm door, Paul bought a screen door (because we feel that we really just need an additional layer in front of the door along the bottom to stop the water from coming in) and gave it a quick coat of white paint. While the screen is obviously not solid, it should slow down the water enough to keep it from coming in. If that doesn’t work, then Paul has plans to get plexiglass and replace the screen with that…which still would be cheaper than a storm door. I love that he thinks outside the box!
Joseph created a blanket and pillow fort in his room. He has a loft bed, so it was easy to tuck the blanket into his bed frame and then drape another part of the blanket across his desk chair and I think he closed some of the blanket into a drawer of his dresser. He then used some of his bins to prop up his pillows. The Christmas lights were already up (since we wanted to add more light to the underside of his bed because his desk is under there). I love this kid’s creativity!

Easter 2022

Easter 2022 was pretty great! The kids really enjoyed getting to see what was in their Easter baskets, we got new church clothes for Easter, we went to church, and then when we got home, the kids dyed Easter eggs, and we enjoyed an easy-to-pull-together Easter dinner: a ham slice (browned up in my skillet), rice, green beans, and rolls (I did make those from scratch). We’re going to have strawberry shortcake for dessert. 🙂

Checking out their baskets.
Joseph got some candy, a new video game, a new book, and a popper toy.
Abigail got some candy, a new book, a new play doctor’s kit, and a popper toy.
Checking out her chocolate bunny.
She was ridiculously excited to see those pink chicks.
Showing me her candy carrot.
The girls got matching dresses…
…and the boys got matching ties!
It made for a good family picture opportunity.
Her doctor’s kit came with some bandaid stickers. I came into her room to find out that several of her stuffed animals had “ouchies”. Apparently Wish Bear got the worst of it. It took way longer than I thought to peel off all those stickers, though…so I’m not sad they’re all used up, haha.
Dyeing Easter eggs. I realized that I’ve never had the kids do this. It’s one of those things that always got put on the back burner. I made sure to make time for it this year, though…next year, Joseph might not want to do it!
Abigail was ridiculously excited to do it. This is me trying to make sure she didn’t splatter it everywhere, haha.
Their eggs. Joseph was more patient in letting his eggs sit, so his colors are a little more vibrant. Abigail wanted hers out right away…it’s kind of similar to how they live life, haha.