Grateful Acres

Henry said goodbye to his binkie tonight!   I used to have his binkie clipped to his shirt all the time. I got tired of losing it, dropping it gross places (non-gross places weren't a big deal :) ), etc, so he had a strap attached to it, clipped to his shirt. The binkie would dangle along with him wherever he went, and when necessary brought immediate comfort :) I loooooved his binkie, I have to confess. I loved the innocent contentment I saw in his face in those moments of "necessary immediate comfort". I loved how it could instantly bring quiet stillness to my noisy, verbal boy. I loved the simplicity of this tiny piece of plastic that made him feel so right with the world...  Late summer/early fall last year I tied a binkie to the hand of his beloved monkey. My game plan for the inevitable "time-to-say-goodbye-to-the-binkie" was to soften it a bit: I was going to unclip the binkie from his shirt, and only let him have the one attached to his monkey at be

Most of you know through facebook, but I've been obnoxiously sick this week... it started with a sniffly cold, and on Wednesday turned into the stomach flu... I was up a whole night miserable, and quarantined myself in my room the next day (thanks to a joint effort by my mom, Josh and brother John!), in an attempt to prevent my wild little indians from getting "the throwups". No one else got it, and by Friday I was functional enough to get the bare minimum accomplished. I already told you about my wonderful weekend, so this story resumes on Monday. While my immune system was down with the flu, the cold I had started with decided to wreak havoc on my sinuses... Last night was my parenting class/mom night out, and I was hoping to come home refreshed enough to enjoy a bit of an evening with my husband (who has been patiently waiting for my personality to return...). The ladies prayed over my sinuses, and I had high hopes for a quick recovery. However, by the time I got h

This weekend Josh and I savored our 5th Anniversary! The weekend went beautifully... We didn't to anything "big" on the actual weekend of our 5th, but we have a trip we are planning to take after Ruby is old enough to be left with her Grandmas :) Saturday morning we spent as a family- got some Dutch Bros and went garage sale-ing. The boys each found little treasures, and I found a few little things, and the weather was beautiful! After lunch we did a little yard work in the sun, had a quiet nap time, and then I surprised the boys (including Josh!) with a sleepover at Grandma and Grandpas! I had packed their bags with no one knowing during nap time :) Josh and I went out to some sentimental places: Calamity Jane's for dinner, and Sandy Cinemas for a movie, and were back home a little after 9! It felt strange to not tuck the kids in for bed... **side note, but I had a realization about why dinner-and-a-movie is such a popular date: Dinner is fa

This morning I had a beautifully quiet moment... Henry was playing quietly with a couple of cars, I had just brewed a cup of peach tea, and Jonathan called down the stairs for Henry to come up and join him to listen to "Adventures in Odyssey".  What a peaceful start to our day! That's not how the day continued. Sometimes it seems like little people have a "good" quota and a "naughty" quota... yesterday they were exceptionally well behaved for most of the day, and today balanced that out :) Most of the day the issue was fighting with eachother, and toward the end of the day they decided to buddy-up and get into trouble together (which I will chuckle about later, I'm sure :)) I'm grateful for the good days (and good moments-- it's necessary to count those, too!) because they remind me that it's all worth it. The good moments keep things in perspective, place in front of my eyes the goal, the purpose behind it all. And I'm workin