Thinking, Reading, Snuggling

I keep telling myself that one of these days, I’ll start writing again – even if it’s just for my own good, I’m starting to feel the need for something deeper around here. As much as I love taking pictures of my sweet children, I’m missing writing.

I read this blog post about how we go through seasons of producing and consuming, and the idea made sense to me – during the months before Everett was born and the time since have definitely been more about consuming, because I’m not feeling motivated to produce much creatively. Or maybe I’ve been so busy producing a baby, I don’t have space for producing much else!;) But I can feel the desire growing in me, and feeling the pull towards producing in other ways again. Sometime soon.:)

In the meantime, we are enjoying:

Beautiful spring weather!

Buckwheat cereal for breakfast – soooo delicious with applesauce and chopped nuts mixed in, and super simple to make.

Listening to audio books on the iPad – loving The Secret Garden and Anne of Green Gables from Focus on the Family.

Purging as a family – Ben has been helping me in the basement, and I’ve started asking the girls to get rid of 5 items each Saturday. Their choices surprised me! It’s kind of fun to see what they come up with. I had to laugh when I found this lovely couple at the top of my donation box:

They are romantically wrapped in tape – together forever!

Reading library books!! For the first time ever, our family has a library card. Now that Ben is working in Steinbach and can return library books regularly, we decided a library card would help with downsizing – there are only so and so many books we can cram into our bursting bookshelves, and as I try to simplify and get rid of stuff, this option makes sense.

Anika read 20 books in the first week, which reaffirmed this decision! But she told me she wants to wait a few weeks before going back for more books, because she misses her own books, and wants to reread a bunch of them first.:)

 

Watching “The Flash” – discovered this new show in fall, so Ben and I have been enjoying it each week. Makes sense, since it’s produced by Greg Berlanti, who also produced “Everwood”, which we loved. It’s a superhero story, but without the dark feel to it.

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Snuggling – “He’s my everlasting love.”

Thinking thoughts inspired by Dr. Caroline Leaf – and enjoying this book all over again. Having a baby makes me anxious, and it was definitely time to get back on track with my thoughts, and how much time I’ve been allowing myself to worry about stuff. Highly recommend this book to anyone who needs to think more positively! (Somehow, Ben was just born doing that, but I need all the help I can get!)

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What have you been enjoying?

One Last Evening in Pictures

We are home from our beautiful Florida vacation. I will not write anything about the weather here at home, because I think that topic has been covered quite thoroughly.

However. I do have two things to say:

1) To everyone on Facebook: Post about the muffins you’re baking, or about your favorite shoes, or anything other than the weather. Facebook needs you to be strong. Resist the urge to write about the weather.

2) To the lady at the mall who said the snow today is her worst nightmare: It’s time to get out more, and experience new things. I could think of some pain and suffering in the world that might be more difficult to bear than a snowstorm.

Alright, now that I’ve gotten those two important thoughts off my chest, I will share some pictures from our last evening in Florida. Maybe they will comfort you in your suffering.

If not, then maybe you should not look at them. I promise this will be my last Florida post. After this, my pictures will all look white and wintery again, if that makes you feel any better.

But not for long. Because it’s almost spring.

On our last evening in Florida, we went for a “family golf cart ride”. Kaylia still fits in the basket in the back, so there’s still room for the four of us!

We headed off for the `jungle`, which really isn`t technically a jungle, but rather a strip of uncleared land beside the retirement village.

It was a beautiful evening, but I’m so happy to be home. Vacations are nice, but ordinary life is quite wonderful, too.

Spring = Happy

What?? What is going on outside?!

Just like that, the snow is gone, and fake spring is upon us. I don’t believe for a second that this weather is going to last, but I will enjoy it while it’s here.

It is the kind of weather that makes you pull out bright rubber boots.

It makes you run for your dolls…

and go play house in the bush.

It makes you look up, up, up, as you breathe in that fresh spring air.

It makes you splash in puddles (because you are never too old to splash in puddles.)

And it makes you wander home reluctantly, because going inside seems like such a shame….

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Know what else is a shame? My camera. It’s smoking. For real. If we use the flash, a puff of smoke shoots out the top. What is up with that? Ben is hoping it will explode in his hands. Let’s hope that doesn’t happen, seeing as I am the one using the camera about 90% of the time, so it would be my hands that would get exploded on.

Part of me is sad. Broken camera = sad.

But…that means we have to buy a new one! Shall I follow my frugal self and my practical husband, and buy another little point-and-shoot? Or shall I follow my dreams and the encouragement of my husband (despite his practical side), and put all of my Christmas and birthday money into a fancy shmancy camera that would give me lots to play around with?

Any camera opinions out there?

Oh Weekend, How I Love You

Weekends are wonderful, yes?

I thoroughly enjoyed this one. The weather was unbelievable, and it was so, so good to have Ben home for a day off. These days, most of his days off are spent going into the city to prepare for our big move, or he doesn’t take days off at all, to bank them up for the future when we know we’ll have to be gone from camp.

But Sunday was just a wonderful, relaxing, stay-at-home-all-day kind of a day.

There were pancakes in the morning.

(Kaylia wouldn’t show her face for the picture, so I got her under the table instead!)

There was a picnic in the living room.

There was reveling in the spring weather…

…and one last sled ride in the disappearing snow.

It was pretty much perfect.

On top of all that relaxing, Ben even had time for loading up all eight boxes of stuff I’ve purged in the last few weeks, to ship off to MCC. Yesss!

So pretty much, purging is the theme of my life, and you’ll probably be hearing a lot more about that this week. My new passion…

I’m working on a list of all my most practical purging tips and tricks, in case you’re wondering. In the meantime, I hope you had a most fabulous weekend.

Last Chance

Ben says it’s our last chance to enjoy the beautiful weather – rain and snow are on the way!

And I don’t know if I feel happy or sad! This fall has been beautiful, but I’d really love snow sometime soon. Otherwise, I’ll never get ready for Christmas! I would not do well living in a tropical country. I can’t do Christmas without snow.

In the meantime, we’re trying to soak up warm sunshine.

Anika and the other kids are very busy enjoying the weather and creating. They are apparently building a bear trap. We’ll see how that goes.