Without a doubt, this project is one of my favorites ever! Even though it's just a split second of every day, together this collection is such a picture of where our lives are at right now.
Here the boys are with my friend, Misty, who kindly came to hang with the gang while I was running around town getting ready to get out of town!
On transit to Paris!
Our first dinner in Paris: mussels and fries with bread and wine. Boy, did we eat for ten days straight! I stepped on the scale last night, even with all the walking I put on five pounds....worth every bite :) Now it's back to normal.
Ben and I mused our way through Shakespeare and Co., the quirkiest old bookstore I've even been in, right across from Notre Dame.
After all....it's the city of love :)
Art at the Louvre.....guess who was messing around....
Most days we were walking between four to eight hours to see the sights but we sure did give ourselves plenty of time to stop and enjoy it all.
oui, oui, oui :)
At the Palace of Versailles, standing in the room where the treaty was signed to end WW I.
On our last night in Paris, we had a picnic and then Ben saved me and my camera from a stinky camera snatcher, then we watched the lights come on the Eiffel Tower. Full story to come later :)
It wasn't our most elegant meal but we had to eat on the run to the airport so we stopped at one of our favorite bakeries for a to-go breakfast: quiche for Ben and not one but two croissants for me :)
When we arrived home from Paris after 22 hours of travel, we were met at the airport by Oma and Opa who had put all the kids in the van in their pajamas. The wild cheers that went up were entirely heartwarming. Here they are in their new berets. Jasper is classic.
Me with my treasures.
Happy times.
It's making me happy to walk on our front porch and see everything bursting with color. There's no place prettier to me at this time of year than the Northwest.
I love the way my wee boy croons to animals that he sees in books, on the street and little toys.
My sweet Tymen asks for hugs and kisses all day long. The other day he was pretending to sleep and I was teasing him and seeing if I could get him to smile. Finally, I said,"I guess I'm just going to have to pinch your bum." He cracked his eyes open and grinned at me, rolled over and threw his arms around me for a big smooch. This little boy fills my heart up.
This morning to Ben I said, "I'm SO glad Theo's ours. Can you imagine if he wasn't here? He's so sweet. He's ..."
Ben finished, "....the icing on the cake."
Strong sales tactics were used at the Lakeland Hills garage sale today....though we may have lost some friends.....
Nothing like a good balloon birthday party with a pretty girl :)
I remember coming home from night classes at DBU and Mary, whose family I lived with, would leave me slices of strawberry pie on the counter.
We've been so thrilled with Art Wizards at school which Ruby does every Tuesday. My creative cat has always longed for art lessons like her Opa. It makes me happy to pick her up every week.
When he wants Ben to do this rhyme he says, "Weee-wee-wee" and then giggles like crazy.
I love dinnertime. Seeing my kids eat healthy food (aren't we blessed to live where there is always food available?), having conversations and laughing together. Often Theo yells when he spies something on someone's plate that he wants. We're working on that:)
We're proud of our Jeppy. He's ready to roll into kindergarten next.
We had a great day discovering a new park . It was so good to play in the sunshine. At first the soccer game was Theo and Daddy vs. Jasper, Tymen, Ruby but then Theo opted to eat and watch.
After a great morning at church and a nice Sunday lunch I put the kids down for naps and darkly warned them not to make a peep. I crawled into the depths of my own bed, slept like a rock for two hours and emerged happy to down my icy, creamy coffee. Happy mummy.
He was pretty cheesed with me after yelling, "Me, me, me, MEEEE!" and not getting more green smoothie (after three cups). Life is rough.
The family birthday dinner followed by apple pie for dessert! We are thankful we've had our precious Ruby for eight years. (What a bunch of goofballs!)
The boys found a little caterpillar that they named Sarah. They toted her around all morning, crooning to her and trying to force feed her grass. For a few moments she was lost and when Jasper found her he said, "Oh, she's pooping." On closer inspection, it seemed that there was a little too much poop and that she was indeed squashed. Jasper was sad and I found myself consoling him that she'd had a great life and it was especially good because she'd met him and Tymen. ( I didn't mention that maybe she wouldn't have perished without him and Tymen...it didn't seem like the right thing to say.) —
Guess whose kid was peeking during prayertime at our last Awana meeting tonight? Maybe he was concerned that someone would take off with the banana splits they were promised.
