more from blueberry hill

Sigh.  Such.good.therapy.

Clay spent an hour with me talking in verrrrrrrrrrrrrrry simple terms about how to use my camera.  Like he compared the fstop to a swimming pool. I feel like a rockstar photographer now, so if my pictures still suck, please don't tell me.

When a girl gets ahold of some glitter, there's really nothing she can't do.  Right?!!?!!

This one turned out awesome, but how could it not....look how beautiful he is!

Tyler and Eva spent hours at what they called "the junkyard" despite the snow.  (click here to see it)  Then on our last evening, they spent til 9 pm in the garage building a robot out of the junk and duck tape.  This robot, named "CookieBot" will use its mechanical arm and spy eye to take cookies from the jar.  Their ingenuity, teamwork, and stamina for the whole project warmed my soul more than words can say.  SUCH great kiddos!

When they were finished, they invited the parents outside for a "Welcome Ceremony" for it.  And then lit of sparklers to celebrate its birth.  

Love.

And a good exercise since, as Chachi Band informed me, "we are considering going on The Amazing Race Together".  

Thrift Shop was the theme song of the weekend.  (Calm down.  Until 10 pm it was the edited version.) 

So we pulled out our 20 bucks, went to Et Cetera, and each spent $2 on our own sweet duds.  As you can see, Lisa's bought her a whole dress, while Sage's money didn't go quite so far.  

I'm a gonna pop some tags.  Only got twenty dollas in my pocket......This is _______ awesome.

Dear friends, please come back soon!

back on blueberry hill

Once again, we are mixing together two families. And the aunties and uncles and cousins and mamas and papas are all getting mixed up with the blueberries on blueberry hill.  (Check here for last time this happened.)

Such fun....

cards, cosmosphere, easter baskets, scavenger hunt, chickens, egg dying, paper plates for every meal (duh!!), KU basketball, swimming, thrift store shopping, dance parties, nail painting (even the dads), and best of all - Uncle Clay is doing all the cooking!!

These mysterious rings appeared on the counter after egg dying.  No comment.

And we still have a whole day and two nights left!!!!!! Love.it.so.much.

2

So there was a day not long ago when our sweet little lady turned two.

In typical Sage fashion, we had a very happy, very low-key, very sweet, very pretty little party.

I found this idea on you-know-where.  

We did it with the gluten-free cupcake recipe.  Just 2 pretzels (GF in this case) and a little string of icing.  SO easy and so sweet.  I'm suggesting we have a butterfly theme til she's 30.

Sweet Sage McCage, you are so precious and just plain so fun.  Life is a party to you every single day.  The little things that shouldn't matter to you don't.  And the little things that should matter to us all, you bring so joyfully and sweetly into the light.  You are a walking, singing, playing, dancing miracle!

chicken growin'

Look how big the girls are now! They are out of the ugly stage and into the pretty hen stage, but they still cheep like chicks.

On Thursday night at dusk they got to move into their new home....out of the makeshift garage coop and into the real one.  A big event for all 26 of us!

This is my favorite girl.  Courtney Love.  She comes to me when I call her instead of running away afraid like the others.  And she is a snuggler.  I do indeed like to snuggle chickens.  I own it.

The next morning, we were out at the coop in our pjs at 7:30 am, making sure they made it through the night and liked their new home.

Pjs, cofee, spring air, cheeping chickens - this is the life.

Its  never too early to dance when you're Sage McCage.  She was beat-boxing here.  I kid you not.

Today, 4 girls (Hillary and her cabinet members) are moving next door to Lyndon's coop.  We are happy they aren't going too far away.

The only bad news so far is that Lulu is clearly NOT a girl.  He is being domineering and rough and mean to his sisters.  So he has to go live with our friends in the country soon, where I believe he may change his name.

And last, Riv would like to introduce you to his favorite, Sasha....

on taking it down a few notches

Life is brimming to overflowing lately.  You know those days, wait, weeks where you cannot get ahead?  That's what it is lately.  And I know that's not unique.  That's what life is for everyone I know.  Why is this?!?!?!  Lately it infuriates me.

 Its just stuff like

drop off the 2K leprechaun run registration
plan that baby shower
buy oxyclean for Sage's clothes
figure out how in the world to get rid of that wretched smell in the bathroom
get paperwork in to NMC
schedule a JY planning meeting
call Malachi for his bday
vacuuum sweep vacuum sweep vacuum sweep sweep sweep again
Eva's costume for school
empty the dishwasher
mail that package
birthday gifts for this weekend's parties
thank you note to coaches
return those shoes to Target
and a long list of stuff to do at work
oh, and feed, dress, bathe, read to, spank, kiss, tuck in, wake up, change, and water my kids!

Just basic life stuff.  All of which I'm enormously grateful for.  And incredibly distracted and overwhelmed by.  I'm totally up in my head lately with the yammering of what is still left undone, and am finding it hard to enjoy the doing of any of it.  I'm trying hard hard hard to just breathe and do it and not overthink it and accept that I can't get it all done.  But that hard hard trying is making me a teensy bit insane.  I sat in a staff meeting this morning fantasizing about playing hooky and going for a drive in the country to listen to some Pink and breathe the springish air and listen to God.  But then I buckled down and got to work instead.

Ug.  Am I speaking anyone else's language here?  I know I am.  This is not unique.  This is the life of these 30-somethings in these United States.

BUT......This weekend was an awesome reprieve from it all.  Good friends from Canada came to town and for 4 days we had chaos.  Beautiful chaos.  I crossed off only 3 things from my list.  And I just plain didn't care.  Between us all there were 9 kids and 7 adults.  It was madness at meal time.  But it was bliss.  Loud bliss.  Between ueker (4 nights straight), black light dance parties, chocolate fondue (2 nights in a row), drinks, coffee, soccer games, and zero fighting (9 kids, 4 days, 1 miracle), we totally solved all the world's problems.  There is now peace and harmony and true love absolutely all over the planet.  Well, at least deep inside me there was - for a whole 4 days.

I give this whole ramble to say that despite being back to my overthinking and hard hard hard working, I recognize and name that my cup overflows with dear friends who blessed me richly by taking me down a few notches for a few days.  I hope that you, my dear people, have much of the same.

snow day day day day day and oh yea, one more day

Its like God knew we all needed one big time out, and delivered.

In the form of 4 snow days sandwiching a weekend.

We couldn't do anything but calm down and just plain be together.  It was the perfect excuse to wear tall socks and stay up late and be with friends and oh yes, eat snow icecream all day every day.

Did anyone else have a minor freak-out about all this down time?  I think I finally had taken it down a few notches to the appropriate level of chill by day #3.  Why does it take me so long to listen to that God voice inside and "relax and realize the house is going to be trashed and these here days, they are a gift, and woman, time to SIT DOWN and love the bliss of doing nothing with the people you love!!"

Thank goodness I finally did.  It was the best time out EVER!

 Ryan built a fort for them.  I rolled a ball or two before I bailed. He's such a stud.

These friends acted super impressed.  Then later they let it slip that they had built an igloo - that a grown up could stand up in - in their backyard.  Um.

There was one low moment where Ryan tried to erect the chicken coop fence despite over a foot of snow surrounding it.  The fact that this farm boy could not sit still and had to find some hard work to do....well, that's the man I married!  As I held the wires up and he nailed them, I reminded him that in case he forgot, I will never ever ever ever ever live on a farm.  I know, never say never.  But I'm saying never.

The daycare closed, so Oli, the 6th member of our family, came and played for a couple of days.

Supernanny JoJo brought over snow squirt bottles and peppermint playdough!

And two gigantic milestones...

Eva read her first chapter book.  I really couldn't be more proud.

And Sage McCage got her first haircut.  1 week before she turns 2.  You know your child is in need of a trim when your friend asks if she can just go ahead and take care of that for you!  Alas, the mullet is gone.  The 80's have been brought back for long enough.  Now onto the 90's.  Ryan says that now she looks like, well, let's just say its not a nice thing to say.  I think she's adorable!

Let's end here.  This cracks me up because they both look just how I feel after exactly 21 minutes in the snow.  It is all stomping and snow-angeling and eating and rolling and catching it on your tongue and oh-I-love-this-its-so-gorgeous-ing.  And then suddenly I believe I just might lose my mind if I don't get these 5 layers of clothes off and get warm, dang it!!

Thanks, Snow God, for that time-out.  Much needed and much much much appreciated!!