Scattered.

Wow, how is it I haven't blogged since October 5th!?! We have been incredibly busy! I wish I could say that life is going to slow down a little, but I really don't see any slowing down until the middle of March. Yes, March! 

So this is just a run-down post of what we've been doing so I don't forget.

Last week we spent nearly the whole week preparing for a huge yard sale on Friday and Saturday. It was a fundraiser yard sale like we had back in May. All the proceeds are going to help build a mission house in Liberia. The sale was at our house so all week people were bringing donations. 

This is what one side of the living room looked like by Thursday night. The other side had just as much stuff. It was crazy! Myra and I were pretty much the people organizing and running the sale but our husbands and our Dad helped tremendously! 

Friday morning we got everything set out, had a few sales, then we had nearly an inch of rain fall in less than an hour! Myra, Daddy, and I were running around like drowned rats trying to get stuff out of the rain. Myra and Daddy called and rented a huge white tent for the remainder of the sale. The guys came and put it up in the pouring rain. So we spent the majority of the day Friday drying stuff off and throwing away stuff that got ruined.

Saturday was a much better day! We had a great sale and ended up making between $500 and $600!

While we were packing up all the remains of the sale, Lily, Levi, and my nephew, Ridley, were jumping on bubble wrap. All of the sudden, Lily fell to the ground and called me saying that she was hurt. I thought maybe Ridley had jumped on her foot (she was barefoot which isn't unusual). She didn't get back up so I went over and saw that she had a cluster of 3 staple-gun staples in her heel. Apparently she had jumped on the staples and they were super deep. :(

I ended up taking her to the ER to get them out. She was so, so brave! Barely any tears the whole time, and she fell asleep while we were waiting on our discharge papers! Jacob was gone to play a wedding and I am so thankful it happened when my family was still at my house, so they could watch the boys. Myra came with me until Jacob's mom got there. It was a blessing to have the support of everyone because I was kind of a mess.

Friday was Jacob's 30th birthday! I pretty much flopped on all the fun things I had planned to do for him. :( With preparing for the yard sale, I didn't have much time to do anything, but my debit card got hacked halfway through the week...so I had no way to get cash from the ATM or use my card to buy any gifts. 

The birthday cheesecake is store bought (thanks to my mom) because I couldn't buy the ingredients to make the homemade one I'd planned to make. The three candles take the place of the awesome 3 and 0 candles I've had for months...bought specifically for this occasion, but forgotten. Ugh! That's only the tip of the iceberg in the fail department.

We had supper with Jacob's family at his favorite mexican restaurant. Then we were able to pull off a surprise party afterwards! It was fun and he was definitely surprised!

I love this guy and I'm so thankful he's the Daddy of my babies!

Saturday night we visited with Jacob's Pawpaw for a little while. He was doing pretty well that night, but he's gone down hill really fast and has hardly eaten anything for several days. Please keep him and our family in your prayers if you think of it. 

Hope you all are doing well! I miss keeping up with you and hope to get the chance to again soon!

Snapshots.

happy girl.

little sweetie.

{yes, the L's "decorated" the front of the truck. ha!}

sleeping with "bird" that daddy slept with as a kid.

hangin' out with bessie - my in-law's dog.

yes, he fell asleep like this! haha.

Happy Weekend!

Midweek Randoms.

It rained Monday and part of Tuesday so we've been busy building couch cushion houses, playing play dough, playing hide and seek, and reading tons of books.

Levi has had a cough, but it seemed worse today. Not sure if it's allergies or something else. 

We have been buying locally grown apples by the peck. We've made the best fresh apple juice and applesauce! The other day I found Lily and Levi hiding snacking on apples. Little stinkers!

We had Sweet Potato and Black Bean Chili for supper. It simmered in the crock pot all day and made the house smell soo good! Everyone loved it! It would be a great meatless meal too - the beans and sweet potatoes make it super filling.

I'm so proud of this guy! He's training to run a Ragnar Race (from Chattanooga to Nashville) in a few weeks! He's part of a 10 or 12 man team - it's like a relay race. I'm hoping to take the kids to Nashville to see them cross the finish line - Jacob's not the guy running at the end, but it'll still be cool to see them cross!

I love Eric Carle books just as much as my kids do! :)

I really need to get in the kitchen and clean up the dishes from supper.

Aunt K has been coming to visit and play with the kids a few hours each week. The kids just love it and I enjoy the adult conversation in the middle of the day!

It's so hard when two (or all three) of my kids need my attention at once. I think God should have given mama's more than two hands! :)

Lily is currently singing Mary Had A Little Lamb as she goes to sleep.

I love my family!

Weekend.

Thank you all for your kind comments on my last post. My burnt fingers are much better now. I pretty much don't have any fingerprints left, but that mostly happened with hot glue back when I was making lots of hairbows. 

We had a really good weekend. It was busy, as always, but the kids were just easy and fun and that was a blessing to me! Jacob is the head of one of the divisions for the State Youth Symphony. He spent all day Saturday and Sunday afternoon auditioning 30-40 kids for the symphony. 

On Saturday, the kids and I went grocery shopping, played around the house, and visited with my mom and sister.

On Sunday morning, Lily got up and helped me make pumpkin pancakes for breakfast. Mmm, they were so yummy! My sweet mom had snagged me a couple cans of pumpkin when she saw that there were only a few cans left and I wouldn't be shopping til the next day. 

You can see Mr. Asher wasn't too happy about Daddy giving him a mohawk for church. Ha! Poor baby was actually tired. Sundays are hard because Asher only gets maybe a 30 minute nap before we leave for church, and then he never falls back to sleep until his afternoon nap.

We enjoyed time with both sets of family on Sunday afternoon and evening. I'm so thankful for the good relationships we have with our families.

Today was a rainy day. I would've SO loved to stay home all day, but we had to run out to the butcher's and get 1/4 (we split it with Jacob's family so we didn't actually get the whole quarter) of a cow that we ordered. I'm so excited to have fresh beef!

Hope y'all had a great weekend!

Major fail.

Tonight I had the biggest cooking fail of my life. I was in the process of making Cauliflower Pizza with my two little helpers. The crust had baked (at 450 degrees!) and we had just gotten all the toppings on. 

As I was making sure the kids were away from the hot oven, I picked up the scorching pizza stone without oven mitts! I dropped it upside down in the oven and my yelps of pain brought Jacob running from the bonus room where he was teaching! 

I started bawling my eyes out realizing that our supper was nearly ruined and Jacob had to eat and leave for the evening in 10 minutes.

Lily pipes up just at that moment and admonishes, "Mama, you wasted our supper!" LOL

Oh, and my fingers? They are blistered! Ouchy!

One good thing is that the oven already needed to be cleaned. :)

This wasn't the only cooking fail this week - Last night, I pulled some leftover roast out of the freezer to make beef stew. It smell delicious simmering on the stove all afternoon. Sadly I didn't realize until I was dishing it up that it was full of bones - big bones and minuscule bones. I guess in my sleep deprived state after Asher was born, I didn't realize when I put it in the freezer that it had all the bones still there. 

Ah-hmm...I think my problem is being distracted and trying to multitask too much. I must work on this!

Reading.

We spend so much time reading everyday. I'm so glad Lily and Levi love books!

Levi's favorite right now is The Happy Man and His Dump Truck.

Lily loves Curious George, Clifford, Dr. Seuss, nursery rhymes...everything, really.

Asher likes to chew on toys and listen to the stories. :)

Fleeting.

I have been thinking so much lately about how quickly life is speeding by. I can't slow life down, but I can slow down and enjoy my life more. For me, this means less time for blogging and Facebook, and more time spent playing with my babes and keeping up with my house (I'm not a stickler about cleaning, but I like to stay on top of it).

The other day we broke out the finger paints. SO messy but so fun! Levi didn't really understand the whole "painting" idea. He just enjoyed the feeling of the paint between his chubby fingers. Lily used so much paint, it took several days to dry. Ha!

This week has been busy and fun. On Monday, our babysitter (she's not just a babysitter, but a sweet friend of mine too) went shopping with me and the kids to look for flower girl and bridesmaids stuff. She and I both found shoes (yay!) and I think I found the shoes I'm getting Lily. We walked around the mall, had lunch at 5 Guys, delivered a meal to a friend, and went to Hobby Lobby. The kids did great, although they all (Levi specifically) had their moments of difficulty.

Our library books were due today so we headed there this morning. It's always an adventure taking three littles places by myself! They did very well today holding hands while crossing the parking lot, being quiet in the library, and not running around like wild indians! We loaded up on about 20 new books - mainly Curious George, Clifford, and Eric Carle books.

I'm working on making quiet books for the kids for Christmas. It is such a fun project, but so time consuming! Can't wait to show them to y'all when I get them done! :)