bsmiles and sunny days

Sometimes I feel like I'm going crazy. Deisha, for obvious reasons, keeps me extremely busy when she's awake. It's not that I can't put her on the floor in another room while I work in the kitchen or clean the bathroom. The thing is, when she's awake, I have am constantly aware that at any moment I could be pulled away from what I'm doing and have to tend to her needs, whatever they may be, immediately. It makes getting anything done difficult. So why is it that when she's asleep, I'll start a project, and then maybe another in the middle of that one, and then start a list, and then come in here and sit down in front of this blasted screen and just veg until she wakes up and is needy again? Then I'm frustrated because I can't get anything done. Even though I just blew an hour in cruising who knows what right here. I just don't know. Maybe it's a self-control issue. Maybe I really am just losing it and looking for something to bl...

This is what ours looks like. Jasmine decorated everyone's glass with a candy cane... so cute. Kennedy baked a cake and peeled potatoes for me. I love having helpers! This year's prep was so much better than last year's. Gotta love national holidays! Little man is way too cute for his own good! Gobble, gobble, gobble. I forgot this Nana tradition and Kennedy said, "MOM! Apple turkeys! We forgot to make apple turkeys!" This was last night at Wal-Mart after we'd already been to the grocery store and all of it's chaotic bliss. So I said, "Alright, let's get the marshmellows and we'll use the apples I bought for the apple crisp." Which they used and then almost immediately removed the candy and marshmellows from after these shots were taken. I mean, it's a tradition. We take them very seriously, which I am SO thankful for this year because our little traditions kept us busy while we were so far from home. I love that there's n...

See, what had happened was... I found Facebook, see. And when I'm uploading pictures like this, I can chat with my friends, all my thousands of wonderful friends online, you know? Instead of just staring at that doggone bar and hoping it will go faster now since everyone else is at work, right? So for more photos, you can find me on facebook. And by the way, this is what California does to people like me.

Let's just be real honest here, I don't have time to keep this thing up. I mean, I think about it every day; I think about how I'd love to share all my new recipes with you, the perfect bread recipes, how to get the graham crackers to stay crunchy, the homemade laundry soap that is saving me fat cash each month, not to mention the brilliant and hysterical antics of my crew. I could write for hours every day. More than that, and what I really would like to do, is sit down here and spill my guts about how unsteady I feel about our country's future, and how I've never felt more unsure of my children's well-being as US citizens. I'd love to share my heart about how the mercy of God sustains me far beyond what I am capable of doing on my own. I want you to know about how I get up every morning at the crack of dawn and work from sun-up until sun-down without stopping and without ever accomplishing everything I set out to do. It's a real mystery. I want to tell...

My girls... Look at this kid. Bless his pea-pickin heart. My camera shoots out an orange beam that always distracts her from smiling. Somehow we got past the beam, but her eyes still shot open on the first flast. Hahaha! She loves kisses! Yikes. Kennedy is standing on the brink of being a teenager. She still carries a doll around the house and shops the baby clearance stuff every time we get close to it. Jasmine is a a real-deal Baby Whisperer. I feel totally confident putting her on the job when the screaming begins. We had a costume birthday party last weekend and this is how we went. Aren't they something?

There is no sound like the sound of new laughter...