303/365... enJoy

When your life-long friend and her one-year old leave their city apartment and comes to your not-so-city home for a visit and stays for five days amidst the normal crazy that is life with lots of little people, you might worry that the country insanity would leave her counting down the minutes until her tiny plane leaves our tiny airport. So when this afternoon rolled around and it was almost time for them to leave, you can imagine my surprise when she commented that the week had just seemed to go by too quickly. I completely agreed, of course, but then again, I'm used to the crazy and found it quite lovely to have my dear friend around. And though it's been a while, we're no strangers to long spend-the-night fests. 

But while some things this week were still very much the same as they were all those years ago (we stayed up way too late, ate a lot of brownies, chatted into the wee hours and laughed a ton), a lot of things were quite different (we were up and very much moving around by 7:30am, we didn't leave the house until her last day here, we didn't eat fat-free stuff and we certainly didn't lock any of our charges in the bedroom (Lee, I promise it was Rachel who locked little Fig in his room, not me!). And it was good. Rachel helped the kids with some of their school work, Caroline helped Rachel with Naomi. We played outside. We ate yummy food and chased little people up and down the stairs. We reminisced about the good ole' days and laughed about how glad we were that some things didn't turn out the way we might have thought they would back then.

I'm so glad for my kids to know Rachel and for Rachel to know them. Apparently they told her that sometimes I have "moods" and "tantrums" and that, according to Ben, my hobby is making lunch. I told Rachel that I can't wait to spend five days in her house when her kid is old enough to tell me such things. They discussed the book writing and editor-finding process and even shared works with each other. We took her downtown and showed her one of the many reasons we love our home (including Barley's!). Caroline cried when they left.

Today I'm really thankful for my old friend and so glad to have been able to spend these last few days with her just like we used to, only a whole lot different. It's good to have people to grow old with.

Old friends joy...









302/265... enJoy

I have a feeling this is going to be a common sight over the next few months... It's Kentucky basketball season! There's more than one excited fan in this house, I can assure you. Even Jack won't miss the action when "Ten-tuck-ee" is playing and according to two-year-old Ben a couple of seasons ago, Kentucky has "da best guys".

They are.... da best guys joy...


301/365... enJoy

Our family sports rule is one sport per year, per kid. We definitely want them to develop skills, try new things and have all of the advantages that come along with playing team sports, but we would also like to maintain some semblance of a family life as well so, for now, that rule is serving us well.

But when you choose baseball, which is a spring sport, one year and then basketball, which is a fall sport, the next  year, it can kind of feel like forever before the time comes for those practices to begin. As of today the wait was over! And not only that, but they've got a team full of good friends and dad is the coach. They're pretty pumped (all three of them) and looking forward to a great season.

It's basketball time joy...


296/365... enJoy

You know how sometimes when you find really great things you like to shout it from the rooftops so that everyone you know might have a chance to experience the greatness too? Well, sometimes when you find really great things you like to keep it to yourself so that the great thing is always ready and available when you'd like to enjoy it. That's kind of how we feel about our handful of awesome babysitters.

So imagine the delight of our children when one of those awesome babysitters joined forces with our favorite ice cream shop to perform a magic show! Eating our favorite ice cream while watching one of our favorite babysitters dazzle and amaze us made for a pretty great Saturday afternoon.

If you need a great babysitter you'll probably have to ask me for the info. My usually very generous Jimmy starts to clam up a bit when people start asking too many questions about our babysitters.

We're happy to share but we get first dibs joy...