Little Life Lessons

This past month has been pretty interesting.  In a good way...  I'm very busy with orders, but part of me wants to put all of that on hold (I just did) and just enjoy my babies for the summer.  

You see, they are so fun right now.  Frankly, there will always be chores to do, errands to run, and money to be made.  But...

they won't always be babies.


Oh!  I could just sit and squeeze them!  


Aubrey Lane is just so much fun right now.  She's healing my heart left and right with all the "stuff" I've missed out on Jude with.  I am by no means discrediting all of Jude's special moments; he has taught me so much and is a vital part of the dynamics of our family.  

But I will not feel bad for enjoying all the development Aubrey Lane is making.  That would not be fair to her, it would not be fair to me, and it certainly wouldn't honor God and His beautiful creations... Both of them.


And as these little moments occur, Lane and I sit back and are reminded of these sweet little moments about 3-4 years ago.  We have realized that Jude was just as sweet and fun when he was at this age. 

Just like Jude has taught me some life changing lessons, Aubrey Lane has a few lessons of her own.  I've learned quite a bit the past couple weeks.

I've learned to close doors and toilet lids when you have an exploring baby in the house.  Last week, I was headed to the kids' room for dirty clothes with an Aubrey Lane on my heels.  Well when I started back she was gone.  So I peeped around the corner, and there she was standing at the toilet in her bathroom swirling her sock (several beautiful lovies and she carries a sock around) in the toilet.  

For those of you who know me personally, to say I don't handle bodily fluids very well is a gross understatement.  


I was mortified.

I have learned that Jude is going to learn so much from Aubrey Lane.  She may be the best therapy he's had yet.

When Aubrey Lane eats, Jude wants to eat.  What Aubrey Lane is playing with, Jude wants to play with it.  Where Aubrey Lane goes, Jude is not far behind.  


He watches her every move.  Jude has even picked up some of her bad habits.  We constantly catch Aubrey Lane licking the air vents.  (The child is disgusting).  A couple days ago, I was very surprised to see Jude trying to do the same thing.  He doesn't lick ANYTHING!

I can't wait to see what else he'll learn from her.

I've also learned that it's quite alright to get dirty.  I had this image in my head of two little sweet blue eyed children spotless in all white clothes- then reality hit.  

Dirty babies have explored their surroundings.  They have played without the stress of messing up their clothes or upsetting their mother.  They have fully partaken in the joys of childhood.  Dirty babies are happy babies.

I've also learned that when you set out on an adventure for the "experience" or "memory" of it, once you have made the memory, get up and move on to the next.  Some of you moms are already smiling inside because you know exactly what I mean.

Aubrey Lane just loves blueberries.  And I just love that she loves blueberries.  I want her to have healthy snacks... and what's healthier and sweeter than blueberries?

Well since she loves blueberries, I got the idea to take them to The Blueberry Farm.  

Now I can run in any store or produce market and swipe me up so sweet blueberries without getting sweaty and dirty picking my own.

But I thought it would be a fun experience and memory making opportunity.

I just loved watching Aubrey Lane explore and snack on fresh blueberries.  I laughed as she tried to eat them off the ground and then attempt to pick her own.

I made lots of memories,

and it was a great little "experience".

But then it was over...

They both had enough "experience" and were ready to go.  


BUT... I got a little greedy. 


I thought since I'm already there, might as well pick some blueberries.  Then the "experience" went from great to bad in seconds.  When babies get ready to go, they are ready to go. So I left flustered and frantic with two crying kids and three pounds of blueberries.  


Needless to say, I've learned another life lesson.  


These moments are sooo precious to me.  I may be overly sentimental and old fashion, but I know they will be more valuable to me than things bought by the almighty dollar- probably the most important little life lesson I have learned so far.

A Place In This World

Last time I posted, I mentioned eating dinner with our friends Sheré and Joseph, but I didn't reveal what we visited about.  I kinda left you hanging...  

Well last year Sheré and Joseph (I really hope I'm spelling my friend's name right), built a brand new house. 

Are you putting two and two together?

We have decided to build a house right where we are next to Lane's parents.  (Some of you may know this cause you have already witnessed the stressing start, ha!)  The decision came after months of looking for land and not finding the right piece.  It was important to us that we remained in the same school district because of our sweet Jude.  We are in a wonderful district and Jude has wonderful teachers.  Sure we can find land for less elsewhere, but private schools very rarely have programs for sweet children like Jude. 

We are actually 99% sure; the 1% being that there are some legalities and processes we have to undertake before we can start. One of those legalities is the redrawing of the property line.  In order for that to happen, we have to build a road that meets specific criteria back to our homestead.  BUT, before we do that, I would at least like to have our house plans finalized and the proposed area of construction kinda planned out so we know where to put the road and driveway.  I'd hate to pay for all that just to redo it shortly.

So here is where the fun begins.  Choosing the perfect house plan.

This was a little discouraging at first, but that's where our dinner with Joseph and Sheré comes in.  We know that the only way we will be able to build our house at a price we are comfortable with, is to subcontract it out and do as much work as possible our self.  Well our friends just did that with there house last year and had a lot of good advice and tips to share.  Sheré actually sent me home with a folder full of distributors, builders, bids, service providers, etc. that she saved from the process.  After talking with them, we are super encouraged that we can do this! It might take us a couple years in all, but nonetheless, we can do it.

Now I'm not going to go into to much more detail now.  Well there's not too much detail to go into yet.  However, I do hope to blog the entire super lengthy process here.  Forgive me.  I just don't have time to keep up with an extra blog.  

As we get into this process, please, please, please feel free to share any experience you have with this.  Any recommendation of builder, electrician, plumber, and so on, is SUPER HIGHLY appreciated.

I'm so excited to share this journey with y'all!

Angel

Weekend Recovery

I was planning on posting this Monday, but well you know me... late for everything.  No, really, last week and weekend were so busy that I am soooo thankful for a dull week with only 2 things planned.

Let’s see, we left off in mid VBS week... so I guess we’ll start there.  

Jude continued to have a great time and I ended up with some of the cutest crafts that he and Aubrey Lane made that week.  VBS was great this year; however, this was my first year that I didn’t have a child make the decision to accept Jesus.  And honestly, I’m okay with that.  Of course, I’m on a mission to win souls, BUT sowing the seeds are crucial too.  A lot of my sweet tribe members were very young and first time participants, so I was excited to get to tell them about Jesus for the first time!  So I still think the week was a great success.  

And a HUGE thank you to my mother-in-law who was a such a blessing.  She helped set up and take down my class, helped get my babies to and from the church, and even left me a little treat one morning- a Hebrew Coke (the drink can had a little robe and belt around it)!  

We barely finished before the weekend monsoon started.  But the rain did not slow down our schedules that much.  We started Friday night with dinner with some really good friends, Sheré and Joseph and their two boys at their new home.  It was so good to catch up and visit with them.  Our kids are the around the same age, so everyone enjoyed playing together too.  We absolutely adore this family, and always leave them saying we really need to do more stuff with them.  And I’m sure we will in the near future since one of our reasons for visiting was........   well I’m just going to save that for another blog post.  (gotta keep ya coming back for more)

Saturday rolled in with lots of rain which cancelled our family’s/ Aubrey Lane’s one year pictures.  Which was okay by me because I was not as ready as I’d like to be.  Well I already had an appointment to have my make-up done at MAC in the mall, so Lane said keep it and we’d have a date.  

I so needed this.  I have not been doing good to fight the mom syndrome of makeup and fashion resistance.. YIKES!!  And this inspired me so much to set a goal for myself to get up and put on some makeup and cute clothes everyday, regardless of the plans for the day.  I might even do some accountability blog posts on it, like OOTD (outfit of the day) or What I Wore This Week.  Anybody wanna hop on the bandwagon with this?

PS.  This is probably common knowledge, but for those few of you who might not know, MAC does your complete makeup for FREE with your purchase of $50 worth of makeup.  So if you are already going for a makeup purchase, you might as well call a few days in advance and pamper yourself.

During the date, which was great, I got a message from a friend who knew I was looking for tickets to LSU’s Super Regional and she had a couple for game 3.  So it looked like Sunday would be busy too.

The monsoon delayed the game Sunday, so we took advantage of the extra time home to clean the house.  It was SOOOO messy from the busy week before that I would not have let ANYBODY through my front door.  :-) Well, we all know how the game went, so I’ll just skip to the part where we get home and finally get in bed around 11:30.  

WHEW!  Was I ever so glad to see a boring, uneventful Monday. Since then I’ve been playing with babies and trying to catch up on a ton of orders.

Just a little sample of the things coming out of my sewing room lately...

And now it's time to REALLY starting enjoying my summer.  

Hope you are enjoying yours!!

Angel

SOME SUMMER QUESTIONS: 

What are y’all doing this summer and what fun activities do you have planned?  

Do you relax on bedtimes and routines during the summer, have a specific summer routine, or do you stick to your school time routine?

Have you already started the hunt for school supplies and uniforms?

What are some non-beach toddler friendly vacation ideas?

Any cool “stay”cation ideas, or fun things to do in South Louisiana or Mississippi?

(I’m hoping I can do a few blog posts with your answers so leave your comments, or better yet you can email me at ourmustardseed@gmail.com  Either way is perfect!)

**You know how I mentioned doing posts about OOTD or WIW?  Well I know that there are family blogs, craft blogs, remodeling blogs, inspirational blogs, recipe blogs etc... I love to blog; however, I have no desire or extra time to devote to up keeping more than one blog, so I hope you don’t mind that you’ll have to put up with a post on any craft I create, any home project I undertake, any recipe that tastes decent, any outfit I might put together one day, any deal or good tip I might discover, every cute picture of Jude and Aubrey Lane, and any pressing matter God has placed on my heart.  ;-)

Marketplace 2012

So this week has been crazy busy for me. This week, I am teaching vacation bible school at our church.

This is my fourth year, and I just have to say I don't know how teachers do it. It is so exhausting to be going from 8:45-12 with no mindless downtime. I couldn't imagine doing it from 8-3 5 days a week, 9+ months a year.

I love VBS!

I remember going a few times as a child, and really enjoying it. So I want my tribe members, and more importantly, my children to have lots of memories and testimonies from there time at VBS.

This is Jude's second year to participate in a tribe and he is really enjoying his time there.

Please excuse the ton of pictures I'm sharing; I'm just so excited to see Jude happy and participating.

I have a sweet tribe this year. I lead Judah 2- of course ;-) our lesson has been great, and I even got to share a kid version of my testimony with Jude. I didn't know hardly any of them before the week started, but I really want to strive to make each child feel special and important- the way that God feels about them.

Aubrey Lane is staying in the church nursery, but I think she's having fun playing with other babies since she doesn't get to do that often. Part of me has been a little nostalgic this week as I remember leading my tribe around last year while I was 9 months pregnant... Now here she is, almost a year old.

Please pray for my VBS tribe as well as the other tribes and leaders. Life change, eternally altering decisions are being made everyday this week.