Abundant Recompense Copy

I mentioned a couple posts ago that Nate's fam was up over Mother's day weekend. Grandpa's birthday was that Saturday and to celebrate, he and Grandma took all the grandkids (plus Linzy and Micah) to the zoo. It was so fun! Addison loved it - especially the elephants, which he wanted to see over and over and over. He really enjoyed watching it eat. He also loved the train, of course. We got to sit in the very first car right behind the driver, which I wouldn't really recommend because it's really loud and hot. But we had a blast riding it anyway. Addison said "all aboard!" about 50 times a day for the next week.

It amazes me when I look back at blog posts from the golden age of only one child. Don't get me wrong, I love having two, but man, I had so much time on my hands back then! If only I'd realized it at the time. The point of all this philosophizing is to say that I am a slack dog blogger these days. Poor Bryn is going to think she was adopted someday because I haven't done very well with tracking every last milestone, grin, and move she makes. So here's a little update - not to try to catch up (if I tried to do that I'd get paralyzed by the task and never blog again), but just to paint a picture of where we are today. Bryn is a wonderful baby. She was born with the ability to entertain herself and she uses it. One of her favorite activities is dumping out the family room toy box and crawling around and playing with all the toys. Another favorite is swinging outside. She thinks that it's hilarious when I get her going and then bend down in front of the swing and le...

I absolutely love being a mom on Mother's Day. This year was great. Nate's family was in town, which is always a treat, so we got to spend it with them. I got spoiled rotten. Nate and the kids let me sleep in until 8:20! And I woke up to a fabulous and original Mother's Day song and a quiet, peaceful, delicious breakfast in bed, directly followed by a sinfully long shower. All three of them put their artistic skills together to make me a fully-illustrated and heartfelt card. And the piece de resistance: Seasons 1-5 of House!!!!!!! Yes Nate, I meant every one of those exclamation points. It came at a perfect time, because Nate just finished year 2 of grad school and is a free man for the summer. So we've frittered away many an evening this week watching old episodes. Addison loves to sing along with the hymns in church. He doesn't usually know the words, so he makes them up. On Mother's Day his lyrics of choice were "It's Mother's Day, It's Mothe...

For several days in the past few weeks, we've woken up every morning to loud chirping and scratching coming from the general direction of our laundry room. It starts at the crack of dawn and lasts till dark. We investigated by peeking behind the dryer and found two Tide sticks, lots of lint, and the start of a nest. (Click to enlarge if you need to.) Unbelievable. Luckily no eggs yet. Since we moved here we have had a white-trash dryer pipe that juts out about a foot from the house and has no cover on the end. The little bird building a nest in it helped us decide that it was time to move up in the world and put the blasted cover (which we have had sitting on the shelf above the washer for almost 2 years) on. So Nate defied death by standing on step on the ladder that says "DANGER: do not stand on or above this rung or step" and sticking the cover on the pipe. And yet, the next morning, I heard the same old scratching. Loud, persistent, annoying. Threatening to wake the k...