every captive thought

So in case I haven't mentioned it a zillion times, Katy Jane is a Daddy's girl. And he likes her pretty well too! I am so grateful for these precious ones the Lord has blessed us with.      

We celebrated my Mom's birthday yesterday but today is the actual day.  Happy Birthday to my precious Mommy!  I love you dearly and I am so grateful for you!  You are the perfect Mom and Nana!  I pray you are blessed today and every day.  YAMS!          

We love James' school for so many different reasons, one of them being how kind everyone is.  Even the sweet officer that keeps the kiddos extra safe.  Katy Jane loves him. James always talks about the tunnels where they get to go play during the day.  He was super excited that we had a play date with some awesome new friends there Friday.  I loved to see him in his element.  He loved getting to show Jude around. Creepy weird flash eyes.  Yikes. I dressed Katy Jane in another one of the dresses from when I was a baby. She doesn't love to pose for pictures so I was happy to get one of her actually posing.  I bribed her with the pink purse.  Sucker!  I can't really blame her though.  She comes by it naturally.  I can't resist a good handbag either. She was super busy today.  She had dusting to do. And then the cooking of course. How she does it all, I'll never know.

Last week I went up into my parent's attic in search of some things from my childhood that I wanted the kids to see.  (Not that they care at this point, but someday, maybe).  While up there I ended up on  a very joyful, heart-breaking, question-answering, tearful, gut-wrenching, endearing trip down memory lane and into my precious Mother's past.  I wasn't looking for that but those moments will be ones I treasure for the rest of my life.  Her story isn't mine to tell, although I am trying to persuade her to write it down for me.  But I loved that time with my Mom.  James was up there with us for part of it and I loved the thought of 5 generations as we poured over these "treasures".  My great grandmother and grandmother's belongings, my mom, James, and me.  I never met my grandmother and only met my great grandmother when I was too young to remember her.  So to get to see their things was precious to me.  My Mother has painstakingly written notes and label

The new year has brought a lot of new fun for us. Well, except for this. This wasn't so much fun. Sometimes she mystifies me. Just when I got used to boys and how they express their feelings, God gave me a girl. She's lucky she has this guy on her side. She loves to read her Fancy Nancy books.  And she loves her "baayybeee". She has now transitioned to her big girl bed.  And 5 minutes from now she'll be all grown up and I'll cry.  Why is it going so fast?! ~~~~~ I'm blessed to have some precious friends that I've had for life.  Lindy is one of those life friends, or at least a good 82% of it.  (I actually did the math on that so it's fairly accurate and I'm a dork).  I met Lindy at church when I was 8ish.  Years of summer camps, Sunday school, youth group, passing notes during big church, and, maybe or maybe not, one awesome duet of "Friends Are Friends Forever" wearing matching outfits and dramatically raisi

Music-JJ Heller, When I'm With You

Ok, so wow!  I'm behind.  I'll start with Christmas.  Lots of unedited pictures.  Sorry about that.  We had a different kind of Christmas this year.  It was full of sweet memories though.               Is there anything better than Christmas morning with babies? After opening gifts, we headed over to Mom and Dad's.         Carrie, Andy, Morgan and Madison came last weekend to celebrate Christmas. My kids LOVE their new kitchens from Nana and Papa.     My girl loves her Papa.  Big time. I love when our family is in town. Sweet Aunt Care Care and Uncle Andy!