week 4 update

a day late, but with good reason...coach and nonna were in town! we've eaten at great restaurants, had beautiful weather all week long to play outside, and enjoyed some time with family and friends. enjoy :)

sticking to saturdays

for now, at least, i'm right on track...granted, it's only week 3, but here's this week's installment of the odenwald's project life:

and remember, if you click on the image, it'll get bigger so you stand a better chance of reading :)

this week has been a busy one, but one of many celebrations (another c, i might add) - not just the birthday celebration today, but celebrating the start of small groups and discipleship groups, as well as meeting weekly as a church in a building rather than crammed into a house.

we celebrate aunt b from afar as she is living on her own!! she moved yesterday, and although a part of me wishes i could have been there to help her move (but i've helped with many of her moves - in and out of places!), a bigger part of me enjoyed getting the texts throughout the day with pics interspersed to keep me updated. glad i could be involved even though i wasn't hands-on.

coolest thing...she's got my quilt on her bed!

so glad you like it, b...it looks like you (no, not literally - you know what i mean)!

project life

i'm trying a new type of scrapbooking this year that is quick and easy, done on a weekly basis, and still cute when i want to print a hard copy at the end of the year. check out our first two weeks of 2013:

pretty fun stuff, i think. eric hates it because i've been taking pictures of EVERYTHING we do. i even got one of him vacuuming last week. and i refrained from using it. yet. :)

i've carved out the saturday nap time each week to get our weekly page done; otherwise, i can see where it'll be july and i'm making up lost time by documenting our march happenings. so weekly on saturday afternoons, it is!

living life together

this afternoon, ellie and i had the opportunity to visit some of our church friends. i picked her up early at school (we snuck out before kaleb discovered my presence), and after swinging by home to pick up her doll, hally, we headed to emry's house. 

emry is the sweet ellie-aged daughter of our pastor, and is one of five siblings. but for the afternoon she was one of  two - and her baby brother was asleep so it was as if she were an only child for just a bit! the girls ran off upstairs to play dolls together, and were up there for a long while. older kids came home with other church kids in tow, and soon the house went from 3 kids to 9 - and that's when the real fun began! 

jada had made banana pudding for snack, and all kids converged around the kitchen island to dive into it. then off to play outside. that's right...after a seemingly endless gloom, today was bright and sunny and 67 degrees; it was perfect weather!

ellie had her first opportunity to jump on a trampoline and seemed to love it :)

and when it was time to go, emry very kindly (ok, much at the prompting of her mother) walked ellie to the door. ellie took off through the house to find her shoes, and emry hollered after her, "ellie! i am going to walk you to the door!" i interpreted it as, "my mama says a good hostess walks her guests to the door, so stop walking away from me so i can do this right!" jada and i had our laugh about this in the kitchen, and then couldn't find the girls. i opened the front door to find the girls sitting on the curb taking turns looking down the drainage run-off! we got in the car, and ellie asked, "why did we get to stay so long at emry's house?" i answered something to the effect of, "because we had some extra time this afternoon. was it fun?" "oh, yes. next, she needs to come to my house for a really long time. and then i can go to hers. and then she can come back to my house. and zambia (another church friend) will have to come over too."

the afternoon was filled with kids and some momentary craziness in getting everyone snacks and then calm for mommies to talk again and then a bit of craziness in trying to find a missing sock of ellies and then calm again. we made pudding. we washed dishes. i got to snuggle up with krae on a couple of occasions to give jada 2 hands to work with. no agendas, no pressures, nothing to accomplish other than spending time together. i picked her brain about homeschooling. she picked mine about crafting. we made future plans for the spare bedroom and one-day craft room...only half-serious :) 

i imagine this is what life might have looked like in acts...when it talks of the people sharing meals together and giving to meet needs. jada is organizing finding some furniture for a family in church who has very little. it was neat to hear of the resources pulled from our group - "i have such-and-such in my garage" and "i was looking for a home for so-and-so" and "here's a bit of a donation to go towards a great craigslist find" - and to be able and motivated to jump in and participate.

i kept fighting a feeling of guilt as i thought of the time we were wasting - she with 5 kids has to have more to do than hang out with me, and i've got a dishwasher and dryer that both need emptying, not to mention a grocery list to make and some crafting that i want to do. yet it seemed so right this afternoon to spend the time together. to do none of the things that usually seem to demand my time, but just to sit back in the fellowship of another mother to find some time of relaxation.

happy new year!

a little belated, i realize, but better late than never, right? i've been a stranger to this place for a few weeks - it's been so busy! despite my efforts to de-busy the holidays, they still seemed to get filled up with so many (SUPER FUN) things. so glad to have experienced it all, but also so glad to have a week or so of down time to unwind.

my 8-day vacay from work was WONDERFUL - it was so difficult to get up and be at work at 5.30am my first 2 days back. not ideal. i also got to spend part of the day new year's eve at home with the kids, and as much fun as all this time at home with kids sounds, it really was kind of a struggle the last couple of days. my kids appreciate their school routine more than any of us realized prior to this little school break. they thrive on structure and activities and classmates and teachers. THANK YOU to the wonderful women who guide my children on a daily basis. they went back to school wednesday without incident. eric reported kaleb didn't even turn back for so much as a "goodbye" he was so excited to be back among peers!

we've had a mostly low-key week around here. we've enjoyed many fires on the cold nights we've had all week. the kids have already gotten so much usage out of their new hats, and kaleb's really makes his hair crazy - so fun :) lots of snuggle time at bedtime - i am so thankful that both of my kids love to snuggle. it's a great part of parenting!

we're back on track with our saturday morning grocery shopping, complete today with a snack of fig newtons. yum-o! this year, our family is looking forward to many shared meals and other times with friends in our church and in our neighborhood as we continue to learn what it is to love God and love others. we are blessed beyond what words can express with all God's given, and we hope to use it all to His glory in our area of town. 2013 also brings about the start of kindergarten for ellie this fall (yikes!) and some serious potty-training for kaleb (yikes again!).