Elephunk....

*can you tell I couldn't think of a title for this Random Thoughts post?

*the kids are growing at a scarily rapid pace. 

*Caleb is doing/discovering new things every. single. day.

*that kid is furniture walking, walking behind his little school bus, feeding himself....

*how can we freeze time??

*I thought the milestones of the first child flew by, the second is at warp speed.

*I'm tired. always.

*I'm one of those blessed people that has a baby that's been sleeping through the night most of his little life.

*I'm still tired.

*Caleb turns one this month....in 10 days... 

*now I'm tired AND I want to cry

*how do we freeze time again??

*Someone told me the other day that they, "liked my style"

*I have style. news to me.

*but I'll tell you what people, ever since she told me this?? I've been stepping up my game. 

*compliments from people you barely know can motivate the crap out of you!

*poor Zach, he compliments me all the time and I'm all, "meh".

*must work on that.

*Walmart clearance section has been this girls BFF these last few days.

*3 Pairs of pants and 2 shirts for  about $30. BOOYA!

*yup, I just wrote booya. in caps no less.

*I bought a chambray shirt, which is pretty much a fancy way of saying a jean shirt. 

*I never thought I'd be that girl into "trends".

*apparently I am

*Zach is on his last day of a 19-days-with-no-day-off stretch

*Urology was supposed to be better hours-wise then other specialties he was looking at, but residency is residency. they don't discriminate with who they lavish crappy hours upon.

*why do I set myself up for failure and try to predict the future?!

*it helps to have friends who are in the same boat and "get it". It brings me strange comfort to know my friend Lisa is also in the middle of a no-days-off stretch with her husband, although she's one up on me. He's on a 20 day stretch. fun.

*leaning on the Lord and friends who get it, now that's how I make it through!

*and, you know, that whole keeping joyful business. ;)

the end.

Joy

So I've been seeing it all over the blog-world/Pinterest that people have a "word" for their year. Like 'purpose' or 'faith'. I thought it was lame until I noticed that I had a "word" and didn't even realize it. So I guess I'm joining the ranks of the lame.

In my (rare) crafty sessions I would use it in embroidery, use it in a random framed art thingy I made or write it on my chalkboard and it hit me (as I was discussing this word phenomenon with my friend Amy ) it was my "word". My word I feel like God has given me. 

* JOY * 

And yes, I'm going to be so bold as to say it's a word that God has given to me. I keep seeing it in verses I'm reading, hearing it in music I'm listening to.... everywhere. I feel like He is beating me over the head with it (in a good way!). Because, well, sometimes you just have to have it thrown in your face in order to finally get it.

Because when you have a husband that works a lot, when you're stuck in a house because you only have one car, when you don't have family around to help with kids, and on and on, "happiness" is fleeting. But joy?? 

Joy can be in you, in your heart, in the midst of all of that. 

And I'm trying people. Really trying (and failing... a lot), but I figure I have all year to get it right ;)

I have 'Choose Joy' written on my chalkboard and when Zach is texting me that he'll be late (again), or Aubrey happened to dump a bowl full of popcorn kernels all over my bedroom floor, or I've been stuck in the house for days on end?! I hear it in my mind or look up and see that dang chalkboard.

Why I wrote choose joy I'm not quite sure, but it is just that isn't it? We can choose to be joyful in the midst of any rough spot, happy or not. And I've been trying to remind myself of that lately.

And like I said, I'm trying. 

I'm a work in progress. 

I'm back, Jack.

(side note, I'm freaking excited for the new Duck Dynasty tonight!!!)
Moving on...

So, we're just not going to mention the fact that my last post was in November ok? Let's all just shake our heads at the absurdity of it and move on.

Excellent.
Apparently I need to be called out publicly on Facebook to get my act in gear enough to post. Now all three of you who read this know the secret to getting me to post. You're welcome.
Because it has been so stinkin' long since I posted I figure that I'd start back with a bunch of pictures of the kids. Always a nice segue if you ask me. Segue to what, I'm not sure. I keep thinking I'm going to get back into blogging properly, but I'm lazy. Yup. Too lazy, well maybe I'm tired. I'm going with tired, too tired to blog. ...that just sounds like another word for lazy. Forget it.
And on that note, I now will commence the schamozzle of unedited pictures that happen to be on my desktop. Man I put a lot of thought and effort into this. 

All these pictures tell me a few things:
1. Caleb is trouble. Cute, squishable, happy as I've ever seen any kid, trouble.
2. My kids love each other. A lot.
3. We have fabulous friends here in Georgia
4. Aubrey LOVED her first time skating
5. She is SO the daughter of a doctor
6. Aubrey is freakishly good at drawing kidneys

the end

Fall...

A few weeks back we went away for the night for Zach's thirtieth birthday. We decided to head in search of Fall and boy did we ever find it in Tennessee! We took a drive along the Blue Ridge Parkway in the Smokey Mountains and it. was. gorgeous. 

Take your breath away gorgeous. 

I don't know if it was the fact that we hadn't seen a mountain in over a year or what, but we were SO excited to see them. Coming from B.C. in Canada, mountains were taken for granted and I can honestly say that both Zach and I have grown a new appreciation for them!

And the trees....OH the trees! So Fallish and wonderful! 

I got some great shots of the kids too...

I mean, how cute are they?! LOVE these two :) 

Zach was super sweet and stopped at every rest stop I asked him to (and a bunch of places in between) and I got some fabulous pictures of the scenery.

What a good man.

We're already planning a trip back to the Smokey Mountains this Christmas so that we can see some snow! Poor Aubrey is just dying to build fort and make a snow angel. All we hear from her is, "I sure miss snow... but we live in Georgia and we don't get snow anymore" on a huff.

It's worth the 5 hour drive just to make her happy (although the car ride will inevitably make her grumpy!).

Surprise!!

BAAM! 

you just never know when i'm gonna pop up on this ol' blog :)

here I am on another friday night by my lonesome and i actually got the kids to bed at a decent time.

so here i sit with a coffee (because i woulda been asleep the minute those kiddos were if i didn't, it was THAT kinda day) and i thought i should whip up a blog post.

i actually got crafty today, aubrey and i made a fabric scrap christmas light garland...thingy-majig.

it turned out super cute and if i wasn't so tired/lazy right now, i'd upload the pictures and show them.

but i am (tired and lazy), so hot air balloon pictures from a week back it is!

i'll let the garland pictures come in my next surprise post ;)

we've been seeing this one hot air balloon flying around on the weekends and on our way home one night, we happened to finally see it close to our house (in gorgeous late evening lighting i might add! best. time. of. day. period.). zach being the fabulous fella he is, let me grab my camera from home and drove me back out to capture it. 

seriously, there is something SO breathtaking about a hot air balloon isn't there?!

my new official goal is to get to a festival and get pictures of dozens of them flying at once.

oooo and at night too! wouldn't that be glorious?!?

as we were driving back to the spot where the balloon was, we saw that it was landing and my heart sank. what are the odds that zach actually drove me back to get my camera and i missed it in flight?! but  i got out to take a few shots of it grounded anyway. after they unloaded some people, i noticed that they were taking off again. heavenly!! was all i could think....

don't you agree??

and this last one might be my favorite shot of the bunch. the moon was so bright in the sky, but it was still fully daylight. i could not have timed this whole thing better if i planned!

blissful :)

Looking Back....

I dug out my old external hard drive today. When I plugged that sucker in, I found a whole lotta wonderful...

Pictures from the Europe trip that Zach and I took right before we moved to Grenada.... back before this whole become-a-doctor business.... back before we had kids... we were pretty much still kids ourselves... anyway, moving on...

All these pictures were taken on a point and shoot and are nothing spectacular, but I edited them a bit and I just love them! It's probably the memories that are making them look even more fabulous to me.

I'll take it.

The first two shots were in Salzburg and the rest are from Venice.

Oh man my heart is aching to go back! It's been WAY too long and sadly it will be even longer until we get to go again.

Oh well, looking at old pictures will have to do for now

I. Miss. Europe.

"Never Gonna Craft Again"...

*my sister said i should change my blog title to that. i think she miiiighta been hinting at something, but astrid tends to be subtle with these things, so who knows....

*this post is kind of like a diamond.... it was created under of pressure....not because it's going to be some sort of gem. a gem it will certainly not be. i don't have a gem of a post in me. 

*my hundreds of fans (okay, 3) have been pestering me to write something. but what do you write when you can't think of anything to say?!?

*thus the perfect makings for a random thoughts post. i'm a random kinda gal, so this works out just fine for me.

*i've been a sad sad creature in the crafting/photography department as of late.

*we just had our friends ryan, meg and little asher here for a visit and not one picture was taken (except the terribly crappy phone camera variety).

*we had a fabulous visit with them, but they got a good dose of what it was like to have a husband in residency. zach was supposed to be home friday night, and all day saturday and sunday....NOPE. he was home for some of saturday and then all of sunday. oh well. what can you do?? these things can't be helped.

*on sunday zach told me, "sooooo, i probably wont see you guys until next sunday... this week's going to be crazy" ah yes, nothing like a comment like that to get you pumped for the week.

*on a happier note, i was baptized a few weeks back! 

*one of the most fabulous things was aubrey was there to see it. zach told me she yelled out, "that's my mama!' when she saw me get in the baptismal tank. TOO PRECIOUS!

*we didn't get to go to church this past sunday and i was watching our church on tv (yup, it's one of those mega churches) and they showed my baptism on tv! 

*this makes me all kinds of pumped! i was really hoping/praying it would be televised so maybe a non-believer would be able to see it and a seed would be planted in their hearts :) 

*caleb is sick. 

*having a sick 6 month old who already got an 'F' in sleeping is not fun. 

*what's worse than an F?? F-'?? he gets that. 

*my new favorite show is Go On. seriously, it's soooo good!

*oh matthew perry, so funny.

*not going to lie, i love me some breaking amish as well.... although the latest episode had the feel of jersey shore... might not make the cut anymore. oh the rogue amish getting into trouble.

*it's still hot here. seriously. october 16th and hot. everyone sick of me whining yet?! 

*i'm sick of having to still be whining about the weather.... cuz it's still hot....on october 16th. ugh.

*i think i'm going to ride this wave and go get crafty now. 

wish me luck....