An Elephant, a Retro Dino, and Yet Another Skunk

Halloween! Finally posting, with pics!

Okay this was a super easy costume year (well compared to last year anyway, when I was fabric-gluing felt petals onto a pillowcase to make Anneliese into the best little owl that a kid has ever been to her big brother Harry Potter, which was adorable but haaaaaard) so all I had to do was just... step kids into costumes and zip them up. No face paint, no sewing, no gluing, just the normal please. put. your. shoes. on. (x100) that happens anytime we leave the house.

So, they stepped, we zipped, and then we had ourselves the beginnings of an adorable zoo:

We put together our little menagerie, posed them for pictures, and went trick-or-treating around one block, as per our usual. Charlotte was surprised and delighted at every house, EVERY HOUSE, that she got a treat. She would turn around and (precariously) toddle down every house's steps, wide-eyed and grinning and saying tweeeeeeet!

I am officially sad that no one else gets to wear the skunk, actually. It has been retired, ready for a niece or nephew, done with our little family. But it was adorable while it lasted, and they all wore it so well!

They look so so alike, don't they? And also so different. Good grief I am full of predictable mommy cliches right now. I will stop.

At least this elephant has many more years of Bumgarner Halloweens in front of it (right Liam?) --

Oh, and here is another thing that is cute! Remember how we the stegosaurus costume came on loan from Iowa, because we have the best friends who have the best families? Yeah. That ended up being awesome. Here is Nathan wearing it, after Another Nathan wore it exactly twenty-five years ago today.

1988 and 2013

And that should be enough to make any Halloween curmudgeon smile, myself included.

Also, Rex dressed up. As another kind of dinosaur. So, that happened. (No, I do not know what kind, do not ask me what kind.)*

Happy Halloween!

*curmudgeon 

Day in Service. I Use the Word Lovely too Much.

Oh man. Y'all. I have had the loveliest busiest only slightly annoying day today. And finally I am home with a drinky drink. And really what I want to do is be snuggling with Marky but he has some work something or other that he needs to be doing for an hour, so here I am in blogland. How do you like being SECOND BEST, blogland? (Shut up you all love it.) (Who do I think I am talking to right now?)

Okay so my day.

Our church did this Day of Service thing for the first time where they set up like ten different service projects with organizations we help support around town, and people could sign up to do one, and then come back in the evening for a worship service. Lovely, right? Lots of churches do days like this and it is a great idea and so fun and I am glad we tried it. It wasn't like, perfect; I have Many Opinions on several parts of it, but I am trying not to get hung up on those, because they are nothing new, and I am just thinking about the lovely parts. It was lovely!

(Wait! It was called Church in Action! I should be calling it by the right name! CHURCH IN ACTION.)

Basically I got the best job of the day because I was making a slideshow video (yes, like all my birthday videos) (I can do exactly one format; it is all I know) for the gathering of worship that evening (no, my church is not the kind that normally shows slideshows, this is a special informal evening worship service we do once a month (with many exceptions) and how well we do it is one of the things I have Many Opinions about but this isn't the space for me to write through all that, mostly because I am not sure it is particularly interesting to anyone but me, and I am pretty sure there are at least three staff people from my church reading this right now, so. Not the forum.) (ANYWAY), so to gather pictures for said slideshow video I made an intriciate list/schedule of project locations and went around to them and took pictures all day and it was fun! So fun!

Here is where I start using the word lovely again.

It was a beautiful day out, and people were just... happy. Every room I went into, every place where I stopped, was just full of people laughing and there was this super ENERGY about it all. It's hard for me not to get caught in people's good moods in settings like that, and I did. A gym full of people in hair nets (sweet baby Nathan included) processing food packets. Pickup trucks full of people collecting bags of donations people left by their cars in the parking lot ("bumper crops!" you know that's cute). A classroom full of middle schoolers making hundreds of sandwiches. Preschoolers raking leaves at a community center. Sweet ladies and their granddaughters knitting blankets. Everyone laughing. Like, everywhere I went.

It was lovely and spirit-filled and lovely and happy and lovely.

And then I went back and had a frenzied hour of video editing and then got caught in a train of irritation about Things Not Going Right because nothing is ever perfect, but I am past that and back on the lovely train. And the drinky drink.

Oh! Pumpkins!

So, we carved pumpkins for the first time in many many years this weekend. I'm pretty sure I haven't done it since I've had kids. Like, none of my kids has ever had a jack-o-lantern. Wait what. Now that I put it in writing I feel terrible! (Eh. I feel like should feel terrible. But I don't really.)

Anyway, for whatever reason, this year we finally carved pumpkins.

You know, for the kids.

FOR THE KIDS.

Mark and Anneliese crafted a beautiful tiger paw. Anneliese's job was announcing that she and daddy were making a tiger paw pumpkin. While Mark made the tiger paw pumpkin. (Anneliese can always be counted on for the announcing of things. Especially if you need the things announced several times in a row.)

Nathan and Another Nathan carved a "traditional" pumpkin (with square eyes and rows of tiny teeth, AS TRADITION INDICATES) and... well actually Nathan basically designed it himself, so, hm actually that one was kinda for the kids. Grownups doing the tiny-teeth cutting labor, of course.

I wanted to make a Daniel Tiger pumpkin for Charlotte but I only got about one mangled ear into it before I gave up and I* made a smiley emoticon jack-o-lantern instead. For me. (*Another Nathan did a lot of, um... fixing.)

(Related: The internet is full of beautiful Daniel Tiger pumpkins, but what I would really like to see is a twitter hashtag or facebook album of everyone's mangled pumpkin Daniels instead. I am festive! Happy Halloween!)

Basically the best part of having jack-o-lanterns is that every time we pull in the driveway from being gone anywhere, even just for ten minutes, even though we have had them on the front steps for daaaaaays, Charlotte is surprised and downright DELIGHTED to see them. Oh! Punkins! Puuuunkiiiiins!!!

So, yeah. For the kids.

Cleaning Closets, Costumes, and Things That Don't Have Anything to Do With Anything

Well here is some more random miscellaneous blogging, since that is apparently the mood I am in this week. 

I cleaned out Charlotte's closet on Monday (all the closets, actually) and somehow I unearthed a bin of Feelings, including the church bulletin from the day she was baptized, congratulations cards from when Anneliese was born, and a baby blanket embroidered with Nathan's name. (I am a ruthless purger, but the things I do save, I save with organization.) (All the better to make me catch my breath and try not to cry when I am cleaning closets. It's a good system.) 

I am thrilled to set aside boy clothes for Liam and girl clothes for Nick and Barbara's baby on the way (have I said they are having a baby? They are! A baby girl! SQUEE) but still, something about sorting through things for MY last baby feels... different. 

Heavy. Quiet.

But this was not meant to be a melancholy post! So! *brisk clap!* 

In sorting through hand-me-downs from Anneliese, Charlotte did find a new winter hat to obsess over. So that was cute. Maybe the old one will go away now?

we took a selfie in the closet, obviously

In other closet-finds news, I think we are all set for Halloween costumes. And by we I mean the kids, not us, because as someone who doesn't love dressing up, one of the benefits of having kids is that I can dress them up and no one accuses me of not being festive for not being in a costume myself. (Although, truthfully, I'm not really festive. Halloween is not my favorite. It interferes with my birthday! Or something. Costumes annoying blah blah whatever.) (Am a super articulate blogger today.)

Anyway Charlotte will be a skunk like her brother and sister before her. When I pulled the costume out, I saw the price tag still attached (thank you for the $5 Marshall's find, 2007 Marmie!) which means I have never washed it. Maybe I should do that. (Foreshadow alert: I probably won't.) 

And Anneliese picked out a firefighter costume (fighter-fighter!) and insisted she definitely one hundred percent wanted to be that over the racks of princesses and animals and the zillions of other things she has requested to be for Halloween over the last year (a reindeer! Actually Santa! Actually... a princess. Actually Santa Claus Cinderella.* Actually Olivia the Pig! Actually a butterfly. Actually an angry bird. Actually, actually, actually, actually a fighter-fighter!) so I turned on my Very Serious Mommy Eyes and made her swear and promise not to change her mind. And then I purchased it. And THEN (of course!) promptly found an elephant costume in her size in the closet (also from Marmie from Ashley, I remember it now). So that was a fun little crow-eating conversation. (The fighter-fighter went back to Costco. She is thrilled with the elephant. Took a nap in it. Sweated up a storm. In related news, I should probably now wash that one too.) (Foreshadow alert: I probably won't wash that one either.) 

Nathan is going to be a... (wait for it) (you will be shocked) (you will never guess)... dinosaur. Wait. You saw that coming, right? But here is an unexpectedly hella sweet twist: so, Another Nathan's mom made him a dinosaur costume circa like 1989, and said costume still not only still exists but has been shipped here from Iowa (because yes they are that kind and good) and fits our Nathan perfectly. And if you think there is anything cuter than a little boy in glasses wearing a hand-made green stegosaurus costume previously worn by someone he looks up to and adores, YOU WOULD BE WRONG.

So I am officially excited for Halloween (as excited as I ever get, anyway) and my menagerie of adorable children. 

On a related note (kind of) (well it is sort of about house organization so just go with it), Mark is super ready to refresh our fridge pics. Move old ones, add new ones, etc. And I have been meaning to forever, I even made a folder on the computer for pics that would be fun to print and put up. But I just can't make myself do it. I like how these pics have been gradually accumulated. I have come to like the cluttered homey family feel of it. (I never thought I would be this person. Good grief who am I.) 

Eh I will re-do it soon. And the new pictures will make me smile too. And probably I will love having it a little more orderly. This is a very back-burner project, til some day when I suddenly can't take it anymore and I just do it. (That day might be sooner than I think, now that I have blogged about it.)

On a completely unrelated note, Nathan came downstairs this morning clutching his favorite sweater and asking if it was cool enough to wear it, and that's apparently the story of how my six-year-old has somehow morphed into a person who gets excited for sweater weather. 

He will become the one who loves fall as much as his Uncle Brad. I see pumpkin spice lattes in his future. (Oh who am I kidding, he sneaks sips of my coffee already, now.)

Okay I have been writing this post for way too long so I will just end by saying (randomly) (because it doesn't have anything to do with anything, which, as we have established, is the theme of my blogging week) I am having to hold back my Christmas feelings already. I am more excited than I even want to admit, considering it's still October and it wasn't too many weeks ago I was giving the world a bunch of crap for forcing pumpkin beverages on me in the heat of summer. I come from a family who waited til after my parents' and sister's birthdays to put up a tree, never ever before December 12th. We don't rush it. I don't like rushing it. I don't do Christmas before December! Before Advent! Not before Thanksgiving, and definitely not before my birthday. WHAT. But, it is creeping in. The shopping ideas. The festive foods. I don't want to be sick of it when it is actually here so I am forcing it down, but... it is coming. 

*Yeah I don't know either.

Daily Me

I found this drawing of me in the back of one of Nathan's (many) notebooks:

Brb, going to change all my social media profile pics now.

Ten Lighter Things

Well, here are some happy things from last week:

1.) Anneliese got a bracelet craft kit for her birthday (amongst other craft kits, including a picture frame kit, which she bejeweled and bedazzled and bestickered, then insisted on using to display the came-with-the-frame cat, of course) so now we are all proud owners of sticker-covered glitter bracelets. Nathan and Charlotte love wearing theirs. Anneliese loves that they love it. This totally seems like the kind of middle-kid thing Ashley would have done as a child too.

2.) Charlotte has perked up considerably.

3.) Yellow belt!

4.) Last week, Another Nathan was out of town so I snuck over to his house and took a real! live! bath! (oh how I miss the awesome bathtub in our old house) (I didn't sneak really, I had his full permission of course) and read my book and got a little drunk on the quiet. I took a picture but then decided it was maybe too intimate to post. Not because I have any issues with my bare toes in bubbly water, but because posting a pic from someone else's bathroom seems violating. Then everyone would know what kind of shampoo he uses! That ish is personal! (It's Dove for men.) Anyway it was lovely perfect indulgent alone time. You should all get friends with empty houses, and then get them to give you the keys. (And then blog about their shampoo.)

5.) Anneliese is now the proud owner of rainbow leg warmers, which she wears almost constantly, often taking off her pants to put them on. You know, to keep her legs warm. (She will not hear a word of actual reason about this. Whatever.)

6.) Nathan got off the bus today doing this:

(For you non-locals, that is the sign for NC State's Wolfpack, and also the sign that his Raleigh upbringing is catching up to his Clemson blood, something that Marky is not super thrilled about but I find a little amusing.) (And by amusing, I mean go, go Paladins!)

7.) Speaking of Clemson, or orange, or making their Daddy proud, or something -- I got Anneliese a new jacket, since the one I was planning for her to wear all winter is at least four inches too short in the sleeves (am a super smart mom over here), and she chose this orange color which it turns out I love almost as much as Mark does.

8.) The cooler weather means Bowden is super snuggly and I do not hate it at all.

9.) We went somewhere last week (flu shot? maybe? I can't remember) and somehow Charlotte ended up with armfuls of stuffed animals, mostly Nathan's (in case that isn't obvious), and she would not put them down. Carried them around for hours.

Waaaaaait this actually might have been the day before she got super sick. Should the sudden insatiable need for snuggles have been a clue? Hmmmmm.

10.) Nathan likes the leg warmers too. Although Anneliese will only ever let him borrow one at any given time. One. Seems reasonable.

(Bonus points for me, for a sleeping-Marky picture.)

Nervous, Then Heavy. (This Post is a Winner.)

I have had a weird night and a weird day.

Last night I was all ready to climb in bed bed except there were people outside. Not really doing anything, or anything wrong, I guess, but... out there. And loud. Yelling or talking or joking or fighting, I couldn't tell. And I mostly ignored it but then they sounded so close so I looked out the window and they were in my yard. (I think they came from next door.) (We have a local quasi-celebrity now living next door. So far it is not my favorite.) 

Anyway normally I like to pretend like I am full of bravado or something, but I am not, really. And I was home alone and I felt nervous. Too nervous to even just open the door and tell them to get off my lawn (also I would like to think I am about forty years too young to say such a thing). So I let it go a few more minutes hoping they would go away, and they didn't, and then they were on my porch and being so loud and saying something about the pool and oh lord, I just couldn't deal (also! they woke up my babies!) and I should have been more angry or indignant or fighty or something, but I was just... nervous.

So I called the police. Apparently that is a thing I do.

And the cops came and (I guess) chased them off and didn't need ring my doorbell for a report or anything (I guess), and then it was over. Except I laid around in bed all night paranoid they would come back and be pissed that I had called the police, and like... get me. 

Why am I scared of people? What is going on with me? (Or with the world?) I was so nervous!

(Also part of the reason I was lying there sleepless because Anneliese was in my bed and even after her fear had subsided, she was very very awake.)

So I slept maaaaaaaybe an hour or two all night and then got up for church and took a cold shower because of course something was going wrong with the hot water heater after a long miserable tired scary night of course it was.

And then church was a little bit womp-womp, in that two hard-ish things happened (I don't want to be too church venty, but here is the bare bones of it): 

1- The youth choir I help with sang in worship and it was smooth enough I guess, kind of, but took no small amount of teeth-pulling, and I just feel very over nagging teenagers these days, which probably isn't fair because some of them are perfectly wonderful responsible commitment-keeping people, but some of them are harder, and that is where I am with teenagers right now.  

2- Without being too specific (I hope this isn't cryptic and annoying; I want to say it, but I don't want to say it) I heard people saying hard things about this one faltering group at church, and it turns out some of their solution slash complaints (if there were ever a people full of complaints pretending to be solutions, it is a Certain Type of Church Lady) directly involved me, personally.

And then I got home from church and p-neu Charlotte coughed, like p-neu babies are wont to do, but with a bite of waffle in her mouth, and suddenly WHOA WHOA CHOKING. I was panicking and hand-flapping and trying to remember whether to heimlich her from behind or by thumps on the back (which is it? she just turned two! I should know these things!) when she vomited everywhere and then rejected my tearful snuggles in favor of finishing her waffle while pointing at the mess. Mess! Mommy! Mess! Yeah kid, you yarf in the high chair right after giving mommy an almost-heart-event, the mess is going to be a mess.

You know that thing where you use the
front camera to see if your baby is sleeping?
Her pneumonia makes me do a lot of that.

And also it is suddenly cold outside which makes moving and getting things done feel so slow and hard for me. (It's like 50 something. I know it's not that bad. But it is enough to make me feel slow.)

I want to write about how I also have Feelings remembering the weird and terrible fall after Charlotte was born, and how carrying those memories makes me feel heavy and I wish I didn't have them, but I just... right now... decided I am tired of writing about blah things, so this post is about to turn around: 

Marky pulled in the driveway home from his road trip at just the right time and hugged me and hugged Charlotte and was properly indignant at the beer bottles he found in the front yard from the visitors last night, and sometimes husbands are just the best.

Rainbow Party

Ahhhh! Okay y'all this rainbow party for Anneliese was the cutest little party I have ever had. (Note: I have only done about three real parties. Out of a combined twelve birthdays for all my babies. Whatever.) I am starting to move past my previous mindset of "oh just a playdate with cake" because doing something with a little theme* is fun. Yeah I said it.

So, Anneliese asked for a rainbow birthday party (well, a rainbow number party, which, um... ???) so I went ahead and made it my mission to Pin All The Things. And then I executed a tiny few of them. And she freaking loved it.

One of her favorite things was her party outfit, which I will never be able to top, so I don't even plan on trying ever again:

My friend Jeanine (the crafty one who taught VCS with me this summer) made the skirt from jersey t-shirt material. Isn't it incredible?? And my friend Meghan (whose mom and aunt run a craft business, yes really) made the 4 shirt happen.

Hattie got a rainbow embellishment to wear for the party too:

I made some rainbow-ish food (turkey wraps with cream cheese, fruit kabobs, and water with rainbow paper taped over the labels) (yes, I taped paper to water bottles) (I don't even know who I am anymore).

(We forgot to eat the fruit at the party, but the good news is my kids' lunch boxes got stepped up in craftiness for the next week.)

We made cute little gift bags and lined them up on the mantle. Mark loves to tease me about gift bags on the mantle. It just increases my resolve to always, every year, from now til forever... make gift bags and put them on the mantle. So there.

Inside the bags there were rainbow-y things. Hmm let me try to remember... rainbow crayons and pencils, some scratch-paper bookmarks, little notepads, stickers, and these really-cute-if-I-say-so-myself bundles of m&ms.

(Side note: in case you were wondering if bags of m&ms come with equal amounts of each color, they do not. There exists a paucity of red m&ms in our world, and I survived rainbow party prep to live and tell about it.) (It also makes me annoyed at myself for how hard I hunted for purple knockoffs to complete the rainbow when it turns out red was my problem. Red! Who knew.)

Oh and also in the favor bags, these fun sunglasses. I probably didn't order them from the pride parade section. Probably.

We decorated the deck with streamers and balloons, the better for non-ugly dried bushes photo backgrounds (pinterest didn't make me no dummy), and set out fun colorful things to do: rainbow-dyed pasta for making necklaces, a spin art machine, scratch paper to make bookmarks, and pumpkins to paint. LOOK AT ME EMBRACING CRAFTS.

Anyway so the children did crafts and chalked on the sidewalk (look at that awesome rainbow Charlotte drew all by herself!) (HA HA NO), and Mark and Another Nathan let me boss them around (also, please note that Nathan took all the beautiful pictures in this post, and the crappy ones are from my phone), and then Anneliese opened presents and everyone played on the playset out back for a bit.

Then we had cake.

And can I just say, this cake was a thing of beauty.

 I am so proud of it. I looove how it came out. Please praise me for the rainbow cake, is what I am saying.

(I made a tye-dye version of it when Nathan was two, but this stripey one was so much prettier, I think.)

So, yeah. The party was adorable, and I loved doing it, and she loved having it, and we loved watching her love it. And she is still loving it, a week later, with the banner of balloons from the deck now hanging in her bedroom. The whole thing was sweet and fun and so very... Anneliese.

*Apparently the lego party was my gateway party. I... cannot disagree with that, actually.

P-Neu Charlotte and Daniel and Unrelated Things

I promise to post rainbow birthday party pics soon (it was super! so super!) but I am still sorting through them and we have been Anneliese-heavy over here for a while anyway, so in the meantime I will talk about Charlotte and tell you it has been A WEEK with this little girl who was somehow fine on Sunday but at the hospital getting IV fluids and steroids by Tuesday, to help her feel better in her most recent bout with pneumonia, her second this year, because something something delicate flower something. (!!!)

But! They did not have to admit her; her breathing/oxygen saturation got better over several hours of observation in the ER, so we are managing her at home (her fever took forever to come down, but it is down now, so we'll take it) and she seems... mostly fine, actually. Whatever croup virus she had just ran the eff away after a round of steroids, and besides a maddening (AND UNNECESSARY, IT TURNS OUT) chase for discharge charts for her follow-up the next day, which enraged me and is the only thing to finally push me to tears about all of this, the whole thing was less eventful than it could have been. And it gave us a reason to affectionately say p-neu some more this year, so there's that.

But enough about sickness. Let's be sweet and easy, shall we? Look who Charlotte found at Toys R Us last week!

Yep, Daniel toys are officially available for sale. Yep, I told Santa. Yep, it was as adorable in real life as it is in these pics. (She calls him something like Day-uhw. I melt. MELT.)

Also, please to admire her in these two new outfits I can't quit. I want to hug her and squeeze her even more than usual in these.

Yes I made her take pics. Yes she was glad to. (She is my kid who is almost always glad to take a pic. SHE ACTUALLY SAYS CHEESE.) And yes she gets her hair from her big sister.

Hey speaking of new things (were we?) (kinda) look at this beautiful new sleeve for my chromebook! It is beautiful padded grey felt with a yellow band, because Etsy is super.

I don't know why I rested it in my boobage for that photo. Sorry. Not sorry enough to take a new pic though, this one is already on the computer, so.

Aaaaand I can't end a post with computer boobage, so back to Charlotte, my picture-compliant child, because it isn't a day until we've taken some selfies together (don't judge, we don't do it every day) (we totally do it every day).

Happy Birthday, Anneliese!

Anneliese is officially four years old! And officially wonderful. I can't believe how much she has grown up over the last year. And I don't just mean the tooth, or the hair metamorphosis. She has become a really cool big kid.

A year of memories with our happy outgoing silly middlest baby:


(If you can't see the embedded video, click here to watch it on YouTube.)

Happy birthday, dear Anneliese. Happy birthday to you.

(Years past: first, second, third.)

A is for Almost Four

This little girl who four years ago right now was still comfortably hanging out inside me, mocking any pretense of a due date, is now suddenly not a baby, and not a toddler, but a kid. See?

Well, I shouldn't say suddenly. Anneliese has seemed... old (?) for some time now. Articulate, outgoing, tall enough to tower over the other kids in her class. I have been asked more often in the last few months if she and Nathan are twins than any other time so far in their lives. (Still hard for me to remember she is actually closer to Charlotte's age than Nathan's. Weird.)

Anyway, she is growing up. And instead of feeling all sappy and sad about the passage of time, I am sitting here feeling soaring happy thoughts about her. The exhausting horrible season of defiance and toddler frustration is really and truly over. She still has naughty maddening days, because hello, she's three, and they are just days. And in the middle of that she is downright delightful.

She loves dress-up and dancing and she sings pretty much constantly. To the radio, in church, when someone else is singing, when she knows the words and when she doesn't. The girl knows how to make a joyful noise.

She is bright and speaks well, but hasn't quite shaken the toddler habit of not getting words quiiiite right: Firefighters are fighter-fighters. Backpacks are still pack-packs. Our current season is falling.

She has been looking forward to her birthday for months. Mostly since Nathan's and Charlotte's at the end of the summer, but also kind of since her last birthday. She really loves birthdays. Like really really loves them. More than anyone I have ever known except her Aunt Ashley. She told me last week in the grocery store, in her most serious voice, I am just so excited for my birthday I can't even believe it. And then proceeded to sing her way through the rest of our errands, I love birthdays, I love birthdays, in some made-up tune because that's just... what she does. Sometimes I forget to appreciate how adorable she is because I am so used to it.

Also, clearly, she remains the best shopping buddy I have ever given birth to.

She isn't doing much (any) reading or writing yet, but she is starting to recognize letters. With every A she encounters, she proudly proclaims A is for me! Yes, they are. Every single A for you, baby girl.

So, yeah. She is pretty great these days. Still sometimes a pain in the butt, but a pain made of glitter rainbows, so we will take it.

And while I don't feel terribly sad about the passing of time as she hits another year older, I am, predictably, full of sweet and sappy thoughts about her birth and newborn days. A daughter! I had wanted a daughter so badly! And then I had one, I had her! My daughter! And four years later she is this awesome funny silly bright little person, and she is our person, our Beanie, our Anneliese, and good grief do we love her.

What I Come Home To: Shining Faces

I am home from Charleston and I will tell more about it (I met internet friends! They are now just regular friends! I saw Brad! I drank new drinks!) but not right now.

Not because I need to sit on it or anything, I am just hitting the ground running with real life, and other things to think about this week (mostly that my middlest baby is almost four!) -- but for now, I am happy to kiss these sweet faces and gently hug my one-armed husband who apparently developed mixed feelings about sling compliance while I was gone, but I guess if you're lone wolfing for a long weekend while injured, so your wife can drink by a pool, your wife should probably keep her mouth shut about sling compliance so this is me shutting up LOOK AT MY PRETTY BAYBEEEZ I AM HOME.

Catching Up: Some Broke-Ass and Some Lovely

Whoa I am so behind I almost don't know where to start, so hey how about I just going to jump right in with the single biggest thing that has been going on the past few weeks:

-- Mark had surgery on his broke-ass shoulder. The surgery day was a flurry of logistics and helpful friends and plans and backup plans, and involved Anneliese and me sitting for hours in a waiting room, and the days that followed were a flurry of meds and med schedules and Mark dozing in and out of real life from the recliner in our living room, since he couldn't do much else, including lie down flat. But life is coming back to normal! The surgery went well, and besides needing some pregnant-lady drugs to quell his post-anesthesia nausea, he has had no real problems.

The kids were super sweet to him in recovery though. Anneliese offered up Hattie during her own naptime (!) to help Daddy sleep.

And Nathan stuck a note in his lunch box for his first night back to work.

 The hard part now is he will be in a sling for a MONTH and it is his RIGHT shoulder. But he says he can do all the kids alone (he can't pick up Charlotte easily, but maybe he won't have to? and he says he can do her seat belt buckle once she climbs in?) and I am choosing to believe him because I really really want to go to Charleston this weekend as originally planned. So, three cheers for Mark, flying solo, with one arm and three kids! (Three cheers and a prayer. No really.)

-- The van got broke-ass too. One day after Mark's surgery, like, the very next day, the van started driving all wonky and turrible and the end result was a tow truck hauling it a way to put in a whole new transmission while Mark and I watched, while crying tears full of dollar signs. (I'm still going to Charleston.)

-- We went to a fall festival. A church down the road from our church had a little fair, and in the interest of getting the kids (read: Mark and his broke-ass shoulder) out of the house, we loaded them up and went. It was sweet!

Full of just what you'd expect: a fire truck and ambulance for the kids to visit, face painting, a barbecue food truck, raffles and a bake sale, bounces houses that your toddler gets stuck on the top of til your sling-armed husband climbs up for rescuing which is probably an approved post-op activity, right? (PICTURE ME MAKING WIDE EYES.) Look at the pictures of my children's face paintings so you don't think about how bad that could have been.

-- We got new hymnals. In some worlds, this would be the most uninteresting thing a person could mention, but lucky for you, I don't live in that world, because I am nerdily excited about this thing. It has been in the works for years, the first new hymnal in decades, and they are a beautiful shade of purple and full of beautiful songs set in a beautiful font, and they smell good too. Yeah I said it.

Also a nice lady from church, who also went to Furman, who was/is a harp teacher there (yeah she travels a lot) paid for a ton of copies of the new hymnal, and look what I found in the front of mine in the choir room the first night we got to use them:

Y'all. That is so lovely. It made me smile for days. So lovely!

Hey remember that time I blogged about hymnals? I stand by that decision.

-- I am not having a super day today. I am in a frenzy getting things ordered/ready for Anneliese's rainbow birthday party next weekend, getting laundered and packed for my trip to Charleston this weekend, and trying to stay on top of everything at the house too (Mark usually does SO MUCH, y'all. So much. Him being in a sling just reminds me of that and makes me feel thankful for him). Anyway I feel chaotic and I should make a bunch of lists to make myself feel more in control but even that feels like too much so I am blogging about church fairs and bouncy houses and hymnals instead, because obviously.

Also all my bras hurt. Like the boning in the side is digging into me at the bottom. Did I wash them wrong? Are my straps just not doing their job? Why did they all change at once? Did the metal (plastic?) piece slip out of some end of the faric? Is this better or worse than blogging about the super smell of my new hymnal?

Also I can't believe I am saying this (warning! heresy ahead!) but I am almost convinced that life is easier when my kids don't nap. I mean, the evenings kinda suck when they are overtired and at their limits. But fighting the girls to stay quiet in their rooms when they just don't want to, and aren't super tired, is making us all miserable. I can stomach it for about an hour and then watching them color together down here in the bonus room while I type or read or whatever is... well, easier. I can't give up on naps altogether, though, because A- Charlotte legitimately still needs it, and B- I still want to be able to reserve the right to send them all to their rooms for alone time when *I* legitimately need it. So I'm in nap limbo. Super decisive about it too, can you tell?

Okay I will just be over here making all those party and packing lists now. Happy October!