E & V.

Just a few shots of Eli and Vivi (who is six weeks older than Eli but about ten pounds lighter)!

Cousin Love.

They both LOVE to get thrown up in the air by their daddy's.
Also, check out that marvelous staircase!

"Don't cry, cousin. I didn't mean to eat all your food."

I asked them to give me their best deer-in-headlights look.

We faced Eli's car seat around for the first time and these two had some fun "talking" together.

-Heather

K Fam Zoo Takeover.

We had less than 24 hours with the China crew in Columbia... but we made sure a zoo trip was had! Great memories with these precious ones!

First stop: parakeets!

My great SIL working it with a parakeet nesting on her head!
Also, Marian was not a fan of these loud birdies!

If those other people weren't there, this would be a great photo of Vivi talking to this bird.

Da Boys!

Uncle Love.

Vivi saw me bend/squat down like this to take her photo...
all weekend she kept imitating me like this!

Isaiah is quite timid but I caught him take a quick pet of  Mr. Giraffe.
Marian did love these animals and would have spent all day there giving them lettuce.

This sweet, timid boy did brave the ropes thing with his uncle...
though they didn't venture too high!

This is the face he made at our traditional stop at the koalas.

-Heather

The Four.

We delight in all of our nieces and nephews. We get to see our three stateside nieces occasionally (once/twice per year) though not often enough. But our two nieces and two nephews that live in China... well that's only once every three years. Sigh.

So our long weekend with them was delightful. Crazy. Insane. Loud. Joyful.

I loved being able to watch, in person, how they are growing and shaping and becoming. Such personalities!

I have a barrage of photos to share. But I wanted to share four individual shots of our little people first.

Isaiah - 6 years old

Marian - 5 years old

John - 3 years old

Vivian - 18 months old

Sweet.Ness.

Isn't this precious?

So grateful for these four and their parents. Especially grateful that we will have one more weekend with them soon that we hadn't planned on (which made saying goodbye on Monday easier)! We also get a few weeks over Christmas with all Greg's immediate family. Treasure!

We love you four and are grateful for how the Lord is shaping each of you!

-Auntie Heather

Cousin Love.

Isn't this so sweet?

And Jill around means I'm actually in some photos!

More to follow!

-Heather

What's Missing?

Us!


-Heather

Thanks, Betsy, for the photo!

Check.

Today I figured out how to use my food saver machine (see line in post below). I need to find an old to-do list just so I can have that euphoric, marvelous feeling of crossing it off.

You listy people with a thing for completion know what I mean. Done. Check. Bam.

Perhaps I should list my outstanding to-do's on the blog so that I'm more motivated to get 'er done?

Na, that's a little TMI.

Not only did I get that done today, but I just made one huge batch of apple crisp, one apple pie and one apple crumb pie to freeze for the next weeks.

While Eli and Greg were out doing yard work (man time) and I was fluting my crust, I had a missing Maelee moment. How wonderful would Saturdays be with her in the kitchen with me, showing her how to make pie crust, talking about the great women bakers that she comes from? In our matching sweet aprons?

Miss that girl and all that we could have had as a mother/daughter duo.

I also had a moment of recognizing how much work it is to core/peel/slice apples... without that little doo-hicky of a machine. I want that. Mom, can I have yours?

And before I put my pie in the freezer (using my MIL's recipe), my darling of a husband gave me quite the compliment "it looks just like my mothers". Now the true test is if it tastes like his mothers... but I'm only 30. I need to bake about 500 more pies to even get remotely close to that status!

-Heather

Lists.

I am a list person. To the extreme.

I have always been a list person. My dad loves to recall the to-do lists I would make as child. Back then, I'd have them right down to the minute "9:05 - 9:13 tidy up a bit" and so forth. I'm really not exaggerating. It was pretty bad. I spent way more time writing lists than actually doing anything.

And um, I think I still struggle with that. I have a notebook that I've been writing all my lists in and I have a lot of un-crossed-off line items. Page after page I just keep having to rewrite the same thing because I'm not getting it done. Of course I have to start new lists, half-completed lists are no way to start my day. I swear I've written "figure out food saver machine" on my to-do list for nine months.

Today I had a little freak out moment in accepting that I cannot get all I want to done. I cannot do everything I want. If I only did what I wanted to do every day, maybe I could try to master my lists. But if I want to be a good mom, I'm not going to accomplish as much every day. I will not get to complete everything.

Why this epiphany? Eli has been consistently having a two-hour afternoon nap every day. It's been great. I was getting pretty confident in this schedule, this long stretch of daily me-time. Today? Today Eli took one 45-minute nap. That's it. And I had such a looong list for my time today. Some boring things (make appointments, go through mail), some fun things (finish Eli's personalized family board book, work on free photo book, get my autumn decor out), some needed things (make supper, use up fresh stuff before it goes bad/find recipes, pick up Cheerios from floor) and on and on.

I have to choose, then, what gets done each day. What's important. I want a nice completed to-do list every day. But I need to accept that in this stage of life, that's probably not going to happen. And that's okay. [This is me telling myself that's okay.] I have an Eli and I'm a stay-at-home mom and that's pretty fan-flippin-tastic. I get to be gloriously busy and overwhelmed.

Sidenote: I do choose to do some selfish things to keep me sane like Pinterest and blogging and facebook... I could cut those out and get some more stuff done, but for now, the good of those outweighs the loss of time. Usually.

So I was going to edit this photo. I have quite a bit of photos to edit and organize, actually. And well, it's not going to happen anytime soon. So you get this really gray-ish photo. Oh well. It's us. Happy, blessed and glad to be alive.

Now who is going to come clean up these Cheerios?

-Heather

Apple Picking.

Growing up we had a crab apple tree. Every other year it had a butt-load of tart, tiny apples. Excellent pies and crisps and other desserts but usually not awesome off-the-tree goodness.

Yesterday I learned that if there were a competition in my soul of North vs South, the South would win in apple growing/picking category.

We spontaneously went apple picking yesterday. We drove to the mountains for a few hours. We were heading to a yummy bakery and were gladly sidetracked by the you-pick apple place. The orchard is huge. There were a ton of people there. Granted many were standing in a line as long as a football field to get apple cider doughnuts... which we did not get this time (oh man did they smell good).

They have probably 10-15 different types of apples growing on acres and acres of land tucked on one of the first mountains you hit shortly after you enter North Carolina from I-26.

Do you see him in there?

I was determined to find one I could reach that was good enough to pick...thankfully they had short trees full too!

At one point, Eli face planted into the ground. It was hard walking on a mountain with apples all over the ground to trip you up.

Apple Orchard + Mountains = Family Photo Op!

So peaceful!

I also learned that I don't ever want to go picking without Greg. His tallness and abnormally long arms are prime for picking! He did get stung once by a hornet so it wasn't without its pain.

We (mostly Greg) picked almost a 1/2 bushel of apples (whatever that is) and it cost $14. Here's most of our loot (minus the few we've eaten):

Ya'll should be glad I don't have a smart phone and Instagram. Seriously. There would be so many apple photos this week.


-Heather

Happy 2nd Birthday Ava Maelee Linn!