I'm gimped up today because I was trying to be a fun mom outside yesterday and pulled? tore? my hip flexor. Lesson learned. No more fun momming. Only boring momming from here on out.

But this is good, I'm telling myself because it's forcing me to really slow down. Like to a hobble. And if there's one thing that's become increasingly clear to me in my thirties: we are bad at slowing down.

This has served us well in some right because I really like what we've done. But between businesses and babies. We tired.

Jacob is juggling all the things and building our third AirB&B cabin.

We're really enjoying this business (you can catch our listings HERE and HERE) which is good. When we started we knew we were excited to build stilted cabins, but we didn't know how we would feel about running a hospitality business. Turns out making money helping people relax and then reading reviews about how much they love what you've built is pretty awesome. So...come visit us!

People ask if Jacob builds the cabins himself, and the short answer is: yes. He can do all the things and it is amazing to me, but whenever I gush about it I think of this Portlandia skit, and then I feel ridiculous. We try to hire subs as much as possible to make things go more quickly, but he pretty much does it all himself. So dreamy.

So Jacob's average day might look like chainsawing in a tree, then taking a work call up in a tree, then texting his wife about the four Cara Caras flying around, then texting his wife again asking if she's picked the tile for the cabin bathroom, then heading in for school pick-ups, then stopping by his brother's new juice bar in town to help install some shelves, then coming home to help navigate babies while we get dinner on.

My days are equally hustley except they look a lot more domestic. I'm doing my darndest to soak up the baby, smell the proverbial roses, and fish the literal paper out of her mouth.

Because (SURPRISE!) we had a baby! It's a nine month old!

Basil Gracie is everywhere and into everything and delights us all the time. She's taking after her parents and doing all the things at once. Last week she had a bad cold, cut her first tooth, and started sleeping through the night. She's been crawling and pulling to standing for a few months now, so she's setting family records. She claps and is also doing this strange thigh-hitting thing which I think is her version of a wave.

She saves her biggest grins for her siblings, and we're all sappy in love with her.

Roman especially loves her which is good because man has that boy been a stinker recently.

He turned four and immediately started behaving like a three year old. I think the parenting experts call it "pushing limits."  I tell him to come and he sprints the other way. I pick him up and he'll try to headbutt me. And his eyes get wild with dangerous excitement whenever he gets a chance to disobey. He's also been sassy. The other day he called me "dumb" and then insisted that he wasn't name-calling because he'd actually said "jumb."  (-_-)

So Romie is Wreck-it-Ralphing limits right now with a side of teenage girl thrown in.

But then he'll do the sweetest thing that has ever been done in the world. Like ask me to button up his shirts so his "heart won't get cold." Or tell me he wants to spend the last five minutes before bed time hugging Basil.

Then I just want to snuggle right into his rock solid smooshy little boy body.

And so I hit publish for the first time in over a year on these little bits of nothing. Enjoy the flowers before the frost!

Quick Takes: Katie Talks Life Essentials or something

I posted a picture of a cup of this tea on my instagram, but I can't stop talking about it so here we go again.

When I reached out for tea recs a few weeks ago, multiple people recommended this and I was so skeptical. I've tried so many kinds of turmeric tea and really disliked them. Nor am I a big ginger fan: I like it in savory cooking but really dislike it in sweets. Ginger and I also have a difficult relationship because of how much it's supposed to ease morning sickness symptoms and it helps me none with my five months of all day sickness. But I do really like Ginger Rogers, and as a seven year old I pretty much scoffed at anyone else who tried to dance with Fred.

As compatible as Ginger and Turmeric.

I didn't love my first sip of the tea, but I knew we could warm up to each other. And twenty cups in I'm in love. It has this all around mouth feel that gets deeper the longer it brews and it doesn't get bitter.

I let Jacob taste it and he said blankly: "Vata tea." Like it was something everyone in the world grew up drinking. But, Mr. Rhodes, not everyone was raised by a hippy.

Let's see if I can think of anything else to say about this tea. Yes! I can! But I won't! So you're welcome.

And thank you to Jordan and Kate who first recommended this tea! I wouldn't be who I am today without it.

~~~

I've been baking sourdough recently. I got inspired by this new friend and she gave me some of her starter and sent me to this sourdough blog, and I was up and running, and I've had so much more baking success than I ever expected to have! I've seriously wanted this to be part of my routine since forever ago.

My crust is really tough and my shaping efforts are pretty laughable and I'm still learning how to gauge when the dough is fully proofed. But I'm loving it. This beginner loaf has been consistently good - I also made some OK pizza dough and a decent sandwich loaf.

Yesterday I took some fresh bread to my neighbor who just had a baby. I put it in a brown paper bag and walked it over hand in hand with Lucy June who was hankering for a peek at some newborn toes. The late afternoon light was stunning, and I thought: *this* is life.

~~~

I finished Anne Lamott's Bird by Bird this morning. I've been familiar with it for so long and read excerpts of it before, but I'd never read the whole thing. I can't recommend it enough if you like reading about writing. Which is one of my favorite things to read about so it's totally my cup of ginger turmeric tea.

~~~

How many books do you read at a time?

I read like five books at a time. I wonder if I would finish more books if I stuck to one, but I find myself craving different types of books at different times of day. Morning reading needs to be thoughtful. Naptime reading needs to be effortless. Evening reading needs to be gripping. In bed reading needs to be beautiful.

Currently, my bedtime book is Gilead. It's amazing. I read a couple pages and steep in the richness of it until I'm drowsy. I never want it to end.

~~~

Jacob and I went on a date last week (this restaurant for you Htown peeps) to use a Christmas gift card. It was amazing. Like entire pigs hanging in the meat locker kind of cool...so maybe that's not your thing...but I loved it.

Afterwards we went tipsy shopping at the Goodwill in the ritzy part of town. Tipsy thrifting on date night: highly recommend. I scored a couple Anthro dresses and barely used brand name shoes for the kids. I also giggled a ton because thrift stores can be so hilarious if you're two drinks in with somebody fun.

~~~

Ok. More secondhand clothes, because this is a fashion blog.

Last summer I used a two year old gift card and bought myself these shorts from Madewell. Full price! Because I am an adult. And I had a gift card.

Here they are on me!

Madewell models roll them up. I roll them down. Because enough white thigh is enough. It was everything I could do not to crop out my forehead wrinkles for this pic because #petty. But I didn't because #authenticity and they're a gift from my dad and I'm turning 32 next week so #embrace.

They have been such great shorts: they run laps around my Target shorts, which is good because I spent $75 on them. On shorts. Despite loving them, I wasn't sure I could throw down like that again.

Yesterday I remembered that I had a ThredUp credit from some clothes I sent in two years ago and voila! $90 Madewell denim shorts in my size for $26! Now I'm basking in the glow of buying (heavily discounted) quality.

Moral of the story: I have commendable shopping habits and you should try ThredUp. Just like everyone else already told you.

~~~

Jacob and I have a standing argument about how to feed a baby. His mess tolerance is very low and prefers to sit down, play the spoon game, and scrape the mouth and chin with every bite.

I'm the opposite. I'd much rather eat my food with my own hands and let baby do the same and then deal with the fallout.

My way:

 Jacob's way:

[NOT PICTURED]

[Because TEDIOUS AND BORING]

Visit Kelly for more takes and Happy Mardi Gras!

7QT - Messes Minimalism Macrame

Happy Friday!

I'm four days into a Whole 30 and...it's fine. Pretty boring really. I've been making our regular food but substituting out the best parts.

Last night we ate spaghetti squash carbonara and Jacob liked it as much as the regular one which boasts both ricotta and parmesan.  The night before that we ate gumbo.

We eat gumbo every week in the okra season. Every year I forget just how long the okra season is, and sometime in August after a couple months of gumbo I start saying: "This might be our last gumbo of the season!" And then I say that every week or so until... well at least until October!

>><<

I've been knitting again. I started up again in August even though it was still super humid and hot and was until last week. For whatever reason this time the bug has taken less of a "scarf" tone and has got me ducking into Hobby Lobby to buy double pointed needles and cable stitch holders. And I'm probably doomed for failure or at least VERY SLOW progress, but whaddya do when you got the itch?

I do love having a relatively contained craft project that I can pick up for a few minutes here and there when the kids are playing well together.

I just finished some fingerless gloves that took a very long time to complete and ended up...kinda bulky. Or maybe they just felt bulky for Houston in October where we've barely graduated out of swimsuits? Maybe I'll send them to Christy at Fountains of Snow.

I also just finished a hat for a friend. Turns out it fits Roman. So...baby steps!

>><<

I've also been dabbling in macrame. A friend asked if I could make her a wall hanging and my inner bohemian just lit right up. Unlike knitting, making wall hangings with ropes doesn't really lend itself to grabby baby hands, so I'm not sure how sustainable it is as a mom craft.

>><<

I've been trying to teach Jake some knots. His self-taught knots are killing me especially when they involve tying to untangle the cords he's used to tie all of our stools and chairs together in a big clump in the middle of the dining room.

So slip knot! slip knot!

>><<

Are you cleaner or is your spouse/roommate?

Jacob has always been the orderly one in the relationship, and it's been an uphill climb for me over seven years of marriage to learn to stop throwing dirty clothes on the floor. We'd been married a year or so when I realized the messes in our house were *always* mine. I maybe would have noticed sooner if he'd ever complained about my messes, but he didn't. To my credit, if someone cleans the bathroom it's me. Jacob almost never cleans, and he hates picking up other people's messes, but otherwise he's super nice about his neatfreakishness.

The other day as Jacob washed dinner dishes and I did the final sweep after the kids had gone to bed, I mused about how we do a much better job keeping our house looking alright than we used to - even before we had kids. It's mostly the need to tame the madness of three kids + avoid Houston roaches.

I was feeling pretty darn good about it actually, so I asked Jacob how clean he would say our house was. He said: "Rarely clean and nominally orderly." Then I gave him crap because what the heck is "nominally orderly" - so he amended it to "Rarely clean and rarely orderly."

I just started laughing. I would describe our house - the same house - as "tolerably clean and generally orderly." I wasn't even offended. I'm still not offended. I am mostly just relieved that my standards are as low as they are.

>><<

I've been reading (...listening to, because knitting) Kim John Payne's Simplicity Parenting recently and it's inspired me to get rid of more toys.

We've run a pretty tight ship from the beginning when it comes to toys around here - mostly thanks to my mother and her willingness to adopt all the plastic, noisy, electronic or otherwise offensive toys that come our way - so I'm pretty much the choir when it comes to Payne's preaching. But every time I do a round of toy culling, the effect is 100% positive.

We're down to Legos, Duplos, matchbox cars, a few baby toys, dress up clothes, a toy kitchen with toy cooking utensils, and a basket of scarves with string and clothespins. Playdough is tucked away in a closet as are a few puzzles and toys with too many pieces for unsupervised play.

Now that I list that all out it's actually sounding a little overstimulating, so I might have to go purge.

>><<

The biggest byproduct of toy minimalism is that when within five minutes of finishing breakfast all of our stools, cushions, blankets, and wooden spoons have been pressed into the service of the Resistance and its noble effort against the First Order, there aren't as many toys on the floor as there used to be.

Happy Weekend! And go see Kelly and the other quick takers!

The State of the Rhodes

Nothing like a good ole fashioned family update to jump back on the blogging scene.

(No promises that I'm back on the wagon for real. I'm 15 weeks in and nausea doesn't usually clear for me entirely until 18 weeks, but since it has consigned itself to the afternoons/evenings recently, I might actually find some time to write. We shall cross our fingers and see.)

So. The Lost Rhodes. Where are they now??

Lucy June

Lucy June is thinning out, if still a plumpster who would eat every half hour. Yesterday we confirmed that she is still allergic to avocados. Not deathly allergic, just the more she gets the more she throws up kind of allergic. Jacob finds the allergy absurd and now wants a paternity test.

She almost has hair, not enough to do anything with, but you can SEE it. I know I should probably do the whole headband thing. But I'm afraid I'll get a super cute little headband (like this one!!) and she'll just tear it off. How do you know if you've got a daughter who will keep pretty things on her head??


JakeBoy

Jake has given up his afternoon nap except for once in a blessed moon. Even though we haven't touched our preschool workbook in about two months, he proudly tells strangers that he homeschools. He still loves outerspace and makes me tell stories about the Kuiper Belt and Oort Cloud.

He's all energy. Whenever anyone starts crying at playgroup, there's an 85% chance he's involved. If he didn't start someone crying, he arrives shortly after to make things worse. Mr. Moth to the flame of discord. I'm sure this is my fault.

Luckily, Lucy June is on her way to exonerating me as the The World's Worst Disciplinarian because she's a playdate angel. Today at a baby shower she was playing with a ten month old and desperately wanted the toy chicken he was holding. She could've easily overpowered him, but she didn't, and instead just pitifully repeated: "Chiten? Peez? Chiten? Peez?"

Jacob

Jacob is still working so so hard. His busy season allegedly comes to a close soon, but he's still booked solid through the beginning of next month. He took four days off in a row last weekend, so he could weather the stomach flu. It's the most I've seen him since Christmas. But before you cue all the violins, know that things should slow down drastically by the end of April, and so long as we don't do something stupid, like buy another house that needs remodeling, my husband should settle into working about 25 hours a week for a couple months.

He drives all over Houston for work and gluts on historical non-fiction audiobooks. One week it's all "Andrew Jackson" and then it's all "The Dustbowl" - and I think it's cute, and I act interested, and I glaze, and then he mentions the detail in the book about the baby, and I'm like "Hmm? What was that?"

And Me

(Sorry for all the greasy-haired, pale-faced, pit-stained T-shirt reality in this photo. It's not that I don't love you enough to put on eyeliner. It's just that I don't love anyone enough to put on eyeliner these days.)

I've probably been through the most physically and emotionally exhausting winter of my life. I don't really want to write about it. But after two months of crippling nausea crowned by a bout with the stomach flu. I just. I have a newfound empathy for people with chronic illness.

I know I'm not all the way through but in the last week I've had some nausea free mornings and one blessed nausea free day, so I'm riding pretty high.

Turns out the fetal position isn't so bad for reading, so I've done a fair amount of it over the past few months. I haven't been listening to presidential biographies, instead I've enjoyed the edifying tomes of literary masters like Rainbow Rowell.

I've cooked maybe twice since January. I think we subsisted on Eggo waffles for the whole month of February, but I honestly can't remember.

I'm super emotional. Like I heard someone quote Mary Poppins the other day - "In every job that must be done, there is an element of fun. You find the fun and - SNAP - the job's a game." - and I was a mess of tears.

I turned thirty. I feel thirty.

Baby Three is still reading much more beer gut than bump, but hopefully we'll get some definition in a few weeks.

I'm a bundle of aspirations whenever my nausea clears even for a moment. I want to make capsule wardrobes for the kids and cinch my summer maternity style and imbue every corner of our life with intentionality, but since Ms. Kondo is on hold at the library till doomsday, I probably will just settle for folding some laundry and remembering how to turn on the crockpot.

Tis all the nausea-gods will allow for today, but I'm excited to wake this space back up! 

Happy Birthday HONEY (GIVEAWAY!!!!!!!!)

Here at the Rhodes Log, we like bees. And we're very cliche about it.

The second post I ever wrote on this blog was about bees. Maybe you remember it. And since then I've been compelled to document any and all major bee happenings in our life.

A few days ago we had our first Texas honey harvest. After a rough start with a beetle infestation, the hive has been thriving.

Even though he didn't grow up around it, Jacob comes from generations of beekeepers, and he started beekeeping the year before we got married.

If you're Catholic, you might know that yesterday was the feast of St. Ambrose. The patron saint of bees and beekeepers. It was also the birthday of our very own beekeeper.
Yesterday, Jacob turned the big 30.

(Jacob saw the above pic and said: Is that going over my coffin?) (I'm just venturing into the world of manual photography, and apparently I overexpose when I'm feeling sentimental.)

So we got ourselves a nice hefty honey harvest, and we wanted to give some to you. Specifically this little jar right here.

As a Happy Birthday Jacob. As a Happy Feast of St. Ambrose. As a Merry Christmas. As an entirely nondenominational movement of good will. This honey is dear to us. We give it to people we love. We (especially me) like that you're here. That you read these words that I very sporadically share.

a Rafflecopter giveaway

We've moved ... kind of?

The kiddos and I are at my parents' house for the week.

We had to be out of our old place by Sunday, but the new place still needed some work, so sometime last week we decided it would be best for me to take the kids on a trip to visit the grandparents. Jacob and my brothers could continue work on the remodel without little hands and feet getting into everything.

We moved out of the house on Sunday, and after a morning spent packing and hauling, we drove the four hours to my parents' house. A real Sunday Funday.

The children were pretty great little sports through the process. Jake got some quality time with his dad's drill and Lucy June squawked happily in moving boxes. Before leaving on Sunday, we ate lunch at the new house and simultaneously tried to decide on a layout for the living room furniture.

This was kind of a stupid idea because Jacob and I never agree on these kinds of things. So after a frustrating hour of scooching the couch around, we decided to save our marriage and kick the can on furniture placement.

At naptime o'clock, I packed the kids into the van, and we waved goodbye to their father. I prayed they would sleep for at least the first couple of hours, but 45 minutes and two interrupted catnaps later, things were looking very bleak.

It basically went like this: Jake would whine, Lucy June start wailing, I would vainly scan the horizons for a Starbucks Drive Thru, and then Jake would coo at his crying little sister: "Oh, Lucy Lu, it's OK. It's OK, Lucy Lu. It's OK, Lucy Lucy." And my heart would melt, and for one sacred moment I would dwell on how precious this stage of life is. Then the whole thing would repeat itself.

The kids eventually slept. We stopped in Austin to have dinner with some family friends and Jacob's brother. And I only had to navigate one scuzzy gas station bathroom after dark, so all in all, it went rather well.

The day ended with us at my parents' house: Jake asleep in my sister's old room, Lucy June asleep in a large cardboard box because I'd forgotten the pack'n'play, and me brushing my teeth in my childhood bathroom while on the phone with Jacob as he recounted all the obnoxious miscellaneous details that are the last bits of packing.

He loaded the crap toys from the yard into the neon green kitty pool and then as the buzzy buzzy cherry on top of the moving Sunday, he hauled his beehive (75 pounds of honey. . . and bees) onto the trailer.

The image of him combing the grass for dingy plastic toys and then muscling that beehive across the yard... I just. Well I love him. We disagree about most of life's trivial things, but we can join together in the hope for lots of bees, lots of honey, and lots of babies.

Pics of the new place soon...if the kids and I ever actually move in...which we won't do so long as the couch is sitting squarely in front of the TV with its back to the rest of the room. I'm kidding...but seriously.

Until then I'll be enjoying myself some quiet time in the rural Texas Hill Country.

Staying Interesting and Interested

At a bridal shower a few years ago (Hi, Meg!) I played a game where everyone wrote down encouraging words about marriage on slips of paper and the bride chose her favorite. She chose:

"Stay Interesting and Interested"

Right now, I'm trying to stay interested in Jacob's enthusiasm for tiny houses. He was on a kick about a year ago and recently got back onto it. I can't say I encourage him very much because how do you encourage something like this? I'm pretty sure we graduated from tiny house potential as soon as we started having kids. I mean, currently, we have five people living in an 1100 sq. ft house. Per person, we're basically on par with the tiny housers. 

source

He really just wants to build a house on a trailer and drive it around and park it overnight in any spot where he wants to watch the sunrise. So basically what he wants is a "tiny vacation home" which I argue misses the entire point of the tiny house movement. 

For all I tease him about it, I find them pretty interesting, these quirky little buildings with all their nooks and hooks and crannies. 

But were he ever to drive home with a double axle trailer and tell me he was going to build a house, scratch that OUR house, on it...well...I mean for him to do that I would not only have to be on board, I would have to be on duty. 

Especially now that we have kids, staying interested in each others' hobbies is a lot more effortful than just an occasional "how nice" - being interested often means enabling the other person, we have to help each other stay interesting.

I'm the type that is a huge cheerleader for Jacob to follow some passion, but when he actually starts in on it I feel abandoned and overwhelmed, and bitterness mounts because I can't beLIEVE he's out there PLAYing when there are bedtimes to routine and diapers to change! 

Interested is when I let him pursue a passion even when it feels inconvenient to me.

Interested is when my husband is outside with his tools finishing what I'm sure is a very pressing project, while I scramble through the end of dinner prep with two hungry people clutching at my calves. 

Interested is when he comes in for dinner and proudly presents me with...a cherrywood muddler, and I suppress the lip-pursing, eyebrow-raising "THIS is how you've spent your last half hour?" face. Or half-suppress it...or perhaps I just own the snark completely while taking the muddler from him and making cocktails.

Sometimes I have to be more of a mom so he can be something other than a dad for a little while.

Sometimes I have to be more of a mom so our children can watch their dad be a carpenter. So I can watch him too.

I have my interests too. Things I pursue, that make me a happier and hopefully better person. He's interested in those things with me.

And often his interest surfaces around seven in the morning, when I'm nursing my sacred morning coffee as he takes the toddler to the bathroom and tends to the baby who's started to squawk, and he says too loudly: "I'm coming, Lucy June. Papa loves you MORE than his computer." And then to me "I'm just gonna change a diaper here, honey, if that's OK with you."

"Go for it!" I say. He would welcome help, but he mostly just wants me to remember all that he is juggling so I can play like I'm a blogger for a few more minutes. 

7QT: Like Father Like Son

It's been awhile since I threw up some of what the Jacobs have been throwing down, so here we go.

The Big Jacob

Complaining about the picture of him in this post that exposes some knicks and bruises on his shins.

JACOB: It looks... It looks like I have some weird disease. (sighs) Now I have to go read all the nice comments on the post about the bed I made you.

>><<

After reading my post "On Money and Vacations and Marriage" where I complain about his careless spending habits:

JACOB: I come from a family whose relationship to money was very similar to...St. Francis's.
ME:

The Little One

Little Jake's favorite games:

1) Let's throw balls at each others' heads.

2) Surfer (Jake) & Surfboard (other person)

>><<

ME: Jake, how old is your father?

JAKE: Two.

ME: How old??

JAKE:

>><<

JAKE: Are you a kid or an ohdult?
ME: An adult.
JAKE: I like it when ohdults pick me up.

>><<

Describing an unpleasant odor on our walk:

JAKE: Smells like somebody's cooking a skunk.

>><<

Jacob was still in bed early one morning and little Jake ran in and jumped on his back:

JAKE: You can be my horse! Giddyon, girl. Giddyon giddyon, girlie.

Linking up with Jen for 7 Quick Takes.

When Jacob Builds Things

Jacob likes to build things. He'll go weeks or even months sometimes without hacking into wood and will spend leisure time getting lost in other enriching activities like watching Veep or Curb Your Enthusiasm, but then he'll get the itch and won't come inside for days and the children will get lulled to sleep by the sander and the table saw.

One of the itches recently took the form of a bed. We've slept on a rickety bedframe since we were first married, and last year's move from Los Angeles to Houston involved leaving behind our boxspring since the trailer was too full. This meant that our mattress was unsupported at the foot of the bed and drooped down a little. Not the biggest deal really...until you sat on the edge of the bed and your pretty bum slid off and plopped unceremoniously on the floor.

So Jacob wanted to make a bed for our fifth anniversary. I was a little ambivalent because hopefully we'll be upgrading to a California King one of these years, and if Jacob's going to throw down on some lumber and spend lots of time on a bed I'd rather it be THE bed instead of a bed we're going to graduate out of as soon as we get a few extra square feet in our bedroom. He convinced me he needed to practice by making this queen first, however, and went out and bought some cheap rough cut hardwood.

Jacob is pretty adorable when he builds things. I know he measures things, but he I'm pretty sure he just goes with his gut when the measurements don't need to be standard. He's also tall with (freakishly) long arms, so sometimes what "feels right" to him is woefully out of proportion with the rest of the world.

This is the mirror on the wall by our front door...and me on my tiptoes.
Despite my failed efforts at conveying a sense of scale in this (and the following) photo. Just trust me. It's a Case. And. Point.

So when this tall man with freakishly long arms sets about making a bed for himself, in one of the early versions the mattress might, just might, end up four and half feet off the ground.

Jake I think put it most adeptly: "Papa made a bed for a giant!!!"

But it's OK. Nothing that he couldn't fix with a saw, and soon enough we had this:

Our room is small, so this is as far away from the bed as I could get for a photo.

I told Jacob I wanted it really simple, so we could showcase the grain of the cypress. He polished it with this beeswax and orange oil wood finish which he uses on lots of projects. He may take a few inches off the headboard, but we're not sure.

So, now that we've been married for five years we finally have a real bed for the children to take over.

Thank you, husband mine. I love it. It's beautiful.

Maybe for our sixth anniversary we can get a duvet cover.

Five Years Ago Today

I'm sitting here in my muggy living room all wrapped up in memories of a pretty awesome day five years ago. And since I've basically never put any wedding pics on the blog, I decided to turn it up to eleven and give you a whole entire slideshow. You'll also get to hear "our song" - the song we danced to at the wedding - sung by our college buddy JT.

(And @BazinChronicles totally crashed the slideshow.)

Jun 12, 2009 from therhodeslog on Vimeo.

Mr. Jacob Augustine, Keeper of Bees, Father of my Children, Dishwasher Unloader and First Diaper Changer of the Day, I have more than loved these last five years with you.

Five Favorites: Gift Ideas For Him

Since Father's Day is around the corner and tomorrow is Jacob's and my anniversary, I've been thinking husband pretty nonstop, so here are some gift ideas from my muchacho to yours.

- 1 -

Sphere Ice Molds

I remember talking to my friend Wendy about gifts for her man, and she said she went for anything whiskey related. In that vein, I'll draw your attention to these Voltolo Sphere Ice Molds. Jacob has two and loves them.

- 2 -

Timex Steel Watch 

Jacob’s had this watch for about a year now, and he really likes it. I know watches are very personal choices but this is a relatively inexpensive, knock around watch that fits a variety of occasions. a couple reviews I've read complain about the band breaking, but Jacob's is holding up really well despite constant use. 

Fun fact: despite being right-handed, Jacob wears his watch on his right wrist. I tease him endlessly about it.

- 3 -

Wall Mount Bottle Opener

We don’t have one of these, but Jacob wants one badly. He dreams of having one right above a trash can and he mentions it every time we move, which is regularly.

- 4 - 

Outfit His Poker Night

Jacob does Poker Night. He’s not really one to “hang out with the guys” but he morphs into Mr. Social Butterfly as soon as anyone says Poker Night. He has a Poker Felt that he rolls out on the occasion and this Poker Chip Set which he loves despite its mediocre Amazon.com rating.

- 5 -

Subscribe him to: The Family Handyman

Jacob loves his Family Handyman subscription. It has good tips about how to tackle things at home and great product reviews. This is straight from the husband-horse’s mouth because his gender normative wife has never peeked at it.

What are your go to gift ideas for the men in your life??

And head over to Hallie's for more favorites.