Alright. The baby is asleep maybe for another half hour and the big kids are playing and I only have about eight things I want to get done before the baby wakes up...so blog for the first time in months it is!

- 1 -

We've been poking along with the remodel.

Yesterday we took out the ratty old fireplace that was a big black scar in the living room. Immediately after Jacob pushed it out, it started pouring rain. We felt PRETTY stupid because it's only rained every day this week and it's only supposed to rain every day for the next week, and there was no reason we needed to do the fireplace project right away. So...let's just say that got done more quickly than most things around here.

But now it's done and the rusty black metal box is gone! Don't mind the wall art - it's all out of wack because we used to have the TV where we now have...a skull. Trendy but also kind of a gnarly skull because we found it while tromping around my folks' place.

- 2 -

Remodeling with babies = barricades

- 3 -

Speaking of babies, ours is walking and therefore falling a lot. The other day he fell and hit his mouth and started bleeding where he's cutting a tooth. Ouch, right? He really wasn't bleeding very much, so we weren't concerned. I took a closer look at his mouth yesterday, and where there is supposed to be one tooth, it's like he has two teeth coming in?

Could he possibly have chipped the tooth? Or split it? Or is this its natural shape and maybe that's why a little face bonk made him bleed?

We have a pediatrician appointment Monday, so we should have answers soon...

- 4 -

Gretchen Rubin in Better than Before talks about how some people are stressed by the prospect of running out of something and other people are stressed by having too much. I think she uses the terms "abundance" vs "simplicity."

She says people who like simplicity will feel a little stressed when they buy a big bag of oatmeal, but a sense of relief when they've finished it all. People who like abundance will have the opposite experience.

I'm like 1000% the kind of person who prefers simplicity. Not that I'm some kind of Marie Kondo Master. My house isn't a paragon of elegant minimalism with the pristine fig tree in the corner of the living room. But emotionally speaking I find "abundance" stressful.

She also says people who prefer simplicity will even feel relieved when things break and have to get thrown away. Me to a T.

- 5 -

This is one of the reasons I love the library. Yesterday I renewed my library card and went on like a thirty book hold spree. It's all the fun of shopping without any of the stress of new things!

- 6 -

I had to renew my library card because we've been living in Houston for three whole years now. Three years! It feels shorter and it feels longer.

We're approaching our one year anniversary in this house which means we've stayed here longer than any other house in Houston, and we don't have plans to move until next summer! But that is another story...and maybe I'll even tell it to you now that I'm blogging again (ha!)

- 7 -

We went to Hawaii with a big group of dear friends and my whole family. The experience was too perfect for words, but thankfully my very talented friend took a lot of pictures. Here's a photo dump:

Happy Weekend! Go see Kelly!

Vacationing Part 2: Hawaii

About eight months ago we were in Fredericksburg at my parents' church when some old family friends invited us to join them on their annual trip to their Awesome Oahu Beach House.

I remember it very well because I was standing in the church gym and I was a little distracted because four different people had come up and told me they'd "let Jake have some donut holes, but only two."

So as we got the invite to this Awesome Oahu Beach House, I was doing some math in my head that looked a little like this:

4 x 2 donut holes = Sugar Hell ----> Toddler Meltdown

There I was, in the middle of December, still very postpartum and getting this awesome invitation, and it just didn't quite register. I just kept nodding and smiling. I thought we were in the middle of Pleasant Conversation, not Invite of a Lifetime. And I stood their next to my mother and said something like "Oh, how nice." and then just kept nodding and smiling till Mom was like: "They're asking all of us. The whole family to come with them next summer. To Hawaii. Everybody. You and Jacob and the kids and all of us." And eventually it got through, but the whole yelp and high-five everyone in the building moment had passed, so I stumbled through something like, "OK. Yeah." 

Thankfully they didn't retract the offer despite my less than exuberant RSVP, and then began the months of waiting and planning and Hawaiian Air Mastercards. We decided to tack on St. Louis and Los Angeles to the front end of the trip, so we could get in some much needed visiting before heading to Hawaii. 

We boarded our plane to Hawaii on a Sunday evening, after six whirlwind days of visiting so many dear people, and since it was bedtime o'clock and we'd been going going going for days, I was prepared for a flight from hell. We trekked to the back of the plane, and I glanced up at the lucky man who got the fourth seat in our row. We scooted in with our baby and our snacks and our coloring books and our over excited toddler who couldn't go thirty seconds without talking very loudly about "CRASH LANDING." I gave the gentleman in our row my best apologetic-mom smile, and he smiled back warmly, so I relaxed a little. 

Five minutes into the flight, the man was fast asleep, and I was grateful that we didn't seem to be bothering him at all. Ten minutes into the flight he was snoring. Soon he was snoring loudly with a tiny bit of spittle flapping on his lower lip that threatened to fly at any moment. By this point I just wanted to turn to him and bark: "We get it. You're asleep. That's cool. More than cool. I mean, I basically haven't slept in the past four years and God knows I won't be sleeping on this plane, but you are asleep and that's great and all, but do you have to go and rub it in?!?" So I took some deep breaths, and Jacob reached over from the aisle seat and gave me a simmer down pat on the head, and soon enough we were landing in Honolulu. And soon after that we were overlooking the Pacific from our private deck.

As we expected it was pretty much the best vacation of all time. 

On this vacation we went to the beach. 

 We swam and kayaked and snorkeled in the reef.

We stayed in this amazing house with views like this:

and like this:

We drank adult beverages in the afternoons and listened to the waves crashing on the sea wall.

We played on the lawn which was literally nicer than the carpet in my last apartment.

And then we did that again and again and again.

We also played croquet.

A lot of croquet.

We also played this other game a lot. I don't quite know what this game is called.

Lucy June went from decently mobile to full on crawling.

 When properly incentivized.

 And we were still very much parents even though we were on vacation.

But we were cool parents.

 We also stopped to watch the sunset. Because:

I suppose it's good to be back, but my was it hard to leave.

Vacationing Part Uno

We are home from our summer vacation that took us through St. Louis to Los Angeles and dropped us in an island in the middle of the Pacific.

In St. Louis we got to catch up with Jacob's sister's family.

We got some quality time with our niece

and nephew

*Commence gushing*

My goddaughter has just the sweetest little temperament. She's a little bit shy, but she took a shine to Jacob and my heart melted every time she snuggled up to his knees.

We got to see Jacob's mom who walked hand in hand with the toddlers to a Waldorf park (so she was in Hog Heaven.)

I emailed my oldest blogging buddy, and we met up at a deserted park. She brought all four kids, donuts, iced lattes, and still posted on her blog that day. (Grace, how do you do all these things?) I didn't even manage to bring shoes for my three year old.

We went to the St. Louis Zoo, and no offense to the uncommon, threatened, very threatened, and endangered animals, and the lone (short) giraffe

but my favorite moment (besides the Dippin Dots) was this little get up:

After three days in St. Louis, we headed west to see Jacob's brother.

Visiting our former stomping grounds in LA had us hopping from old friends to old friends, and between all the great people and the great weather, I almost forgot why we ever left.

We stayed with my old grad school buddy and her family. Every morning she and I got some quality time watching our infants flap their arms at each other while we drank coffee. It was perfect.

I'm bad at corralling people for group pictures, so for all the people visited, we only tried for the group shots once when we were with Jacob's old roommate and his family. You'd think this blog would have turned me in to Mrs. Document That by now, but alas it has not. After about fifty pictures, we had about three with all the kids in focus and looking at the camera and not trying to hide behind someone or hurl themselves on the floor.

Here was the keeper of the huge effort to get a pic of the families.

Visit them here!

More Blogger Fodder: Popes!

We had an afternoon with these buddies and meeting babies and talk talk talking, and it was awesome if woefully underphotographed. (Updated to beg Meg to please PLEASE start a blog so we can have a week by week update of her baby boy's hair because it's magical:)

Fikes!

Blythe and Kirby Leg and dinner at their super awesome firepit, flanked by garden and blossoming tree. No matter what you say, Blythe, your backyard is so awesome. The old high chair camped out by the chicken coop only adds to the charm.

So marks the end of the first leg of travel. The second half of the trip involved more swimsuits, but unfortunately not this one because Lucy June outgrew it before we'd even left St. Louis.

That will have to do for today because it's 2pm and I am only one cup of coffee, three pieces of bacon, and zero unpacked bags into my day. Also. Jake just spilled his smoothie and said "Oh shet!!" and is now slurping it off the table...so I need to go...you know...mother or something.

But it's good to be back. I've missed this little corner of the internet.