Catch up

I need to catch up.  And there's no way to do it other than doing it.

I feel like I've been living in super fast forward. December vanished. Days zipping by or evaporating before I felt like they'd even started; two weeks passing with magna celeritate.  It's difficult to pick only 10 things to share to jump start regular posting...

 I decorated my mantle on Christmas Eve,  in between making cookies and church.  That's right, the imperfect tree was up the first weekend in December, but I wanted new burlap stockings.  And I don't sew.  So, I printed a picture from Pinterest, bought the materials and handed the project off the my sweet can-sew-from-a picture Mamma.  Apparently time evaporates for her too...

 I knew it was time to leave my cozy bed and join the baintrain on Christmas Morning when I heard the world's loudest  "UH-UHHHH" :: Stringbain reading his airplane ticket letter from Santa. I barely got to snap limabain opening his...

 

 Our Christmas morning was surprisingly unhurried, since they woke up almost before the break of dawn.  Nevertheless, got to love butterbain's wet hair.

 The day after Christmas butterbain hosted a birthday slumber party for six 5-6 year olds. The pic is blurry because they hardly hold still, even while sleeping.

 I was so incredibly tired the night after Christmas, I felt like I was falling asleep with my eyes open. I pressed Stringbain into service as the activities coordinator for our crazy house slumber party.  In the span of an hour he organized and led a pillow pet war, some sort of gladiator pillow fight showdown, a  hip hop dance party and shushed them all into watching Kung Fu panda 2 as a grand finale.

 Speaking of sleeping: do you have any idea how long it takes to get an entire living room floor full of boys to sleep?  They are like a pig pile, if one moves, they all have to rearrange themselves.   Any idea how darling they are once still, quiet and snoozing?

Note: your just-turned 6 year old might love accessorizing a bit too much when he says he needs spurs for his new bling-y birthday boots

On his actual birthday, we surprised butterbain with a puppy; the kind he's been asking for since he was 3.  A Wiener dog.  Because Santa delivers pillow pets, but real dogs are mom and dad's job.  I'm sure this new addition will offer lots of future post fodder once we pick her up next week.

  Where do people who live on a farm go for down time? A friend's lake house in the middle of nowhere.   We escaped the post-Christmas rainy gray-ness of Tennessee by driving 10 hours to Texas to meet the sun.

 Thankfully the middle of nowhere in Texas is a bit closer to civilization than it is in Tennessee.  Close enough and warm enough for a trip to the zoo on the next to last day of 2011.  Butterbain may qualify a a real big 6 year old, but he's still baby enough to take a ride on Mainbain's shoulders.  Those sweet days are numbered...

Speaking of numbering days, I had to capture the sun shining through their hand prints on  the busy morning we decided was back to work-back to school day.  I took it as a testimony to growth: to relish and see the beauty, instead of rushing for the window cleaner.

In reverse these little snips and pieces hardly seem like much, but when life is so full of ordinary grace it is worth catching up on.

Lib