Family Portraits 2013

Over the summer we had family portraits taken.  Portraits by Maggie Blevins.  

Best Costume Ever

There just are no words....

{pretty, happy, funny, real}

{pretty}

Stuart: our Eastern Black Swallowtail

Also Stuart
We had a second Eastern Black that hatched,
but he flew away too fast to take pictures.
Also, we had three other caterpillars that didn't make it.  

Edith Schaeffer says in her book, "Hidden Art of Homemaking", that if you only have enough money to buy two loaves of bread, you should buy one loaf of bread, and some flowers.  I balked at that idea at first.  Now I highly recommend it.  Real beauty is underrated in our society, while plasticized beauty is all people seem to care about.  Next time you go to HEB, or Kroger, or Fiesta Mart, or Piggly Wiggly, or Costco, or Tom Thumb, or wherever you buy your groceries, grab a bundle of beauty.  

{happy}

James lost his third tooth.

San Antonio now has a Lego Store!  We went to the Grand Opening twice, and helped build an 8 ft. R2D2.  And also saw characters from the movies.  It was very fun.

First Visit:  About 2 hours into it

Second visit: everyone was working like mad

They couldn't wait for this.  They kept hearing him
"talk" while we were building.

{funny}

So we took the kids back to the mall a third time to see the completed R2D2.  When we couldn't find him, we asked someone at the Lego store where he was.  We were informed that after the giant R2D2 had been completed for about 2 and a half hours, they had to begin taking him down.  And he was gone.  End of Story.  I think it was a good lesson to the boys about how things have to be taken apart sometimes.  

That is not the funny part.  

As we were walking out of the mall, Jason had Josie on one of his shoulders, and went to move her.  She got scared and tried to grab his eyeball.  I'm getting to the funny part, I promise.  As Jason is in great deal of pain, and Josie is scared, and the rest of us are gawking at each other a bit, a man walks by and says, "my favorite bumper sticker still is, 'Kids... You Just Can't Beat 'Em'".  

{real}

This is life right now.  Life at the office.  

Because starting your own business is hard work.

And Now Do You Like My Hat?

I have a new hat.  It's called an Office Manager Hat.  It's just like the hat from Go Dog, Go! at the end, with all the paraphernalia hanging off of it.

Jason and Me

It has been a busy couple of weeks.  Our office officially been open two weeks, yesterday.  Things are going ... well.  Better than expected or anticipated.  We are incredibly amazed and thankful, and also prayerful that it will continue to go well.

I have never wanted to be at home washing dishes and doing laundry so badly.  The first week we were at the office, even before we were "open", we saw patients, and I was so completely out of my comfort zone it wasn't even funny.  It wasn't so much that I didn't want to be there, it's that there just wasn't enough to time be ready before we opened.  "Ready or Not," and I was not.  That's not necessarily a bad thing, because I don't think I ever could be ready for this before game time.  I have worked as an office manager, and Chiropractic Assistant before, but it's been a few years.  And I didn't own the business, and I wasn't scared to death, and I didn't have four munchkins to watch or feed or worry about, and my husband wasn't the doctor.  It's different this time around.

Jason tells me that my chiropractic philosophy and principles are so strong that I have to watch myself when I talk to people.  I have to talk to people a lot.  I have to answer question a lot.  Now I have adults asking me questions as well as my kids.  Please don't ask me any more questions.

Since I have already mentioned that I write these things to remember, I would like to make sure I don't forget this one.  I was asked by a patient to commit insurance fraud.  Yes, I was.  Not point blank.  In fact, I didn't even realize how sneaky this person was until I was explaining to Jason what he was asking, and how I had answered him that, "No, we absolutely cannot do that."  Jason said no one had ever asked him that in all his years of practicing, but here I am on the second week of the job, and someone asks me.  Jason says I have to get used to answering people's questions.

It is hard to get used to this hat.  We are working our butts off.  Keep praying for us.

{pretty, happy, funny, real}

{pretty}

Lupinus Texensis

For nature study this term, we have been studying plants.  I wanted to do only wildflowers, but we began our term in January, and I knew it would be a few weeks until our wildflowers would be blooming.  We got the ol' Handbook of Nature Study out and actually did a study Miss Botsford Comstock outlines.  It's one where you get four different types of soil and see which soil plants grow best in.  That was pretty fun, and that study lasted 4-5 weeks.  Now we are onto wildflowers because they are in bloom now.  We are still going to one of our three usual parks, and seeing what we see.  The main wildflowers I want the boys to be most familiar with are bluebonnets, of course, Indian paintbrushes, Indian blankets, pink evening primrose, and winecups.  Those are some pretty essential Texas wildflowers.  But we really found quite a variety of flowers at the park, and only one of the flowers on my list were blooming there (see above).  Here are some more of what we saw.  Most of these I haven't identified, or I know them by a common name, and am not sure of their proper name.  Yet.  

This is some sort of violet.  We saw at least two other violets as well.
Not sure which kind is which.  Yet.

Verbena

{happy}

Our family fun splurge this year is season passes to the zoo.  My goal is to get there once a month.  Twice a month would be fantastic, but I'm not sure I have what it takes to make that happen.  Anyway, we haven't gone yet this month, so if you're pining to go to the zoo, please join us!  

wild animals

love him
love her

Kaa

Josie with butterfly
The butterfly exhibit is amazing

James with butterfly

Nag
(aka King Cobra)

{funny}

Nothing fun or funny ever happens around here.  And I'm working real hard to keep it that way.  See yesterday's post about Joel reading Huckleberry Finn.  

{real}

Jason and I are small business owners again.  As in we are our own boss.  This is a very exciting, scary, and stressful time.  I may never blog again.  We are taking a school break as the kids and I will be up at our new office full time for the foreseeable future.  The plan is to hire an employee ASAP, we just don't know when that will be.  Pray for us.  We think it's gunna be great!  (The website is not quite up and running yet).

Remembering

I started blogging was so I could share what was happening with our family with Jason's and my families.  Opa & Oma, Grandmommy and PawPaw, all the aunts and uncles.  They all lived far away at the time.  Most of them live pretty close now.  And more extended family reads my blog now too, which I find flattering.  It has been easy to forget why I started blogging.  Knowing that other people are reading is provides motivation to keep writing, but also keeps you from writing things you might otherwise put in a book that no one will ever read.  All in all that is good for me, because every time I have gone back and read what I wrote in a book, I've torn the pages out, ripped 'em up, and thrown 'em away.  Whereas on the blog, I think I have tended to write the things I want to remember.  I want to remember funny things the kids do.  I want to remember when their baby teeth fell out.  I want to remember James slicing the mushrooms for supper, and Jack helping me mix up pancakes, and Joel chopping vegetables for chicken salad.  I want to remember those things.  There is so much that I just forget, and sometimes I am aghast at what I have forgotten.  So today I am going to remember:

Joel has gotten to the part of Huckleberry Finn where Huck and Jim pick up the impostor king and duke.  Only you don't know they're impostors at first, and Joel didn't know it either, while he was spontaneously telling me about the part of the story where he was reading.  He said, "Huck and Jim have picked up this king and duke who were running for their lives for no good reason.  They're practicing parts of Romeo and Juliet to perform, and the king said to the duke, 'No, no, no, Juliet talks sweet!  She doesn't bellow like a jackass!'"  Then he proceeded to laugh hysterically.

Since Joel got his bow for his birthday, he has not stopped trying to shoot anything.  A squirrel.  A dove.  Well, I guess those are the only two options we have in the backyard.  He very frequently asks me if I will cook a squirrel or a dove for supper if he gets one.  This week we replenished the birdseed in our feeders on the porch.  There were house finches, doves, sparrows, starlings, house finches, chickadees and cardinals everywhere.  Jack observed, "well, I guess we'll have black-capped chickadee, house finch, and dove for dinner."

I was singing Jesus Loves Me to Josie as I laid her down for a nap this week, and James came in and starting harmonizing with me.  So sweet.

Children's Children

So thankful for this:

GG and PawPaw Art

Opa and Grandsugar

The Party

Here are a few pictures from Joel's birthday party.  

Too many candles!
Joel requested chocolate cheesecake.
Jason did the sword and shield. 

Singing to Joel, aka High King Peter dressed for battle.  

Narnians

My Narnians
L-R Jack as Beaver, Joel as High King Peter, Josie as Lucy,  and James as Aslan

Joel opening his gift from us, a compound bow. 

The best gift was Adam surprising Joel by coming to his party.