Just Life

Sometimes when I'm uploading random pictures for my blog,

I have to remind myself why I take the time to do so.

Let's face it..

Blogging is a lot of work.

I don't keep a bedside journal.

I don't keep fantastic records for Harbor anymore now that he has gotten older.

I don't live close to any of my family.

My blog is my heart.

It is the real me grasping at some way to

record our life, however exciting or mundane.

I've been blogging for a long time now,

years before Harbor was ever born.

So, when you see pictures of us cooking, or playing board games and you yawn...

Just be assured that I'm allowing you a peek into our family life

so that I, too, can someday recall

what life was really, truly like.

I just really want to blog about the normal, the everyday.

I love looking back at the exciting posts through the years:

the day David graduated from college,

we closed on our land,

we built a custom home,

Harbor's birth,

our vacations,

our moves to and fro from home to home...

{this home in Detroit is our 4th to own in 11 years}

but more importantly, the days in between

tell the greatest story..

I think these are the days that will slip through my hands, lost forever.

Week 22

Last week, as most weeks for us, we spent a great deal of our time in the kitchen.

We made a batch of old fashioned rice crispy treats.

And I whipped up a big platter of southern potato salad.

Harbor requested kool aid play dough.

I love being able to share time in the kitchen with him.

The weather is getting cooler and cooler each week.

I'm in heaven!

I endure summer, but it is the Fall where I really feel the happiest.

My boys hand washed my car and I had my camera close by

and snapped a few pictures out the front door.

Our landscaping is really full and lush.

I'm thankful to have escaped the drought so many states are suffering from,

including my family in Arkansas.

We have a Fall wreath out, a Razorback flag for college football season,

and a big pumpkin in the front window.

I've been decorating the house with lots of pumpkins, spiders, and mice.

We are really not huge into the Halloween scene at our house,

but I grew up in a home with lots of "decor" nonetheless.

They are some of best childhood memories and something

I enjoy doing for my family now.

In fact, I had a recent flashback while grocery shopping this week.

When I was a kid, my parents grew huge gourds on the side of our house.

Long green vines wound up the brick

like a Hansel and Gretel movie scene.

My mom would tend to them and pluck them off.

They were a good foot long, if not not longer.

They would hang from various places in our home to cure.

She would dry and paint them to look like

Santa Clauses, pumpkins, and animal characters.

Gourds this time of year really take me back to happy place.

I grew up surrounded by folk art in our home.

And, I found this little guy sneaking a very hot cookie right out of the oven.

Kudos to him, though, for getting a spatula out of the drawer all by himself.

If he is going to sneak, at least keep the floor free of crumbs, right?

: )