The 50 cent smile

Porter received his marching band uniform today.

And just in time, because every middle school and high school band in our city have been practicing all week for tonight's half-time performance of the Marching Extravaganza.  (It was awwwwwwesome!)

 I thought he looked exceedingly handsome and so I asked him to follow me out onto the deck so I could take his picture.

Porter, who very much likes to tease his mom, was trying to act all serious on me, so I asked him to show me a great big toothy grin.

And this is what ensued:

After many attempts to just get a normal smile out of him, I called in a the special forces, a.k.a. Evelyn with her knock-knock jokes:

And this is what I got with a 50 cent bribe:

"Mommy, Max and I will smile for 50 cents too!"

the HAPPY kitchen.

My kitchen is the room in my home where I love to be.  It's the room where my kids look for me first if they aren't sure where I am.

 I LOVE that.  Because I was the very same way.

I knew that I could find my mom in the kitchen.  It's where she paid the bills with my dad and helped us with our homework.  It's where we snapped beans and shelled the peas from our garden.  It's where many a memorable family conversation took place standing by the kitchen sink or sitting around the table.  Often times the counter tops were covered in rows of hot cookies, waiting for a household of 9 hungry mouths to devour them.  It's where I remember my mom shaking a heavy pot over the stove, making popcorn the old-fashioned way for a family home evening treat.  I also remember thinking how efficient my mom was to have two or three of us on the kitchen floor with hot, soapy rags, mopping away - each of us with a butter knife in hand to scrape up any stubborn, dried food that wouldn't come up with our wet rag.  (Yes, even that is a happy memory.)  When I go to my childhood home, it's still the room where I find my mom.   The room that I want to be in.

When we moved into our home 6 years ago, this is what my kitchen looked like:

 It was a clean kitchen; decent size.  But the green wasn't my favorite, and something I knew I would eventually change.  I spent months thinking about what color I would change it too.  And one word kept coming to mind:

 Happy.

I wanted a happy kitchen.

 And yellow makes me happy:

  The mug holder makes me very happy.

And here's a close-up of three of the many things that make OUR family happy:

What's not to love about homemade pie, rootbeer (in a frosted mug of course), and popcorn (still made the old-fashioned way)?......Yes, not the healthiest arrangement of signs - I know.  But all things in moderation, right?       

It's a happy kitchen.

a breather

I put my blog on hold for nearly a year and a half with the hopes of trying to be able to grab hold of the reins of life for a while.

Did it work?  Naaaaaahhhh.

But I do know that in this time, a lot has transpired.

For instance, I have a teenager now:

 And he's 6" taller.  And very entertaining.



Oh, and I had a baby:

But she's not a lil' peanut anymore:

She's almost one!

And my Evelyn....oh my Evelyn. Where do I start?

 Lets just say that she's not just adding gray hairs on her momma's head :)

One of my favorite photos...

They're looking remarkably calm considering there were barking dogs on the other side of that fence

Thanks Linds.  You are an amazing sister.  And photographer.