friday favorites {instagram}

Do you use Instagram? I use it on my iPhone ALL. THE. Stinkin. TIME. I swear it makes any regular picture look fantastic. Here is a recap in instagram pics of the past few weeks. 



Our church meets in the evening on Sundays, so we usually spend the morning running errands as a family. I am always super insecure about people thinking we don't go to church. Not so much because I feel judged as much as I want people know it's important to me and a huge part of our lives. But I also don't want to get them dressed for church that early either because they might get dirty. I decided it's not worth worrying about what other people think. So here's to me letting go of what others think and letting them wear whatever they wanted to run to Lowe's last Sunday.
 

My sweet boy and I at the zoo

 

Meadow loves the merry-go-round and was especially excited that she got to ride on the dog.

Crazy and creative Saige looking beautiful no matter what she's wearing.

 

Super Reed and the mask I made quickly for his halloween costume. I was inspired by a friend who made them for her entire family. Hers looked a lot better. But as Patrick reminded me when I asked if I should start over - "It's going to just end up on the ground in the closet." I love that practical man of mine.

 

This one is for you, Mama Sharp! Meadow was super excited to open and find the cowgirl hat you sent for her birthday. She looks pretty cute, huh? 

 

And lastly, I want to tell you about my friend Blossom. She is amazing with the knitting needles and I mentioned this scarf to her after seeing it on pinterest.  Well, she made me this scarf and hat and put them in my mailbox this past week and totally surprised me. She rocks. If you're interested in purchasing one, let me know and I will get you her contact info. She has an etsy shop, Curly Giraffe, but right now she is just taking orders for the scarves so she can get specifics and not end up making ones that people don't want. Anyways, they're priced very reasonably as well and I think you would look fabulous in one!

In keeping with Wimberly tradition, we are off to the zoo again for miss Meadow's birthday WEEK.

 Happy Friday!

 

miscellany monday

We have an eventful week ahead . . .

1. Thursday, the 15th will be our 10 year anniversary and we are in the throes of planning our big trip. More on that later.  

2. On Saturday we are having Reed's birthday party to celebrate his 2nd birthday which is Sunday, the 18th (9-18-09). This boy is going to be 2, are you kidding me?

Reed at 8 months

3. We have to stay on our toes, so that we aren't attacked by Spidergirl-panty-head, the red-maned Reederator, or a legit looking Saige-Tiger.

  
They're ready to pounce at a moments notice . . .

 . . . and possibly pull your eye out!

4. I need to find a place in my house for these awesome garage sale finds from this weekend, before Patrick tries to re-sale them on ebay.  

5. Oh, and I have to find one of these for the next baby shower I go to. 

True story, no?

source

What do you have planned this week? Anything more exciting than getting attacked by Spider-girl-panty-head? I seriously doubt it.

miscellany monday

1. grace-driven effort

D.A. Carson wrote in, For the Love of God, Volume 2, one of the most helpful things that I have read recently in regards to faith, sanctification, and refinement. He talks about it as grace-driven effort, and Jared Wilson expanded on the idea here.

"People do not drift toward holiness. Apart from grace-driven effort, people do not gravitate toward godliness, prayer, obedience to Scripture, faith, and delight in the Lord. We drift toward compromise and call it tolerance; we drift toward disobedience and call it freedom; we drift toward superstition and call it faith. We cherish the indiscipline of lost self-control and call it relaxation; we slouch toward prayerlessness and delude ourselves into thinking we have escaped legalism; we slide toward godlessness and convince ourselves we have been liberated." D.A. Carson

2. The Help

So am I one of the last people on the face of the planet to read this book? I borrowed it from my sister-in-law this last week and I am really enjoying it so far. Have you read it, what do you think about it? Apparently there is some controversy surrounding the movie ... (And this article was written before the movie came out).... 

via my pinterest

3. last week before school

Saige starts kindergarten one week from today. So we are going to live it up this week! But I am definitely looking forward to the structure that her schedule will provide. I am looking forward to spending time with my two littles and being able to help Meadow with her writing. Last week, Saige had an initial assessment and the teacher came out afterwards exuberant about how well Saige did. And she told me she could tell I have been working with her. O, my. She has no idea how much confidence that gave me. Anyways, I have a lot of thoughts rattling around and I plan to write an entire post as a follow up to this post soon.

4. he's not a baby...

I am not sentimental when it comes to hair. I don't mind chopping my own hair off with Fiskars and it isn't too difficult for me to have my babies hair cut for the first time. The main issue I have with haircuts is paying for them. Because I'm cheap, y'all. So I asked my MIL if she wouldn't mind cutting Reed's mop off because I could't stand seeing him sweat just walking out to the van. Have I mentioned we are in drought? Anyways, she always cut the boys hair growing up and she did a great job cutting my nephew's hair recently. Isn't he so handsome?  So here are some before and after pictures of my baby big boy.

before

after

Happy Monday!

what was i thinking?

Since I knew I would be making cupcakes for Saige's party on Saturday, I took a short-cut and bought her some cupcakes from the grocery store for her birthday dinner on Friday (I'm sure this lady would have had something to say about that, but whatev). Saige always wants me to buy the brightly colored ones and, of course, I always say no because who knows how many chemicals are in those things to get them that bright. 

But I gave in. And honestly, I am not exactly sure what I was thinking . . . 

Saige did great with them, because well, that's Saige — clean and orderly.

And then there's Meadow — she has always ENJOYED being messy. Hence, here nickname as a baby, Messy Meadow. She is a calculated messy person though. She does it in a way to be funny, getting just enough around her face to make you laugh.

 And then, of course, Reed takes messy to a WHOLE NEW LEVEL.

It took forever to get the blue off of his body. I can assure you, I will never be buying those again!

Happy Monday, y'all!

the new camera rocks

We are back from the beach. It was a fun, fast trip and as always we enjoyed hanging out with our friends, Liz and Brandon. Since we got home on Sunday, life has been non stop. Doctors visits, mommy group, birthday parties for a certain 3 year old and then planning a party for a certain first-born-daughter of mine. Saige will be 5 TOMORROW. Oh, y'all, I can hardly believe it. But more on that later.

I also enjoyed messing around with my new camera at the beach and getting reacquainted with Photoshop once I got home. These are some of my favorite shots from the weekend. 

Enjoy!

I love, love, love this final shot of my three crazies just as the sun was setting. 

Glorious weekend!