This is ...

This is my youngest son:

(Resist those brown eyes.  I dare you.)

That's his favorite blankie.  He calls it his soft blankie.  Grandma Downs made it for Elijah.  Elijah didn't care about it.  Tank won't let it out of his sight.

(Also fun about Tank:  He'll say things like, "Mom?  I was wondering if maybe today you could make some popcorn."  How do you say no to that?  I know I've brought this up before, but seriously, is it possible to say no to a request like that?)

This is my middle child:

That's his miniature best friend, Koala Bear.  Koala doesn't have a more personalized name, but he does have a high squeaky voice that frequently gets banned from use.

(Also fun about Koala Bear:  Rob uses a nice Australian accent when he's incorporating koala bear into his bedtime stories.  And then the kids make him narrate as koala.  I love it.)

These are my 3 children, dressed and ready for church:

Those are their reverent faces.

(Also fun about my kids:  They're awesome.)

This is the front of my house:

That's the newly painted front door.  Here it is closer up:

(Also fun about the door:  No one agrees on what the color is.  And it looks different colors in different lighting.  ...  It's a throwback 1950's color, by the way.  That's why I chose it.)

(Oh, and we finally buffed the name "Rack" out of the door knocker (since, you know, the Racks haven't lived her for 5 years).  I didn't take a close up picture of that, though.)

This is the side of my house:

Those are the lilac bushes.  Only 3 of them are going to bloom, and not very well at that.  Disappointing.  BUT, they all have lots of new growth on them, and that's promising.

(Also fun about this side of the house:  When those lilacs grow up, and cover half the house, this side of the house won't be so hideously ugly.)

This is part of the back of my house:

That's the Virginia Creeper trying hard to eat everything that it can.  I've had to pull it out of the exhaust pipe for the dryer, off the edge of the sliding glass door, and soon I'll be pulling it down from the roof.  Why do we keep a plant that's so invasive, you ask?  Because we're suckers for growing things.  And this one has put up a fight just to be alive.  Now that it's triumphant, I'd be sad to flex my human muscles and cut it out of existence.

(Also fun about our Virginia Creeper:  This view from the dining room:

See it lining the side of the house there?  Ah, greenness.)


This is the hole that my kids dug under the swing:

That's actually where an old post used to be, so we found out when the kids started digging, and Rob had to take the old cement out last year.

(Also fun about this kid-made hole:  Nothing.)

This is my oak tree in the backyard:

That's what happens when deer find your baby tree.  Notice that there's like 2 feet of new growth at the top and next to nothing on the sides?  That's cause deer ate off the new growth on EVERY SINGLE side branch.

(Also fun about this situation:  I now think murderous thoughts about deer on an almost daily basis.)

...

This is my life.

That's all I have to say about it.

(Also fun about my life:  Rob will be done teaching double classes in UNDER A WEEK!  Consequently, this is the week from Hell.  I am now irrational about things like dishes, and I'm starting to get jittery around my kids when I'm tired.  ...  I was told the other day, though, and by a complete stranger no less, that I have a bubbly personality.  This makes things better.)