May Review ✽ Hello June

I realize these posts are super outdated, but honestly, I write the month review posts for myself anyway (they're fun, haha!) and they were already almost done, so you can skip them if they feel too old, haha... plus, I had to post them so I didn't not post this month's, too, because I can't put them out of order ;).

Happenings:

-Bethi turned 12! She's grown up so much lately, and it's been fun to "get to know" her as one of the "older" sisters now. She and I are a lot alike, except in the ways we definitely aren't, and so we have good fellowship with a little unique spice to it... haha :).

 -Mother's Day came and went. The little ones made Mama some crepe paper flowers and scrapbook paper ferns, and they turned out so cute, haha. I am so thankful for my Mama and all that she does for us, day in and day out. She's one of my best friends, and I love spending time with her and how we can talk about anything together!

-Daddy moved a boulder. Like, it really qualified as a boulder. I turned it over once, and then I left it for him, haha! He was on a mission, and  he got it where it needed to go! There was joking that it would be easier to dig a downhill trench then roll it by hand, though, haha!

-Gramma brought us strawberries and now we have so. much. jam. On homemade toast... YUM!

-I was laying Josiah in bed and gave him the teddy he has slept with for almost a year now.
"Did you ever name your bear?" I asked.
"No."
"What are you going to call him?"
"I don't know."
"Graham?'
"No."
"Honey?"
"No."
"Cream?"
"No."
"Franklin?"
"No."
"Peter?"
"No... I will name it popcorn."
Popcorn it is, and popcorn it shall remain.
Then cue the sass as he examines his bear: "Who put this scarf back on? I had it off. For a reason!!!!"
Well sorry, buddy...

-I won 7 pieces of clothing in a giveaway??!??! That was fun :)! And I almost scrolled past the announcement, ha! And one was a solid grey Maxi skirt... I love it!

-This snail WOULD NOT STOP COMING TO OUR PORCH to visit no matter how often I place him back in the flower bed. I didn't want to un-home him, but I also really didn't want to crush him, and that was in danger of happening a few times. I carried a box out that I couldn't see over, and I was horrified when I walked back and saw him scooting around the rug. If I had felt a crunch, I would have called my day over right there and then.
Tori named him Smooth Move.

-We officially unpacked the last box since moving... yeah, again. We found another one. Haha.

-Daddy went on a business trip and there was so much cleaning, hole filling, painting and home repairing going on here. And we went to the duck pond to see little ducks. Mama kept adding to her list every time she finished something, haha! We set up a new printer, made some framed hymns with it, cleaned the car and car seats, and did a LOT of yard work... in between it raining ALL WEEK, of course. How come whenever you gear up to actually accomplish something outside, it rains?
Noah helped me weed the side bed :)...

-Noah learned to close his eyes while we pray, and Josiah picked out his own dinner fork, haha! (That's a serving fork, if you can't tell!)

-Peter imagined a monster, and Tori brought said monster into a "reality"... too cute!

-I read, which was a big improvement on last month... ha :). I also revealed some canvases I've had ready to go in Under the Tapestry for a while!

-We made chocolate cookies, which is not really worthy of being announced, but making chocolate chips is one of my favorite things to do, so it gets mentioned anyway, haha.

-Also, Josiah was obsessed with a lizard that wouldn't stay off the back porch, whom I started calling  Bill (a very literary lizard).

-My Great-Grandpa passed away. We have only seen him a couple times in the past ten years, but I remember how much we all enjoyed getting to know he and Great-Grandma right before Abbi was born. Grandpa definitely got down on little people's levels and enjoyed spending time with them!

Laughing at:

Sibling: "Do we have forks clean?"
Me: "No. You could use a nasty fork.
....WhooOOPS. I mean disposable."
My true feelings come out, haha... I hate disposable silverware, it's not even close to shaped right. I'm a silverware snob, lol.

Peter: "Bri, whenever your bed needs made, don't do it."
"Why?"
*Ignores me* "And stay out of your room, because I'm going to...
"...I'm going to....
"I'm going to do something. Something that is a surprise."
Hm, wonder what the surprise is? Haha! Love him <3.

Josiah is playing at the park, Tori and I are standing talking to the side, when we look over and see Joey hanging on some climbing bars with his leg all twisted and doubled up and it kind of looks caught, but he's not worried or moving or anything and I thought maybe he had it under control.
Josiah: *looks back and sees us looking*
Very calmly and matter-of-factly: "I kind of need some help."

-Andrew and Peter laughing at "The Wizard of Oz". Never, and I mean never, have I seen those two very different people laugh soooooo hard together at a whole movie. "It. was. humorous."

Reading:

-"The Country Diary of an Edwardian Lady". This is a re-read. I just love the pictures, and the little nature poems, and the descriptions of the flowers and birds and their doings. My Grandma had this, and I was going to peruse it while I was at the house alone when Andrew and I went to visit them last month, but it wasn't on their shelves any longer... I found out a couple weeks ago it was because she gave them to us, hahaha!

-Laura Ingalls Wilder's "Pioneer Girl". Mama read this recently and couldn't keep all that she was learning to herself. She kept reading parts to me every time I'd walk in, and she told me that I just needed to read it. I won't spoil the Little House Books, haha! There are some major plot twists from fiction to factual, although it's very interesting!

-"Jonathan Edwards and Justification." A little theology-overview by a few people. Some of us were sick one Sunday and we didn't go to church, and I read some of this, listened to some hymns, read some scripture, and listened to one of the Wednesday night sermons... it's on Romans, which, as you all know, is "my" book, so that's fun :). Also, the sermon was very in depth, which just makes it better!!!!

Fails:

Weeding the garden without wigging out. Seriously, our worms are so big. I actually literally thought I found a snake one time. I yelled.


*Mama calls, the phone stops ringing, I call back*
Mama: "Having issues with the new phone?"
Me: "I didn't know how to answer it. So I had to call you back instead."
I've got that down now, by the way. Thankfully.

Mama and Andrew and I: *clean the car*
There is no way this is a fail, right? Well...
Vinegar cleaner and South Carolina heat: "It's clean, but you really didn't care if it smelled good, did you?"
All of us thee next day: *gags*

*wears a new skirt for the first time*
Peter and I: *drop Frostie on it*
And yes, I actually totally expected that. I'm so clumsy...

Me: *talking on the phone while dusting*
"Iiiiim dusting a shelf I've already done..."
It doesn't help that if Noah thinks of books he empties the bookshelves, so I was having to have him removed every 30 seconds, haha.

Quotes I liked:

Oops. I read... but I was too lazy to write anything down, haha!
*insert some inspirational quote here and pretend it came from me*

 Then tell me which one you chose, please. Haha!

Grateful for:

 -Sweet Bethi!
-That God perfectly picked my Mama for me :).
-Josiah and popcorn ;). (Seriously, y'all, editing this now I have to say this is still one of my favorite things he's done lately, haha!)
-Baby ducks <3.
-The neat fresh look of dirt cleared of weeds and ready for plants!
-A clean car (that no longer smells like hot vinegar, thankfully!)
-A new printer!!! That has been such a help for my shop, too- printing templates, shipping labels, and things like that :).
-That the Lord gave his children so much creativity! Think how boring our life would be if he hadn't included that gift.

"Give thanks in all circumstances; for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus for you." 1 Thessalonians 5:18

April review ✽ Way super late

Basically, I totally still blog. I just... don't edit posts anymore. So, I've got a really full drafts folder right now ;).

But I thought that this afternoon would be a great time to go through some of those drafts with a coffee cup full of... ice cream. Haha :). Because that's my favorite way to eat ice cream (the more compact design makes the ice cream stay chilled longer- I hate melted ice cream!)

By the way; Daddy recently, pulling my old coffee cup out of the cupboard; "Um, I wouldn't use this. That crack runs all the way from the outside to the inside. If you pick that up, the handle will stay in your hand, and the cup will go the other way, and you'll have hot coffee all over you."
Me: "Oh, I know. I don't use it anymore."
Me that afternoon: *looks down at the cup I just started eating ice cream out of*
"I mean, you know, I don't use it for coffee..." Whoops. Haha. I wouldn't have hot coffee all over me, now would I ;)?

Happenings:

-We "officially"celebrated Josiah's third birthday, since he had been too sick to do it on his birthday, poor guy :(. He had a train theme, because he's just a super boy-ish boy who loves mechanics, and the bigger the better, and remember he doesn't think he's small, and all that. Haha :). He got to go to the zoo to ride the little train there as part of his special day :)!

-Andrew went to my Grandparent's house to help Grandpa remodel their porch (which looked great when they were done!), and I went along too. While we were there Grandpa took us to our second baseball game. Andrew went to one last year... and I went to one when I was about four. I remember nothing of the game that time, just sitting between my Grandpa and Aunt, haha. So I was pretty lost on what was going on, although I started to pick it up near the end. Mostly though, my aunt and I just sat at the end and laughed hysterically under our breath about pretty much every thing ;).

-I got back from my grandparents just in time to help out with one of the special needs respites I volunteer at... which was being held at the special needs baseball team game, haha! I've been laughing at the fact that I went to one game in 19 years... and then 2 in less than a week. Also, at the respite leader's face when she realized that I was so new to baseball. Ha!

-On Good Friday, Mama and Daddy announced that we had a new little brother or sister... waiting for us before the throne of God. It was sad to realize that this little one wouldn't be joining our family here on earth, but what a joy to know that we can look forward to the day we meet him or her to praise our Savior together forever! I think it definitely made our Resurrection just a little more tangible in what Christ has done for us and the hope that his death ending in life brought to us <3.

-We spent the 15th doing yard work all morning... then realized while eating lunch that we had church prep AND Easter dinner shopping and prep still to do. While doing all that baking... the little boys took big buckets and filled them with water to dump on their bedroom floor. So. much. water.

-We had a wonderful Resurrection Sunday, with all our little traditions; Resurrection buns, in which you wrap a marshmallow that "disappears" as it melts, which always confuses the little ones and is a fun picture of Jesus rising from the grave, eaten while we watched the "That the World May Know" documentary "The True Story of Easter"; did our study of the account of the Resurrection; and, although it hasn't been tradition since Tori and I were little, Mama decided to do an egg hunt for the little ones. We were watching old family movies and Abbi thought the egg hunt looked fun, and asked Mama is they could try it. I think Abbi was the first to say that she doesn't want to do another next year, because between Daddy and Tori everything was too well hidden, hahaha! It was funny...

-We cleaned the garage and unpacked the last box since we moved in!

-Peter turned five! He had a Teddy Bear themed birthday, because he was very intrigued by Noah's Paddington birthday, and he looooooves the book "Found". "It is my favorite book, because he loves the bunny. And you know what? When the moose says "Floppy my bunny!", the bear is sad.... and there...is a tear." *genuine sad face* Haha! He's too cute.

-Noah had his first hair cut (it was so LONNNNGGGG, hahaha!)... and now he looks so much older...

 

Laughing at:

Watching Curious George:
Really annoying character: "I jumped out of a plane without a parachute and lived to tell about it! I. Am. Awesome!"
Josiah: not to get attention or anything, but just quietly to himself because he can't hold it in: "No. You're not..."

I have terrible congestion for days and do nothing about it:
Mama: "Please take something. I don't want to send you out of town if you are miserable."
Cough suppressant: doesn't work after one time
*doesn't care, gives up*
*realizes that I have 24 hours to get it gone before I see my Aunt and her baby*
Me: takes vitamin c, grapefruit seed extract, acv, and takes a eucalyptus steam bath, not because I'm miserable, but because I WILL be well enough to hold my new cousin when I see him. Ha!

*Doesn't realize that the day Andrew and I are out of town is National Siblings Day, and one of my siblings calls me out for leaving them on National Siblings Day*

Me on Facebook: "*is cleaning glasses*
*brings glasses closer to my face to see if they look clean*
*accidentally stabs my eyeball with my glasses*
I'd like to say this is why I have glasses, but in all honesty, I think it's that I'm just clumsy like that..."
Facebook to Mama: "Ambrielle Shaffer just posted for the first time in a while."
Thanks Facebook. Thanks.

Emmi: "Bri, I found one of your shirts in my basket. Do you know how I know? When I put it on, it came down to my knees. It. Was Humorous.
...Humorous? I mean... enormous."
I think she was throwing humongous in there too :).

Emmi: "The other day Josiah was trying to do a somersault, but he accidentally did a somerSIDE, like this."
*demonstrates a cartwheel*

Abbi at being told she could use scented markers: "YES! I can make my card smell!!!"

Mama is giving the girls a pre-spelling test so she knows what words to have them focus on studying...
Abbi: "Here's mine. I went ahead and marked all the ones I spelled wrong."
And she did, too, hahaha!

  Reading:

-Pretty much actually nothing. I finished Robert Frost's poems. And.... yeah, I finished Robert Frost's poems. And read Phillipians and some Psalms and did my regular Ephesians study/reading. I also read some of Matthew Henry's commentary on Ephesians. So I guess that counts? I read the latest King's Blooming Rose magazine, too. Which was wonderful, as always :).

Quotes:

Brought to you by Robert Frost and Matthew Henry, because they're pretty much all I read, as mentioned before ^^^^.

"The way a crow
Shook down on me
The dust of snow
From a hemlock tree

Has given my heart
A change of mood
Ad saved some part
Of a day I had rued."

"We make ourselves a place apart
Behind light words that tease and flout,
But oh, the agitated heart
Till someone find us really out.

'Tis pity if the case require
(Or so we say) that in the end
We speak the literal to inspire
The understanding of a friend.

But so with all, from babes that play
At hide-and seek to God afar,
So all who hide too well away
Must speak and tell us where they are."

-Robert Frost (Some of his poems were just really weird... but I liked these two, haha :).)

"Only by pride comes contention; only by humility comes love."

"If others will quarrel with us, we must take all possible care not to quarrel with them."

"Christ is the lesson; we must learn Christ. Christ is the teacher; we are to be taught by him."

"We must be of a yielding and of a submissive spirit, and ready to all the duties of the respective places and stations that God has allotted to us in this world."

-"Matthew Henry's Commentary of the Whole Bible" (Ephesians)

 Fails:

-Apparently reading.

-Blogging. I'm totally optimistic here, aren't I, y'all? Hahaha! I didn't even journal more than once this month, what happened to me?!?!?!? But, I wrote people back in a more timely manner than usual, so maybe that was a good thing?

-I somehow managing to be the death of another nest of birds :(. I don't know if it's really my fault of not, but I'm beginning to feel it is. I have found 11 baby birds/eggs in the past two years, and I've only seen *1* leave the nest. (There is debate about whether a nest of three made it or not, so I guess I shouldn't count them in my figures). I felt bad for laying eyes on it when I found it, but they hatched and seemed to be doing fine, and I was literally just breathing a sigh of relief when I noticed they weren't fine, and, yeah. I cried, and I really want to know how we have any birds in the world anymore if this is normal?

-Making brownies that were supposed to taste just like our favorite mix, but "better!". It didn't taste just like them, and it definitely wasn't better... but the leftover ones were good with leftover frosting from Peter's birthday cake, so we still won, haha :).


 Grateful for: 

-Josiah's three years here with us! Especially since we could have lost him at his birth, I'm so thankful for the "extra" time we have been given with him <3.
-The great time Andrew and I had at our Grandparents. I loved getting to spend time with them and the fun things they included me in, and had some great conversation with my Grandma :). And while she was at work and the guys were working on the porch, I got to read my KBR magazine that got to me just in time, and worked on an order for my shop... which the pattern for was way super confusing to me somehow even though it isn't actually confusing at all, and I got nowhere on it, haha! Also, my Grandma showed me her favorite rerun of show Britain baking show, and I find it humorous how intense baking can seem when it's for a competition, haha. They were literally sitting there watching bread rise with baited breath... and I think we were too. So weird.
-The gift of Haven's little life. No matter how short, it fulfilled God's purpose... and how wonderful are the ways of the Lord, even when carried out in ways that we may not understand.
-The death and life of our Lord Savior, bringing us from death in sin to life with him.
-Hearty Herb Bread... just because it's good, haha :).
-Graham crackers... they helped greatly with Noah's haircut ;).
-Peter! He is such a sensitive, caring little person, and he definitely sweetens our lives! He loves to empathize... on his birthday he asked Mama, "Can we watch Finding Nemo at Supper?"
"Why do you want to watch that?"
"Because I want to cry." Hahaha!
-Bible studies with Mama, and good commentaries.

"O give thanks unto the Lord; for he is good: for his mercy endureth for ever.  O give thanks unto the God of gods: for his mercy endureth for ever. O give thanks to the Lord of lords: for his mercy endureth for ever. To him who alone doeth great wonders: for his mercy endureth for ever. Who remembered us in our low estate: for his mercy endureth for ever: And hath redeemed us from our enemies: for his mercy endureth for ever. Who giveth food to all flesh: for his mercy endureth for ever. O give thanks unto the God of heaven: for his mercy endureth for ever." (Psalm 136)