InstaLife

It’s been over a week since Thanksgiving, and I have decided between then and now that one thing this blog is missing is more life. Our life, to be specific. After blogging for over 4-1/2 years I’m still trying to strike a good balance between living life, writing about life, and being open – but not too open – about it all. There are some things that are just better left to our family, little nuggets of beauty and celebration that we can tuck in our pockets and enjoy, just the three of us.

 

One thing that I’ve become very aware of, though, is that blogging about our life as it happens is a fantastic way to bring even more relational community to this little online space. Every Friday I’m going to be picking out some of my favorite Instagram pictures from the week to share just what we’ve been up to around here. I hope you’ll join me 🙂

 

The day after Thanksgiving Nate and I left Wes with Nate’s mom and sister and took off to the movies to go see Delivery Man. I know Vince Vaughn’s movies can be kind of colorful, and I’ll admit that most of them we’ve seen and quote regularly. But this was definitely a fantastic feel-good movie that we both enjoyed and was relatively family-friendly!

 

That night, after dinner, we were all able to sit back and just enjoy the glow of Christmas lights. I really love Christmas decorations, but simple white lights are always my favorite. If that’s all we ever put up I think I’d be totally fine with that!

 

My sweet Bunker boy. I love those smooshy lips and his fluffy neck so stinking much! Maybe that sounds crazy to some, but those little characteristics are things that I’ve loved ever since he was a teeny puppy. There have been times as he’s grown up that I’ve marveled at how floppy and drooly those puppy lips could get, the wrinkles under his chin, the touches of grey that are showing up more and more on his muzzle. We are so blessed to have such sweet dogs to love on.

 

I’ve been making daily batches of my simple homemade Christmas potpourri, replenishing the spices and orange peels daily. We each have one Cutie a day, which means 3 new peels each time! Throw it in a mini crockpot with a bunch of spices (you can use the ground ones too!) and you’ve got a wonderful smelling house with almost zero effort. And a snack to boot!

The other day we were out running errands, some of which involved government offices and paperwork and such. My little guy is so laid-back and easy to be around 99% of the time, but that morning was the 1% where he decided to throw a full-on screaming crying tantrum in the middle of the office building. People were literally getting up from their desks to see what in the world the matter was, looking at me like I was pinching him or something. Afterwards we grabbed lunch to go, and I got my celebratory “made it through another tantrum” coffee, a much needed treat to say the least. Luckily Wes took a nap and was in a great mood the rest of the day!

 

I have never lived in a place that has nearly as many trees as Arkansas. It’s so beautiful here, and the fall foliage is amazing…but then the leaves inevitably fall and we inevitably have to rake them all. Our back yard is massive and has tons of trees, so we decided to wait until the last possible moment to rake until after almost every leaf was gone. Last weekend we spent hours raking, blowing, mulching, bagging and otherwise tending to the back yard, only to see 2 days later that it had been littered shamelessly by the remaining leaves in the trees. Even with all the word we did there are spots that literally have 6 inches of leaves to clean up again!

Despite the fact that I’m living in constant fear of a power outage caused by this crazy winter storm raging outside, a few days ago we were in shorts and T-shirts, playing at the park and sweating because it was WARM. Wes was crawling through a bunch of tunnels and playing peekaboo and I got to snag one of my favorite pictures of him yet! I think this one may be blown up and framed for all eternity. Seriously.

 

Two nights ago I made homemade roasted garlic for the first time in a long time, and I cannot believe how long it’s taken me to do it. Roasted garlic is one of the best smells in existence, and it’s incredibly easy to make. I pureed mine into a creamy cauliflower sauce (Lindsay’s recipe) and smothered a fabulous chicken and spinach lasagna in it all. Heavenly.

Wes has been on a kick this week of waking up at 5am rather than 6 or 6:30, which is probably not my favorite trend at the moment. Then, around 8:30 or 9 he’s zonked out in the car or laying on the floor sleepily. I keep wanting to say “I told you so” but something tells me that reasoning would be lost on him right now. Besides, I get to take cute sleeping pictures of him like the one above 😉

 

This weekend is supposed to be crazy cold, crazy icy, and there’s more chances than not that the power will go out. I’m praying the last one won’t happen, that we can just huddle up inside with movies and books and a working heater rather than try to figure out another option. We’ll see; I’m working on not living in fear of the impending power outages at the moment. And taking in the pretty white lights on the tree and mantle alongside snuggles from my boys.

 

I hope y’all have a fantastic weekend!