Friday Iphone Dump Day

I can finally be part of Jen's Friday Iphone Dump linkup because I now have an iphone!

Disclaimer:  I've only had the phone for a few days so there's not many pictures on it yet. And the ones that are on it were primarily take by 9-year-old MJ!

Yes, she's had a lot of fun with CamWow.  We had many, many laughs over some of these pictures!

MJ again. I'm laughing all over again just looking at these!

I couldn't show you the most horrendous pictures she took of me, I just couldn't do it, but I can share this one because it made me laugh so much!  Aren't I perty?

Ok, I couldn't eave you with that image of me so here's me looking like a normal person :)

 Um, maybe I'll get my desk cleaned off today?

Gotta love Advocare 24-Day Challenge!

In case you don't have teenage girls, this is what they do when they take pictures of themselves. Every time.

Until their mom tells them not to so that she can get a good picture of her with her daughter.

We have Franklin, the 3rd grade classroom turtle at our house for a couple weeks.  He's a lot of fun.  Did you know turtles hiss?

 MJ's looking much older than 9 here.  I don't love that.  But I love the picture.

A Day with MJ

Over the weekend I had a chance to spend a lot of time with my girls. Both boys were gone and it was just us for three days!  We loved every minute of it.  I didn't cook dinner....or lunch...or breakfast.  We pretty much just snacked all weekend.  We did some cleaning and organizing, some movie watching and sleeping in, some snuggling and laughing.  I also got to spend an afternoon with just MJ.  I asked her what she wanted to do and she said she wanted to go to the park. 

One thing about having two teenagers is that I am really appreciating my youngest still being little.  I LOVE that she still loves to play with her toys, play dress-up and pretend, and I love that she just wants to run and play at the park without a care in the world.  She's 9, so I am aware that my time with her as a little girl is limited.  And that is heart breaking.

I used to want my kids to get older.  I, like any mom of little kids, was exhausted from just the day to day grind with little ones.  I was always excited when they started school.  But now, B will be a senior next year, and Ally is now a teenager, I do not want MJ to get any bigger.  I am suddenly wishing they were all little again and I was a stay-at-home mom again taking care of their every little need.

But since I can not go back in time, I will enjoy the experiences I have with each of them.  And I'm thankful for my day at the park with my littlest last Saturday.  Just look at how dang cute she is!

Trying to love where I live

I live in a gorgeous place.  Smack dab in the middle of Idaho.  In the mountains.  5000 feet above sea level.  This is a ski resort town and a summer lake hangout place.  It truly is gorgeous. I can see God's gift of nature to us all around.  Everywhere I look.  The town is very small.  Only about 2500 full time, year-round residents.  It's the kind of place that I thought only existed in the movies.  A place where you know people every where you go.

Lately I've found myself sulking because we don't have a Target, or a movie theatre, or a craft store of any kind, or a mall, or any cheap restaurants.  I know it's ridiculous on one hand to want those things, and I even feel guilty typing the words on this screen.  It seems so shallow.  So materialistic.  But the truth is, I do want to go see movies at a theater.  And I do want to go to Fred Meyer or Target sometimes.  I want to take a class on quilting, or bracelet making or some such thing. 

And then I look around me.  All I see outside is beauty.  Green beauty.  Today on my lunch I decided to go out and look at the beauty everywhere.  Really take it all in.  I want to appreciate the fact that I live somewhere where God's creation is so vivid.  Somewhere that time seems much slower than everywhere else.  I want to feel blessed for living in such a place as this, rather than sad that it is so small, so remote.  Here's some of the beauty I found.

This lake is two blocks from my work and only five minutes from my home.

 

Aspen trees are everywhere.  I wish I could have somehow captured the sound as I took this photograph.  It was a tad breezy and the leaves make a really neat sound as they blow in the wind.

 

This one is just for fun.  And because I look smaller than I do in real life.  Yes, I am at the point where I post ANY picture of myself where I look smaller than I do in real life.  Even if it's just me in a shadow.

 

 

I was able to sit on a bench and read my book for a while at lunch.  Have you read this book, the Language of Flowers by Vanessa Diffenbaugh?  So good! But so sad.  I sure hope it ends well.