Its Hot.

I am a lover of a good article because an article is all that I get around to reading these days. I love to read an article and have it evoke strong feelings of the love of literature that I have, but have no time right now to "invest" in. Like I have the book "Edgar Sawtelle" on my night stand (that my Mom loaned me and swears is one of the greatest books she has ever read) that I have picked up a baker's dozen times but can't seem to read due to being in the 9 month of pregnancy, or having a newborn baby, or 3 children aged 3 and under, or feeling instead that I need to read some book titled "How to Train Up Your Children (without beating them or selling them on the side of the road)" and so therefore I fall asleep my first sentence into the book and most likely with drool running down my face in two minutes flat.  All of this to say that my latest love is Garden&Gun magazine. Its a literary jewel as far a magazines go and I have enjoyed reading it here and there when at my parent's house. Jared enjoys it as well and so for his 30th birthday (more on that soon so stay tuned) my parents gave him two years subscription to this fine magazine. On the road last weekend, I read the May issue that my parents had wrapped up for him with a card explaining their generous gift. The May issue of Garden&Gun is a special issue for us native "Chattanoogians" as they featured our sweet and pretty darn cool town as one of their main articles. Anyways, my point of this post is this article that I found among the pages. Its hilarious, so very true, and if you live in Alabama right now (I am sorry Mom and Dad you do not count or any other readers hailing from the Tennessee mountains. I know its hot there, but you live on a mountain and there is a breeze. We haven't had a breeze since January) then you will love and laugh with this read. 

Enjoy!

I did.

Here is the link again in case you missed the highlighted gray "this"

http://gardenandgun.com/article/daniel-wallace-great-indoorsman

The Lott House aka The "Have-We-Lost-Our-Ever-Loving Minds?" House

 This little cutie of a house with the sweet, sun-faded 4 wheeler out front is our newest addition to the chaos in our lives.

This house is right next to our house and we recently purchased it to renovate and then to sell or to rent. Jared and I love old homes. Actually love is a bit of an understatement-we adore and are slightly obsessed with them. Jared currently serves on two boards here in Demopolis that serve to protect, enrich, and rebuild the old homes in and around Demopolis. Well, we thought we would buy this one and transform it or rather get it back to its "original self."  This house had been in the same family for generations upon generations and the lady who sold it to us was actually born in the front room over 70 years ago. Mrs. Lott had gotten too old and had not be able to keep up the house anymore and so we were glad to be able to buy it and fix it up. It needs painting, all new flooring throughout, a new kitchen, new bathrooms, lighting, and the list continues. So these last few weeks I have added a new title to my already demanding job: CONTRACTOR. 

No worries, I have done this before with our own house and so Jared and I are banking on our previous experience to get The Lott house restored. 

I will say though it has added a new level of demands on me (and Jared too). I have painters ringing my doorbell in the middle of me nursing the baby. I have flooring guys knocking on my door while I am feeding everyone lunch asking me a handful of questions. I have a baby in my arms and my bigger boys racing through the house only coming back to me with "mudding dust" all over them or Kingston with a dead roach in his hand. 

Its pretty much craziness. 

I thought I would post BEFORE and AFTER pictures and give a little sneak peak on what it will (hopefully) end up looking like when we are finished.   

Our house to the right in the photo.

Foyer with terrible laminate on the floor.

Entrance Hallway

Dining Room

Kitchen

Kitchen (looking into dining room at right)

Mudroom/Backdoor entrance

Mudroom window

Living Room

Bedroom 1 (yes, those are vines growing into the house)

Jack 'n Jill bathroom

Bedroom 2

Master Bathroom

Master Bedroom

Our materials and color choices. 

Stay tuned. 

French Beach

The best thing that we do all summer is to go to "French Beach," as Alder calls it. 
We load up the boat and usually with friends, hot dogs, shovels, buckets, some towels, a card table and folding chairs, a lighter, some wine, and the ingredients to make smores. As we speed along the river in the boat the boys scream with excitement, reach back to touch the water spray, count the wild animals we see along the way, and help Daddy drive. The excitement has built and as we reach the sandy bank, I can hardly keep them in the boat. As I lift them down into the shallow water, I watch Alder and Kingston race away down the shoreline giggling and embracing this authentic place, the freedom, and the sense of adventure. 
The Black Warrior is full of adventure and freedom and is truly an authentic place to be "raising" our boys. It is perfect for them. They bathe in the mud, swim in the dark waters, start fires with Daddy, collect sticks, and learn of the place around them. It thrills me that "French Beach" is a place that they can really be boys. A couple of times now we have taken along the wonderful Smith family and cooked out our dinner over an open fire, watch the children explore, and bask in the soothing effects of being by open water.
A simple life...and young children.
What a blessing.

Moses

Do you think this is what Moses looked like so many years ago when he washed up in his basket on the banks of the river? 

He even has mud on the left side of his face. 

Moses probably didn't have embroidered boats on his outfit though, mud maybe, but boats no.

Summer Love

I have been slow. 

I have been slow to write these last few weeks and I have no idea why. I think it has to do with the heat, the lazy days of summer, and the constant chaos that mothering 3 little ones bring. I am not getting the mail opened these days and it can sit on my desk for a couple of days at least. I point this out only because I remember when I just had little Alderman and our days were so slow that I would treat going to get the mail like an activity for the two of us. It was a block of time. We would go out to the mailbox, get the mail, I would sort through each piece, look at all of it, let Alder get down and crawl around the grass, we may even examine a bug or two. It was slow and simple. Now, I am just doing well to get the mail into the house, on the entrance table, and then get it, maybe that same day, to my desk area. Forget reading any of it though. 

Life is still very simple. All 4 of us may lounge in our pjs till noon, watch a little video before breakfast, and enjoy these days when we don't have anywhere to be (summer or not) since none of them are school aged yet. It is a sweet time of playing with animals, building homes for them with their blocks, building train tracks, painting murals, and trying hard to meet all of their needs. This is where the chaos comes in as there is always a little one needing Mama to help, wipe, clean, guide, hug, comfort, encourage, discipline, and instruct. 

So I am slow to write and post snapshots of our lives. 

Here are a few randoms from these last few weeks. 

Hudson is literally growing at a rate that makes my desire to have at least 3 more babies very intense. He. cannot. be. this. big. already.

He is adored by his brothers and most especially Kingston. In this picture below, as I had nursed Hudson one day (I feel like this is all I do with this baby boy. Nurse. Every 3 hours during the day), Kingsers came along and put all these stickers all over him. I am always having to peel Kingston off Hudson. He just loves him so intensely. 

But who wouldn't love this littlest one intensely. Hudson is precious in every way. He is sweet, sweet, sweet and a darn good baby. He has stolen our hearts. Like last night after he and I had a shower together and he was laying all naked on the bed and I was admiring his cute little naked body with all his fat rolls, he just started laughing for the first time. He just laughed and laughed at my funny noises I was making to the point of getting hiccups. 

Great fun.

 This is him watching his mobile in his crib. Happy as a clam.

Alder the photographer is busy again taking pictures of our lives. I like these two below that he captured of Hudson and I one afternoon.

Happy Boy, again.

And do you remember this picture I posted back in early March? I think I was 2 weeks away from delivering Hudson and Daddy gave us a ride home from church in his truck. I think the post title was like, "You know you live in Alabama when..."

Well, the other day Daddy had to be at church early and we came later walking and strolling.

He was gracious to give us another ride home....

It had gotten too bloody hot to walk home and plus Hudson needed to be "initiated" into life in rural Alabama. 

*I have no idea why this picture turned out funny. My camera was on some strange setting. This was the best editing I could do on it*

 And these two...

the expressions on their faces pretty much sum them up right now in life.

They are wild, crazy, have an intense zeal for life, funny, and are cute as pie. I feel like they try to be disobedient at EVERY OPPORTUNITY. What is with that? Alder and Kingston egg each other on and when I tell one "no" the other one thinks that means "yes" for him. Ummm, NO!!! My latest saying is, "If its NO for your brother than its NO for you too." They both swim like little fish in the pool and river, love the boat, the hose, getting naked, peeing outside, pouring sand on each others heads while playing in the sandbox, throwing rocks and other such hard things (no matter how much I may threaten their lives), pretending to "hunt" lions and tigers with their Nerf guns, practicing selective male hearing, and wrestling with Dada. They are ALL boy. 

Beachin' It

 

 

It may be a month ago that we went to the beach, but I had to post it even though I am obscenely late. We went for Memorial Day weekend and it was such a sweet and wonderful time for our family that I could not NOT write and post lots of pictures from the weekend.

The weekend was filled with constant joy, happy boys, swimming, fishing, sand castle building, birthday celebrating, lounging, and eating great seafood. I think all 5 of us were on the beach maybe 2 times the entire weekend as the newborn still sleeps his days away and doing so on the beach is, well, too sandy to do so effectively. So I became the runner. I ran casting nets back and forth from the condo to the beach. I ran juice boxes and more sunscreen out. I ran extra towels and then became a sherpa and hauled it all back inside in the afternoons. Jared spent most of the time with the older boys on the beach having great bonding time with them. He would catch them fish and crabs and build sand castles and dig big holes. I felt at first that I was missing out, but then as I would walk down the boardwalk with more of whatever it was that they needed I could see that all three of them were playing so hard and having such a great bonding time that I no longer felt like I was missing out. It was great time with Daddy. And after all, sitting by the pool reading a book by myself and listening to the monitor (don't worry I could see both entrances into our condo from where the pool was so Hudson was safe inside by himself :)) or fixing lunch for my hungry hippos in the quiet of the condo was really quite nice. 

We celebrated Kingston's 2nd birthday at the beach. 2? Really? I am constantly amazed at how quickly time is flying by and amazed at how much I might sound like a old person every time I say this out loud. But it is true and I am really trying to enjoy each little season and stage of my precious children's lives for it will be over before I know it. 

Mama and her boys on the beach. Conrad Hudson...not so happy.

Jared using his casting net to catch fish for the boys. I think they were really hoping for a shark.

I love that little hand. Kingston has the longest fingers and just the sweetest hands. They are very distinct. Here is his hand trying to catch the fish as Alder watches overhead. This is not an unfamiliar sight as often I see this occur at home as Kingston fearlessly catches bugs and Alder looks on with sheer excitement but refusing to touch a bug himself.

Chillin'.

Classic Kingston. He loves, loves, loves Busytown books by Richard Scarry. He will get one of the books and go find a place all by himself and read the book for hours (ok its really more like minutes). 

Classic Kingston....again. This is Kingston trying to smother his baby brother with his blanket. 

Why do I even try to get pictures of the 3 of them together? And how different could they look from each other? And who cut Kingston's hair? 

Kingston's birthday morning and unwrapping his presents. Of course with the help (or rather interference) of his older brother.

Here we are as a family. Yipee! We actually all got in a picture together. We traveled into Rosemary Beach for dinner to celebrate Kingser's b,day and had a wonderful dinner with a Lightning McQueen cake which Kingston is just absolutely obsessed with. He loves Cars. Anyone taken a 2 year old to the new Cars movie??? Should I dare to take Kingston?

And this captures my ever fickle, moody, and usually discontented Alderman. That all may sound harsh, but we love him for all of his different intensities and quirks. 

Kingston looking confused by the cake being brought to the table.

Pretty cute cake for Wal-Mart, hey?

Yay for me! I finally posted about the beach. 

Good night.