these boots were made for walking

my mom got me some boots 9 years ago. i have loved them every year and finally, this year, they just couldn’t take the love anymore i guess. one fateful morning, this tragic thing happened to one of the heels and within 30 minutes, the other heel did the same thing. isn’t that weird? it was kind of hard to walk around with maddox and being pg where i was. the shoe place laughed at me when i asked if they could reconstruct these wedges that crumbled so i guess i will get some new ones. but i don’t want to b/c i’m in mourning. i’ll never find ones as good or warm as these.

thankful

so. to follow suit with blogger friends and with the season (tomorrow!!) we do want to express all we are thankful for. of course, we’re thankful for our wonderful family and friends, safety, health and country. we’re thankful for the stuff we have that most people in the world can’t even dream of and that 99% of our problems are “rich people problems.” (< if you have a problem with this statement, check this out) above all, we are thankful for the grace and peace granted us through our Lord Jesus.

here are excerpts from a favorite song of ours. it truly encompasses our feelings this day and year. i hope you’ll take a couple minutes to read and consider these words.

Even when pieces are neatly in place
A skip in my step and a smile on my face
Still I have fears that I cannot escape
And I’m just so thankful for You.

Time marches quickly and seasons pass by
As the world You created just seems to unwind
I look beyond to a much better life
And I’m just so thankful for You.

The love flows free, but You dearly paid
I got off cheap and You took the blame
There’s only one thing I can say. I’m thankful, I’m thankful.

I don’t deserve You
And I never will…

- Thankful, Jill Phillips

**updated** guy’s weekend

so i need to update this post. turns out the toy i described below as indestructible does have its limits. i stand by the recommendation since it made it this long but Maddox finally managed to knock a wire loose and cause the sound to stop working. so hears a pic of my first opportunity to fix a toy for the boy. felt good.

ok. so joy is out of town this weekend with Jess and friends for the last big blow-out before Reed and Jessica get married. they will probably go wild and crazy and . . . go out to dinner and girl talk about weddings. so the Madd man and I are taking over. i had thought i would also take over joy’s blogging duties and chronicle our guy’s weekend with lots of pics and short hilarious stories, but, of course, the camera is with joy. duh! nonetheless i’ve been meaning to post about this certain toy belonging to Maddox. it’s just a ball that plays a dozen songs and lights up while the music plays. it doesn’t look like much and is highly annoying . . . BUT, you have to admire the thing because it is purely indestructible. i’ve seen maddox put it through the normal stress tests and i was impressed then, but now he has taken it outdoors, lifted above his head and thrown it down repeatedly with all his might against the slate floor of our porch. the most damage he has been able to do is make it skip a song or temporarily stop the music. but no matter how sure i am that he has finally killed it, i push the button, and it starts like nothing happened. so do yourself a favor – $11 at a toysrus near you.

walk in the park

it is and has been a gorgeous fall here in atlanta. we are so blessed to live in a neighborhood with tons of trees and natural areas and also a lake with a dam that is so picturesque. we’ve been spending lots of time outside relishing it all. here is a slice in one of these fall days.

silver lake

explaining why we can't swim with the ducks today

walking across the dam

the deal with the pink pig

call for comments: will someone please enlighten me as to:

WHAT IS The pink pig? do kids ride? do adults ride? WHAT is the actual ride? i cannot find this basic info on the web. only extremely sentimental accounts of people who have made cross country journeys with their kids each year to ride this mysterious ride that is always hidden in a bubble-tent on the macy’s parking deck about 5 minutes from our house. i have never even seen it!

my little pyro

date nights are always great, but we keep coming back to our favorite one. eating dinner outside in the dark with a fire going and sitting out there for a long while. we like these nights best in the fall and winter so we can bundle up and see the stars with no leaves on the trees. we ushered fall in a little early the other night. felt brisk enough to me! we do not have a single pine tree on our property (odd for atlanta) but we have tons of hardwoods and therefore tons of dead branches that are great for fires. here’s the scene and here’s my awesome pyromaniac husband who can’t leave a fire alone for more than 10 minutes. but it was an incredible, raging fire!

my must-have list

i get rather intrigued by moms who like to tell everyone their must-have-mom-product list because i have found by trial and error that, of course, different things work for different ones of us and we prefer different things! therefore, i am really careful not to push the things i like on someone else because, honestly, someone else might hate whatever i like! anyway, as i was laying in bed one night sleepless, i decided to really think of my list of things i would go to bat for: items i absolutely love and actually get excited about. i thought for a long time and i thought i’d share my list with you:

that’s it. that is my list. i love our high chair because 1) it cost $23; 2) it is made of one piece of plastic so there are no creases to catch food and nothing to have to put in the washing mach to clean – cleaning is just a wipe away; 3) it weighs like 2 lbs total so i can carry it, maddox’s food, m’s drink and M to anywhere in the house; 4) it looks just as good as the day we got it despite 3 meals a day every day; and 5) unlike most kid things we own, it actually doesn’t look disgusting as part of our house. so there you go! end of commerical.

is there anyone out there? (cause it’s getting harder and harder to breathe)

ok. my first call for responses. i’m actually curious about this. [i'm sure atlanta radio shows shave talked about this, but since i don't go for long, leisurely drives anymore ...] what is your philosophy on removing pollen from your little world? i think it is a philosophy. do you advocate sweeping? blowing? washing? your patio, porch, car, etc? every day? or wait til it accumulates into a beautiful mossy layer and there is no more pollen falling? wha about your shoes in your house? do you take them off at the door or what? i just do nothing and whine about it then do a massive cleaning or two. but i’m thinking of changing my thinking….

too much for the dustbuster

a couple months ago, when throwing/flinging finger food off the highchair became a sport, i bought a dustbuster specifically for the highchair area. i thought that would be the way to ensure would routinely clean the floor right there since i wouldn’t have to lug the big vacuum out of the closet. well, i have been outsmarted. yesterday, the amount of cheese and cornbread on the floor and in the chair was too much even for the dustbuster and that is after many repeated “no”s and correcting. i am amazed at the ever increasing cleaning required!