New Pictures!

Here are some new pictures of Haley, my great-niece. Isn't she a cutie-pie? She is the daughter of Brittany, my niece, who is the daughter of my younger sister, Lori. Got that?

And here is a picture of her mama, Brittany:

She's so beautiful. I can remember when she was born, and what a chunk she was, and how she would wear a sleeper with little pigs on it and I would sing, "She's just a piggy in a piggy suit," over and over and she would smile that Barney-smile that babies give you, the one where it's just their gums showing, and it looks like Barney's uni-tooth. It amazes me how quickly time flies. Brittany will be 21 the end of this October. Twenty-one years have just flown by...so important to savor the moments as they come, whether or not they are pleasant. Just being present and engaged makes time slow down. We spend so much time wishing it away because we don't like being in uncomfortable situations. But in this fallen, longing-for-Christ's-return world, so much of what we encounter is uncomfortable that we end up on the other side of 20 odd years wondering where all the time went. Stay awake and watch carefully--that's what God is telling me to do.

I put this flower up again because I love red, and I've never seen a flower like this before. The face is almost as big as a yellow sunflower, but it has multiple blooms on the stem. And the green parts are trimmed in dark purple. Truly a beautiful flower.



On to the reason for why I'm up, yet again, before the roosters...

Do you think Daisy is getting used to living here and is feeling pretty relaxed? I'd like to trade places with her, except for the deer poop-eating part.


Here is Daisy enjoying her new bed, adorned with all of her new toys. She prefers to crawl under an end table to rest, so you guessed it, this picture is staged.


And now, the reason that I still haven't finished writing my lessons plans for this year:


My rooster has a sign in his mouth, "Simplify," which I would do well to heed.


We are having a used-curriculum sale tomorrow during our homeschool registration meeting, and I hope to get this room organized and streamlined today (God help me!), so I can feel less overwhelmed when I walk into it.