Helping tower

I thought I had blogged about this already, but then someone asked what d was standing on to help me make strawberry muffins yesterday and I went to look for the post and their wasn't one. 
mommy brain strikes again!

my dad built durham a helping tower. two actually. one for our house and one for my moms house. I found the free plans on the ana white website and I forwarded them to him. a few days later my dad and my brother were sawing and hammering these beauties out in the workshop.

there are two modifications. ours does not fold. the boys thought it might be a little sturdier if it was just free standing with no hinges. we have plenty of room in our kitchen so I just leave it out. and on ours the top is not rounded. all four sides are straight. mom stained hers a walnut color and I painted ours a seafoam green. we use it almost everyday. he loves to 'help' me make his breakfast and pack his lunch, wash dishes, cook (we just keep him to the side of the stove, out of reach of the burners and give him some measuring cups to play with). he helps fix his milk sippy in the morning, and its a great height to pull over to the buffet for crafts and other busy activities.

the ana white plans are here. if you are not handy there are several of these on the market. 
this one. and this one. are my favorites.

origrami instagram prints

If you haven't printed your instagram photos yet... what are you waiting for?! 
since we use our phones to capture everyday moments, instagram holds a ton of memories for us. I usually use snapstagram, who I love, but then I heard of a new company and I tried them the last time I ordered prints.

#holyinstalove

origrami is a 4x5 double sided instagram with a front polaroid style print. the back is either a photo map (if you selected a location) or a design background. each print has the date included on the back also!! These are not printed on glossy photo paper like snapstagram, but a thick cardstock. 
36 prints for $19.95 shipped. (that's .55 cents a print) #worthit

only down side is that they do take a bit of time to get to you... these took 13 days, where as the snapstagram I usually get in 2 days. andplusalso, they did not pay me to talk about them... I just really love them that much. xoxo

 

Strawberry Picking

this morning was overcast...
we have gotten a ton of rain in the past couple days. even hail in some parts. we headed out and went strawberry picking anyway. perfect weather. We went last year too. d was so little. this year was so fun to watch him 'get it'. he would say 'yeaaaa' for himself when he picked one, and clap when he tossed it in the bucket. when we got home we made strawberry muffins with our bounty of strawberries. I'll be interested to see if he will try one when he gets up from his nap. we tried strawberries once, and they made his lips look a little irritated and he didn't love them so we just haven't tried again. we will absolutely be heading back. so lucky that this orchard is so close to our house.

strawberry picking 2012

_______________________________________

crimson clovers

I don't know where anything is. I'm lucky to know how to get to target and back. everyone makes fun of us because we don't usually venture past jonesboro road. we don't go out to eat in atlanta, we don't venture out. we stay close to home. I like it that way.

bestie knew of this awesome clover field.
in the country.
like way past jonesboro road.

we packed up the kids and rode down there. a little too early for the yummy light, but we had a great time playing momtogs and making memories with the littles. most of these are pictures ra took. pretty much if you like it- she took it. but I watermarked them all mine so jankey people don't copy them and claim our cute kids as their own. 

it is such a treat to have pictures of the two of us together. this one is my very favorite. this is so us right now. durham is 16 months and a total momma's baby. he is always clutching to me and wanting me. I love his little smirk. I love the crimson clovers. and I love my new distressed jeans that make me feel 25. ::wink::

He is talking to me.

do you ever get that feeling. the one where you just KNOW someone is talking about you...
 you can feel it. like words are burning into your ears.
or where you think someone is watching you... 
you turn around and look behind you 5 times on your walk from the grocery store to your car because you just KNOW someone is watching you.
do you ever feel the need to justify your actions...
(whether it be food choices, parenting techniques or just the fact that you look like a bucket of hott mess that hasn't showed in 2 days) because you just KNOW someone is judging you.

I've been feeling like that a lot lately. But the person who is talking about me, and watching me, and juding me... is me. and God has been talking to me about it. He has been showing me through my relationships, through my mommy board, and thru blogs that I read. He has been showing me that we are all struggling. we are all fighting our own battles. we are all doing our best and to do anything other than lift up and support other moms (or dads, but I'm talking about myself here) is just lame.

I'm not a writer. so I'm not even going to try to explain how my heart has been changed over the past 2 weeks. I'll let these blog links speak for themselves. Ashley Ann from Under the Sycamore wrote the post that rocked me to my core. I think I've used the phrase "I'm a fan of moms" about 23894837 times since I first read this. I forwarded it to bestie at 3am, and we have talked about it several times since then. I re-read it the next day, I posted it on my mommy board and we started talking. one particular quote was brought up "the more you judge others the more you feel judged". I had never heard that before. Then yesterday bestie sent me a text to check out kelle's blog post 'everyone seems to be talking about the same thing' she said. (Kelle Hampton Enjoying the small things this post) and that is when I knew. He was talking to me.