Lately

It's been a while since I've done a post just about life lately. Lots has been happening, so this will be filled with some randoms!

• My friend, Kendall, had her babies on November 15th. They are tiny little thangs - weighing less than 5 pounds apiece - but both are healthy and did not need any NICU time. I went to the hospital to meet them on their birthday, and oh my they are SO precious! God is so good.

Caroline & Julia

Isn't it amazing that they pretty much don't look anything alike? They each strongly favor one parent. 

Together, they weighed just a few ounces more than Brenson weighed the day he was born. 

I haven't actually seen them since their birthday, but I can't wait to get my hands on them again! Here I am with Julia:

• Just a few weeks before the girls were born, another one of our besties got engaged! Angie is pictured in a couple of the photos above with the babies. She is thrilled, and I am happy to see her so happy. I had kind of assumed that if she did a traditional wedding with bridesmaids, that I would be included in her list. However, I was still pleasantly surprised when I received this handcrafted card in the mail:

And the inside reads:

It's been a while (like 7 or so years) since I've been in a wedding. For a while, it seemed that our entire summers were filled with weddings, and there was one year that I was a bridesmaid in 3 weddings during one summer. The past several years that has really slowed down, so I'm going to have to dust off my "How to be a Bridesmaid" book, haha! 

• I'm a November baby myself, born on my Dad's birthday. This has always been a special thing between us, but since I've been grown we have spent just a very few of our birthdays together. This year, my Dad turned 60 so we (my siblings and families) all made a special effort to be together. This really deserves a blog all its own (coming soon!), but I do love this fun photo of my Dad and me on our birthday:

• On the evening of Thanksgiving - instead of standing in line with all of the other Black Friday shoppers - we put up a couple of Christmas trees in the kids' rooms. They both LOVE their personal tree . . . who am I kidding? I love them, too! For the first day or so they were up, we battled quite a bit with Brenson regarding touching them. However, he is doing great now and has really learned his boundaries. This past weekend, we finished decorating the whole house and put up our big tree. 

• Speaking of Brenson, boy-child is a MESS right now! He is just into everything and all over the place all the time. And he is such a boy about things. I have these pretty throw pillows on our couch (pictured below), and I'm not sure how well you can see it in the photo, but each flower has a jewel sewn in its center. One day, Brenson pulled one of the pillows off of the couch and plucked a little jewel right off of the pillow . . . like broke the thread it was sewn on with. And then, he ATE it. I seriously only had my eyes off of him for two minutes. When I looked at him, I said, "Brenson, do you have something in your mouth?" and as soon as I started to walk over to him, he took off turbo crawling across the room. That is a dead giveaway that he's doing something he's not supposed to be. Anyway, I did catch him and fish that little jewel out of his mouth before he swallowed it, but who knew throw pillows would be such a hazard? I guess a man's hate for throw pillows is something he's born with *grin*.

Happy Monday, ya'll!