family life

I hope you all had a wonderful Easter! My semi-break from blogging has left me with a million posts in my head. Maybe I can transfer them from my head to the keyboard 🙂
It’s always such a treat for us to have our older kids home—at least some of them. I regret that I didn’t get pics of Marcus and Katilin all dressed up. They were so chic for church on Sunday but they changed before they got to our house and then I was out of photographer mode and into southern chef mode.   As usual, we missed Mal, Savannah and Nicholas:(   The kids came in shifts so I made turkey, mashed potatoes, deviled eggs and carrot cake cupcakes on Friday.  THen on Sunday, it was ham, scalloped potatoes,  baked beans, deviled eggs and banana pudding.   Both days we had bread, creamed corn and green beans.   It was a busy weekend!

I just finished Karen’s photography class and Erin Cobb’s Clean Color tutorial for photoshop, I was happy to have willing subjects to photograph. Most of these photos are edited using portions of Erin’s method. I’m still such a beginner at photoshop but it’s a start.

the little girls

Caiti {my graduating senior} and the littles

emme

sisters (edited in picnik by caiti)

taylor and caiti

the girls in their ‘Crewcuts’
I wanted to thank you all for all your wonderful encouraging words and prayers these past few months. I know this hasn’t been a very cheerful, uplifting place to visit but I think I’m on the comeback and I so appreciate your support. I apologize for the notes, gifts, cards, etc that have gone unanswered. It means more to me than you know. I took all your kitchen/pantry advice to heart and I think we have a solution that will work. I’ll share more house stuff soon. Our foundation was poured yesterday—so let the framing begin!

There have been some wonderful podcasts on Issues Etc for Holy Week.   I really liked this one by Arthur Just on the institution of the Lord’s Supper and this one on God, the Great Gift Giver.   Check out their archives for amazing orthodox teaching.

Blessed Resurrection to you!

xo,

edie

There’s no danger of  losing this one in the airport.

Just look for the girl with the flower pin in her hair, jeans-tucked-in-boots, various colorful bags,  bohemian layered clothing,  taking  photos of EVERYTHING.

That, my friends…..

is my mini me.

Do you have one too?

in my hand…..

on my nightstand….

on my desk…..

on my camera strap…….

on my sewing machine…..

off my sewing machine……

on my sidewalk…..

on my cakestand…..
in our art class (we did art first today because—-well, it’s monday) rainbow leaf painting  found via whatever……

from my deck…..

on my thighs…..

the end.

i was ready to gossip to you about this whole pageant thing.
to gently poke at helicopter moms and spray tan dads.
to highlight the general absurdity of teens parading around in swimsuits.
but i’ve decided to let it lie.
caiti learned a lot. she had a blast and never wants to do a pageant again.
mission accomplished.

she had a lot of support from her family and friends.
who all marveled that she so didn’t seem the ‘pageant type’.
i think she realized early on that she was out of her league.
that many of these girls (and their moms) have made pageantry their reason for existence.
so she said she got ready quick back stage and then helped other girls with their hair and makeup.
that’s my girl.
a few even called her ‘mom’.
she’s such a good sport and made the best of the time she was there.
she seems to have a pretty good handle on real beauty and from Whom and where it comes.
i love that about her.
she’s beautiful in so many ways that have nothing to do outward appearance.
we’ll chalk it up to a good learning experience.

okay, just one bit of gossip. one mom had to be escorted out by security for storming backstage and demanding to know why her daughter didn’t make the top fifteen.
not a word of a lie.
and the whole thing made me wanna come home and read some serious literature.
amen.

love you caiti. you make me proud.

First let me say that we can only take fun trips like this because Stevie works so hard and supports all our educational/pure fun endeavors.  We are thankful 🙂

We drove 4 1/2 hours to Clarksville to drop Caiti off to her activities.   The pageant police (literally) informed us that we could not so much as see her for the next 3 days.

So we promptly drove back to Nashville to begin our fieldtripping festivities and communicated with Caiti by phone only.  {I think hanging out at pageant headquarters would have done me in anyways.}

One of the highlights of our trip was an impromptu knitting lesson at a fabric shop called Textile Fabrics on 8th Avenue (thank you Debra and Jenny for the recommendation).
You guys who live in big cities probably always have access to great fabric and knitting shops but here in our little town, we’ve got Hobby Lobby. So a large fabric shop that stocks Amy Butler and Anna Marie Horner fabrics and Rowan yarn  is like Christmas morning  for us. They had so many employees that we were able to get a great tutorial on knitting ‘in the round’ and then Amanda got the girls both started on hats.

From then on, they were little knitting fools—in the car, in the hotel room, waiting for pageant to start etc.

Another treat was getting to visit my friend Grayson from medical school. We met her and her sweet little family at my favorite Nashville restaurant (The Bound’ry).
It was so fun to reminisce and catch up. I coached the girls to practice their best table manners. We called it etiquette class. They got an “A”.

Grayson and I  became a little depressed when we realized that we first met each other 16 years ago.   How does time get away from us so fast?  It seems like just yesterday.  I told her she looked just the same.  She said I did too.  That’s what you call true friends 🙂

Which brings me to why I love blog world so much. You guys gave me great suggestions and ideas for my trip.  Jenny and Rachel both gave me the ‘heads up’ on the Chihuly exhibit at Cheekwood.   We went on Friday night and it was quite an adventure.   A lot of walking through crowds but so worth it.   Thank you girls!

Sarah, another awesome reader, suggested Silke’s Old World Bakery in Clarksville so we took her advice and had lunch and coffee there. We loved it so much we went twice during our visit. It’s a European bakery with authentic German-speaking employees and todiefor bread and desserts. Thanks so much Sarah!  I wonder if the people of Clarksville know how lucky they are to have this place?!

Roadtripping Part 2, Pageantry coming soon.  It’s hard to find words, except that Caiti makes me proud with her new found anti-pageantry sentiments.

And now I must shake off the exhaustion and get ready for another week of school. We’re studying leaves in science, Esther in bible class and nouns in grammar.
We’re starting The Plymouth Colony in history and will begin memorizing  the Mayflower compact. We’re reading Indian in the Cupboard and The Silver Chair in literature and are looking for a good literature choice to go with our Plymouth study.     Any suggestions?

And don’t forget that this is Reformation Week at Issues Etc.!