Okay, so I may have just spend the last forty five minutes re-reading all of my old blogs and maybe tearing up at how much life has changed, but also just how beautiful it all is. I am an absolutely terrible blogger, but I love that I have these memories to look at and scroll through and remember all of the wonderful, beautiful things that have happened in our life.
And I also figured that a few years down the road, I will probably look back on this stage of life and wonder why I didn’t blog for like 23409 months in a row, and I will have wished I documented a little bit more of the crazy… so, here we are.
I believe the last blog I wrote was about Naomi turning one! Since then, we have bought a house, went on a real fun vacation to the smokey mountains, I went back to work & we re-did our basement (kind of). It has been busy and wonderful, but also sometimes I feel very exhausted. After reading all of my old posts, I realized that while I wrote them, I felt so tired, exhausted and maybe a hint of overwhelmed. Now as I look back, I remember the fun adventures, all of the funny things Hez would do, and I fixate way more on the positives than the negatives. Life is an adventure, and if we really wanted to slow down and not do as many things, we surely could—but where’s the fun in that?!
So anyways, we bought a house! Yes, during the worst time to buy a house. Are we foolish? Maybe. Do we love our house? Absolutely! We actaully bought it without Nathan ever seeing it, so that’s fun. It’s like the trust fall—but riskier. He likes it though, so we’re all good.
We actually switched places with the previous leasers of the house. So they now rent out one side of our duplex, and we live in the house they were renting. It was a huge blessing to not have to seek out tenants, and it was a blessing for them that they had a place to move to! However, that made moving a bit more complicated. We loaded up our truck on Tuesday (shout out to Matt Dayton for literally moving 90% of our belongings) and cleaned it later than evening. We moved into our house Wednesday evening. So essentially, we had no place to go for the day on Wednesday. I came up with the genius idea to take the kids to the St. Louis Zoo by myself. I had many, many fears of taking them that far, but it went smoothly. Hez literally walked the WHOLE time, in 90 degree heat. He would look at an animal and then say, “Otay, now dis way” and take off in whatever direction he pleased. His favorites were the penguins and the elephants by far. He also loved the french fries from the concession stand.
Since we moved, we have been working very slowly on updating a few things. Neither Nathan or I are too ambitious on doing fixer-upper projects, but we did succesfully paint our entire basement as well as get new carpet! We are so excited to have such a wonderful area down there. Hez and Naomi saw the carpet for the first time after their nap yesterday and they literally ran all around the basement for probably 30 continuous minutes. It was wild. They were wild, but they love it! I haven’t taken any good pictures yet, but I may wait until we get our couch down there and get it all cute (for like 2 minutes until the kids dump out their toys).
House things aside, we also went on a vacation to the Smoky Mountains! I plan on writing a separate blog post about this later, but it was so much fun! The kids both got colds halfway through, and I legitimately thought that I broke my entire body after going on an eight mile hike, but it was so much fun!
In other news, the school year has started which means Nathan’s job has picked up a bit. You know, when your church is like half college students, things change a whole lot when they come back! It’s so much fun to have a lot of young people at church though. They remind me that my fashion is outdated and that I really am getting old. The other day Nathan and I went to a Harvest Hootenanny (a fundraiser for the Columbia Center for Urban Agriculture), and I went to get a drink but had forgotten my ID. The lady running the booth said, “It’s okay, we are only IDing people younger than 30.” LOL. I just laughed and grabbed my wine and left.
I also decided to go back to work! I have missed working as a nurse since the day I left. When Naomi turned one, we decided it would be a good time to go back PRN. I currently work a shift a week, and it has been a wonderful balance for our family. Hez loves playing with Miss Audrey, and I love being able to get coffee whenever I want, and a thirty minute lunch break (most days). A twelve hour shift at the hospital is not nearly as exhausting to me as being home all day. If that doesn’t tell you I’m an extrovert, I’m not sure what will. Anyways, I have loved being back. There is just something beautiful about caring for moms and babies. I get to be the person that can teach a dad how to swaddle. I can be the person that helps a mom learn how to feed their baby, and I get the honor of sending new parents (and sweet babies) out into the real world. Parenting is a wild ride, and I just feel so grateful for the opportunity to go back to work.
So that’s what we’ve been up to the last little bit of life! Naomi continues to be wild. She loves to yell “NAAAAACK” whenever she sees any bit of food, and she also loves to pat her belly. She took a giant bite out of a bar of soap a few days ago, and she loves having bows in her hair (she FINALLY has enough hair to put a bow in…. kind of). Hezekiah loves to play. He loves driving cars, playing in sensory bins and watching movies. This kid will sit through a whole two hour movie and not move one bit. He 100% gets that from his dad because I still can barely stay awake during a movie.
Thanks for making it this far. Here are some things I’ve been enjoying lately:
Recipes:
This is an incredibly easy recipe to make, and also tastes delicious. Our kids like it (probably due to the brown sugar in the recipe), and we love to pair it with steamed broccoli and rice.
These are my go-to dessert recipe lately. I usually always have the ingredients on hand and they are so good!
Books:
Three Little Words by Ashley Rhodes-Courter
Oooooh, I love a good memoir. This is a heartbreaking memoir about what it looks like to grow up in foster care. However, it ends with a hopeful note. It was a really good book.
Gentle and Lowly by Dane Ortlund
Alright, alright, I’m sure you’ve heard by now that this book is a winner. It really is such a good read though. I plan on reading it again, because it is that full of good truth and reminders.
Podcasts:
“Verity” by Phylicia Masonheimer
I currently am really enjoying listening to her series on women.
I love story-type podcasts. We listened to a few episodes of this while we painted our basement. I was in third grade when 9/11 happened and honestly, don’t remember a whole lot. This podcast has been very eye-opening.
Local-to-Columbia things:
The cutest, new coffee shop! There is a wonderful little kids play are and so you might just be able to drink your coffee in peace while your littles play.
We went their this past weekend and there was so many fun activities. We plan on going back later this month.
Can I also just take a second to recommend the home depot paint man who helped me pick out paint and primer. He never made fun of me for my poor, poor painting knowledge. At one point he asked me if I wanted our paint to have the eggshell finish. I told him that no, I wanted our walls a deep navy. He then proceeded to inform me that eggshell isn’t the color, it’s the finish.
THE DE PENNING FAMILY 