Birthday | M is for Mama

But we didn’t go to Charleston either.

So, yes, I’m still alive, for those you that were worried. (Thanks for the sweet messages, by the way).

But only barely.

Okay. So, that’s a bit on the dramatic side, but I am on day five of thee worst head cold I think I’ve ever experienced. Couple that with the fact that there has been almost zero margin for rest the last four days (Monday: Homeschool co-op all day, Tuesday: all-day appointments + gym classes, and Wednesday: homeschooling, house-cleaning, and more gym classes, yesterday: the same), and I have been collapsing on the couch as soon as I get home and staying as still as possible, until dragging my aching body to bed every night. This morning, I finally woke up feeling a little more like a human being instead of a walking zombie, so praise Jesus for that!

ANYHOO, there’s no way to know just how coherent this post will be, but I thought I’d give y’all an update on what we did do to celebrate the super-monumental event of my turning 34-whole-years-old.

We were waffling back and forth until the last second on whether to chance Charleston, but when they started evacuating folks, and the airlines declared a weather advisory, that pretty much made the decision for us.

Thankfully (for us, not for Charleston), because of those two things, both our Airbnb rental and our flights were refunded (or at least credited, in the case of the latter), so it looks like we’ll still get to go. Just not quite yet.

My sweet mama was cool with keeping our kids anyway, so we headed to Dallas last Wednesday to do exciting things like eat Thai food, sleep on clean sheets we didn’t have to wash, and check out tile stores and bathroom faucets.

I know. What party animals we are!

But seriously. After months of go, go, going for our family, it was such a relaxing, rejuvenating 48ish hours with my man.

Before we ever made it out of Tyler, we stopped for lunch at The Grove.

I’d heard good things but had never been, and I was pretty blown away by the rad interior design. They put some serious thought and effort into getting everything just so.

{Those chandeliers made us think of alien vegetables, which…normally wouldn’t be a good thing; but it totally worked in this space}

{Coolest lounge ever}

{Aren’t you just so thrilled that I managed to capture this creepy down-lighting shot?}

Thankfully, the food was just as yummy as the decorations, so I left a very happy pregnant lady.

{Shaun loves few things more than a good balsamic glaze, and this was a very good balsamic glaze, so I was not the only happy camper}

On our way to Dallas, we stopped by Paul Michael, a big warehouse style decor store in Canton, Tx (home of the famous Canton Trade Days, in case that name rings a bell) and wandered…then wandered some more.

We didn’t buy anything, but I was sorely tempted by a 1/2 off giant pedestal table (that still cost $600…nope). It was a fun little jaunt just the same, and at least a chunk of the wandering was due to Shaun’s having to take phone calls (more on that in a minute), but I certainly wasn’t complaining.

That night, we ate the aforementioned Thai (if you’re in Dallas uptown, check out Malai Kitchen—SO good), watched a movie (Queen of Katwe…it was good! Not life-changing, but sweet and clean and well-acted), and ate some super-tasty gelato (can’t remember the name of the place, but it’s right beside the Magnolia Theatre).

I mentioned Shaun’s being on the phone a lot. So, remember all of those flooring samples I showed y’all?

We found a (much) better price online for the laminate (yup, we took some home, made a little mini-“floor” and tested it out for a week and reeeeeeally liked it) than the local place, but I asked Shaun to contact the local guy before ordering, since he had been so helpful, had already spent over 3 hours with me, and I wanted to at least give him a chance to make the sale.

Shaun did, and what ensued was a two-day-long bidding war between the online guy and the local guy for our business. It actually got a little comical toward the end, and Shaun was pretty much completely stressed out and wishing it were over by the last 6 calls or so…

BUT!

The fairy tale ending is that 1) we ended up going with the local guy because 2) he MATCHED the crazy-low price the online store had dropped their already crazy-low price to (assuring us that he was still making money on it) and agreed to store it for us until we need it, AND 3) because my bro and sis-in-law were also ordering the same laminate in a different shade for the house they’re building (hence the bidding war; it was a big order), we saved $$$$ between the two of us on flooring that was already very reasonably priced and which we were fully prepared to pay the online price for in the first place. Praise the Lord!

Thankfully, it wasn’t all phone calls and negotiations, even as exciting as the outcome was.

My actual birthday started out with a trip to The Boulangerie in Greenville Ave. for breakfast

They have amazing croissants!

{Shaun got me a Fitbit Blaze–complete with an aqua band, of course–for my birthday; the better to track just how many steps it took to burn off all {okay, my half} of those pastries)

Plus, their decor is such a feast for the eyes as well.

{It’s hard to tell what’s going on here because of the glare, but a lady saw us praying over our breakfast and thought it was a cool shot, so she snapped a pic. Kind of a fun shot to have}

The next few stops were a bit on the utilitarian side, since we stopped at a tile store and a faucet store, but after doing most of my house-researchonline, it was fun to be able to see and touch real! live! stuff!

Again, we didn’t buy anything, but we didn’t come away with a good idea of what we want to do in the master bathroom. Which is my favorite. Not the master bathroom. The knowing. I enjoy researching and finding the best deal, but my favorite part is that big sigh of relief when you land on the final decision and can just move on.

And the NEXT stop was a complete happenstance but a very happy one, indeed. As we were on our way to a cool-sounding antiques/salvage shop, we spotted this giant brick building with the words, “Uncommon Ground,” on the side.

Turns out, it’s kind of the mother of all antique quirkiness and decor awesomeness. Again–you guessed it–we bought nothing (because the cheapest thing I saw there was an old spoon, and it was $8), but it was still such a fun little (um, big; it was BIG) find.

Am I just under a rock that I’ve never heard of this place? Because it was rad.

{Couldn’t leave without snapping a pic of just one of the G.I.A.N.T rather dour-looking cats who clearly ran the place}

Our last decor stop of the day was the salvage shop I mentioned, which was more reasonably priced, not quite as rad, but still worth the stop (hmmm….can’t remember the name at the moment…sorry!). Aaaand we bought nothing.

Lunch was an authentic New York Style pizza place called Mimi’s–where the nicest guy with the thickest New Yawker’s drawl told Shaun he was: “Real classy…taking the lady to a dive like Mimi’s on her birthday.” But seriously. Good, good pizza, y’all.

Sensing a carb theme to this birthday? Apparently Baby #7 is keen for mama’s hips to GROW!

Our last stop of the day was our traditional jaunt to Anthropologie.

I am completely happy 99% of the time to just browse and get ideas, but this trip, I found a dress I loved on sale (and then an extra 40% off) that will work the rest of the pregnancy and poooosssibly beyond? So, that was a fun surprise. I tried to snap a pic of it, but my phone battery gave the fateful “extremely low battery” signal literally as I opened the camera on it, so you’ll just have to wait for that one. Nail-biter. I know.

The day ended with another super highbrow carb fest of chips, queso, and Torchy’s Tacos (because NOTHING says classy like ordering a taco called “The trailer park” and being asked if you want to “make it trasy”–i.e. add queso) and a very sweet reunion with my babies.

Honestly, it’s one of the best birthdays I can remember in recent years (and they’ve all been good!).

There’s nothing quite like a super-relaxing time away with your love–with a bit of deal-haggling and house productivity thrown in for good measure!

And there you have it!

Consider yourself caught up for the moment. I had a good birthday. And then I got sick.

The end. (Anybody else wondering why I didn’t just write that?)

Y’all have an awesome Thursday!

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Okay, so before we get to that exciting title, I’ll try to put you out of your misery on the wood (and “wood”) samples that I teased you with last week.

I showed you these three options and hinted (okay, flat out told you) that only one of them was wood.

It’s the one on the right. Which…was my favorite (BUT I totally forgot to write down the name…sorry). But it’s also over twice the price of the other two, not to mention about half as practical.

It’s actually engineered hardwood (which means only the top layer is real wood), and we considered laying it in part of the downstairs, but ultimately, as much as I love the white-washed plank look, I think I’m better off going with something super durable in the kitchen and dining.

SO!

At this point, we’re seriously considering going with this combo instead.

That would be Option 1 (on the top), which is a Shaw porcelain tile product called Napa Noce in Cask, in the kitchen/dining and Option 2 (on bottom…y’alls fave by far) in the rest of the house (minus the bathrooms). It’s actually a laminate wood product by Mohawk (Rare Vintage Fawn Chestnut), which is supposed to be super-durable (but still is not ideal for kitchens since you can’t wet-mop it, and, boy howdy, do we put the wet in wet-mopping round here. “Flood mopping” might be a more apropos term for what the boys do).

It’s hard to see from this picture with the harsh fluorescent lighting and angle how closely the two tones match, but they really do. They’re a different width, but there’s a cased opening between the kitchen and the living room, so our plan is to run a plank under the opening to create a divide between the two “woods” and then have porcelain on one side and laminate on the other. (Contrary to what the picture suggests, they will be running the same direction, not perpendicularly). Even the owner of the lumberyard was impressed with how closely the styles and tones matched in person.

Also…remember how I mentioned how consistent I am once I like something (i.e. picking the same paint color we were already considering from across the room at Lowe’s)? Well, I went to a different store the other day juuuuust to see if they had something I liked better at a comparable price and picked out a “similar” look…which…when the sales rep actually looked up the name, ended up being the Fawn Chestnut AGAIN! Just change my middle name to consistent and/or obsessed.

So! That’s the current plan. It could change. But I think, no matter what we finally end up with, I’ll probably go with a wood-look tile in the kitchen, since it gives me the style I want with the price/durability our big, mess-making family needs.

(Unless, of course, some of you have laminate in your kitchens and have had a great experience with it, in which case…CONVINCE ME!).

Oooooookay! So, that was pretty much a blog post all its own, but I couldn’t let the week completely get away without blogging a belated Happy Birthday to the twinsies.

They turned 4 on Saturday, and it’s still a bit surreal to think that it was that long ago that this happened.

(Oh man, I look tired…and they’re sooooooo TINY! And look at Nola’s double-chin!! I am suddenly very proud of how much protein I ate during that pregnancy to give a TWIN that level of chub)

Of course, they are tiny no longer.

(Evy, left. Nola, right. This was from our homeschool co-op’s Nerds vs. Rock Stars day, and the twins were only too happy to, ahem, rock their “wock star gwasses”)

I’ve admitted here several times before the unique challenges that I’ve encountered with mothering twins–especially after they hit age 2 1/2 (up to which point they were actually considerably easier than I expected).

It’s been a constant process of adjusting and tweaking and finding new ways of implementing old tricks. Oh, and prayer. Lots and lots of prayer.

{Nola, left. Evy, right. All the girl cousins on my side of the family, decked out in Peppa Pig gear)

On the one hand, they are some of the most joyful little creatures you’ll ever meet. Smiling and jumping and squealing with laughter. They’re suuuuper snuggly and thrive on attention and loving touch.

But all of that touchy-feely emotion definitely has its downsides, and we’ve muddled through a good 18 months of meltdowns and tantrums the likes of which I would love to say my kids never do, but–um–apparently they do.

It’s been getting steadily better for the last six months or so, but we’re still privy to an impressive display of fireworks every so often (or 4 days in a row, depending on how rested they feel).

Still, I know that the experience of parenting two very sensitive, very quintessentially female little humans ((who are very different from their mama in this respect) has been so, so good for me.

And seeing their characters develop–their desire to help and nurture and mother (Evy) and encourage, cheer-lead, and comfort (Nola)–has been such a testimony to the Lord’s goodness and faithfulness in my children’s lives.

And mine.

Because motherhood is sanctifying. And hard is not the same thing as bad. (Can I get an amen?).

Honestly, I’m excited about year 5 for the twins. I can’t wait to see their personalities blossom and their friendship with each other (and others) deepen.

I have great confidence that he who began a good work in them (and me) will carry it out until it is completed. (Philippians 1:6).

Praise God for that!

Now, I just need to find someone to teach one how to play violin and the other one to play cello, and I’ll be all set.

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M is for Mama

Category Archives: Birthday

Well, we didn’t bust…

The Twins are FOUR!