The girls enjoying lunch in their playground tree house.  (Sometimes I even let Rachel do her schoolwork up there. Shh!)

~ Parenting Is Complicated ~

My friend Erin linked to a post about parenting by Kevin DeYoung.  It's called Parenting 001 and it was honest, refreshing, and funny!  I exhaled a sigh of relief to learn that his moments spent "shepherding his children's hearts" don't always turn out as planned either. :)  From his site, I found a link to another gospel centered parenting book he recommends called Give Them Grace.  I spent some time reading the Amazon preview and I'm pretty sure I'm going to order it.  I figure I've only read 8,243 gospel centered parenting books.  Perhaps book number 8,244 will do the trick.  Has anyone read this one yet?  Thoughts?

~ Yippee! ~

My super awesome husband got me something new for my camera for Mother's Day!  I've been having so much fun getting acquainted with my new 85mm 1.8.  Hooray!  The bokeh (background blur) is sooooo pretty because of the longer focal length.  I really like it for outdoor shots and I think it's going to live on my camera this spring and summer.  I plan to do a post comparing the 35mm, 50mm, and 85mm focal lengths soon.  (Soon is a relative term around here!)

~ My blog is about to get really dusty. ~

Before I began homeschooling, I always wondered why so many homeschooling moms didn't have blogs.  Now that I'm homeschooling Rachel and now that I've blurted out a promise to begin Abby's preschool program on Monday (why did I go and do that?) I can TOTALLY understand why.  If Rachel and Abby had to... hypothetically... go searching for clean underwear in the laundry basket this morning because there was none left in their drawer... I probably shouldn't be devoting a lot of time to blogging.  All hypothetical of course. ;)

~ I need more sleep. ~

I've been doing weird things lately.  I put a box of cereal in the refrigerator.  I drop things constantly.  I forgot how to drive to a place I've been to 5,000 times. I can never remember if I've already shampooed my hair or not.  I can't remember how to spell words I used to know how to spell.  I've caught myself copying my two year old's grammar.  I go to the store to buy one very specific thing and I leave with 10 other things instead.  I guess the 6-7 hours of sleep with 2 wake up calls from Timmy per night isn't cutting it.  Will I ever recover or is this permanent damage? :)