WayfaringStrangers

Last week I had some hard mommy days. Lots of whining, disobedience, patience wearing thin, loneliness, anxiety. You name it. The kids picked up on it and reciprocated. I started a post about expectations in motherhood. About how easy it is to struggle with contentment and how tired I am and how I miss flying somewhere on an airplane. About how I actually thought that when I became a stay at home mom, I'd bake fresh pies and keep the house perfect. About how I never imagined that 5 years in and we'd still be biting our fingernails to pay our bills. Silly Megan; naive at least. I thought a lot about how I always wanted a big family, but with just 2 kids, I sometimes feel like I'm drowning and can't fathom the idea of having more, at least not for a long time. I thought a lot about how much I am adoring the book, Desperate  and how I feel like someone wrote it just for me. Really, how did the authors know???  I'm not actually the only one feeling this way? I'm not

We are still settling into the new house, and will be for a while I think. It is so much work- all the little things to be unpacked, hung, or stored. And we still have a long list of items that we need like blinds/curtains, a shed, a bathroom set (shower rod, curtain, etc) for the 2nd bathroom, a guest bed... Yard sales have been great  so far! We keep on getting awesome deals. And there's an sweet thrift store and a flea market just down the road from us. I'll take some pics of some of our finds. One of the biggest hurdles is the yard. I like yardwork, or at least I like the idea of yardwork and landscaping. It's hard to actually get it done with these 2 boys distracting me all day long. I have big visions for our hilly lot, but right now, it is a mess. And it has lots of spiders. We've found at least 6 black widow spiders and some other scary giant ones. I don't mind spiders too  much but I don't want my babies playing near venomous insects. My Dad sprayed

Congrats, Dana! You win the cookbook :) Let me know your address (megantrader@yahoo.com) and I'll send it your way. Enjoy!

I am eager to get this house looking and feeling the way we want it...cozy, warm, easy to live in. Getting unpacked and organized, let alone doing things such as hanging art, are pretty hard with 2 little kids. Also, we still need many things, like blinds/curtains, hardware on the kitchen cabinets, and hooks for towels in the bathroom and by the front door for the boys' wee coats. All in good time. I wanted to finish one area though, to feel some accomplishment. The easiest area to get done was the play area in the downstairs.  The boys love it! And I  love having a special area for all their toys! My mom helped me over the weekend and then I hung the art I bought or was given. Without further ado... The Play Area These prints are from  Gus and Lula  but I got them on sale at Zulily. The blue one has the Doxology on it (hard to see in the picture). The yellow and gray one has the alphabet on it- one letter on each animal. My sister-in-law Lydia designed this

Hi hi hi!! (as Graham says). We are moved into our new home! Thanks to lots of help from family and friends, we moved in and have been here for a week, settling in and trying to make sense of the chaos. Everyday I have a few goals- to organize a closet or to unpack 5 boxes or to put books on a shelf. It's getting there and I'll be posting a lot of pictures soon. Until then, I thought it might be fun to post a recipe and have a little giveaway. I've never had a giveaway and I don't think I've really written up a recipe before, so this is new for me. But it should be fun- it's a very healthy vegetarian recipe and I'll give away a new copy of the cookbook where I found it. Here goes: (Super Healthy) Greek Quinoa and Avocado Salad *disclaimer: I did alter the recipe just a tad from the original recipe* You Will Need: -1/2 cup uncooked quinoa, rinsed and drained -1 cup of water -2 tomatoes, chopped -1 small finely chopped red onion -3 tablespo

Well....IT'S OFFICIAL! We bought a house!!! We'll be paying for it for years to come :-) Last year I wrote in my journal that I couldn't imagine us being able to buy a house for years to come. My, how God decided to surprise me. This process didn't come without lots of hiccups though. I know home-buying is always complicated. There's so much paperwork and legal stuff and inspections. But, I think we got an extra dose of complicated a few times. Even our very experienced realtors (who we think did awesome and  they are Christians which is cool) said, 'We've had a lot of firsts with you guys..." The last straw was yesterday when the seller didn't show up to settlement. The attorney and the seller's realtor couldn't get a hold of him at all. They finally heard from him this morning and he signed his share of the papers. If you ask Behn, he'll tell you that he felt a  lot of abnormal anxiety through all of this, especially towards the en

Just wanted to check in and do a few quick updates. Here. We. Go! Patrick can pull up to stand. It's cute and awful at the same time. I don't want him to get that big yet! We have our final walk-through at the house tonight, closing tomorrow, and moving this weekend! Once we move, Patrick will finally  have his own room. I can't wait for that. Graham had an awesome past 2 weeks. He was such a good little man! Lots of sweetness, talking, obedience, playing nicely with Patrick. This week he seems to be back on the naughty bus and I'm not sure why. Maybe he can tell there's a big change on the horizon? Anyway, no one ever said having a 2-year old is easy. I want to potty train Graham as soon as we move. I am sooooo over changing him and doing so much cloth diaper laundry. The other day he pooped at the library. I didn't have anywhere to safely place Patrick in order to change G in the bathroom, so I took them out behind the building and changed Graham. Then