Leading and Following.

This is my son. He is an awesome kid. He is highly favored. I'm thankful for him. He recently filled out his first Volunteer application. I never suggested it, he wanted to do this on his own. He sees his sisters and friends doing things and he wants to follow suit. I'm so proud of him. So very proud he is choosing to get involved in leading in a good way. He enjoyed helping and had his stories to tell. I love hearing them tell me about their day after they have just volunteered. He's feeling important now. He always has been but I'm glad he is feeling and experiencing it instead of me just knowing it. It's going to teach him a lot more than I can. Life is happening!

Little Kid + Scissors =

All was quiet. The animator was animating something, the Hubs was on his computer, the Sweet Quirky one was sleep, the twins were upstairs, I was rocking peacefully blogging in my rocking chair and Little Joy was behind me at the dinner table quietly writing on my birthday card envelope. All was quiet...and we heard those words...

"Mommy & Daddy look I did my hair! I cut it!" 

We both looked at each other with that wide eyed "What!?" look on our faces. I thought where did she get the scissors from? Her older sister had left them there on the table after working on a project for me. The look on her Daddy's face told me that she was serious. I thought Oh God please don't let it be a bad hack job! We both got up and assessed her styling talent. She had chopped off a bit on the side. I was relieved a bit that it's not really noticeable at first glance. Whew! At a second glance it looks a little like the asymmetrical Salt -n- Peppa hairdo in the 80's and 90s. I think the Hubs wanted to cry though. His little girl chopped off her curls. I was sort of sad too but she's the 3rd child of mine who has done this. It grows back and they forget about it. I was in mid flashback of her older siblings doing the same thing when I thought... here we go with the Mommy & Daddy Look What I Did Series stage of life. We are two little ones strong in it and from the looks of it, we are coming out of it with some funny memories.

Real.

So my little one had a birthday recently. She had a great day. We didn't do a huge party, instead we did a small family celebration. It takes a lot to do these parties. Well it takes a lot for me. I'm an introvert really. I stress out in social settings. No it's not outwardly but if you know me, you'll see the signs. Eh but this isn't about my social awkwardness I hide well (sometimes). Anyhow her day was sweet! She requested that we go to the Dollar Store. We did. She wanted to get hats and party stuff. She was so happy, which made us happy. I had one request... a photo of all my kiddos. Here they are. I can look at these pictures all the time. Their expressions and all that was going on makes my heart smile. I never got them all to look at the camera and smile. I tried but real life kept happening as it always does!

Busy Busy Bee!

She makes me smile. This moment was a precious one. She wanted to sit by me as I read. We had conversation about what she drew. I knew once she came to sit by me there was very little change of me actually reading at the pace I wanted to. It seems like she interrupted each sentence I read to tell me something or ask me something. She is so cute I loved her desire to sit along side me. My little sunshine brightens my day. 

Thanks.

This kind of thank you is more realistic than we'd like to admit. Sink contents: Glass that contained my son's strawberry smoothie he downed and got in his words, a "neck freeze", plates, spatula, and flatware from breakfast I made for the kids, cups and bowls from the little tot munching.
Where's Mom? On to the next thing.
Where are the kids? Playing
Dishwasher? ON 

Ugh A Selfie.

Hi. This is a cell phone selfie. This is me. Just a few minutes ago from them post time I took this. It's in my bathroom. This is me. I do have on some light powder foundation, mascara and some light lip color. You probably can't tell but I like to cover up my dark circles under my eyes. This is my real hair. No flat iron. No braids, no weave (I never liked them), nothing. Just curly me. I had two strand twists in it because I was lazy and I didn't want to do my hair daily. I decided to take them down today before they got really tangled and this is what it looks like. Humidity will probably make it huge but that's life with curls.  I kind of like that. You know what else I like? I like that I can have my hair done however I like it. Curly one day, Straight the next.  For years I permed it straight because society said my natural brown girl hair was offensive "girl you need a perm..." Some say it's trendy such as Afro's were in the past. Some say my natural hair is unprofessional, and some have tried to ban it, but that's the way God made it grow out of my head. Who am I (or you) to say the way He made me is wrong? So I'm becoming more comfortable with who God made me. 

It's just me.