I post photos.

I can't even begin to try to describe the past few weeks. so let's just look at pictures I collected on my camera during that time.

first up, we went to M's friend's wedding over at U of H. here's our fun, pretty, and VOCAL girl:

this dress was my mother's day gift - it's totally fly, for real.

documentation of that first big bruise, compliments of the coffee table. and there's Goodnight Moon, which is still a favorite. she likes to show you where the kitties are.

after my Mexico trip, after work, after the trip to Hico and Grandad's funeral, after the trip home and more work, and after throwing my house together in the blink of an eye, we had Magz' first birthday party. it was a total success - we were so glad to see family and friends, and I really wish I'd had it in me to take more photos. I'm grateful to my brother for snapping a few shots, even though the light coming in from the skylight makes Maggie look like a glowing radioactive cherub:

I rather like the slight blurriness of the photos. it looks a little bit like it felt to me, like we we'd just stepped off the Tilt-A-Whirl and were trying to get our bearings:

this is not clean eating. :)

in a real pool for the first time. we should all have a floatie like this.

with daddy and momo.

100% adorable.

with yaya. fyi, when we went up to the metroplex last Wednesday we sort of stopped giving her bottles. I took some, just in case, but we never broke them out. so it's sippy cups and whole milk all the way for this one-year-old:

I wanted to chronicle the fact that one of her favorite toys around here was this cheap Office Max calculator:

riding yaya's wheels at the reunion in Ft. Worth last weekend:

pretty mo.

unabashedly eating berries. she does not care.

studying cousin K with marmee.

considering a meltdown.

i love my daddy.

and this was today, after I'd read for 5 hrs and hit the church for a meeting. Magz & I ran out to do some errands and give mgb a break, and when we got home I got to sit and enjoy this while I caught up on a stack of dvr'd episodes of 19 Kids and Counting. don't judge.

I think I'm starting to breathe deeply again.

guess what's not in this post? any photos from Mexico, because they're all on my phone. so I'll have to blog again, I guess.

:)

mgb makes good hummus from total scratch. and I love it when he makes us cold wedge salad in the summertime and cuts up bell pepper instead of tomato.

I could not have accomplished the birthday party/housecleaning effort without lindabell's help. really, I couldn't have.

grandad's funeral was wonderful. my brother said the best things.

in the last few weeks, I've let myself off the hook for trying to be awesome at everything all the time, but I'm really ready to start eating well again. and I miss working out.

I am, apparently, a reading machine. oh, and if you're a teacher you may encounter the training programs I'm doing now... why don't you go ahead and start imagining how you can transition your classroom to a multi-media, online format. don't worry, your organization's LMS should be a great help, and you can shoot for gradual blended learning if the online component freaks you out. but buck up, soldier - the technology is here to stay, people are already drawn to it, and it can add a lot of options to your class to help different kinds of learners, so make friends with the computer and let it help us turn out critical thinkers who're actively participating in their educations. *sorry, I've read a lot of these things the past few days.*

I can't wait to have my hair chopped off.

our baby is toddling.

I'm blessed beyond my understanding.

-m.y.