They come by it honestly

After posting these pictures on Tuesday, my sister and I commented back and forth that we used to TOTALLY ROCK at playing in the mud.

Specifically, there was a GREAT spot for mud play at the end of our driveway in Southport, N.C., just under the mailbox. We used to pretend that we were bakers, and we'd make mud pies all day long and "bake" them in the mailbox. I'm sure our mail carrier just couldn't WAIT to open our mailbox each day.

On Tuesday night, she sent me a picture she'd unearthed of our mischief ...



And as she said, "We delved into the muddy depths well younger than your boys. You should show that picture to them and tell them, 'Here, let Mommy and Aunt Sarah Ellen show you how it's done.' "

Light, bright kitchen transformation

I know the cottage look isn't for everyone, but you really should head over to Life in Grace and check out what Edie did to her kitchen.

I'm not brave enough to take the doors off of my cabinets (and everyone will thank me for that, believe me) or go turquoise, but boy do I love the way it looks in someone else's house!

So fresh and summer-y!

An open letter to the makers of Pathwords

Dear Zynga,

First of all, I would like to thank you for recognizing the following as words AND for placing the letters that comprise them on the board so frequently so that I never have to settle for a score of less than 700: Qua, pix, wab, mog, tun, ged, taj, dit, mig, tad, fon, ain, joe, sae, bap, rin, pax, tau and hol.

No matter how poorly I might play the game, these little-known three-letter gems have been life-savers. It doesn't bother me a BIT that I don't know what they mean and have never used them in casual conversation.

But I have a few bones to pick with you. Wab is apparently the Scottish word for "web," and ged is the Scottish word for "any fish of the pike family." Ain is also a Scottish word, although I'll give you the fact that Sting once used it in a song he released, which I have sung along to before.

But I think it's only fair to say that if you're accepting Scottish words in play, YOU SHOULD DEFINITELY ACCEPT ALL THE ENGLISH ONES, TOO. Including null, which is an actual word -- as in "null and void" -- but which you refuse to accept as such, no matter how many times I try to use it. You accept sae, which is defined as the abbreviation for "self-addressed envelope," and tae, as in "Tae Kwon Do," but you won't accept null, which -- again -- is an actual word. REALLY, PATHWORDS?

There are a few other words that appear in the English dictionary that I'd love for you to recognize, among them: rit, ren, tim, roy and tid.

Because even though they're obscure, they're still in the dictionary, and they come up on the PW board often enough that I bang my head against that particular wall a few times a day. And while you're at it, if you're adding words to your reportoire, go ahead and add tix, because if you'll accept pix, you have to take tix -- which is in the dictionary.

There are just a few others I'd love for you to recognize as Real Words, because you seem dead set on spewing them out together on a Very Regular Basis. They are:

- Lig, as in shorthand for Ligature

- Rav, as in the Toyota Rav4

- Vin, as in the French word for wine (you already do Scottish, remember?)

- Vut, as in the way I would pronounce "foot" if I were attempting it with a German accent

Furthermore, it would be GREAT if you'd also add majal, because, even though it isn't in the dictionary, you accept taj, so to not accept majal is just confusing. And FOR THE LOVE, why do you accept cig but not sig? Because I can't keep straight in my mind which one you allow, so every time sig comes up on the board, I faithfully type it in and hit Enter, only to be denied. Annoying. I do the same thing with cate and kate. I don't know why you take one and not the other, but it's sending me to an early grave.

Thank you for your consideration.

I KNEW it was too quiet out there

The boys were playing outside on Saturday when it suddenly went very quiet for a few minutes.

I went around the corner to see what was up, and I found this:



Two little busy beavers building a dam. They said it was to keep the water they'd splashed out of the baby pool from running into the neighbor's driveway.



Thoughtful of them, don'tcha think?



Of course, it came within an hour of this:



I now feel like I have reached my Official Capacity for Crap Covering My Children for the entirety of 2009.



So thanks for playing, boys. We'll be Living Clean for the next nine months.

Meet Maisy

During Jake's party on Saturday, I noticed a dark shape darting around our backdoor neighbors' yard. I couldn't see it clearly, but I was SO HOPING it was a puppy.

These neighbors were the Actual Owners of our dog Moses, who we lost a couple of months ago to old age. I'd wondered if they would get a new dog but thought they might not ... they didn't spend that much time with Moses -- but we loved him to pieces!

I dashed out after our party guests left and went to the fence. I scanned the yard twice but didn't see anything. I clicked my tongue and called, "Here, puppy puppy! Here, puppy puppy!" And look who came running:



(In case you missed it upon first glance, YES THAT IS A CENTIMETER OF PINK TONGUE STICKING OUT OF HER MOUTH. Look again; it's too cute to miss.)

Of course I opened the gate and let her right in to our yard ... I had a momentary thought of, "What if it's their houseguest's dog and not really theirs?" I quickly disregarded that thought. Who cares? She's already partly mine.



Her mouth is full of puppy teeth, and she's not shy about using them. She can already retrieve a stick and a ball, and she was gentle with the boys. I'm smitten.



She loves to chase and be chased. Here she is in Fake Resting Stance, ready to dash away when I get about two feet from her:



Later in the day, after I'd returned her to "her" yard, her owner came over to officially introduce us. Maisy is about 10 weeks old and is a chocolate lab mix. Mixed with WHAT, they're not sure. But she's a precious little thing. I asked if I could buy a leash to take her walking with me on the weekends, and he said, "Sure! She'd love it." So, I'm putting "leash" on the Wal-Mart list.



Can you smell the puppy breath from there?

Par-tay boy

Yesterday we hosted Jake's 1st birthday party at our house. It was a small shindig, but he made it count.

You'll recall that his teachers at daycare treated him to his first piece of cake last week, on his actual birthday. So today was really his second. I think he loved it, but he can be so hard to read.

"Hmmm. What might THIS be? I do believe I need a closer look."

"This tastes ... how do you say ... FAMILIAR. I think I experienced this very thing last week AND I THINK I LOVED IT."




"I am Cake Drunk."



"When did Mommy change me into a long-sleeved shirt? OH. That's icing. I RULE."



"I have assessed the left side of this cake and have decided that it has been neglected. I shall now tear into it with gusto."



"I am in love. With cake. I am also the cutest thing I have ever seen."



"Tomorrow my boogers will be red. Can't wait."



"Daddy! You need to call 911. Mommy is going to need treatment for Post-traumatic Stress Disorder. Now, where can I get more of that icing?"



"I am SO rockin' this cake demolition."



"This is the most fun I have EVER had!"




"I CANNOT BELIEVE MOMMY IS LETTING ME DO THIS."



"What? She passed out?"



"C'mon, Mommy. Get up. It's my birthday! WHEEEEEEEE!"

88 degrees

Help Jonah ... buy a magnet!

Today we're launching an exciting (to us!) new way to support Matt and Patrice and let the world know that you're praying for Jonah! Patrice's brother Peyton designed a magnet that you can use at home (on your fridge) or on the road (on your car), and it is so cute:

If you would like to help support Jonah and let others know that you’ve joined his fight, please purchase a magnet for $10. In addition to supporting the Williams family, 10% of the net proceeds from magnet sales will be donated to DEBRA, the Dystrophic Epidermolysis Bullosa Research Association of America.

Use the PayPal link on the right (under the "Praying for Jonah" button) to order one or more. (The magnet is about 5 inches in diameter.) They will be available in two weeks and will be shipped directly to you.

Patrice will be posting the link on her blog soon, so you can order from here or there. We are also working on updating her blog so that the magnet-ordering and other support options will have their own page, to make it easier for those who want to contribute to Jonah's care to do so.

We've created a flier to post in local businesses and give to people who might be interested in buying a magnet. If you'd like me to e-mail it to you so you can share it with your Bible study, church, friends, co-workers, etc., please e-mail me at stainsofgrass at yahoo dot com, and I'll be happy to e-mail it to you in PDF format.

THANKS for supporting and praying for Jonah!

Never been there, but apparently I'd love it

Because I am obsessed with design/decorating (but have no actual skill or knowledge to back up said obsession) I took this quiz today, courtesy of the link at The Shabby Nest.

It classifies my style as "Nantucket," which they helpfully pictured for me:

Here's their definition of "Nantucket," accompanied by my breakdown:

Oh how you love the beach! Who doesn't, right? And so your dream home is either perched in your favorite beach town, or you've brought that favorite beach town into your house. (This whole paragraph: false).

Your art and accessories speak directly to the activities that are found at the beach. Pieces of driftwood you found here, pictures or paintings of the amazing views there. Things that remind you of the coast - surf boards or fishing boats - are found throughout the house. The feeling of the seaside is both abstract and literal in the design of your space. The fabrics are natural, cottons and linens and are light in color and touch. Much of the furniture is wood or wood framed (the lighter the better, think driftwood!) and wicker, when done right, is a must. (This whole paragraph: false -- but it's funny that the nursery is ocean-themed.)

And since your true inspiration is the sea, the colors and textures in your home are the same that you would find at your favorite beach: white, light beiges and grays of the sand and driftwood, a variety of blues for the ocean and sky, and greens and vibrant blues of the sea glass -- but the key is white! Your space should feel light and airy and give off the mood one has when at the beach: laid back! (This whole paragraph: false -- except that Nathaniel and Nick DO have a lot of blues and greens in their room.)

Your furniture is comfortable and the layout is cozy. (True). The more it reminds you of actually sitting on the warm sand, the better! (False). And what do you do at the beach? Hang out with family and friends - and your home is just an extension of this play place. (True). And though the space is filled with large white furniture (false), it somehow manages to feel both durable and casual. (True).

My den is most of the things described in the last paragraph of my "in-depth analysis," with the exception of the "large white furniture." They need to have some kind of caveat for people with young kids. White just isn't happening in our home, not even in the master bedroom. Because until the kids are grown, I can't handle the stress that having white in my home would add to my life. Plus, I just like color ... even if it's neutral, I still like having color on my walls and in my furniture. See: den.

You can't tell from this picture, but there IS accent color in this room. It comes in the form of Jake's activity table and the images on the TV screen. Kidding. I have rust-colored throw pillows on my couch, and until a few weeks ago I had a red Persian rug on the floor ... but it was rolled up to make way for all of the Wii Fitting that's going on.

In addition to the picture of the room with which my preferences [apparently] most closely align, they also provide a collage of accessories and furniture that work with your style. Here's what they chose for me:

Absolutely none of that strikes my fancy, although I'd take that wicker loveseat for my Dream Screened-in Porch one day.

If only they'd stolen pictures from the Pottery Barn catalog to gauge my design style ... they would have had better luck. Anyway, hop on over and take the quiz, and let me know how accurate it was for you!

Good things

1. Driving on fresh blacktop
2. The scent of babies' freshly shampooed heads
3. Clinique Free Bonuses
4. Compliments, given and received
5. Coming back into range of your hometown radio presets when you've been out of town

Was it something I said?

I'm new to the whole Following thing, as we've discussed before, so it's still somewhat of a mystery to me. But I think I at least get the part that if someone is Following you, they're pretty interested in what you have to say, and if they Leave You, well ...

So I lost a Follower yesterday. You'd think I wouldn't notice, but I did -- because when you only have 19 of them, the 19th one sticks out like a sore thumb because it's the sole thumbnail on the fourth row.

This must be how Mama Duggar feels when she's at the supermarket counting heads before she leaves and she comes up one short.

But I'm not going to over-analyze it. I suppose I'll just refrain from talking about my bruised thighs in the future, since that was apparently the straw that broke the camel's back.

Ouch, ouch and OUCH

I recently moved into a new office at work. It is really nice ... it has new carpet, matchy-matchy furniture components, a tall bookshelf and a VIEW.

Now that I've been in it three weeks, though, I have found its flaw:



What may appear at first glance to be unassuming drawers should actually feature bright yellow warning labels. Those drawer pulls stick out an inch from each drawer (and I have seven drawers), and they are MURDER on your thighs.

Instead of treating you to a picture of my dented, bruised left thigh, I will instead show you one of these suckers from the side:

And if you don't think that hurriedly rounding the corner of the desk to grab the phone provides enough force for a collision with one of those things to KILL, you're smokin' crack.

SO. PAINFUL.

Tagged ... 8 things

It seems I'm so vain, that when I take a quiz on FaceBook or someone tags me to make a list, I'm all about it. Assuming you're just desperate to know more things about me, here goes!

(And thanks to Megan, who tagged me. You're just feeding the monster, you know.)


8 Things I Am Looking Forward To

1. Annual beach trip: We head to the East Coast for a beach trip the first week of July every year. It's with most of Grayson's extended family, and this year will be extra special because we'll be meeting JONAH for the first time! I can't tell you how excited we all are about getting to look into those soulful blue eyes in person.

2. Going to the pool: I will continue to look forward to this until 30 minutes before we're supposed to walk out the door on Pool Opening Day. As the gathering up of all The Paraphernalia (SUNSCREEN! SUNGLASSES! GOGGLES! FLOATIES! SNACKS! JUICE BOXES! CAMERA!) begins and we start putting on swimsuits, that will be the point that I stop looking forward to Going to the Pool and START looking forward to Fall.

3. Date Night: This item has been put on hold indefinitely (see #7), but I continue to look forward to its reappearance on our calendar optimistically. I MISS DINNERS OUT AND MOVIES.

4. Lunch: I have no definitive plans for today, but since I only eat a Zone Bar for breakfast every day, if it's past 9:30 a.m., I'm already looking forward to lunch.

5. Who our kids will be: I don't think a day passes by that I don't wonder about who my kids will be when they grow up. It's hard to tell when they're this young what their strengths and weaknesses will be and how they will choose to capitalize on and compensate for them. I absolutely can't WAIT to find out.

6. Sulphur Springs Bypass completion: If you live outside of my suburb, this means nothing to you. However, this is a transportation project that has been going on for 10 years (well, maybe just a year or so), and it is HIGH TIME for it to be completed. It has had a critical portion of our daily commute path tied up for a Very Long Time, the route that takes us to: Chick-fil-A, the mall, our daycare center, the gas station, the grocery store, Wal-Mart and the highway. And those are just the non-negotiable places to which we travel. I left all of the optional places off the list.

7. Dual incomes: I can't WAIT until we are a two-income household once again. Whether some lucky company hires Grayson or he starts his own business, it will be nice to have more than just my income and the Generosity of Others to rely on for our basic needs. On a related note, I've been working on a post about the changes I've been making over the last few months to help us save money. Right now it only lists three things, but HOW CAN THAT BE? I feel like I've been doing without a lot. Clearly I'm not thinking hard enough during REM sleep to fill out that post the way I thought I would. The Post-it Note on my bedside table stays empty.

8. Grandchildren: I know that it's a little early to be looking forward to that. So sue me. I'm a planner.


8 Things I Did Yesterday (Sunday, actually)

1. Stayed in bed until 11 a.m. Grayson rules.

2. Took Nathaniel to the soccer field for team pictures in his freshly washed uniform. Watched as he playfully fell down in the mushy field BEFORE the pictures were taken, getting mud and grass stains on aforementioned uniform.

3. Transitioned Jake from a rear-facing infant seat to a forward-facing toddler seat. (THIS CANNOT BE HAPPENING. I REFUSE TO ACCEPT IT.)

4. Attended a planning meeting at church for next year’s gala to benefit an incredible ministry that supports amazing kids in our city.

5. Checked walmart.com to see if they carry the underwear Nick wants (“in my size, fo-wah tee”) online. They don’t.

6. Checked my Drafts files to see how many I had in the hopper for this week. Answer: two. GREAT. That means that if I want to post every day this week, I have a LOT of work to do between now and Wednesday. Let’s be optimistic and say it’s gonna happen.

7. Grew more and more agitated as James Spann took the airwaves over from Desperate Housewives and Brothers & Sisters. I’m quite sure that the people north of us and south of us can understand how my on-time, uninterrupted Sunday-night TV viewing of shows returning after a two-week hiatus is more important than their mortal safety.

8. Prayed for Jonah.


8 Things I Wish I Could Do

1. Renovate my entire house: Although not practical, I’d really like to do this. As much as I’d love to move to one of the planned communities in our area, we have a great lot with a huge backyard, and I’d hate to give that up. However, I’d love to have one of their floorplans! And tile work. And hardwood floors. And main-level garages.

2. Get more sleep: A totally attainable goal, but 75 percent of my Optional Accomplishments are completed between the hours of 9 p.m. and 1 a.m. If I gave up those hours, there would be no scrapbooks, no blog and no reading. (There would also be no TV watching and no FaceBooking.)

3. Lose 30 pounds: Again, attainable. I’ve done it like three times before. For whatever reason, each time I’ve had a baby I haven’t gotten serious about losing the weight until they were a year old. What? Jake turned a year old last week? Huh. OK, I’m jogging tonight.

4. Tour Europe: I’ve never been to Europe, and I’d love to go. At some point I’d love to see London, Paris, Rome and parts of Scotland and Ireland.

5. Go back to Hawaii: We spent a week on Kauai to celebrate our 10th anniversary in 2005, and I fell head-over-heels in love with it. I’d love to go back to Kauai, as well as visit some of the other Hawaiian islands.

6. Sponsor 100 children: So many of the bloggers I read support Compassion International and have visited children in need all over the world. I know it makes a difference to sponsor even one child, but when you see their faces and read their stories, it’s impossible not to want to take care of each and every one.

7. Volunteer more often: I volunteer at Nathaniel’s school as often as I can, and I do a couple of other things for organizations throughout the year, but I’d love to be able to do more. In this season of our lives, it’s not feasible, but when the boys go to college (sniff, sniff) I hope to use some of that time that will all of a sudden be available to volunteer more often.

8. Cure a disease: There are MANY, MANY REASONS why this would never happen, not the least of which are the facts that I can hardly add 2+2 and the periodic table is a mystery to me. HOWEVER, that doesn’t stop it from making an appearance as #8 on my list. For this is not a list of things I am CAPABLE of doing, but rather a list of things I WISH I could do.


8 Shows I Watch

Color Splash
Dancing With the Stars
American Idol
Top Chef
Grey's Anatomy
Brothers & Sisters
Oprah
The Office


Tag 8 Friends

Adorabus
Campsight
Mary
Parke
Leapin' Lizzie
Gray Matters
Harry
Patrice

Our little star

The day got away from me before I remembered to post the exciting news that Matt, Patrice and Jonah were featured (again) in the Winston-Salem Journal. (If you're new here, Matt and Patrice are our nephew and niece, and Jonah is our great-nephew.)


Thanks for continuing to pray for them, and please say extra prayers for Matt and Patrice this week as they remember Gabe's birthday on Wednesday.

And he is surprised WHY?

Months ago, I took a quiz on FaceBook that allowed me to rate movies I've seen on a scale of one to five stars.

Grayson apparently discovered said quiz this week and took it, too. FaceBook, being FaceBook, allows you to compare your results to your friends' results. And here are ours:

Now, these quiz results would come as no surprise to any of our friends, because Grayson and I generally don't enjoy the same movies. We overlap some, but there have been TENS of movies over the years he's been to see by himself or with friends because I had no interest in them.

What's so funny to me is that HE seemed to be surprised by the results. Honey, I still love you, even though your taste in movies is terrible.

Things I love: at Pottery Barn Kids

Since before I had children, I have drooled over the Pottery Barn Kids catalog that comes 11 times each month. It's as if someone got in my head and gleaned all the information they'd need to design soft goods and furniture that would be right up my alley, then took stunning, well-lit pictures of all of it and sandwiched it all into one glorious, glossy periodical. And I call it a "periodical" because it is just as captivating to me as any magazine. MORE captivating than The Economist, BusinessWeek or NatGeo. I'm a Simple Girl.



So for this laid-back Sunday edition of Grass Stains, let's get started with this adorable knit zebra rattle set. Jake is still at the age where he occasionally knocks himself (or me) upside the head with his hard plastic rattle, and IT KILLS. Man, that kid has some strength. These would be a great alternative, except you can't rinse the spit-up right off of these fellows in the kitchen sink. Still, too cute.




Ooh! Ooh! Look what I found next! Granted, these branch-ish shelves wouldn't make much sense out of context (i.e., in a room that didn't have a tree mural painted on the wall), but I have four friends who HAVE had trees painted in their nurseries, so my Extensive Statistical Extrapolation tells me that there must be more of you out there.

Why, here's another one right here! What a coincidence. I'm posting this picture just because I love the way the mural is painted into the arch, and I LOVE ME SOME ARCH. I realize that this is a fictional room, probably something like those three-sided rooms they start with on Top Design and Design Star, but I love it anyway. If I ever build a house, it will have a nook of some kind somewhere.

P.S. In my experience, cream is not a very practical color choice for a chair and ottoman in a nursery. 1) Spit up is not always cream colored. [MEN, SKIP TO THE NEXT ITEM, IF YOU'RE EVEN STILL READING AT THIS POINT.] And 2) The Preparation H that you're still using on your hemorrhoids while you're at the stage that you're nursing/feeding/burping your child in that chair will stain it. Of course, it also stains the denim fabric, so perhaps that particular woe isn't a deal-breaker for the cream fabric. Hypothetically speaking, of course.

OK, next item. Even though I didn't grow up with an attachment to Dr. Seuss books, this nursery makes me smile. Bright, clean colors, stripes, a healthy dose of red ... it's just a happy place. The strange thing about the way they styled this room, though, is that it looks like they walked away before they really finished placing the furniture. I get that it's kind of neat to place the crib in the middle of the room, away from all the walls ... although in Jake's room if I tried that, he'd almost be able to touch all four walls. But the side table looks like it's about two feet from the window, four feet from the crib and seven feet from the dresser. What's up with that?

Another room that I'm posting because of the structural detail, not the furniture ... I love, love, love the wainscoting they installed on the accent wall and the way they hung the artwork and painted the monogram a little north of center. I sometimes use that method on my scrapbook pages and I'm usually pleased with the results. Again, if I ever build a house, I would love to do some wainscoting in a limited amount like this.

Next up is this great wall art! Oh, I love the colors, uniqueness, slightly vintage feel and moderate educational value of this piece. Never mind that it has the same problem that all the maps had when I was growing up ... I'm older now and can separate this beautiful art from the trauma I experienced at the hands of similar maps when I was young. I want one.

I am also in Deep Like with these rustic little farm animals. I love the green guy, whatever he is. I think the white one is a horse and the blue one a pig, but the green one is of indeterminate lineage. Nonetheless, I think they are adorable. I particularly love how their legs are thinner at the top and then get wide toward the bottom. For some reason, they remind me of Nick when he's being stubborn, standing with his hands on his hips.

And lastly, I have to have one of these 12-month picture frames. LOVELY. It's all 3-D and stuff. Since I take a lot of pictures, it's typically not a problem for me to do something like find one from each month in which one of my kids is facing the same way or basically the same degree of close up to or far away from the camera.


If I filled one of these frames, I can't decide if I'd want to go THAT route, where it was easy to compare growth from month to month because the pictures were all similar, or if I'd want to do something very different for each month, such as outdoor vs. indoor, extreme close-up vs. wide shot, with siblings vs. without siblings. I think if I'd done it with Nathaniel I would have done it the first way I described, but today I'd be tempted to go the less conventional route to make the pictures more interesting.

And here it is in a real room ... or at least one of those three-sided jobbies like they style for these catalogs. I love how they hand painted the elegant outer frame around it.

Is there anything at PBKids YOU just can't live without?