Morning craft

Today the kids and I made piñatas out of toilet paper tubes decorated with tissue paper. Catherine saw the idea in a magazine and has been begging to make them. They're pretty cute little crafts and will be perfect for the party the kids want to have with the neighbors today--nothing special to celebrate, just celebrating a summer day. 

Glad to be in Milwaukee

We just returned from our annual Northwestern Mutual meetings in Milwaukee.

Jay celebrates his 11 year Northwestern anniversary next week. I can't tell you how thankful I am that he works for such an amazing company. Honestly, it's one of the best companies in the world. The people who work with Northwestern are so committed to integrity and making wise decisions with their clients; to pursuing relationships with their clients, and to thinking of long term stability and financial security. I just don't think you can find another financial company with the same values. 

I also can't say enough about how proud I am of Jay. He works so incredibly hard. He is constantly pushing himself and challenging himself and giving of himself. He cares deeply about his clients and his staff, and he works so hard to provide for our family. We know that he is exactly where God wants him to be and it is exciting to see how God uses him in a "secular" job by counseling (both financial and relational) and praying with his clients. We also have the opportunity to get to know so many other great people around the country who are becoming like family to us. 

People think we are crazy when we say we are excited about going to Milwaukee. It really is a wonderful city and Northwestern plans lots of family events while we are there.

We did fly with all five kiddos to get there. They did great! Jay was actually already in Milwaukee because he had some committee meetings a few days early. So Marcy, Steve, Jay's assistant Melissa, and I traveled up with the kids on Saturday. It went as smoothly as it possibly could with five small children. When traveling with small children just remember 3 P's: plan, prepare, and persevere!

One of the annual highlights is the race on Sunday morning. Marcy pushed the babies in the 5k, jay and Steve walked with the big kids in the one mile walk, and I ran the 10k. I finished in 56:02, not bad for my first post-twins race!

We took the kids to the morning meetings on Monday and they made through about two hours. We had a babysitter and Marcy help us with childcare some so that I could go to meetings with Jay, which was incredibly helpful. 

We went to the children's museum there on Tuesday with some of our great friends from WV. Two years ago we had a combined total of four children; this year we have eight! God has blessed us both tremendously in the past two years!!

We really enjoyed having time with some Northwestern friends who Jay is in a study group with. Two of the agents also have five children each and we took them all out to dinner on Tuesday night. Yep, we put all the kids except the babies at a table together, ordered an XL cheese pizza, and enjoyed the chaos!!

On Tuesday night Tim McGraw performed for the company show. It was a very fun concert and a great way to end our trip. 

By the end of the trip, we were all a little tired. The kids love being there so much that they didn't want to come home yesterday and are already talking about being back next summer.

Meeting the newest little Furman baby

My college roommates and I all spent the day together on Wednesday so that we can meet the newest little Furman baby. Marianne had sweet baby JB 10 weeks ago. He is such a cute little guy and tolerated all the craziness of the rest of the group well.

Nothing like having 10 kids (including 4 one year olds) hanging out all day. The babies played well inside most of the time and we put the big kids outside with some water. They were all busy and happy!

I'm glad we all live close enough to make a day trip and be together and that our children can know each other too. These are special ladies to me! So very thankful for them.

Summer Tea Party

Catherine and Mimi hosted a tea party this week for a fun summer activity. Catherine invited 10 of her friends. They decorated fancy tea party hats, made fans, ate sandwiches, cupcakes, cookies, and fruit while drinking tea and lemonade. They had a great time!!  

Enjoying the game

The boys went to Atlanta on Sunday to enjoy the Reds game! Such a treat for them to cheer on their team!! 

The great itch of my summer

I have poison ivy. This is my second round of it and I've basically had it for six or seven weeks straight. There was one brief week in between episodes when I didn't itch. Otherwise, I've been itching and crazy since around May 20.

This second round has me covered from my neck to my knees. All over. That's apparently what happens when you get it on your hands and arms and then go change clothes to run and sweat while you run and don't shower for a few hours. Everywhere I touched to change clothes and everywhere my running sweat went is covered in itchiness. 

I went to the Dr 10 days ago and got a shot of cortisone and took prednisone and used a steroid cream. I've taken aveeno oatmeal baths and used essential oils.  It hasn't cleared it up. So I headed to an allergist today who put me on a much stronger and longer dose of prednisone (which he told me will make me grumpy and fat...great!) and also prescribed a different steroid ointment and stronger antihistamine. I'm praying that this helps because good grief, I'm tired of itching!

 I know it's not life threatening and I feel humbled when I think about a friend my age who is undergoing chemotherapy or when I think of so many people around the world who suffer from far worse ailments without medical care. So I should really complain? Probably not. Have I complained? Yes. 

As much as I love yard work, I may avoid pulling any weeds for a while!

Our resident chef

Catherine loves to cook. She loves to watch cooking shows on tv and YouTube , read cookbooks, and think of creative dishes on her own. Soon she'll be cooking us dinner!

Here are a few of her creations from the past few days. 

One morning she made me breakfast. An English muffin with artfully arranged fruit. 

For a snack one day she made herself this banana with peanut butter and grapes. She's into food presentation! 

This morning she made homemade Reece's cups at 6am. She melted the chocolate, added peanut butter, and refrigerated them. They actually tasted just like a Reece's cup and was quite the treat before we even had breakfast. 

7--a book worth reading

I just finished reading this book: 7: an experimental mutiny against excess by Jen Hatmaker. I stumbled across her when lots of people began reposting one of her blog entries about being the worst end of school year mom ever. It was pretty funny! It even landed her a quick segment on the Today show. 

So I was reading around on her blog and started looking at the books she's written. I thought this was an interesting concept. She picked 7 areas that she feels like we as a culture overindulge in and did a type of "fast" from each one for a month. For example, clothing. She picked 7 items of clothing and only wore those 7 items for the entire month. Or spending. She picked only 7 stores to spend money at for the entire month. You get the idea. 

Here's the synopsis on her blog about 7:

7 is the true story of how Jen (along with her husband and her children to varying degrees) took seven months, identified seven areas of excess, and made seven simple choices to fight back against the modern-day diseases of greed, materialism, and overindulgence. In the spirit of a fast, they pursued a deeply reduced life in order to find a greatly increased God. 

I think she's so spot-on in many of her observations of current cultural Christianity and the church. I think most of us don't know how to abstain or fast or suffer to create any room for God to speak to us. She is very challenging. Think Radical¨ by David Platt (which you should read if you haven't.) I long to see believers stepping out in faith, questioning some of our culturally accepted practices, and glorifying our Father in Heaven. And that I'm praying about what that means for me too.

Read it and let's talk about how the Spirit may be challenging you.

Look How Much They Grew in One Year!

Happy First Birthday!!

On Saturday, James and Elizabeth turned ONE!! 

I can't believe it's already been a year since these sweet babies were born. It's been the longest, fastest, hardest, most exhausting, most exciting year we've probably ever had. In some ways, it seems like we are still in the new stage of figuring out how to handle two babies, and in other ways it feels like a really long time ago that they were snuggled together sleeping in a crib in our room. 

I always feel like once we get to the first birthday though, that I kind of exhale. Things settle into place a little easier and it's not the constant change of routine with sleep and eating every other month. It seems to get a little easier, and I'm looking forward to that as we head into this second year with them.

   We celebrated, for them and for us, on Saturday.

We had a small party with family and a couple of friends to just enjoy the moment of getting through this year and celebrate how God has sustained us through it and how precious these two are to us.

And it was a lot of fun to watch them eat cake!! At first they weren't really sure what to do with it, until I gave them each a little lick off my finger. Then they dove in, especially sweet Elizabeth who was just face planting into her cake while James grabbed it by the fistful. 

Happy Birthday James!
Happy Birthday Elizabeth!
We love you!!