First Day of 2nd Grade

Last Day of 2nd Grade

Thank you Mama for introducing me to Martina McBride’s Song – She’s a Butterfly

Today, May 20th, is my *little* brother Michael’s 31st birthday!

Happy Birthday, MY-kayla.

Michael, you were my constant companion, my playmate and my friend; whether it was me dressing you up in Granny’s clothes, painting your nails, flipping you over my head, you chasing me around the yard with a machete or you pulling a rug out from under me (which only took you 20 years to fess up to thankyouverymuch!) and causing me to split my head open.

I wouldn’t trade any of it.

Watching Princess and Monkey reminds me so much of us and yeah.. I probably owe you several hundred apologies, but the past is the past

I love you, Kayla.

I’m so thrilled for the happiness that you’ve found with Melissa.

I pray that this birthday is just the first of many, many more filled with happiness and joy.

Happy Birthday!  I love you, kiddo.

Sometimes the pivotal moments in life, the epiphanies come out of nowhere.

Last Thursday we woke the kids up to watch an amazing lightning storm out on the horizon and then everyone went back to bed/reading/baking/TV.

and then … 80 mph winds, hail, tornados and craziness.

We ran out of our house to check on the neighbors, to run down our street in the rain – through calf deep water on our street, dodging branches and debris… we checked on the elderly couple across the street and saw their driveway completely blocked by trees.

the next morning

We checked on everyone, met neighbors we hadn’t met before and when we determined everyone was safe – listened to breakers popping around us – watched some more lightning, took a few deep, albeit shaky breaths and then Nathan and I took a very shaken Princess back inside our dark house and put her in our bed.  I checked on Monkey and actually laughed, I have always said that boy could sleep through anything – and I was right.

The next morning dawned bright and beautiful with blue skies and only a few cotton candy clouds in the sky.

We surveyed the damage and again, said a prayer of thanks.

We were lucky, we only lost part of our patio roof and our big old mesquite tree – the one in all those pictures of my kids

It was pulled up by the roots and thankfully fell into the yard (punching several holes in the grass with its branches) and not across our driveway and vehicles

Both kids walked out the front door with wide eyes and their mouths open in shock.  After a moment of taking it all in they looked between Nathan and me and then ran inside, put on shoes and went straight across the street to our elderly neighbors house and started dragging branches from their sidewalk, yard and driveway.

Nathan grabbed his chainsaw from the garage and we followed them across the street and started dragging, chopping and clearing until the curbs were stacked high with debris and the driveway was cleared.

I was so proud of my kids, watching them work hard to clear our neighbor’s yard and driveway.  I felt joy in my heart at the sight of the people that I see them becoming.  The moment of epiphanie came for me when Monkey looked up at me his little face dripping with sweat, his eyes shining and he said; “Mom, we’re good people, we’re helping others before we help ourselves.  That’s because we are being brought up by good people”

My heart skipped a beat and I felt a powerful tug deep inside

A moment later he looked at me again and said; “Mom, I’m talking about you and Dad”

I realized then, again, just how much they watch us.  How much they see, how they’re looking even when we don’t realize it.

We have a precious few years to make that impact, to guide them, to show them the way by our own actions.

Our summer will be fun and filled with family memories, laughter, sunshine, fishing, boating and joy; but it will also be filled with trips to the food bank, choosing a child to sponsor, and filling a few back to school backpacks with supplies for others.

I want to teach them, by showing them that making a difference can be done in big ways with donations, volunteering and time, but also in the smallest of gestures – a smile, a kind word, a prayer…

How do you teach your children to make a difference?

Thank you, Hallmark, for choosing me as one of their “Life Is A Special Occasion” bloggers and allowing my life and stories to be a part of their Life is A Special Occasion program. While I am compensated for my work with Hallmark as a Life is A Special Occasion ambassador, everything posted is original and real and from our life

“…. and you, like me, realized there was something missing in your life. So you found her, and asked her to marry you.” -

a portion of my Dad’s toast at my brother’s rehearsal dinner this weekend.

…….. and yes, the crowd swooned.

Today, this little boy, my 5 year old Monkey, is having root canals and other preventative dental work.

I could go on and on and on about how this makes me feel like I’ve failed my son in some way, like I’m less of a parent…. but I won’t.

I will ask that you pray that he deals well with the medicine that will make him sleep, that the dentist is able to get everything done in one visit and that Monkey is healed.

But most of all.

I ask for your prayers today for friends of ours.  A mother and daughter who both teach kinder at our school will bury their son/older brother today.

As a parent and sister, I cannot even imagine.

Please today, take time to hug your loved ones, to forgive any transgressions and to realize how precious life is.

Please today, take time out of your morning to pray for the Grimes family.

Happy Birthday, to the first man in my life.

Happy Birthday to the one who showed me what to look for in a husband

Happy Birthday, to the best Grandpa any Monkey could have.

We love you.

Thank you for all the lessons:  love, patience, laughter, appreciation, joy and independence.

Thank you for allowing me to fall, and showing me how to get back up again.

I love you, and I hope that you get some German Chocolate Cake today.

Happy Birthday, GOB.

We love you.

Just a little fun from my two favorite boys.
We’re on the road today headed towards my brother’s wedding!!!  He’s getting married at the Waco Zoo tomorrow.  I’m SO excited!

What Friday Fun do y’all have to share?  I’d love to hear it.

and don’t forget about Deanna’s Food Foto Friday

“Rachel, I don’t want you to grow up” – Granny, to a young me

my response

“Why Granny, Won’t you love me when I’m bigger?”

I don’t know how old I was at the time of that conversation, and I don’t remember her response to me, but now that I have my own children – I completely get it.

They want to grow up so fast

And I want them to stay small

They want to zoom through childhood and do it all…

I want to hold them and protect them and shelter them

It’s inevitable as we reach the end of this school year that the kids are already talking about next year.

NEXT YEAR when I will have a 3rd grader (the oldest grade in our Elementary School) AND a kindergartner!!!

Be still my heart

We talk about what their goals are, what they want to learn and accomplish and do over the summer and the next year and that inevitably leads to the ‘When I..‘ conversations.

When I’m a 3rd grader, I will know multiplication

When I’m a kindergartner I can show my teacher how I can read and I’ll get to do PE!

When I’m in High School

When I get married…

When I’m a Mom…

When I’m a Dad…

When I Grow Up

I go along with them and we play ‘When I Grow Up’

When Princess grows up she wants to be a veterinarian-dolphin trainer-teacher-mom-writer-artist!

Monkey wants to be everything his Daddy is.

I make them laugh when I tell them that when I grow up I want to be a photographer, writer, friend, mom – because in my mind I am still not grown up.

They find that really amusing

After every When I  conversation I tell them that they can be anything they want to be and their Daddy and I will do everything we can to support them and help them achieve their goals and grow into the people the are destined to become.

Right now we’re doing our best to give them the foundation they’ll need to become those grown ups.

Independence.

Strength.

Confidence.

Love.

Thank you, Hallmark, for choosing me as one of their “Life Is A Special Occasion” bloggers and allowing my life and stories to be a part of their Life is A Special Occasion program.  While I am compensated for my work with Hallmark as a Life is A Special Occasion ambassador, everything posted is original and real and from our life

One Thousand Posts

This is the One Thousandth post on this blog.

One thousand notes, recipes, tidbits, pictures, random thoughts…

One thousand moments of my life our lives recorded here.

I admit, I had no idea what I was doing when I started From The Land of Monkeys and Princesses

I had no clue when I started talking about lemons and road etiquette, that this blog-thing, this online note taking would someday lead to friends across the world and even introduce me to some down the street.

I had no idea where it was going to go, I didn’t even know there was a “where” that it could “go”

It was a place to store my stories, pictures and recipes – a place for family who were living in Australia, Kentucky, the wilds of Texas and elsewhere to check in on the kids and see what we were eating.

It’s  pretty clear from my first posted recipe, that I had no idea how to format a post, write a recipe for a post or do any such thing – but then, I wasn’t thinking about an audience.

I was writing to remember.

To share.

To archive.

I was writing for them:

I’m not a scrapbooker and physically hand writing anything for long periods of time (5 minutes or more) causes me pain.

So I started this blog thing.  I didn’t tell anyone, about it.  It was a secret, something that was only for my family and something my kids could someday look back upon.

Something they could read and see, a way for them to experience life as they lived it, when they lived it, through their mom’s eyes – you know, before I was all ancient and stuff.

These were my daily, and not so daily, notes and little bits of life, my recordings, memories, photographs and takes on the things that happened… nothing more than the every day – and yet, now… 4.5 years later, I look back on them and I laugh.  I cry.  I roll my eyes…

and I thank God that I have each of these memories.

I thank God that I have this space to tell our stories, to share them, to store them, to treasure them.

My kids know about this space.

We talk about it, they ask me to take pictures of them and share them with the internets and to put their stories and sillies on my blog

Someday, my kids will look back on this space, these posts and they’ll read my words, see their pictures and re-experience their lives.

I can only hope and pray that it means as much to them as it does to me.

I wrote a post a few years ago about my amazing husband and how he expresses his love with his own language – when I comment about not having enough storage space in my pantry, he goes out to the garage and builds me new shelves; when he knows I’ve had a long day – he surprises me with a fountain Diet Dr. Pepper from the convenience store with the best syrup to soda mix (oh yes.. there is a difference) and sometimes – my man with the huge heart and chocolate brown eyes who shows his love through actions and caresses instead of words, surprises me like he did with a poem in an email 3 years ago.  A poem and action that I cherish to this day and can still brings tears to my eyes.

I bet if you asked my husband which one of us was better at expressing our feelings – showing our love – using our love language to make the other one and our children feel special, he’d say me.

I beg to differ.

Knowing I’m not a fan of roses, and as much as I love stargazer lilies (and I do. I LOVE) they are almost impossible to find right now and I’m not home enough to enjoy them, anyway… my amazing husband found a man who makes roses from wood shavings and he bought a bouquet for me and a bouquet for Princess, just because he loves us.

This man is teaching my daughter through his actions what it is to have a wonderful husband and an amazing father.  He’s showing her through his own very special love language,  many of the qualities that she herself should look for someday.  He is setting the example, and it’s a truly wonderful one.

He’s teaching my son how to be a man.  How to love, how to be a friend, that real men DO hug and hold hands and that they cherish their wives and family.  That no amount of material wealth or goods can compare to stars in the night sky on family camping trip, to laughing around a fire with friends until the early morning, that early morning tickles and snuggles are priceless.   He is teaching him that to love, appreciate, and respect your family is a gift to them and yourself.

My love language may be more verbally expressive or visually so with notes all over the house, blog posts, texts and saying I love you and appreciate you more often – but my husband’s actions are lasting, powerful and moving.

So, while he may think I’m the heart of the family…

I know better.