It’s my SECOND ever monthly book review. I tell you, friends, audio books have changed the game. I’ve gone from non-reader to creating “Want to Read” lists and listening every free minute I get.
I don’t even recognize myself. But in a really good way!
This month, I read five books.
A few months ago, I shared our nighttime routine. Today, I’m going to give you a glimpse into our morning routine when the boys head off to school!
Mornings in the Lane house are controlled chaos. When the boys are headed off to school, our morning routine is the same every morning with almost no deviation. So we can get the boys off and us ready for work as quickly as possible! I’m sharing what our morning routine looks like today!
My alarm goes off at 4:53 am. Yes, 4:53. I like to wake up on odd numbers. So weird, I know!
Then I get dressed and head off to my work-out class at Bar Method.
Every time I sit down to write this final letter of your first year, the words just don’t come to me. What to say on such a meaningful occasion. A year ago, Harrison and I sat on the driveway on a Thursday morning, trash day, waiting for the trash trucks to come “dump the rocks out.” And a whirlwind of seven hours later, you’d be in my arms. The loudest newborn scream I’d ever heard, but we were smitten.
We weren’t first time parents. We knew the joy and love you’d bring to our house. That there would be hard nights ahead, and easy days. That you’d grow way too fast, and before we knew it, that we’d look at you and wonder where the bleary nights had gone and the newborn snuggles.
A year later, and the love I have for you is unending. You watch your brother with amazement and admiration. Squealing with delight when I take you to wake up your brother, just before we open his door. You play peek-a-boo slapping your hands up against your eyes so your little baby cheeks wiggle. Then peek one eye out to see what’s going on around you and laugh when someone catches you. The floor is lava the minute you see me, insistent on being held at all times if I’m in your presence.
I haven’t shied away from loving on you. Haven’t shied away from holding you while you fall asleep at night, savoring every last bit of your baby-ness. I’m so proud of you already, little boy. Proud of you. Proud of us: mommy + baby J. We made it. One very full, beautiful year. Happy birthday, my love.
I love you so big,
Mommy
It feels like I’ve been gone for so long after missing posting last week. Jonathan had a couple of nights just not sleeping well. One of which Nathan & I were up until 12:30 in the morning trying to calm him and put him back to sleep. And then Harrison was sent home last week with a fever, which puts all life on hold as we try to keep the few balls in the air that have to be kept there – like work, and taking care of a sick little one. Ugh. It kills me to see my babies have such a hard time.
So it only seems appropriate after being gone a whole week that it’s time to share a little about our life lately! I’m linking up with Shay and Sheaffer to share with you what’s going on in our life!
1: WHAT WE’RE EATING THIS WEEK:
We’re going to try the viral tomatoes + feta TikTok pasta this week (but switch out feta for Boursin cheese!), easy beef burrito skillet, and homemade chicken nuggets and Mac and cheese (Harrison’s favorite meal.)
2: WHAT I’M REMINISCING ABOUT:
Jonathan’s first birthday is on Friday. It was the longest, shortest year. Between COVID, quarantines, missing family, to life somewhat back to normal and catching up and meeting all of the people that he would have met as a newborn in the past few months, it’s been a whirlwind.
Around first birthdays, I spend a lot of time looking back at pictures and videos. It’s truly incredible how much changes in a year.
Here’s what Jonathan’s birthday looked like…
Gardening brings me a lot of peace – wandering outside to water in the morning and see what’s growing and blooming that day. Today I’m sharing my July garden tour. If you missed my June garden tour, go back and take a peek here!
Here’s how it works: I walk around my yard and take pictures of the gardens. I don’t clean up, put away toys that have been left out, or weed. This is just how life in my gardens look today!
Here’s how things are looking in the garden today!
Limelight hydrangeas are starting to bloom. That lantana is growing as big as I thought it would! Loves its spot!
We made it through a full week, friends! The boys had a great week. I had a busy week at work, but we had a very normal week.
I missed posting any Fourth of July pictures from a couple weeks ago. We had so much fun celebrating with friends! The kids stayed up late, ran around the backyard, ate all the delicious food, including homemade ice cream, and had the best time!
Once a month I link up with two of my favorite blogs (Shay @ Mix and Match Mama and Erika @ A Little Bit of Everything), to share a “look” into some little aspect of our life. Here’s a peak back at what we’ve “looked” at this year:
Today, we’re sharing…BATHROOM ORGANIZATION. This should be renamed to, look at the disaster in my bathroom drawers.
Disaster. I’ve tried to organizes our bathroom drawers, and it’s just never stuck. So, it’s usually just a mess. A mess on the bathroom counter. A mess in the drawers. So, here’s our mess…
When we moved in to our house seven years ago, there were so many things that we wanted to eventually change about our house to make it feel more like our style. What we found is, life gets busy really quickly. Pretty soon, kids come along, and it’s even busier, and that list of things to update/change goes on the back burner. BUT, after spending the past year plus living and working from our home, we decided it was time for a fresh coat of paint.
Here’s a peak of our kitchen “before.”
Although, not truly a before picture, because the true before picture would be missing some can lights on the ceiling that we had installed last summer, and the horrendous fan we had over our kitchen table.
I’ve read book review posts from so many of you all for YEARS. Enjoyed them, referenced them when I needed a new book to take to the beach, but if you’ve been here any amount of time, you know I’m the SLOWEST READER ALIVE. I read a book for sometimes up to a year. It is a slow painstaking read.
But then, Nathan mentioned that he had started listening to Greenlights by Matthew McConaughey and it was really good, and I should use our shared Prime account to listen to it. I had Greenlights on my “want to read” list for awhile, so I thought I’d finally give Audible a shot. And so began the transformation. Before I knew it, I’d “read” six books in a month. WHAT?! Life changing.
So here’s my very first ever book review. I never thought I’d see the day.
Before we get to today’s post, I wanted to share a family that I’ve been praying for lately, and want to ask that you pray for them as well. I don’t know this family personally, but for some reason was drawn to them. First, her beautiful pictures and writing, and then eventually, I followed along long enough to know a small bit of their story. Little Luna, Lindsay’s daughter, has undergone a bone marrow transfusion from her sister in hopes of her body reprogramming itself from slipping into leukemia. Lindsay, her mama, explains Luna’s health situation much more eloquently and completely on her Instagram page, but while things were looking good and her numbers were increasing as expected for a long while, about a week ago, her numbers started slipping. The doctors didn’t know why, and while they were talking not that long ago about discharge from the hospital to go home, they slipped so far that she had to be moved to the ICU and intubated. I don’t know why but I feel so connected to this family and little Luna. I feel like this is not the end the story even though they are at such a low point right now. And I’d just ask you to send some prayers for little Luna. And her mama. And daddy + sister. Here’s her Instagram:
In lighter topics, I thought I’d share some of my Amazon and Target purchases lately! You know, just after Prime Day, so perfect timing. 😆. Oh well. Prime Day overwhelms me, quite frankly. Anyone else? I bought nothing on Prime Day, and I feel totally ok about it.
