I'm Back!

With heartfelt gratitude for all you sweet, generous friends who so lovingly left comments of appreciation and support in response to my last post, I am happy to report that my break from blogging will be much shorter than I had originally anticipated! Words cannot adequately express how touched--and humbled--I am by your thoughts and comments. Thank you so much! You have given me a renewed perspective on the life of this blog, and while I'm still not entirely sure yet where it will lead, I am glad to be back--I have so much to share!

We awoke this morning to an honest-to-goodness winter wonderland, right in our own backyard! Dylan and Caitlyn were beside themselves, hands pressed to the cold glass of the large bay window in our kitchen, looking out at the pristine landscape, watching as fat white flakes made their lazy way to earth. Before I bundled them up to head outside, Dylan and Caitlyn allowed me just a few moments to savor the pure, unblemished snow.

Of course, it wasn't long before they were running around in it, having the time of their young lives!

Later this afternoon, Darren and I worked together reorganizing two of the closets in our home. Ordinarily, this wouldn't be considered a news worthy event. But! This is exciting. Our hall linen closet has been a supreme frustration to me since the day we moved into this house four years ago. It is tall and narrow and not at all practical for storing the multiple sets of towels and sheets, blankets, quilts, and pillows that I try in vain to keep organized. So a couple of days ago, Darren had the brilliant idea to use one very big, very wide, and very deep bookcase we have in our master bedroom walk-in closet to store our linens, thereby clearing out our entire linen closet, which we then converted into what Dylan proudly calls his "homeschooling closet". I love it! What was once so wrong for storing linen is now so perfectly right for storing all of our learning and craft supplies!

Not only have we been reorganizing closets, we have also been reorganizing bookshelves! I love--LOVE--the comfy, cozy reading area we created for Dylan and Caitlyn in our living room. Their shelf of books adds such warmth to the room (as does the Mother Goose lamp which sits atop it!) and their kid sized recliners are just too cute for words.

And finally, I just have to share the adorable picture Dylan drew this afternoon. While the girls "helped" Darren and I with the closets, we could hear Dylan at the dining room table, singing and humming Christmas carols with such joy and enthusiasm that we couldn't help but smile, too! After a while, we went to investigate what else he was up to and were astounded to see what he'd been working on all that time. With love and pride, I present to you:

"The Nativity", by Dylan (age 5)