Haircuts and pixies, bushes and birds!... and a gator

Well, well. I neglected this here blog for a few days, and now I'm way behind on all of my sharing. :-) I'll speed-catch-you-up: Game Night was fabulous. And yes, I actually won a game. YAY for me. It doesn't happen all that often, really. Luckily I'm not a super competitive person, and I'm fairly comfortable with losing.

I can't leave out the biggest news. My "baby" got a haircut! Yes, it's actually his second haircut, but now he looks like he's been thrown into toddlerhood. He's no longer my baby!!! Look at the before:

And now after:

Oh goodness, someone splash some water on my face! Can it be? Then I realized today that The Artist was this age when Nature Man was born. And Dash was younger than this when I found out I was pregnant with Little Lad. I suppose this 2nd birthday of his (on Saturday) has snuck* up on me because I know he's the last one, and I assumed he'd always just stay the "Little Lad." Deep breathe.

On to other news. I used Mrs. Smiley's idea, with permission, to make my children into pixies. I also made some elf ones and fairies that I haven't put around yet.

This is my Ivy Angel...he is tending his poor neglected home. Let's hope the live-in help does this plant some good!
...and more mischievous little pixies, hanging out on my CS Lewis books, with lollipops in their mouths. I love this picture of my boys. See that look of adoration on Little Lad's face? He loves his big brother so much!!

The "nest picture" was inspired by the dear Nester. Bless you, Nester, for inspiring me to make my home more smile-inducing every day. I love that she posts things simply to inspire beauty and encourage creative thinking.

Hopefully I can do a little of the same. Even if your style isn't mine.

Even if you are a perfectionist (I am not.) Just copy anything you like. Leave the rest.

I also (finally) finished painting the TV table over the weekend, with a little help from the painting elves aka the kids. It is plain. Black. Glossy. Plain-- see?? Which is why I postponed it. But it's done, I like it, and it matches.

And a totally unrelated fact, that leads into my next subject. We saw a hawk today! When Little Lad spotted it, he screamed "HAWK, HAWK" at the top of his lungs until it flew away. Hmm... we may have to train him to zip those baby lips before we haul him back to the Eagle Watch! ;-)

AND my dah-ling husband bought me some blueberry bushes yesterday!! Really. That is awesome. Completely and fabulously wonderful, and such a surprise. He went to Lowe's (sorry, Ann-Marie) to get a new garbage disposal (don't ask) and came back with the bushes b/c the disposal was $20 less than we had budgeted! YAY!

Last but not least, we found an awesome new Nature Treasure this weekend. See it? Scary, huh? Ohhhhhh....we love it. Yes, we do. It's awesome. Look at the underside of the jaw? Fabulous. This was one of those oh-so-rare antique mall finds. I spotted it even before the boys did, which made me mighty giddy. It's always fun to drag them around the corner with anticipation and squeal "Look at THIS!" (Of course I checked the price before I showed it to them-- and I couldn't believe how cheap this baby was. Oh thank you, God, for caring about these little things!)

The bed beckons.
Night.

Okay, I'm a word nerd sometimes

*Usage note:
First recorded in writing toward the end of the 19th century in the United States, snuck has become in recent decades a standard variant past tense and past participle of the verb sneak: Bored by the lecture, he snuck out the side door. Snuck occurs frequently in fiction and in journalistic writing as well as on radio and television: In the darkness the sloop had snuck around the headland, out of firing range. It is not so common in highly formal or belletristic writing, where sneaked is more likely to occur. Snuck is the only spoken past tense and past participle for many younger and middle-aged persons of all educational levels in the U. S. and Canada. Snuck has occasionally been considered nonstandard, but it is so widely used by professional writers and educated speakers that it can no longer be so regarded