A few days ago I did the mean parent thing of offering a lemon slice to Elliora, expecting her to pucker up and make hilarious faces.

When will I learn my kids don’t ever seem to do the thing I expect them to do? She loved the lemon of course, and got mad when I took it away from her.

Troy likes to eat the lemon slices from his drinks, actually. And Annalie doesn’t care for them now, but when she was a baby she used to suck on lemons with gusto.

I think mostly Elliora is still in that fun phase where every kind of food is something new and wonderful to her. Today we went to lunch at a place with a salad bar, and Elliora ate an amazing variety and amount—applesauce, bits of hamburger, fries, beets, black olives, cheese, cucumber, edamame, peas, and bacon—and seemed genuinely pleased with every bite.

Earlier this week we spent the night in Southern Maryland, hanging out with old friends. I love this photo of Annalie and Christa each holding her little sister, and how Ashland is looking over at Elliora.

We got the chance to hang out with Angela and her girls for a little while, which was so lovely. I enjoyed getting to know Miss Katie (who is seven months older than Elliora) a bit better.

I hadn’t seen our friends’ dog Daisy in almost two years, but she remembered me immediately, wagging her tail and shoving her head under my hand.

A bunch of balls I crocheted for my godson and his sister. I actually crocheted the red, white and blue one and the rainbow-striped one first as birthday gifts for the two of them, but their dad liked them so much he asked if I could make a few more for them to have around.

The night we stayed at Rebekah and Jason’s, neither Ashland nor Elliora could not be convinced to go to sleep at a reasonable hour. Bekah and I wanted to visit with each other, so we gave in and let the babies play on the floor, figuring they’d soon be tired enough that we could get them to sleep. They played contentedly for the better part of an hour. Woohoo, late-night baby playtime party!

It’s both surreal and awesome that a friend in Maryland (Rebekah) was able to check Attachments out from the local library and read this book that a friend of mine from high school wrote.

Vintage Muppets glass from 1981 (haaa, I accidentally typed “1891″ at first) is a total WIN. I loved the Great Muppet Caper as a kid, and I still love it as an adult. You all have heard about the new Muppets movie coming out this November, right? I’m super-excited about it. The trailers look incredibly promising, and I can’t think of a better person than Jason “Vampire Puppet Rock Opera” Segel to write and star in it.

Playgroup friends! Several of our old playgroup‘s families have recently moved back to the town where we used to live, so anytime we go back down to visit now it’s like a mini-reunion. Not everyone is there—Sarah and her family still live in Texas—but it’s still good to get together with old friends, and their new siblings.

Whoooaaaa, trippy.

As we were leaving lunch with to-go cups of soda, I offered one of the million coffee-cup sleeves I carry around in my purse to Bekah for her cup. She’s not a coffee drinker, and she said it had never occurred to her to use a sleeve for her cold drinks. I happened to have a few finished coffee-cup sleeves with me in a bag of crocheting, and I told her she could pick one out. She liked a pink-and-white striped one, but it was a little small for a typical soda cup. I added the blue at Bek’s request and I really love how it turned out. You’ll probably be seeing this pattern again.

One afternoon this week we had thunderstorms with crazy heavy rain. Jennifer commented on Flickr that this photo of Annalie looks like she’s peering into an aquarium, and it kind of does.

“See, Ellie V? This is how you make the picture TWIRLY.”

I wasn’t able to make it to the Ladies’ Night at my usual pottery studio tonight as planned. With me and Elliora both getting over colds, I wasn’t sure we were up for the 90-minute round trip, especially so late in the evening, so I reluctantly decided to stay here. Troy suggested I just go to the local pottery studio for some painting therapy by myself, so I did. When I picked up my fired pieces from the last time I painted there, the girl working said, “Oh, you’re Bethany Actually? I love your stuff!” Then when I got home, Elliora was asleep! She only stayed asleep for a half-hour or so, but hey, it was an extra half-hour. Extra half-hours are in short supply around here these days.

Now if you’ll excuse me, I need to go cough another thousand times or so. Have a good rest-of-the-weekend!

I haz a ball!

I shall ignore all the toys and play with the ball.

Hey, did you see? I got a ball!

Rainball, you say!?

Nom nom. Taste the rainball. (Hee!)

What happens if I shake it?

Oh. It got away from me. Ball, where are you going?

I can…almost…reach it…

Grrrrr!

Did you see how it got away from me?

Ball, stop getting away from me!

Hmm. It got away again. Maybe if I yell at it.

Ball! Get over here!

Reeeaaach.

Almost.

Got it. I must become one with the ball.

My friend Bonnie decided on her birthday this year that she would take a picture every day of something that made her happy, to remind herself in the midst of a difficult time to Find the Happy. She decided to create a Flickr group so her friends could share the happy too.

Finding a bit of Happy each day.

The rules:

1. Find some Happy and photograph it each day. You could choose to do it less often if that works better for your life but my theory is that the more often you look for the Happy, the more the Happy helps.
2. Do it for a year. Or less. Or more. Or as needed.
3. No Unhappy allowed. That also includes self-abuse if you miss a day or lots of days. Hippie voice: Go with the flow, man. Everything is as it should be.
4. Rules are for breaking. Except Number 3, it’s best not to upset Hippie Voice.

My heart has been heavy lately, thinking about Samantha. So I’m reminding myself of some happy things.

I don’t know about you, but homemade black-and-white cookies make me very happy.

So does the cool way the sun was reflecting off this dotty coffee mug. Like little bubbles of sunlight!

I happened to glance at Annalie’s calendar a day or two before Troy’s birthday and was tickled to realize that she had drawn a miniature portrait of our family on that date, complete with him in a party hat.

I love it when I get a teeny painting of a harried-looking coffee-drinking cat in the mail. Thanks, Brenda!

French toast with powdered sugar on a sunshiny dottery plate.

Keeping a baby alive and homeschooling a 7-year-old are both time-consuming pursuits (duh), but while I barely have time to shower and I don’t seem to have time for housework, I manage to cook dinner almost every night and write emails and blog posts (sort of) and I’ve been crocheting a lot. So I guess it’s true that you do make time for what you love. And crocheting makes me happy.

I’m sure that in a year or so I’ll be hearing many cries of “Mo-ooom, make her stop touching my stuff!” So I try extra hard to enjoy the sweet moments like this, when it’s clear how much Annalie loves her little sister.

On one of Troy’s Navy deployments years ago, he happened to go to a wine festival in Cyprus, and he brought back two of these little glasses. They’re the perfect size for a shot of juice or taking a packet of Emergen-C, and it makes me smile each time I use one. It’s such a random thing to have in my cupboard, small wineglasses from a Cypriot wine festival, yet there they are.

I went to high school and college with Rainbow Rowell. (I know, awesome name!) She wasn’t someone I hung out with, but we knew each other. We had mutual friends, and when we went to the same university we occasionally ate lunch together. I’ve been reading Rainbow’s writing for two decades now, mostly in newspaper-column or blog-post form, but now I’ve read something way more exciting: Rainbow’s very first novel, a romantic comedy called Attachments. The night I started reading it, I actually got out of bed at 3:30am, feeling compelled to send Rainbow a message to let her know I was loving her book and was genuninely happy for and proud of her. (I’ll be interviewing Rainbow soon and doing a giveaway of her book in a blog post, so stay tuned for that!)

The sun was shining into Annalie’s room just right one afternoon so that her bright fuchsia sheets were reflecting a pink glow onto everything else in the room. A few days later, Annalie picked this bouquet of wildflowers, leaves of grass, and a wild strawberry from our yard for me and arranged them in an old vanilla bottle.

The first Saturday that Sonja was here, Karyl & her girls came up to spend the day with us, which was super fun. We started with brunch—aebleskiver and home-fried potatoes and bacon and fruit—which made me very happy because I love brunch. Also, I made the aebleskiver with almond milk and coconut oil and maple syrup (in place of cow’s milk and butter and granulated sugar) so Sonja could eat them, and they were totally as delicious as usual. It was a Very Happy Thing indeed: brunch everyone could eat!

Sonja-safe brownies, made with coconut oil instead of butter and honey instead of sugar. And they tasted good! Yay! I had fun meeting the challenge of cooking without ingredients I usually rely on while Sonja was here.

I love it when naps end like this, with Elliora waking up in the Ergo and smiling when she sees me.

If I have to put up with hot and humid summer weather, at least I get to eat perfectly summery meals like this: grilled mini burgers, strawberries, and marinated cucumber salad. Yum.

After seeing Lauren’s Doctor Who necklace on Flickr, I stalked this Etsy shop until she listed more so I could buy one for myself. I like how the high-top sneaker is a reference to the Chucks habitually worn by both the Tenth Doctor and Chuck Bartowski.

We often make popcorn with the very air-popper that I used when I was a kid, and eat it out of the exact stainless-steel bowl I used to eat popcorn from. (My mom was getting rid of the air popper and asked if I wanted it; I basically swiped the bowl because I loved it so much. Both these things are 30+ years old.)

Trader Joe’s dark chocolate bar with caramel bar and black sea salt. Enough said.

We live near a good bakery and stop there on a regular basis for treats. Every time, Annalie carefully surveys the variety of lovely, fancy cookies and pastries…and then requests a plain butter cookie. I love that.

I believe we’ve mentioned before that our neighbors across the street actually own a bounce house? They put it up for birthdays and parties and random weekends just for fun. And they are happy to share it with the neighborhood kids.

Rain always makes me happy.

Neon aquamarine polish, and bare feet outside, and green grass, and bits of sidewalk chalk. Basically, summer’s here!