Five on Friday: Our New Fence And Stomach Bug Round Two

1) Our Brand New Fence

We’ve been dreaming of having a fence in our backyard ever since we moved into our house and as of this past week, we finally have one! My brother-in-law recently started a contracting company and they designed and built the fence for us.  We LOVE it! Since our house backs up on the woods, having a fence makes it feel so much more like a yard and gives it great structure.  Olive already loves racing around back there and I know Caleb will love it one day too.  This was maybe the biggest (and most expensive) house project we’ve ever done and we couldn’t be happier with how it turned out. Now we just have to figure out how to get some grass to grow back there so it’s not a giant mudpit…

2) Stomach Bug Round Two

Remember when we got rocked by a stomach bug a few weeks back? Well, Caleb woke up sick on Thursday and was throwing up, feverish, and just a pitiful little thing all day long.  All he wanted was to snuggle mama and be held, which isn’t the norm for my little explorer.  I think it’s safe to say that there is nothing more pitiful than watching a little one throw up.  His eyes get so big and scared and he struggles to breathe for a second afterward before he starts hysterically crying and it breaks my mama heart to think how overwhelming and scary it must be for him.  Here’s hoping he feels better soon and that Jordan and I don’t get whatever he had like we did last time!

Grainy, couch-snuggle selfies 🙁

And just a nice real life moment for you…I love Caleb’s nursery and it’s been fun to see the pictures of it take off on Pinterest this last year.  But after I spent several days trying to get orange throw-up stains off of this beautiful glider during the last stomach bug, mama ain’t takin’ chances this time.  Sometimes our houses need to be functional more than they need to be beautiful, ya know?

3) Puppy Lovin’

The relationship between these two has been so sweet lately and it is such a bright spot in our days, especially when Caleb is sick.  Caleb adores Olive, shrieking, giggling, and crawling over to her as fast as he can every time he sees her.  He loves to play with her tail, pull her ears, attempt to grab her tongue, and even pick at the fur between her toes, and Olive just sits there and takes it.  She is seriously a saint, y’all.  I can’t believe the stuff she puts up with from Caleb! You better believe she gets lots of snuggles (and the occasional spoonful of peanut butter) for all that she puts up with from our crazy kiddo.

4) Climbing The Stairs

I have spent this whole last week admiring our new staircase gallery wall.  I love love love how it turned out and find myself pausing in the middle of the stairs to tell Caleb all about the different pictures and pieces in it.  Sometimes I feel silly about how excited decorating our home makes me, but the longer we live here, the more I realize that this passion of mine is one that brings our whole family a lot of joy.  Make sure to check out Monday’s post for the story of how we created this wall and lots of fun pictures!

5) Novels, Novels, Novels

I’m starting to jump back into the world of fiction and have loved spending Caleb’s afternoon nap reading a novel and drinking a cup of coffee.  Thanks to a recommendation by my friend Brittany’s blog, this week I read a fun book called What Alice Forgot.  I have a couple other books on hold at the library and picked up a few more books at the thrift store yesterday so I’ve got lots of good reading to look forward to! Doing more reading and less mindless phone scrolling was one of the intentional practices I’m hoping to do more of in 2017 and so far I’m doing pretty darn well with it.  By the way, I’m always looking for recommendations so let me know if you have any favorite novels I need to read!

I hope your weekends are warm, fun, and completely free of any and all sickness!