This girl can crack me up like no one else. The things she comes up with. For instance, a couple weeks ago, she was putting on her crocs and she has this little jibbit that is a pink breast cancer ribbon - she said "I know this is to remember Nunu." I said "Yes, that's so anytime you see it we can remember Nunu." She let out a sigh and said "I wish I could get a tattoo on my foot that says I love my Nunu." I honestly wasn't sure whether to laugh, cry because it was so sweet, or start worrying now that she is thinking about tattoos.

Then their are things that are so sweet that make me thank the Lord for her tenderheart and pray that He continues that work in her. For instance, one night praying she was going through all the normal, thank you for Daddy, Mommy..... and then she said "And God, help everyone have food. If they don't have food, please give them some, we have enough." :) Again, laughing, crying....

And I know that God has used her to be an encouragment to a lady in our church. This lady's brother has Lou Gehrigs/ALS, Isabella obviously doesn't know what this sickness is, but she knows that she needs to pray for him. Mostly she just remembers his name and that's really all that matters anyway because God knows exactly who he is and what he needs. She will remind us to pray for him at home and the last couple weeks she's made sure that if anyone forgets to mention his name in church that she will do it. Such a sweetie -- the prayers and childlike faith.

She is growing up so fast. She just brought me roses in from outside, yes its 9:15 at night and she was outside with her daddy and had him cut some roses for me and came up the porch saying "Oh, you're going to LOVE what I got for you mommy...." And I do, I love the little giver much more than her gift!

Sisters

"Its their beauty that captures your attention

Its their personality that captures your heart"

I'm not sure if I've used that little phrase on my blog before, but yesterday I dropped the girls off at dance camp and then headed to my hubby's work (Lunch date - yay!) I used this phrase on a calendar I made for him and when I read it, I automatically thought of this picture. And I also thought how true it is of my girls. Granted, I'm a little biased, but I think they are beautiful and yet its their sweet, silly, fun, tenderhearted personalities that I love about them the most. Its fun to watch them play with friends, but when its just them either at home or on trips like Disney, I just love watching them having fun together and being so close as sisters. I'm hope that God will continue to build this sweet relationship!

Kindergarten here she comes!

I'm not sure how it happened, but in a blink of an eye, my first baby is getting ready for Kindergarten. Today we had a busy day; we had to run by the drs to get her immunization record, then we needed to be at the school for me to pay registration, then we met with Isabella's teacher and Isabella had to take an oral readiness test. We left early because you just never know about doctor's offices, thankfully I was thinking ahead (for once) and brought my camera with me because the drs office had the paper already out for us and we had time to kill. We went to a little park area and took a couple pics of the girls. I was thinking that I would take pictures of her before her test, you know, kind of documenting this first big step for kindergarten. This next picture is the exact reason I told Kenny we are going to have to watch this one like a hawk as she gets older. I told her to pose on the bench and that's what she did. :) We got to go to lunch with Papa and then the girls got chauffered around at the school. Papa works there, so he drove them around in the golf cart.... I can already see Isabella trying to use that for some kind of popularity points at school. :)

We love her teacher, I think either of the kindergarten teachers would have been great, but I was hoping for this one after we had gone to the open house. Isabella's test lasted almost an hour -- I wasn't allowed in there, I guess they didn't want any hints from mommy. She passed with flying colors. She was at her age and higher on everything. A couple things cracked me up: 1. The teacher kind of laughed and said "well, I couldn't really give her credit for writing her name because she wrote it with a lowercase i at the beginning..." I laughed because I know my daughter, and I looked down and saw this cute little i with a heart at the top --- she doesn't normally do that, but lately she has talked about "fancy writing" and I can just see her little mind thinking "the teacher is going to LOVE this" 2. She didn't get credit for knowing her address because..... well I've never taught it to her, I know bad mommy. (Not to worry the teacher said they would be memorizing it in class, phew) 3. one of the areas where she was just right at her age was "Body Image" --- and no this doesn't mean she doesn't find herself attractive because she would have scored high on the not so humble points. But the teacher said one of the things it was talking about was knowing things like "where your neck is, where your elbow is....." Isabella has what some would call "brain farts" when it comes to certain things, she is like her daddy in that you have to say a name like a thousand times before she will remember it. She constantly tells me "look I'm walking on my hips" when she means heels and she is always calling her elbow her ankle. I didn't ask. 4. She scored very high on the "language" area. Wow, what a shock, she so rarely talks around here. :)

Now I have 2 1/2 months to try and mentally prepare myself for her actually starting Kindergarten. The only supply she needs to take to school (since the teacher said everything else would be provided) was a big box of tissues.... how fitting, I might use those all up the first day.

And in case you thought I forgot about my other girly, I currently have a new favorite picture. I am going to print this as big as I can.

This is SOO Amelia, Sassy thing trying to be Miss Big Girl with her teddy on her hip.

My girls

So as not to confuse anyone I won't title this post as Mother's Day, but these pictures were taken on Mothers Day. Instead, I've decide to use the title My girls, which is very original and I'm sure I've never used on a post before.

My husband is always so sweet about planning something for me on Mothers Day and really hype it up to the girls. I think I pretty much got cards/drawings or atleast a Happy Mother's Day from them every day the week leading up to Mother's Day. They really get into holidays, even if it doesn't consist of them getting a present. Although Isabella normally tries to "do something special for us" by saying "Since its Mother's Day, I'm going to sleep with you tonight" or "Since its YOUR day, I'm going to play the Wii with you." Sneaky little booger.

Hey little girl...... who's baby are you? Oh, mine, well aren't I just a lucky mama!

And what about you sweet thing? Mine again! Yes, I am blessed indeed. And I love you even with strawberry seeds in your teeth and your desire to eat that nasty pork just to frustrate me on Mother's Day. :)

I have to say, I feel very blessed to have a wonderful husband, who was always so sweet to me during those "difficult" Mother's Days and who now makes so much special for me, and for my 2 beautiful girls that God has allowed me to be mommy too. But as an extra little reminder of how blessed I am, I can't even tell you how many people came by and complimented us on our girls. That's always kind of fun.... no one made mention of me looking good, but I'll take all the compliments on how cute and sweet my girls are. Besides, if they don't notice me, they won't notice how many desserts I had that day either.

On our way home late that afternoon, we pulled over next to a field of poppies for some great pictures of my girls.

Prettier than the flowers they are in and I didn't have to bribe them to hold hands --- I will have to bribe them to give me better smiles. There's my girl with the dimples so big, you can't help but smile. And what mommy wouldn't love this picture? So sweet, so innocent, but we can't forget....So sassy! Oh I love these girls!!

More of my newest nephew

I wish I could tell you we have been at the beach since Sunday, building sandcastles, enjoying the sand between our toes, basking in the sun, ...... BUT we have pretty much had rain all week. Kind of odd weather for here or so I've been told, and we've never been here when it rained every day. At least my hubby is with me, rather than at work, but not quite the nice warm vacation we were expecting. :) We have still had a good time, just had to improvise and search out for other things to do rather than swimming/lounging by the pools or going to the beach -- granted, that is actually why you come to the beach, but we have been able to find a few new things to do that we haven't done before. And thankfully, we have had a few evenings where we could walk down to the shops, swam at the indoor pool, and did some biking yesterday when it wasn't raining, but too windy to sit on the beach. All that to say, I don't have beach pictures to share ...YET, I'm still praying maybe God will give us a few hours tomorrow. :) So I thought I would go ahead and post a few more pictures of my nephew Ian. He will be a week old tomorrow, but obviously these pictures were taken on Friday and Saturday in the hospital. Don't you want to just kiss those cheeks? I think I can smell that new baby smell right through my computer.

Today

I had totally planned today to be a busy day. We're leaving for the beach on Saturday, so I was planning on finishing up packing, giving the girls baths, cleaning the house (I hate coming home to a dirty house, plus our neighbors will be coming in to feed the animals :) and I then I figured I would be ahead of schedule so I had actually planned on uploading a couple pictures and telling you about my wonderful Mother's Day that I had on Sunday.








But instead, this is what I got to do.......

I guess that's a pretty good trade off. This is my newest nephew, Ian Michael. His due date was June 3rd. His biggest brother's birthday is today 5/15, his big brother's birthday is tomorrow 5/16 and he surely did not want to miss out on that fun. His 13 year old brother was most likely not hoping to share his birthday today, but we figure he'll have to take that up with God, because He thought it would be a great idea. :)

He was 7 pounds 5 ounces, 18 1/2 inches long, cute little nose, sweet tiny lips, precious baby smell.... oh wait, I don't think they actually wrote that down.

And he looks just like his Auntie.

Ok, maybe not, but he does have dark hair....... at least for now.

(I'm taking my laptop, so I will upload some more pics of him and the couple from Mothers Day, I try to do everything way behind and out of sequence around here)

A hiking we will go

We promised the girls that if the weather was nice we would go hiking on Saturday. We weren't able to head out until later in the afternoon, but it still looked like a pretty day so off we went. Kenny and I love hiking, we used to hike while we were dating, loved hiking before the girls were born, most of our vacations were centered around something outside... camping, hiking, etc. When Isabella was born, we would still throw her in a backpack and be able to go hiking some, then she was old enough to walk while hiking and Amelia was born. Our hiking changed from "Wow, what a great workout" to "How can we get rid of these sticks without her noticing?" I remember when Amelia was a baby and we took them out hiking, Isabella stopped every couple feet to pick up a rock, a stick, examine a leaf, hang from a limb, climb a rock.... then Amelia got hungry so we stopped to feed her, not a whole lot of hiking, but some fun in nature. When we were done, not making it anywhere near our destination, we turned around and headed out. A couple met up with us and said "How far was it in to the waterfall?" Kenny and I both just laughed and said "We don't know, we've been in there for over an hour and maybe made it 1/2 a mile." But we had a great leaf and rock collection.

So yesterday, although we knew we had to go somewhere local, I thought maybe we could have a nice little hike. We went to a state park not far from our house and if any of you live near us you know where I'm talking about, and you'll know that this rock we are sitting on is only about 15 feet into the hike. Somehow it is new everytime to Isabella and she just has to defeat it. We had just climbed off the rocks and were on our way when a huge crash of thunder and lightning happened -- Isabella screamed so loud you would have thought she had been struck by lightening. Honestly, I'm surprised no one came running into the woods to see what was wrong with this poor child. Obviously, we went back to the car. Kenny and I weren't ready to give up yet so we drove up the mountain a little and within a few minutes the rain had stopped and the clouds were gone. Oh good, the drama has passed, now we can have a nice hike. Not so much... The rain did stop, but as we were slowly collecting rocks, ..... ur, I mean hiking, Amelia decides to take off running. She trips, falls and of course is crying like crazy saying that she is bleeding. I took out my magnifying glass and saw a slight drop of blood. Finally, she's consoled and happy and we meet up with some guy and his 2 dogs. Our girls are animal freaks so anytime they see a dog they want to pet it, but thankfully have learned to ask first. This guy said, "He's friendly"...... he should have added "He's a crazy spazzed out dog who I just hyped up on drugs", the dog comes running at us and runs right passed us and back. We could tell it was just hyper and didn't want to hurt us. Well, at least 2 of us could tell that. We walk away from the man and the dog decides to have yet another turn at running at us, Isabella freaks out and starts running, the dog runs passed her, runs into her and totally knocks her legs out from under her. Airborne then landing hard on her hiney. This was literally about 2 minutes after Amelia fell. So now we have another one that is hurt and inconsolable, Amelia wants to get back in on some of the love action trying to convince me there really is blood........ and I realized then, this hike was not going to be at all what I had imagined. :) Oh well, its all good. We hiked to our typical, never make it any farther spot and sat down by the water, throwing rocks and eating snacks. It decided to start thundering again and we decided it was definitely time to go home. We opted for a family movie night...... inside..... no lightning.... no dogs..... ok so there were some dogs, but they were in the movie. This picture is for Auntie Becky. My girls didn't understand why we had to look up at the tree, but I told them not to worry, Auntie Becky would understand. :)