Bella and Milly

Quotes from my weekend

2010-07-06T13:13:00.002-04:00

I have no pictures for you.... I know, sad. For some reason my laptop is having problems. It is giving me this warning saying my hard drive is about to die. Thankfully it didn't just up and die and I was able to back up all my pictures on it. BUT, adding new pictures has become really slow. I might try later. My laptop is not that old, and of course this had to happen 6 months after my 2 year warranty ended.

Anyway, we went camping over the long holiday weekend. It was such a nice relaxing time together. We went to the beach and were expecting to spend lots of time at the beach, but it was crazy windy and crazy rough (hopefully I can post a pic of the waves later.) We did get to spend a few hours out there, but the wind would get strong and cause the sand to sting our legs, and I wouldn't let the girls in the water above their ankles because it was too scary to me. Kenny is in a cast from his knee down so it wasn't like he could take the girls out there and I don't trust my swimming skills that much. Thankfully, Kenny trusts my mama fears. Isabella got knocked down once (again water was near her ankles, but waves would come in quick) Kenny said he can't remember the last time I went that fast. Thankfully she got right back up, with her hair full of sand and small shells (again, I have a picture) They actually had one person drown down there this weekend, all they said was that a big wave came and knocked him and his friends down..... he was 19. You can imagine how strong the waves were. So sad.

So although the vacation wasn't what we were PLANNING, it was exactly what we needed. We were able to do lots of biking, and the weather was perfect for that. Isabella thinks she is big stuff now because she can bike without her training wheels and was "flying" through those trails. Who am I kidding, she is big stuff,... I'm so sad. And Keny even biked with his cast on - he refused for this to slow him down too much. :) We slept in every morning, sat around the camper, played games, cooked around the campfire, the girls played at the playground while I was able to cuddle up on the bench swing with my love, then we took the 4th and went to the aquarium and watched fireworks. A needed, restful time away.

So a little fun - here are our gathered favorite quotes from this weekend:

Isabella: "Daddy, did you bring my boogie board, so I can boogie?" I guess if you surf with a surf board it only makes sense that you boogie with a boogie board. :)

Isabella: "Mommy, I'm so glad I'm riding my bike to the bathroom, because my seat can hold it for me." (If that doesn't make sense at first, think about it....)

We were talking about July 4th and going to see fireworks -- Mommy: "We're going to see fireworks to celebrate America" Amelia: "We're going to AMERICA!?!!!"

We watched the "diving" show at the aquarium and they had a little spin the wheel question/answer game about fish, about 4 kids got to play the game. After the show was over, Amelia went over to the lady and said "I didn't get my turn yet."

While riding bikes: Amelia: "My legs are getting tired." She was in a bike carrier being pulled by Daddy. :)

Love my silly girls, they make me laugh!

My new favorite

2010-06-28T20:53:00.007-04:00

Over at The Idea Room, they are doing a little photo challenge. The challenge was to post a picture of yourself. I think alot of mom's don't like to be in front of the camera and yet we will want our kids to have those memories, so we're just going to have to. Now you will have to go over there and see the really cute creative pictures they have - like the one that is a Got Milk ad. I'm feeling a fun photoshoot coming on with my girls. Isabella would get a kick out of that one since I don't drink milk and she is always sure to point that out to me.... and everyone-- guess I could use almond milk for me. :)

Currently, this is my new favorite picture of me and my love. There are so many reasons for me to NOT like this picture. First, the day we took this (and the family picture in the header) I had just wanted to go out and take pictures of my girlies. Then Isabella wanted to take pictures of Daddy and Mommy and then I said "Why not? And then lets take a couple family pics" (The wall was an added bonus since Kenny's leg is in a cast) To be quite honest, I hadn't showered that morning.... or the morning before. Yeah, I was 'stanky' with dirty hair. The only reason I even threw a headband and a necklace on was because I knew we told the girls we would grab them breakfast out. I didn't want to go into the restaurant stinking with dirty hair and not at least LOOK like I was trying.

Secondly, who really enjoys a picture of themself scrunching their nose up - I mean really, no one says "Ok, now scrunch your face all up, yeah, that's it, ....beautiful."

But I love this, its my profile picture on Facebook -- it might be forever. I love that my six year old wanted to take pictures of mommy and daddy (and did a pretty good job), I love that I LET my six year old use my D300 :), I love that she kept saying "now hug, now kiss....", I love that this was totally unplanned, and that Kenny knows that ticklish spot, and I love that after Isabella took this we were all laughing. As much as I avoid getting in front of the camera, I'm glad my girls will have this picture memory of their mommy and daddy loving each other. And boy don't I love this man!!

It has been so long that.....

2010-06-25T17:18:00.004-04:00

.... I forgot my own password for this blog. :) One, of you many people, who I'm sure has been checking daily for 5 months, just recently asked me if I was done with my sabbatical. The answer is yes, I think, maybe, ok, definitely yes. I think I just needed a break from the whole blogging world for a little while. Blogging has changed immensely since I started this blog over 4 years ago. I mainly started this blog so that family out of state could catch up with us, funny thing is none of them ever comment so I'm not sure they even read it. Then it was fun reading other blogs about families - some were, in particular, adoption blogs. Then I started finding blogs about photography, crafting, cooking, organizing, adoption/orphan care,.... Then blogging took on this whole competitive nature, and it starts becoming a matter of "are my pics that good?; I wish I was that organized;their house looks like what?; they're so spiritual, they have it all together, she has HOW many readers; " not that those blogs are bad, I enjoy getting inspiration, encouragement, etc. But some of what was going on inside of me well, I didn't like it too much and I had to step back and rethink my reasons for blogging. Mostly, I just want to do it to make a little record, journaling if you will, about my family. I already love looking back at previous posts and reading the silly things my girls said or did. They are truly growing up too fast. It is also good way to keep in touch with people and I've quite honestly met some great people through blogging - many of which might have forgotten I have a blog but are at least friends with me on facebook. :) And every now and then its a good way to get myself motivated or organized (like those menu plan mondays.) And who knows I might even share a little inspiration like THIS adorable blog that shares so many pretty creative ideas. So my blogging might not be earth shattering, it most definitely will not be everyday, it might even just be a picture like this:

Because looking at these two faces always brightens up my day..... unless they are standing next to me eating cherries and just ruined their shirt and my picture mousepad with cherry juice..... (yeah, that just happened)

Hello?!?...... Is this Mic on?

2010-01-21T10:00:00.007-05:00

Ok, so I've taken a long sabbatical from blogging. I guess I should have told all (three) of you that I was going to do this. It wasn't totally planned, but as our busy fun fall went along I just didn't feel like sitting down and blogging. Then along came the Christmas season and same thing, enjoying my family time far too much to be at the computer alot. I would say that I've kept in touch with some of you through facebook, but I think its been months since I posted new pictures on there as well. The last few months have been full of all kinds of fun stuff - honestly, I love fall and Christmas, but this year seemed even better. I'm going to post some pictures, but not alot because I only have 30 minutes to do this before I have to pick up Isabella from school. This fall, we loved the weather, Kenny put up a new swing for the girls, so hours upon hours were spent swinging -- them, not me, although I did give it a whirl, its just not nearly as fun when your butt almost drags the ground because you're.... well, you're more than 40 pounds. We tried to enjoy the pretty weather as much as we could - although we missed out on a couple things that we normally do every year, like apple picking, we were able to replace them with different fun memories.

I was able to go away one weekend for some girl time with my cousin, Alyssa. We went to the beach and had so much fun. I wish I could post a video from that time on here, but she might kill me. :)

Then, of course, fall brings Halloween and I just love dressing my girls up. This year Isabella decided she wanted to be her own version of Mulan and Amelia..... well would anyone would be surprised who she wanted to be.... Snow White - of course.

Then our friends who live in Ireland had come back to the states for a little over a month and we tried to snag up anytime with them that we could. It had been 2 1/2 years since we had seen them, but the girls didn't seem to miss a beat. We were able to spend an afternoon out in the beautiful weather, another day at the Children's Museum, and another afternoon Cindy planned a tea party for all the little girls -- such fun, fun memories! We're really hoping and praying that its not another 2 1/2 years until we can get to see them. We had so much fun, and it has made us miss them even more!

Ok, I'm realizing that I have far too many pictures to post, so maybe later I can post a couple from Thanksgiving and Christmas and then we'll be pretty much caught up..... so I can go on another sabbatical...... Just kidding. :)

Zipline

2009-10-11T14:37:00.007-04:00

As promised, here's a couple pics of us at the zipline for our anniversary. You can see from this first picture, that it was a rather glamorous thing to do for our anniversary. Actually, you can't totally tell that because you aren't getting the full shot with the harness tightly around the lower regions, or the enormous work gloves I had to wear. And for me, I had to wear tennis shoes with capris (we weren't allowed to wear anything that came above our knees due to the harnesses I guess.) I have this thing about wearing tennis shoes.

My hubby, you can hardly tell since he is so far away. I thought we would be going on a zip line, hike for a while get to another zip line...... but actually we were attached to a zip line the whole time.(Me and a stranger, this man said this was on his bucket list. He was unsure pretty much the whole time, but was proud of himself at the end that he had accomplished it) After going over one zip line we would then "hike" over things like this:

(This is one of the guides showing the lady behind him that it didn't matter if she did fell because we were attached to the line, it was kind of strange to walk across it)

We had a little training class at the beginning because we had to know how to hook ourselves on, make sure that when unhooking we would right away attach ourselves to a safety line.... this at first seemed silly until we got to a couple places where the area we were standing on was like standing on a 2x4 hugging a tree for your life, way up above the ground. We also had to learn how to stop ourselves -- hence the ugly work gloves because we had to use our hands to brake. You can barely see me in this last picture, but I am there. This was the very last zip and it was so long. I shouted the whole way and the guide at the end was using the slow down signal and had the rope out to stop me, but I figured why not have fun, it was the last one, they couldn't ask me to leave now. Found out my husband pretty much did the same thing. It was so much fun and I'm looking forward to doing that again. Isabella is looking forward to when she is 10 and she can go along with us. :)

A month?? Really?

2009-10-07T16:35:00.008-04:00

I can't believe it has been a month since I last posted. I don't know how some of you can update every couple days, I want to, I just don't get around to it I guess. Ugh! I'm so disorganized, any of you organization freaks out there want to give me some pointers. Anyway, so where HAVE I been.....

Well, this past month has been busy. Right before my last post my husband and I went to this adorable place to celebrate our 13th anniversary. And if you read this before there are zip line pictures, come back and look tomorrow. I was downloading the pictures today (yes, I'm that behind) and I realized that the zip line pictures weren't on my camera. Like I would actually take my big camera down a zip line, not nearly as compact as my husband's point and shoot. So, I have to find his camera and cord and I can download those.
We had such a fun weekend. And this place was one of those "we definitely will have to come back to this place." Then the next weekend was labor day and we went to the beach with my parents And don't let this above picture fool you, I realize this would look normal for the average sisters that are 26 months apart, but Amelia is actually down in the hole and Isabella is on the side. Amelia is maybe an inch shorter than Isabella. I'm hoping that and the fact that I dress them alike alot is the reason people continue to ask me if they are twins..... honestly, I've been asked this so many times this summer its been comical.

We actually were at the beach twice, the first time with my parents, and then a week and a half ago we went camping at the beach. Isabella had a couple of days off from school, so we had planned to go away for a last little hoorah before fall truly arrived. The water was nice and warm so I had fun playing in the water with my girls, we rode bikes, visited with friends, and got rained on in the loudest, strongest thunder storm I've ever camped in. It was a great trip, minus the thunderstorm that pretty much kept us up all night. Oh and the raccoons that got into some of our food -- this was the big talk the next morning around the campground because I believe the 'coons were a problem this year, everyone had them "stop by" and were amazed at how smart they were getting into things. Thankfully, most of our stuff was in the car. I didn't take many pictures.... I know that's awful. But instead I just really enjoyed my time. I'm trying to learn how to balance my need,.... I mean want, to take so many pictures and just spending time enjoying what's going on. Its great having a thousand pictures, but if I haven't been truly enjoying my family, what good are the pictures, right? There's a balance, I'm sure, I'm just finding it.

And my Amelia was so, so cute on her little scooter. We took our bikes, but Amelia is still getting used to her bike, can't quite get the whole pedaling forward without constantly going backward into her brakes, so she wanted her scooter. And boy did she become the scooter queen. I wish I could have a video of her to post, she had the most determined little look and would just ride this thing back and forth between "#63 and the stop sign" (those were mommy's rules) and she even rode it around the campground with daddy. The cutest thing ever!

At home, we've been busy with Isabella going to school, searching for a new church, I've gotten back to being more organized with my meal plans now that the summer vacation is over, and we have also been having some fun family time. The girls were racing by pushing apples with the noses down the halls.

Kenny and I raced the girls as well, but who really wants to see our butts up in the air?! This was part of family devotions --- can anyone guess what we were learning about? Hmm, wonder what kind of prize I could give if you guessed right.

Then this past weekend, we went to a "reunion"/get together for my old high school.

And in case you are wondering if that's my whole graduating class, no, here is my class:

Ok, to be fair, this is 44% of my class -- there were 9 of us. :) I went to a very small Christian school. But don't feel bad for me, I actually loved it. And I think pretty much everyone that showed up for this get together agreed. We had great times, great friends, great teachers and great memories. I wouldn't change it.

So, that has been my life in a nutshell for the past month. Give or take a few things in between of course. We have been gone 4 out of the past 5 weekends, and still have several things planned for this month. The nice thing is that even though the months from September to December seem like the busiest for us, at least it is fall. I love fall!!! Its my happy spot, once I get jeans and long sleeve shirts out, I'm so content. Hope everyone has been having a good fall as well!

13 years (and 4 days) ago

2009-09-04T15:12:00.004-04:00

I married my best friend! And today........ I love him even more. I am not going to use the cliche "it feels like just yesterday...", because actually, it doesn't. I will admit 13 years has flown by, but when I think back about what we have done, what we have enjoyed, what we have gone through, how we have been blessed over the last 13 years, it definitely doesn't seem like just yesterday. When I realize how old I am to be married for 13 years, sometimes I wish it was yesterday. :) The picture above was taken by Isabella while we were at the beach in May. I think she did a pretty good job. No, she did not change the coloring in photoshop and burn the edges, but she'll get there. :) I put this picture in a frame for our bedroom it says "Love with no regret." A few weeks ago when visiting a church (haven't told some of ya'll about that yet, but we'll talk later) they were talking about: Are there things you would go back and do differently? do you have any regrets? are there trials you wouldn't change because of what you learned? etc. So Kenny and I have been talking about this off and on lately. I really don't have real regrets, at least not in the sense that I would go back and change things - well, maybe I would change gaining 20 pounds, but I'm talking serious things people! NOW, if you would have asked me in the middle of a trial, say infertility, yeah, I would have said you could have it. But then that would mean not having my 2 girls, not seeing God work, having a different life than I have now - nope wouldn't change it. And if I would like to go back to say high school or college and be the person I am now, rather than that person back then, sure every now and then I would love to change that. But again, if I was the person I am now, but my husband was not the person he is (or vice versa)...... you get my drift, my life might not be my life now. So I thought the frame was appropriate when I saw it. I am so thankful that God has given me an amazing husband, who is an amazing father to our girls. There isn't anyone else I can imagine spending the last 13 years or the next many, many more with.

I'll have to post picture later because I'm in the midst of packing and cleaning for a long Labor day weekend at the beach, but to celebrate we went away this past weekend. The place we stayed at was marvelous! It was like a little mediteranean village and was Rustic Chic (as their sign said.) It had a spa, which was oh so wonderful when my hubby booked me a massage. We also went on a zip line tour and had so much fun. Just another thing I love about our marriage, we love spending time together, truly enjoy being with each other and trying new things together. (And yeah the zip line pictures will be attractive, we have helmets, harnesses, oversized gloves.... yes the perfect picture of romance.)

To my hubby: I love you Babe! With no regrets! Well, I kind of regret that my wedding dress had a big bow on my butt, but other than that, no regrets. :)

I survived.... ur I mean SHE survived her first day of school

2009-08-24T19:59:00.004-04:00

Well today was it, the first day of Kindergarten for Isabella. Of course, she loved it! And if you had placed a bet on my crying, well you would have lost. I was honestly too excited for her to cry. I'm sad that she's growing up so fast, but I couldn't help but be excited with her. We already knew that she would love her teacher and she's been talking about things she's said or stuff they've done all evening. She already learned the concept of raising her hand to talk because she was doing that tonight in family devotions. :) She met friends, but has no idea any of their names. This too is no surprise. She wanted to carry her backpack today, although since its just half day K5, her teacher said there is really no need for her to bring one. I let her for today.... what's a good first day of school picture without a backpack. And I had to have a picture of both of my girlies. Amelia missed her sissy today. When we were leaving she asked "Are we leavin' Sissy?" after I said yes she said "I so sad." And when we went to pick her up, boy, you would have thought Isabella had been gone longer than a 1/2 day. Amelia was so excited to see sissy. She said "Did you have fun? What you learn?" :)

I just dropped her off by myself this morning so that Daddy could in turn meet us after she was done to go out for some fun. I told Isabella not to expect that every day, that was just a celebration of her first day of school. All together, it was a great first day of school. Here's hoping that tomorrow goes as smoothly!

10, 9, 8, 7, 6,....

2009-08-19T16:46:00.014-04:00

...5! In 5 days, my 5 year old will be starting K5.
Can you believe it? I'm feeling pretty strong today, I think I'll be fine and won't cry.... anyone want to place some bets? She's so excited, she has been asking me every day, "how many days until I start kindergarten?" and she has been finding it quite hysterical how her Daddy pronounces kindergarten, I'm sure her teacher will hear about that. This past Saturday, we went out and had a little "going to school" photoshoot. It was just going to be us, but then I decided I could use Daddy's help (no one can make her laugh like him, and he's great at carrying desks. Love you Babe!) We had a mommy/daughter date day afterwards though so its all good. She could so easily be my retro girl, so I had to have some retro looking shots and then some school shots as well. Just so you know, the red high tops were too small on her.

She has told me everyday since Saturday that they hurt her feet. I'm a bad mommy, but they were too cute not to stuff her feet in them for this photo shoot. :) I told her to just wait, she was at least in high tops, try wearing a pair of heels with toes so pointy its unnatural, then tell me about suffering for beauty. I'm only posting a few of the pics, if you're friends with me on Facebook, I have several of them on there. Here she is, the cutest kindergartener:

One of the many....

2009-08-05T16:23:00.005-04:00

....MANY things, I love about my husband. This past weekend was my birthday and this was my first birthday present:
I was at a Bible study with friends a couple days before and Kenny helped the girls make me flowers. It's just the sweetest thing. I love that he is helping our girls do special things for me. I love that he loves me enough to take the time to do this with our girls. And this isn't the first time, he does this kind of stuff alot. I love that they see him, loving me. I love that he is a good example to them. And quite honestly, I love being spoiled every now and then too. He just didn't realize until our girls that I would be easy enough spoil with paper flowers.

Little smart aleck

2009-07-13T16:01:00.006-04:00

Amelia must be a baby genius, I think she read my last post about Isabella being so funny and decided she needed to step up her game. She has been such a crack up lately. She doesn't talk as clearly as Isabella did at her age, but with a chatterbox for a big sister, who really gets a chance to talk? So some of the things she says are more about HOW she says them rather than what she says. For instance, we were up in Michigan for the 4th and went into a Joann's Fabric store.... we walked into the scrapbook area and Amelia said "Howee cow! HO WEE Cow!" (Holy cow if you need interpretation) It took me a while to stop laughing. Then today the girls were watching a show on Noggin and Amelia said "No way, NO Way! No he didn't!" And really how did I end up with such a little smart aleck? (No comments from some of you! :) I really thought we wouldn't have to work on that until she was like 9, but 3?!? Today we went to lunch with a friend and I could tell by the way the girls were playing at the restaurant that when we went into the next store they could easily get out of control. My husband is probably nodding his head right now because he knows, the girls can get silly, which is cute until it turns to "Let's be as loud as we can, let see how many times we can make mommy say sit down, touch everything in sight....." and when they are with a friend, which means audience, it can be worse. (And now I'm sure Andrea is nodding :) So as I was buckling the girls in the car to go to the next store, I gave them the whole speech "While we are at the store I don't want you to........ I want you to........ if you don't......... if I need to call Daddy......" The nice long speech that I thought had just the right amount of firmness and motherly love, :) and then as I'm finishing up Amelia says "Sooo.... we need to be good." Uh, yeah, that's what I meant. Little smart aleck.

As I opened up blogger today, I noticed that it has been exactly 1 month since I have posted. Sorry. This summer has been flying by, at the start of the summer, I sat down with my calendar and filled in all the things that I wanted to do: playgroups, free movies, library programs, etc. We have not gotten to everything I wrote down. Some due to better options -- getting together with friends rather than just sitting at a library story time for 1/2 hour (pfft, I can read a book just as dramatic as them :), some we've missed due to rain -- can't have outdoor movie or music programs in the rain, and some just because we are hanging on by our teeth trying not to get over run with things to do. All in all we've had a fun summer so far. In the last month we've gone camping for Father's Day, went to Michigan for a week, spent the past weekend celebrating Kenny's birthday doing fun family stuff, and just little fun things here and there. I feel like this summer is flying by, normally I wouldn't care because when it flies by, it just gets to my favorite season quicker, but this summer, oh I just wanted it to stand still. I'm not ready for my baby to go to kindergarten, I'm not ready for counting down to holiday breaks and summertime to spend all day with her. And I'm not too sure that my little smart aleck above is either. She adores her sister and I think she's going to miss her during the day. Sniff, sniff..... why do they have to grow up?

2009-06-13T09:12:00.001-04:00

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

2009-06-09T19:43:00.003-04:00

"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!

2009-06-03T20:02:00.009-04:00

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

2009-05-29T21:46:00.005-04:00

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

2009-05-21T14:54:00.004-04:00

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

2009-05-15T23:47:00.003-04:00

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

2009-05-03T16:29:00.003-04:00

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. :)

New Friends

2009-04-28T16:38:00.003-04:00

Today we got together with some "new" friends. Julia used to work with my mom a few years ago, then over the last several months we've been talking through e-mail about adoption, a few months ago they adopted their second daughter Hannah... and today we were finally able to get our four curly girls together. Hopefully she doesn't mind but I am going to post a couple pictures up here -- she took them, I totally forgot my camera today, which is actually no surprise for how scatterbrained I have been. The girls had such a good time getting to play with a new friend and getting to hold another. This was Amelia's first time holding a baby -- although she really just wanted her to lay on her lap, so I don't know if that counts as holding. :)

When we first saw them, Amelia said "She got same color as me!" Amelia has been noticing her skin color more lately, or at least I think so. Last week, she picked up one of the brown baby dolls the girls have, brought it to me, pressed it against her cheek and said "she look like me" and I said "Yes, she has beautiful brown skin, just like you. " Then she said "She look like Daddy too"..... hmmm, maybe its the brown eyes. :)

For my cousin who asked....

2009-04-18T22:37:00.002-04:00

.... Amelia's birthday pictures will still be coming. So, here's the problem. We had a really girly party, all pink and tulle, Amelia had a fru fru pettiskirt that mommy made her, real tea in real china cups, fancy little finger foods, the princess castle, you know - the frills...... so I told my hubby (and the other men like my dad and brother) "There's really no need for you to stay, we'll just make it all girls" (and Garrett, don't make fun of him, he's going to be a very secure manly man) I didn't think that one all the way through...... With no hubby there to help me, it was harder for me to serve tea, make sure Amelia wasn't burning herself on the candles, stop the kids from breaking the cups as Isabella screams out "Let's do Cheers!" --- yeah, we're having an Irish Pub party for her. So I didn't get alot of pictures, but thankfully my mom got some, so as soon as I get some from her, I will post them.

Amelia's cursing problem

2009-04-17T14:14:00.003-04:00

Amelia isn't the clearest talker and has a few words that end up sounding like a particular cuss word. It first started when she was singing this little kids song..... "Before I split, split, split I chill....... I say Father have your will." But then last night we had fish for dinner and she asked me "Mommy is that ______?" a couple times and finally I could get around to answering "Yes honey, its FISH" Then Isabella would say "Yum, this is good chicken mommy" and Amelia would correct her and tell her that it wasn't chicken and what it was.

And what is it about parents like us that find this absolutely hysterical. I mean if she really said one, I'd be mortified. Do you remember 3 years ago when Isabella kept saying "Oh crap!" and I was to blame..... This is different, Amelia has no idea what she is saying. She has no idea why mommy and daddy can't stop laughing. She thinks its her silly faces.She has no idea why mommy makes her call daddy and leave a message screaming "I love fish" or why she has to call Auntie Becky and tell her. Oh no, I think she might have just figured it out. And now that she knows what she's saying she wasn't too pleased that we ate that for dinner.

I'm just glad she didn't scream it out at the acquarium a couple weeks ago.

(Sorry if I've offended anyone, I have a very strange sense of humor. :)

Easter

2009-04-15T19:12:00.004-04:00

(Yes, Isabella was climbing the tree in her Easter dress)

I hope everyone had a wonderful Easter. Ours was very nice. It seemed like our Easter worship actually started on Wednesday, Kenny and I were able to go to a concert with Christ Tomlin and Israel Houghton/New Breed. Wonderful, nothing like having a date night with your husband and then you go and get refreshed spiritually as well. :) Easter morning on the other hand was not so worshipful as we somehow, even though I had gotten things ready the night before, still ended up feeling a little frustrated and rushed. Is it just me, or do a lot of Sundays seem like you are getting attacked? Ok, maybe just me. Thankfully, we have a few minutes on our way to church to recover and pray. :)

And how great it is when you come truly wanting to worship God to know that God is wanting that too. This song was my favorite in the service and is a favorite of mine in general.

How Deep the Father's Love for Us

How deep the Father's love for us

How vast beyond all measure

That He should give His only Son

And make a wretch His treasure

How great the pain of searing loss

The Father turns His face away

As wounds which mar the Chosen One

Bring many sons to glory

Behold the man upon the cross

My sin upon His shoulder

Ashamed I hear my mocking voice

Call out among the scoffers

It was my sin that held Him there

Until it was accomplished

His dying breath has brought me life

I know that it is finished

I will not boast in anything

No gifts, no power, no wisdom

But I will boast in Jesus Christ

His death and resurrection

Why should I gain from His reward

I cannot give an answer

But this I know with all my heart

His wounds have paid my ransom

If you've never heard this song, go listen to it. I've heard a few different version of it, but they are all pretty close. If nothing else, go listen to Nicole Nordeman or Sarah Sadler sing it, those are 2 of my favorites. Beautiful! What a perfect reminder of just what Christ's death and resurrection means for us.

Quick overdue ending to Disney pics

2009-04-10T23:06:00.007-04:00

Who cares that its been almost 2 months since Disney..... I still wanted you guys to see more of the pictures, but I didn't feel like uploading them all on here so I'm attaching a Flickr slide show so you can see them if you want, and ignore them if you just don't care. I won't care either way, I am still living in the post Disney days, still "riding" the rides every day and wishing we were still there. And by riding the rides, I mean the girls like to pretend we are riding the rides..... very cute at first..... two months later its a little depressing. And every day is not an exaggeration at all, literally, .....ask my husband, ......or my mom (Amelia would ask me to "pretend we're at Disney" in the car, or the lazy river at the beach) Just last night we were riding several rides as we were swinging on the swings. She misses it as much as I do. She also asked if we could go back, and then provided me with 2 pennies out of "Sissy's" purse to help with the cost.

Wednesday at Disney, my parents came and joined us for a couple days. The girls had no idea and we just told them we needed to go meet some friends at the front of the park. They were pretty excited when they saw it was Papa and Noni. Papa then had to carry both of them around and Amelia quickly cuddled in and took her first nap of the week. :) That afternoon we did Bibbidi Bobbidi Boutique for Isabella and she loved this. Really, what girl doesn't like getting pampered? Amelia was too young, but we brought her a princess dress, put her hair up and Isabella helped put some makeup on her and she was just thrilled that mommy let her wear a dress up dress in public. The next morning we went to breakfast with characters at the Animal Kingdom, and no, I don't normally let my girls eat cupcakes for breakfast. We were celebrating Isabella's Gotcha Day while we were there and the lady at the Animal Kingdom was the only one that noticed that and made a big deal about it. If you have your birthday, anniversary, etc there they bring you cupcakes or something, but no one really thought much of the Gotcha Day, but the lady at the Tusker House had adopted, so she knew what a special time it is to celebrate. In the pictures, Isabella was very concerned that Goofy blew out her candle .... she's still bitter. Oh and another funny thing at Animal Kingdom, my girls don't know ALL of the Disney characters, actually alot of them they didn't, but still got their picture with. Jimminy Cricket was one of these, when Isabella saw him she asked Kenny "Is that Cricket on the Hearth?" I am laughing as I type this, because I'm sure most of you have no idea who that is, but it was a horrible Christmas cartoon we watched this year that Isabella for some reason loved. (Actually a story by Charles Dickens, but hopefully better than the cartoon) I think she would have been happier if Daddy had told her yes. :) I am going to post one picture here that makes me laugh so hard. We went to Hollywood Studios, not our favorite park, but loved the Sci Fi Theatre. Outside the restaurant there was a "Scary" billboard --- trying to convince onlookers that the movies inside are scary. I told my girls to give me a scary face and this is what Amelia did:

Everyone around us was cracking up.

Isabella did get to march around with the High School Musical show, but for some reason I haven't uploaded those pictures, hmmm, I will have to look for them. She wasn't overly impressed because it wasn't the characters of HSM. When she saw them singing she said "Where's high school musical?" I said "This is it" She said "No its not......... Oh, I think its the Jonas Brothers." WHAT? How does she even know who the Jonas Brothers are? Do I already have to start searching her bedroom for music she's hiding from me? HA :) The very best part of Hollywood Studios was Fantasmic -- amazing! I'd go back to the park just for that. And for my girls, half the fun was doing the wave with the crowd waiting for the show to start. I guess we've really sheltered them, this was their first time doing the wave.... their excitement in the pictures speaks for themselves. Saturday was Valentine's Day and our last day at a park, sniff, sniff. We just enjoyed every last minute of it, went to dinner with Winnie the Pooh, Tigger, Eeyore and Piglet -- but not Rabbit, which Isabella was slightly disappointed about; then ended the night and our time there with the Spectro Magic Parade. Just perfect!

Menu Plan.....

2009-04-07T15:11:00.004-04:00

.... can't say Monday and I'm almost too late for Tuesday. Again this is mainly for my sake because if I make up my menu plan it really helps me for the entire week. So here it goes:

Monday: Breakfast was different for each of us, I didn't eat anything.

Lunch: Salmon Melts (HERE is the recipe) And can I just say YUUUUUMMMY. I ate mine stuffed in a half a red pepper and the girls I put on top of a piece of whole wheat/flax bread and we all loved it.

Dinner: Baked Chicken Taquitos, corn and homemade refried beans

Tuesday: Breakfast: Brown Rice Farina Lunch: Chicken salad sandwiches (Sorry if I am bragging, but I make some pretty darn good chicken salad) on fresh out of the oven bread and a salad.... we had company for lunch. :)

Dinner: Chickpea and Sweet Potato Curry soup - a vegetarian recipe (If its good, how could it not be with 3 of my favorite things in the title, I'll post the recipe)

Wednesday: Pancakes for the girls, probably just a green/fruit smoothie for me Lunch: leftovers

Dinner: DATE NIGHT AND CONCERT!!!! Can you tell I'm excited? Depending on the time we might go to a Vietnamese restaurant and I will get Vegetarian General's Tofu (had this with Alyssa while she was here and it was SOOO good) if not enough time, we'll grab a salad somewhere and then off to see Chris Tomlin in concert

Thursday: Gymnastic day, something quick for breakfast

Lunch: AB & J sandwiches

Dinner: Tilapia, small salad, carrots with coconut, ginger and chili -- we'll see how Isabella likes these, she doesn't like coconut :) Another new recipe that I might post.

Friday: Breakfast: Egg in a hole

Lunch & Dinner: Kenny has the day off, so I don't know if we will be packing a picnic or going somewhere, we have to look at the weather to see what we're doing.

Saturday: Breakfast: Whole Grain Pancakes or waffle
Lunch: Turkey sandwiches, salad for me

Dinner: Homemade pizza

Sunday: Easter...... I'm assuming lunch with my parents??? Guess I should call my mom and tell her we're expecting that. :)

Have a great day, I'm getting ready to upload some pics today.

Where have I been?

2009-04-04T15:25:00.003-04:00

Wow, I know I'm not the best blogger, but a whole month?! I still hadn't even shown you more Disney pictures, now I'm so far behind I don't know how I will catch up. :) The weekend after we had our "blizzard" here it was actually warm and beautiful, so for probably the next week I spent most of my time outside with the girls. I commented to Kenny that week that I felt bad he was slaving away at work while I was forgoing my household duties to enjoy the beautiful weather. The girls and I would play outside, have our lunch as a picnic outside and then they would continue to play as I worked on my ankle and farmers tan sitting and reading a book.... awww, spring! Then the next week it hit me that Amelia's birthday was the 21st and I hadn't really started planning. I knew we were going to do a T party, Teddy Bears, Tiaras, and Tea.... or as we also called it a Teddy Bear Dress Up Tea Party, 3 things that my 3 year old loves! So I kicked it into high gear to sew her an outfit, make the invitations, plan out the decorations and menu, make little bags for tea sets to give away....... I now realize why so many people opt for a party away from home, Isabella's ice skating party was much easier on me. :) We had a blast though and I will DEFINITELY be posting pictures in the next couple days. Then right after the party, I had 2 days to somewhat clean up and prepare for my cousin Alyssa to come in. She came down a few days early and then on the weekend we went to a ladies conference, which was SO good. THEN she left on Sunday and Monday I spent the day doing laundry and packing to go to the beach with my girls and my mom.... and we just got back last night at 10:30. So I really have been pretty much gone from my computer for a month. I have been slacking on m blogging, on facebook and if I had any emails to return I would have been slacking on them. I would be uploading pictures right now, but once again we've spent some time outside working on the yard -- ok, so Kenny is doing the work and I'm mostly supervising. :) And in just a little bit we are going to go downtown and enjoy the rest of the day as a family. I will be back though, I promise, April won't be nearly as busy for me..... or so I think. :)

Snow Day

2009-03-02T16:12:00.017-05:00

Hmmmm, what will she do with this snow ball....

Oh, this seems like a fun idea...

Now its on -- Snowball fight!!!

Well, some snow stuck! We got 3 inches last night and first thing this morning it was still here. Our girls were so excited, they skipped breakfast to get ready and go play for a little while. Daddy stayed home until lunch time to play with the girls. We aren't prepared for any kind of snow, the girls had 2 pair of socks on, but all we have is rain boots and they had tights and jeans on ... so needless to say they would play for a litle while and then come back in to warm up, go back out, back in..... They had lots of fun though. Last night was better snow for making snowballs or a snowman, today it was little bit icier -- great for sledding though. We have a small hill in our front yard and Kenny and my dad ended up making a small little jump for the sled. I don't know if my girls realize just how lucky they are to have a Daddy who will stay home and play out in the snow with them.

I love Isabella's face as she goes off a jump.

Amelia squealed with her mouth wide open pretty much every time they slid down the hill.

Daddy even got in on some of the action. :)

The girls had fun with the neighbor girls too.

You can see in the pictures how the snow quickly was melting away.

It doesn't last long, but it sure is fun for a little while.

I just broke out my sandals....

2009-03-01T18:02:00.002-05:00

.... and it decided to snow tonight. Snow does crazy things around this house. Isabella was told last night that we might be getting snow today and she has been waiting and praying for it since then. At lunch she prayed "Thank you for the rain, I hope it turns to snow." :) It finally started snowing here about 10 minutes ago. It was kind of like waiting on the cable guy or phone guy -- you end up being the last house that it comes too. Everyone close to us was getting it, but not us. Isabella looked out the window and screamed "ITS SNOWING!" She took off out the back door ..... wearing only her shirt and panties. I guess southern girls don't realize you should at least wear pants and shoes in the snow. I said, "Honey, you need to run and get milk and bread before the blizzard comes." He reminded me that we got that yesterday so I sent him out for dessert. :) Isabella is already begging to make a snow angel and she is convinced that she is going skiing tomorrow. Who knows, maybe some of this will actually stick. I won't be putting my flip flops up though, I'm convinced spring weather will be here soon!

Disney 2

2009-02-25T15:34:00.007-05:00

(Can you believe Amelia went and sat in his lap?)

Tuesday, we went to the Animal Kingdom. I both liked it because it was like a zoo and disliked it because it was like a zoo. We're zoo people and with being "Friends of the Zoo" members we have gone to lots of zoo for free. I think I was expecting it to be the best zoo ever, but we have been to the San Diego zoo, so I guess that is one of the best zoos ever. The animal part of it was pretty much just a regular zoo (unless you don't go to zoos much and then it would be exceptional :) Don't get me wrong, I still liked the park and Isabella especially loves animals, so she loved it. Trust me, she'd go to our local zoo a couple times a week and still not get bored. Kenny did get to ride the Expedition Everest ride and said that was good, I didn't get to ride it (sniff, sniff), but I'm not into riding rides by myself -- Isabella wanted to ride it, but was too little. She probably would have liked it too, she loves roller coasters. I won't post pictures of the safari ride, but it was alot of fun. I'm surprised I actually got some pictures of the animals because you are really bouncing around in the jeep. The first time we rode it the guy was great, really fitting the part of the safari driver, the next time (which was on Thurs with my parents) the guy was monotone and boring, which actually made it entertaining in its own right. We were watching some video last night from that Thursday and laughing at how the guy sounds on video. We, of course, saw more characters, my girls really were into seeing the characters. If you don't want to see them, don't point them out. My girls wanted to see Eeyore, which also meant seeing Tigger and Pooh again. Of course, this time we only waited a few minutes to see them. :) Eeyore had horrible penmanship and when we saw him later in the week Isabella said "Oh no, Mommy, Eeyore can't write very good."

We saw Minnie again, her line wasn't long so I agreed the girls could go see her again. We also saw Pocahontas, a very white Pocahontas, which much have confused everyone because we had no one in front of us to see her. :) The parade was great, as are all of Disney parades. Isabella loved trying to get the characters to give her five. We got to talk to a nice older couple that I could tell were enjoying watching the girls have fun. I thought it was kind of cute that an older couple would be there by themselves. I can see that being Kenny and I -- in another 40 years. :) Even if you are not into animals, or you don't feel like going on a safari ride, go to the Animal Kingdom for at least the shows. Oh my, were they spectacular. The Lion King show was full of all kinds of fun things, I'll only post a few pics. Isabella loved the acrobatics. Amelia liked it, but was a little unsure of some of it because we were up front and the show isn't done on a stage its done right in the middle of the floor with bleachers sitting around it.

I asked my girls what their favorite part of Animal Kingdom was and Amelia said "Newo show" and Isabella also said "The Finding Nemo Show." I would have to agree, that was my favorite part as well. Isabella said the Lion King show was next - so if kids are telling you the shows are better than the animals, you know they're good. We all just absolutely loved "Finding Nemo: The Musical" -- the other stuff was good, but this was great. It was like a Broadway show (nothing at all like the shows they put on at Hollywood Studios) and just really amazing. These pictures aren't great, but we were in the second section up -- so using a zoom lens and not being allowed to use a flash gives a little bit of blurry results, but I still wanted to post some.

Honestly, I personally would pick the shows over anything else at that park. So make sure if you're going, don't miss them. Well, unless you just really hate shows in general, then just disregard my recommendation. :) We actually didn't do everything at Animal Kingdom that day, on the off season it closes at 5, so its a short day already. Then we decided to take some time to go eat at Rainforest Cafe, which the girls loved (after they got used to the noises.) I also had promised to take them swimming that night so we saved a couple things to do for when Papa and Noni were going to be with us. Lots of fun though --- now Isabella is walking around singing "big, blue world...."

DISNEY!!!

2009-02-24T13:05:00.014-05:00

Many of you have already seen some of our pics on Facebook, but I haven't had a chance to update my blog. Really, how in the world am I supposed to post a couple hundred pictures??? And since I really can't, how am I supposed to choose my favorites? Right now, my girls are eating lunch and since I have parts of the stomach bug lingering, I've eaten my daily piece of toast (the only thing that seems to stay in) so I decided I should take some time to at least start on our trip to Disney.

We had a WONDERFUL time. I wish we were still there. :) Isabella said she wanted to stay 20 days and today they were pretending that they were doing just that. Everything was just perfect. I know you may think I'm crazy when I say this, but we really had a blessed time while we were there. Before we left and I was in the midst of the craziness of planning, organizing, sewing, packing... a little bit of stress, I had prayed that while we were there we would have a great time as a family and that we would have a Christ filled week. I just knew that Disney is a busy place, that there are also shops at every corner for the girls to get the "I want" syndrome, and for Kenny and I to get the "Its their only time at Disney...." syndrome in return. And we really didn't need to go down there just to go crazy spending money on stuff. I also know that it is DISNEY and it was our FIRST time there so I am the kind of person that wants everything to be perfect, I don't want to miss anything, which could mean not taking time to just enjoy ourselves, to take time to miss things just to have fun as a family. I don't even know if I can explain it, I just wanted our focus to still be right even at Disney.

And let me tell you, God answered my prayers in so many ways. First off, we decided to leave Saturday so we could have the whole day on Sunday at the park, rather than having to get up early, stressing everyone out by driving 8 hours and then going to the park. We were staying at a Disney resort starting on Sunday, but Saturday we decided to make reservations at a cheap hotel. I was pretty excited, I booked a room for $49 at Comfort Inn and it included a breakfast -- yay, an answer to prayer that we would be able to do this and inexpensively. Well, when we got to our hotel, rather late, Kenny went and checked in and came out and told me "The guy said they don't have a room for us here, they overbooked........ BUT he told me that they did have a room for us over at a nicer hotel, and they would pay for it." Woo hoo! Free is even better than inexpensive. :) Kenny said that the hotel clerk told him that the person before us cussed up a storm at him that this had happened. I felt bad for the hotel clerk, he had probably been stewing the last few hours worried about having to get screamed and cussed at again. Obviously, Kenny was nice to him and told us "Are you kidding, we're all about free, this is a blessing." Great way to start off our vacation.

We got to our resort Sunday morning, checked in and then went to the Magic Kingdom. Honestly, it really is magical -- we walk in and see lines to see some of the characters, we start walking down Main Street and a show off the trolly car started, then of course you get the first glimpse of the castle- which is fun for the girls. Amelia said the first thing she wanted to do was "see 'Cin-ce lala's' castle" and Isabella's was to ride the tea cup ride, so naturally we pass through the castle and head back to the tea cups. After the tea cups, the girls were ready to start filling out their autograph books so they wanted to wait in line for Pooh and Tigger. We saw lots, LOTS of characters during the week, for some reason this was the only line that took a while, at least 30 minutes, but the girls were bound and determined to get that first autograph. :) We then were able to see the afternoon show at the castle, which was great. Amelia loved seeing her favorite princess, Snow White. There were alot of characters in the show, but I won't upload all the pictures. :)

After spending time there until dinner time, we decided to go back to our resort, ate dinner and then gave the girls a late nap. We found out that Sunday night from 9-midnight was open only for resort guests so we thought maybe we could get in a couple late hours if we put the girls down late for a nap. Worked like a charm. The girls did great, they're much more of night owls than morning people anyway, but we went back, rode almost every ride, and stayed out til midnight. If you ever go, take advantage of the extra morning or night hours, it was perfect. The only bad thing about that day, I left our video camera on the bus in the midst of getting our stuff off. So, not the best thing to do to start off the vacation, .... thankfully, there are honest people left in the world and it was returned and we got it from lost and found on Tuesday night. (I say WE, but actually Kenny had to hassle with trying to contact and find lost and found while I took the girls swimming Tuesday night :) Praise the Lord for that, not the fanciest video camera, but it still would cost us to replace it and it did have my girls screaming like crazy about being at Disney World. :)

Monday, we got a later start (obviously after being out until midnight) and we spent a few hours over at the Magic Kingdom again going to the one area we missed, seeing some more characters. The next thing on Isabella's list of things she HAD to do was go to Pixie Hollow and shrink down like a fairy. So we headed back to Toon Town, we first saw the princesses (line was shorter, so I went with the girls and daddy waited in line for the fairies - such a good daddy.) Isabella bought the whole shrinking down like a fairy just perfectly. They had given me a really tiny photo pass card and when we got into Pixie Hollow I showed it to her and she couldn't believe my card shrunk so much. Then when we got out, I showed her the original one - she loved that. She didn't understand why Tinkerbell was taller than her though, we tried to explain that Tinkerbell was older than her.... I think that worked for now.

That afternoon we headed over to Epcot and found out that we like that park, although so many people said there wasn't much there for toddlers -- they were wrong, our girls liked it and so did we. A few weeks before we left, I had made reservations for us to have dinner with the Princesses. When I called there were only a couple different times left that we could do this. For the one we chose they said Alice in Wonderland, Sleeping Beauty, Belle, Pocahontas & Jasmine were going to be there. Sleeping Beauty and Belle my girls like, Pocahontas they had never seen, Jasmine wasn't a favorite... but Alice, that is Isabella's favorite. I was so excited about that. The lady did tell me that the "princesses could change without any notice..." I was disappointed that they didn't mention Snow White. Although Amelia had only seen Snow White once, she constantly talked about seeing her. When I told them we would be eating with the princesses she immediately said "We see Snow White?!" I had actually prayed about it, no not fasting type of prayers, but just "it would be so nice if Snow White could be there too for Amelia to be excited." I know, go ahead and call me corny or tell me that it is ridiculus to pray about a Disney character. I realize that, but God already knows my heart, so He knew what I was thinking, so why not tell Him and just in the every day talking to Him, it came up. :) When we saw the couple princesses earlier in the day the lady was talking about the girls dresses and I mentioned that I let them pick out what princess they wanted mommy to sew on their dress and that Isabella was supposedly going to be eating with Alice tonight. The lady said "I don't know, I don't think Alice is supposed to be there, she's ...." I don't remember where she said, but I thought "Oh no, Isabella is sure she's meeting Alice tonight, stupid, stupid mommy for mentioning that. Oh I hope she's still going to be there." Then I realized how silly I was being and just thought that my girls would have fun no matter who showed up, it was dinner with Disney princesses for goodness sake. :) And they did they had a great time. The first princess they saw was Belle, which I laughed at how well they "stay in character" - she was obviously not the Belle from earlier in the day, but Isabella didn't realize that. She went up to her and hugged her and said "I remember you, I saw you today." and Belle said "I remember you too!" Then they saw Sleeping Beauty, and then:
YAY! Alice was there! Isabella was beyond excited, she couldn't wait for her to get to our table. I LOVE this picture! Isabella was just talking today about how Alice kissed her cheek and told her to look out for the rabbit. The girls barely nibbled on their food watching the princesses come in, Amelia then said "Snow White" and I thought she was asking if she was going to see her and then she said "Snow White!" and there she was.... can I just tell you how foolish I felt as my eyes welled up with tears. I mean, come on people, its a fictional character. :) But I still got all choked up, to think that God is concerned about even the silly things in life. To realize that He likes us to Joy in Him even through the Joy of our children. I really can't explain it because it still seems so simple and silly. Would we have had a good time if Snow White wasn't there? Yes. Would Amelia have been disappointed? Probably, but we probably could have found Snow White later. Was it made obvious to me that God loves even simple joys of my children? Yes! We were even told by "Sleeping Beauty" -- "Oh I see you girls love Alice and Snow White, you're lucky girls they are both here tonight, they're never here together." :) I'll have to add more pictures later and talk about some of our other days, but I have to tell you the biggest blessing and Christ filled event of the week. Thursday we had spent the day at Animal Kingdom and then Hollywood Studios with my parents. We decided to come back to the resort to eat, then maybe go over to Epcot or somewhere later. We never made it to another park. We ate at the resort, walked around some and then went to the resort store. While we were there, Kenny got a call on his phone. I thought maybe it was his family or something, but then I got bits and pieces of what he was saying. One of our teen boys, (he's probably been in our teen group for less than a year, he's the boyfriend of one of our teen girls) had called him because he had questions about getting saved. I don't know what exactly Jake said maybe like he said he could talk to him later, but Kenny said "Man, I'm in Florida, but I sure don't want to wait until I get home..." So right there in the store, Kenny was able to share Bible verses and lead Jake to the Lord. What a HUGE blessing!!! Obviously, this is nothing of ourselves, this is all of God. It was just a blessing to us that God would even use Kenny to talk to Jake. I told Kenny that God knew even where we needed to be, what if we had been in a loud part of the park and Kenny didn't hear the phone or couldn't answer it, what if we were getting on a ride and he thought he could call him later.... God had him exactly where He wanted him to be. Praise the Lord! It was such a shot in the arm for me. Our church is going through some crazy stuff and I don't know what God is going to do, but my husband has just been faithful to serve the Lord and work with the teens and its been worth it for this. I'm so thankful that God would use my husband and that my husband is always willing to be used. What a great thing to happen on vacation, right? See, I told you Christ filled! Oh, but Satan tried to have his minuscule hand in it, on the last day we were there we had our $14 (because mommy forgot it and we had to buy some at Disney) bottle of sunscreen stolen. But we were too happy to let that bother us, laugh that someone would actually steal that but have our video camera returned, yes, but get us down... no way.

I'll post more pictures with less stories tomorrow. Its taken me longer to get this actually accomplished between lunch, clean up, nap times....... but I wanted to make sure I got something put up.

We're Off!

2009-02-06T17:59:00.003-05:00

I really thought I would get around to updating my blog before we left, but no such luck. Two twirly skorts, 2 tanks, 2 capris, 2 bandana pants, 2 extensively appliqued dresses, 4 embroidered shirts, an ariel clippie, a belle clippie, 4 ribbon headbands, 2 mickey and 2 minnie hair clippies, painted shoes (hadn't done that one before, but LOVE them) a skirt and headband for me (that's a new one I NEVER make myself anything) and lots of packing and now I'm ready to go. I still have to clean my house up so that I don't come home and right away have to scrub the toilets and vacuum the floors. We're so excited! I think we're all bouncing off the walls ready to go on vacation. Isabella has kept us laughing with some of the things she has said. I think she truly believes she is going to be marching in some parade singing with the group from High School Musical. And she really is believing that we are shrinking to the size of Tinkerbell while we're in Pixie Hollow. We've also been told that the first thing she wants to do is ride the tea cup ride.

One of the things that really cracked me up with Isabella: I don't like Hannah Montana. I just don't and can't be convinced otherwise, sorry. I realize this might in some way seem hypocritical as I do love High School Musical and I took Isabella on a mommy date to see the last one, but that has more to do with my own personal obsession with musicals. :) Anyway, Isabella had gotten a candy bracelet that was Hannah Montana from someone and she was looking at the package and said "Oh, no, oh no, Hannah Montana lives at Disney World, mommy." I told her that no she doesn't live there and I doubt we would see her and she said "Phew, that was a close one." She's a nut.

Amelia mainly keeps talking about seeing Snow White, "Cin-ce-lala" and Mi Mi Mouse. She says "I see Mi Mi Mouse and I go "Hi Mi Mi Mouse." I wish you could hear her cute little voice say it. :) I think the fact that I'm going to let her wear a princess fru fru dress out in public one night will be the best thing ever for her.

Also, my parents have decided to come down for a couple days. Actually, they left today go to my uncle and aunt's house in Naples and then they are going to come up for Wednesday and Thursday. My girls don't know this yet. We're either going to tell them the night before or wait and let them be surprised when they see them on Wednesday.

So, as Disney says (everytime I've called) have a "Magical" week while I'm gone and I'm sure to have lots of fun to tell you about when we get home.

The kings heart...

2009-01-25T16:13:00.003-05:00

... is in the hand of the Lord. (Proverbs 21:1) Since the inauguration of our new President, I've thought about this verse alot. Then someone on facebook posted this sermon/article John Piper. THIS SERMON (sorry, I had typed out the link and it caused problems for the set up of the page) And I so appreciated what he had to say. I am not, nor do I pretend to be, politically wise. I honestly would get lost in alot of the talks that go around. Its not JUST that doesn't interest me, (honestly though some of it doesn't) and yes I do vote and feel the responsibility for that, I'm just not all that knowledgable about some of it. I doubt it is a surprise to those of you who know me well, but I didn't vote for Obama. If for no other reason, I couldn't because of his stance on abortion. And that really is reason enough. I did watch part of the inauguration and ceremonies on Tuesday (honestly, I couldn't keep my TV on ALL day) and I had Isabella watching some of it with me. I was telling her how we were getting a new president and how we needed to pray for him to lead our country well and to seek God. Just in case anyone is wondering, we have never once said in front of our girls that we aren't supportive of our new president. Daniel 2:21 says that God sets up and removes kings and I believe that this is God's doing. He is never surprised. I think my girls need to realize that and need to respect and pray for the leadership we have.

I told my husband several times on Tuesday how I wish I could be TOTALLY excited about this. The fact that we have our first African-American president, that is awesome. To think that my girls can look and not see racial boundaries like so many have seen or had to deal with themselves. I often wondered if we would ever have an African American president. And with those 2 adorable daughters, maybe now Barbie will start letting the dark skinned Barbie have some major roles in her movies. :) Ok, so that's silly, but after you've watched enough Barbie movies with Barbie and her white friends, and then they put the an African American version of the star doll in the store and your daughter says "She wasn't in the movie." You get kind of tired of it. (And when you try to complain they don't have anyone to complain too) :) Anyway..... I watched people on television who were there celebrating because of the history that was being made, some who had themselves suffered racial injustices. I don't know what that's like, but I could feel for them. And I can think of how great it must be to be a kid and be able to feel like now you aren't limited by the color of your skin. And then I felt bad for black friends that didn't vote for him because they know his policies aren't closest to God's. I felt bad that they couldn't be celebrating as much. And I just still wished that I could be totally excited. That Obama's views were that of God's. But again, I know that God is in control. And we are praying for our new president and our country. Isabella woke up a couple mornings ago and in her groggy, half asleep state she said "You know what Mommy, we forgot something" I said "What?" and she said "We were supposed to pray for "A Rock Obama" :) (That's exactly how she pronounces it) and I said "You're right, we do need to pray for our new president." She then opened one eye and looked at me.... I said "Oh, right now?" and she said "Yes." And so we did, and so we will continue to do. And I hope all of you are doing the same.

A Whole Hand!

2009-01-20T11:28:00.011-05:00

My little girl is now 5 years old!! Yes, she is now a WHOLE HAND! I can't even believe it. You know the idea, "it seems like just yesterday...." This year her birthday was on a Sunday, and 5 years ago, she was born on a Sunday. Last night would have been exactly 5 years ago, day and date, that we got the call that a little girl had been born the day before and that her birthmother had picked us. Last night, 5 years ago, was the night my parents came home from visiting friends and we had them come up so we could tell them we were adopting, oh and that they already had a granddaughter. :) We had just had our homestudy visit exactly 2 weeks prior to that phone call. This past Saturday, we had Isabella's birthday party, 5 years ago on that Saturday we were painting the nursery and setting up a couple things thinking we would just be telling my parents we were adopting -- not even knowing that we would have a baby girl so quickly. I thought we were getting a good head start on painting the nursery and painting a small armoire. I had no idea that I actually would end up being SO far behind. As I sit here typing this, Isabella and Amelia are playing tea party and I've been thinking of all the "5 years ago" things. Its hard to believe that 5 years ago today I was frantically trying to get things organized while my baby girl was in the NICU all the way across the country. We had pictures of our beautiful girl, but hadn't held her yet. Its amazing to think about the blessing God has given us in this beautiful girl. I praise Him for the wonderful, perfect job He did in planning this child for us. Her little personality and spirit amaze me on a daily basis -- to be fair her little attitude can frustrate me on a daily basis as well. :) She keeps me on my knees, both praising God for the gift He gave us in her and praying for her to have a heart longing to serve Him and to be like Him. Which is exactly how we named her with her first name meaning "Devoted to God" and her middle name meaning "Gift from God". Thank you Lord!

Now that Isabella is 5, she is old enough to realize what a birthday is and she expects that we should spend lots of time celebrating her. :) She asked us "So, since its my birthday weekend, I can do whatever I want, right?" Kenny told her "Sure, as long as you ask mommy or daddy and we say yes." :) I don't think that's the answer she was hoping for. I think she was pretty well spoiled this weekend. We started with Friday taking her to get her haircut. She's never gotten her hair cut - other than mommy trimming it. I didn't actually plan on it being RIGHT before her birthday party, but with her being sick, it just ended up that way. To her, it was a special treatment to start off the birthday celebrations. Mommy and Noni also got special treatments that day because a chiropractor's office was set up doing free massages that day as well. Sorry, no pictures of that. :)

Friday night, we gave Isabella and Amelia their big birthday present. We told them that in 3 weeks we are going to.............

...Disney World!!! Can you tell that Amelia is excited about seeing Cinderella, Snow White, and Mickey Mouse? We're all pretty excited. I don't think it really sunk in for Isabella at first because she kind of looked at us like we were crazy or like we were teasing her. So in just a few weeks we will be down at Disney World! I'm looking forward to it, we've been talking about it, thinking about it, saving up for it, and now we're finally going to go. We decided to go before Amelia turns 3 because she's free until then, so it makes it a little bit cheaper. I can't wait to see my girls faces when they see things like the castle or some of the princesses.

Then Saturday, we had her birthday party. The day after Christmas we had taken her ice skating, so she decided she wanted an ice skating party. Which I thought was good for mommy, because I didn't have to do anything. They provide the food, the cake, the ice cream and obviously the entertainment. It was fun, but it was our only ice skating party we will do because it was chaotic there and the room was very loud. You live and learn and Isabella had fun, so I guess that's what matters. I think my mom and Meredith got better pictures than I did. In the midst of trying to get things done and not be so chaotic, I was glad they were taking pictures. Plus, I couldn't seem to get in the door way and take pictures of the kids ice skating so alot of mine are through plexi glass. Here are a few anyway:

The birthday girl, concentrating hard on her ice skating -- tongue out and all. She had fun going around without the "walker" with her daddy too. Her favorite part was trying to get and eat "snow"

Other pictures here are my mom helping my niece, Olivia skate. Olivia, showing you just how cold it was. :) Isabella and my nephew Garrett. Papa and Amelia -- Amelia actually skated for a little while, but only long enough for mommy to put some stuff in the room, watch her go around, go get the camera and come back to get no pictures. My dad was sick, but he toughed it out, he didn't skate so he watched Amelia for me. Isabella's friend Makenna with her cousin, one of our teens in our youth group, Lindsay. My friend Shelli with her middle son, Noah. Shelli's oldest son Chase, with the same concentrated, tongue out pose as Isabella. Could barely get a picture of him because he was just flying around the rink. Isabella and one of her little friends from next door, Alaina. Then we have the birthday girl with her cake and blowing out the candles. The adults probably noticed the crazy crowds and the chaos, but the kids seemed to just have fun and Isabella was happy to be the center of attention. :)

To end the weekend, on Isabella's ACTUAL birthday, we woke up to Snow. Now how many little girls actually get a present from God on their birthday. She thought that was pretty cool. Hope she knows just how special (and rare) this birthday weekend celebration was!

Sick Girly

2009-01-15T11:56:00.001-05:00

So much for getting some Christmas pictures on here and posting my menu plan, my Isabella has been sick. She's had the typical, 75 degree one day 40 degree the next, cold and cough off and on for a week. Then Sunday, we went to Sunday School and I was copying off some stuff and came back into the room and Isabella was sitting on Kenny's lap crying. She didn't want to stay with the Sunday School teacher. This is SO not like her, we knew then she must not be feeling good. Then she would be fine, then start acting lethargic, fine again with the teens, clingy the next. She also complained of her ear "popping" a couple times. She started running a fever that night and felt SO hot when she crawled in bed with me. I called the drs office on Monday and they told me I could bring her in or wait and see if the fever goes away or if she stops complaining about her ear, and if not bring her in the next day. I opted for waiting. Monday was a day of sitting on the couch with her alot just cuddling - can't complain, I love cuddling with her and its sweet that when she's sick she wants me to be near her, but of course I got nothing done that day. Tuesday she woke up, no fever, acting fine, she sat and cut and glued scraps together as I was sewing. I thought well, maybe she's over it. Nope, she started running a fever again that night, acted all emotional going to bed, then came into our room several times in the night. Her fevers had been pretty high too, so I decided to take her in yesterday. I try to avoid doctors as much as I can. Not that I don't appreciate what they do, I just think sometimes people take their kids in for ever sniff, every fever, every ache and I don't do that. I'm actually very thankful for the pediatrician we have, he doesn't encourage you to come in at every symptom. They obviously say you can, but they don't push it. I like that. I also like that he seems to be on the same page as me with alot of things. I mentioned that she gets the typical colds, but that she really doesn't get sick much and I try to avoid using over the counter medicines. He agreed and said "They will claim to work, but the really don't anyway. They might help for comforts sake, but its better not to use them if you can anyway." He said "You could probably use some peppermint tea with honey and that might help." Silly, but at that moment I was once again so thankful for him because we had been giving Isabella some Herbal Children's Cold Tea that I had gotten at Whole Foods, yet I hadn't personally met alot of drs who recommend anything other than drugs. There probably are more out there, but of the ones I've personally been to and worked for, they laughed off the idea that things like that could help. I mean, why should we try herbal tea when we could fill our kids with sugar and red food coloring from over the counter medicine. :)

I will say this, although I prefer natural alternatives as much as possible, I'm not totally against doctors and medicines when needed. That being said she is on antibiotics for a few days. It bothers me to think about it because she hasn't been on antibiotics since she got out of the NICU, and I'm already hoping her acidophilus will help her some with some of the effects of antibiotics. Has anyone read any of these books at this website: http://www.shirleys-wellness-cafe.com/antibiotics.htm It has books talking about not using antibiotics, effects of them, etc. I wonder if any of them are worth reading? I don't feel like I'm in an "Antibiotic Crisis", as I said this is her first time on them in almost 5 years. I'm just wondering how to better prepare for the possibility of more sicknesses once she starts school next year. She already takes some stuff for immunity, but if anyone has any suggestions I'd love to hear them.

A praise about the antibiotics was that they were free. Since we haven't ever gotten antibiotics for our girls I was wondering how much it would cost, but the nurse told me that if I took it to Publix they would fill it for free. Maybe not good for the idea of pushing antibiotics, but it was a praise for me because I didn't want to have to spend a fortune on medicine.

And along with trying to help her immunity, is anyone else like me and starts feeling like some kind of bad mom when your kids get sick? Ok, maybe its just me. I know its kind of crazy, kids are going to get sick, but somehow as a mom, I don't think anything of it if I get sick, but when my kids get sick I feel as if I've missed something, thought I was keeping them healthy, but must have missed something. Its silly really. I know God is in control of their health not me, its just one of those protective mama things, I guess.

Anyway, thanks for being patient with me. If Isabella continues to feel well today, I will post some pics. I actually started this post yesterday and didn't get to finish it until today. She seems to be feeling better this morning, but she slept until 10! And I let her, I figured she needed to catch up on some sleep and if she could actually sleep through her own snoring (oh my was it loud last night) then I should let her. I just pray she is feeling good by Saturday, her 5th birthday party is that afternoon and its going to be an ice skating party!! Can't believe she's going to be 5!

Yet another infamous thought from Isabella

2009-01-06T22:40:00.003-05:00

We were out a little bit this evening. It was one of those kind of cloudy nights, a little smoky looking - kind of spooky. Obviously you can't really see the clouds well against the black sky -- except for right at the moon. As you would look up you could see the light clouds passing by the moon. Isabella looked up and said "What's that smoke? Is God cooking something?" Chuckling, I said "No, those are clouds moving by" .... to a child who was obviously not interested in my answer because she took in a big whiff and said "Oh yeah."

Menu Plan Monday

2009-01-05T17:19:00.002-05:00

I feel terrible that my first post after posting so very little over the holidays is going to be my menu plan. This is really for my sake mostly. If I do this then I will keep myself accountable to organize and plan out my week's menu. When I don't plan things just don't run smoothly at all. We have thankfully started the New Year off eating healthy. We had friends come in to see us and she and I enjoyed making nice nutritious meals for our families as well as talking about ways to continue to better health, continuing our goals of being more frugile with the everyday things, etc. I'm going to lump meals together rather than do each day seperately. More or less the I'm doing it per day so if you REALLY just have to know what we are eating on Wednesday, it will be the third item on each list. :)

Breakfasts:
*Brown Rice Farina with Blueberries
*Blueberry Muffins and smoothies (Make them Monday night for Tuesday and Thursday and freeze some)
*Griddle Cakes
*Blueberry Muffins and fresh juiced juice
*Crepes with bananas and blueberries. (I'm using THIS recipe. It looks yummy to me and since my girls love cottage cheese, I think they will love these. I've never made them, but I've made other recipes from her site and they're always delicious, so I'm not worried)
*Homemade "sausage" patties, eggs, & some kind of potato hash brown type of thing (THIS recipe for the sausage. I've never tried it before, but another site that I've enjoyed her recipes) I've never been a big pork fan anyway, but it definitely isn't a healthy choice for meat (in my opinion), but my hubby loves big breakfasts so I thought this would be great to try on Saturday.

Lunch: Lunches are mostly for my girls. I don't normally eat what they eat and I will probably be eating salads or something instead. My girls will eat some salad, but not enough to fill them up so its never a whole meal for them.
*AB & J sandwiches, Pirates Booty, & 1/2 banana for girls. Salad for me.
*Chicken Hot Dogs (to look like octopus) with mac & cheese & peas -- saw the octopus on a front of a book and thought I needed to try it for my girls.
*Leftovers - salad for me
*Ab & J sandwiches.
*English Muffin Pizza (on homemade whole grain English muffins, first time trying this too, but I’m hoping I can make them and freeze some for further easy lunch ideas)
*not sure about Saturday's lunch, probably just some type of sandwich or quesadillas, and Sunday will depend on my grocery shopping since I haven't been out this week.

Dinner:
*Whole grain pasta with sundried tomatoes & mushrooms in light cream sauce. Steamed brocoli
*Leftover chili and cornbread
*Quesadillas with leftover mexican rice & beans
*Chicken, sweet potatoes green beans
*Black bean cakes & salad (Don't have a recipe for the black bean cakes, I'm going to wing it after enjoying the one at Whole Foods so much. If it turns out good, I'll share the recipe, if not, I'll just hang my head in shame.)
*Homemade pizza
*Sunday night after church will be leftovers

Hope everyone has a good week and I hope that its not a week until I post again. :-)

Merry Christmas

2008-12-25T17:02:00.004-05:00

I hope you all are having a blessed, Christ filled Christmas today. We have had a wonderful Christmas season as a family. We've had fun as well as found things to do to remind us what the season is truly about. One of the things that Kenny and I were able to do as a date was to go to a Mandisa and Matthew West concert. I love the song they sing called "Sometimes Christmas Makes Me Cry." It first talks about loved ones who have passed away and naturally the first person I think of is my aunt who died the day after Christmas last year. I was looking through e-mails the other day trying to find addresses (sorry family, Christmas cards are late and I never remember your addresses, I should get one of those -- oh what's it called, oh yeah an address book) and I did a search in my e-mail and it came up with an e-mail from Norma from 2 years ago when I was needing a couple addresses from her, it made me cry. I'm so happy for her and that she is celebrating Christmas with HIM, but I miss her and I know my cousin and other family miss her even more as they are used to celebrating Christmas with her. I try to remind myself of the rejoicing in heaven, today as so many people are reading the Christmas story, thinking of Christ being born. Yes this is something we should think of all year, but today as so many people are rejoicing in the fact that Christ came for us - what rejoicing and worship there must be in heaven. And the other part of that song that always chokes me up are these words "I think of Mary and the virgin birth, and I'm amazed by how much God thinks we are worth..." Wow, we're worth enough to God for Him to send His only Son to a, in Isabella's words, stinky smelly dirty stable, to be born and die for us. God as a tiny little baby, can you really imagine that, it almost seems unfathomable, all powerful God as a tiny little baby...Amazing! I hope everyone reading this, how few there may be, realize just how much you are worth to God. And not just this day, but everyday! I hope you all have a very Merry Christmas!

Pictures soon.... I hope

2008-12-05T13:53:00.003-05:00

I'm hoping to post a couple Thanksgiving and Christmas festivity pictures soon. We had a nice Thanksgiving with my parents, then my mom and I went out for just a few hours on "black Friday" (not wee early though, neither of us were looking for anything, its just a tradition.) We only hit a couple stores and my dad called and said he thought Amelia was getting sick, when we got home she had already thrown up and was crying in pain. I felt so bad for her. I laid down with her and rubbed her belly some and she would be calm for a little bit and then start crying again probable from cramping up. She then said "I go nigh night" and we went and laid in my bed and she was out in just a matter of minutes. She woke up acting fine, not eating anything, but acting fine. (Praise the Lord.) We tried to take it easy on Saturday, went out to a couple places, but still she seemed fine. I, on the other hand, woke up Sunday morning with the bug, felt horrible all day, felt a little better on Monday; Isabella got a touch of it (she said "I think I have a sick bug in my stomach.") and of course gave it back to me by Tuesday night. I'm finally over it so today I have been a crazy cleaning lady because my house badly needs a good scrub down and clean up -- then hopefully I will get to post pictures and get back to blogging. We did go get our Christmas tree last night and my hubby put the lights on it and the girls and I are enjoying it today. Today we're going to decorate it and we'll enjoy it even more.

I might have gotten my Christmas present early this year.... Amelia seems to finally have gotten potty training down. Before it was a hit or miss and she would do one, but not the other, but the only time she has needed changed for the last week has been when she wakes up. She still doesn't wake up dry every morning, I guess this is normal. It wasn't the case with Isabella, but I'll be fine with that. :) And she might get a little extra Christmas present too --Dora big girl panties in her stocking. Yay!

And to leave you with a funny, those of you who are on my Facebook probably read this, but Isabella (as well as her Daddy) tends to talk in her sleep. She REALLY talks though -- (although I guess my family could say Kenny does too since he woke us up on one trip yelling, "No, STOP!" while my Dad was driving. Man, that was so funny.) Anyway, there has not been a night go by this week that Isabella hasn't come into our room around 4/5, cuddled up next to me and by the time Daddy leaves for work she's talking. She asked for a new butterfly wing since she broke hers, told me that something was in the kitchen,...sounds like she has some crazy dreams. Today she asked me if I remembered the snake that was crawling outside of the house: "Remember, you were talking to Auntie Becky, we ran to your bedroom window to see it....... it was IN MY DREAM?!?" She seems to forget that just because I am in her dream does not mean I am having the same dream. :) But the best was 2 nights ago when she started singing Old MacDonald had a farm. I thought maybe she was awake, but nope. She sang the whole verse, didn't miss a single word or tune and even added the pig sounds when it came to it. I really need to get a tape recorder. :)

Catching up

2008-11-20T13:11:00.005-05:00

"A little girl...one of the most beautiful miracles in life, one of the greatest joys we can ever know, and one of the reasons why there is a little extra sunshine, laughter and happiness in your world today. "

No, I'm not catching up from the week and a half since I've posted anything. I'm actually catching up from this summer. I've been working on some Christmas projects/presents which had me going through pictures and I realized I never posted these pictures of Amelia. The week after Kenny got back from Seattle, Isabella (as well as my 2 nephews) went with my parents up to Ohio for a family reunion. So Amelia had a little weekend with just mommy and daddy. On that Saturday, we took her to the mall, took her to a park, then decided to take her over to a local college, for a walk and to let her feed the ducks. I did NOT prepare for a little photoshoot. I would not have chosen that dress and I would have brought stuff to redo her hair after playing, had I realized we'd be doing pictures, but she's so naturally beautiful she can get by with that. :)

"Beauty is a radiance that originates from within"

Why we don't support Cosleeping wtih our children

2008-11-08T07:53:00.003-05:00

It's not the only or real reason, but wouldn't this be reason enough for us NOT to cosleep with our girls?!? And don't let this picture deceive you, this isn't a full or queen bed, this is an olympic queen with is actually 6 inches wider than a queen. Which also means, yes that cat is even bigger in person. He's huge folks. And look at Amelia's hair, if you saw a picture of me laying there next to her (yeah, I'm not nearly as cute as her sleeping) you would realize that she and I both need our own beds, just for our hair. And if you are wondering where I would sleep in this mix, its right here:

But where would my husband be......Doesn't he look all nice and comfy there with room to spare?! Oh yeah and I added the other cat because he typically will get up there at some point. We don't let the girls start off with us, but Isabella typically comes in every morning around the time daddy goes to work and depending on how light of a sleeper Amelia is at the time, she might come along too -- bringing with her teddy and at least 1 or 2 other stuffed animals, because its just a big ol' party. A big ol' party where the girls fight over who gets to cuddle with mommy and mommy gets pushed out of bed. So I say, those of you who cosleep with your kids, you must be crazy. And for those of you who say "We're SO anti-cosleeping that we NEVER let our kids in our bed", I say "Whatever." In a few years when they aren't coming into our bed, I will still remember Isabella wanting to sleep nose to nose with me and saying "cuddle, cuddle, cuddle", Amelia cuddling up in a tight little ball next to me and sporatically coming up to kiss my arm, my face, my back and saying "Wuv U Mama" For now, I'll just keep trying to keep them out until morning and maybe start pricing out Pacific King size beds.

Menu Plan Monday

2008-11-03T10:08:00.003-05:00

I'm glad I pretty much wrote up my menu for this week last week because I might not be getting it done if not. Finally, some good advanced planning on my part. :) Last week there was a couple things I didn't get to make, so I'm doing them again this week. Kenny was on a business trip from Wednesday until Friday evening, so the girls and I spent 1 day shopping with my mom. Then Friday I had planned on making homemade pizza for when Kenny got home, but he got home around 5:30 that evening and my brother and sil decided to come down to my parents so we were down there for soup. So today, I'm making the "mini quiche", spinach cheese biscuit things for lunch and then for dinner we're having homemade pizza. My hubby and girls will be happy that they're FINALLY getting homemade pizza. :)

While we were shopping with my mom we stopped and got some apples and some asian pears (I've never had these before) at a farm store, so I'm going to be making some kind of baked goods as well this week for dessert. Not sure what just yet, but if I find anything great, I'll pass the recipe along. I don't make alot of desserts around here, but I'm thinking at least some kind of apple crisp.

Monday
Breakfast: Pancakes & Smoothies
Lunch: Spinach, cheese biscuit "quiche" (recipe link from last week)
Dinner: Homemade pizza

Tuesday
Breakfast: Hot cereal & fruit (Isabella wanted hot cereal this morning, but Amelia had asked for pancakes, so I'll be sure to do hot cereal tomorrow. Although, Isabella was fine once I made heart and moose shaped pancakes :)
Lunch: Baked potatoes
Dinner: Yellow Split Pea Soup with sweet potatoes and kale (Another soup using my obsession with curry -- homemade pizza to make them happy, this soup to make mama happy :) Looks delicious!

Wednesday
Breakfast: Egg Omelets
Lunch: Taco Bowls -- baked tortilla bowls, rice, beans, cheese, tomatoes.....
Dinner: Fettucine Bolognese (found this on Organizing Junkie last week and it sounded so yummy) I will make some homemade noodles and use ground turkey instead of ground beef

Thursday
Breakfast: Pumpkin Millet Muffins (The ones I made a couple weeks ago, some in the freezer)
Lunch: Leftover Pizza
Dinner: Either Tilapia and green beans or tilapia fish cakes and green beans

Friday:
Breakfast: Either a morning apple breakfast recipe (if I find something interesting, any suggestions?) or I'll let the girls choose what they want.
Lunch: AB & J sandwiches
Dinner: Leftover Soup

Saturday
Breakfast: Gluten Free Pumpkin Waffles
Lunch: At church bazaar
Dinner: Girls will be with my parents, we'll be at the museum for a friend's birthday party.

Sunday:
Breakfast: Daddy's choice or maybe some waffles from Saturday
Lunch: Haven't decided for sure, this always varies on what I can find for a good price during my grocery shopping trip
Dinner: Leftovers

And that's it, a couple new things I'm excited about trying and then some old faithfuls. For more go to Organizing Junkie

Potty Breakthrough!

2008-10-29T15:27:00.005-04:00

I've mentioned before that Amelia is not as easy to potty train as Isabella was. Isabella was/is pretty easily pleased, so putting up a chart and letting her pick all kinds of stickers out worked great for her. Actually, she was ready to start before I was, I had bought a seat to go on the toilet on it in preparations for her to potty train and once she saw it, she wanted to start then. It really was just a matter of telling us and getting there in time for her, but she was potty trained with no accidents by the time she was a 28 months. Amelia on the other hand, has gotten bored with the "treats", stickers are fun, yeah she likes to get a stamp on her hand, but not enough to go potty constantly for us. We have tried everything we can think of to get her to go, for a while she would go every now and then when we would put her on the potty, then she would cry when we put her on the potty (until she went and then she was happy for the attention), we make a big deal of this, call daddy at work, do a little made up potty song and dance, high fives...... just not caring or getting it. I was almost, ALMOST tempted to do the one thing I do not want to do --- buy a seperate potty chair. I might be the only mother that feels this way, but that's just nasty! And really like I want to have to empty and wash that thing out...... oh please, don't tell me that's the one thing I'm going to have to do. Thankfully, No! Since Sunday I have only had to change 2 diapers (actually pull ups) -- WOO HOO!!! Can I tell you just how thrilled I am? And she's actually been telling us when she has to go, and here is the reason....... if you come to my house now, later, tomorrow or maybe even next week, this is what you will see......

(Well minus the ashy legs, can't believe I didn't notice that before I took the picture. Although in the winter this is either typical or they are being chased down by me with lotion in hand. I think I have found a good help for this though, more on that later. :)

Her DORA NIGHTGOWN!!! For a few months now, nightgowns have not been an option for her because she wore them one night, took her diaper off, then had peed all over the bed. No fun for mommy, so I had told her before no nightgowns until she was going potty -- too easy of access. I recently told her she could wear this if she went in the potty, and some how it has stuck. If we are home, and she has a dry pull up (yeah, they have Dora on them too), then she can wear her nightgown. If she goes in her pull up, then she has to change out of the nightgown -- and yes I do stick to this, just ask my friend Becky, she was a witness. :) Yesterday she wore it all morning, then she messed in her pull up, we changed her clothes, and then she was back to going potty the rest of the evening so she could keep Dora on. Today, she told me right away in the morning she had to go, she told me after breakfast, and then 2 times while we were out........ (I'm also seeing that her tiny little bladder must be another reason for the late potty training. My shopping trips are going to be much longer now.) As soon as we got home, the first thing she asked for was her "Backpack nightgown" -- so she is back in it again. It actually took a little convincing to get her out of the nightgown and into pants and a sweater to leave, she kept telling me "I go pee pee" -- I had to convince her it was cold, that I PROMISED she could wear it when we got home, she could wear her Dora shoes and also she could wear these........

What?? You don't know what these are? They're ear muffs, what else would be wrapped around her waist?!?!

So even though this just proves my daughter is WAY too enamored with Dora (I still don't know how that happened) and as much as I always said I didn't like the cartoon character clothing, accessories.... I have given in..... and the less diapers I have to change the more I am confident in my decision to do so!! Hopefully this will continue, it sure would be nice to have her potty trained.

And can anyone guess what she'll be wanting for Christmas?!?

Menu Plan Monday

2008-10-27T12:31:00.002-04:00

Yay, I'm actually getting this done on time! Got a couple new things I'm trying this week and then old faithfuls.

Monday

Breakfast: The girls wanted cold cereal this morning so easy morning for mommy just a bowl of Strawberry Cereal

Lunch: AB & J Sandwiches, homemade applesauce

Dinner: Taco Salads (baking tortilla shells in those cute little pans. :) Lettuce, ground turkey cooked in spices like cumin, red pepper..., beans, tomatoes and cheese

Tuesday

Breakfast: Egg Biscuits (using up leftover biscuits I made yesterday - recipe below)

Lunch: Squished Potatoes with leftover meat from last night (decided not to call the mashed because I'm not making them with butter and milk, just squishing up baked potatoes and adding leftover meat and cheese)

Dinner: Turkey Stroganoff, kind of like THIS recipe, except I will make homemade whole grain egg noodles and probably do my typical adding and subtracting of things. Good recipe to go by though if you want one and I have leftover turkey and gravy from Sunday's dinner.

Wednesday:

Breakfast: French toast (Kenny is leaving this morning for a business trip so we'll all eat a nice breakfast together before he leaves.) The last time I made french toast I used yogurt and an egg to dip the bread in. I will either do that, or I found THIS vegetarian recipe that sounds good. Well, if you like bananas and coconut milk it sounds good. :)

Lunch: Bean Quesadillas -- seems to be a constant in our week, but the girls love them and their cheap

Dinner: Leftovers from last night, has to be quick this night

Thursday

Breakfast: Our fast typical gymnastics breakfast -- "Ants on a Log" It actually works the best for Isabella too, it seems to fill her up for gymnastics.

Lunch: Sandwiches

Dinner: White Chicken Chili (I boil the chicken in water, then use that water/stock, plus a little extra broth for the base, Northern Beans, Garbanzo Beans, Chiles, Cumin, pepper, some garlic and basil) This is a favorite soup at our house!

Friday

Breakfast: Hot cereal with fruit and flax

Lunch: Mini spinach "quiche" on a biscuit. Found THIS recipe and thought it looked and sounded good so I thought I would try it. Make a half a batch of biscuit dough and I might change up the cheeses as I have Rice Moz Cheese and some goat cheese.

Dinner: DADDY'S HOME!! Homemade pizza, per his request.

Saturday: Gone all day at a Adoption Conference, probably leftover soup for dinner

Sunday

Breakfast: Same as always, daddy gets the girls breakfast

Lunch: Chicken in the crockpot, green beans and my favorite Curried Brown Rice Salad (Honestly, I can ignore the rest of the meal and just eat this LOVE IT!)

Dinner: Leftovers or out with teens

RECIPES

Curried Brown Rice Salad

Cook 1/2 cup brown rice in 1 cup chicken broth.

Stir in 1/4 cup chopped parsley (I don't always have this and it still is great),

1/3 cup chopped red onion (or none at this house),

some chopped celery,

1/3 cup choped red pepper,

1 small apple quartered, cored and cut into 1/2 inch pieces,

3 TBSP dried cranberries and

3 TBSP toasted sunflower seeds.

Then make the DRESSING: 1 TBSP Mayonnaise, 1/4 cup lowfat plain yogurt, 1 TBSP rice wine vinegar (I think I've used apple cider vinegar as well), dash of salt, fresh ground pepper and 3/4 tsp Curry (I use more curry because I love it. :)

Mix dressing in with the rice/veggie mixture and either eat slightly warm or you can even cool it and serve it cold. Its is delicious either way!

Whole Wheat Baking Powder Biscuits

1 cup Whole Grain White Whole Wheat (This does not mean its "white" bleached flour, it is a lighter wheat instead of the red winter wheat, it is whole grain)

1 cup Whole Grain Graham Flour

1TBSP aluminum free baking powder

1/2 tsp salt

1/4 cup shortening (I used 1/4 cup Extra Virgin Coconut Oil instead)

3/4 cup milk

Combine dry ingredients, cut in shortening with pastry blender or 2 knives until it resembles coarse crumbs. Stir in milk to form soft dough. Transfer dough to lightly floured surface and knead lightly about 10 times. Roll out to 1/2 inch and cut with round cutter. Place biscuits on ungreased sheet and bake at 450 for 12-15 minutes.

(This recipe came from Hodgson Mill Whole Grain Baking Book)

For more menu plans visit Organizing Junkie!!

Poor guys

2008-10-24T14:21:00.002-04:00

I had a knock on my door today, and since I couldn't avoid it, I had to answer. They were from a different church and belief than ours and I know they must have walked away saying, "Did you see that crazy woman, she was in unmatched pajamas at lunchtime, no make up, and had an aroma of..... what is that? Oh yeah, needing a shower! Thank goodness SHE wasn't interested in being converted" In my defense, its a lazy rainy day today, I just had to wait to get Amelia down for a nap before I could shower today, oh who cares.... I was in pjs, at least my kids had been fed and my kitchen was clean, right?!? Come one, someone tell me that's ok. :)

On a more serious note, I hate that I'm not more prepared or maybe its just bold at times like this. Where I could be "fine, let me tell you about what I believe and then you can tell me..." Of course, this was a man that was talking so it wasn't like I was going to invite him in, but I guess I could have said "come back later if you want to share and my husband can share with you." Yeah, that's it put it all on my husband.

Anyway, I may well be known to these people as the crazy stinky lady. At least I had brushed my teeth today.... I think. :)

Menu Plan "Monday"

2008-10-21T20:45:00.004-04:00

I actually had this made up yesterday, but Kenny had first aid/CPR training last night at work and didn't get home until about 9:30 so I didn't get a chance to sit down and type it out. Last week was a crazy week, I wasn't thinking about all that we had going on. Friday I spent the day baking goodies for the cake walk, had boo in the zoo, then Saturday got up and spent about 8 hours at the church between decorating for and going to the fall festival. Sunday was church, my mom's birthday, and then back to church for Awana. We came home and fell in bed and hoped our girls remembered to brush their teeth and get to bed ok. Just kidding about that, we obviously got them in bed first. :) All fun stuff, but busy --- and what does this have to do with this weeks menu??? Well, Steph, you're going to be disappointed because a few of the things I had on my plan last week I never got around to making, we opted for much faster easier meals. So, they're showing up again this week.

Monday:

Breakfast ---Griddle cakes

Lunch--- Leftover Pasta

Dinner--- Made kind of the same chicken "tart" I made last week, except I had used capers and the girls didn't like them and I also totally forgot the chicken and yet somehow the girls still loved it: Phyllo Dough, spread a little bit of olive oil or melted butter, cut up red peppers, goat cheese and some asiago/parmesan cheese. This is a horribly messy meal though, that Phyllo dough flakes like crazy and my Amelia is a crazy messy eater.

Made Pumpkin Millet Muffins for breakfast

Tuesday:

Breakfast--- Smoothies & Pumpkin Millet Muffins (These were really good, I didn't toast the millet like the recipe calls for. My girls loved them, especially Amelia. We once again had the little raccoon attack. I got the girls dressed and ready, then went and got myself ready, came back into the kitchen and noticed a couple half muffins on the counter. I think Amelia ate 5 muffins today (1 for breakfast and 4 between breakfast and lunch. I'm going to have to get some kind of container that has a lock on it to keep her out of things.)

Lunch--- Daddy took us to lunch today -- Mexican. :)

Dinner--- Leftovers

Wednesday:

Breakfast -- Grapefruit, yogurt with flax

Lunch -- AB & J sandwiches, grapes

Dinner: Mango Tango Chicken (didn't get to make this last week) and a salad

Thursday:

Breakfast -- Smoothies and muffins (if Amelia hasn't found them and eaten them)

Lunch -- Bean Tostados (Corn tortillas, refried beans, corn, cheese)

Dinner -- Tilapia Cakes (another I didn't get to make last week)

Friday:

Breakfast -- Egg omelets

Lunch -- AB & J sandwiches, I'm going to try carrot sticks and maybe some hummus dip. My girls don't really like raw veggies, but I'm going to try and find ways to get them to eat more. Cooked veggies, they do fine, raw, not so much.

Dinner: Potato Corn, Chicken Sausage, Soup (More or less I'm going to make potato soup, throw in some sundried tomato basil chicken sausage I bought last week at Whole Foods, and some corn and whatever else seems to strike my fancy that night)

Saturday:

Breakfast -- Whatever Daddy decides he wants me to make

Lunch -- Either leftover soup or a picnic lunch as we are hoping to go to the pumpkin patch or somewhere else fun.

Dinner -- Homemade pizza

Sunday:

Breakfast -- Whatever Daddy is cooking, which means cold cereal or eggs. :)

Lunch -- Basic Sunday dinner, whatever type roast I find at a good price, preferrably a chicken or a turkey breast, potatoes, and veggies

Dinner -- Leftovers

The nice thing about this week is that all I have to buy at the grocery store this week is potatoes, cheese for pizza, and chicken/turkey for Sunday.

For other (and I'm sure better) menu plans visit Organizing Junkie

Boo!

2008-10-20T14:35:00.005-04:00

My "Monday Menu Plan" will come later, but for now I thought I would show you the 2 cutest little kitties ever.

Aren't they adorable?! We went to Boo in the Zoo at our local zoo this past Friday. We have a membership there, so we always get to go on the first night. We've gone since Isabella was a baby, so this was our 5th year. The girls love it, I love seeing them all dressed up, and its always such a nice non-scary environment (well, except Amelia didn't like some of the costumes that kids had on) This year Isabella told me she wanted to be a kitty cat, mainly because she wanted me to paint her face. Her reasonings always crack me up. Amelia wanted to be "backpack" or "fru fru" -- I decided on a "fru fru" kitty cat and made her a little tutu to go with her outfit. She loved it. I think she knows just how cute she looks.

I asked Isabella if she wanted a tutu and she said no. After I got her dressed up, I:

1. Noticed that in buying the $1.50 pair of tights instead of the $4 pair of "dancing" tights, you could kind of see the black line. It wasn't as noticeable as it is in the picture (flash photography does crazy things to black clothing.)

2. I thought the tutu was just way too cute, she should've had one.

3. Wondered why I gave her a choice....

4. Noticed she looked way too "grown up" and decided if we go to anything else this season, I'll be making her a tutu. :)

I think this was the cheapest costume yet, we already have gymnastics leotards, they have black shoes, they needed black tights, so its not just for the costume, and the headband/bowtie/tail was $4 at Wal Mart and it cost me less than $4 to make the tutu. And although, I didn't spend a lot on last years Dorothy and Glinda -- they were much more time consuming for mommy to make. Maybe they will be kitties every year from now on. :)

A Mary Heart

2008-10-14T14:35:00.002-04:00

Have any of you read "Having a Mary Heart in a Martha World" by Joanna Weaver? I have actually been reading a couple different books lately, this one and one called the Mission of Motherhood. Both are REALLY good. I don't have a great deal of good books at home. I love to read and I love these type of books that can be an encouragment spiritually, but quite honestly they are expensive. So, I've started taking advantage of my local library. This book was one I found there. I love it - on the front cover it says "Finding Intimacy with God in the Busyness of Life". Exactly what I need. Right now is so busy... the last few months it has gotten even busier. I have the daily duties of caring for my children The rewards are wonderful, the time with my children is wonderful, the work though is hard. I would say especially with toddlers, but then I know once they hit school I'll say especially with school age... But trying to train your children, potty train one, discipline, do a little teaching with my 4 year old since I opted out of 4K so I could spend time with her, life in general... its busy. Then with trying to eat healthier and be more frugile, that is another busyness. Again, the rewards are great -- we are saving money, I feel better eating healthier and I know the long term benefits are great, and I really do love to cook. But honestly, how much time do I have to spend in this crazy kitchen. Cook breakfast, eat breakfast, clean up after breakfast -- short break for getting kids dressed and ready for the day and somehow its time for lunch and the whole cooking, cleaning happens again. (I can't stand a dirty kitchen so I have to clean after each meal. Not to worry though, I'm saving time by not cleaning my bedroom :) Then supper, bedtime routine, and you start all over. Sometimes I don't know where the days go. I know many of you are feeling the same way. Then to make life even busier and a little discouraging our church has been having some "issues". We've been praying about things since spring, really wanting God to change things. Of course, the changes that God chose so far have been a surprise to us. Quite honestly, I've noticed lately that God really isn't following my plans at all, what's up with that. :) The first was that our pastor gave us a week notice in May and left. Not what we were expecting, but I do think this can be a good change. God is still in control. Another changes we have been praying about, is that people are so uncommitted. I mean, its easier to sit in a pew, complain, or not even come to services than it is to actually serve, right? I still don't know HOW God is working, but I know He's working. Kenny ended up going on a trip to Seattle with the teens, he wasn't supposed to go, but God changed those plans and had him go. He came home on fire and more committed to God and helping the church until God changes HIS mind (God's mind not my husbands), the teens came home on fire and committed to God -- and honestly, there is nothing more encouraging and convicting to see teenagers wanting to do things for God. As discouraged as I was and am, I don't want to be a stumbling block for him or the teens. So when he came home, we knew that if nothing else, that God wants us to serve Him and try to do what we can for the church. So now this is where we stand: My husband is a deacon, he's on the pulpit committee to find a new pastor, he's the youth pastor, he's the game director at Awana, he helps me teach SS every 3rd month. I'm in charge of typing and printing the bulletins, by "default" I have become in charge of Children's Church and nursery (unless I didn't want my girls to have this), teaching SS as above, teaching children's church, doing nursery, working in Awana, helping my husband with youth group, helping plan/organize our fall festival, responsible for my own "shepherding" because I'm rarely actually in church.... and I'm not saying this like we're the only ones doing things because others are just as busy at church. I'm just saying it because I have felt overwhelmed lately. And I even told Kenny jokingly "I know I'm getting no rewards in heaven because I'm grumbling as I do these things." Jokingly -- but seriously. And then the bad thing is that we are in a town that there is a church on every corner, (Honestly, if you are thinking of church planting, please don't come here, there is no need for more churches here, there's one on every corner, just not always enough faithful people wanting to serve in all of them.) churches where I could sit in, get fed and not have to lift a finger, my girls would have tons of friends, rather than the few kids that are at our church,.... But I know that God has not built me that way and He definitely hasn't built my husband that way. We were made to worship, we were made to Love Him, but in that we were also made to serve. So here I was feeling sorry for myself yesterday, discouraged about the problems, discouraged about my own personal time being stretched so much, and I sat down to read my book. Boy, it took all of 5 seconds for God to convict me. The author writes:

"Satan still plans his attacks around what I call the "Three Deadly D's of Destruction.: They are Distraction, Discouragement and Doubt. Throughout time, Satan has restored to these tactics to bring down God's best and brightest. The underlying strategy is farily simple: Get people's eyes off God and on their circumstances. Make them believe their "happiness" lies in the happenings that surround them. Or send them good news -- about somebody else. When they're thoroughly discouraged, tell them God doesn't care. Then sit back and let doubt do its work."

It is hard, to look around and feel like there is an easy way out, that I really don't need to be doing this work That why should I care if no one else is. To find myself unhappy just because I'm frustrated with the situations. My parents church is really big and doing well, that could be discouraging just because we wish our church was doing better, but then that's not where God has us. And we've actually benefited from that because my parents are taking Isabella to Kids 4 Truth there, so she get to go with them on Wednesdays instead of to youth group with us. (Which is also a help to us as she can be a cute little distraction for the teens. :) )

"(Satan) knows that if we're overly worried and bogged down with duties, chances are good our hearts will not hear the Savior's call to come. ..... getting our eyes off of what is important will certainly make us more vulnerable to attack."

(Luke 10:40) "Martha was cumbered about much serving", she was distracted, she was overwhelmed, she was bothered. Yeah, I've felt that way lately. Then I read the following, and this really hit me in between the eyes.

"'But even pure ministry for Jesus can become a weight we drag around,... Its called the treadmill annointing and it isn't from God.' ..... Even on those days when I have the best motives, my heart can be pulled away from doing things 'as unto the Lord' and settle for simply gettings things done. And when that happens, I can tell you, this Martha isn't very merry."

Yeah, me neither.

"Then when we're distracted, discouragement is just around the corner. Weariness creeps in as life overpowers us.... Discouragement breaks down our perspective and our defenses. Though we may have just completed great things for God, weary discouragement tells us we're useless, hopeless, and abandoned." She then talks about Elijah and how he had just had a mighty victory, but then became afraid of Jezebel. This is a prayer I need to pray for our teens, that they saw great things in their life, God working in them, and not to get their eyes off of God, not to worry about the noncommittment around them, not to get discouraged. But then the author shows us the story in 1 Kings 19 about Elijah. Even though he was discouraged and asking God if He even cares, doubting God, God sent an angel to bring him food and rest.
"When we're distracted and discouraged, tired and overwhelmed, there is no better place to go than to our father. He alone has what we need."

I decided to read more of 1 Kings 19 and I love these verses: "And behold, the LORD passed by, and a great and strong wind tore into the mountains and broke the rocks in pieces before the LORD, but the LORD was not in the wind; and after the wind an earthquake, but the LORD was not in the earthquake; 12 and after the earthquake a fire, but the LORD was not in the fire; and after the fire a still small voice." That's where God is, in that still small voice. And if I become so distracted and discouraged, I'm going to miss the blessings God has for me because I'm going to miss His still small voice.

Then she notes that God is concerned with what concerns us. Martha asked "Lord, don't you care?". "We have our questions.... but He wants us to trust His love enough to tell him what we are thinking and feeling."

"First, we can bring our needs to Jesus anytime and anywhere.... (Matthew 7:7)"

"Second, Jesus really cares about what concerns us. (1 Peter 5:7) Jesus didn't laugh off Martha's concerns. He didn't become angry. Instead, He spoke to her wtih infinite gentleness and tenderness recognizing the pain in her whining voice."

"Finally,Jesus loves us enough to confront us when our attitude is wrong. (Rev. 3:19)'.... Martha spoke her secret fear aloud, and we can too. But, like Martha, we must stick around long enough to hear the sweet reasurrance of his answer. Don't expact any explanations or apologies. After all, God is God."

Ouch. So that's what I'm trying to do, take my concerns to Him and accept His answers. Will I never get discouraged about this same thing? Yeah, right, I was getting discouraged again today. Just writing about it makes me a little stressed. :) Do I know HOW God is going to answer all my prayers -- nope, but I trust that He is going to work things out. And I've seen God answer some prayers already: There are other people in church who truly have the desire to help the church, our interim pastor has been great - he has such a heart for God, we are hoping to outreach to our community with this weekend's fall festival, I have seen people respond better to serving in areas than I thought I would. Here at home, we have new neighbors and they have 2 little girls. My girls and they have become fast friends -- this is also a matter of prayer as I feel I have extra training to do and it actually is more busyness for me as I think I will be having 2 extra little girls at my house every afternoon and I'm overly protective of my children and what they are doing, where they are outside, etc. I think the neighbor girls are in the "can we fool this woman?" and "what all can we get by with?" stage, but that will pass, they're learning quickly that I say no ---- alot. :) But Isabella said last night "God blessed us with new neighbors." She's never had a neighbor friend, our neighbors have all been older or have older kids. She's very excited! And God continues to show me how much He truly cares. When I am discouraged and tired, He is concerned, He's concerned for taking care of me, but He is also concerned with my questions and He is definitely concerned with my response and how I deal with things. And I have to remember to try not to get distracted, I can say no, I will say no to some things, but I have to at least be doing the things I'm doing for His honor and His glory, if not they're all in vain anyway. He is sufficient, He has my ultimate good in mind and I have to listen to His still small voice instead of the voices of discouragement all around me.

Anyway, I'm really enjoying this book. Have any of you read it? Its not a new book, I think it says copyright in 2002. If you haven't, get it and read it. I've only read 3 chapters and it has been great, can't wait to see what God is going to teach me in the rest. If you have, I'd love to hear what God has taught you.

Menu Plan (October 13 - 19)

2008-10-13T22:06:00.003-04:00

Surprisingly, I'm actually going to get this in on Monday, barely, but at least I don't have to try and change this to "Half A Menu Plan Wednesday."

Monday

Breakfast -- Whole grain pancakes

Lunch -- Girls had AB & J sandwiches, grapes, veggie chips

Dinner -- Leftover Red Lentil and Butternut Squash soup, homemade whole gr. graham flour rolls. (If you want the recipe for the soup see the link from last week) It was DELICIOUS!!! A definite new fall favorite soup. I love the flavor of curry, if you don't like it, then don't make this soup or put alot less curry in it. But I happen to think curry is extra yummy! Amelia wasn't crazy about it. She ate it, with some prompting, but not a favorite for her, she might not have her mommy's love of curry. :) If you want the recipe for the rolls, let me know, it came out of a book I borrowed from the library and they were nice and soft.

Tuesday

Breakfast: Egg in a Hole/Egg in a Basket (just learned my dad calls this French Eggs?)

Lunch: Bean Quesadillas, apples (I will probably be eating the last remaining bowl of leftover soup)

Dinner: Homemade pasta with sundried tomato/basil chicken sausage with a tomato sauce, side salad

Wednesday:

Breakfast: Grapefruit, yogurt with wheat germ or nuts

Lunch: Grilled Cheese Sandwiches

Dinner: Chicken and Red Pepper Tart. (My husband says he will eat this as long as I cut the roasted red peppers up small, I can definitely accomodate. :)

Thursday:

Breakfast: Pumpkin and Millet Muffins (I will be using coconut milk and I will use probably rapadura, honey, or brown rice syrup in place of the sugar, not sure which yet) If you can't tell, I love Whole Foods website for recipes.

Lunch: Leftovers

Dinner: Chicken and Mango Tango (Recipe below)

Friday

Breakfast: Hot cereal with fruit

Lunch:

Dinner: We will be going to Boo in the Zoo, probably eating something really quick or grabbing something since Kenny will get home right before we have to leave and I will be dressing up my 2 little kittens. :)

Saturday

Breakfast: French Toast or Omelets -- those were Kenny's suggestions, he wasn't sure which one he would want and this is the only day that he really eats breakfast with us.

Lunch: Tilapia Patties

Dinner: I'm probably going to have a snack in between breakfast and lunch and consider the tilapia my dinner, we are having a fall festival at our church and the girls will probably eat a hot dog there.

Sunday:

Breakfast: Muffins and possibly smoothies

Lunch: Its my mom's birthday, so I'm not sure if we are all getting together or what the plans are. I will plan something after I know.

Dinner: Leftovers or possibly homemade pizza

Chicken and Mango Tango (from Superfoods Cookbook)

1 large ripe mango, peeled and stone removed

2 celery stalks, roughly chopped

juice of 2 limes

4 spring onions, trimmed and chopped (I will use some of the onion I have left)

2/3 cup EV olive oil

1 large bunch of cilantro, washed and roughly chopped (I doubt I will use that much)

1 medium sized cooked chicken or leftovers from a "roast" --- I will be using chicken breasts

Large lettuce

1/2 cucumber peeled, halved, seeded and diced

Put mango, celery, lime juice, and onions into food processor or blender. Blend on moderate speed. Add olive oil gradually. Add half the cilantro to the dressing without whizzing any further.

Remove all the white meat from teh chicken and take off any skin and extra fat (hence why I'm using the chicken breasts that I already have) Arrange lettuce leaves on plate. Sprinkle with cucumber. Pile the chicken on top and pour on the dressing. Garnish with rest of cilantro. (This looks so yummy, I'll let you know how it turns out)

Tilapia Patties

(I have Tilapia in the freezer, its our favorite fish, but it just hasn't been sounding good to me lately, so I'm going to make it nice and fattening by turning it into a "fish cake" instead. :)

Cooked Tilapia (probably around 2 cups)

2 cups mashed potatoes

A small squeeze of lemon juice

Salt and pepper to taste

Herbs that you want to add, probably parsley and paprika

Eggs and breadcrumbs if you want them breaded, if not just shape them into patties let them cool and saute up in a little bit of extra virgin coconut oil

If you do want them breaded, dip into eggs and then breadcrumbs and either bake at 450 until lightly browned (probably 15 minutes) or you can fry them up in the extra virgin coconut oil.

Hope everyone has a good week!! For more go to Organizing Junkie.

My non-vegetarian

2008-10-13T11:09:00.002-04:00

I'm going to be late posting my menu plan for the week. Since we were gone this weekend and didn't get back until last night, I feel like I'm starting the week a little disorganized, but hopefully I'll get it posted later. For now, I thought I would leave you with the funny story, I've shared with some of you already. Of course, its about my Isabella -- I'm sure you're not surprised. Isabella LOVES animals, actually she loves any living thing -- while I was gone she found 2 worms and informed us later that she kissed them (I know, gross!) She loves animals, most bugs, other than the ones that mommy screams at and squishes, I think she's figured they must be bad, loves birds, loves fish.... She actually is alot like me in this area. I've wondered if she would end up becoming a vegetarian once she truly realized chicken is chicken and fish is fish. She's never really asked, although when she found out salmon was fish, she was worried we might eat her fish Rexy-Keeko. No, I will not be baking a Beta fish. :) Anyway, the other day, we were standing in line at the store and the notion of her love for animals causing her to be vegetarian was squelched when she asked me:

"Mommy, if we cook up a chipmunk, can we eat it?"

I was shocked, grossed out, a little mortified that she asked and just responded with "WHAT?!?! NO! That's gross!" I kind of wish I could have responded in a more redneck kind of way to shock the people around me like (in an extreme southern accent) "Well, if that's all your Daddy brings home, we'll be eating chipmunk stew for dinner." or "Why, did you see one on the side of the road and forget to tell mommy?" Where does the child come up with this craziness?

NO, Chipmunk will not be on my menu plan this week.

Blogger hates me

2008-10-09T11:48:00.003-04:00

Really, I think it has something against me. I went on my blog this morning and tried to click on the link for the Red Lentil Butternut Squash soup recipe. I was taking Isabella to gymnastics and we pass the grocery store so I knew that I needed coconut milk, but wanted to make sure I hadn't forgotten anything else (since this is my first time making this.) Anyway, I noticed my link wasn't there, honestly, I had put it on there but it wasn't showing up. I tried to correct the problem and the same thing as last time, half my post was in minute size. Also, last night I was trying to add the butterfly picture and it kept coming in sideways, no matter what I did, I even tried rotating it thinking maybe the digital file was registering the other way or something, nope, just blogger hating me. :) I finally shrunk it and cropped it and it worked.

All that to say, sorry. If anyone happened to come by and read my menu and wanted the recipe for the soup, here it is: http://wholesomegoodness.net/2008/02/08/creamy-red-lentil-and-squash-soup/

And the Chicken Taquitos: http://www.wholefoodsmarket.com/recipes/recipe.php?recipeId=2077 although I think the only thing I follow on this is using chicken and corn tortillas, I change most everything else for taste and I just add water to the pan I've cooked the chicken in to do the tortillas, I'm not wasting money using chicken broth just to make the shells soft enough to roll. Still you get the idea. Sorry my links aren't working. This is probably why people pay for their own website or pay for a different "host", oh well, I'm cheap I like that blogger is free. Even if it hates me every now and again.

And even newer pet

2008-10-08T22:31:00.003-04:00

Today, Isabella got what she has been waiting patiently for, a brand new butterfly. And here it is:

What once was her caterpillar, then her chrysalis, today became her butterfly. She's so excited. And isn't it a pretty one?! My niece Olivia was at our house for the day and we were all making lunch together and Isabella said "Ooooh gross", I turned around and here was this wrinkled up tiny black think wiggling around in her bug house. She thought it was a different bug in there. It was kind of weird looking and small looking and wiggling around. To be quite honest, it looked so weird that I thought "Oh great, we've done something wrong and this thing is dying on us." So we grabbed out her little butterfly home and put him in there and then he did his thing to stretch, grow and harden those wings. What a great "project", it was a great science lesson and a perfect time to talk about God's creation as well as talking to her about the new life we can have in Christ. Just amazing!

We'll keep him (oh sorry, Isabella says its a "her", anything pretty has to be a girl) for a few days and then let it go. I didn't realize this, but butterflies only live 2-4 weeks. I haven't mentioned this to Isabella, nor will I.

A little funny story to go along with this. I was on the phone with my friend Becky today and Isabella was wanting to tell her about the butterfly this is what she said "Auntie Becky, Auntie Becky! My butterfly likes me! I think he likes me because I gave him weed." Becky and I both couldn't stop laughing. Finally Isabella asked mommy what it was called... "Oh, I think he likes me because I gave him parsley." Oh, she keeps me laughing.

Its all about presentation...

2008-10-07T22:27:00.002-04:00

...even if it is just for yourself.

Doesn't this look yummy! This was my lunch for today. I like salads, but I normally like mine with some Feta or Blue cheese, and a good blue cheese dressing, balsamic vinaigrette, or my favorite, Brianna's brand Blush Wine Vinaigrette (whose first ingredient listed is sugar, of course its good.) This salad I was supposed to only use a little lemon juice for the dressing. As I started to make up this salad, it started looking better and better. Mixed greens, tomatoes, cucumbers, avocado, a little bit of fresh ground spices and a little bit of lemon juice. I think presentation makes healthy taste even better! And it was so pretty that I had to take a picture of it.

Sorry about the confusion on the last post

2008-10-06T13:05:00.002-04:00

Sorry that my text formatting changed mid stream, I did notice it. For some reason, blogger let me make the first 3 days in a larger font, but when I tried it with the last 4, it would cause the whole bottom half of my post be so small you couldn't even read it with a magnifying glass. Very weird. Blogger has a mind of its own sometimes -- I couldn't edit my post to include this without that happening. Hope you have a good week!!!

Menu Plan Monday

2008-10-06T11:43:00.005-04:00

This weeks menu will be different because I will be gone from Friday afternoon until Sunday evening. My mom and I are heading to West Virginia for a ladies conference which will be on Friday night and Saturday. This is the conference that we've gone to for the last few years at my cousins' church. The men of the church will be cooking and serving us, so it will be a nice break for me for a couple days. :) Then we will be heading over to my uncle's and aunt's. My dad, husband and girls will meet us for "Friends and Family Day" at my uncle's church. I'm looking forward to the weekend, I will get to see family on both sides that I haven't seen for a while, plus a little break at the conference so I'm excited. The other reason it will be different is that for the next 3 days I am doing a energy detox diet from the Complete Superfoods Cookbook, so I'll be eating differently (other than Tuesday night) than my family. In reality, I eat some meals different than my girls anyway, I just don't always list them. Unlike them, I don't want AB & J sandwiches constantly. :)

Monday

Breakfast: Girls: Cereal (as well as "sharing" mommy's food)

Me: Orange, 1/2 grapefruit (ended up using the whole thing since the girls wanted some), and plain yogurt with 1/2 tsp of chopped nuts on top

Lunch: Girls: Leftover Chili (unless they decide they have to have eggs like mommy)
Me: Scrambled eggs with mushrooms on a bed of mixed salad leaves, dried fruit compote

Dinner: Girls & Daddy: Girls will make pizza (they didn't get to do this Friday because we enjoyed a picnic at the zoo with out of town friends instead)
Me: Red pepper stuffed with brown rice, raisins, onion, parsley, mint and pine nuts and cooked. One piece of homemade whole grain bread

Tuesday

Breakfast: Girls: Eggs, toast & apple slices
Me: Leftover dried fruit compote, plain yogurt, orange

Lunch: Girls: Cornflake chicken nuggets (same recipe as the one 2 weeks ago)
Me: Half avocado sliced with tomatoes, cucumber on mixed leaved with lemon juice. 1 piece of whole grain bread

Dinner: Mustard Marinated Salmon Steaks, spinach puree and some tropical fruits for dessert

Wednesday
Breakfast: Girls: Hot Cereal (make extra for griddle cakes tomorrow)
Me: (supposedly a vegetarian day) Slice of whole grain bread and banana

Lunch: Girls: Going to see if they will eat the following recipe with me, Isabella's not crazy about rice though, so it might be AB & J for her :)
Me: Risotto Con Salsa Cruda (from the above mentioned book)
Recipe: Cook 1/2 cup long grain brown rice and a pinch of salt. Combine 2 chopped tomatoes, 1/2 peeled and diced cucumber, 1 garlic clove finely chopped, 2 spring onions (I don't have these, so I'll just put a little bit of chopped onion instead), 2 finely chopped carrots, 1 finely chopped zucchini, 1/2 Tbsp peas -- add in 1/4 cup olive oil and season lightly with sea salt, pepper, and allow to marinate for 30 minutes. Stir this mixture into the warm cooked rice, season to taste and sprinkle with chopped parsley and chives ( I don't have chives)

Dinner: Kenny & Girls: Chicken and couscous and probably some of mommy's
Me: Eggplant Caviar (from the above mentioned book)
Recipe: Bake 2 eggplants until soft, cut it open and scrape the flesh into a bowl. Add juice of 1 lemon and beat in 3 Tbsp olive oil drop by drop (I'm going to use part organic unrefined coconut oil), to form a smooth cream. Stir in 2 Tbsp yogurt and 1 crushed garlic clove. Season with salt, pepper and 1/2 tsp crushed coriander seeds. Combine well, cover and chill for an hour. Serve with strips of carrot, celery, cucumber, cauliflower and fennel (I don't have fennel) **I'm cutting this recipe in half because I don't think my family will love it so no need to waste.

Thursday
Breakfast: Girls: Griddle Cakes and fruit (This has become a much requested item from them)
Me: Smoothie with berries, banana, coconut flour, gr. flax seed, juice/water, kefir

Lunch: Baked Chicken Taquitos in corn tortillas

Dinner: Red Lentil and Butternut Squash Soup
This recipe sounds so good to me. Butternut squash is one of my family's favorites and since I got in on sale this week, I'm excited. (This recipe came from Wholesome Goodness, which you can click the name and see it)

Friday
Breakfast: French Toast

Lunch: Lunch with daddy since I'll be leaving

Dinner: I'm going to put some turkey meatballs in the crock pot with spaghetti sauce and then Kenny can cook some pasta to go with them for dinner.

Saturday: I'll be gone, but my hubby will probably make the girls eggs or whole grain pancakes for the girls and should be able to have some healthy leftover alternatives to give the girls instead of taking them out.

Sunday: Gone

Hmmmm

2008-10-04T22:01:00.004-04:00

I just sent my hubby to Wal Mart to get Isabella some shoes and some toilet paper.... anyone want to guess what kind of shoes he may bring back? :) I've decided she cannot wear her Crocs to church Sunday morning, I've finally come to the realization that it truly is fall and she can no longer wear her sandals, but when I got out her other shoes there was no squishing her feet in them. I'm a little nervous..........

...... about the shoes, not the toilet paper, he'll do fine on that one.

Menu Plan Monday

2008-09-29T15:36:00.004-04:00

Little late on this today, but here is my Menu for the week.
Monday
*Breakfast: The girls had hot brown rice farina with raspberries, I had a smoothie with banana, strawberry, kale, kefir, coconut flour, a little bit of juice and soy milk for blending.
*Lunch: AB & J sandwiches (Amelias made with her "crazy" bread :) ), grapes, chips.I had the lone piece of homemade pizza with banana peppers leftover from having the teens over last night -- I don't know why the teens didn't want the banana peppers. :) I made 4 pieces of it, I ate one, Isabella ate one, someone else must have mistakenly grabbed one and we had one left.

*Dinner: Turkey and Rice Casserole -- made from yesterdays lunch leftovers. Kind of like THIS recipe, except modified for things I don't have or don't want. But turkey, rice and cheese, how bad can it be?

Tuesday
*Breakfast: Breakfast Casserole -- Made with potatoes (I will julienne these like hash browns), eggs, sausage, cheese. I'm not a pork person, but I thought the teens would like sausage on their pizza, I was wrong, no one wanted it, so I have cooked sausage to use up. (I will be making this ahead of time, setting my alarm to get up and throw it in, falling back asleep for 40 minutes and then getting up with my hubby. He gets up and leaves really early so we don't usually eat breakfast together -- neither of us are morning people Who knows, he might enjoy it so much that he starts getting up everyday for breakfast. :)
*Lunch: Mac & Cheese with peas
*Dinner: Mushroom ravioli (I froze these a couple weeks back - made with spelt flour and cremini mushroom/bread crumbs for the filling) with some kind of cream sauce and a salad.

Wednesday
*Breakfast: Griddle Cakes and fruit. (Girls loved these last week and we had leftover "hot cereal" from today)
*Lunch: One of the leftovers
*Dinner: Open faced turkey sandwiches (A favorite of Isabellas!) and veggies

Thursday
*Breakfast: Isabella has reg. gymnastics class at 9:15 -- probably the same quick breakfast as last week, Isabella normally asks for this: "Fire Ants on a Log" (Banana, with almond butter and dried cranberries)
*Lunch: AB & Js, grapes or applesauce
*Dinner: Meatless Lentil Chili. Kind of like THIS recipe, except I won't be using the meat and will add beans

Friday
*Breakfast: Egg in a Basket (or Egg in a Hole, like on THIS site) But too much butter, I won't be doing that. Made this a couple weeks ago and the girls really liked it - they normally just like scrambled, maybe it was just because Mommy had it and they didn't, but we'll see.
*Lunch: Let the girls make their own pizza. I have leftover homemade pizza dough in the freezer, so not much preparation with this. And they love doing that --- hmmm, don't think I posted those pictures, they'll be coming.
*Dinner: Probably bean/cheese quesadillas. Kenny's supposed to be home late because of parking lot duty at church again. If I don't drop another bottle of vinegar on the floor, have my child rip through my bread, or..... then I won't pray for the game to be cancelled this week. :)

Saturday
*Breakfast: Whatever my honey wants me to make this morning.
*Lunch: I'm thinking simple, probably grilled cheese sandwiches. For me, I want to try THIS recipe, or one similar to it that I found in Southern living, but don't know if the rest of the family will like it.
*Dinner: Possibly out with the teens, if not leftover chili

Sunday
*Breakfast: A repeat of last Sunday, whatever Daddy gets the girls to eat, Sunday mornings have been rushed. My hubby is so sweet to me and does pretty much everything except fot the girls hair for me on Sunday mornings.
*Lunch: I'm still thinking about this one. I wanted to say Lasagna, but then that's not easy to cook while we're at church. Anyone got any great healthy crock pot type of recipes? Roast, turkey breast, whole chicken have been the easiest thing so far because most of the meal is cooked when we get home from church.
*Dinner: Leftovers or something else quick.

*Snacks: Just made some melba toast today (seeing that I really didn't want Amelia to have to have funky sandwiches all week. Ha!) We still have a couple yogurt popsicles; fruit; cheese; etc. My girls actually aren't big on snacks. Every now and then they ask after their nap, so maybe 1 a day, if that. By the way, I did try those cookies I mentioned last week. They were yummy! I even messed them up because I didn't have the right ingredient. I mashed up the bananas and wet ingredients, and then realized what I thought were rolled oats were steel cut oats and I didn't have any rolled oats. So, I used them anyway. They were chewier that way, but I still liked them, Kenny liked them, Amelia liked them, but my finicky texture eater Isabella said "They're really good mommy, but I'm just going to put mine here and I'll eat it later." How sweet of her to pretend she liked them for mommy's sake, but I know if that child puts down a cookie she doesn't like it. I now have rolled oats so I can make them the right way and see how I like them.

And that's it. If you want to see anymore menus go to Organizing Junkie. It definitely helps me to write it down and to post it on here so I know I have to get it done. And this week I don't think I need to make a grocery trip, so that's nice as well. I only have 2 small items that I need and my hubby can grab them on the way home from work.

Well, somebody enjoyed my bread

2008-09-28T16:02:00.004-04:00

Shortly after I posted pictures of my day of bread baking. The above is what I found. The bread was still on the counter cooling (obviously it must have been cool enough) and it was helplessly attacked. Now before anyone is grossed out thinking we have mice (we don't), or really big cockroaches (I hope and pray not), or even that our cats have jumped on the counters and dug into my bread (they didn't, although the fat one has been known to grab onto a bag of bread while we are gone for a couple days, thinking surely we are not coming home and he is going to starve to death) --- No, this bread was ruined, I mean eaten, by a raccoon..... MY little Raccoon. Yeah, this one:

And just to keep it real, I will admit I couldn't post about this until today. Friday was one of those days, really one of those days, and I called my husband in tears over all the little frustrations like this one that had gone on that day. And to make it worse, he was supposed to do parking lot duty at our church for the HS football game, so I was expecting him to be home late. Well, praise the Lord for rain, very few fans came out to the game and my husband was able to come home and help me regain my sanity. And thankfully, I have this adorable picture to post of her, since I didn't take the time to take a picture of her standing in the corner. Isabella has informed me that she didn't want this part of the bread, so I guess for the next week, Amelia gets some crazy shaped sandwiches. But then again, she's my raccoon, and will eat anything!

Baking Day

2008-09-26T18:34:00.004-04:00

Today, on our journey of trying to be healthier and more frugile I have been baking our bread. I really enjoy doing this, and there is nothing like the smell of baking bread coming from the kitchen and then a slice of fresh hot bread when its done -- yum! I had planned on doing this earlier in the week, but I wasn't feeling so good, then Wednesday night I forgot to soak my grains so I ended up doing it today instead. Not a big problem, just had to replace grilled cheese sandwiches on my meal plan -- no great loss there. Anyway, here's a picture of my bread, thought it looked rather pretty this time, or maybe it was just that I made 4 loaves instead of 2 so it looks all pretty sitting together. Now if I can just find room for 3 loaves in the freezer.... And if you are looking at the above picture and wondering why that 1 loaf is considerably smaller looking than the others (although they are all different sizes since I have 3 different bread pans, all different sizes, go figure) this is the reason -- or I should say, SHE is the reason:

She wanted to bake her own little tiny loaf in a tiny little loaf pan I had. I figured since most of the bread goes for sandwiches for them, we could handle having one a little bit smaller. She was quite pleased and actually asked me to take a picture of her with her "little tiny bread". We each got 2 slices of that bread with a little bit of honey drizzled on it after it was done baking. And she was sure to save the rest of the "loaf" for Daddy. I love that she enjoys doing these things with mommy.

New Pet **** Added a new link

2008-09-24T12:55:00.006-04:00

Yesterday, we woke up to a Frigid 60 degrees (no that wasn't a misprint) - way too cold for Isabella to go outside, or so I was told. But she HAD to go outside to see her new pet so this is what she decided to wear:
Ignore the fact that the coat is a size 18-24 months, the gloves are mine, what matters is that she has shoes on to keep her feet warm. :) She is a true southern girl with her flip flops on. :) And this is her new pet:Her name is Dara. I'm not sure where Isabella got the name, spelled out it looks a little like Dora, maybe this was for her sister. But considering she named her fish Rexy-Keeko and has a stuffed penguin named Carlotta, there's really no telling. She's already agreed to name the baby boy that God is going to give us. Uh-oh. Saturday, we went for a bike ride at the park and stopped at Wal Mart on the way home. I was in the garden area looking at the herb plants and noticed these caterpillars on the parsley. The worker kindly told us we could have one (unconcerned that they were eating the plants) and Isabella was SO excited. She has spent so much time just sitting and watching this thing. Currently, she/he is starting to pupate. I'm thinking we will have a Chrysalis by morning. And since I am no insect expert, praise God for the internet. We've learned all kinds of things about this particular caterpillar and the butterfly she will turn into. What a fun science lesson. In case you were wondering, its a black swallowtail, she has bright orange "horns" that come out of her head when she is disturbed and emits some stinky odor (saw them, didn't smell it thankfully.) Isabella said that was a mean thing to do, so we got to talk about how it tries to protect itself.... she still says its mean. :) It stays a caterpillar for about 2 weeks, attaches itself to a tree (fake tree in this case) and spins its cocoon (didn't know that all caterpillars don't do this, some use leaves around them first and then spin the cocoon around that), then after around 2 weeks it becomes a pretty butterfly!! I'll post more pictures of it because I'm sure we will be taking them and making up some little scrapbook for Isabella.

Oh and just because she asked me to, here's a picture of Amelia with her best friend, Teddy. She obviously can withstand the freezing cold weather, much better.
**Here's a site at least for my friend Becky -- her kids will enjoy this. Once you get to the site under the title of the page, click on "Click here to see morphing of caterpillar to butterfly" http://www.pbase.com/rcm1840/lifecycleofblsw-- Yikes!!! Isabella might have nightmares about that if she sees it. :) Seems to have some other good information for the kids to see. I haven't looked at every page though, so I'm not endorsing it and I'm not responsible if your kids have nightmares about molting their skin or about enzymes that will digest their innards and turn them into soup (yeah, it says that.)

My recent Canning/Preserving

2008-09-23T13:47:00.005-04:00

Thought I would update with what else I have canned or frozen the past month. You already saw the applesauce, then Kenny went and got more apples off of my parents tree before they went bad and I peeled, sliced, and put them in freezer bags and in the freezer. These will be good for a couple apple pies, apple crisps, etc around the holidays.

Then my mom and I picked up some tomatoes at the Farmer's market, not an abundance probably 10-12 pounds. We bought 1 bag I would say about 5-7 pounds of canning tomatoes for $4 and then 5 pounds at $.75/pound. I wanted to just try these first to see how I did with tomatoes before we bought alot. I made spaghetti sauce. Thing I learned about tomatoes: In my opinion if you are canning spaghetti sauce or salsa, unless you grow your own tomatoes, it really is barely worth it. Not very frugile at least. I saved a little money per jar of organic spaghetti sauce, but all together, I got 6 jars of spaghetti sauce, the pint jars, not the quart jars. Yes, cheaper than the organic kind I would buy at Whole Foods or Earth Fare, but not ALOT cheaper, not for all the time you spend peeling (even with the hot then ice water way of peeling), cutting, seeding, cooking, then canning. Granted, I enjoyed doing these and I'm sure I will enjoy the sauce, but since I am trying to figure up the health AND financial benefits, it doesn't work out as well on the financial aspect.

Solution: I will be planting at least container tomato plants next year (we really have a horrible yard for a garden, hardly any sun at all in the back)

My mom and I blanched then froze some green beans that we also grabbed at the Farmers Market. I like just steamed green beans, my kids-not so much, but I thought these would also be good to have around for soups this fall/winter. Plus, they make a pretty picture. :) Green Beans were cheaper at the Farmers Market than at the store and definitely cheaper than buying frozen green beans to use in soups, so that was good.

Then I grabbed a half bushel of peaches, froze several bags, and we peeled up several and made some preserves and then I wanted just to try and do a few jars canned as well. I don't normally eat canned fruit that isn't in preserves or sauce, but I was curious about trying it. You know, see if and how I do it. :) I only did 4 quarts of the peaches and added very little honey to the sauce. The preserves are a little tart, because the kind of peaches I used and because I wanted to make them as low sugar as possible. I used some white grape juice and about 1/4 cup rapadura for the sweetener. We ate some tonight on toast with dinner and they are yummy! All of us really like them. These I did save money on. I love frozen peaches for smoothies and tend to buy bags of those. My girls like AB & J sandwiches and to buy something made with a natural sweetener is about $3 for a small jar. Very happy about these!

Altogether, I'm enjoying learning and doing this. Isabella likes hearing the jars "pop" and we are all enjoying or will be enjoying these throughout the fall and winter.

Menu for this week

2008-09-22T07:45:00.004-04:00

Ok, so a new (to me) thing I'm joining in on is Menu Plan Monday. I have started realizing how much I really need to write out my menu for the week. It definitely helps on the grocery shopping, going once rather than running every time I need an ingredient. Granted, I only live 5 minutes from the store, but gas is gas and even 15 minute trip to the store ends up being at least 45 with getting 2 little ones in and out of the car, convinced they really don't have a toy aisle in the grocery store, and that no they are NOT getting that candy. It also helps me with variety and trying new recipes. Its great if I already have things in the freezer, but there are only so many days that my family is going to want baked chicken, cous cous and veggies -- or my every creative changing it up -- lets do baked FISH,..... So here it goes, I am posting links to a couple recipes as well. The crunchy chicken nuggets my girls LOVE and they love to make them. I think the recipe says something about making sure if kids help to wash their hands after handling raw chicken -- yeah them handling raw chicken is not happening around here, the fingers will be in the mouth before I get to the sink. What I do is marinate in the yogurt like it says, crunch up and mix the dry ingredients, then fill 2 ziploc baggies with the dry mix put in a few pieces of the chicken and have them shake like crazy. Then I get the nuggets out and put them in the dish and we repeat that. They love it and shake the snot out of those bags. So here it goes:

Monday
Breakfast: When they get up, the girls get to pick today (guaranteed Amelia will say cereal bar, but we have none)
Lunch: AB & J sandwiches, grapes, cheese if they're still hungry
Dinner: Leftover Chicken & Parmesan Dumpling soup YUM! I used Kale instead of Chard and it was good. Couldn't find swiss chard and probably would have chosen Kale anyway. I would choose a whole grain flour instead of just a regular if you are wanting to be healthier - it works fine too. And I used chicken breasts instead of a whole chicken because that's what I got on sale. (Oh and less parsley unless you LOVE the flavor of parsley, I used half)

Tuesday
Breakfast: French Toast & Fruit Syrup. I have a recipe that uses yogurt instead of the milk and egg for dipping, might try that. I like using frozen fruit, put it on the stove, pour a little bit of syrup over it (LITTLE BIT) and heat it up, we use less syrup that way because the juice/water in the fruit gives it enough liquid base -- and GOOD maple syrup is pricey. If you use more sugary syrup this would also be good because you wouldn't be eating as much sugary syrup, I know my kids never need that extra "energy" burst.
Lunch: Grab something at Earth Fare because Isabella has extra gymnastics class today at 10:45, I can also do my grocery shopping and save an extra trip.
Dinner: Shepherds Pie made from Sundays leftovers

Wednesday
Breakfast: Griddle Cakes (Found this recipe on back of brown rice farina cereal, first try this week)
Lunch: Grilled Cheese Sandwiches (unless the girls convince me of AB & J again)
Dinner: Chicken Caesar wraps (Weds. have to be quick meals before Youth Group, anyone have any other great suggestions?? Really quick eating, hubby gets home at 6:15, leave at 6:45)

Thursday
Breakfast: Isabella has reg. gymnastics class at 9:15 -- quick breakfast (or snack) that my girls love: We call it "Fire Ants on a Log" (I think Isabella saw a variation of this with a pretzel stick and raisins, hence the log, but we do bananas and red ants instead) Take a banana, cut in half lengthwise, spread with almond butter and put some dried cranberries on it.
Lunch: Corn flake chicken nuggets (See my above note on how I have the girls help)
Dinner: Baked Tilapia, cous cous, veggies (oops an old faithful snuck in)

Friday
Breakfast: Brown Rice Farina Cereal (Hot cereal to Isabella) with fruit and flax
Lunch: Black Bean and Cheese Quesadillas
Dinner: ?? Need another quick suggestion, Daddy might not be home because we have parking lot duty for high school game -- never mind the explanation, just another busy night. :)

Saturday
Breakfast: A girly kind of breakfast, Daddy has breakfast with guys at church so we're going to make smoothies and muffins together and either have a little picnic or tea party (something to distract them from Daddy not being there on a Sat. morning)
Lunch: ??? Depends on what the day holds
Dinner: Probably cookout or do something easy like Baked Chicken Taquitos or Quesadillas

Sunday
Breakfast: Whatever Daddy gets the girls to eat, Sunday mornings have been rushed for mommy lately. :)
Lunch (Isn't this actually the dinner time on Sundays in the South): Whatever type of whole chicken, turkey breast, or roast that I can find on sale, brown rice, and veggies
Dinner: Youth Group coming over after church: Homemade pizza, either make a few big ones or have the teens make them.

A couple snack ideas for the week: If we don't use the rest of the homemade bread in the first couple days of the week, I will make it into Melba toast and it will be eaten before I get a bite. Also, a favorite treat of my girls is popsicles made with vanilla yogurt (or plain if thats what you have/like) and fruit (blended up fruit is a little better I think) We also will be trying THESE "cookies": I'll let you know if they're good.
And there it is, I've just realized how busy this week is going to be. Slightly sad, my hubby will not be here, Monday night for dinner, Friday night, and Saturday morning -- its not normally like that, it just seems like this week was the week everything was planned for him. If you want more menu plans and recipes visit here: Organizing Junkie.

(By the way click on the green words to be taken to the recipe links)

My Baby

2008-09-20T11:31:00.004-04:00

While we were at the beach, we celebrated Amelia's "Gotcha Day." It was actually the Friday before, but she's 2 so dates don't really matter to her and it is so much more fun to celebrate at the beach than at home, right? :) I can't believe that it has already been 2 years since Amelia's adoption was finalized. It seems like just yesterday. (Look back to September 2006 posts for pictures) It still amazes me that God chose us to be parents to this fiesty yet shy, dramatic yet easily embarassed, stubborn yet sweet, beautiful, precious little girl. She has balanced out our house with one mama's girl (that's her) and one Daddy's girl. She is the complete opposite of her sister, which just makes us enjoy and glory in the way He has created them. (Well except for the potty training thing, Isabella was easy, Amelia is not -- I can't enjoy that. :) ) We got her a little Dora play camera -- she is some kind of Dora fanatic (and we don't watch it very often either so I don't know where it came from.) She was pretty excited about her camera. Here she is taking a "picture" of mommy taking a picture of her. Funny, the picture of me ended up looking like Dora. :) Thank you God for this precious blessing, for your timing, for your ways, for the beautiful way you created her!!! I pray that you use us to train her in the way YOU want and that she grows up to love you more than anything!

Sand, Sun, Beach, RELAX....

2008-09-19T10:33:00.010-04:00

Last Friday we headed down to the beach. We had been trying to go for several weeks but due first to Fay and then to Hanna we had to reschedule. I was afraid it was going to be mid November and we would finally get down there and freeze our tails off camping. :) We had a great time. As soon as we got there, the girls were asking to go to the beach. The last few weeks we've been so busy and had alot on our minds, but as soon as I sat down on the beach and watched my girls play it was like I instantly relaxed. I have several pictures to share, alot of Amelia because that first afternoon she cracked me up, she was singing and dancing on the beach -- eyes closed deep emotional singing, doing some new yoga ballet, and just enjoying everything. Isabella played for a couple minutes and then came running up to us and said "Oh Thank you mommy and daddy, thank you for bringing us to the beach." That was worth it -- she did the same thing when we took her to Tweetsie Railroad a few weeks before. Thankfully, she is still seeing this all as fun and a treat. I'm posting the pictures small so I can post alot -- I just had to post several of the pictures of Amelia because its such a cute sequence of photos.

These last 2, you probably can't really see, but one her mouth is wide open singing and then the other is where she has her eyes closed -- oh I wish I could have videotaped all of this. :) Then Saturday we were able to spend most of the day with friends. Kelly and her 3 kids came up to see us. We had alot of fun. We went and painted t-shirts at the nature center, did the marsh walk, and then spent the evening on the beach. I told her that I think Kenny enjoys doing "boy" stuff with her sons -- those of you who know Kenny well are probably in shock that kids think of my husband as one of them instead of as the responsible, mature adult that he is. I know, shocking! :) Isabella and Amelia loved having Logan to play with. She helped Isabella fix her hair once and I thought, yeah, I need her, a little older girl around the house to help me. :) They pretended they were either princesses or mermaids the whole day. I enjoyed visiting with Kelly -- I should mention that my first year of marriage, I "taught" (I'm not sure you could actually call it that) English and Kelly was a student in my class and also one of the youth in our youth group. Yeah, I know, I feel old, she has kids older than mine. She now forgives me for all the horrible grammar and it has been nice connecting on a friend level. Here are some pictures of the kids together that day:

Even with the typical big brother bunny ears, I thought this was such a pretty picture of Logan. And since they are so small, you probably can't even see that.

We ended our summer with a great time!!

Bathroom humor -- sorry

2008-09-17T09:29:00.002-04:00

Isabella just hollered out to me from the bathroom, "MOMMY, I went bad poo poo." So I'm wondering, is there anything such as GOOD poo poo? :)

A good laugh

2008-09-10T13:24:00.004-04:00

I forgot to tell this story, but I was reminded of it again today and I realized I HAD to share it. When we were up at my inlaws in June, they had a youth group from another church doing their service on Sunday. They did a couple dramas and songs. One of the things they did was a poem called Rag Man, they did a great job and this was very moving. Along with this they sang an old song. I think it was like an old timey Sunday School song, "Oh the best thing in my life, I ever did do...... was to take off the old robe and put on the new." Well last month when Kenny was in Seattle, she asked me "What was that song we sang at Grandma and Grandpas?" Then she would sing the right tune, but would say "Jesus in my life" and that was it, no other words, just that first little part of the tune with the wrong words. When I couldn't come up with the song, I had NO idea what she was even talking about, she was SO frustrated. My mom was in the car with me and trying to help figure out what song this could be. Finally we just gave up. Later that night, it finally came to me, but I kind of confused Isabella because I sang it as "take off the old man and put on the new" then realized it was "old robe" and tried to switch the words on her. She was SOOO excited that we had figured it out and just had to call Noni and sing it for her. This is what she sang:

"Oh the best thing in my life, I ever did do,
Oh the best thing in my life, I ever did do,
Oh the best thing in my life I ever did do,
was to take off.... the clothes.... and give them to the old man." :)

It came up again today as she was wanting to sing it again, she did better today and said "to take off the old robe and put on the NEWS"

Oh, how I love all her silliness, it just makes my day!!

Isabella is just so smart....

2008-09-09T17:02:00.002-04:00

.... or so she has told us. In the last couple days she has informed us that she knows what sap is, what arepas are, and she learned this knowledge all on her own because she "is just smart." Tucker had sap on him and Kenny asked her if she knew what sap was, she did and explained it perfectly, he asked her who told her that and she said "No one, I'm just really smart." Today Amelia and I were reading a book that talked about cooking arepas in it (Isabella was on the floor coloring) and she said "I know what those are, they're pancakes, well kind of, but a little like biscuits." Ok, so that one floored me a little bit. And again who taught her this? "No one, I'm just smart." I really don't think she's thinking that she's lying, she just remembers this and assumes that she really is smart this way. :) I'm sure we've talked about sap to her and unless she remembers hearing about arepas in the womb, I'm assuming Dora. Not to worry, if you think my child is too prideful, she admits her shortcomings as well, she was telling someone the other day (after having to ask her name a second time) "sorry, I can't remember names good." :)

Apples!!

2008-09-04T12:56:00.005-04:00

(Look at the determined look Isabella has in the above photo)

This year my parents apple tree had lots of apples. Its never had any before, or if it did they were tiny little ones not worth doing anything with. The tree came with the house so we don't even know for sure what kind of apples they are. Monday we all went out and picked some apples. The girls had so much fun picking the apples, climbing the ladder, watching daddy climb really high to get some apples and watch as the high apples fell when daddy shook the branches. Isabella was in love with the tiny little apple she has in her hands, she thinks anything tiny is "so cute" -- wish you could hear the little voice she says that in. Then Tuesday night my mom came up and we made and canned some applesauce. We had fun, and I think we've decided we're going to can everything in sight. Ok, not really, but we do want to hit the farmers market and get some things before the season is gone. That night we used what I think we figured out to be about a half bushel and made up 11 pints of chunky applesauce (I don't like it really runny, so we didn't add much water to cook the apples in.) The first half has no sugar in it at all (other than obviously the natural sugar of the apples) and some cinammon and a dash of nutmeg. The second batch had around 1/8 cup rapadura sweetener and the same spices. Yum! My girls ate the stuff we didn't can yesterday and then wanted more, now that means I'm actually going to have to open and use these pretty jars. :)

Isabella started a question yesterday with, "So when the customers come....." Glad she has given Noni and I a vote of confidence. :)

So how do you......

2008-08-29T11:25:00.002-04:00

..... find time to blog almost every day? I really wish I could, I'll sit down and look at blogs and be amazed that people have found time to write more often. I can't seem to do that, or maybe its because I just don't know what all to write about other than showing pictures of my girls, and then that means I have to download them, shrink them, load them, etc. I currently have some pics I need to upload and post. This past weekend we went camping in the mountains -- we had planned on camping at the beach, but due to "Fay", we got rained out. We had a great time though, spent one day at Tweetsie Railroad, where we found out our girls, yes BOTH of them are going to be daredevils. They rode on all the rides and LOVED the crazy ones like the Scrambler and the Tilt-a-Whirl (even that one was going so fast it ended up making me sick.) We also did some hiking, visited Linville Caverns, and were able to stop and go to my aunt and uncle's church on the way home. Again, I have to get the pictures for you. But that will have to wait until later, just thought I would mention that we are doing great, looking forward to the long weekend with Daddy, and are enjoying the cooler weather as we head into fall. Right now though, I have to go finish making bread, make pasta to freeze, and make some other homemade goodness for my family to enjoy. That is yet another thing that has been keeping me busy, trying to find ways that I can be more frugile and healthier. I'm actually excited about Seriously getting back to this. I figure I am no Proverbs 31 woman -- the part about rising while it is night cuts me from that list right away :) -- but I want to be better in providing for my family and the privilege God has given me. I have found a couple great sites to gleam some wisdom from and next week I'm taking a class at Whole Foods on Canning and Preserving food, but if any of you have any wisdom or sites you'd like to share, please do so, I'd love to hear them. Hope everyone has a great Labor Day weekend!!!!

Still Chutters

2008-08-21T16:41:00.004-04:00

Isabella and I are chutters, she tells me this on a daily basis. Lately, she's been telling me this more and also talking about wanting to be a mommy like me. Which is both the sweetest thing and also the most convicting thing -- wondering what kind of example I am being for her. This particular morning, she wanted to eat our brown rice farina (otherwise known to her as "hot cereal") in the exact same bowls, she wanted the same spoons, the same glasses and the same number of blueberries. She said "I want to be just like you mommy, cause we're chutters." I had to take a picture to remind me that she is most definitely watching everything I do and just to remember such a sweet little breakfast time. As we sat down, she tried to be as grown up as she could be and said in a quiet big girl voice "So.... how are you doing mommy?" Just like she hears me talking to my friends. Its just so sweet and I really do hope she always considers me her chutter. :)

**for those of you who are confused with the whole chutter thing, see this post http://bellaandmilly.blogspot.com/2008/04/are-you-chutter.html#comments

(And yes, I will continue to ignore that chutters is not a real word, its real to us. :) )

Backwards Day

2008-08-20T16:31:00.004-04:00

Yesterday was a beautiful morning here. It almost felt like fall weather for a little bit. After breakfast the girls were begging to go outside -- even Amelia was saying "ba pa da do ou sie", which I could only interpret as backpack and outside, so I knew she meant she wanted to take her Dora toys and go play outside. Before we could go outside though I told the girls we needed to get dressed. Isabella went and put her clothes on, she's always so proud of herself when she picks her own outfit out and dresses herself. She can easily dress her self, but picking the outfit out is not as easy, or maybe its TOO easy, grab any bottom and any top and you're ready to go. :) Anyway, this particular outfit was just fine, so I went and grabbed Amelia's outfit and asked Isabella if she wanted to get Amelia dressed while I got dressed. She was thrilled, she loves being a little helper. She got Amelia dressed and brought her in to show me. I noticed right away that the shirt was on backwards, but I just decided to overlook it, this particular shirt has no extra tag, just written on the back, so no harm done to Amelia.

They put their shoes on and headed outside. I walked out a few minutes later and this is what I saw.....

Poor child, it was bad enough mommy let them go outside without fixing their hair, but her big sister put all her clothes on backwards and then she (Amelia) finished off the outfit with her shoes on the wrong feet. Thankfully we weren't going out anywhere other than our backyard and I was still able to praise Isabella for being such a big helper and she never knew the difference. And yes, I did let her continue to wear it like that until we came in for bathtime.

ADOPTED by her parents....

2008-08-13T22:56:00.004-04:00

I am up late tonight, watching the olympics yet again. Wondering why since I could actually DVR it and watch it without commercials tomorrow. I was watching the womens swimming and the announcers were doing their normal who's who in what lane, etc. and they said "So and so from the US in lane such and such, A-DOPTED (with that much emphasis) by her parents, you can see them there in the crowd......" I tapped on my almost asleep husband on the couch with me and said "Is that what they're going to do to our girls forever? When Isabella is in the Olympics :), are they going to say --- 'there are her parents, who ADOPTED her....." Ok, I might even give it to the announcer if they felt like they needed to say that about Amelia -- here she will be getting ready for her race - oh yeah, she'll be a runner in the Olympics someday -- and they scan to the crowd and here are 2 crazy white people jumping around, so MAYBE they would be excused to say something so someone doesn't think they've picked the wrong crazy parents, but still only MAYBE and only because we will be the crazy excited parents, with red white and blue painted on our face and t-shirts with her picture on it. :) And I surely don't mind promoting adoption, but that's all he said, like he should have gone to the next girl and said "And there's so and so in lane such and such, her mother who gave birth to her is there in the stands." Ya'll know me, I'm rather proud that my girls are adopted and I don't shy away from telling my girls stories, I just wonder when my kids can just be my kids, when I can just be their mama.

Enough said, I'll just give the guy the benefit of the doubt and think he's promoting adoption in a round a bout way by saying "Look, you too could adopt an olympic athlete." :)

All is back to normal.... and I'm older now. :(

2008-08-05T16:18:00.005-04:00

Thankfully, my huby got home safely early Saturday morning. He had a great time in Seattle, the girls and I survived while he was gone, but I am SOOO glad to have him home. We had a couple frustrating days here at home as our air conditioner went out and of course it was unbelievably hot last week. We spent the night at my parents one night, my dad was able to temporarily fix it, it worked for a day and then went out again.... vicious cycle. Needless to say, my girls and I didn't spend as much time at home doing crafts, we just would go somewhere... anywhere that was cool. Kenny called when their plane landed around 10:15 and I knew it would take a few hours for them to get home, plus some time for eating, but around 4:00 he still wasn't home so I started worrying. And on top of that, all week had been fine at home, but Friday night at 11, someone was beating at my door. I didn't go answer it, instead I called my parents and my dad rushed up. I think it was just kids trying to be funny, but it still scared me. Needless to say I didn't sleep that night until he was home. I called him and he said he was almost home, they had stopped at the only restaurant open late --- Waffle House (yuck). Anyway, what he really was doing was going to his office to pick up a birthday gift that he had ordered and then running by the grocery store so he could make me breakfast in the morning. He doesn't normally cook, but he made me stuffed french toast (with help from Isabella) and also decorated and had my presents wrapped when I got up. It was very sweet and it was actually very yummy, for any of Kenny's family reading this and wondering. :) I actually didn't even hear him get up and start making breakfast. I don't know about anyone else, but I just don't sleep as well without my husband there and until Friday night it wasn't from being frightened, although I guess it could have been from being pushed out of my very big bed by my 2 very small little girls. So once he was home, from 4:30 to 8:30, I slept like a log! The rest of the day was very nice and he made sure to make my birthday special. So he's safe, he's home, he's back to work. :( Now the world feels right again, except I'm now another year older and that just doesn't feel right at all.

2 Days Down

2008-07-27T21:42:00.002-04:00

And 5 to go. So far the girls have done good and we've kept ourselves busy to try and avoid missing Daddy too much. Today's little gift from Daddy was a Hermie CD of songs (Hermie is a character in books written by Max Lucado) and the girls both loved it. I loved it because it only cost us $2 and they were actually good songs. Of course, yesterday after Kenny had only been gone maybe 10 hours Amelia sneezed and then came up to me pointing at her nose. Nothing new, she hates to have even the tiniest bit of snot on her face, as well as dirt on her hands, water on her face..... so I grabbed a tissue thinking she just wanted me to wipe her nose, although I didn't see anything. As I wiped her nose, I felt something a little hard and thought she must have just sneezed out a booger -- then I realized it was too big to be that and saw that she had stuffed an eraser up her nose. Thankfully, I was able to have her blow and get it out. I could just imagine having to make my first trip to the emergency room when Kenny was gone. I know, it sounds like a silly thing, but I know some that have had to go to the hospital for that. Praise the Lord she sneezed, wasn't crying to suck it back in and all is well. She has never stuffed anything up her nose before.... I'm hoping this is not a new found fun thing to do.

I have obviously talked to my honey and they got their safely, no delays, were tired last night as the time change is different so going to bed at 10 out there would be 1 our time. They went to the church they are helping out this morning and said they had a great worship service -- said the kids are motivated to make our service more worshipful here at home. That would be an answer to prayer, these teens have talent, but aren't always wanting to use it just for embarassment sake, being in front of people, etc. so it would be great to see the Lord already working in them. They were having some training today, a "gathering" tonight, more training in the morning and then they are starting the sports camp. I'm excited to hear how God works this week!

Seattle

2008-07-26T09:48:00.004-04:00

.... that's where my hubby left for this morning. Actually, he's not even on the plane yet, but he and 2 other adults are taking 7 teenagers from church to Seattle on a mission trip. All the way across the country from me and the girls. :( I really hate it when he's away from me, which thankfully doesn't happen much. Please keep them in your prayers, pray for their safety and that they will all be empty vessels willing to be used for God.

And pray for me and the girls, it is going to be an interesting week. Amelia will be fine and hardly realize what is going on, she might ask a couple times where daddy is, but I don't think it will affect her as much. She's much more of a mama's girl so as long as I'm with her, she's ok. Isabella on the other hand, is going to have a harder time. She already kept telling Daddy she didn't want him to go -- kind of like it was her decision. :) I told her that I didn't "want" him to go either because I would miss him, but God wanted him to go so we just needed to pray for him. Yesterday we wrote a letter for Daddy for every day and stuck it in his suitcase. One of the letters she wrote said "I'm sorry I was being mean and said I didn't want you to go. I will let you go." :) I've already got plans to keep her busy and entertained. We have a craft to do every day, we made a little countdown calendar to check off every night, Daddy bought them a couple little presents -- one being the new Veggie Tales movie and the others being the coolest things at the dollar store :), and we've got a couple fun activities planned as well. Oh, and she gets to sleep with mommy at night, so she's pretty excited about that. Hopefully the week will go by fast for us. Maybe once he gets back things will slow down and I can start blogging more.

4th of July

2008-07-08T13:00:00.009-04:00

I hope everyone had a great 4th. We did! It was nice having a long weekend rather than having the 4th right in the middle of the week. Of course, we didn't think about this until the very last minute and my friend Andrea and I decided we wanted to go away and do something fun with our girls. We ended up taking them camping for a night. Randy's parents and friends were already camping up in Cherokee so we crashed their party and added a couple tents next to their camper. It took all of 2 seconds for the girls to notice the river next to the campground and want to go play. The water was freezing cold, Andrea and I opted out of joining in, but the 2 Daddy's along with Mr. Eddie (he's practicing up for what he gets to do with his new granddaughter) braved the cold water to help these girls tube down the river. They are already learning how to use their female charms. :)

Daddy even joined in on a ride with Isabella

Amelia liked playing in the water, but decided tubing wasn't for her. She's seems very happy with her decision. :)

Afterwards we went "gem mining" with the girls where they got to find all kinds of pretty "rocks". :) I got this cute picture after we were all done. One of hopefully many more memories these girls get to make together.

As always, Isabella made a few new friends while we were there. I have never seen another child that is like Isabella, she really never meets a stranger. And not just kids, anyone... and it gets a little scary for mommy. We're at the fireworks and she just goes and sits down with people we've never met. One time, I thought I could try to teach her about strangers (we've had so many talks though its just not even funny) because she had gone and started talking to this older man just a little over from us. We called her back and I whispered "You don't talk to strangers without mommy or daddy. Isabella, you don't know that man." And she says "Yes, I do" ---- "You do? Well, what's his name?" (Thinking she would say I don't know because as friendly as my child is she has her daddy's "gift" to forget a name as soon as it has come out of the persons mouth :) Without hesitating she said "Billy." My plan totally backfired, the one time my child remembers a name. :) I love that she is friendly, we go to a playground or a restaurant or a store and she automatically makes friends --- I can see how God can use this in the future, so its hard for me. I'm not the most outgoing person and I don't want to put my fears of talking to people onto her, but I'm not going to be able to let her out of my site until she's MUCH older and then maybe will grasp the idea of strangers.

Anyway, all that from just mentioning that she made these 2 new friends while we were there.

And from these 2 cute little pictures I told Kenny..... "We're SO in trouble."

Amelia liked playing with friends too, but she was much more content just to stay with us and be a little nut. Ms. Marie had bought the girls some little treats and one of them was a magnifying glass and as you can see Amelia thought it was lots of fun.

I love these pictures of Kenny and Amelia, she was doing her normal game of refusing to give us kisses or wiping them away after she does. So sweet seeing my hubby and my girls enjoying each other. We stayed at the campground that evening and they had a group singing and it was a Christian group (although during the "intermission" they had some old people sing and their music should have been considered ungodly. I'm not even sure if it was a joyful noise, or just a noise. The fireworks were really good, especially considering it was just the campground letting them off, I wasn't expecting much so I was pleasantly surprised. Isabella loved watching them, but wanted daddy's hands over her ears, Amelia fell asleep in the middle of the display after letting out a few "Ooohs" and "wows". Here are my 2 favorite pics from that night.

Soccer Mom

2008-07-02T13:39:00.007-04:00

Isabella had her first soccer game last night -- so I am now officially a Soccer Mom.

If nothing else, Isabella was definitely the most smiley, fun loving player out there. I know you can't really see in this picture, no ball in site, but Isabella is grinning. She cracked me up just running around smiling.

If you have never watched a 4-5 year olds' soccer game, you have to do it. This week, I took pictures, next week I HAVE to take some video. :) I don't know about all programs, but the YMCA is pretty laid back, you have 2 dads for coaches who are also acting as referees, the kids don't understand the rules, so even the out of bounds lines don't matter to them and they pretty much ignore the whistle. As this picture to the left shows. All the parents were having fun as the kids would kick the ball out of bounds, run behind the goal, run around the parents, etc.

Isabella did have a few moments of Daddy being the coach and referee that she would stop and want him to hold her or hug her, she was very upset once when the ball was going out and Daddy kicked it back in, just as she was going to go and kick it. And she did take the most breaks of all the kids, but it seemed much more interesting to be drinking water and playing on the sidelines. :)
A couple times she would take her break and then I would tell her she could go back in and she would do this little weaving run, like she was trying to do some kind of fancy footwork -- several of us parents got a kick out of that.

BUT, in the end, don't buy me a bumper sticker just yet..... at close to the end of the "game" the white team had a little break away, the ball was kicked to the lone player standing by the unmanned goal (they're always unmanned by the way) and where was this player......

looking for bugs, and didn't even budge when that ball flew right passed her. She even got up and showed the other coach, who seemed way to motivated to "win" (we don't keep score, folks -- although Kenny said we smoked them :) and she showed him whatever treasure it was she found, he seemed less than impressed. I said she might not be Daddy's little soccer star, but I was told by our one little "star" player's dad that his son was like that last year and would play until he was distracted by the bird flying by..... so there might be some hope yet. If not, she is going to love entomology. :)

I'm tired...

2008-06-30T15:56:00.002-04:00

Two weeks ago this Wednesday we headed up to Michigan -- cut the traveling in half since it was a 16 hour trip. We went up for my inlaws 50th wedding anniversary party. (More about that later) We were there until Monday afternoon, traveled a little Monday and then the rest of the way Tuesday (with some fun stops on that day), got home Wednesday morning at 2:30am, and then Kenny had to work on Wednesday and I had to do laundry and clean getting ready for company on Thursday. My cousin, her husband and daughter came to visit and were here until this morning. We had a good time, wish we could have stayed longer in Michigan, then wished our company could have stayed longer, but now..... I'm tired. I'll be posting some pictures later, but right now I'm going to go curl up in bed next to Isabella and take a little rest. :) Hope the last couple of weeks has been good for everyone!

Daddy

2008-06-17T12:47:00.006-04:00

Here's what I had the girls do for Daddy for Fathers Day:

I think have 2 great little future artists. :) Isabella picked out the colors of paint for them to use (which is funny since she mixed hers together to make the gray background) and I gave them some sequins, the little gems and the little sayings from my scrapbooking stuff, but they put it all together by themselves. Although, I think if I would have let Amelia continue, she would still be painting. She didn't want to stop. :)

After church Sunday morning, we grabbed something to eat and then headed out to the lake. It was the first time we had taken both girls out in the kayak. We had so much fun. We didn't get a great deal of actual kayaking in since Isabella kept asking to go swimming. So we went for a little while and then pulled into a little cove and had fun swimming, fishing (we forgot Isabella's fishing rod, but our little lucky charm "happened" to find one on the shore) and climbing the rocks. This is probably the only lake in the area that I actually enjoy swimming in (again, I like to see my feet :) It was a beautiful day and a great time together as a family. It was also special for me because Kenny and I used to go kayaking a good bit before the girls and this was one of our favorite places, we would love to just see all God's creation, enjoy our time together, and talk about different things. I know we had plenty of talks about "One day, if the Lord blesses us with kids, we can bring them here..." etc. So to be in the kayak with him and now our 2 precious girls, made it extra special for me. All the glory belongs to God!

I thought I would let the girls write letters to Daddy for Fathers Day. This is what Isabella dictated to me (I will admit, she might have said something about you taking her places and buying her things a couple more times :)

Dear Daddy, I love you! I love you really much, .... this big! And you are really sweet to me. Thank you for building me things and buying me stuff. Thank you for sharing things with me. Thank you for bringing us to the lake, and when you bring me to gymnastics. And Thank You Daddy for all your givings to me. And for taking me to lunch and to the sports and to the pet store. I like you to take me places in your truck. Thank you for playing with me really much. Thank you for all the work you do at your work. Thank you for letting me sleep with you all the time (LOL!! I think she is trying to weasle her way into sleeping with us Honey. :) Happy Fathers Day to you Daddy. And I want to sing a song to you now. "Happy Fathers Day, Happy Fathers Day, Happy Faaaaattttthers, Happy Faaaaaathers,..... Happy Fathers, Happy Fathers, Happy Faaaaathers Day, Happy Faaathers, Happppy Fathers Day to you Daddy...... (she's still singing....... now she's marching, now she's dancing and adding hand motions......) Happy Fathers, Happy Fathers, Happy Fathers, I love you, Happy Fathers, Happy Fathers DAYYYYYYYYY! " (This has gone from the Happy Birthday tune, to Oh My Darling, and it is still going although I've stopped typing. She has now slowed it down and is doing ballet to it. )

I love you! You're the best daddy in the whole world. Isabella

Wish I could have taped that one, she's so cute singing Happy "Fotters" Day,

(What just happened: "Amelia, do you want to tell Daddy anything...." "Nah, go poo poo" And she goes running through the room. Me: "What?!" And then I get to go looking around for her diaper and praying she already didn't have some in it, because thats her new thing to take her diaper off AFTER she's gone potty in it.... gotta figure out how I can catch this child BEFORE and get her to be potty trained.)

Dada, Wuv Dada (Love Dada) , Du, do, diddy, DADA, (?? Dada) UH, sissy, Da Da, Wha Tha? (UH, Sissy, Dada, What's That?) And off she goes to figure out what "That" is. I think what she was meaning to say was I love you Dada and you're the best daddy ever!!! :) Amelia

Isabella decided to add more: Daddy, I love you really much. Thank you for taking me to Mighty Moo. I know you get gas in the car. (??) I'll draw a cross for you (and she just did) I love you!

And I love you too honey, for all the things that were on your card and so many more. Watching you with our girls and the daddy you are to them, just makes me love you even more!

Oh, and she's still singing. :)

Father's Day Weekend

2008-06-16T22:53:00.010-04:00

I hope you all had a wonderful Father's Day weekend. We had a reall nice time both days. On Saturday, we got together with my parents and my brother's family and started the day off watching Tyler race in a Soap Box Derby.

We watched him a few times, but it was SOOO hot and when you start seeing your already brown little girls cheeks start turning red, you know its too hot for them to just sit in the sun. So, we were right next to a park, so Kenny and I took the other 4 kids down to ride on the train and then play at the park, while the others continued to watch Tyler. The kids loved the train -- although Amelia doesn't look like it, she was having fun and was squealing part of the way. She is now going through the lovely stage of putting her head down or looking away when mommy says "Look at the camera" (Stubborn little booger!) Isabella and Garrett are such good buddies (I have a cuter picture of them on the train, but must not have downloaded it) and loved riding together, Kenny got some Daddy time with Amelia, and Olivia and I got to bring up the rear with our extra cuteness--- ok her cuteness, my rear. :)

Then we had planned on cooking out at another park, but really it was just that hot, so we opted to go back to Mike and Meredith's and we ate there and the kids had fun playing. I love this picture of the girls in the back of Mike's Scout

And here are my sweet girls.... although the picture is blurry. :(

Afterwards we went to a small fair and rode a few rides and Kenny and I learned a couple things:

1. Isabella is going to be our daredevil when it comes to rides, she was asking to go on some that she wouldn't have been allowed to ride on and even the one she and I rode on, spun around pretty fast and she wanted to have us spin our heart seat (you can spin it like you would the teacup ride) as well.

2. The older we get, the easier our equilibrium or something gets messed up. Kenny has always had a problem with spinning around in circles (like on a merry go round), but he rode with Tyler on this one that took you up and you went upside down and he was a little green after he was done. I, have never had a problem with the spinny rides, love them! and while Isabella and I were spinning around, I was ok, but when she said she wanted to spin our "seat" as well, I got a little funky feeling. I just convinced her we were spinning. :) And then when we got off, I was dizzy for a little while. Really, we're not that old..... I thought this wasn't supposed to happen for YEARS. I wasn't green though, so I WILL try again. :)
Amelia on the other hand, screamed and would not even ride this ride with Olivia -- even with mommy holding onto her. Looks scary though doesn't it......... :)

And here's Papa with all the grands... Its late, so I'll post a couple pics from Sunday tomorrow. Just wanted to say we had a great day on Saturday celebrating Fathers Day with my dad. And I'm so thankful for the Godly father I have, as well as Papa for my girls. I know it is a blessing to have a dad who loves the Lord, whom we get to spend time with and who my girls just adore!

Do you remember.....

2008-06-13T11:26:00.004-04:00

..... what it was like before you had kids? More specifically, do you remember what it was like to kiss your husband before you had kids. The other night, Kenny went outside and I went and joined him on the porch to talk, without the girls. Within seconds, Isabella was at the patio doors with a pitiful look on her face, which then turned to falling on her knees pouting. Then Amelia joined her and was trying to open the door and then started pressing her face against the window. It was like they thought they were missing out on something great by not being right with us (which is also why I always have an audience while I'm using the bathroom) Then once we were inside, we were standing in the kitchen and I put my arms around Kenny's neck and kissed him and Amelia started pulling at my leg, then wedged herself in between us, saying "Nah, my mommy", then Kenny gets hit in the back with a little ball from Isabella. Just as I was about to say it, Kenny said "what was it like before we had kids...." :) Amelia is especially jealous of mommy, she doesn't want Kenny to hug or kiss me, and she doesn't want to share me with him. Isabella on the other hand, just wants to be a part of whatever is going on. When she was around Amelia's age, she would cry if we were hugging, but instead of seperating us, she would say "group hug."

We also took the girls on a little hike the other night and instead of lugging my big Nikon, we took Kenny's small digital camera with us. I don't know what it is about small little cameras that make me feel like I'm in high school and I have the need to turn the camera around and try to take pictures of myself, Kenny and I, etc, but I did that half of the evening. :) When we did want to take a picture of the girls after they climbed up a rock, these are what we got:

But, when I would revert to my 14 year old self and would try to take a picture of Kenny and I, this is what happened, all of a sudden she was ready to smile. :)

We actually tried to get Amelia in one of these pictures as well, but she wasn't interested, she was more interested in playing in the creek, oh yeah, and we sat her on daddy's lap instead of mommy's and that made her mad. Crazy kids.

New favorite pastime

2008-06-10T18:03:00.005-04:00

Don't look at the "artistic" qualities of these pictures, because there is none. These were taken from inside my house looking out the patio doors - if I open them, the birds then fly away.

Recently, this is mine and Isabella's newest favorite pastime -- bird watching. Well, at least in our backyard. We had one bird feeder back there, which we forgot about for the past couple years and this year Isabella wanted to see birds, so we decided to fill it as well as get another one. We hung them on a pole thinking the squirrels couldn't get to it, but those little boogers are horrible and would climb up the thin little pole and would eat the food (as well as part of the bird feeder) After a recommendation from my aunt, we then got another favorite past time which was watching the squirrels, jump, then slide down the vaselined pole. Oh, how I wish I could have gotten some video of that. We had lots of laughs at that. Anyway, we then went and got a finch feeder, which is not attractive, looks like a big white sock, but it said it would attract finches to our yard -- and amazingly it has, I had never seen a finch in our backyard before, but now we've seen several, such as the goldfinch and house finch in the pictures above. We also see lots of cardinals, wrens, bluejays, robins and today a black bird and a pigeon (whom Isabella named snow cone) The past couple days we've seen a little gray and black bird in the backyard so I decided to look up bird "websites" with Isabella so we could try to find out what kind of birds we might see. When I opened one website, Isabella saw a picture and let out a little gasp and said "Do you think we will have EAGLES come to our bird feeders? Papa LOVES eagles" :) I'm thinking we'll just stick to our finches. I think she agrees now, since I told her that Eagles don't like bird seed, they like to eat fish and little animals. She then gasped in horror and said "Do you think they will eat Tucker?" Tucker is our 100+ pound black labrador, so I think he's safe from the Eagles. We're now trying to convince Daddy we need a hummingbird feeder, we asked him last night and he said "How many birdfeeders do you crazy women need?" Surely he can't resist our charms for a $5 birdfeeder for long though. :) Anyway, thought you'd enjoy my silly little girl. We sure have fun creating new hobbies together.

Another dress up day

2008-06-09T21:38:00.004-04:00

Something about little girls and dressing up...... it happens quite regularly around here, the girls will have little princess dresses on, tiaras, or for Amelia its always a cute pair of shoes. For the last few days Isabella has been asking me to play dress up with her --- but not just ANY dress up, I had promised her last week that I would put some makeup on them sometime when they played dress up. And she remembers everything!! It was the first thing she asked me this morning after breakfast. So they got their little dresses on, little tiaras, which Amelia refused to keep on her head and off we went to Mommy's room for hair and makeup. :) I'm not sure how or why I happened to have some 80s looking light pinks, blues, greens, but it came in handy today with my girlies. And Isabella wanted lipstick today not lip gloss -- you know, the REAL stuff. So here they are in all their glory.....

This is normally what happens if I say "Ok, now get closer and hug your sister" it always turns into play time in front of the camera. I love it!

After Isabella was done playing dress up, she went into her room and got dressed for real. She was so proud of herself. She came into the kitchen and said "Look, and I did it all by myself and I did it all right" (We have had issues before of items of clothing being on backwards :) The only problem was....... this is what she had on........

...... cute as can be, but this is what it was like outside today....
Thankfully, we were able to change it up a little before she played outside. :)

Few beach pics

2008-06-06T12:09:00.004-04:00

Just a few pictures from our trip. We had such a good time (even with all the sicknesses going around.) I think all the sickness did make the kids a little more whiney than normal, but for the most part I think all the kids had a good time together. This year I think was a little more relaxed, we ate at "home" most of the time, which meant we could stay in our coverups most of the day and switch the kids from swimsuits, to tub, to PJs. The only negative to that was not getting the kiddos all cutesied up every night, but I think the more relaxed time and fellowship was worth it. Isabella loves pretty much all things at the beach, the sand, the water, the seashells, etc. Although, she is not exactly my little "fish" because she would prefer not to get her face wet. :) Amelia LOVED the sand, and after a couple days loved the water as well. She at first didn't want to get in the pool at all, screamed and pulled up her feet even if we tried to put her in, but then at the biggest pool, the kids could walk in, kind of like the ocean, minus the waves. So she felt like she was going at her own pace. The afternoon that I was sick, they had to run in after her because she decided maybe it would be fun to keep on walking. :) After that she wanted to go to the pool anytime she saw it and loved playing in the ocean.

Here's my sweet girls on the beach together, getting them to slow down and pose rather than ripping their cover ups off and running away is not easy. :)
I love this picture of Amelia and her cute little mischievious grin. Isn't she beautiful!!!!
The picture of Amelia above was when she was having so much fun running to the water, filling her bucket up and coming up and pouring the water on Noni's feet. She got the biggest kick out of doing this.

I don't know what they're laughing at..... maybe they're just showing their excitement for the BIG fish Garrett caught. (Inside joke)

And here's my beautiful little beach babe. She looks so grown up, I wish she'd slow down on growing up.

And what did Mommy do.......

...oh yeah, nothing like relaxing on the beach. :)

Still here having fun! :)

2008-05-29T09:17:00.002-04:00

Thanks so much for praying for us, Isabella's pink eye is gone -- without any medicine. Which is a praise!!! I called my dr and he wouldn't call in any antibiotic. I was so frustrated. My kids rarely get sick at all, so its not like I've asked him to do this before, but the receptionist said after talking to him "The dr said he would have to see her to know that its actually pink eye" I told her, "Its definitely pink eye, my nephew had it, my niece had it, ... oh yeah and I'm like every other mother who knows what pink eye looks like" (Ok, so I didn't say that last part) She said "he said your only other option is to go to Urgent Care." I was so irritated that I'm tempted to find a new dr. I mean seriously, its pink eye, its not like I'm asking for some crazy drug or anything. I know lots of drs don't like to do that but still frustrating. So I just really prayed about it. By the next morning Isabella's eye looked better and so far Amelia, Garrett as well as the adults have not caught it. I'm really praising Him for that because I know this can be so contagious!

I still have a sore throat, but thankfully during the day I feel pretty good. We had a fun day yesterday at Harbour Town. We had gone there to go to the "Salty Dog Cafe" and did some shopping, then we came back and went to the beach in the evening. Which is nice rather than being so hot in the middle of the day. We did get to end the day with another....accident? drama? bad luck? :) My brother and Tyler were standing in the surf fishing and Mike was probably waist deep, he caught a fish, came out of the water kind of limping. So Meredith went down there and came back up to get a towel, saying Mike had cut himself. He actually didn't cut himself though, he was stung by a stingray. He was Ok for about 15 minutes and then it really started hurting, Dad ran to get the truck because Mike started hurting so bad he couldn't walk the couple blocks home. BUT its great having internet while you're on vacation, they got back to the room looked up stingray stings and found out that he had to soak it in the hottest water he could stand for an hour and that would bring the venom out. We all were saying "Praise the Lord it wasn't Tyler." It could have been worse. Today Mike seems to be fine. As long as we lived on the beach growing up and as much as Mike lived in the water surfing, he had never been stung by a stingray. I'm sure he feels proud. :) This is just more reason why I am NOT an ocean girl, give me the sand, give me the sun, give me the sound of the waves and the seashells, but I'll just swim in the pool where I can see my toes. :) Hopefully I got some cute pics last night and I will upload them when we get home!!

Hello.....

2008-05-27T08:23:00.003-04:00

..... from the sunny beach!! I know I haven't written lately, I actually have had internet problems at home for the past couple weeks. Just a few weeks ago, my parents decided to do another family vacation at Hilton Head, so we all hurried to get things ready in short time. We will be here until Saturday. We're having lots of fun, but we are also passing sicknesses around. My mom was sick last week, then my sil got a sore throat the first day we were here, now I have the sore throat, my nephew, Tylerhad a very mild case of pink eye (or at least we're blaming it on him because his eye was pink on Friday, but it seemed to go away quickly), Sunday morning my niece, Olivia woke up with her eyes matted shut so she has pink eye and Meredith had to call to get some antibiotics, now Isabella has pink eye and I am going to have to call my doctor today for medicine, or atleast call and see if its necessary. I've been trying to do the other things I've read for pink eye, but I'm afraid that if I don't get the antibiotics Isabella's will just continue to spread to everyone else. Doesn't sound like a great start to vacation, but we still have been able to enjoy things, but if you happen to still be checking my blog out and come across this PLEASE pray that the other two kids, Amelia and Garrett don't get the yuckies and that we all can enjoy our time together. I'd post some pics, but my camera doesn't have a cord to download, I do it with my card and there's no slot on this computer for that. I think I can download some from my mom's camera so we'll see..... Hope you had a good Memorial Day!!

Things heard from Isabella today

2008-04-19T16:47:00.003-04:00

At the breakfast table: "Daddy, we don't need to pray for our cereal because its not hot."

*apparently we only pray before we eat to let our food cool off.

On the way to the art museum with Noni: "When I was a baby and I was only three I couldn't do that."

*4 is SOOO much bigger than 3

While daddy was putting new light/fan in the bathroom: "DADDY! You're in the ceiling! You're in the ceiling with Jesus!"

*I guess our attic is supposedly heaven or awfully close. :)

Lots on my mind

2008-04-18T10:12:00.004-04:00

We've had a pretty busy last few weeks like I mentioned before and in the midst of that I've also had lots of different things on my mind, thought I'd share a few:

Two weeks ago my cousin came into town and over the weekend we went to a ladies conference. It was so good!!! The speakers were amazing, the worship service was awesome, and the special music guests were Mark Schultz and Mandisa..... let me just say I don't watch American Idol, just not into reality TV, so I've only heard her singing on the radio, but I think that she might have been our favorite part of the weekend. And now my girls love listening to her too. :) The other thing that stood out to me the most at the conference was they had an organization there called World Help. This is what their website says:
World Help exists to fulfill the Great Commission and the Great Commandment through partnering, training, helping and serving, especially in the unreached areas of the world.

One of the things they do is raise money to help children that are victims of poverty, hunger, and disease (particularly AIDS). At the conference they had the "Children of the World" choir sing. They came out, singing some happy upbeat praise song and I sat there crying, I don't think I was supposed to be crying, but these precious children.... They are only here for 10 months touring, they will then go back to their home countries. All of them had suffered in some way. One little girl had lost both of her parents, one to AIDS, and was now living with her grandmother. Their goal is not adoption, although I would love to have taken some of those kids home. :) They said if they started that, then they wouldn't even be allowed to have the kids come over in the choir. They are hoping to raise support for these kids to educate them, to help prevent disease, and so they can be used in there country as they grow up. There were children from South Africa, Uganda, Phillipines, maybe others but those are the ones I remember them mentioning. The next morning they had another short little "concert" with them before the actual conference began. And the last song they sang they had us all sing with them and it was "How great is our God, sing with me, How great is our God, and all will see How Great is our God" and it was so moving. There was one boy in particular, he was probably 8-10 years old and as we are singing, he was in the back row of the group and He just lifted his hands up and was looking up in worship to God. And it wasn't like something he was told to do as part of the concert. It was just him praising His God. After that I just couldn't sing.... I told Kenny, here was a little boy at an age where kids here are going through the attitude stage, the "its all about me" stage, etc. and he has suffered and gone through more than we have and yet he really understands how great our God is. I can't even explain to you how convicting and moving this was. They then told us they had a free book for us if we wanted to stop by, so I got that and read it Sunday and Monday. :) Its called Children of Hope and I can't say it is a "good" book, but it definitely opened my eyes to the suffering in the world, to these poor children who have been victims of HIV/AIDS, poverty, war, etc. it was convicting and inspiring. Here's what the book looks like:

If you go to this link, I think they will send you a free copy of this book: http://www.worldhelp.net/defaultArticles.aspx?pageid=37084

Like I said, its not a "good" book, but I think if you read it with an open heart, you can't help but be changed. How convicting to read "only 3% of evangelical Christians said they would help an organization minister to an AIDS orphan...
Can these be the same people who profess to follow God, who according to Psalm 68:5 is a 'father to the fatherless, a defender of widows'? Are these the believers who model their lives after Jesus? .... 'For I was hungry and you gave me something to eat, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink, I was a stranger and you invited me in, I needed clothes and you clothed me, I was sick and you looked after me, I was in prison and you came to visit me.... whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers of mind, you did for me' (Matthew 25:35-36, 40)"

"We have been slow to respond, Why? Perhaps because we have forgotten that we serve a God whose Son's life was all about compassion. Jesus did not care how a person became ill, or why they were suffering. He didn't ask if they had done something wrong that caused their suffering. He simply reached out, touched them and healed them."

That's all I'm going to quote from their book, you should get it!

(As for the other things on my mind, well I'll talk about it later, I've written enough for today and I don't want to take away from this.)

Birthday pics

2008-04-11T15:03:00.010-04:00

Thought I'd post some pics of Amelia's birthday. We had my parents, brother and sil and kids over for a little cookout and then the kids decorated cupcakes. And yes, all the cupcake decorations are rather valentiney -- nothing like after holiday sales. :) I'm putting these in small, hope you can still see them, I just have alot to add. The first one of Amelia cracks me up, she is so much like her mama and so NOT like her sister. Everyone was singing to her and she wasn't sure that she liked being the center of attention (obviously, you all know that Isabella has No problem with this) I had to include a picture of her and her teddy because he might as well be part of the family.

Here's Isabella and Olivia decorating (pouring on the sprinkles)

Had to make this one a little bigger, here's all the kids together. Even my nephew Tyler, who is 11 joined in. Poor guy, he's surrounded by toddlers. You can't really tell in the picture, but the girls aprons all have cupcakes on them and the chefs hats actually look like cupcakes with a cherry on the top, my sil and I both happened to buy them at Target. You can see the birthday girl is enjoying herself. She could care less about the cupcake, she wanted more icing.

Then on her actual birthday, we drove a couple hours to a big zoo, the girls were all excited, the first animal we saw was an alligator, still excited, then we saw Snakes behind glass and this is what happened.

Amelia was terrified. You can't really tell in this picture, but she would SCREAM if we would even get close to the glass. We would try to get close to tell her they couldn't hurt us, they were in a cage, etc and she would hold onto us as tight as she could and scream "NAHHHHHHH" We actually even saw a fake snake and tried to show her it was fake and she did the same thing. And let me tell you, this girls got some pipes on her, everyone was looking at us. As horrible parents, we did find her scream amusing -- I know we're terrible --- no we didn't try to scare her or take her closer (well at least I didn't, can't totally vouch for Kenny :) , I really felt bad for her, but it was just the fact that she would be so happy and calm and let out this huge "NAAAAHHHHH!!" that kind of cracked us up. Just didn't expect it from such a little girl. :) Thankfully, she loved most of the zoo. She loved the little kidzone area where she could dig and play in the dirt. And both the girls loved the little playground, which I have to say is the cutest playground I've seen. I'm not going to post all the pictures, but they had a rope climbing wall, that actually looked like a spider web, the slide was a huge leaf, they had squash and other things to climb on, etc. It looked like a huge garden. They both really liked the sea lions, not sure why those didn't frighten Amelia, but she seemed to like them.
They both acted like they wanted to ride on the carousel, but once we got up there, Amelia started screaming again at the animals. Isabella was happy though - I think she mainly came to see the elephants and ride the carousel. Amelia did ride, sitting on mommy's lap on a bench. :)

And since the carousel had all kinds of zoo animals to ride, she being my, oh so girly girl, picked such a girly animal to ride, was it the cute otter, or the polar bear, oh no the giraffe........ yeah right......