Sand, Sun, Beach, RELAX....

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

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

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....

.... 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!!

(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......

..... 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

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

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....

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. :(

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

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

.... 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

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

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. :)