Memories

This morning as I was trying to get Annie to stand still while I brushed her hair I decided to tell her a memory story. I have gotten pretty good at this distraction tactic. I start the story with "When mommy was a little girl like Annie..." and it has worked so far distracting her from many things especially just distracting her from her current whining topic. I said "I can remember when I was a little girl and my Daddy w0uld brush my hair with his special hair brush that was just for him" She spun around and said "thats cool mom". Ha!

Speaking of memories Kris and I took the kids to Indiana to visit the fam last week and I love it there so very, very much.

The crick running through my Grandpa's back yard, many a crawdad has been found in here

With Hope on the Gator

**Happiness**

The kids trying out Grandpas new pump

Hunting for mushrooms

Keepin it Real

As I sit here in the middle of my living room floor 11:00pm, amongst...hold on... let me count...37 different stacks of folded laundry I just realized I have organizational OCD and I require all types of clothes to have their own stack as they would appear in the persons drawer... I have issues.... I am reflecting on my day:

Up at 7:30, bored by 9, called a few people looking for someone to answer their phone so I could have accompaniment to the Zoo. Big sis called me back and I talked her (very easily) into schlepping all responsibility (like the laundry that was sitting in baskets around me) and frolic in the sun.
Throw some clothes on the kids, pack a snack, head to the Zoo for a few hours.

Return home around 3 toss the kids in bed for a nap, halfheartedly make a menu and print coupons while eating no less than 5 chocolate chocolate chunk cookies (Im sorry Kelly! the rest went to Grandma's I promise!), fall asleep while watching an entire DVD of Friends, wake up to extreme stomach pains from aforementioned chocolate consumption & infant crying , not sure if she ever took a nap or not, its been 3 hours so I get her up. Keep her from eating my pen and paper while I make a grocery list. Annie wakes up and wants a PB&J, thank goodness because thats all we got!
Throw PB & snot faced kids in car, go visit Grandma.
Head for grocery store at quarter till 8 (crazy lady!) Joe's mom called to see if Annie wanted to play with her cousin Carter (score!) drop her off on the way.
Wander around grocery with hungry fussy baby till 9 freekin 30! Pick Annie up from Grams, head home to put groceries away after throwing the overly sleepy kids in bed for the night. Realize I didn't get a receipt after checking out and I was FURIOUS because I have a million items I need to check and make sure I got the correct price for including 3 cases of snapple with a rebate for a FULL REFUND (horray for free snapple!!!) I called the manager and it turns out they can look up your transaction using your Kroger card, yay! But now I have to go back to the store sometime tomorrow, boo.

Now I sit here with the laundry running, the dishwasher running, the fridge and pantry full, and eating pretzels which round out a diet of cereal, granola bar, a few bites of annies ice cream at the zoo, 5 cookies & 10 almonds... oh and Snapple of course!

I don't know if I like this whole "husband going to school and working till midnight" thing.

Mommy Time

I know its been a long day when at 5:00 I look at my child's dirty face and think she needs a bath, then I am feeling so overwhelmed that I think I need to get my Bible out and do my bible study for the day and it takes me a few minutes to realize that it was just this morning, while the girls were playing in the bath, I had a very nice quiet time (laying on the bedroom floor right outside the bathroom door of course)! Its a good thing the Lord meets you where you are!

Also I find it ironic that my youngest child ALWAYS has little pieces of trash in her mouth! I find them when she is chewing on them, I find them when she is choking on them, I find them EVERY time I curiously look in her mouth to see if she has any new teeth! Its ridiculous! And my floor is swept 3 times a day!

The Squish

Baby Mia. Poor baby Mia. I have said it before and I will say it again now the little thing has just been along for the ride, the sidekick in The Annie Show. It makes me sad to think about it but its kinda true. The wonderful little dear is so ridiculously sweet and completely copesetic. She gets lugged around while we go to the park or the zoo and gets left in the stroller or bound to me in hopes that she will be happy enough to oblige our latest jaunt. She is a happy sidekick, a complimentary feature to our routine. But not much of life is about her. Annie and I even have a saying, when I need to feed Mia before we can go somewhere or do something and Mia is not interested in eating much at the time we say "To the bottom of the totem pole with you Mia!"... how mean is that? Its not completely true, should she ask for food I would have given it to her, but the truth is that she never asks for it. She never asks for much at all. She is happy to crawl around on the ground picking up anything and everything that her sister has left in her wake and chewing on it until she starts to gag and I come running to fish out whatever it might be.




Such has been life for us until the past two weeks. In the past few weeks she has decided to make herself known. All of the sudden it is like she has decided to have an opinion, not too often, and not over very important things. I think she has just decided to make her mark on the world and its so much fun! Its like she has a personality and it is a pretty funny one.

She has always been a more jovial child than Annie was. Annie was a good baby and a happy baby but Mia is always laughing, its very easy to get her to laugh and once she has started she starts bouncing up and down and flailing her arms.

In the past weeks she has hit some pretty serious milestones. For the record she will be 10 months tomorrow so right around the 9 1/2 month mark she:
-Got her first tooth (bottom right)
-Waved and attempted to say "bye bye"
-Climbed all the way up the stairs on her first attempt ever (which was scary because I couldn't find her, I didn't realize I should look upstairs in her room!)
-Got her first black eye from falling on the coffee table (while under her fathers supervision)
-Shared food off of my plate (yogurt, eggs, spaghetti, roast, carrots, mashed potatoes, oatmeal)
-Grabs my hands to do Pat-a-cake and claps them together then lifts them for "Ice 'em up" at the end.
-Raises her arms for "so big" as long as she is holding my fingers.
-Lays her head down on my chest when I say "Hug around the neck" so I can hug her! (love!)

She has started doing things that require discipline like touching the dvd player and turning up the volume on the sound system which is her favorite. Trying to turn away when I change her diaper and seriously tries to wiggle out of me putting clothes on her. These all result in a firm "no, no" and sometimes a little swat on the hand or thigh and she couldn't care less! She turns right back and does it over and over with no regard to what I am saying. She even has come up with a fake cheesy grin that you can just tell she is trying to charm you with and even has a fake pouty cry where she screws her face all up and pretends like she is going to cry and then looks at you to see if it makes you laugh and then throws in a cheesy grin just for good measure!

She is going to be a tough one I can tell, but man she is a wonderful little Squishy Baby Chakes!

Been Truckin'

Joe's sisters bought their boys new power wheel trucks and when you add trucks to the 4-wheeler that Gram already had the 3 cousins ride for hours!

Have you met my 2 year old? I had to post this picture because it is the sad reality of my life right now. When she makes faces like this that are usually accompanied by some nasty sort of exclamation like "mine" or "no" I like to act all surprised like its the first time she has ever acted like that :o)

Oh wait... there's the beautiful dear child I am used to! My little angel... don't you see her halo?

His Faithfulness is Awesome

God is Awesome. I could stop there and this post would probably be more concise & intelligible but not to worry, I have swirly thoughts in my head to back up that statement. :o)

God is faithful to us when we are faithful to Him.

God is faithful to us even when we are not faithful to Him.

Both of these statements make me sit in awe.

Growing up my whole life with Christian influences, and pesky sin nature aside, I find it fairly easy to make decisions based on a Godly example of some sort. Now with that said I have to admit to you that it took me about 10 minutes to form that sentence because as I was typing it, it sounded wrong, like I am lying. How can I be saying that it is easy for me to make the right decision? How can that be when I know I sin daily, hourly, minute...ly (ha!)?
What I mean is this, I may choose to trust in God when something new or scary happens... but as I am saying I trust, I try to control the situation... just a little of course :o)
I may choose to submit to my husbands authority, but I might be thinking in my mind that I could have done it better. Not always of course :o)
I may choose not to spend money on something frivolous, but I might be complaining in my mind or still wishing I would win the lottery, which I hear is difficult when you don't buy a ticket :o)

However I have been learning that it matters that we make the right decision, even when our heart isn't in it. God still honors a correct decision because we are by nature sinners and our flesh will never be perfect. However by making the decision to follow after God and conform ourselves to live as Christ lived our hearts will be changed! He has promised, and He is faithful!

So as I go about my life and I am making all these decisions because they are the "right" thing to do I find that He blesses me. Even when I am not daily reading His word and conversing with Him through prayer He blesses me. He is faithful that way. And whereas I see the blessings, I am not always laid flat because of them. But then slowly He shows me in some way " my child... hey... sinner... heir to my throne... problem child... saint... do you see what I am doing here... do you see that I am faithful?" And suddenly I am in awe of His Grace.

And then there are times in life when things are a little more difficult. Decisions are bigger, choices seem costlier, problems are scarier. And I take the conscious steps to seek Him and His will. And I am shown His faithfulness throughout the process. And I am aware of His faithfulness each step of the way. And I am in awe.

You see God is Awesome that way.

Did you know?

We're Just Over Here "Smackin' Green Beans"

Life has just been humming along over here in our part of the world. We enjoyed a few days of mother natures spring "psych!" And since then we have been back to heaters and sweaters and one particularly snow covered sunday morning Annie came downstairs and exclaimed "its Christmas!"
I am still loving the produce co-op. I have been trying new things and branching out away from the typical fruits and veggies that I normally buy. I bought Brussels Sprouts which I tried sliced up in a salad as suggested by Joy the Baker. If you don't know her you should mosey on over and introduce yourself, she's amazing!
I also accidentally bought mixed greens as in collard greens, kale, etc... not sure how I feel about that one, I am not so sure I will like them because I don't like cooked spinach, but I am willing to try a bit... then I will drop the rest off on some lucky persons doorstep :o) I also recently found that I like Asparagus so I bought a bunch of them today and I can't wait to roast them up!
We have been making a lot of green beans too and Annie likes to help. I snip the ends off and hand them to her and she "smacks them" in half for me :o)

We also find ourselves building a lot of big towers every day, especially Dada. Mama gets the request to build a Giraffe and a Monkey. The giraffe I can handle because there is a picture of one on the box, but with the monkey we have to use our imaginations!

Annie asked for Ice Cream one day and thanks to a recent episode of Cat in the Hat I knew just how to make her every dairy dream come true! We put a little heavy cream along with some sugar and vanilla into a sandwich baggie. Then we put that into a large freezer bag full of ice and salt and we I shook it for about 3 min. I hear its supposed to take almost 10 min but we only made about 1/4 cup so that's probably why it was done so quick.

It was good to the last drop!

And as you can tell from the hair styles above she was overdue for a spring haircut!

Thats much better!