Not so long ago...

Not so long ago I knew this was almost it. The moment I'd been waiting for since I was a little girl who loved swaddling her cabbage patch doll. It was within reach, my contractions had started and in my mind I could picture this amazing little person. My first born, my Elizabeth Joy. There was no way of preparing myself for the mass of emotions that comes along with seeing a new life that God, my husband and I had by some miracle created but it was the most amazing feeling I'd ever had.

Not too long ago I was waking Jamie up with a panicked "this is it."

Not too long ago I got my first glimpse of the rest of my life. As she lay there in my arms flashes of first steps, backpacks, proms and weddings were dancing through my imagination.

Not too long ago those first steps became a reality as I watched the world come alive for my little girl. As she toddled over with an expression of one who recently won an Olympic gold medal, full of spirit and excitement as she mastered this new life tool, I knew this would change everything. And it did. We've moved on to backpacks and no more diapers. She has manners and attitudes, preferances and a voice. A beautiful voice which often grates my last nerve but can melt me in a heartbeat with a whispered "I love you mommy." or "want to play with me mommy?"

Today my lizzy will be turning 3. I'm so proud of her. Not only for her accomplishments, which are growing in number every day, but for her heart. She is a passioniate little girl who loves life and is full of laughter and sweetness. Not so long ago she was 7 lbs 11oz and relied on me for everything. Now she is growing more independent by the day, both breaking my heart and giving me hope that someday she'll be an amazing woman.

For now however she's my sweet angel, the voice I look forward to in the mornings with my favorite words in the whole world. "I love you mommy."

Its that time again!

Back to school! Oh how I despise getting up at the butt crack of dawn to wake up my toddler who is 3 going on 13 with her little morning attitudes of "5 more minutes!" and "I don't wanna go to school." and all the drama that goes along with getting her up before she's ready. However, she needs to go to preschool, she learns SO much and she has a really fabulous teacher this year. First day back was a huge success, no tears when I left and she got a great report after school. Today they had a sub who was very sarcastic, and Liz doesn't do well with sarcasm so she got in trouble for pushing the subs hand away. When I asked her about it on the way home she said "well she pointed in my face mommy" which, I know Liz is the kid and should never push her teachers hand away but I'm not really cool with a teacher pointing in my kids face either so we had a light talk about it and hopefully her regular teacher will be back next week.

In the mean time, Lizzy started ballet and tap dance! She LOVES dancing. I worked with her all week on her positioning and pointing her toes, heel toe and all that fun dance stuff and last night her teacher said she came alive in class and did an excellant job. Yay! I love those reports!

Now for a Maddy update. We're fast approaching 6 months old and I still have to say I have never met such a pleasant baby. I know kids that are more advanced, ones that sleep longer and some that eat better but anyone who's ever met Madeline always comments on how happy, smiley and just generally pleasant she is. Its so great waking up to her smiles every day and watching her suck her bottom lip and grin at the same time. She's ticklish all over and completely adores her big sister, laughing and coo'ing whenever Lizzy looks at her. The girls are becoming fast friends sharing blankets while watching movies (yes Maddy watches movies with Liz) and talking to each other in the car. Lizzy's a huge help when it comes to entertaining the baby so I can make dinner or whatever.

Both the girls go in for their well check visits the first week of September. I can't wait to see how much they've grown!

I'll post some new pictures soon and update some more on our recent trip to Ohio. For now I need to go finish Lizzy's invites for her birthday party next Saturday!

Stranded.

I feel stranded! We finally sold my car on Saturday and here I am with a bazillion things to do and no way to get around! What I *need* to be doing is cleaning my house instead... Which I plan to do... Eventually. Lol in the mean time I thought I'd update a bit. This was a crazy busy weekend complete with allergies for the whole family.

We're looking for a new van tonight when Jay gets off work, so I'm going to start packing for our Ohio trip. I sure hope we can go, we already decided on what we're willing to spend on what kind of van so I hope its out there! The market stinks down here for vehicle sales so I'm hoping to play that to our advantage and get a good deal on something.

Anyway! Not too much going on aside from that, we bought lizzys new car seat last week which goes up to 65 lbs with the 5 point safety harness. That makes me feel better about her safety. If the van we buy doesn't have a built in DVD player I'm going to invest in one of those dual screen ones so I can face one towards Maddy too as she is all about the movies right now. So cute! Lizzy and Maddy are sitting here watching Chronicles of Narnia as I type and both of them are glued to the TV.

Speaking of Maddy, she is a little fatty these days! She eats about a 1/4th cup of cereal every night and I swear it goes straight to her chubby little legs! My used to be tiny peanut is now a little marshmellow! I need to upload some pictures of her soon.

I've been searching for clothes for the girls on craigslist as all of lizzys old nine month items are summertime so I have no winter clothes for maddy, and lizzys legs are so long that she's in 4T jeans now. I found a gal last week selling 6 pairs of pants and 11 shirts for $20. They were all gymboree, childrens place and old navy so I was super excited about that find! I picked up another box of 3's and 4's fall/winter items for $15, there were several play outfits and preschool items in that lot. So Liz has a great head start on fall now. Thank goodness, the older she gets the more expensive her clothes get as well! I refuse to pay $20 for kids jeans, especially when she'll outgrow them in a couple months. Crazy!

I haven't had any luck with 9 - 12 month winter clothes for Maddy yet. But maybe I'll find some good deals while we're in Ohio.

This was a completely boring update but there you have it. I'll try to get some new pictures of the girls up soon! Maddy will be 5 months tomorrow!

VBS

Every church has one, every kid loves going and every adult realizes that to volunteer during VBS (vacation bible school) week means submitting yourself to cleaning glitter out of your hair for weeks to come. And alas, this is our week for VBS. I admit I was hesitant to volunteer this week. I took a backseat when the sign up sheet went around and kept telling the director "if you need me, I'll come. If you don't, I won't." My reasoning for being so flakey is that I have 2 small kids who were too young to participate (its 4 & up) and didn't want to put them in childcare for a week. I thought that sounded like a fairly good argument but by the end of day one I was recruited, and now I'm so glad that I was. We showed up on day 2 and were blown away. Seacoast rarely does things half way and this was no exception. I walked into our sanctuary filled with 100+ kids praising God and having the time of their lives. The theme is Power Lab and the kids have been learning about how God gives us the power to be thankful, brave, strong, live forever, etc. (Aha!) the lessons have been fun and creative (the kids got to walk on water! Done that lately?) and lizzys had a blast. Oh wait did I forget to mention that? Staff kid privledge, she got to participate after all. Yes Lizzy has made goo, walked on water, learned what mentos do to diet coke (6 foot volcano of exploding soda all over the leaders... Did I mention I'm a leader?) and somehow we've brought it all back to the lessons of God giving kids the power to be ___ (fill in the blank with a different power each day)

Tonight is the final day and I'm both looking forward to it and sad that I didn't play a bigger role this year as its been a fantastic week. Its obvious that for some of these kids this is the first time they've ever heard about Jesus and to be apart of sharing that discovery with these kids has been amazing. So VBS rocks. Which reminds me, I need to go wash my hair before tonight, I keep getting sparkles in my eyes.

Depth perception.

Most of what I post on here are blanket updates on my kids, which is what I intended this blog to be about. But there's so much more to our lives than milestones and growth charts so I plan on posting a bit more on what God is doing in our lives and some of the neat things we're up to.


One of the things I'm most excited about is the opportunity to begin mentoring one of the girls from our highschool youth group. The staff at Seacoast was presented with a challenge. 98% of all teens actively involved in church while in highschool go on to leave the church in college. But nearly 100% of teens who had a mentor while in highschool continued to be actively involved in church on through college and their adult lives. That is incredible, and touched me in a profound way. There are two girls I'm working with currently. One of them was "assigned" to me and the other is one of my nursery volunteers who isn't really involved in the youth group due to transportation issues. Both girls are awesome and I love talking with them. I'm only just getting to know them both well but am very excited about this opportunity. I wish I'd have had someone older when I first came to SC. In a way I did have an older friend take me under her wing but she passed away 5 years ago which proved to be the single most faith testing thing I'd ever gone through. However she made a lasting impression on my life and I can only pray that God works through me to these girls like He did through her to me.

Anyway, I'd like to see my blog take on a more personal level. Just a warning to any friends out there who read this.:)

God is doing some incredible things right now with our church, my marriage, and my kids lives.

little me?

So yesterday we're sitting in the nursery before church started and Lizzy picks up a toy cell phone and proceeds to ask the 5 adults in the room to "be quiet please, lizzys on the phone" at first we all laughed and thought it was cute but then she takes it a step further and says "daddy scoot over by mommy and smile! I take your picture!" she hold up the cell phone and proceeds to "take our picture" at this point we're rolling. Is there anything this kid doesn't pick up?

Which got me thinking. If my 2 year old is reflecting the things she sees in me then why doesn't she pick up a random book and tell us Bible stories? Or tell people she loves them, often? I know why... Because she doesn't see me do those things nearly enough. She sees mommy on the phone, taking pictures and that's all fine and dandy, but I want my girls to see more than that. So today I vow to be less phone happy and more example worthy to my kids.

Just my random thought for the day.

My little character.

Scene: Lizzy drying my arms off after we got out of the pool the other day.

Lizzy: mommy it won't come off!
Me: what won't come off baby?
Lizzy: dis!
Me: honey that is a freckle, those don't come off they're marks on mommys skin. Look you have one on your hand.
Lizzy: ohhhh (pause with thinking look on her face) speckles no come off mommy?
Me: (trying not to giggle) no baby speckles no come off.

Later that night when jay got home, very dirty and was about to climb in the shower.

Lizzy: Daddys speckles stink.
Me:*snort*


Scene: today while Lizzy was watching nanny mcphee she runs into Maddys room while I'm rocking the baby.

Lizzy: (yells angrily) You nebber listen!!
Me:excuse me?
Lizzy: (yells even louder) You nebber listen!!
Me:what are you talking about? I don't listen?
Lizzy: (perfectly calm now) dat boy just yelled at his daddy in dat movie.
Me: oh, was that a very nice thing to do? yell at mommy?
Lizzy: I jus kidding mommy sheesh. (rolls her eyes and walks away)

Scene:today at lunch.
Me:how old will you be on your birthday Lizzy?
Lizzy:(thinks for a minute) I be 23 mommy.
Me:*laughs* oh will you now? I don't think you'll be quite that old baby.
Lizzy: okay I be 21.
Me:*sigh* 2 going on 21 oh dear Lord save me.


What am I going to do with this child? She makes me laugh so hard.