Makers, Bathers, Besties, Growers - Our Story

Makers...

Bathers (Rose's first time with a party watie. She loved it!) ....

Besties...

Growers (We have actual vegetables, people!)...

Our Story - 4.29.11

It is not often that the most exciting event of my week happens less than an hour into Monday morning but that is just the way it went this week. At 12:53 AM this Monday I had the honor and privilege of seeing this angelic little boy enter the world. Meet my newest little nephew:

I was smitten at first sight. I am pretty sure everyone else in the room felt the same. I know one little picture of this adorable child is not enough so you can find more here and then come back and hear about the rest of my week. Or don't. I assure you nothing else remotely that amazing happened. Let's see what did happen? Well...

Sissy continued to love Cattie with all her fiery little heart. Often a little too vigorously for Cattie's liking.
A castle or two was built then destroyed.

The yard was played in.

I arranged my iPhone apps.

We got new tires.

Sissy happened. She always does.

Ron enjoyed the Royal Wedding.

Our sweet baby Rose had her first real illness. Just a little bout with croup but still so sad for a Mommy.

Sweet tea was brewed. The least I can do for the man who does so much for me.

And the sand box was filled.

The week started out with a new life, the most wondrous everyday miracle of them all, and was filled with all the little sweet nothings that make life what it is. A precious, precious gift

Just Keeping It Real

I Love That Story.

Sissy loves telling stories. They all follow this exact formula:

Once upon a time there was beautiful (pronounced "byoo-ful") princess named {insert name here i.e. Ariel, Jasmine, Afton, Ponder, Jessie, Veggie Tales}. She was very beautiful but she was not mean or foolish. And you know what happened? I don't know! And that's the end.

I love that story. It never ever gets old.

Speaking of Veggies Tales Afton recently approached me about something I could tell she had been thinking about for a while. "Mommy, Larry and Bob kinda look like food. Is that crazy?"

I had to be honest and say "Yeah, it kinda is."

These girls make me laugh.

It's a lot of fun living in a castle full of byoo-ful princesses. And that's the end.

If you were just wondering where the best place to get boxes is... now I feel silly!

A friend of mine recently asked me for moving advice. I moved a lot when I was a kid. I have had three major moves since I was an adult. Adults are a lot less adaptable than kids so I actually think in a way moving is harder for an adult than for a child. I feel like I have learned a few good lessons about moving the hard way and decided to share what I told my friend about them here to maybe save someone else a little trouble:

I have one big piece of advice about moving that I had to learn the hard way about three times before I finally figured it out. It may seem weird but here it is.....decide you are going to love it before you go and realize that just because you love where you came from doesn't mean you can't love where you are going. What I mean is for two of my three big moves as a grown up (one to Virginia from Oklahoma and one from one town in Virginia to another where I didn't know anyone) I was so busy thinking about the place I had come from and how awesome it was that I wouldn't let myself see all the good things around me in my new place. It was kinda like I was afraid to love the new place because I already loved the old place so much. So I spent a lot of time focusing on how much I missed the old place and no time enjoying the new place. Then after a lot of time had passed I would wake up and realize that this new place isn't bad at all and actually has a lot of good about it. I always regretted spending so much time being sad and miserable at the beginning of new place that I would eventually end up loving . Anyway so when we moved here I decided ahead of time that I was going to love it from the beginning. It didn't mean I wouldn't miss Virginia and all the memories I had there. It did mean I wouldn't set my new town up for failure by constantly comparing it to where I had come from. I would find things I liked about it right away and start enjoying them. More importantly, I would start treating it and thinking of it like home not some strange new place. Those are hard things to do for someone who is sentimental like me, but I made a decision to do it and this has by far been the best move ever. I have realized through all my moves that you can truly love more than one place with all your heart and that makes opening my heart to a new place much easier because I don't feel like I have to turn my back on other places. Places that in their own way are still very much home to me. I don't know if that makes sense but I hope so! Also, I hope that is the kind of advice you were looking for. If you were just wondering where the best place to get boxes is... now I feel silly!

One other thing I had to learn the hard way. Making new friends as an adult is a lot more challenging than it was when we were young. Adults have their own routines and ways of doing things. They aren't really worried about making new friends. They don't have to meet all new people every year in classes like kids do. So my advice for when you move is don't wait to start making friends. Jump right in. Find a church and maybe hobby or something and start meeting people. Don't wait for them to ask you over or out for dinner. You do it. The quicker you jump in and make it happen the quicker you will have friends and the quicker you have friends the quicker you will feel really at home. I didn't do this in my last move and I found it hard the entire time to make friends. I learned though from watching a few military families come in and out of town that when you are the new person the responsibility for making friends lies with you. If you put forth the effort people will happily open their hearts to you. You just have to jump in and do it. If you are shy like me that is hard but totally worth it.

One awesome thing about moving when you are our age is that you you get to take your best friends with you. Having Ron and my girls with me means home is anywhere I am!

I Am Very Happy and I Know It.

1. We ate one of our Sunday pizzas for lunch because this week on Sunday we will be eating potluck at church. My new church has potlucks that are more delicious than most weddings. Last time there was pork tenderloin. Seriously. Yum. I should tell you all about my Sunday pizzas but alas time.....so bottom line about three or four years ago we started eating a frozen pizza for lunch every Sunday. On paper plates of course. It is a beloved tradition now. We get DiGiorno Pizzas from Sam's in a three pack for $12. Makes Sunday afternoons as peaceful and enjoyable as they were meant to be. Well, there I went and told you all about them.

2. Tonight for dinner we are having chili. Yum. I don't prefer meat in my chili so it is vegetarian. I threw the following into my crock pot:

1 large can tomato sauce
1 can diced tomatoes
1 can red beans
1 can black beans
1 can cream corn (experiment)
2 pack chili seasoning

It will sit there on low all day and the be served with red onion, shredded cheddar, and sour cream. Can't Wait!

(Ashley Holden, if you are reading this you should try it. It is so easy it can't be considered cooking. It is so yummy it can't be considered not cooking! If you do not own a crock pot please tell me now so I can have one Amazoned to you immediately!)

3. I love my new house, town, church, life. I am very happy and I know it.

That is all for now.

The Kind of Information I Can Use.

Found out some things I didn't know or hadn't thought of recently. One is if you leave your shower curtain open after you take a shower for long enough to let it dry less mold will grow in your shower and your bathroom will smell fresher. Now this is the kind of information I can use! Maybe everyone else already knew that but I didn't. Makes sense though. Just make sure to close it later or you will get mold on your shower liner.

Also, if you need help knowing how to make sweet tea and everyone you ask makes it seem like an unknowable mystery then just go to grits.com. It is pretty simple really.

Another one is if you need a warm compress a disposable diaper will work great. Just pour hot water into one and hold it on the spot that needs it. The water can even be infused with whatever kind of healing herbs you want! I put all of our outgrown newborn diapers in the medicine cabinet to use in times of need. Works great for mastitis or other nursing issues.

Cabbage on the affected area knocks out mastitis as good as an antibiotic. Email me if you want more details.

Like I said this is the kind of information I can use.

Happy Birthday Ponder Sissy!

1. She answers more quickly to Sissy than to Ponder.

2. She thinks for herself.

3. You can't make Sissy do anything Sissy doesn't want to do.

4. She loves to snuggle.

5. She prefers juice, but will drink water out of her "watoo boddool."

6. Her skin is probably the softest surface on the planet.

7. "I wuv you."

8. "I baseball."

9. "I go back to church. NO! I go back to school."

10. She has the most adorable version of "Take Me Out To The Ballgame." You will probably never hear it though because she won't give command performances. (See #3.)

11. Like her sister Afton she loves Sleeping Beauty. She likes to pretend she is "MannyWetter" the blue fairy. (Merryweather.)

12. She can sing every word to the Sleeping Beauty song "Once Upon A Dream" and has been able to sing it all since she was just over one year old. She could sing that entire song before she was even really talking.

13. She loves to play with Afton. Just follows her around and giggles her heart out.

14. From the first moment she laid eyes on baby Rose she was smitten. She calls her Rosie. She sounds so cute when she says it I think I am going to let it stick.

15. She is fearless.

15. She is very independent.

16. She is no good after nap until she has been snuggled for at least five minutes. "Hold you." And what a delicious five minutes they are.

17. She loves her small baby doll named "Tiny Sister."

18. She also loves her bigger baby doll named "Boy."

19. She knows and understands a lot more than she lets on. Every now and then I catch her being smarter than she wants me to think she is.

20. She removed the lighting and music piece from inside her Glow Worm and uses it as a "lantern". (See #19)

21. We call her our little engineer. (See #20)

22. We think she is going to be a lefty. (See #21)

23. We have yet to find a form of discipline that deters her from anything she has her heart set on doing. Thankfully, we still have prayer.

24. She is ridiculously cute in pig tails.

25. You'll probably never see her wearing them though because she won't leave them in. (See #3)

26. She loves silly games.

27. She loves listening to "my songs" in the car.

28. Holy Holy Holy is her favorite song.

29. She calls all balls basketballs and she loves them.

30. She can already drink out of a big girl cup and sits in a big girl chair at the table.

31. She is heartbroken at the indignity of having her food cut into bite size pieces. She cries and cries and moans "Like a big girl! Like a big girl!"

32. She has a lot of nicknames. Peanut, Sweet P, Putter Butter but "Ponder Sissy" is what Afton has been calling her since she was about five months old and that is by far her most widely used nickname. Sissy doesn't seem like a nickname at all anymore. That is just who she is.

33. "I Sissy!"

34. She loves princesses.

35. "Sissy, are you a princess?" "No! I orange."

36. You have to earn her smile, but when you do it is a smile that will melt your heart.

37. She loves her princess potty Daddy got her. "I did it! Gwate job!"

38. She can build a serious "cackle"with legos and blocks. (Castle.)

39. Her favorite toy to date is a small yellow strip of plastic named "Stripe."

40. She loves Wilson the dog next door.

41. She is not easily impressed.

42. She can sit and turn the pages of books for hours.

43. She is perfectly happy to play all by herself.

44. She likes taking things apart and putting them back together. (See #21.)

45. She likes things to be just so.

46. She calls all clothing "jammies".

47. She loves all shoes and can walk quite well in adult shoes. Even boots.

48. Her favorite book is "We're Going on a Bear Hunt" and she knows most of it by heart. She calls it "Tip Toe".

49. When Afton asks her when she will be done with a certain toy she always says very confidently "Five."

50. We can already tell that is going to be an athlete.

51. She will climb anything. (See # 15)

52. She can balance like nobody's business.

53. Still, I know it is just a matter of time until she falls down all of our stairs.

54. At the beginning of the summer she was terrified of water and swimming, now she can't get enough.

55. She is lost without Afton.

56. She loves riding on Daddy's shoulders.

57. She gets carsick just like Mommy.

58. She loves dressing up.

59. She turns purple when she eats or gets cold. Pretty crazy really.

60. She likes to ask Rose "You naughty? You nice? You a boy? You a girl?"

61. "I fight you!"

62. "And then....and then....and then."

63. "Thas rude!"

64. She has best lion roar I have ever heard!

65. She has an iron will.

66. She is not easily impressed.

67. "I no like it."

69. She likes to be with her people.

70. She has been finding a way to tip over her car seat since she was an infant.

71. She doesn't like help going to the potty.

72. She doesn't like help with pretty much anything.

73. "No, I help!"

74. She likes to help others though.

75. She loves to push the button on the coffee pot in the mornings.

76. She loves Woody (also called "Toy Movie) and Buzz Lightyear (also called "Buzz Light").

77. She is a watcher and a listener.

78. She loves buckling and unbuckling any kind of buckle.

79. She loves coloring on the walls. If she can't do it with crayons she will do it with painted blocks or something like that.

80. She likes Little Einsteins.

81. She loves animals.

83. She loves pointing at things and telling you what they are.

84. She doesn't really like snow, grass, or sand.

85. She loves balloons.

86. She is our pickiest eater. We used to have to put a little bit of orange juice in her milk to get her to drink it. Yuck!

87. She is a quick and quiet learner.

88. She claps her hands to tell you she wants something.

89. When we are eating at Chipotle she starts off using a fork but usually resorts to finishing her burrito bowl with her fingers.

90. She can make a pretty big mess when she is eating but it will all be on her hands and face and the table and floor. Her clothes seem to always make it out unscathed.

91. "It's not easy being Sissy." and "That's just Sissy being Sissy." have become common phrases around here to describe life with Sissy.

92. Lately when she sees Rose she points at her and says, "Mommy, what's that? That Rosie Posie."

93. "Right, Mommy?"

94. When we are in the car and I smile at her in the rear view mirror she melts into one of the cutest smiles I have ever seen. It never fails.

95. It may not be easy being Sissy, but she does a great job at it.

96. She has also done a great job at capturing all our hearts.

97. She makes each of our lives richer and more beautiful. So happy God chose to add her to our family.

98. She is one of the sweetest blessings He has ever given us.

99. Happy Birthday Ponder Sissy! Can't believe we have only known you for two years.

100. Looking forward to many more years of seeing you grow in grace and beauty and just spending everyday watching Sissy being Sissy.

Like A Glove.

I May Not Know Everything, But I Know Myself

1. Today for lunch my kinds had provolone and whole wheat tortillas.

2. Not sure about dinner again. My menu system is in a tailspin right now. I hope to regain control of it tomorrow after a nice trip to the grocery store.

3. I do know that tonight my new treadmill is arriving. Many who have been to my apartment have expressed concerns about where I am going to put it. No worries, friends! Ron and I are both very good at Tetris and we have a plan. I will post pictures when it is all set up. The fact of the matter is that exercising outdoors with three little ones is not very likely to happen. (At least not for me. I may not know everything, but I know myself.) A bigger concern than how I am going to fit the treadmill in here is how I am going to fit in here without one!

Be Here Now

In honor of St. Valentine's Day I wanted to post my favorite love song of all. I haven't heard another song that captures the unique beauty of the stage in life we and many of our friends and family are in right now. We can swing back and forth so much between the mundane repetitiveness of everyday and looking forward and working to the next big thing that it is easy to miss the splendor of love that is all around us. I love this song and how it makes me remember how much I love my life. Listen to the words and I think you will too. (You can get rid of the annoying Google ads in the video by making it full screen and then xing out of them.)

It's Nothing Fancy.

1. Today my kids had yogurt and whole wheat tortillas for lunch. They had milk to drink. Afton drank hers out of a big girl cup. I am trying to eliminate sippies from her life by the time she turns three.

2. I started a new menu planning system this week. I think it is actually too mundane and obvious to share, though if anyone wants to know what it is I will gladly do so. Anyway I am pumped about it. I feel like it is going to make dinner time so much more fun and also make eating out so much more fun because we won't be doing it out of desperation but because we want to.

Tonight I am making Continental Chicken. It was classic around my house when I was growing up. I hated it then, but I love it now. I have enjoyed my friends sharing recipes and meal planning on their blogs lately so I will give you this recipe. It's nothing fancy...just like me.

Family size can of cream of mushroom soup.

8 oz. Sour Cream

Four chicken breasts.

Pop all that good stuff into a crock pot and cook on low for 8 hours. Voila. Super yummy and super easy. I love crock pots. I just hate cleaning them. Serve over rice.

Sunny & Fair.

My trees are gold and crimson,
My weather sunny and fair.
There is a play pen in my living room,
Toys everywhere.
It wasn't always this way.
It won't always be the same.
Oh, but today is beautiful.
Today I'm glad I came.

This Evening.

Ron worked late tonight so after I put Ponder to bed Afton and I watched John and Kate Plus Eight. She loved it. Every time it a commercial came on she started crying and saying, "Babies! Babies!" There was a giraffe on the show tonight and Afton called it a cat. I laughed and thought "I love how funny my life is." Earlier this evening when we were walking downtown she we saw an African American gentleman dressed in a business suit also out for a walk. Afton pointed at him and started yelling "Obama! Obama!" Really embarrassing, but also really funny. He didn't seem to mind. Oh and today my girls really discovered each other for the first time. Afton would lean over Ponder's swing and talk to her and Ponder would smile, squeal, and laugh out loud. I loved watching them interact. What a sweet gift each day is. I am so grateful.

Land Ho!

We bought ourselves a piece of ground in South Carolina this weekend. In the next couple of years we hope to build a home and raise our children on that little plot of earth. I wish I had time to say more about how unexpectedly creepy the auction was and how inexpressibly thankful I am to God for blessing us in this way. At this time I simply do not. This video of our winning bid at the land auction captures a little of both. For those interested Ron's sister describes the process beautifully here. She also has a pretty fun slide show of the big day! This was a dream she and her husband Jimmy have had for many years and were kind enough to share with us. Thanks Kykers! Can't wait to be your neighbors!

I will sing to the LoRD because he has dealt bountifully with me. Psalm 13:6

Home Sweet Home

We are all home and back under one roof again and very, very happy. Thank you for all your prayers!

Downtown in Springtime.

This is the view from our apartment this week. I adore these candy-coated trees! I am so fortunate to love where I live. Being right in the center of a beautiful, thriving town is such a fun chapter in our lives right now. I am looking forward to living in a house in the country one day, but for now I couldn't be more content anywhere else in the world.

Home-Making ~ by J.R. Miller

I wrote this review for my church newsletter which I hope explains its brevity and broadness. I wish I had time to do this blessed book more justice, but for now, I simply do not. I will add two things:

1. I am not exaggerating when I say this is the best book I have ever read.

2. It makes an excellent wedding present. I doubt I will ever give anything else.

I heartily recommend Home-Making by J.R. Miller to anyone who is a part of a family! Yes, that is everybody! Do not be misled by the title or the cover. This is not a book written only for wives and mothers. All members of a Christian home – fathers, mothers, brothers, sisters, husbands, and wives will be blessed, encouraged, sharpened, and challenged by a reading of this book.

Miller begins his book with a chapter on what the calls "The Wedded Life" which is the very bedrock of the family. He then devotes a chapter to each role in every family. There is a chapter directed to the husband, the wife, the parents, the children, and a chapter on the special relationship between brothers and sisters.

In each of these chapters Miller describes with beauty and eloquence what it looks like when Christians live out the sweet sacrifice of Christ daily in the most important place on earth – the home. The final chapters of the book are spent on more comprehensive topics such as the home life and religion in the home.

I hope you will be as inspired by this lovely book as I have been.

"You know what a true home ought to be. It ought to be a place where love rules. It ought to be beautiful, bright, joyous, full of tenderness and affection; a place in which all are growing happier and better each day."

To Remember When Overwhelmed, Interrupted, and Delayed

"It is something that my husband has been satisfied with his wife and his home today; that does me good."

~Elizabeth Prentiss, Stepping Heavenward