Month: April 2009

And she can smile, too.

And she can jump!

She’s our Ruby-doo, and we love her….pouting and all.  It’s amazing how quickly she can go from happy to sad to pouting to mad to giggling with joy.  She’s going to make a great MOM one day.  

Seriously, it was either EAT HIM UP or take lots of pictures of this adorable little guy.  

Love. this. child.  Love him.

Ruby’s friend, Katherine, spent the night last night. She calls me “Mrs. Kristy.” This morning I heard the girls get up. As they walked down the hall I heard MOLLY, my daughter, say, “Let’s go see Mrs. Kristy downstairs. Let’s ask Mrs. Kristy if we can eat breakfast. C’mon…let’s go see Mrs. Kristy.” Very cute.

We had a wonderful Easter afternoon with some of our friends from church.  It turned out to be a beautiful day.  The kids had a blast!  I know I mentioned the Easter Egg Hunt and the lack of baskets from the Dorminy house.  Well, I also thought the Egg Hunt was so relaxed that we would just hide old plastic eggs….empty ones.  I brought empty eggs to the egg hunt, and my kids didn’t have baskets…have I already mentioned that?  What a loser.  Anyway, yeah, Ruby and Molly and Mack love hiding and finding empty eggs.  I guess that they are just low-maintenance like that or what they don’t know doesn’t hurt them. Josh wasn’t bothered by it one little bitty bit, of course.  He said it would make them stronger.  Mark Anderson, a friend of ours, wanted to make it into a game where you see who got the least amount of “Dorminy eggs.”  The one with the fewest “Dorminy eggs” would be the winner.  Oh, dear.

 Well, besides the shame of empty Easter Eggs and children with NO BASKETS with which to hunt, we had a great time.  There is no way  I can sit here and post every picture I got, but here are some from the afternoon….Let’s start with dessert!

 

After eating half of the ham, Mack started in on some brownies.  They were very good.  He just couldn’t stop himself…..

At this point, he is wondering why he pushed through with all the ham and brownies….and he is praying for the Lord to forgive him for being a glutton.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

And if you are wondering about Mack’s car seat (and who wouldn’t be at this point?), it is actually Molly’s seat.  Josh had taken Mack and Molly’s car seats out to put in his truck on Saturday, then he only felt like putting one back in Sunday morning.  So, there you have it.  He doesn’t normally ride in a yellow and pink flowery car seat.  

So, now, I have finished posting about our Easter shinanigins.  It was a beautiful day….nice weather, sweet family, awesome friends, worshipful church service, ALL with the celebration of our Risen Savior as the focus.  And while I am glad I have finished posting about Easter day, I hope the celebration of our Risen Savior is experienced every day.

 

We woke up very early on Sunday to enjoy the quietness and to start making the oh-so-important macaroni and cheese for our Easter lunch.  When I came down from getting Mack out of his crib, I saw this beautiful sky!  I took a picture because it was just that beautiful.  What a great way to start Easter morning.

Our little munchkins woke up because they heard their Daddy in the kitchen making more than a little bit of noise with pots and pans and lots and lots of cheese.  The kids had their Easter treats sitting out at the table since I cannot find their Easter Baskets.  Seems that during my cleaning frenzy about five months ago, I stored away many things, Easter baskets being one of them.  I struggled with not letting this “get to me.”  I thought I had moved on from it, but after the girls had to use a Maggiano’s paper sack and a “Go Green” grocery bag for the Easter Egg hunt with friends, I realized that the fact that I couldn’t find their PBK personalized Easter Baskets did “get to me.”  UGH.  But, that is a story for another post.  This post is intended to be about Easter Morning.  Here are the sleepy kids at the breakfast table….

 

Josh took some pictures of the kids in their Easter outfits.  I am not a fancy kid-dressing Easter gal.  I don’t know why I don’t do it, seeing how I had an Easter hat each year with a poofy dress and patent leather black shoes with fold-down frilly socks AND a patent purse to match.  Fun times.  But the kids did look cute to me!

 

 

Our church service was wonderful. The kids seemed to enjoy their Sunday School classes as well.  We are so thankful for the church we attend and at which we serve.  We are blessed!  And we are blessed with great friends.  After Easter morning we went to The Pizza’s house for lunch along with several other couples.  At this time, I have to run and get the girls ready for dance class.  I will try and get another post of sweet pictures with our friends later today!

 

So, we’ve resorted to some very boring, basic play time–lining up the cars and trucks on the window sill.  I am sure if I hadn’t decided to break out the glitter pens, we would have used our sorting skills to put all the tractors together, then the trucks, then the cars, etc,etc.  Thank the Lord for glitter pens.  I bought them at Wal-mart many months ago waiting for a rainy day or for Easter morning, whichever came first.  Obviously, we have had many rainy days before Easter, so today was the day………

 

I am not going to post Ruby’s picture because I am tired of posting her in her drawers, so I am sure you are tired of seeing it.  

 

 

OK, so I had way more fun than even Molly with this!  (Can you say stir-crazy?  Cabin-fever? nursery brain?)  It was nice to sit and decorate some of these eggs with the kids.  Mack was out before it even started, Ruby hung (“hanged” is grammatically correct, but that is so hard to write!) in there for several eggs, then Molly was a trooper with it all until she disobeyed and started writing with my black Sharpie, and I could still be in there glittering away, but they all left me.  

 

Before all of this craft-mania, we read the Easter Story from their Bibles.  We were able to talk about how dark it was in the afternoon sky on that sad day when Jesus died on the cross, and we likened it to how very dark it is here.  Ruby said her favorite part was when Jesus was risen from the dead!  That is my favorite part, too!!  Molly said she does not like it when Judas kisses Jesus.

I better run.  Molly said that Mack has the “niller wafer box.”   HAPPY EASTER!

Well, on Tuesday we decided to dye Easter Eggs.  The girls loved it!  We did this activity while Mack was napping.  It just makes things easier.  He’ll join in soon enough.

 

Today we got a special delivery in the mail!  My mom, Sweetie, and my dad, PawPaw, sent some Easter goodies since we won’t get to see them this weekend.  The girls were super-excited.  Mack, again, was napping.  We have his cute toys set aside for when he wakes up.

 

 

So, thank you Sweetie and PawPaw for sending us this WONDERFUL package.  It has been the highlight of our “Spring Break,” that is for sure!  

Here are some pictures from last Easter in Augusta.  My mom threw a big party for the kids…Easter egg dying, craft making, cupcake frosting and eating fun time!!

 

****Update!  A post I read regularly, bigmamablog.net. had a great post up on 4-10-09 that was from last year.  It was just in line with God being a personal God.  He isn’t finished with me on this, and I am so glad.  

It all started last week on a rainy Thursday.  I had invited Melissa over with two of her kids to play. She brought me a coffee, and I can’t tell you how sweet that was!  Starbucks delivered…in the rain, no less.  As we talked and talked together and played Candy Land in between, one of her statements regarding what we were talking about just stuck with me.  It was like the Lord put them all in CAPITAL LETTERS for me and posted them on my mind.  She said, “GOD IS SO PERSONAL, SO PERSONAL.”  Though at first-read it may seem simple; for me and at this time in my life, this is something I needed to hear.  The Lord has continued to use this statement and has brought up the message in other various ways and through other people.  I have heard it through the life of David as I watched some videos from some Godly speakers.  David was chosen by God to be king WHILE he his job was “shepherd-boy.”  God knew where David was.  He knew David.  He knows me in my job as “house-wife, stay-at-home mom.”  Monday night I met with a friend and was greatly encouraged with how personal the Lord is being in her life.  We talked about how He is a personal God.  Then, Tuesday, my mother-in-law sent out an email.  She has cancer and the Lord is showing Himself strong in her life.  She isn’t keeping it to herself.  She is sharing what He is doing with others, and I have been blessed by it.  She wrote:

 I told my sister-in-law that I was going to buy a new Bible because the one I use was too heavy for me to carry to church.  She sent me Aunt Jean’s Bible.  Aunt Jean (not really my aunt) had recently died from cancer but in her younger years had been a missionary.  Pep, my sister-in-law, told me to use the Bible as long as I needed it and then we will pass it on to the next person who needs it.  I am adding notes to the margins right beside those of Aunt Jean.  This morning I read Hebrews.  I wanted to read this book again before Easter.  I know that you may not have as much time to read as I do, but this is a good book to read anytime, I think, especially before Easter. It reminded me of the great sacrifice Jesus made for me and told me to “strengthen [my] feeble arms and weak knees.”  Now that is good advice for me!  It also reminded me to “run with perseverance the race marked out for us.”  I’m not to run your race but I am to run my own.  
  Hebrews is a great book to read on faith.  (Hebrews 11:1) “Now faith is being sure of what we hope for and certain of what we do not see.”  Aunt Jean didn’t know that her Bible was going to be passed on to me but as I am reading it this morning I see that she left me a message in the margin of chapter 12.  She wrote, very succinctly, “Don’t whine.”  How did she know that I sometimes have a tendency to do that? 

I was so encouraged by that email.  The Lord was confirming how personal He is through this email.  Then, this morning I read a blog about how God uses the small things, the mundane things to speak directly to us.  We sometimes think that it would be great to be USED BY GOD in some amazing way when all the while we do our everyday, boring, less than glamourous stuff, that is precisely when He wants to use us.  I tend to look at what others are doing for God, how He is speaking to them, how He is using them….forgetting that He wants to work in my life, to speak to me, to use me here while I do laundry, fix meals, clean bathrooms, play with my kids, pray with my kids, talk to Josh, serve in the area of my Sunday School Class.   He is such a personal God with specific instructions for me and my family.  I must keep on my spiritual blinders and stay focused on what He wants for ME.  Not what He wants for others.  This journey began with HIM and me.  It will end with HIM and me.  I want to find Him in all sorts of personal ways from now until then.  

Proverbs 4:25-27

“Let your eyes look directly ahead and let your gaze be fixed straight in front of you.  Watch the path of your feet  and all your was will be established.  Do not turn to the right nor to the left; turn your foot from evil.”

So, today I am going to put on my spiritual blinders and focus in on Jesus.  I want to hear Him speak to me in this very regular day.  And I want to obey on this very regular day.  I am going to try and remember that unless I live in the supernatural, I am sunk.  It takes Jesus living in me to live a life of self-control, of patience, of understanding, of kindness, of selflessness.  I cannot do it alone.  I tried yesterday and failed miserably.  O, Lord, fill me with Your Spirit.  Be personal to me today.  Use me today.  I desire to live supernaturally in this very natural world.

So, I was thinking I would go to the Mall today to just get out of this house. Well, the morning started off pretty rough. Molly woke up as soon as my big toe touched the carpet. Ruby had been sleeping with us since some time in the night because of an accident in the bed. Then, Mack, once I went in to get him, was SOAKED from head to toe with tee-tee. What am I doing wrong here??? Anyway, it took me much longer to adjust to the day. Then, I decided to clean. We had to tell Mrs. Lee that we no longer could pay her for her services. It is sad. I know that I needed her services for the past six months because I really was at a bad, overwhelming place when she started. She helped relieve some craziness from my life. However, now it is a luxury of which we are choosing not to pay for any longer. OK–so I am cleaning the house and contemplating maybe going to the mall when I see that there are slight snow flurries falling from the sky. I kid you not. How ridiculous is that? I decided at that moment that we were not leaving this house today. It is April 7th and snow flurries are falling. The world might be coming to an end. I don’t want to be at the mall if that happens.

Oh, Molly, that girl!  I spent so much time with her this weekend that I wonder if a grandma, grandpa or distant relative would like to come and take her off my hands for a few days???  Kidding.  I could only stand two full days away from her.  Kidding again.

 

Ruby spent the night away from home on Friday because she went to the zoo with Katherine and the whole Koester Clan.  (She had a blast!)  I spent all day Friday with Molly and Mack.  We went to Wal-Mart and shopping has never been easier.  Shopping with two truly was a breeze.  And they weren’t even bribed with a slushee!  Not that I usually bribe with a slushee, but almost every time I do.

Josh got home at a good time, so we all went out to see the house.  On the ride out there Molly fell asleep.  It was probably because she hadn’t stopped talking all day.  The nap time allowed for Josh and I to actually talk in the car to each other.  We went to the Mexican restaurant because Molly wanted to eat chips and cheese dip.  Mack didn’t protest.  He can’t turn away a good burrito…or a bad one.  The boy can eat.

 

 

So after dinner, Molly and I dropped the boys off at home and left for a place called EARTH, PAINT AND FIRE.  You paint a piece of pottery there, then they fire it and you pick it up in a week.  I thought Molly would love it!  All day she kept asking me when we were going “to paint Hollery Yarn Kids.”  She thought we were going to paint the store, Pottery Barn Kids.  I tried all day to explain what we were doing, but it always came back to that.  Once we were alone in the car together, she did not stop talking.  At all.  Itwaslikeshewasn’ttakingabreathandjustspeakinginonelongsentence.  Oh my.  She was thrilled to be able to pick something to paint.  She ended up choosing a spoon rest for the kitchen, which I actually do need!  So, we pick our paint colors and our brushes and we get to painting.  Shestillwastalkingnon-stop.  She got about halfway through with painting the spoon rest and decided she didn’t really want to paint the spoon rest, but wanted a dolphin….”No, Molly, we aren’t painting a dolphin.”  She ended up choosing a monkey to paint.  I sat there finishing the spoon rest while Molly started in on the monkey.  She was just a painting and painting and wanting more and more paint…and more and more paint…and several more brushes…and more paint.  The monkey was about six inches high and ten inches long or so.  I am not good with measurements, but it was a tiny monkey with a lot of paint on it.  THEN, I took my brush and made a tiny, tiny stroke on the monkey’s tail to show her that she needed to finish up his tail.  NOT A GOOD DECISION ON MY PART.  (In the most whiney voice imaginable..)”Mama, this is my monkey.  I did not want you to touch my monkey.  I wanted to paint my monkey, but you painted my monkey.  I want to pick something else to paint.”  BUT, you see, each little thing she picked to paint was costing me money, so “NO, MOLLY.  You are not getting another something to paint.”  I then proceeded to use water on a brush to get off the stroke of paint that I put on HER monkey’s tail.  That appeased her until she was done painting the monkey and wanted something else to paint.  We had to get out of there.  And we did.  $33.68 later.  I am not sure at all how that happened.  I will show you the pictures later, and you will wonder how that happened as well.

AFTER painting Pottery Barn, we went to Rita’s because I had a free treat coupon Molly loves frozen treats of any kind!  We ordered her a cone with Chocolate and Vanilla, so she was thrilled.  And let me interject that she has still been talking allthistime.  Seriously.  She got up a hundred times from the chair to “get a napkin for my mouth.”  We came home, and I was mentally exhausted.  She got up several times Friday night…she likes to holler down the stairs, “I really miss mommy.”  “Tell mommy I love her.”  Or my personal favorite, “I need to come down and tell mommy something in her ear.” She also wanted to know when Ruby would be home from the jungle.  (How funny is that?!)

 Saturday morning came way too soon, and she and I and Mack stayed home from the Easter Egg Hunt because she had a runny nose, my head was killing me and she had gotten up all throughout the night!  So I had another morning full of Molly-talk.  But here’s the thing…she DOES NOT TALK FOR OTHER PEOPLE.  She woke up Saturday night with an ear ache, so she stayed with me during Sunday School and church.  She found several laps to sit in, but I am doubtful she spoke ten words the whole two and a half hours to other people.  THEN, after lunch, I took her to an urgent center to get some antibiotics for her ear infection.  She talked the ENTIRE time in the car.  I finally told her that because she didn’t feel well (?) she should stop talking and lay her head over on her carseat.  And stop talking.  She did and went to sleep.  A sweet 10 minutes.  She woke up talking away…”I went to sleep.  Now we are here.  This is where Mack came ‘yesterday.’  Did he get a shot?  Will I get a shot?  What color is the doctor’s face?  Will I get a lollipop?  Can I sit in your lap?”  When we went back to see the nurse and doctor, they talked to Molly and asked her, “How old are you?”

 Nothing.

 “Does your ear hurt?”

 Nothing.  

“Which ear hurts?”  

Nothing.  

“What is your favorite thing to eat?”  

Nothing.  No smile, no nods, no nothing!  It is strange, I tell you.  

Sure enough, she had an ear infection.  We got the antibiotic, came home, I gave her the antibiotic, forgot to give the Ibuprofen, so off she went to sleep, and woke up with a major fever.  GREAT MOM!  I forgot to give her Ibuprofen for her fever.  UGH.  So I gave it to her, and she sat with me in church Sunday night, too. 

I truly did enjoy my time with Molly, but it is not for the faint of heart.  You must be prepared.  There can be no under-lying frustrations of any kind that could be agitated.  She is a sweet little girl that can talk.  And talk.  And talk.  She does ask every now and then, “Do I talk a lot?”  Then, she keeps right on talking.  Love her!

 

 

 

 

A wonderful weekend!  We are looking forward to this week of No dance, NO Timothy handwriting class, NO cubbies on Wednesday….and a wonderful week of looking forward to Easter Sunday!  The weather is going to be COLD Monday and Tuesday, which irritates the living stew out of me, but what can you do?  I suppose we are meant to stay in pajamas, get laundry done, and paint FOR FREE right here in our house during Spring Break.