The first day of school & 2 months old!

A big day around here....my baby boy started school today. He LOVED it! Didn't want to leave when I picked him up. And my baby girl is 2 months today. She is starting to smile and my heart jumps just as far as it did 4 years ago when Max started smiling at me.

And our big girl...our Molly is Molly. I think she had a harder time being away from Max than I did. So our day...I am going to attempt to put pics throughout the blog...we'll see if it works. If not, then you can just match the pic with the paragraph!

This morning I had to wake Max up to get ready. His eyes popped right open and said ok. Then he saw the computer and asked if he could get on NickJr. first and then go to school. When I told him no (b/c who actually thinks that I got anyone up early enough to have NickJr. time...they were lucky they got their teeth brushed!) he said "ok momma" and hopped off the bed and into the bathroom he went. He did his own hair... Don't worry...he brushed it after that :) He brushed his teeth all by himself and then went right into his room to get dressed. Even Molly cooperated this morning. All four of us were ready in time....well with about 60 seconds to spare for pictures outside our house.

Oh and a group one inside. The backpack Max is wearing is the one his daddy used and his Uncle Ben used. He wanted to take his red one today, but I think he only did it for me and my taking pictures addiction. I think he really wants a new one to go with his new school. He is my baby boy...of course I am going to let him get a new one! :)

We took a few pics inside his classroom. I told myself I was just going to drop him off and take just a handful of pics. Nope...although I don't think I did too bad.

I told Max that we were leaving and he said, "Can't you just stay for 10 more minutes Momma?" I told him that we would stay one more minute and then we had to go. He was ok with that.

A minute later I told him that we had to go and again he asked, "Please Momma can't you stay just 10 more minutes?"

"Nope," I said. "This is school and mommies and daddies aren't allowed to stay."

He replied with a long "okay". And he gave me a hug and a kiss and we were off.

Molly didn't throw a fit like I thought she would. We got to walk back through the school and she enjoyed that. We went out for a muffin and hot cocoa (yes it was over 90 degrees here today). She loved the coffee shop. How could she not with the flat screen and comfy couch?!?

After we left the coffee shop Molly told me it was time to go and get Max. I told her that he was still in school and that we would pick him up in a little bit. Off to WalMart we went. We printed a few pics, got some eggs, picked up Joshua's birthday present. Of course, I forgot paper towel, but I figure we need something to do tomorrow morning. We were on our way back home for a bit before picking up Max and Molly informed me once again that it was time to pick up Max. She forgot about it once I gave her a grape/animal cracker snack and planted herself down for a few minutes of Sesame Street.

Off to pick Max up and of course he didn't want to leave. He was tugging at me to stay, but got over it fairly quickly. It's amazing what a drinking fountain can do for a little stubborness.

We got home, had a good lunch, played, colored, painted, cleaned up and went to the post office. Then we had dinner and ran a few more errands. I ended up nursing Maggie in the back of the van in the parking lot. (I think I'm definitely learning to put my idea of what my day and house should look like to the side.) We got home and gave Maggie a bath. Molly told me that "all 3 of us can go at same time". I don't think so. They enjoyed their bath, 2 stories, and then crashed. Before going to bed though I told Max that he had to get some sleep b/c he had school tomorrow. He looked at me with those big hazel eyes and said, "I get to go again tomorrow?!?" I'm so glad he likes it. I hope his love of school continues for years to come.

Last but certainly not least....my little one is 2 months today.

Smiling more

hates her baths

sleeping 7-8 hours a night

hanging in there with her rough and tumble brother and especially sister

growing more and more everyday...almost out of her 0-3 onesies

a little blessing from our Lord Jesus...thank you.

Do you get dumber with each child???

I have no idea how we spent as many days in Michigan, went as many places as we did and nothing seems to have been left behind. My brain seems to have taken a vacation since we've arrived home.

We got back Wednesday later in the afternoon and I went out for about an hour while my dad stayed with the kids....(bless him because the kids were on speed the minute we walked through the door). I can't believe that I actually remembered the pizza that I went out for the way my mind has been forgetting things the past 48 hours.

The kids went to bed fairly early Wed. night. They crashed pretty hard after all of their fun up north. They got a good nights rest and we were off to the festival yesterday morning. (More photos of that later.) We found a good parking spot, got Maggie in the wrap, and the other 2 in the stroller and we were off. We had enough cash for lunch and a little something for each of them, or so I thought. We shopped the vendors, tasted samples of italian ice, played in the beach volleyball court created in the middle of the street, had hot dogs and chips for lunch, and then Max found a Spiderman hat. After all of that we had one dollar left. Molly found a tinkerbell bag that she liked so we were off to find the ATM. After getting caught up in a very long conversation about wood carving and finding more free samples we were finally standing in front of the ATM machine. I grabbed the $60 bucks, turned the stroller right around and told the kids we could now get ice cream. I left not only my receipt, but my card as well. IDIOT! I didn't realize it until about 4 hours later when we were home resting up for the parade.

After calming down and calling the bank and cancelling we headed back downtown. The parade was a big hit with the kids. I feel weird going to that kind of stuff though without Aaron. He would have had a good time watching the kids run for candy and watching them stick their necks out to see what was coming next in the parade. So since we spent all day at the festival we had lots to do today.

We were supposed to be home from WalMart by 10 am. We left for WalMart at 10:30. We had to get the rest of Max's school supplies. The kids were CRAZY!!! I'm not sure what to do with Molly & her attitude. It's going to be an interesting few years I think. Finally we got everything....only after burying Maggie in rolls of toilet & paper towel and plastic spoons & forks. We paid and then headed to the stamp machine. I put in $8.50 and it shot 10 cents back to me...no stamp booklet...or so I thought. After dealing with my kids antics for 45 minutes in the store, I had one nerve left and it was wasted on the guy telling me that they would have to call the post office to get me a refund. Are you kidding me???

I'm the IDIOT though b/c if I would have just put my hand in there and felt around I would have felt the stamp booklet. I think I called my sister for the 2nd time after that.

So we are back home...I have bags and bags of stuff in front of me and I go to get the school supply list to separate everything.

No list.

No yellow pads of paper with everything I need to accomplish by 5 o'clock written on it.

All of which I left in WalMart at the end of the checkout line.

Back to WalMart we go.

We get our lists back.

Back home. Drive momma nuts. Eat lunch. Drive momma nuts some more.

My big accomplishment for the day though....all the kids were bathed, teeth brushed, side dish made for picnic, myself bathed and hair straightened, ALL ahead of schedule.

Now more on the reasons why I seem to have left my brain somewhere and can't find it.

Max:

Had his school picnic tonight and met his teachers. He is so excited. I got a few pics of him in front of his school. I'm sure I'll be crying to much on Wed. morning to get one.

Molly:

Attitude, attitude, attitude. any ideas? shoot them my way!

Maggie:

smiling, cooing, growing so fast

Thank you Lord. Please be with all of us over the weekend as we travel to be together.

Amen

.

There is no place like home....

It is SO GOOD to be back home in Kentucky. I loved our visit with our families, but when I saw that first mountain my peaceful feeling within returned. Once again, saying good-bye to my family brought tears. I hate leaving them and when I allow myself to think about how my kids won't see their cousins for another several weeks it tugs at my heart. Max & Molly had a blast with their cousins. It was a very BUSY 4 days visiting all of them, but they had no idea how busy it was and didn't care about anything except playing with each other. I think what drove me over the edge was the traffic. I can now go weeks without being on the freeway and being back on it in Detroit was awful. Everytime we picked up and went somewhere new we spent double the amount of time in the car. It started adding up and driving us all a little nuts. Friday night I was on the phone with my sister, sitting in traffic, in tears. When I finally calmed down my husband called and the tears started all over again.

Besides seeing all of the cousins, we also spent a little time at the doctors office. Thursday we were supposed to leave right after lunch to head to my brother-in-law's house. Well I had been craving the deli for lunch. We (my sisters and the boys) all went. Max went up ahead with his aunts and cousins. I was walking in and my nephew told me that Max was hurt because he went swinging on the ropes. I replied with, "well, that'll teach him not to swing on those anymore". A few seconds later I realized that he was really hurt. He decided to jump on these ropes that are right inside the deli. He apparently ran in and went swinging like Superman. The poles that hold the ropes came down on his pinky finger. Long story short...we went to a foot & ankle specialist. (They do fingers too.) Max was so brave. He didn't flinch when the doctor touched his pinky. I'm sure that the tootsie pop he had in his mouth at the time helped with that. He didn't start crying until the doc pulled back on his nail and then cut half of it off. OUCH!!! I felt so bad for him, but he was a champ. We've been watching it turn all sorts of different colors. I even bought him $4 band-aids...only for my boy.

We will now try to decompress. Since we hit the door it seems as if they have both been on speed. We'll hit the festival this weekend and they practice getting up, getting ready and getting in the car by 7:40 a.m. I can't believe that he is starting school this coming week. I am going to have to get up an extra hour earlier just to make sure I get all of the photos that I want! :)

Good Night

The big 3-0!

It feels a little weird to say that I'm thirty. Not sad or depressed or whatever else people seem to feel and deal with when they reach a certain age. Maybe when I hit forty...who knows.
So funny how when you are a little thing you can't wait to hit 10, then you can't wait to be a teen! And your teenage years....well those last an eternity! I'm pretty sure they felt like an eternity to my older sister too :)
I could NOT wait to "grow up". I still can't believe that I have 3 kids...is that possible? When did I turn into a responsible adult with 3 children? And that question brings along a other set of questions and request.
Am I raising them the way I should?
Am I teaching them to be responsible? honest? kind? patient? God-loving? Graceful?
Am I modeling all of those things to them?
Shouldn't I be able to do all of those things by the time I'm 30?
Pretty sure I'm failing in the teaching patience department. I have been asking God to be with me during those "on the brink, I only have one nerve left" moments.
And...talk about time. During this stage of my children's lives can I please have the clock that I had when I was a teenager? I want time to slow down like it did when I was 14.
Time is FLYING!!!
I remember sitting in my 2nd grade classroom in 1985 talking with the boy sitting next to me about 1996....the year that we would graduate high school. I can still see us sitting there. (Even though I don't remember what I had for lunch today.)
What a great 30 years though.
I was just e-mailing my dad about one of my favorite times as a kid. I never understood why my dad was always up so early. Now that I have 3 kids, I know. Getting up at 4:30 a.m. is the most peaceful time of the day! Sunday mornings were my favorite mornings waking up. Sometimes my dad would come storming in, turn on the lights, and say rise & shine if we happened to sleep in too late the particular morning. Most Sundays though we would all find our way to the kitchen table at a decent hour. We would have regular old cereal for breakfast or my dad may have gone out early and gotten donuts and bagels. Steph would eat one that had sprinkles. Why do I remember that? Then we would systematically ruin the nice piles of newspapers my dad had made during his peace & quiet. I loved Sunday mornings. Maybe that's why one of the biggest things I miss doing with Aaron is going out to breakfast, or any meal for that matter, and sit and read the paper to one another like we did...before kids. We still buy the paper everytime we go out breakfast only to have one of us hold it and then stare at the other and say, "what we were thinking?" Oh, I digress.
My 30 years...playing on 8 acres, tree houses, playing house, basketball, college, marriage, 3 kids....am I really playing real-life house??? Wouldn't want it any other way.
Can't wait to see what the next 30 years holds for me and my family.

Happy August 2008!

God is at work...

Our family is so blessed. God is SO good. Since the moment I knew that we were moving here, I have been praying to the Lord to lead us to a church and to please send me some moms. He has answered those prayers.
I was thinking tonight of the Garth Brooks song, Unanswered Prayers. The song about how we pray and pray and pray about something we feel we need so very badly. And just about the time we think God hasn't listened and has failed to answer our prayer...He has answered it...just not in the way that we had thought or wanted him to answer it. God answers our prayers. We just have to ask.
In my quiet times I had given up the idea of being a part of a church and being involved in ministry. I had kind of settled with the idea that we would drive an hour and 15 minutes to church every Sunday morning and that would be it. Not that that isn't important and a good thing to do, but I saw this move as an opportunity to be involved in our church in a way that I failed to do so many times back in Michigan.
This weekend I was like a school girl. I loved all of the wonderful people the Lord sent to me this weekend. I was busy enjoying our friends from Michigan and their two children. Around dinnertime Friday evening 2 members of the church we had visited came to our home, hugged us, invited us to their Sunday school class and their dinner that they will be having tomorrow night. That evening I checked my e-mail and received 2 e-mails from two women at church. One I have met and one I can't wait to meet.
We went to bible study this morning. The kids couldn't wait to go to their Sunday school classes and we took Maggie with us. When we walked into our study group everyone stood and introduced themselves to us. It was wonderful. I am trying to make it a point to remember everyones' names.
Tonight we went to a cookout at the church. I met another wonderful lady, a mom of 4. Talked with her about raising her 4 kids, the schools, our shared naturally curly hair and how it drives me crazy. At the end of the night she gave me the numbers to her hairdresser, who knows how to tame this crazy naturally curly hair in the Kentucky July heat. She also gave me her number. I can't tell you how many cell and home numbers I have received this week. We spent the evening listening to gospel music, eating burgers, hot dogs, & wonderful homemade desserts. The time flew by while meeting new people, talking with Molly's Sunday School teachers, watching Max make new friends, enjoying fellowship. It was a perfect ending to a great weekend.
I LOVE our new town. Our bible study teacher called this area the "bible belt of Kentucky". I love that I live in that belt. I love that no matter where our children attend school they will have the influence of God loving teachers in their lives.
Oh...I have also been invited to a sleepover with other moms. How fabulous is that??? Of course, I can't go all evening but I am looking so forward to that visit and meeting all of these God-fearing women. Who would have thought I would get so excited about a sleepover on my 30th birthday?!?!
Lord, thank you for answering my prayers even if it may take me a second or 2 to realize that it's You working in my life. Please help me to see the ways in which I can use the gifts you have so freely given to me to work in the lives of others. Amen

God is good...all of the time.
All of the time....God is good.

Blessings from God...

Our Maggie is growing. Her "Just Born" onesies no longer fit her. Yes, apparently they have "just born" sizes now. Those come before 0-3 month clothing. They worked perfectly though. You think that the 0-3 look so tiny until you put your newborn inside them and they are swimming. She is now following Aaron with her eyes while he walks around the room. A few smiles. I'm pretty sure that they are the real thing. They could just be gas smiles though. I can't wait to hear her giggle for real.

We met some friends at the park today. It feels good to say that...friends. They are those people that you know for a few hours, but feel as if you've been friends forever. I feel as if I've made a few from church as well. Already e-mailing like old buddies. A woman at the church invited me out to a woman's night out. I feel like God is showering me with everything I need and have prayed for. He is so good.

I woke up early this morning...well an hour and 10 minutes after I said I was...it was still before the kids woke up. It wasn't enough time for a shower, but I did get my quiet time in the Lord. It truly did make a difference in my day. Ask and you shall receive.

Oh and the pics above...this is how I found the kids when they were supposed to be sleeping. Molly has on her new "church" shoes. I guess her church outfit every Sunday will have to be put together around her shoes instead of choosing the shoes to go with her outfit. That's our Molly.

The first picture is of Max reading to his sister. He has been terrific with her. I'm not sure that I've written too much about that. He is wonderful with her. Talking with her, kissing on her, always wanting her nearby. He thinks everyday that she would love to watch him while he has his computer time. He is getting very excited about learning to read so that he can read to his sisters.

Is he really going to be 4 in a few months?

Since we'll probably never have pets...

I think it's safe to say that we will probably never have a dog or a cat so maybe that's why we've named our children the 3 most popular pet names. I saw this in the newspaper and then looked on-line.

The most popular boy pet name?

Max

The 2 most popular female pet names?

Molly & Maggie