May came and May went...

What a great month!!! We had company, headed north, visited with family, headed home, t-ball began, went to Florida and visited with my grandma.

Max's t-ball season kicked off on May 16th. He is really having a great time this year. The season seems to be shortened at bit, but that's ok with me. The t-ball games get a little long...I think for the kids and the parents :)

Max also finished up his first year of preschool. I know that according to the schools he is old enough to begin kindergarten in the fall, but I am so glad that we made the decision not to start him until he is 6. I can't imagine sending him off to kindergarten in a few short months. I can't believe that Molly will be going to preschool with him next year!

Florida was fantastic.

We hadn't seen my grandma since Molly's first birthday. It was so strange to visit with her and not have my grandpa there. In my whole life I never saw the 2 of them apart. They always did everything together.

Despite the sadness I felt when I gave myself a moment to think about it, the kids loved hanging out with their great-grandma. We went to the water park and the beach. I am convinced that if we lived near the beach the kids would live there all summer long.

Now June is here and we are struggling with looking at the empty calendar. Nothing to take our mind off of what might be, what we want to be. So we spend a lot of our time talking about what we'll do when we get back. Not so much time spent on what we'll do if we don't get back.

Trip North, Graduation, Mother's Day & More Rain...

Despite the rain that has been coming for 3 straight weeks, we've had a good couple of weeks. May has certainly been busy.

Last weekend we headed north for my brother-in-law's graduation from college. It was the longest we've gone being away from Michigan. It didn't possible that January to May could fly by that quickly...it did.

We spent Friday hanging out with cousins and having mom's homemade pizza. That alone is worth the long car journey back to MI.

Then we enjoyed some chocolate popsicles.

Some enjoyed them more than others.

Saturday we left for our alma mater early. I wanted to see the new buildings that had gone up around campus and allow myself extra moments to go back in time. I formed my best friendships on that campus and met my husband there. I loved walking through the building that my beloved says he first saw and met me. It brings a smile to my face everytime I think about the story.

I was a bit nervous about the kids being well-behaved. I couldn't have asked for better behaved children. My mother-in-law got us the best seats....the bottom part of the bleachers. We sat on the bottom bench and the kids played on the floor. It was perfect for them.

Sunday, Mother's Day, we headed back home. I really wanted to leave Saturday night so that we didn't have to spend mommy's day in the car. I also wanted to be at the baby dedication ceremony at church on Sunday a.m. (I've recently been reminded that complaining is a selfish trait...I've been trying hard to refrain.) Aaron got us home in less than 6 hours though. Again, I couldn't have asked for a better car ride. I've never napped that much on one trip. My beloved knew how much I didn't want to be in the car on that particular day and got us home safe, sound & quickly. We arrived home in enough time to get the car unloaded and freshened up for church.

We had a nice evening at church and then headed to Applebees for a Mother's Day treat....a variety of appetizers and some ice cream shooters. After we ordered our treats, the kids were so excited to present me with my gifts that they had picked out. Aaron got me a beautiful cross and a fun blender type thing. After I finish this post, I am off to use it for the first time and make myself an ice cream shake. The kids were arguing over whose gift I would open first. I told Max I would open his first b/c he was my firstborn. It was a blue candle. Molly was next. I had an idea of what the gift was. She told me what she got me the night that Aaron took the kids out. She got me a blue, yellow & purple candle. The were little tea light candles in the shape of flowers. They were extremely proud of their gifts and I will treasure them forever.

Max also presented this to me after school on the Thursday before Mother's Day. I can't believe that I didn't get a picture of it with my boy.

One of my favorite moments in motherhood came just a few weeks ago. I wrote about it here.

Now Max wants to give all of his toys away to his buddies at school. I told him that most of his buddies probably have plenty of toys just like him. So we decided that we would give them to someone who didn't have any. He seemed to think that his mom was onto something good and agreed with me wholeheartedly.

Pray...

I just recently found their blog.

I can't imagine.

The faith of some absolutely floors me.

I don't know how you go through something like this without faith in Jesus Christ.

Please pray for The Freeman Family.

And the rain just keeps coming...again

Apparently, I have had another post with this same title. I'll have to go and check that post. I just told someone from church that I thought the weather was to clear up tomorrow. I just checked the weather...oops...looks like it'll be raining right through the week. I think it's been raining since last Wednesday or Thursday. We aren't talking a sprinkle here and there. I think it's been raining 95% of the time. I just keep telling myself that the farmers need rain and the flowers and trees wouldn't be as beautiful as they are without the rain from the sky. We are going through a bit of vitamin D withdraw here in the home so we may just go out and dance in the rain tomorrow afternoon.

We had a nice weekend. Molly and I did some "garage saleing" on Saturday morning. I had planned to go by myself, but she was laying on the floor right outside the bathroom door when I opened it that morning. So we decided to go together. She got dressed right away, woke her daddy and told him that the girls were going out and we were off. We stopped at McD's for breakfast and got to our first sale about 8:05 a.m. She did very well. She got a little tin type purse and a whole bag of braclets to put inside. At our first stop she found a cute little stationary set. She told me that she could write all of her thank you notes on that paper. That did the trick. She found a cool monster truck for Max and a pair of Dora pjs for a quarter. I asked her if she was having a good time. "Yes momma. I am finding everything I've ever wanted!" She was definitely ready to go home and see her daddy after a few houses.

Saturday evening, our family arrived. A few hours after that my sister and I were off to the movies. We could barely stand up after the movie was over. Our bodies aren't used to sitting that long. Sunday morning we headed to church. I love taking our family to church. It has been such a blessing to us and I so enjoy having our friends here finally meet our family and vice versa. We spent some of the afternoon at the hotel swimming. The rain came down, but the kids didn't mind. They loved the pool. We didn't like seeing our family leave today, but will be seeing them again very soon.

A little side note....Molly ran up to me today and declared, "I am king of kings."

I told her that she could be the king of something but not of kings. I told her that Jesus already had that job. She told me, "nope, I am king of kings". Oh, my Molly. Well, Jesus created her so I He knows better than I do.

Couldn't help the tears...

If you all don't keep up with Beth Moore's blog, Living Proof Ministries, you need to take a look. Beth Moore's daughter, Melissa, is on a trip with Compassion International and has been blogging about her experience. It truly is difficult to look at some of the pictures without feeling some sort of guilt over all that we have. After reading that day's entry, I clicked over to the Compassion website. I saw a little boy and clicked on his name. About the time I was doing this, Max walked into my room and asked me what I was doing. Last night, I was telling him about the girl that we sponser over in Ecuador. I was telling him what she likes to do, how many kids live in her home, what her house may be like, etc. Well, this morning when he walked in he asked who the boy was. I told him his name and that he lives in the same country as friend that we write to and send pictures. The conversation between mother and son went a little like this:

Max: "How old is he momma?"

Me: "He's 6."

"Six!!!! That means he gets to go to kindergarten!!"

I then tell him some of the things that the little boy likes to do, like, playing marbles, ball, and hide-n-seek.

"I love doing all those things momma!"

And without missing a beat, my son asks me,

"Momma, do you think he has spiderman pajamas?"

"Probably not buddy. He probably doesn't have any pajamas."

"I could send him my old pair of spiderman pajamas. The ones with the shorts and the black stuff hanging down from the arms with the little holes in it." (The black stuff hanging down with the holes is the mesh material to make the "webs" under "Spidermans" arms...we won't send the little guy clothes with a bunch of holes in it.)

And with that, he was already in his room getting the pajamas.

While he left his mom with tears rolling down her cheeks.

A little while later I sent out an email with that story and my mom emailed Max back telling of a mission trip a friend of hers is taking soon. She told her friend that Max really wanted to give his spiderman pjs to a little guy who needed them. I called Max upstairs and read his nana's email to him. I asked him if he wanted to mail them to his Nana so that she could get them to someone who could give them to a little boy who didn't have any pjs.

He nodded his head yes and got that sweet Max smile and cuddled up into the crook of my arm. Once again he ran off to get the pajamas, but then stopped in his tracks because he remembered that he had already gotten them a few hours earlier and left them in my room. He was off playing with Maggie again while I sat there with the pjs in my hands, bawling.

Thank you Lord for putting the Holy Spirit to work right there in my son's heart. May he continue to grow in You. Thank you for blessing this mom with that little guy. Amen.

I cannot figure out why this picture wil not rotate. It's driving me nuts, but I am bound and determined to get a May 1st post date....so it'll gotta do.

Ok...well it had been 3 weeks...

I started my previous post on the 19th....it's now about 45 minutes away from being the 28th. Geez! Where did April go. Hopefully, it won't take me another 9 days to catch up on the last 2 weeks. Here goes...(no wonder I titled this blog the way I did!

We spent the week following Easter getting ready for family and most importantly, Molly's 3rd birthday party!!! Before we hit on the birthday though a few other things happened that week that I need to take note of so that a few years down the road I still remember them.

First, Tuesday the 14th, I was looking forward to getting my haircut. I was supposed to go on Good Friday and get it cut, but since my hubby stayed home the Monday before b/c I was sick he couldn't take Friday off as well so.....by that next Tuesday, I was really ready to just sit down and have a nice long chat with the wonderful woman who cuts my hair. Earlier in the day Molly had found a quarter and took it to Max's school to show him. When we got out of the car to go pick him up, Molly said that she wanted a coin to give to Max and surprise him. So I found a nickel and gave it to her. She presented it to him as soon as we walked into the classroom. He was excited and they both held onto their respective coins for the remainder of the day. Aaron got home that afternoon and I said good-bye to everyone and raced out to the car to go and relax and get my haircut. For some reason I came back into the house. I have no idea why, but I ran upstairs (maybe I was looking for a cd) and then came back downstairs ready to head out again. I look over at Max and he is sitting on the floor crying and there is a little pile of vomit in front of him. I ask him if he is alright? If he feels sick? He suddenly cries out, "my money, my money." I looked at him, with huge eyes I'm sure, and say, "Did you swallow your coin?" He nods his head and says, "Hm Hmmm". Yes. Yes, he did. I, of course, freak. Then I am a bit annoyed b/c why can't I just get out the door and get my haircut. I did. Aaron called the nurse at the hospital (b/c of course my kids do these things after 5 pm). She said don't worry about it. He'll pass it in a few days. Well, Thursday came. Max went. I got myself some plastic bags around my hands up to my elbows and two of the jumbo popscicle sticks from our craft box. Of course...no nickel. On Friday, I called the doctor office b/c the girl at the hospital said 2-3 days or we need an x-ray. I didn't want him going the entire weekend if I needed to be getting him an xray. The nurse at the doctor office said it could take up to 2 weeks. Excuse me? I really have to get my plastic bags and jumbo popscicle sticks out for up to 2 weeks???? To be continued.

So still on Thursday...before sporting the plastic bag hands....I finally told Molly that we are going to get Maggie's photo done. I decided I was just going to go to Walmart and get a picture taken of her so that I didn't completely neglect the 3rd child. Max & Molly have pics at 6 wks, 3, 6, 9, 12, maybe 15, and 18 months....Maggie has only a photo of when she was 4 months hanging on the wall. I wanted to get it done at 9 months and ended up getting it taken 4 days shy of her 10 month b'day. Oh well. Anyhow, the girl takes a few cute shots of Maggie, but nothing with a great smile. Everything this poor girls was doing was making Molly and me laugh like crazy. Maggie...not so much. They did some shots of her sitting up and then had her lay on her belly. Molly started hanging out with the photographer and making Maggie laugh. She got a great pic of her. I turned to look at it on the screen. Turned back. Maggie had crawled right off the platform. Oh I felt awful. She was screamin and a hollerin. I was standing right next to that platform. I will never scoff at all of the signs they have posted about watching your kid at all times again. She got over it and we were done take pictures. We sat down in front of the computer and looked over the ones she had taken. My sweet baby girl started waving to herself. She was so sweet with that little hand just a wavin and a big crocodile tear coming down her cheek.

Alright...back to the birthday celebration.

She was so excited. She got a few cards early in the week and on Thursday she got 2 packages in the mail. First, was a cute little animal hospital from my dear friend, Amanda. Molly loves carrying it around on her shoulder and then stopping whereever she pleases to tend to her animals. It's a wonderful gift. It came with all sorts of vet "tools" and a little dog (that Molly named Spots). Max and her spent about an hour straight playing with it. They decided to put it up for a while when Maggie started chewing on the bones. Even Maggie loved it. She couldn't figure out why she couldn't grab Max's puppy through the "window".

About two hours after Spots arrived, the doorbell rang again. This time there was a package from Aunt Sheri and Uncle Mike. There is a reason I get worried when presents come from there house. This dear friend of mine feels the need to send packing peanuts with EVERY gift...she could be mailing toilet paper to my children and she would still send in packed in peanuts or some kind of confetti that is ready to shoot out at me. I feel as if I should learn with every envelope and/or package that arrives on my front stoop. I really think that I make the honest effort to get that stuff out of my children's reach as soon as possible. However....

I think that they have inspector gadget arms and legs when their momma is not looking. It's ridiculous!!! Nevertheless....

Molly got a fabulous writing tablet from them. She forbids Max from using any of it. She LOVES practicing her writing. I'm so happy she loves doing it and doesn't get frustrated easily (with her handwriting at least.) She also received a guinea pig from Aunt Sheri and Uncle Mike. She named her Sally and was all to excited and ready to take her to her new animal hospital.

Friday we were up early getting ready for the big day. Nana, Aunt Stephy, Nick and Zachary were all on their way. We got the house all cleaned up, meals taken care of, baths done and then the door bell rang. Some good friends stopped by a few hours before the party to bring Molly her gifts and to visit for a little while. They brought her God's Little Princess Bible. I love it and so does Molly. She loves flipping through it and then I sit and read her a few of the stories from it. If you have a little girl in your life that you get gifts for, I definitely recommend that Bible.

We had Molly's party at the park and it ended up being a perfect day for it all. She had two little boys come to her party. Several weeks back, Molly had said that she only wanted girls at her party. When I told her that the two people she was really excited about having were boys, she decided to change her mind so that the boys could come too!



The next day was Molly's actual birthday. The boys awoke to give Molly birthday kisses. (Yes, they had a slumber party here the first night...I think they all finally ended up going to bed around 11:30...yikes!) We went to a community celebration down at the park and enjoyed construction trucks, 4 wheelers, fire trucks, inflatables, freezy pops from the concession. Then it was time for a rest. We headed back to the house for a bit of a rest before heading out and grilling at the state park. There we gave Molly her scooter from her Mommy and Daddy. She loved it and I was so happy. She just kept saying, "It's just what I wanted. I am going practice." And she would. SOOOOOO slowly. She's getting the hang of it though. I want her to always have joy in the little stuff.

Sunday morning we headed to church. I was a little nervous about the boys going with Max & Molly. Zachary did end up staying with us and slept on Aaron the entire church service. He looked very sweet. Nick walked right in to children's church with Max and Aaron. Max was the one that Aaron had to peel off his leg. After church we took the clan to Wendy's, home for another rest and then to the hotel for a nice long swim. The kids had a blast swimming. I can't wait to see them all on our camping trip. We went back to the house to have dinner and watch Bolt. We said our good-byes before they headed back to the hotel and out early the next morning.

Monday, Aaron left us for a business trip. The kids and I enjoyed some fun alone time and got all outfits ready for the entire week before heading out and getting mommy a few chick flicks to watch while daddy was out of town. The kids and I played most of the afternoon, then had a fun kid dinner, then baths. Finally we were ready to get out the door to go and pick up a movie for momma (and have the car ride lull them to sleep). Max and Molly were headed down the stairs and Max didn't look so good. I asked him if he was ok. He said he needed to go #2. I told him ok but that he had to go in Molly's little toilet b/c I had to go thru "it" and see if the nickel came out. He started crying. He didn't like going in Molly's toilet b/c when he did "it" the first time it touched him b/c let's face it, that toilet is just for potty training...not big ol 4.5 year olds. So we got a book and kept him distracted. He was happy to finally have had gone. So out came the plastic bags and popscicle sticks again. He asked if he could stay and watch. I told him no, but that if I found the nickel I'd be sure to call him. I spent what felt like quite a long time searching for that nickel. I was about to give up and just wait until next time when I found it. I called him in there. He yelled and told Molly, but then informed me that we couldn't keep it. I thought that was fabulous idea. He was happy to have it out and back to normal.

Wednesday morning, Papa got into town and we surprised Max at his school. They wore Papa out before heading out to eat and taking Max to Awana. Thursday was another day except Papa was there. The girls had a blast having him to themselves while Max was at school. Max, Papa and I played a few games of Candyland while the girls slept and we waited for Aaron to return home. We took everyone out to eat and began enjoying our long weekend. Papa left and went to rest up for our visit soon.

We had an awesome weekend. Aaron took Friday off. Molly and I headed to the doctor for her 3 year check-up. She discovered he daddy's Bible in our room and spent some time looking at it. When we were all ready to go she decided she wanted to take it with her. I figured she'd leave it in the car when we reached the doc office. Nope. She took it in with her.

The weather was great and we spent the majority of it outside.

I am flying through this, but I really just want to get this posted before May 1st and that starts in 10.5 short hours.

Tuesday night we thought the kids were sleeping and we were having a chatting session downstairs in the living room at about 9:30 or so. Max comes down whimpering. He shows me his finger. It's the same finger he injured back in August while we were visiting MI. He mumbles something. I asked him if it was a hang nail and did he bite it off. He shook his head no. Aaron asked him something. He said no. Then he said something about a pencil. Something clicked. He had gotten in trouble a little bit earlier in the day for fooling around with my eyeliner pencil sharperner. Yep. He put his finger in the sharperner and turned it. It cut off part of his fingernail and caused to bleed. We got a band-aid on him and fixed him up before he headed back to bed. Goodness! Keep your fingers out of my stuff and that won't happen! :)

Wednesday night, Max wrapped up his first year of AWANA. What a blessing that has been. He has learned so much and memorized more of God's Word than me!

Let's see...what else this month????

Maggie is waving like crazy. Still not saying Mama, but she is waving and smiling and laughing and busy being the sweet thing she is.

Ok...I am signing off and saying good-bye to April. I WILL have more than 2 posts next month. We have so much going on....I can't wait to write all about it and then forget and then re-read my blog, remember it all again and smile.

FINALLY!!! IT'S MAY 1ST AROUND 12:15 P.M. AND I HAVE FINALLY FINISHED MY ONLY 2 POSTS OF APRIL. RIDICULOUS!!! NO WONDER I HAVE TO HAVE A BLOG TO REMIND ME OF ALL THE WONDERFUL THINGS MY KIDS DO. HELLO MAY!!!!