And it begins....

My baby girl is 12....almost 11....short days away from her 1st birthday.
Today her first biting victim was her sister.
Let me tell you that Molly was NOT happy.
Maggie LOVES Dora, Blues Clues, her Praise Baby videos & Veggie Tales.
Whenever one of these comes on the television her little body moves so fast to that t.v. that no one can catch her.
Now when she does this the other 2 kids feel threatened that she is going to change the channel, turn off the tv or dvd player, etc. etc. Well, Molly let her know that she did not like her racing up to the tv like that. This has been common in our house for some time so I didn't think much of it. Plus, Aaron was right there so I turned back into the kitchen to continue working on dinner.
Next thing I hear is crying. The crying is coming from Molly while Maggie's little body is right up to the tv looking happy as could be. She wasn't concerned with her sister at all.
I hear Molly bawling.
She says, cries rather, through her tears, "She bit me".
She is holding her arms and I didn't think I heard her correctly so I asked Aaron what she said.
Sure enough Molly's upper arm had 2 little almost 1 year old teeth marks on it.
I couldn't help but smile a little bit.
They have been picking on Maggie since the day she was born.
I guess she's had enough.
It begins...

Growing....

1st day of tball 5-24-08

1st day of tball.....5-16-09


1st day of school...8-20-08

Last day of school...5-21-09

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.