Awesome Randomness

The weeks just seem to fly by in-between posts these days! My days are full with housework, schoolwork and little girls to play with and then the evenings are for playing outside or cuddling on the couch and watching a movie. After the girls are in bed I can usually be found folding laundry or pretending to be a vegetable.

• Sometimes I feel like I am lacking in the friend department, so one of the happiest parts of the past week was when I went to our former town and had lunch with my awesome mommy-friends, A & K. I feel blessed to have great on-line friends, great old friends that I know I could call if I needed anything and only see once a year, church friends that I teach beside of and homeschool mom friends that understand me in a special way, but my mommy-friends are SO special. Even though we are an hour apart and only see each other on average four times a year, these may be my bestest friends. Of course, A was the first person that found out I was expecting Ellie (after me!) and she also gets the first call when there's not good news. She can always make me feel better and she always offers to do anything. She called me during my first day of labor with Ellie and she was the first person that I called minutes after Ellie was born. K and I facebook each other messages a lot, but we don't talk that often. She is a little older and much more level-headed than A or myself. Just this afternoon, she called to give me some bad news about her family and I called A. When A found out that she had cancer, I immediately called K.
• I have started craving plain water again!! SO exciting! There for a while I was drinking lemon in my water, but I'm back to drinking LOTS of plain water. My friend A gave me a monogrammed cup for Christmas and I love drinking out of it!
• Maggie & Ellie have become Bath & Body Works junkies! I have quite an assortment of lotions and body sprays (every one of them gifted to me by friends) and they love to "get ready" everyday! My old favorite is Japanese Cherry Blossom (Ellie's favorite) and my newest favorite is Coconut Passionfruit (smells like the beach), a gift from my friend K. Maggie likes Be Enchanted (from A) and Cotton Blossom (from Gammy Gladys).
• Maggie is participating in a daily Bible study that our church starts at the beginning of the new year. At the end of the year they have a little reception for all the particiapnts that completed it. We usually do our study after Ellie is in bed, but she occasionally is in the room. Tonight, she grabbed the Bible and said that she would "read Maggie the lesson and teach her the word of God". Then she threw out "Moses" and "leader" and :obey" before finishing her version of a lesson.
• Maggie read Anne of Green Gables a few weeks ago. I bought the book months ago and was saving it for a time when she had finished reading some of her other chapter books. We took turns reading it aloud and she read several chapters without me. She has also read it aloud one time. She loves The Happy Hollisters, Junie B. Jones and The Hardy Boys, too. (Yes, she reads extremely well for a 5 year old!)
• Maggie has three loose teeth. I think two of her bottom teeth will be out before her sixth birthday next month. (She is excited, but I'm not sure about having a child with permanent teeth!) The other tooth is one of her two front teeth. The dentist has already prepared me that she will need some dental work. She has a really small mouth and even her baby teeth have become crowded in the past few months.
• I had thought (and hoped) that this would be the year that Maggie requested a birthday party where we invited friends. I was prepared and had several fun ideas, but she requested family again. I have and will always let her choose who comes to her party. She chose "Olivia" for the theme! This delighted me! I was worried that she would choose something really tacky (Ha!) and just so tickled with Olivia. I still haven't bought the original Olivia book for her, but I picked up one of her other favorite Olivia books today. We LOVE that pig!
• Ellie is trying to decide between Olivia and Toy Story for her birthday in June. She loves playing cowgirl with her hat, horse and boots!

And I could go on and on with more randomness, but I think I'll just go to bed!

And then two weeks passed

I had every intention of doing a better job at keeping a record of our lives, but we have been busy! The weather has been extremely warm (and even hot on some days) and we have been trying to enjoy it, so we took our first zoo trip of the year. We have been blowing lots of bubbles, drawing on the driveway with sidewalk chalk and "painting" with paintbrushes and water.

I'm trying to decide and order Maggie's supplies for second grade. I'm also planning to start a formal preschool curriculum with Ellie. Those two things alone have occupied me nearly every evening after the kids are in bed.

We went to see a production of "Charlotte's Web" with part of our homeschool group from church. We really enjoyed it! Ellie kept saying, "I want more movie". I think we'll be going to see more plays in the future.

Big Daddy took last week off of work and we took "Spring Break" from school. He had lots of school stuff to keep him busy, but it was nice to be together in the evenings.

Maggie says so many funny things to Ellie. Tonight in the bathtub Maggie complained because Ellie stuck her hand under the body wash bottle first. Maggie thinks that she should be first because she was born first. I reminded her that they were both special for different reasons. She said, "Hey, Ellie. You know I'm special because I was born in a different way? They had to cut Mommy's belly open, get me out and then sew her back up. They thought I might die. But I didn't." Of course, I was about to cry! Then she said, "Mom come show us the line where they got me out." Sweet thing just had to ruin my moment!

And that is it. There are tons of other things, but that's all I have the energy to share tonight.

Q: Why on Earth do you have a blog???

A: I have no idea. At first, it was to document a pregnancy, but I'm just not sure anymore.

I've come to realize that sometimes I act like my mom acted when I was little. Of course, I had no idea that my sister and I were nearly driving her crazy or that she loved us so much that she could burst. I didn't always realize that she was doing SO much on her own because my dad was working long hours to provide for us all.

In other words, I HAD NO IDEA HOW HARD THIS MOMMY-THING COULD BE. I also had no idea that it was worth every bit of the work, drama, tears, prayers and headaches. Oh, the headaches.

One day, I hope that Maggie and Ellie will be able to look back and know who I am right now. Writing a journal would be ideal, but blogging seems a little more realistic.

I still have my mom and I often call her when the crazy is happening and apologize for things I did in my childhood. All of my grandparents have passed away and I often wish I knew more about different parts of their lives. Anyway, I want Maggie and Ellie to have this part of who I am (and who they are, too). Crazy and everything!

I have said before that I'm not a scrapbook person, so this is it. I hope to blog a little more often, but we stay pretty busy living our lives.