Little ways that say I Love You

To say that parenting has it's ups and downs is an understatement. To say that "single"-parenting while your spouse is away for weeks at a time has it's ups and downs is even more of an understatement.

Big Daddy left on Sunday, February 12. We decided that he would leave for the airport at the same time that I left with the girls for church. We were going to take him to the airport, but then Big Daddy and I decided that it might be too much for me to try to carry two crying, kicking, heavy girls to the car after he had boarded his plane. Goodbyes to Daddy can be hard.

Maggie had her first "I just miss my Daddy" episode on Sunday night. She completely lost it when we finished our phone call with Big Daddy and then she said, "I just can't do anything without him here. I can't do anything at all without him during the day". It was like looking at myself some 14+ years ago when I would finish a Sunday night phone call with Big Daddy. I explained that I used to feel that way when we were dating, but now I had two little girls to make me feel better and explained that being apart was hard on all of us. To make matters worse, we were getting sick, too.

We stayed in all day on Monday and Maggie even asked to miss dance that evening. We were snotty and coughing and all feeling a little lethargic. At some point during the morning, I found an envelope with our street address written on it and opened it to find this:

I might have melted! I never want her to feel like Mommy can't handle things when Daddy's away, but I always want her to know that this is hard for me too. I had written her a little thank you note a couple of weeks ago because she had folded all of the towels, wash cloths and cloth napkins (nearly a full load of laundry) without me knowing. She was obviously touched and then wrote me a thank you note to thank me for the card. She loves the written word.

We woke up on Valentine's Day and Maggie was thrilled to finally give me my present. She had wrapped it (a David Crowder*Band cd) a couple of weeks ago and had been giving me hints about what it was. I opened it and then fixed the girls chocolate chip pancakes for breakfast. Ellie was playing with static cling hearts on the french doors and then spit all over the door because he heart wouldn't stick. (Yes, it sticks if you use spit!) I scolded her, she apologized and then I got the cleaner and a cloth and she cleaned up her mess. A few minutes later, I had a "delivery" in my bedroom.

And then found this on the easel in the living room.

No day would be complete without some sort of accident. On Valentine's Day, poor Ellie couldn't get her bathing suit (long story, don't judge) down in time when she went to the bathroom. You can imagine what happened. This is the note that I received:

Heart melting again.

We needed more tissues and I really needed VapoRub, so we had to go out and my mom asked us to come by her house so that she could give the girls their Valentine gifts. They each had a snowglobe in their bag. Of course, Ellie decided to put her snowglobe in her backpack once we got home and then she jumped up and down on it. Of course, it broke. Of course, Maggie wrote ANOTHER note.

The rest of our Valentine's Day was spent making homemade pizza and then delivering treats to our closest neighbors. (Both girls started out in bathing suits, but Ellie likes to change clothes A LOT. Maggie was trying on a new suit, but the bottoms were way to big, which explains why she doesn't match. Not that she normally matches!)

Lots of other stuff happened, but we'll just fast forward to this past Sunday. Maggie always has at least three art projects from her Sunday School class and this was one of them:

This is now framed and sitting out where I can see it!

There are SO many days that I feel like the worst mom and I wonder if anyone appreciates anything that I do or if they hear anything that I say. I am so thankful for these little reminders.

You Are Amazing

We started out our week with a trip to IKEA on Monday. It's a two hour drive, so we talked about leaving you girls with Nana, but we wanted family time. Your dad had phone meetings, but we were able to have some nice family time.

We went to Bass Pro Shops first and you two loved playing on the boats that they had inside. You can make anywhere into your personal playground.

And Maggie, you wore one of my favorite dresses. Forget that you had slept in it from when you wore it to church on Sunday. You decided to change it up a bit and paired it with dark brown leggings and your brown cowboy boots. You looked beautiful and I wish I had taken a picture of the complete outfit. I let you pick out your clothes and I can't help but smile even when you embarrass me.

We walked just inside of the big mall and after one store, I decided that I couldn't do the big mall and IKEA with you two! Of course, we walked right by a chocolate shop and someone wanted a candy apple. That would be you, Maggie.

$10 later, we walked away with a nice dessert (caramel, covered in chocolate with a strawberry drizzle)for after lunch. And Ellie, you met a new friend.

We had Mexican food for lunch and then pulled into IKEA around 12:45. The two of you could totally live on the second floor. You jump from "room" to "room" and are just do excited to look at everything. It wasn't crowded like last time, so you had lots of space to roam.

Since we knew what we were going for, we picked out the two pieces of furniture for your rooms and I picked up a few other things. Your dad and I have looked at furniture for your rooms for so long and finally decided that this was what we want and we really couldn't be any happier. I want to get some cute antique headboards or something, but I like to look until I find exactly what I want. We were back on the road a couple of hours later.

You were both thrilled when Daddy started putting the new furniture together on Tuesday. Both of you are quite handy with a hammer and a screwdriver. You treated your dad like a king and were quick to give him any tool that he needed. The best part was that you were able to help again on Wednesday.

On Thursday, Daddy quit the work at home stuff and went back to the office. Both of you were sad, but we needed to do a little school work, go the library and get the house in order. "We" worked on Valentine stuff and were excited about our homeschool group's party in Friday.

Some of our friends from church are part of the big group now, so Ellie, you played in the toddler area with Kamrynn. The two of you had lots of fun and were so funny trying to sneak off and get into trouble with the big kids. Maggie, you loved decorating cookies, playing games and doing a cake walk. We ended the party with snacks and a puppet show.

Daddy decided that it was time for a certain five year old to get her first gun. A rifle, to be exact. I was (hoping) for something child-sized and pink, but got this instead.

A big, black Ruger.

When I asked you about it, Maggie, you said that you really like black anyway. Then you asked if we could go out and shoot at trees. Your Daddy has already taught you a lot about gun safety and you are anxious to learn how to shoot.

Now, it is Sunday. We are finally getting our first colds of the season. It started with me and I think it's moving to you Ellie. Maggie, you tucked your sister into bed, read her a story and prayed with her tonight. You two can be SO sweet and then sometimes, you're not.

But every single day, you are amazing.

Three

I'm not sure how this is even possible.

It has been three years since we found out that we were expecting our second child.

I'm so thankful that my sweet friend, A, was the first person that I was able to tell the news too in person. Yes, Big Daddy was second.

This morning, Ellie picked out the shirt that Maggie was wearing in the picture that I took of Maggie holding the positive test!

(Originally posted on November 16, 2008)

Testing...Testing

This is a test post!! No really it is a test post! See the pregnancy test that The Muffin is holding? It says "Pregnant"!
This picture was taken on September 29 and we showed it to Big Daddy when he got home from work. He thought I had taken a picture of The Muffin with a thermometer. (She was just getting over a case of croup and bronchitis, so he wasn't completely crazy!) I took The Muffin to the bathroom, gave her the real test and Big Daddy thought that she wanted to take his temperature!
We spent the rest of the evening talking about the Baby-to be and making plans for the future.

Finally Fall

Maggie has been patiently waiting for the first day of fall for weeks. When I reminded her that today was the big day she said, "Oh my word, I almost forgot".

We decided to put our fall wreath and scarecrows up last week. Unless something drastic happens, that is the extent of our seasonal decorations for fall. We'll buy a pumpkin in another week or so and I'll be planting pansies as soon as I can, but that's it.

This week has been a busy week! This was the first week of our fall school/activity schedule with Big Daddy home. I guess busy is our new normal.

Ellie has started putting together the most amazing sentences and she is so funny! She loves to ask," Where are we going next?" when we're running errands and getting in and out of the car. Ellie likes her new Sunday School class and going to Mission Friends on Wednesday evenings. She has discovered glue sticks and loves art at church and the library.

Maggie has been something lately! She is still enjoying school and her homeschool elective (sign language) class. She seems to be enjoying her Awana class too. She has been creating lots of fun things this week- from puppets to paper dolls. She has a great imagination and has also started writing songs,

Keep The Balance Right

The past few weeks have been overwhelming at times. We are about to start what will be our "everyday schedule" for fall. I feel like we have fallen into a nice rhythm with first grade schoolwork and I have managed to get Maggie weekly work binder put together in an hour (or an hour and a half) on Saturday afternoon and now we're going to shake things up a bit!

Monday-dance class for an hour in the evening

Tuesday- Maggie's sign language through music class in the afternoon, Ellie will be in a preschool class and I'll help out where needed (these classes cut into ou school time and Ellie's nap, so we may not take them again in January)
Wednesday- Awana- I'll be teaching Cubbies again, Ellie will be in Mission Friends and Maggie and Callie (she's coming along this year) will be in an Awana class
Thursday- Storytime at the library in the morning

Even though the activities only last for an hour or so, I feel a little overwhelmed. I decided that it may be best if Maggie doesn't do children's choir at church on Sunday evenings,but I'm thinking that she'll be doing it in January. If we hadn't already signed up for the sign language and preschool classes through the homeschool network, we'd do it. It's a Christian homeschool network, so the songs that Maggie does will be faith-based. I already have a list of things that we'll be doing or not doing after the first of the year. I want to mix fun and educational things, so Maggie may take a children's literature class or something like that through the network. We'll see how our schedule looks.

Big Daddy and I have always wanted Maggie (and Ellie) to be involved in extra curricular activities, but we have seen too many children that seem to be over-scheduled. I want to have a good balance of fun, educational, free time and family time. I'd like to have a little free time too, but I feel like that will come later. Even though I have only two children and really only work at homeschooling one of them, it takes quite a bit of planning, commitment and time. When things seem so busy, I remember that this is only a season in my life...or maybe two.

I'm going to try and put together a post of Maggie's weekly work binder and our curriculum choices soon. I'd like for her to look back on what we did one day and it may be of interest to someone else that's homeschooling.

A Little Bit of Ellie's Room

I'm not finished with Ellie's room, but I have finally taken the time to finish a few little projects that have been on my to-do list for quite a while.

Ellie's room has been painted for weeks now, but I tend to take my time when picking out things that I'm going to have to live with. After looking in stores and online, I kept leaning towards a chocolate brown comforter and either chocolate curtains or buying printed fabric with brown and other colors.I read lots of design blogs, and they helped me decide that I wanted to use a shade of orange in her room. I feel like we have plenty of dark brown in our house (living room, kitchen, master bedroom and the girl's bathroom) so I was trying hard to stay away from it. I couldn't find anything with orange in it that I liked. I love the way white looks with the color (Valspar, Blue Whisper) of her walls, so I finally decided to go with a white down comforter and white curtains. I think it looks sweet with her white chest of drawers, toy box and book shelf. And it looks really girl-y! Of course, her room color looks nothing like the way that it photographs.


I always try to let Maggie and Ellie have things that reflect their likes and personalities in their rooms. Maggie's pink and zebra room is sort of sassy just like her. Ellie likes the color blue, so we knew that we wanted a shade of blue for her walls. (I'd share the inspiration for her wall color, but the blog is currently out of order.) She has recently fallen in love with Dorothy, the Tin Man and all things Wizard of Oz. We had an extra print upstairs that we had planned to give to Maggie well over a year ago for her birthday, but sometimes her Mommy buys her presents and then forgets about them. ;-) She was so excited when she saw it on her wall. She also loves her ABC's, which she calls "P's".

I have always thought that scrapbooking seemed like a waste of paper, but I have a great love of scrapbooking paper. I also love the sample sizes of paints that you can have mixed. I had a sample of Olympic's Two To Tango mixed so that I could paint the canvas and the picture frames. Hopefully, I'll get the canvas on the wall tomorrow.

Another Whirlwind Week!

I feel like I've made it through another whirlwind week and I'm already looking at a busy calendar for the week that's about to start!!

I have had so many things that I wanted to take the time to blog about. This blog is a scrapbook of our daily lives and lots of things happen that I don't want to forget. Unfortunately, my free time seems to get less and less and homeschooling takes up so many of my thoughts. I plan to post a few things about homeschooling later. There are things that we're doing that I'd like to document for when the girls are older.

Big Daddy will be out of town all of next week. We'll have dance class, registration for homeschool electives, a teacher's meeting for our new Awana year at church and a field trip with our homeschool group on Friday. Thursday will be our only real free day and I think we'll spend it hanging out at home. There are times where I feel busier as a stay at home homeschooling mom of two than I felt on my busiest day in real estate.

I was finally able to finalize our Disney World reservations! Maggie woke up with a fever at 1am on Friday morning, threw up in her bed as soon as she woke up at 7am and spent the rest of the day on the couch. I used naptime to finish up our travel details with the travel agent (Small World Vacations- Annette F.) I cannot recommend them enough! I had already planned out exactly what we wanted, so we were able to do everything by email until time for payment. I feel so relieved...and excited.

Sunady is a special day. We had planned to attend Maggie's Graduation Luncheon at church, but it looks like she'll be staying at home and missing it. She's already asked if we could have a special luncheon at home. She will be leaving the preschool department and going to classes in a different building with all school-aged children. We feel so blessed that we go to this church and that she's had such a positive experience with everything involved in the Preschool Ministry.

Ellie will also changing classes. She will be going to a big girl class and will have the same teachers that she had for Bible School- Mr. Danny and Ms. Virginia. I know that she'll be okay because she talks about them all the time and everyone just thrives in their class. I'll really miss her sweet teachersMs. Alice and Ms. Denise.

Butterflies

Our church plans "H.A.P.P.P.Y" (Hands-On Activities for Preschoolers, Parents and You) Days field trips once a month during the summer months. We've never attended a HAPPY Day before, but we wanted to go to the butterfly farm and they have inconvenient hours for us, so we decided to skip the library and go.The butterflies were very friendly and I think every single person had at least one on their feeding pad, skin or clothes. I was the only one that was "fortunate" enough to have one in their hair...almost the entire time.

It was quite warm and Ellie was very hot. Both girls had been under the misting pergola and were pretty wet which attracted the butterflies even more!

I think my favorite part was looking at the butterflies in their chrysalis. There were several that were clear and ready to "hatch" and we were able to watch one as it emerged. It happened so fast, so I wasn't able to get a picture, but it was the chrysalis right beside of the butterfly with wet wings that is on the far right. That one had hatched just a few minutes before and was drying out.www.all-a-flutter.com

Oh The Things You Say!

We were driving down the road and Maggie saw a two-story house that was getting a new roof. She said- "Oh, they're really high up. I wouldn't want to do that job. I don't think I want to do anything when I grow up. I'll just stay with you and be a pretend nun".

If you ask Ellie, "how are you" or something that sounds like that question she either says "good" or "two".

Less Words Wednesday

Ellie has discovered the magic of a pretty tutu. The only one that she has (until I make her another one) is the one I made her when she was a few months old. This video was taken right after we came home from the beach (hence all of the stuff on the counters and stove) and of course, they thought I was just messing with the camera. My favorite part is when Ellie says "excuse me" at the 23 second mark.

Finally...

I don't like family pictures where the family is at the beach wearing khakis, white shirts and sitting near sand dunes. I like coordinating outfits just fine, but the match-y stuff gets me.
I LOVE pictures of kids in matching outfits! Finally getting a picture of Maggie & Ellie in their matching dresses (even if it wasn't the matching dresses I wanted) made me happy!!

These girls LOVE each other, but they aren't allowed to touch for pictures. It causes Maggie to scrunch down and Ellie to push her away and say, "no,no".

Ellie's official two year old picture.
Of course, Maggie had to wear her favorite American flag flip flops on the beach, but she'd had her nice sandals on all evening.


We have found that we take less pictures since we have two kids, so I think I only have a little over a hundred pictures of our four day trip. This was another one of those times where Big Daddy and I were amazed at how much our lives have changed since becoming parents. Watching Maggie and Ellie play in the sand and waves for a few minutes beats relaxing on the beach for hours without a care in the world any day.
Well, almost. It's a different kind of relaxing.

Turning 2 At The Beach

We are back from the beach and I think we are all pretty happy to be home! I love to travel, but I LOVE to get home too. It seems that Maggie and Ellie are the same!

Ellie had a delightful 2nd birthday on Monday! We were up very bright and early and made it out on the beach to enjoy a perfect day! We happened to be right beside of Life Guard #2.

If you said "Happy Birthday" to Ellie, she would say, "ME!!!! Two!" and hold up two fingers.

We spent the morning on the beach and in the lazy river at our hotel, had nap time and then Maggie & Daddy went for a helicopter ride. They both loved it and we all may go next year.

After that excitement, we decided to ride a few (hundred) rides to celebrate Ellie a little bit more!

We went out to dinner and Ellie was so tired, but...

still managed to smile for the camera!

After dinner at Hard Rock, we had more fun on more rides and then we were SO ready for bed!!

Should have a few more pictures tomorrow!

Two

It's so hard to believe that we welcomed Ellie two years ago. I think back to her birth just as much as I do Maggie's and that is such a blessing.

We have been so blessed to have Ellie and she has brought so much joy to her Mommy, Daddy and "Sissy".
The only thing better than having one, really is having two!

These days...

Ellie loves "Goodnight Moon" and "The ABC Library" book. She also loves "Once Upon A Potty" and "The Potty Train", but they are both library books.

Her vocabulary is finally growing...by leaps and bounds. There are still some thing that only I understand, but I sort of like that.

Ellie's favorite phrase is "Hollllme" a.k.a hold me. She says it All. The. Time. And I hold her a whole lot.

Ellie LOVES Barney. I'm not even sure how it happened, but she loves him. She asks to watch him at least ten times everyday. I usually let the girls watch a Barney DVD while I cook dinner. Ellie always cries when it goes off.

She loves anything that belongs to "Sissy".

Ellie always calls Maggie "Sissy". I love to hear it, but I also like to hear her say Maggie.
She's dramatic. If she gets mad, she runs to her room and then closes the door and gets in her bed. If I don't check on her soon, she'll come back into the room and act like it never happened.

Ellie loves her "Papa' and she's the only grandchild that doesn't call him "Pawpaw". It's always about Papa, all the time. She likes Nana, Braxton, Auntie Charles and Uncle Duh Duh too.

Ellie adores church and loves to pray which currently consists of folding her hands and saying "God" over and over and then "Amen".

She sings and hums while she's playing. (My mom and I hum all the time.)

Ellie's favorite songs are "You Are My Sunshine" and "Jesus Loves Me'. She also LOVES Kindermusik CD's.

Ellie loves real babies and baby dolls.

She currently sleeps in her daybed (converted from her crib) with her head on her Boppy pillow. She has been sleeping with a baby that my friend Ms. A gave her for Christmas for months and this past week has started sleeping with "Llammy"- the Llama from "Llama, Llama Red Pajama" which she'll be getting for her birthday.

It's funny how you feel complete until you welcome someone new into your life and you just know that they were meant for you and are the perfect match for your daughter and Maggie's sister.
That's our Ellie.

I'll have a full post up sometime tomorrow (maybe) of how we spent Ellie's birthday.