Lainey G, Kindergartener, Toothless Wonder

The tooth, like the thrill for B.B. King, is gone! It came out yesterday with the help of dad, some pink thread, and a good pull! She's a cute little snaggle tooth now! The tooth fairy did visit over night and left her $5.00 (the rate is higher for "first" teeth). She used that to buy herself a book today at the book store and had it read by the time we'd driven back home (that's 67 pages, folks; she's a genius!).

NEVER A DULL MOMENT!!!

Some days, I wonder what I could possibly blog about and other days, my children provide ample material. Today was that day. Sometimes an incident occurs and I think, "There's my blog." In my few short years of parenting, I have discovered that there are times that your children require assistance to get out of a bind they've managed to get themselves into. But, I have also discovered that sometimes BEFORE you help them get out of said bind, pictures must first be taken so as to preserve the moment. Today was that day.

What we heard:
Lainey and Sarah Grace playing downstairs. Sarah Grace called me a couple of times, but, honestly, I had just sat down and thought, "I just can't get up right this second to see what they need." Sarah Grace called again and I heard Lainey say, "Yeah, you had better call her because I'm stuck." Sarah Grace then came upstairs and mumbled, "Mom, Lainey's stuck in the washing machine." Not freaking out, I said to Lon, "Oh, we've got to go see this. Let me get the camera."

What we saw:


Never a dull moment around here!!! It took some doing to get her out, but she did eventually come out. There were many tears and several bruises were sustained, but once we stopped and prayed, she came right out! Now, I'm hoping that she learned two lessons from this: one, how God answers prayer and two, NEVER GET INTO THE WASHING MACHINE AGAIN!

An Age Test

I truly believe that the Lord has given these children to me as a means of keeping me humble. I didn't know that pride was something I struggled with so much, but evidently I am in constant need of more humility. This morning, Lainey was working on a picture and she was writing down the ages of everyone in our house. She had a 1 for Abby, a 3 for Sarah Grace, a 5 for herself, and a 30 for Lon. When I came into the kitchen, she asked how old I was so I asked her how old she thought I was. She said, "Ahm, 20." I said, "Good, let's go with that!" Lon wasn't in favor of that idea however; something about lying to our kids (he's such a do-gooder!). When I told Lainey that I'm 33, she said, "Whoa!" Now, I choose to believe that what she meant by that exclamation was "Wow, mom you look incredible for 33; I can't believe that you've had 3 kids and are expecting your 4th! I hope my genes come from YOUR side of the family." But I suspect it might have been otherwise intended! My pride did come up a bit when Lon said she thought he was 31; humph, take that do-gooder!

And That's The Tooth. . .

The big news in our house today is that Lainey has a VERY loose tooth and seems on the verge of becoming a cute little snaggle tooth! We discovered the wiggly culprit before 7:00 this morning and our focus has been on it most of the day. She's so excited to know that, soon and very soon, her tooth is going to come out. I explained to her that it would probably bleed some when it came out, but that she would be okay. She seemed quite accepting of this so we'll just have to see how she reacts when the moment indeed comes to pass. Sarah Grace is upset at the prospect of her own teeth falling out, but we reassured her that she's got a couple of years to hold on to the ones she's got. Lainey has wiggled the tooth back and forth all day long and it really wouldn't take more than one good yank to get it out, but she's content to let it hang on for just a little while longer. Lon offered to tie a string around it and pull it out by tying the other end of the string to a door knob, but she wasn't too keen on the idea. There was a lot of nervous laughter along with looks of "You must be crazy, dad!" She went to bed tonight with one of her favorite books, Junie B, First Grader Toothless Wonder. I told her it won't be long before she's Lainey G, Kindergartener Toothless Wonder. We'll keep you posted on the saga of the wiggly incisor.

I don't really want to be one of those weepy moms who cries over every little stage of transition, but I've got to say, this one makes my heart ache just a bit and makes me mist over a touch. I've found myself asking that age old question that parents have been asking since the dawn of time: Where has the time gone? It seems like NO time at all since my sweet little 4 month old baby cut her first two teeth just after having been to the doctor's office and the doctor telling me that what I thought were tooth buds certainly could not be. (Just goes to show that sometimes moms do know a thing or two!) I fear that these years are going to slip by too quickly and that I'm going to turn around and see these sweet little children all grown up and on their own. It just makes me want to hold on to them a little bit tighter. Lord, please let me cherish each moment and not take any of them for granted!!

Wagon Rides and Exciting Toothpaste

We have had beautiful weather here again today and it looks like we will for the rest of the week. I thrive up here in the spring and summer! The sun is up early and goes down late and, when the sun is shining, it's amazing! Seeing as the weather was so nice today, the girls asked if they could go ride their bikes. So, we put everybody in knee pads, elbow pads, helmets, and full body armor (seriously, it takes longer to get them ready to ride bikes than they actually spend riding) and headed outside. I padded our trusty old red Radio Flyer wagon with a blanket and put Abs in that for her first ride outside. She loved it. She loved it so much that the other two forsook their bikes and joined her. At first, it was just Sarah Grace and Abby while Lainey continued to ride her bike ahead of us. But soon enough, Lainey parked her bike in the front yard and asked if she could ride too. It was fun, but left me pondering the question, "How did a bike ride turn into me pulling approximately 100 pounds behind me in a wagon?" Needless to say, we didn't do that trip too many times before I had to call it quits.

We laugh quite often at the little expressions our girls come out with, particularly Sarah Grace. Last night as we prepared to brush their teeth, we realized that there was just no more squeezing anything out of their tube of Tinkerbell toothpaste. Now, I KNOW that I put some Dora toothpaste in our cart last week at Walmart, but I haven't seen it since the checkout line so I don't know if we just made a donation to Walmart for the amount of the toothpaste and didn't actually make it home with it or if it's floating around in the van somewhere. At any rate, we decided they could just use some of our toothpaste. I expected a bit of a revolt because there was no character involved, but they were actually quite excited. Lainey ran up the stairs saying, "Yeah, we get to use big people toothpaste!" Sarah Grace quickly followed saying, "People big toothpaste, yeah!" I think Crest should use that as a marketing slogan of some variety. "Crest--the people big toothpaste for big people teeth!" If this stay at home mom thing doesn't work out, I could have a career in advertising!

Birthday Party Pictures

Okay, as promised, here are pictures from Abs' first birthday party. She had GREAT fun eating and WEARING her cake! Enjoy!

Happy Easter!

What a mighty God we serve! He is risen! Because of His death and, more importantly, because of His resurrection, we can live! I pray that you 've all had a blessed Easter and that Jesus has been at the center of your celebration today! Here's an incredible video I found on Youtube the other day: I'm so glad that Sunday came!




Here is a picture of the girls from this morning all dressed up in their Easter finest. Theese girls are definitely sisters! You'll note that I've obviously found a way to download pictures so I'll get pictures of Abby's birthday party posted soon and very soon!

Pansies, Parties, and Pride

Wow, what an incredible day of weather we're having today! It's been in the 60's here today and those are temperatures we don't usually see until the end of May or the first part of June. The girls have had a great time playing outside this afternoon and we even potted some plants that we picked up today at Walmart. Count that as a science lesson during this spring break week!

We celebrated Abby's birthday on Saturday complete with her very own cake and had great fun. Our other girls were both a bit tentative about getting into the cake, but not Abs. She dove right in and soon had it caked all over her arms, chest, and face. Pictures will soon follow, but we've not yet located our software to link the camera and the new computer. It was lots of fun, the weather cooperated and Lainey and Sarah Grace and their special friend Annelise were able to enjoy the swing set. We had several good friends from church come over to help us celebrate and really enjoyed the time. While I think it would be nice for our girls to have some other kids their age in our church (at this point, Annelise is the only one and she's several months younger than Sarah Grace), I'm grateful for our multi-generational approcah to birthday parties. It's such a blessing to have a couple of 80-somethings, some 70-somethings, along with folks our own age. It seems that real life is more about learning to relate to a wide range of different people and I'm glad that we can start teaching our girls that lesson now.

Okay, I promised funny stories on our girls and they have provided a couple over the last few days. On Sunday mornings I let the girls play on their own while I get other things ready. Thankfully our house is open enough that I can still hear most everything that's going on. I heard them playing hide and seek yesterday morning. Evidently, Sarah Grace wasn't playing in quite the way that Lainey would have liked. I heard Lainey say, "Count to ten and give me time to hide." I then heard Sarah Grace say, "Ten. I found ya!" Lainey got mad, but mom laughed and laughed from her vantage point upstairs! Today the girls and I embarked on our monthly grocery shopping trip to Walmart and Costco. This is always an adventure and I knew that today would be because it's actually been about 2 months since I've done a big grocery store run. We did fine at Costco and then headed over to Walmart. I told the girls in the car that we would eat at McDonald's at Walmart, but that we were going to use the restroom first so we didn't have to go while we were shopping (and besides, being this pregnant, I almost ALWAYS have to go). I told Lainey that she could go first and that when I went, I needed her to hold Abby and not put her down no matter how much she cried. Lainey said, "Don't they clean the floor in there?" Not to mom's standards. Anyway, as I used the restroom (there is no privacy with 3 children, even at home) Sarah Grace walked behind me and said, "Wow, your heinie is too big for the potty." I said, "Well, thank you for that." I guess the Lord thought I needed to be humbled today, though I can assure you I've not been guilty of thinking that my hindquarters were too small. Oh well, out of the mouths of babes!

Off to enjoy the sunshine and finish putting up 3 hours worth of shopping for groceries!

Well, lookee here!

In the movie Horton Hears a Who, the Who's have to chant "We are here, we are here, we are here, we are here!" in order for Horton's friends to hear them and believe they exist. I'm hoping that this blogpost will serve as our "we are here" chant and you will no longer doubt our existence. WE ARE HERE. I actually sat down last week and started updating on our life here, but never got finished. So, here we go again.
We're all moved in and are continually grateful to our church family for helping us. We had a great group of guys from church show up to help us complete with trucks and vans and things like that (one with a lift which I know helped avoid many sore backs!) and they had us out of the old and into the new in 3 hours time. Now, if only I could have unpacked so quickly. I am making progress in the unpacking arena and each day a few more things get put away and more floor space is revealed. I had hoped to have a little more done by now, but with being quite pregnant, trying to continue with homeschooling, and attempting to keep 3 little people and 2 big people fed and in clean clothes, it's taking a little longer. But, I assure myself that progress is being made. And my ladies from church tell me that as long as we can eat and have clean clothes to ear, all is well. I think we're really going to enjoy having so much more space and I'm definitely growing accustomed to the stairs (we have 25 all together!). I'm learning to make the most of trips up and down and accomplish all I can at one time while on a certain level. It's sort of like being VERY pregnant and getting down on the floor to get something out of a cabinet and trying to figure out what else can be done while down so low. On this, I definitely speak from personal experience!
On Tuesday, we celebrated Abby's first birthday. It's hard to believe that a whole year has already gone by. What a precious little blessing she is to our family; it's hard to remember what we were like without her. She is growing like a weed, eats EVERYTHING we put in front of her, and babbles all the time. She's still not walking yet, but has taken a couple of steps since we've been here. She just doesn't see quite confident enough to do much beyond that. She has adjusted quite well to the new place and has actually only gotten up one time early in the morning for a bottle in the 3 weeks. She weaned herself from the bottle with no aid from me and has made my life much easier by doing so. She seems to have an affinity for finding crayons that the girls leave here and there and I'm never shocked to see that she has a bit of wax crumb on her chin or teeth. Makes me very grateful for the "non-toxic" part of Crayola!
Sarah Grace and Lainey love being over here and are up and down the stairs several times an hour! They love all the nooks and crannies we have for storage and have declared our walk-in closet as their house.
Tomorrow we shall be having a birthday party for Abs with a few friends from church. The house isn't completely as it should be, but it's presentable (or at least will be by tomorrow afternoon) and I know that these are the kinds of friends who will be okay with the fact that not everything is in quite the right place. Give people cake and they'll overlook most anything!
I shall try to be more faithful in my blogging henceforth and shall try to come up with funny things Lainey and Sarah Grace have said since we arrived here. There have been some good ones; I'll just have to jog my memory for what they were!