Quick 5

Apologies, everyone.  This is not my best work.

1.  This momma is sick.  Probably has a sinus infection.  I spent the whole week figuring I'd feel better the next day but no dice.

2.  I have completely lost my senses of taste and smell.  And it's freaking me out.  I taste and smell NOTHING.  It's so weird. 

3.  Yesterday was a snow day.  The girls watched TV all day, while I just hung out.

4.  Bria's newest phrase is "Oh man!"  We spent the day yesterday teaching her how to face palm when she says it.

5.  Bria's birthday party was postponed due to snow.  The snow keeps coming.  So we're having the party on Sunday.  Snow or shine.  I hope I can taste the cake and pizza by then.

Happy 2nd Birthday Bria!

Bria Faith!  You are 2 today!  You are so funny and goofy.  You love to sing.  You love to play with whatever toy your sister is playing with.  And you definitely do not want to be left out of things.  You can count to eleven, you have an impressive repertoire of animal sounds, and you can correctly label all the body parts on my face.  My favorite time of the day is bedtime, when I zip you in your sleep sack and then we cuddle in the rocking chair for a few minutes.  You always sing the bedtime songs with me.

We love you so much.  We pray that God protects your life and your health.  We pray that if there are any seeds of rebellion in you that God will root them out and squash them before they grow.  We pray that God draws you to Him at an early age, and that you hate sin and get caught when you're guilty.

You have a big year ahead of you.  You will be learning so many things and becoming more kid and less baby every day.  We love having you in our family.

Happy Birthday Baby Girl!

Love,
Mommy, Da-ad, Leena and Jewa

2013

2014

Quick 5

I think forecasts of 8 to 16 inches of snow are super cool...for other states.  Suffice it to say I'm trying very hard not to dread the next two days.

1.  Valentine's Day was a huge hit around here.  We ate pizza with the girls on Friday, Grammy and Grandad came over with Valentine love on Saturday, and Lee made me a delicious fancy dinner for Saturday night.  I love Valentine's Day.

Grilled Lemon Garlic shrimp, grilled asparagus, Black Cherry Mike's Hard Lemonade and Mint Oreo ice cream for dessert.

2.  After that lovely day, our week became challenging.  On Monday our internet wasn't working correctly.  It is such a whiny, First World thing to complain about, but since our phones are internet based, and since the two of us do much of our work from home that requires in the internet, having it go down was a big thorn in our side.  Lee even had to pack up and go to the office when he wasn't planning to.  After several calls to our internet provider, it turned out our wireless router decided to poop out.  So one new wireless router, and we're back in business.  After hours and hours of frustration.

3.  I tried to go down an Honest Path with Joya, and let her know that I was throwing away one of her art projects since she had made me a new one.  Tears galore.  I told her we had been enjoying it for weeks, and now it was time to enjoy her new drawing.  Apparently that was a terrible reason.  So I told her I would take a picture of her with it and post it for all to see.

Notice the sad face.  This picture wasn't good enough either.  So I've tucked away the piece of art for posterity.  And I will here and forevermore choose the Path of Blissful Ignorance, and throw away the old art work when she's not around to know.

4.  On top of all of this, Bria has been battling some kind of virus.  She's had a hacking cough and intermittent fever.  She seemed pretty good yesterday morning, but then took a turn for the worse yesterday afternoon.  I had been out all afternoon with Alaina at the eye doctor, so when we got home around 5:30, Lee was trying unsuccessfully to feed her dinner.  She looked so sad and pathetic and had a fever.  She was also doing a funny breathing thing.  I called our doctor's office and talked to a nurse, and after having the nurse listen to her on the phone, she agreed that she should be seen within the hour.  So on the eve of Bria's 2nd birthday, we took an evening trip to urgent care.  They all commented on how toasty she was, but her oxygen levels were fine. 

Well, wouldn't you know, as we were waiting in the exam room for the doctor, all of a sudden Bria popped up and asked to get down.  Then she proceeded to be the happy goofy kid that she is.  By the time the doctor came in, she was so cheerful.  The doctor checked her out and said yes, her lungs sound rocky, but we knew about the congestion.  They determined that she was breathing funny because of the fever.  No ear infection, no respiratory things we have to be concerned about.  Once again we'll get a lovely $500 bill for a whole lot of nothing.  Although the doctor did agree that any time you're worried about their breathing to get them checked out.  And of course I'm happy it's nothing serious.  But it was just a fitting day for our dumb week.

5.  And today Bria turns 2!  We're supposed to have a family party for her on Sunday, but we're also supposed to have our own snowmeggedon this weekend.  So we'll see how it all plays out.

Oh, winter.

Quick 5

Does anyone else get the feeling that this warm February is setting us up for a yucky, cold March?  That would be just like March, wouldn't it?

1.  I think I finally finished my signature wall!  I call it my signature wall because I think Pinterest told me to.  Anyway, I found the two final pieces on clearance no doubt, and now I feel like our dining room/living room is complete.  Lee was concerned that there was too much clock, because we have another clock not 10 feet away from this one, but I rationalize that the other clock is on a wall that faces a different way.  Plus, it wasn't about the functionality of the clock; it was that the clock was round and had the right look.  It's about the art.

2.  Last Saturday Alaina, Joya and I had a girls' morning.  We went shopping for Bria's birthday presents, and then we went to Gunther Toody's for lunch.  If you ever want to win the hearts of my girls, just take them to a restaurant.  The up side of not getting to go out to eat very often is that any restaurant in any form is a real treat.  We got there right at the end of breakfast, so it was super crazy and we had to wait almost 15 minutes before a server even came to our table, but they gave us a free colossal cinnamon roll for our troubles.  I'd say it was worth it.

3.  Bria turns 2 next week.  And for the past week or so, almost every day, she asks to go potty.  Usually when I'm cooking dinner.  My very first thought when she asks is "UGGGGGGHHHHHHHH."  Like she's just trying to steal my attention away, because she thinks that my preparing food for her is the ultimate abandonment.  And that she has no idea what she's asking, so why bother?  But what do I do?  I leave the stove and oven and I take her to the potty and I strip her down and I sit her on it.  There have been no deposits yet, of course.  She's not even two.  But maybe, just maybe, she's learning something and will decide to potty train herself way before August, which is when I was kind of expecting she might take an interest.  Or maybe, just maybe, I'm getting my hopes up for nothing and she really is a genius who found the magic words to get me away from cooking dinner every night.

4.  In big Alaina news, she learned how to tie her shoes this week.  Tying her shoes has felt like a big mommy fail to me.  Like she should have known already, but every time I think to teach her we need to have her shoes tied NOW so we can go NOW.  And then I don't think about it until the next time we need to GO.  But this week, with just a tiny bit of guidance from her dad, she figured it out.  Which once again led me to conclude that we as parents freak out too much.  Kids will learn and grow and we don't need to force them to be experts at life at the tender age of 6.  Kind of like potty training.  Don't freak out if you kid isn't fully trained at the age of 23 months or 2 1/2 or even 3.  It will happen.

5.  I just want to take a moment to give a shout out to our Children's Ministry department.  Technically I'm a part of the Children's Ministry department as the nursery director, but if the Children's Ministry department was The Office, then I would be sitting in the annex with Toby.  But from the annex I get to observe and be privy to some amazing things. Today most of them leave for Winter Jam, the winter camp for 4th through 6th graders.  They have been working so hard on this camp, coming up with every single detail from scratch.  Every game, every group time, every devotion has come from their love of kids and their desire to teach them about Jesus.  Alaina is still three years away from being able to go, and while the thought of her going to a sleep away camp for two nights without any family there makes me so nervous, I can't wait for her to go with these people, who love her so much.  So, while they are frolicking up in the mountains, just me and Lindsey and Shelly will be representing the CM Leadership team, and Lindsey and I will be representing the CM church staff.  I hope no one throws up, because our children's pastor Jeff is the one who takes care of that, and he won't be here this weekend.  Anyway, if you ever get a chance to participate in some event our Children's Ministry puts on, you should take advantage of it.  You won't be disappointed.

I hope your weekend is full of pink and red and hearts and roses!

Quick 5

The guy on the radio said today we'd reach 70 degrees.  Which prompted the girls to immediately start begging to wear shorts. 

1.  You've all waited so patiently, so I won't make you wait any longer.  Here is Alaina's finished Revolutionary War project:

She took the first version to school, and her teacher told her all the fun things she could do to make it better.  So Alaina commanded me to politely asked if I could go buy her some war men.  How could I not encourage this love of learning?  Apparently at the end of March the 1st graders will have a Liberty Day, which involves a program and the research reports they are doing (Alaina is doing hers on John Adams.)  They'll need to do a diorama or poster on their subject, and this was a great introduction to it. 

2.  On a related note, I've finally figured out what the girls' most favorite toy in the world is.  Empty ramen boxes.  That's what Alaina used as the base of her project.  Any time we have one sitting by the trash can waiting to be taken out to the trash (which is about once every two weeks) the girls quickly confiscate it and start coloring and cutting and using for all sorts of things. 

3.  We had a parent/teacher conference with Alaina's teacher yesterday.  She's doing amazing, thankfully.  She loves math and reading, and this week was the first time her teacher had to move her desk because she was placed next to a girl she loved to chat with.  I honestly expected quite a bit of that, knowing how extroverted and friendly she is.  We love her teacher, and her teacher is so kind and gracious and helpful, but she gave us answers to questions I didn't even know we were supposed to ask during a parent/teacher conference, which made me feel like a noob.  I'm thankful for teachers who know what to look for as they teach, so we can all know how to evaluate our kids and make sure their education is well rounded.

4.  Last month I submitted a video to America's Funniest Videos.  It was a video of Lee trying to put pants on Bria; you may have seen it before I took it off Facebook.  It was so funny to me, and there have been some LAME-O videos that have won that show, so I thought why not.  I filled out all the submission forms and uploaded to their site.  That was January 15th.  Well, this Wednesday I woke up to find an email from them in my inbox, asking us to sign a few release forms, one for Lee and one for the girls, since they are in the video.  We know we shouldn't get our hopes up or anything, but we feel like that's a good sign.  It means someone watched it, right?  And maybe wanted to get their ducks in a row in case they air it.  Like I said, we're trying not to let our dreams go crazy or anything, but it's fun to imagine that they love our video the most.

5.  A big shout-out to Lee's parents, who are celebrating their 40th anniversary this weekend.  I do not take lightly the fact that both my parents and Lee's parents are still married to each other.  They have been a great example to us, and we love them.  Congratulations Jim and Melonie!

Next week is my favorite week: Valentine's week!