Lunch In The Park With Daddy

Even with three small humans, it's fun to take some time out of the day and go visit Steve. If he worked a little closer, I would do it everyday! On Monday, I packed up some snacks for the kids, and a bottle for Camryn, and met Steve for lunch. We drove to a small park near the Chattahoochee River. The "park" is basically a gravel road leading to picnic table, but there is a pretty, wooden platform built over the water and it's all protected so that Bella and Rex can look at the water without tumbling in. It wasn't too hot today and it was very relaxing!

Walking to the picnic table. What a handsome, wonderful Daddy!

Bella and Rex looking at the water. We heard, "Mama! Daddy! Mama! 'Mere! Sheesh! Sheesh!" about a million times. They were very excited about the water and fish!

Proof I was there! I had the double stroller, so Camryn was in the back and all of our goodies were in the front.

Steve's Job Update

For the last month or so, Steve has been investigating positions outside of his bank. As a wife, I have been able to see God's hand on Steve in so many ways; Steve's job has always reminded me of Joseph - God has protected him from layoffs and toxic co-workers, blessed his reputation and integrity within the company, and prepared him for opportunities to expand his area of influence.

Steve has no problems with his current job, but he has always been a hard worker and a wonderful planner. As we've talked about expanding our family, Steve has started to look at new opportunities. He had a great interview at a strong company a few weeks ago, and they really seemed to like him for an Analyst position (pretty much what he does now, just on a slightly larger scale). When he returned last week for a follow-up interview, it was with the top four men in the company, including the man he had originally met with. These men were really impressed with his resume and talked about Steve filling a Portfolio Manager position.

The wonderful praise is that he left this interview with an informal "yes" and is waiting for a formal offer from their HR department. I think Steve's preference would be the Portfolio Manager position, but he'd be fine with either. We're praying for wisdom and God's blessings as we move forward. Reading back over this post, I sound like a really biased wife, but it's okay! I'm happy that I get to write about Steve for once!

"And Jabez called on the God of Israel saying, 'Oh, that You would bless me indeed, and enlarge my territory; that Your hand would be with me, and that You would keep me from evil that I may not cause pain!' So God granted him what he requested."

I Chronicles 4:10

Sweet Mother Of Abraham Lincoln

Tell me there are other mothers out there who have had moments of wanting to turn around, walk out their front door, and leave the toddlers locked inside? Maybe go for a pedicure or some shopping. Okay, I was kidding about that last part. Mostly.

No? No one? Just me then.

My children (I'm including Rex in this for the sake of the post) have an uncanny ability of waiting until the 5 or 10 minutes that I'm out of the room and doing something else before they get into a situation that usually makes me gasp in horror. (Not "horror movie" horror, just the "I. CAN'T. BELIEVE. YOU. JUST. DID. THAT." kind of horror.)

Walking from the dining room into the hallway and playroom. It looked like we were under construction.

Into the living room...everything was covered in a fine (or not so fine) mist of powder. P.S. It's takes forever to get powder off of anything! I don't know if there's a special trick, but if there is, please don't tell me. It would push me over the edge.

And, the finale...the living room. I know, right? RIGHT?!?!?

This has only happened twice in the precious little monster's two years of being alive, and it gets worse each time. It's not like I leave out baggies of baby power everywhere or anything. Every once in awhile, they find my stash and go to town.

So that was my afternoon. I was basking in the joy of a lazy Friday afternoon, when I came downstairs and found all of this. I've cleaned the floors and counters three times and there's still a film over all of it. Beautiful, wonderful, inquisitive little humans! I'm very thankful that it's Friday!

"Daddy's Home!"

The favorite part of my day is the moment that Steve walks through the door. It doesn't matter what's happened throughout the day or whether it was stressful; at that moment, Bella is over-the-moon overjoyed! She runs to him, laughing and squealing! Today she wanted a ride on Steve's motorcycle as he pulled it into the garage.

I Am A Rock, I Am An Island...

(Am I too young for a Simon & Garfunkel reference?)

I didn't cry this morning during carpool! I took my place in line, handed Bella's school bag through the window to the Preschool Director, and watched as she unbuckled Bella's seat. Bella held her hand and walked into the school. I was a little too proud to be sad. Plus, knowing that the director of the program and her assistant teacher love her as much as I do always helps.

One of the items on her supply list was to send in 4 pictures of our family for an art project that they'll be working on this year. We don't normally get a lot of opportunities to take pictures of all three of us, so I was very thankful for all of my Michigan pictures! Another reason to be thankful that Julie took about 500 pictures during that trip!

How cute is this? I love that her teachers did an art project while also reassuring mothers that their child is wonderful even if an art project doesn't come home every, single day. P. S. Do you like that I stuck it to the fridge with a stamp? it was all I had on short-notice.

"Bweeeeease!"

We're working on "please" and "thank you" at our house, and we're in the habit now of asking Bella, "How do you ask?" if she starts demanding something. I end up asking her as much as possible, but not because I consider myself a big stickler for manners; it's more that I think it's really cute to hear her say it!

Bella's Words

Bella was chattering away this morning, and it made me think that I need to write down some of her recent "Bell-isms" to remember and share.

Bella says her "f" as a "p", so...

food is "pood"

fork is "poke"

foot is "poot"

Bella's "s" is said like an "h", so...

sun is "hun"

and when she wants us to sing, it comes out as "hing"

She also tends to put the ending consonant in the beginning, too. A giraffe is a "faff" and a fish is a "sheesh."

Bella identifies lots of her animals by their sound instead of their name, and my most recent favorite is when she calls her elephant her "boo." Apparently, that's her version of an elephant blowing its trumpet.

Bella's First Day Of Preschool

This morning was definitely not what I expected! Ironically, the least emotional part of my morning was leaving Bella at the door...that actually went off without a hitch, and Bella reacted as though she were being dropped of at nursery.

I think the most emotional thing for me was that Bella's teacher is not very "feel-goody." I may look back at this by the end of the year and have a completely different point of view, but I was a little disappointed that she wasn't a little more gentle with the parents. Does that sound weird? I mean, I think she will be a wonderful teacher for Bella, and I am confident that Bella will actually learn new things this year instead of just being babysat, but I wish the teacher had come across as a little more understanding of the fact that I was leaving my 2-year old in "school" for the first time.

There were good things, too, though! I didn't get a ton of pictures because I still had the other two kids with me, but here are the ones I got...especially for the Grandmas!

On the calendar for weeks! We've been so excited!

I mean, come on! How could I not include this picture?

Making sure everything is in her school bag.

Forcing Bella to take a "Mommy and Me" picture

Impatient and independent! We can't wait for everything this year will bring!

An Experiment...

If you know me well, you know that I get restless with my house. Not discontent, I just frequently like to move furniture, pictures, stuff around until I feel that it is "just right." We are pretty limited in the living room with furniture placement because of where the cable jack is; the TV always has to be in that same corner.

Drumroll please...Steve and I talked about it, and he agreed to move the television out of the living room! Wow! I have to admit, we like to crash in front of the TV, and I'm a little nervous that we'll be going crazy after a week, but I'm willing to try it. Really, the decision is completely decor-motivated; we're not placing a memorandum on TV watching. Although, we are looking forward to the living room being a place to hang out, talk, listen to music, and not just automatically turning on Office re-runs. Last night, as I was cleaning up, we had some Harry Connick Jr. playing and Steve was reading on the couch.

I also LOVE the look of the room now! It looks so good! I'm very thankful to have a husband who is willing to agree to my random epiphanies!

Not the best angle, but here is the entire room from the kitchen - very open and uncluttered.

The new spot for the couch; the TV used to be in the left corner. I really like that you see the open seating space as soon as you walk into the room, instead of the TV and table.

The wall that the couch used to be on. It's so cozy and "nook-ish" now. I love being curled up in the chair in the corner.

Never A Dull Moment

How many times have I used that title since I started this blog? We don't have an extremely exciting life, but we do our best to keep it interesting! This will have to be my "last night" post, because I have another post I want to share for today.

Mel and I had a baby shower to go to on Saturday morning, so Steve watched Bella. He decided to get some yardwork done for the party we were hosting that night for Mel's birthday. I got a call towards the end of the shower from Steve saying he had caught his finger in the hedge trimmer and cut himself. I asked if he felt light-headed from blood and he said no, so we headed home without calling someone else who was closer and could get to Steve quicker.
It was not a deep cut (thank goodness!), but it was in a jagged "Z" pattern, so we thought stitches were a possibility. We drove to the first urgent care center and they wouldn't take us because they closed at 2:00 (seriously, it was 2:02...not even lying!), so we headed out to the next one, but they sent us to a hospital, because the doctor said he couldn't accommodate that jagged of a cut.

FINALLY...we made it to the hospital and through the crazy-long waiting time! Steve got stitched up with five stitches in all, and I think his hand was throbbing by the end of it, even with pain killers.

The original wound.

Busting out his best "Have some sympathy" face!

Waiting. And waiting. And waiting some more. At least the people in the next bed provided good entertainment!

Instruments of torture...it was too fascinating not to watch, but I did have to look a couple of times when the needle went into Steve's skin.

The finished product...hopefully, that's not too "yucky" of a picture. I have to say, it did seem to look worse AFTER being stitched than before, but I know it will improve with healing. The doctor gave us special antibiotics since Steve is diabetic and more prone to infection. He cleaned it out last night and there was no swelling at all, so that's a good sign!

I warned him that if he keeps hurting himself in freak accidents, I'm going to strap him into a wheelchair.

That's My Girl

I asked Bella what she wanted for dinner tonight, and she replied, "DIRT!"

She may be a mirror image of Steve on the outside, but there is no doubt that she is my child on the inside!

Preschool, Here We Come!

Tonight was Bella's Open House for preschool. Or, I should say, it was Open House for Steve and I; Bella had a babysitter. It was definitely a "back and forth" of emotions for me! I was excited for her to start learning new things, the Martha Stewart-side of me got excited about planning Christmas parties and snacktime, but I got sad about things like they discourage the use of "lovies." These are some of Steve and I's "aaaawwwww" moments from the evening...

Bella's teachers, Miss Melissa and Miss Betty, sent her a postcard this week! I thought that was a nice thing to do, especially for the parents!

The sign welcoming parents to the classroom (I drew the pink line!) Whitney's son, David, is in her class, and a few others that she knows from church nursery are in there, too!

Her outfit for the first day of school! Knowing me, I may change this three more times between now and Tuesday, but I saw it in Target tonight and loved the little sea-foam green shorts.

Preschool handbook and our number for carpool. I have to save these so that I can look back and remember how nervous I was about driving the wrong way in carpool!

Bella's little cubby. We thought it was so cute that they learn to bring their bag in each morning and hang it in their own cubby. I can imagine her saying, "Oh cooooool!"

My Happy Moments...

Daddy took us on an ice cream date Tuesday night

This is Steve's, "I'm a dark and brooding man of mystery" face

Bugging Bella for a cute picture

She lined up her figurine on the coffee table; it reminds me of the verse about the lions and the lambs.

Nothing is as cute as a little girl sleeping in her Daddy's shirt.

Weekend Wrap-Up

I loved our weekend! Lots of friends and good times! Thursday night, we went out to a movie with our friends, Ben and Carolyn. Carolyn is due with her first baby (Sharpe) in September and has been gone for her medical school rotations for the last month, so this was the first time I've seen her in so long! It was so good to hug her, touch her belly (Yes, I'm one of those people), and laugh a lot! We spent Friday at home, watching Netflix in bed...one of my favorite weekend activities!

On Saturday, Whitney had a bridal shower to go to in Athens, so we came over and helped Trey with the kids. Bella LOVES their playroom - it has really soft carpet and the best couch ever! We lose track of her for long periods of time in that room. Whitney got home around 8:00, so we made s'mores and got to talk about what we wanted to accomplish in the new ministry with small groups and all of that.

Sunday was our opportunity to attend mass with Will and Erin. Steve and I have really been looking forward to this time to experience their service and get to talk about it afterwards. The mass was very similar to what I expected, with much more kneeling than what I thought! Erin told us that when everyone takes communion, we would have the chance to go to the front, as well, but just to be blessed by the priest instead of receiving the sacraments. We decided not to do this; since we don't believe the priest holds any sort of spiritual power, it seemed like that would have been blasphemous (not to be overdramatic). After mass, we went to get McD's for breakfast and talk about any of our questions. Erin is definitely more sure of her religion...she does not seem to be "seeking." She teaches at a Catholic school and was raised Catholic, so she is much more reinforced in her faith. I wouldn't say that Will was seeking outright, but he doesn't seem as invested as Erin is.

We didn't go to mass to change their minds about what they believe; just to keep an open dialogue with them about our faith and the differences. Steve and I really felt a sense of sadness during the service. Their closing song was 'Amazing Grace' and all I could think of was, "But none of you believe this!!!" I completely believe that someone can be a Catholic and also a Christian, but the way Erin describes it is: All Catholics are Christians, but not all Christians are Catholics. I definitely disagree with that, so we will keep praying and hope the Lord opens up more doors in the future.

My one funny moment was when we first walked into their parish. There was a small fountain of water that Bella ran toward and I was about to lift her up to let her play in it, when I saw a woman reach over and dip in two fingers and then do the "sign of the cross". It was the holy water! I almost let my child play in holy water! I know that we don't think it's holy, but still! Oh my goodness! I gave Steve this look of horror and he just shook his head at me. (He does that a lot.)

Enjoying her hotcakes at McDonald's.

Don't they look like a little, old couple, splitting their breakfast? So cute!

Don't Let Her Fool You

I know she looks cute and cuddly, but this picture represents the one, tiny moment of the morning when she was actually behaving. The rest of the morning, she was splashing the dog's water all over the kitchen, trying to climb up on the table that holds the TV, shaking her bag of cereal all over the floor, wedging herself between the back of the couch and the wall, and tipping her box fan down the stairs.

Before you start to think I'm the world's most absentee parent, I should tell you that she is a master of sneakiness. A MASTER! She waits until the 30-second window of time when I'm heating up the baby's bottle or running upstairs to switch the laundry. When I come back down, she is smack dab in the middle of mayhem, reacting in total confusion when I look at her and say, "WHY ARE YOU DOING THAT?!?!?!?!?"

When I put her in time out, she sits there, crying and hitting herself. Which, I hate to say, is kind of hilarious. She's not hitting herself hard; it's just her way of showing me that she's not happy with the situation. For the most part, I ignore her when she does this and it doesn't last too long. She's always sweet-as-can-be when she's finally allowed out of time-out, but I think it's just a ruse as she plots her next move. Here's hoping 5 o'clock comes quickly and Daddy comes home as back-up!

School Supplies!

I'm so excited! We bought school supplies today! Granted, we were buying supplies for a 2-year old in preschool so there weren't many things to get, but it was enough for me. Eastside (our church, and where Bella is attending preschool) sent out a letter two weeks ago with an introduction from her teacher along with a list of supplies for each age group. Mel was home today, so we took all three kids with us to Wal-Mart and got our goodies.

Crayola makes my heart happy!

Learning to say "cheeeeeeese" for the camera!

Showing Mel our list!

She is saying "glue" here.

Our loot! Like I said, it's a small pile, but it got me as excited as I used to be when I shopped for an entire classroom! I'm looking forward to everything she will learn this year!

Bumps and Bruises

I haven't posted in a little while because I keep forgetting to bring my camera on our outings. It's been a hazardous few days for the little humans here...I'll post pictures below. My favorite "camera-less" moment in the last week was last Saturday. We had plans with Trey and Whitney to meet them and the kids at Acworth Beach for a fun day in the sun. Steve and I got there a little early with Bella, and we had a really great time in the water with just us three. Bella loved playing with us and she even kicked a little when we had her "swim."

Trey and Whit finally arrived with all of the kids and were there only about 10 minutes when it started to pour rain! I mean, torrential downpour; it was crazy! I've never seen us all move so fast, trying to grab 5 kids and all of our beach toys, food, and towels, and run to our cars. We ended up with Steve, Whitney, and all 5 kids in the little car, and me, Trey, and all of our junk in the minivan: I wish I had brought my camera! We headed back to their house and had a wonderful time just hanging out and playing games.

We were leaving Trey and Whitney's on Saturday and Bella tripped in the driveway. She has a little scrape on her elbow and a nice, round scrape on her forehead.

Rex has to be the most accident-prone kid I've ever seen. The poor little guy was being completely calm yesterday and was climbing down from the couch. Unfortunately, he then tripped over the lip of the carpet and went face first into the coffee table. The bridge of his nose and the inside bone of his eye is bruised, but he actually looks a lot better than I expected him to!

I had to share a picture of my new Goodwill ballet flats - only $4.50! I love them!

About a week and a half ago was Trey's surprise birthday party. I loved that his cake was Transformers! He received three Captain America shirts as gifts - can you tell he likes his superheroes?

Bella playing dress-up in one of my dresses, which she calls a "shot." (shirt) She sounds a little British when she pronounces a few of her words.