Danny found Grace a princess bicycle last summer at a garage sale...the lady having the garage sale, upon seeing Grace's excitement over her new "wheels", knocked the price down from $5 to $2. A steal! Just needed a bit of cleaning up, some WD40, new training wheels, and a little TLC, and Grace would be the envy of the neighborhood. It took close to an hour to get it in working order (good thing Daddy knows about bicycles), then Grace donned her Princess helmet (a girl's gotta match of course) and proceeded to take her first spin around the driveway. It was a short spin. Lasting all of about 5 seconds...long enough for her to throw her leg over the bike, sit her little bootie on the seat and then promptly fall off. Luckily...I had my camera ready when the "accident" happened and I was able to document the drama.

No amount of convincing could get her BACK on the bike--as you can see from the picture below--Daddy tried to show her how FUN riding bicycles can be and that "look even Daddy can ride it"...but she insisted upon going inside for a popsicle. Leaving a grown man, riding a VERY small bicycle....This was last summer...2008...the remainder of the warm days were spent riding her quite study little red tricycle.

Flash forward to 2009...about a month past her fourth birthday and MUCH more mature and grown-up . We had a run of unseasonably warm weather and spent most of our days (except for naptime) outside. On one of these sunny mornings, Grace asked me to "please put on my helmet"--then she wheeled her princess bike out of the garage, threw her leg over the seat, and pedeled off saying something like "I'm bigger now...see my legs are long...I can ride my bicycle"

SHE put this outfit together...There is NO way I could even stomach that much pink...

It's amazing to see them grow...empowering and bittersweet all in the same moment. She is quite a character and each day with her is an adventure. I love you liddle bike riding diva...xoxo, Momma

God is funny...

I often get "caught up" in life and fail to see the humor that God presents to me...just to make me smile...I am quite convinced He loves to see me smile. Of course, I am continually reminded that God has a wonderful sense of humor...He reveals this to me EVERY stinkin' day through my children. They are beautifully crafted, perfectly made...He really did a nice job with them...they are joyful and curious creatures, sometimes they are naughty--very naughty and SOMEtimes even this is funny (see previous blog re. Grace turning Sam into a "spaceman")...but the BEST part about both of my children is the humorous way they go through life...I would be silly not to credit it back to God, I am certain He had quite an adventure creating them. But sometimes God chooses to tickle my funny bone in what I consider to be serious adult matters and He makes it glaringly obvious that His hand is at work in the unnecessary worry of life. Earl and I have recently started the Dave Ramsey course called "Financial Peace University"...it is a very intense course that teaches people how to manage their money and "dump" debt. Now, even the WORD "budget" makes me twitch--you know the tiny muscle at the corner of your eye?? Yeah, it makes THAT muscle twitch...makes me worried and uneasy and FREAKED out...But Dave says that couples MUST have a "budget committee meeting"...they MUST communicate, must be "on the same page" about money. Sooooo we did it. We just sat down and tackled the most intense budget we have EVER taken on in our 7 years of marriage. The first thing, the VERY first thing we did was to pray...we asked God to move in our lives, to guide our decisions and help us to manage our money so that we might further His kingdom. It took us a little over 2 hours (the budget, not the prayer)...I think we broke the calculator. We crunched numbers, we double checked, triple checked EVERYTHING. It was SERIOUS eye-twitching business... As we started to finish up and finalize our numbers, we came up with an extra $20 on one form...what???!! (there are TWO forms...one that is more general and another that is VEEEEERY detailed) Where did THAT come from...why do our forms not MATCH?? $20 is a LOT of money...you can do a lot with $20...WHERE DID IT COME FROM??? WHERE?? $20 times 12 months is...wait, give me a second...$240!!! So we scrutinized the pages (yes, I said "pages") of our newly formed budget...we poured over them...we added up the numbers again and again and STILL...$20...but from WHERE??? Then we found it...It was the VERY first thing we had written down, over 2 hours before--our promise to give to the Lord, right there...under the "giving" section. We had written a total that was $20 MORE than we had promised to the church earlier in the year....somehow it got lost in translation from one form to another. God is funny...He was right there...in the middle of this most "serious" meeting. And He was REMINDING us WHO exactly was in control as well as appealing to my need for a bit of humor in the midst of it all. Just to reassure you--we are currently "even" now...the budget is right on and everything adds up....and we're STILL married (happily I might add)...whew.
I AM...funny, loving, involved in all the little eye-twitching details of your life...I AM...

Then and now

Earl came home from work today and told me that one of the "new guys" at the office has a 12 week old baby. He told this to me casually, while I cleaned up the dinner dishes...the conversation went something like this: Earl--"The new guy is from blah, blah, blah" Me--"Oh that's nice. Is he married?" Earl--"uh, uhhhhh...oh, yeah! They have a 12 week old baby" And SUDDENLY, as I stood at the sink scrubbing turkey meatballs off the highchair tray, I was whisked back to one year ago...to LAST February...2008...Earl was in training on the east coast, Grace and I were forging our way in a strange town and a new house, Sam was curled in my tummy...it seems like a lifetime ago. As I stood there at the sink, I said quietly to no one in particular "That means she (the 'new guys' wife) was pregnant while he was in training"...Earl nodded in confirmation, then was pulled away to play "Daddy dragon" with Grace. But I stood there a moment longer...quietly contemplating how different my life is than it was just a year ago....I'm sure I'll meet the "new guys" wife at the next work get together, might even learn her name...I hope I don't scare her with my lingering hug. I only want her to know that I've been there too...
Then I heard Sam-O sitting at my feet, throwing tupperware into every corner of the kitchen and I was snapped back to the present....wow, how far we've come and how far we have to go.

Secretely...

....I wanna be a rockstar...in my "other" life of course...hence the change in backgrounds...I'm sure we'll be back to flowers and sunshine soon...right now, bring me my guitar...yeah...

It's not our anniversary...That happens in June. BUT I was filtering through some pictures yesterday and stumbled upon these...seems like a lifetime ago, also seems like yesterday....is that even possible? Things have changed, we have changed, our situation has changed...somehow we've started looking more and more alike and we have almost an unspoken language...My my, what a FULL almost seven years we have had....job changes, relocations, babies--and through it all we have forged our way. Together. Happy Valentine's Day Earl...I love you...as big as the sky.

Now, ya'll KNOW I'm kinda turning into a hippy...right? Well if you know me at all, you know this much is true...I cloth diaper Sam (and am secretly addicted to the pinning of cloth to my boy's sweet liddle buns), I'm trying to be green and recycle (I have a personal competition with myself to get more recycle out on the curb each week than actual trash and I LOVE LOVE LOVE throwing the glass bottles into the glass bin at the recycle center), I breastfeed Samuel any time and any place and plan to nurse him as long as he wants (11 months and counting) and...I've begun to question vaccines, even putting Sam on a "delayed vaccination schedule" and refusing what I believe to be unnecessary vaccinations. That being said--PRAISE GOD I get to CHOSE to be a hippy...Hallelujah I get to pour over books and charts about vaccinations and the schedules the AAP recommends. I don't know if any of you (my "readers"...if there IS such a thing) saw the ABC clip featuring Selma Hayek and her trip to Sierra Leone but if you missed it, PLEASE follow the below link and check it out...wow, talk about "loving your neighbor"--I do believe THIS qualifies...

Selma Hayek ABC clip

**Oh and for the record...Selma's right...it DOES feel weird to nurse a baby that is not your own...I have done this...but I woulda put that tiny baby to my breast just as quickly as she did...there's a primal "ache" I feel when I hear a hungry, crying baby and it's tough to deny...

**And one more thing...BOTH of my kids are up-to-date on their tetanus vaccine...I consider THAT one very necessary ;)

It is 10:49pm...do you know where your dog is?

Seriously...10:49pm...uh, nope...10:50pm...but sleep fails me for a number of reasons. Most of them small, but when coupled together prevent my favorite part of the day from coming true. Sleep. Oh how I LOVE to sleep. And how I MISS the kind of sleep I slept before children tumbled into my life. But here I am. Dark living room. Glowing computer screen. Heater humming quietly. The dog followed me in here...faithful, weary animal that he is. I wonder how he functions on the few, broken hours of sleep he gets. Woken abruptly when the children squeal or throw a toy in his direction. Or when curiosity gets the better of him and he MUST see what delicious morsel I am putting together in the kitchen. And then there is night after sleepless night...it never fails...the baby cries or big sister is in need of a monster slayer...and so Mommy rolls out of bed, followed by Simon, our nine year old trusty border collie mix. His hips are creaky and his eyes cloudy...but he has a duty, he is our protector and his "people" are more important than sleep.