We got back on Tuesday from a week-long trip to Tennessee. Craig's grandparents and mother live there, and we had a good visit. We all slept in the same room - Kate on a little chaise (off which she fell the first night), and Lainey in a crib (except for 50% of the time when she was snuggling me in our bed because she wouldn't go back down in the middle of the night). They did pretty good most nights, and pretty awful a couple of the nights, but we made it through, and aside from the first morning back home when Lainey woke up for the day at 4:50am and Kate at 5 am, they seem to be adjusted back.

Tennessee is different. First, I haven't been car sick in a long time, and there were at least a few rides where I almost needed to stop from sickness. I'm not sure if it's the country roads, sitting in the back seat, or a comination of the two, but that was no fun.

I love the accents I heard. I sat in Kate's Bible class on Sunday morning because she cried and got kicked out Wednesday night (ha), and I could barely contain myself while the kids and teacher were talking. One little boy, as we came in the class, said to the teacher, "Dawn't say her Daddy's nayume or she'll cra!" (Don't say her Daddy's name or she'll cry!") And a little girl there was such a pistol - the teacher said, "Now Gracie Ann, does God take care of you?" and the girl said, "Naw." Anyway, I loved listening to them, and they were the cutest kids.
Also, the guy doing the announcements at church was talking about a lady who used to attend that congregation and he actually said, "She used to live out the road just a piece." ha!

We did get to eat at Chili's - ours up here closed down a few years ago, and we used to go there all the time. I have to say I wasn't as impressed as I used to be...Craig got to eat at Cracker Barrell (I didn't go b/c Lainey was napping and they had to go early to get his sister to the airport), which he said was delicious, and he brought me some fried okra back.

Aaaand...we went to Walmart about 3 times during the week. :)

We had fun with Craig's family. Kate and Lainey warmed up to them pretty quickly, and we got to have a good discussion about baptism with Craig's cousin, who is in college and recently joined a Christian group there. We played a lot of rounds of "Golf", a card game we taught Craig's grandpa and mom. And Kate loved their dog Cheko - every morning she would want to go into the room where he was and say good morning to him before saying hi to anyone else. Made me almost want to get her a dog. Almost.

The Saturday before I left, I went to a friend's baby shower where I knew no one else. I met this friend because she is the wife of a guy that used to work at First Tech and play basketball with Craig...we just had them over for dinner once and the rest is history. Anyway, a word to the wise: if you are at a baby shower and playing game, do yourself a favor and lose the game on purpose. It's very akward to win because no one really cares if you win. It's totally anti-climactic and a little uncomfortable. But did you know that a baby ant is called an antlet? Now you do.

Craig's birthday is on Thursday, and Lainey's on the 19th. I can't believe my tiny little baby is going to be 1 year old...it FLEW by! I had a party for Kate's 1st birthday, but she had many more "friends" her age, and I'm not sure if I'll do much for Lainey's. It seems silly to me considering she has no idea what's going on, but we'll see. Maybe I'll stop being a stick in the mud and think of something.

Kate is doing fine...think she might be teething those molars. She's had a high fever the last 2 days, and super cranky/clingy with no other signs of sickness. And when I took her to the dentist for her first cleaning a couple of weeks ago, the dentist said she was getting her top molars in. Poor thing. She is not a napper anymore, and she actually took 2 naps today!
She has also recently learned to sing all the US states in alphabetical order. II did not push that on her - she begs me to sing it over and over so she can learn it. Nut. :) But it brings me back to my childhood when my sisters and I used to see who could sing it faster. :)

Lainey is starting to say more words. She's a slower talker than Kate was, but just in the last couple of weeks, she's really doing more things. She's almost walking...I just know in the next few weeks, she'll be there. And although she'll try to say almost everything, most is not decipherable (is that a word?) except for All Done, Kate, Da da, Yeah, Outside, and other little ones like Bath, Dog, and Drink.

I'm about to be an aunt again! My sister Jamie is due tomorrow, so any minute now! Can't wait to meet Carter.

Happy February! I love Valentine's Day...always have.

We've reached it. The age of "Why, Mommy?"

Examples:
On a walk the other day.
Kate: "Why are you walking, Mommy?"
Me: "So I can get exercise and so we can get to Granny's house!"
Kate: "Why are we going to Granny's house?"
Me: "To play with Anna and Ben."
Kate: "Why are we going to play with Anna and Ben?"
Other questions included, "Why are we on the sidewalk?", then "Why is the sidewalk a good place to walk?" and "Why is Granny's street right there?" and "Why are we walking on Granny's street?" and "Why is that Granny's house?"
It's never-ending conversation around here. :)

I have a little hooligan on my hands, too. Today I was making cookies for Craig to take to the men's class tonight, and I got Kate up from her quiet time in her room as the first batch was coming out of the oven. I gave her a cookie to eat at the table, and took one to eat myself while standing in the kitchen starting to put away the containers of ingredients. I placed my (half-eaten) cookie on the cutting board on the counter, and turned to the opposite counter (with my back to her). I heard her walking in the kitchen and said (without looking) , "Kate, are you done with your cookie?" .... "No." "Ok, stay at the table until you're finished." When I turned around to grab my cookie, it was no longer there. Hm. Guess who stole it? It wasn't Lainey.
Oh, and by the way, the questions in this whole scenario included, "Why are you stacking those cookies? Why are you putting them on a plate? Why is that called plastic wrap? Why are you making another batch? Why will there be enough for the men's class?"


I hope you are all having a good new year. I have many goals...I wouldn't say official resolutions, but I guess I'm resolved to complete my goals. :) I'm excited about many things, and prayerful about many things, and overall just loving life and thankful to God.

Also hoping for some snow this weekend - Kate asks me almost every day if we'll have snow soon. :)

Wow. Our family is loud. You'll often hear the line from It's a Wonderful Life, "Mary, why'd we have to have all these kids?" spoken when we all get together. :)

We had a great Christmas. A little too good for Kate, I think. She really lost interest in opening presents, and we didn't push it much becuase we didn't want the whole, "That's nice, what's next?" attitude about gifts. But we totally could have gotten away with one present for her, I think, and it might be a good idea.
My grandparents are in from Colorado, and we're having a great time.

Had our annual viewing of "Meet me in St. Louis" tonight. One of my favorite movies. Ever.

We're good. Kids are great. Kate constantly says funny things. One of her latest is casually suggesting that maybe in the future, I'll become a little girl, and she'll become a mommy, and she'll tell me things like I tell her to do. I think this is her way of comforting herself...she enjoys thinking that maybe one day she'll get to boss me around. Makes submitting to my authority easier to swallow, I guess.

Maybe if I start updating more, I'll have more interesting things to say. And maybe it will encourage others to update. I'll give that a shot. Because I have a feeling that about 5 people will read this, and half of them probably won't see it until a week or two after it's been posted. :)

The other day when we were walking, Kate saw a bird on a telephone wire and said, "Mommy, I want to squeeeeeeze the bird and BREAK it!!"
I said, "Kate! Why would you want to do that? That would hurt the bird!"
No response.

I ignored it and figured it was a one-time thing. A few minutes later, she spots a dog and says, "Mommy, I want to squeeeeeze the dog and BREAK it!!"
I said, "Kate, that's not very nice. Would you like it if someone squeezed and hurt you?"
She said, "Yes, I do."
Hm. I just told her I didn't want to hear that anymore.
"Okay, Mommy."

I tried to control my laughter. I guess it wouldn't be funny if she actually showed violent tendencies or something, but I know where she got it - we have a book about stuff that's "not okay". I think it gave her ideas about bad attitudes.
I'm not a huge fan of the book anyway - it seems like one of those books that is of the thinking that you shouldn't tell your child "no", but instead tell them what they CAN do. Like, "You may not squeeze the cat, but you CAN squeeze some clay." Whatever. That book is going in the trash.
We have another one that is about sharing, but it's not really - it's more about offering someone a distraction so you can be selfish. It'll say things like, "My snack - you can't have any!.... But we can get you a box of your own." Or, "My new doll! You can't play with it...but you can play with this doll!" It's going in the trash, too.

Yes, I'm censoring my daughter's board books. Sue me.


Well, enough of that. Things are good here. It's day to day. Some days are wonderful, filled with proverbial sunshine and rainbows. Other days feel not-so-good, but it's the nature of having little kids, I think. It's helpful to try to keep myself upbeat on days that have potty accidents, tons of disciplinary efforts, lack naps, etc, but for the most part - I just remind myself that tomorrow is a new day, and count my blessings. And usually the next day is filled with plenty of obedience, lots of hugs and kisses, and fun activities.

I'm leading our next ladies' class on "Courting" - basically the process of choosing a mate. So, I've been working on that study for a little while, and also having a pretty in-depth discussion on Facebook with an old friend from high school that I connected with at our reunion last month. It was prompted to my response to her post about how wonderful the legalization of homosexual marriages in New York was. I'm thankful that she has so far been mature enough to discuss the Bible with me without "walking away" or getting angry.

That's about it!

The bad news is that my brain has been taking vacations every now and then.
The good news is that even though for about 2 months, I've considered my flat iron broken because it wouldn't heat up warm enough, it really wasn't broken and was just turned down to the lowest setting. When Craig asked what I wanted for my birthday on May 1, I told him I wanted a new flat iron. Good thing I didn't get one...a couple of weeks later, I discovered that I failed to properly check the setting. Duh.
The other good news is that even though for 2 days, I assumed there was an issue with our (new) laptop because it would not find or connect to any wireless network and told me the connection was broken, when I finally got time to troubleshoot, I realized I had hit the wireless "off" button on the keyboard. Sigh.

Life is good. Lainey is an angel baby so far. She sleeps great at night, goes down easy for naps, and smiles, coos, and as of yesterday-giggles.
Kate is full of energy. She hops everywhere. Which is just like I was as a kid - my parents used to call me Tigger. She learns so many new things everyday, and tests me in so many ways every day, too. It's a challenge to be tough on your kids when they are challenging you because you just want to be a loving, kind, calm parent. But we are trying to make sure we have a good balance of control and love, as Dobson would say, and praying that it works out well. :)

Kate turned 2 on the 19th of May, and we had a great birthday party for her last Saturday. Craig's mom stayed with us for almost a week, and we had a good time. Craig went to the Netherlands for 5 days this week, and I soooo wanted to go with him, but Lainey needs me, and we have no passports for them. It was sort of short notice, too, so hopefully the next time he has to go, either just me or all of us can go and take an extra week to have a family vacation. It'd probably be a challenge to have two small children over there for vacation, but I can't imagine leaving them for a week, even though it would be SPLENDID to have a vacation with Craig by ourselves.

Happy Memorial Day weekend!