News flash....

EVERYONE IS HEALTHY IN MY HOUSE RIGHT NOW!!!!

WE SEEM TO HAVE A BIT OF A REPRIEVE FROM THE MISERY OF TEETHING.

WILL PULLED HIMSELF TO A STAND FOR THE FIRST TIME TODAY!!!!

WE HAD THE BEST WEEKEND!!!

I'll share more later when I'm not so sleepy.

She wanted bangs...

 ...so she took matters into her own hands. It could have been so much worse!

Don't tell her I said this, but she actually did a pretty decent job. You can't even tell that it was a 4 year old who cut her hair. Thank God she didn't cut it right at her scalp, then this would be a different story.

The part that worries me, is that in hindsight I don't think I handled it well. I fussed at her about it but didn't really discipline her (I was too busy getting my camera...oh the life of a blogger). This is one of those offenses where the punishment should have been pretty serious and since it wasn't I'm worried she might try it again. Let's hope not!

Love the look...

He wasn't so sure about his party hat!

His Bible

Tonight when I went into Christian's room to put him to bed, he was sitting in bed reading his Bible. For the record, this is officially the first time I've ever found him in bed reading. He's not some angelic child that reads himself to sleep every night. Usually I have to ask him more than once to put his Legos down and get in bed.

When I sat down on the side of his bed he said, "Mom, listen to this." He proceeded to read several sentences to me about when Mary went to the tomb and found that it was empty. His toothless little mouth struggled with the word "tomb"...silly silent "b." But other than that his precious voice didn't stumble or waiver as he read the words. I was amazed and he was equally amazed that he could read a real book with thousands of words and chapters in it. 

As I've been cleaning up the kitchen tonight and getting ready to go to bed, I was thinking about how excited he was that he could read his Bible. When was the last time I wanted to keep reading my own Bible instead of turning out the light? When was the last time I couldn't wait to hear how the story turned out?

Do you have an age appropriate Bible your kids can read?? Do you have a Bible that actually makes sense to you?? I hope so! It's life changing!

P.S. This is totally unrelated but cute, so I wanted to put it on the blog somewhere. Over the last week we've been working on memorizing our home phone number. We've basically made up a song to the tune of Twinkle, Twinkle and McKenna loves to practice it and will quickly declare that she knows it better than Christian. Well, tonight at dinner time I asked her to do a scripture and she started singing our phone number. She was very confused when we all laughed. She was convinced that anything we work to memorize qualifies as a scripture. ha! I guess I haven't done a very good job of actually explaining where the scriptures we memorize come from.

Our Story

Warning: bad pictures...I was taking pictures of pictures and then to top it off I had a smudge on my camera lens. Oh well...you get the idea.

 I used to scrapbook (funny how I scrapbooked until I had kids and then I stopped)! I have these two scrapbooks of my dating years with Ryan and they are two of my most treasured possessions! 

(1999)

This is the first picture of Ryan and I together. A few of you college friends of mine might even remember this era of my life. 

Ryan and I met at Liberty University. 

I was dating someone else (oh my!) and Ryan told one of my friends "Let me know when Judy breaks up with that clown so I can ask her out." 

 Pretty soon we were dating. And to make a long story short we broke up after just a few months of dating. But there were no hard feelings and we actually remained friends. I tried to get back together with Ryan once, but he was dating someone else. He asked me out on two other occasions, but I wasn't interested. Ha! If only we had known. The timing just was never right.

We both graduated and I moved to Virginia Beach and Ryan moved to Florida.

 One day out of the blue I was reading a book that made me think of him. I remember digging around to see if I still had his phone number. These were the pre-facebook days!!  I called him, he answered and the rest is history! We've been together since 2000. We were visiting Ryan's home in Illinois for the first time in this picture (it was early 2001).

 

Dating was fun because we both lived in great places at the time, but things got more serious when Ryan transferred with is company to Northern Va. Then we could actually see each other.

In 2003 we finally got married. We were only engaged for three months and I remember just wanting to get the wedding over with because I was ready to be married to the love of my life. One of the best feelings in my life was when we pulled away from the reception.

It's hard for me to believe that Ryan and I have been together for over a decade and that we have three kids. Wow! Time flies. There is NO ONE else I would rather spend my life with. On the day of our wedding I was blissfully unaware of what just what a good choice I had made in marrying Ryan. The grace of God for sure! I had no idea how hard he would work to provide for our family, or how much he would one day adore his little girl, or how many hours he would spend playing ball with his son or how he would sit a soda by my bed every morning while I was pregnant to help me not feel so nauseous or how he would turn on my heated mattress pad every night so my side of the bed would be toasty and warm when I crawled into bed. I had no idea how we would end up being on the same page when it came to finances, parenting and church. I was just in love and knew that he was a man of character, but he is so much more than that and he proves that to me every day.

Happy Valentine's Day Ryan! I know we usually make this day a fun family day, but I love you so much. More and more every day!

For Mimi:

 McKenna talking to Auntie Mimi on her birthday!

I just love her sweet face.

What would you do?

So I made a few snacks for Christian's class today. Pink heart rice krispie treats, cute Valentine Buttons and heart shaped Brownies. I didn't take any of those pictures above, they're from Pinterest. The brownies stressed me out a little. Last night around 11pm I cut out the hearts and realized that I could only get 16 brownies out of the pan. I needed 20. So this morning we went to the store, bought more brownie mix and made more heart brownies.

I had a big cupcake holder with handles that I layered all the goodies in and off we went to school.

I handed the goodies off to the school secretary and I have no idea what happened, but she dumped the entire thing on the floor. All my cute little brownies littered the floor of the school office.

So I helped her pick them all up and we put them back in the tray and she sent them down to the classroom. Now I'm feeling like I should have just thrown it all out and just run to the grocery store and bought something. ugh. What would you have done??? I guess a little dirt never hurt anyone, right?

The best day of his LIFE.....

You might want to sit down for this because this is shocking information. The best day of Christian's entire life (according to him) was Sunday! That might have been an ordinary day for you, but in Christian's life it was just amazing. This news flash was a little surprising to me, but it also showed me the depth of his love for his cousins.

After church on Sunday we all went to the Lego store at King of Prussia Mall. This was so exciting for Christian. We've been wanting to take him to a Lego stores since we went to Florida this fall and he was not disappointed. He LOVED that place. I think they all did. McKenna stood there for at least 30 minutes and built Lego mini figures. Christian and Nate both got to fill up a Lego cup with any Legos they wanted from the Lego wall!

As if the Lego store wasn't excitement enough, Mimi's (my sister Amy) house is also really, really cool. You're allowed to slide down the stairs in a sleeping bag, over and over again and no one makes you stop. And the kids at her house are allowed to put posters on their walls (apparently this is very important when determining just how cool a place is). And they eat pizza and ice cream cake at their house. It's amazing really, every kids dream :)

 

In all seriousness, the relationship these cousins share is priceless. Abby spent the entire weekend trying to give McKenna her stuff.

 "Oh look, these slippers don't fit me anymore. McKenna can have them."

"I don't really play with this anymore. McKenna do you want it?"

Abby is a precious girl and such a sweet friend to McKenna. Nathan and Christian were just wild every moment they were together. I don't think I've heard Christian laugh that hard ever.

Will stayed at home with Daddy, which was a first. I was so sad and missed him big time. But it was definitely the right decision. This trip would have been much more difficult if Will had been along for the ride.

I've been asked over and over again how many more "sleeps" until we see our cousins again. So Mimi, if you're reading this....you need to get back to me about that ASAP before I loose my mind with all their questioning!!

4 and 11

McKenna and Emma's birthdays are just two days apart. So we always try to get together around that time so they can celebrate together! Don't you love this cake with 15 candles? Four for McKenna and eleven for Emmzie!

Guess who we saw this weekend??

11 Months Today

Do you see all this sweetness??!!!! Oh I could just kiss him all day!!!! It's hard to believe, but my baby is 11 months old today!!! You know what that means...we've got a big birthday coming up.

He is so fun right now. Yesterday he spent time studying the light coming in through the window. Do you see those bottom two pictures? It was precious to watch him try to touch the sunlight. He just could not figure it all out. 

He's feeling so much better now. He's eating up a storm and is loving real food. It seems like we're trying something new all the time. Yesterday he had some of McKenna's birthday cake and lu-v-ed it! The day before that he almost an entire grilled cheese. All the sudden, the boy can eat, which is good since he had two stomach virus' this winter all in the same month. Every time I would take him to the doctor they would have to mark in his chart that he had a stomach bug and that's why he wasn't gaining weight. I don't think they'll be too worried when we go next month.

In the art of keeping it real around here, I'll just tell ya that I'm not sitting around crying about the fact that my baby is about to be one. Honestly I can't wait for him to start walking. I can't wait for those massive molars in the back of his mouth to just come on already, so we can sleep and not scream at 4am (it seems like that's when the motrin seems to wear off). The poor boy actually rubs the outside of his jaw with his hand. He's having a majorly rough time and that's why "2 yr molars" are not supposed to arrive when you're only 11 months old.

11 Month Stats:

10 teeth - Wow!!

Says "dada" and "uh-oh"

Weighs about 23 lbs

Crawls

Stands while holding onto something

Cruises a little bit

Favorite Foods= cheerios & bananas

Wears size 12-18 month clothes

Loves Mickey Mouse Club House

Thinks McKenna's bedroom is fascinating

Bites

Is starting to understand "no" & cries if you use a "mean" voice

Loves to be outside

Is happy in the car

Is adored by everyone in our house!!!!!

A Pinkalicious Party

 McKenna turned 4 yesterday. This was supposed to be the year of NO party, but then Pinterest happened and I started finding all these adorable ideas that I just HAD to do, so we ended up having a little lunch get together with a few of her friends.

 McKenna wanted a Pinkalicious, ballet, Hello Kitty, Strawberry Shortcake, Barbie party. Hmmmm..... so we just went with pink and lots of it!

 We put a spin on the rainbow cake that's been so popular and we made ours different layers of pink.

 My favorite thing is the tulle pom poms!!! I made tons of them.

 They are so easy to make!! Check out this tutorial HERE, this girl has the easiest directions!

 McKenna thinks we should leave the pink up all year long :)

 

Fun favors for the girls!

 It's such a blessing that McKenna has such sweet friends to share life with!!!

They all had such a fun time together!!

Happy Birthday to my precious pinkalicious girl!!! We are so blessed that Jesus gave you to our family!!!

four

Bad Idea

My son is outside roller blading on the ice and snow that's still on our back patio. What do ya think??? Should I go stop him? Ha! Never a dull moment around here.

William is soooo Big!!!

I took McKenna to my friend Raeann's salon to get her haircut and while we were there I starting looking at Will's hair and the fact that his hair was growing down over his ears. So guess who got his first haircut?!! I only had my phone with me so the pictures aren't great, but he looks like such a big boy with his trimmed up hair!

He's such a big boy!

I sent this picture to Ryan later in the day to document the first chicken nugget Will ate! He is loving REAL food these days and we're having fun introducing him to lots of new things!

I was holding Will today while he was screaming and I got a good look in his mouth and noticed two huge molars in the back of his mouth! Aren't those called "2 year molars???" Seems to me we might be a bit ahead of the game, but I guess it will make eating easier.

Mud

 Anyone want to guess who's muddy little hand came knocking on my door??? She didn't want to open the door for fear of getting mud on it. I guess that didn't work out.

And then she planted this one on the wall as she tried to take off her muddy pink cowgirl boots.

I didn't take a picture of my girl with her hands completely covered in mud, her coat caked in mud and the front of her shirt that bore the obvious signs of that fact that she really did try to wipe her hands off before she came in. And then there were the pink cowgirl boots that were no longer pink.

I didn't take a picture because I didn't want to glorify the incident. Although I thought about it. But I had to keep my stern mommy face on while dealing with my oh-so-disobedient girl.

It took her five minutes outside alone to find some mud to play in.

She's like that these days.

Into everything.

She leaves a trail of destruction in her path.

...

A Pinterest Party

I love Pinterest....I hate Pinterest.

I love all the ideas.

I hate the fact I never have time or energy to do all those cute ideas.

But every now and then I try to pull off a little project.

 Here was my inspiration....but I could not find wooden candle stick holders anywhere!! boo! They had them at AC Moore but they would sell out as soon as they would get them back in. I wanted to paint mine white, but oh well.

Here's what I ended up with and I think it's cute too. I still think I like the inspiration picture better, but this works for us! It's just a candelabra (from Hobby Lobby) and I hot glued the little tin Valentine Mailboxes that I found in the dollar bins at Target. Last night I saw teal Valentine boxes. How cute would they have been?? Oh I would have loved to have teal in the mix, but I was already done.

I told my kids that they won't be getting a surprise or a note every day this month, but if the flag is up then they've got mail. Christian came down the steps this morning and his face lit up as soon as he saw his flag up. Inside was a sprinkle doughnut. He was thrilled :)

Go check out the rest of the Pinterest Party at:

6 Days

In six days she'll be four.

Four.

Oh my word.

I think I'm going to go have a good cry now!