McKenna's BFF

 Gwennie is our neighbor and McKenna's best friend.

McKenna met Gwennie for the first time when she was six weeks old. Gwennie was just a few days old! Next year they'll be in the same preschool class and then the following year they will be riding the bus together to kindergarten.

 I asked McKenna to tell me about Gwennie and she said "She loves green, she loves dinosaurs, she loves penguins and Jesus."

They're scary aren't they! ha!

One of my biggest prayers for my kids is that they will have at least one good friend who loves the Lord each year in school. The Lord answered that prayer this year for Christian and he's already answering it for McKenna. Poor Will doesn't have any friends yet. But who needs friends when you've got the best brother & sister in the world.

Super mom....not quite.

This single parent season of my life is no cake walk. Some days I feel so strong and know with certainty that I can conquer the day and be an awesome mom. But lately that has not been the case. I am worn out and Ryan won't really be back in our lives until sometime around July 10th or so. He comes and goes, but when he's here it's mainly to sleep, eat and get some clean clothes. Ryan's work relocated this past winter and he has an hour commute (one way), so it just doesn't make sense for him to come home every night when he is working a 15 or 18 hour day. So we are missing him BIG TIME. McKenna sobbed when he left for work yesterday.

Will's been dealing with croup the last few nights and McKenna has terrible growing pains at night whenever she's had a day with lots of activity (Anyone have a kid with this problemo?? Ryan had them terribly as a child). So I'm not getting much sleep and you know how the end of the school year can be....I went on a field trip on Friday and helped out with Field day today...whew....I'm ready for summer.

Okay, this sounds like whining doesn't it. Well, I actually sat down to blog about something great that happened tonight. Christian & McKenna broke the hinges off our gate that blocks off the stairs. (Clearly this is not the good part). It was their fault. They disobeyed my instructions about not climbing over the gate, etc. Do you have any idea how hard it is to get a gate that fits a banister without having to drill holes into it?? I created this gate contraption when we lived at our old house. I can NOT just go buy another one. The one I created cost a pretty penny by the time I was done buying this and that for it. So when the kids broke it, I was ticked. I lost my mommy cool, I was mad (especially since Will immediately took off climbing the stairs .... his favorite thing on earth) and they felt awful. We have two gates that are the same and they broke the hardware that came with one of them and I know we had hardware for the other one, but that was 6 years and one move ago. I had no idea where it was. If I could find those missing parts, I might be able to fix it. So at bedtime in my mean mommy voice I told them that they should pray about it.

Don't you know I walked through the pouring rain out to the shed and there were the missing hinges .... right there in the FIRST drawer I opened. I headed back inside, up to Christian's room and asked him if he had prayed about those hinges. He said he had prayed about it and I put the hinge in his hand.

Thank you Lord that when I'm having a tough night, you answered the prayers of a six year old and a four year old to prove to them that you are faithful. I think I needed the reminder too.

Mother's Day 2012

 I told Ryan that what I really wanted for Mother's Day was a decent picture of all three of the kids with me. And this is the best we could manage.

 Someone was in a bad mood. Boy oh Boy this little guy knows how to throw a temper tantrum.

 So we settled for this and called it even.

On Sunday morning I woke up to breakfast in bed and a diet Coke from McDonalds. It was Christian's idea to get me one. That boy knows me so well.

 My parents were going to come over for lunch and Ryan was going to grill filet mignon, so Christian and McKenna set the dining room table. They've seen me do it a million times and it was so sweet that they worked on it and wouldn't let me help. McKenna picked all the flowers from our yard, Christian folded the napkins and got all the silverware in the correct spot.

This is my favorite picture of the day. The kids were so excited to give Grandmom one of those Hallmark recordable books that they recorded for her. She loved it. Even Will was interested in giving it to her.

The Mouse and the Cheese Bush

I realize that some of you have never had the pleasure of meeting Miss McKenna. 

So I thought I would give you just a tiny taste of what daily life is like with the girl. 

I video taped a conversation we were having and you get to listen in :)

This is pretty typical of the kinds of things we end up talking about. She has a crazy wild imagination.

Christian's great idea!

We had ice cream cake tonight for Ryan's birthday and Christian literally licked his plate so clean that he thought I should just put it back in the cabinet. 

Have no fear, you can still come over to my house for dinner....the plate is in the dish washer right now.

Her Pillow

 McKenna worked very hard on making a new "pillow" the other day. She was coloring this poster picture and kept telling me it was her pillow. Little did I know that she actually really did plan on using it as her pillow. I still can't believe she fell asleep on a piece of paper, but she pretty much does whatever she sets her mind to do.

And while I was taking pictures of sleep children, I snapped one of Christian too. ((sigh)))...his face is just so precious!  I canNOT believe Kindergarten will be over in less than a month. He's grown up so much this year and school has been such a good experience for him. I'm so thankful. I prayed and prayed about this first year of school for him and those prayers have been answered.

I didn't dare take a picture of Will sleeping. He most certainly would have woken up!

Will: 14 Months

 Will is 14 months old today!

One day, maybe when he's 8, I'm going to remind him just how much he loves emptying the dishwasher! It's one of his favorite pastimes and one day I know he's not going to love it, but he's going to do it anyway :)

Will has literally been running around our house now for about 2 months with his walker.

This week he finally realized that he can abandon the walker and just go all on his own.

He's taken a few tumbles but he is choosing to walk 90% of the time.

He has also become a much better sleeper in the last month.

I don't rock him to sleep anymore, which makes me sad, but it's so much easier to just put him in his bed and let him go to sleep.

He still drinks formula which we have got to stop, but he just doesn't love milk. Actually he doesn't even like it, so he's still been getting 2-3 bottles a day/night.

Will's favorite toys are trucks, cars and trains! Such a boy!! He loves to push things around. Every time I change his diaper I put a train in his hand so he has something to keep him entertained.

Will is understanding more and more of what we say. When I say "outside" he heads for the door. When I say "come" he walks right over to me.

His language is coming very slowly. Christian was just like this and I was a worried mess about it. So right now I'm not concerned about Will. Someone just needs to remind me not to be worried about it two months from now. It will come...he's a boy....it just takes time. Right?! He is very noisy. He babbles constantly. It just doesn't make any sense. He does say "duck" and "quack" all the time, but he doesn't relate those words to anything. The only word that he actually relates to something is "dada" and possibly "yes" but I'm not certain about that yet.

My number one favorite thing Will does is when I say "hug" he gives me the biggest squeeze!!!! Oh how I love this precious boy. What a joy it is to be his mommy!

3 John 1:4 "I have no greater joy than to hear that my children are walking in the truth."

What Would You Do?

Last Saturday I had the little kids with me and we were heading over the ball field to meet Christian & Ryan for Christian's game. I realized that I forgot my camera and decided to turn around and go back home to get it. Christian was going to pitch and I just had to have pictures of his very first time on the mound. So I rushed home, grabbed the camera and now I was late. So I picked up a little speed as I was heading on the back roads to the ball field.

I'm sure you can see where this is going.....

As soon as I came up over a hill there was a lovely white unmarked police car sitting there clocking people. People like me who were not obeying the speed limit. I immediately put on the brakes as if to pretend that I was out for a leisurely drive...but he had me. I continued on down the road waiting for the flashing lights to pull me over.

In my rear view mirror I saw his car pull out onto the road to turn around (he had been facing the other direction) and the poor guy pulled out too far and his front tires went in the ditch on the other side of the road. oops! He was stuck.

So I kept going the legal speed limit of 40mph and I kept an eye on my rear view mirror just waiting for sirens and lights. As we got closer to the ball field (he was about 2 miles behind me at this point) I was just imagining me pulling up to the game and the cop pulling in behind me to give me my ticket. Oh I would have been so embarrassed, so here's where I made what some might consider a questionable choice.


Should I stop and wait? Should I have gone back? Or should I have sped up just a little to make sure I arrived at the ball field without an escort??? Keep in mind...he never did have his lights/siren on.

What would you have done????