And Then She Was 3

My Sweet Livi Ray,

Your daddy and I listened over the monitor last night to your sweet, precious and tiny voice singing a little song. Well you were really humming it and we have no idea what it was but we do know it brought tears to our eyes. Listening to you and wondering how in the world you have grown up so fast. But not questioning how you have captured our hearts so fully.

You are a kind hearted, affectionate, sensitive, hard headed, sassy,  tenacious and full of life little girl. You are all in, no matter what it is. You have no idea what so ever that you are the youngest of the bunch. No idea that your siblings, most all of your cousins and all of your friends at church are no where close to being your age. In your little eyes you are just as big as every one else. And basically every one of those friends and cousins ADORE you. You and Audrey are very close, as you still call on her a lot to help you and you crawl in the bed with her often at nighttime when you get scared from the shadows on the ceiling coming from the fan. I’ve seen a big change in the relationship between you and James in the last few months and it makes me so happy! The two of you seem to have a little more patience with each other lately and he is quicker to try and help you when you need it and you are getting better at actually letting him help you.

You are 100% potty trained and have been since March. When we moved to Whigham (for 2 months) that was when you stopped sleeping in your baby crib. You took to it like a duck to water and when we moved back to the big house, we moved you upstairs and turned your old room into a guest room. You have your own room upstairs with a bed and dresser and all your toys and you sleep in there at nap time. But you still sleep in Audrey’s old toddler bed in the corner of her room at night time. You still have to have your 2 blankies to sleep with and even carry them around the house most days and lately have insisted on taking them to church as well. I don’t take care. It will be the saddest of days for us when you get too old for your bwankies. And every night I have to sing the 3rd verse of Amazing Grace (fru men) and You Are My Sunshine.

Your presence in our hearts and our home is still as joyous as ever. You tend to get feisty and shout a little (ok- a lot) when things don’t go your way  but we ARE working on that! You have an infectious smile and the most precious little voice that could melt the coldest of hearts. You win people over the moment they meet you, even if you aren’t that crazy about them. You tend to get miffed a lot lately when some one tells you what to do and me and your daddy have had to have a few serious “meetings” with you over these last few weeks.

You are not by any means what I would call a shy child. Most of the time you are totally unaware of the people around you and just enjoy your self. But within the last 2 months you’ve started to clam up every now and then when singing a song and someone looks at you. Or when you see someone at church or the library that you talk about all the time, you cling on to me for dear life. Or you will walk up to someone you have seen like 3 times in your whole life and ask for them to pick you up!!

You thought you were a part of James and Audrey’s Kindergarten class this year. And might I say that you won the hearts of all their classmates and both of their teachers! Every one loved to see you come in the room on Wednesday’s! The few times we would be in the room while class was going on, you would sit on the rug with Audrey and listen intently to Mrs. McCaskill. You even raised your hand a few times and tried to answer some questions!

I love you more than you could ever possibly know. Until the day that the Lord hopefully blesses you to become a mama you and your brother and sister will never understand how deeply my love runs for you. I would do anything to keep you from danger and I hope that one day, if you ever doubt my true love for you, I hope you will be able to read my letters and blog posts about you and be able to understand. I pray every day that the Lord will guide me to be the best mother that YOU need. I love you, baby girl. Always and forever,

Mama

A Case of Lip-itis

It’s H-A-R-D some days to keep the kids at bay about that big black box that sits in our living. Some people call it a t.v. I call it a babysitter. Not really. Just kidding. Okay, maybe I am somewhat serious. I admit, I do use it sometimes as a babysitter! I digress.

Somedays it’s hard to keep them from begging to watch it but honestly, the older they get, the easier it is for them to forget about it and really enjoy playing together and use their imaginations. Sometimes I have to give them idea’s about what to play and some days I don’t. And when I don’t and I find them playing something that takes a little imagination, it makes me proud. Today I found them in Olivia’s room, playing doctor. Olivia had chapped lips so James went to get some vaseline to apply to them. He called it a case of lip-itis. James was the doctor and he tied a shirt around his face for his surgical mask - genius. Audrey was the nurse and brought Olivia her tray of food to eat while in the hospital - caretaker. And Olivia was the patient being waited on hand and foot - baby sister. They play their roles quite well. They were playing library yesterday but I didn’t snap a pic of that!

P.S. When James saw him self in the mirror he said “I know! I look like one of those guys form Duck Dynasty!” hahahahaha!!!
P.P.S. I forgot to take my logo off and am too lazy to do it again.
P.P.P.S. James asked if I was gonna show this to any church people. I said why and he said cause I don’t want any body to see me doing this! Should I tell him now or wait till he’s older???? :)

We like to move it move it

I was trying to make it 2 months with out blogging. And I was pretty darn close to it until someone came to my house, busted down the door, held a gun to my head and shouted TYPE! Ok, none of that is true. Not even the part about going 2 months. But someone did harass me through a few text messages :)

Here, in random order are the real reasons I have not blogged in almost 2 months:

1. I’ve been lazy.

2. I like to think of #1 more like I am creative and artistic and have just had no vision lately. It happens.

3. I have a very demanding almost 3 year old who feels the need to be touching some part of my body
    at all times through out the day.

4. I have twins (shocker, i know!) who were finishing up kindergarten. Field trips, party’s, etc

5. I have a very demanding almost 3 year old who feels the need to be touching some part of my body
    at all times through out the day.

6. I have twins (ahhh!) who have been out of school for a week.

7. We moved.

8. This week has been filled with dance rehearsal and trying to shop and pack for our camping trip at    
    the beach starting this Sunday afternoon!!!

9. And we moved again.

10. I’ve been taking another photography workshop.

11. Oh and did I mention that we moved? Twice? In less than 2 months?

12. Olivia had strep throat this week :(

While all those things are truer than I’d like some of them to be, I really have lost track of time. March, April and May have just been a blur. We decided shortly after I blogged so poignantly about deciding to wait, we felt like our waiting time was up and we had to face it. We tried every scenario we could imagine and NOTHING was panning out. It felt like the Lord had just closed the door and was telling us to listen this time and go back. So, we did. With in 2 weeks time Jon and myself moved every last box and most of the furniture by ourselves. We did hire a couple of young, strapping boys to help get the heaviest stuff. I changed our address and all the bills and stuff back over which let me assure was a pain in the neck. But after we moved back it really felt like we had never left. It felt like Whigham was just a distant dream when in reality its only been 6 weeks. We’ve had all the house drama (and I do mean DRAMA) we can stomach for basically ever so until the Lord calls us out of this town or we die (which we hope the later is at least 60 years from now!!) we are staying on 7th Ave.

If you ever want to listen to all the life lesson’s my husband and I have gleaned from this whole “interesting” experience, please, come visit us. After all, we have the room :)

Look Ma!! No Hands!!

Or more like no training wheels!! My big little man decided one day that he wanted to take his training wheels off of his bike so we said okay! And just like that, he started riding his bike like a…..like not a baby any more!! I could hardly believe my eyes. Our son who has always lacked balance and falls a lot at random times through out the day, just took off on his bike with two wheels like he had been doing it forever. He comes home every single day and jumps on that bike and rides and rides. He’s had a few accidents after taking curves to fast and the normal things that cause kids to fall off bikes but he’s enjoying the battle scars :) Uncle Will and Aunt Angela were visiting us the weekend he passed this milestone!! Audrey is not interested in taking such a leap right now but both her front teeth are super duper loose so stay tuned for that!! I was instructed to buy apples at the store this morning :)

A Stolen Moment…Or Two or Three

Olivia is going through some changes and we are currently trying to figure out how to solve our sleep dilemma. Trying to figure out if we need to cut naps out all together or start napping earlier or only allowing the angel here to take a shorter nap a her regularly scheduled time. Earlier this week, the twins were hanging out after school with their daddy so they weren’t home at their normal time. It also happened to be the day that Olivia skipped her nap. I turned on Frozen for her around 4 PM and went about my business of folding and putting clothes away. After a few minutes I noticed that I no longer heard her little voice chirping away so I went to investigate and this is what I found

So precious, this sight was. Even though at 1st I panicked because it was 4 o’clock in the afternoon and I could only imagine how this was going to interfere with bedtime. But being the good paparazzi mother that I am I ran for the camera before I ran to wake her up.

Oh Rats!!!

Olivia can be a complainer, especially when things don’t go her way. But then have you ever known of a 2 1/2 year old girl that isn’t? Girls tend to be more dramatic and emotional, that’s all. But Olivia, oh this child!! Someone once quoted Shakespeare when referring to her saying “Though she be but little she is fierce” and there has never been a more perfect sentence spoken about this precious child of mine. Another sentence that holds true to her is “When dealing with her while she is with out the proper amount of sleep, take 3 steps slowly back and find the quickest escape route possible!” Bless her :) Olivia can scream and holler at the drop of a hat and while Audrey takes the 3 steps back, James doesn’t heed that advice and he stands up to her which can lead to some serious shouting matches. J and O are cut from the same cloth though so it’s tough to avoid these types of situations. Their saving grace in all of this though is their cuteness. James can flash a smile that melts your heart in an instant (or say something that makes your head spin) and Olivia is intone with all of her toddler cuteness. And she has an abundance of it. We want to mash her even when she’s screaming at you (most of the time) or when she gets put out. For instance, she was wanting to go somewhere the other day and we said, no, that we were going home and she came back with “Oh rats!!” She really shouldn’t be allowed to be so cute. And yesterday she came in the kitchen door all in a huff about something not going her way and kicked her shoes off and one landed in the the broom closet 2 feet away. Haha. The picure below is the shoe that didn’t get tossed and the items she discarded in her huff.

Any way, we woke up this morning and even though it was foggy, cold and raining outside, the day looked the brightest that it has since we, well, I can’t remember since when. To make a long and complicated story short, the Lord gave us peace about the decisions we were facing and we’ve decided to stay where we are and move forward with some other prospects concerning the house we are trying to sell. Our “problems” are not solved but when the Lord settles your heart and mind about things it can feel like they are. And that’s worth more than anything. I can finally start to seriously un pack and make this little house our permanent dwelling place for the foreseeable future. I cannot find the words to adequately describe how that makes us feel other than peaceful. But I guess that’s a pretty understandable word. If you’ve ever felt the peace of God come upon you in a trying situation than you know what I mean.

Life is a series of problems...

‘Life is a series of problems that we must solve – one then the next then the next until we die’. – I sit here surrounded by boxes and complete silence. Olivia is asleep and the only noise I can hear is the occasional vehicle that passes by on this quite country road. And my wind chimes. The ones that a sweet couple sent to me when we first moved down here and have accompanied me through 3 moves now. I love them. My sister doesn’t. They remind her of Tropical Storm Faye that passed through here about 6 years ago. Her and her kids got stuck down here with us (she was teaching a class in Tallahassee) during that event and we spent 2 horrible, hot and sleepless nights listening to those wind chimes. It still baffles me why in the world I didn’t take those things DOWN during that time. Haha!

I’ve hesitated today wether to blog about this or not but I figured why not? Pretty sure my 3 devoted followers already know and those who occasionally stop by might feel inclined to pray for our situation. Curious now, aren’t ya?! Ok, well long, long story short we moved into our ”new” house on Monday of this week only to find out later that day that the people who are “buying” our “old” house hit a major roadblock and have had to go another way to try and get the financing that they need. What does this mean? It means that there is a good chance these people won’t be able to buy our home and we will be faced with the decision to pack up and move back until we can find a buyer or stay here and wait it out.

It was quite a large pill to swallow and while it’s finally found it’s way down, we are still a little on edge simply because instead of having the finality of knowing this is it, we will be here for a good long while we are looking around thinking “ok, what should I un-pack?” Over these last few days I’ve unpacked a good portion of the kitchen because the last thing I could bare to do was eat another meal from a restaurant. I don’t care if I have to pack it all back up in 30 days or not. Our meals for the next month will be coming from my kitchen!! I’ve picked a spot for storing boxes that I know we can live with out for the next month so we aren’t tripping over anything any more. The kids rooms are comfy and cozy for them and  I’ve got the bathrooms squared away so that no one is looking for a toothbrush or hair brush. So, basically, the essentials that will make it feel like we are “home” instead of just camping out. Which we had our belly full of over the last few weeks. We also had our belly full of no family time and we are definitely making up for lost moments on that end. As soon as the kids come home from school we go outside and other than homework and supper, we stay out there until dark.

The Lord is still good and his mercy endureth forever. He’s protected us from disaster. Even though our current situation isn’t ideal and is certainly not what we were expecting and while it does give us our moments of downtroddenness (lol, i don’t’ know if that is exactly a word!) at least we don’t find our selves paying two mortgages. We can get out of this rental if we decide to and just go back and wait it out. And as my daddy has been saying ever since we put our house on the market almost a year ago, if we have to be “stuck” in a house, it’s a pretty nice house to be “stuck” in!

In the meantime, I am on vacation. I mean it. I’ll pay the bills and sweep a floor and wash a dish and cook a meal but other than that, I’m on vacation. We are spending the spring in our country home and intend on squeezing every minute of fun out of the days as we can. Just in case we have to go back :) And let me assure you, the giggles and squeals that the one pictured above and the 2 pictured below deliver us on a daily basis certainly puts a smile on our faces and makes the time easier to pass!!