Funeral Behavior

It saddens me deeply to say that this past weekend we attended Eric's dear great aunt's funeral. I did not know her very well personally, but the many, many stories I have heard of her delight my soul and make me wish I had known her better!

I would never say I like funerals; however, they are one of the greatest celebrations I believe we can attend...Where else do we celebrate all of the joyous, incredible things each of do in our lifetimes? He put each of us here for a reason, and I find that funerals sometimes reveal a small part of His purposes for that life...what a great joy!

Yet, my dear little Ballerina does not seem to have the same respect...or perhaps any respect...for funerals. From the moment we arrived, she was a 19-month-old on fire! She bossed me around at the luncheon, demanded how I do her hair, threw a bloody fit that we insisted on holding her hand as we walked into the funeral home, and flailed on the floor when we tried to tell her that she could not play in the fountain.

One would think that with these displays of superior behavior that I would have known better than to take her into a funeral service. Yep! Oh, but I did not! Nope! I walked right in to the service without so much as a second thought that Ballerina was in terror mode.

However, less than two minutes into the service I was quickly reminded why taking her in was NOT a good idea...And, we quickly slipped out.

At first we tried to chill in the foyer, but she incessantly screamed, "Mommy, come here!" and "No hand! I want water!" Then I tried cleaning her face and giving her a pacifier, but she did not bait. To be more specific, she threw her paci, ripped the towel, and screamed at the top of her lungs, "No Mommy! No water!"

Awesome, huh?

So, outside we went...
While I do pray we will not be attending any funerals in our near future, I do plan on working with my little one on her behavior at them!

Captured Evenings

We have had some beautiful evenings in recent weeks. There have been many times, in fact, that we have enjoyed the weather for well too late into the evening. We then ended up in a frenzy trying to get the masses to bed! Imagine that!

Yet, I love these evenings...and I could not help but t capture a few moments of them!The crew!Hummm...She cannot be up to any good!

Preparing for the battle to begin!

Escaping the war zone.

Fearing the wrath!

Throwing his own ammo!

Capturing from behind!

A moment of calm...

Oh no! Double trouble!

G...just being G...

It is another beautiful evening...so I am OUT!

Tag

I was tagged by Natalie...

Here are the rules:
1. Find your sixth picture folder and in that folder, the sixth picture.
2. Post it on your blog with some of the background of the picture.
3. Tag four others and leave a comment on their blog to let them know they’ve been tagged.

Of course, I have issues...

Last summer when my hard drive was erased, I lost a slew of pictures. So, I then tried to recapture them from different places, thus random folders were created on my computer, and I have never taken the time to edit them. Imagine that!

To the tag...this is the only picture in the 6th folder.It is the first picture we have of the 4 after Ballerina was born. They are sitting in the chair at the hospital. They ALL look so young. It is amazing how they have changes in 19 short months. This, however, is the 6th picture I have in the 6th folder that actually contains 6 pictures! It was taken in December of this year. Ballerina is clearly a mess! She is standing in my bedroom after running from me at bedtime. She also has goldfish in her mouth...Sneaky little thing!

I tag my sisters...all 4 of you...Cambrey, Ragan, Lauren and Carla.

A Little of Everything

This weekend, the last weekend of spring break, it seemed as if we had a little bit of everything going on. Thursday we headed to the lake for some packing and moving of the BIG things. I am a pretty cruddy packer, so I stuck to making guacamole with the 100 avocados that Mom and Kason bought.

Minutes like these, however, are the reasons why we spend days packing, new houses get built and continued trips will be made...I was also excited this weekend to do something I rarely do...Spend a little time with "ladies." When I go on an excursion, I usually have at least one kiddo in tow. I, of course, truly enjoyed the time with friends (like always), but I will not lie, I also relished the drive alone where I enjoyed great coffee, incredible music and some very rare time to myself!You know, no weekend is complete without a little humor...It was a BBQ and crawfish weekend on our street (a common affair in our neck of the woods when the weather is so nice), and this was the fun we had ...Come to find out, it is pretty funny to scare grown men with fake snakes. He!

Today it was back to work...where I am sure I will experience a little bit of a lot more everything!

What the...

G speaks again.

We rolled into the lakehouse neighborhood this afternoon.

Maggie (one of our dogs) gets super excited each time we pull into the lake. She KNOWS it is going to be a good time, and goes CRAZY when we pass through the gate. G also knows that she is going to do this, and he antagonizes her craziness with the same excitement.

It must also be known that we have what affectionately call the "Maggie voice" in our house, and it is not uncommon for Maggie to speak in the 3rd person using this voice. For example, Maggie might say in the high-pitched, nasally voice, "Mommy, Mommy, Mommy...Maggie is so sorry that she ate all of Daddy's egg sandwiches! Maggie knows Daddy likes them so, so much. Maggie is SO sorry!" (I use this as an example because it is only one of 2 times that I have really seen my husband angry!)

Back to this afternoon...

As we pulled into the neighborhood G says excitedly on behalf of Maggie, "Oh, where the hell are we? Maggie wants to play in the lake!"

Eric and I both whip around...However, Eric responds, "What did you just say son?"

"I did not say anything, Daddy! Maggie did!"

And, when you laugh, no parenting can be done!

Our First Glimpse

After our rocky start to Spring Break, we decided to head to the lake for a little fishing, kayaking, boating, and relaxing before we get back into the swing of things this weekend. Funny...the two youngest kids are not super fans of the boat! What in the world is wrong with them? They have SERIOUS issues! They are, however, serious fans of chocolate pudding! Perhaps the highlight of the trip, however, was our first glimpses at Gigi and K-Dan's new house! We are not real sure how it happened, but we have not seen anything past the staking of the slab, and we were amazed to see how much progress has been made. June will be come SO SOON!We will be off to the lake again soon for some MOVING! Yippie!

Spring Break Day II

Day one of Spring Break 2009! We wanted to get some things done before we headed out for some fun! We spent most of the day in the yard, running errands, etc.
Yet, this one really wanted to pose for pictures...She was really hamming it up! But, the entire day, G was down and out with a fever - impetigo and strep! When he was not asleep in the car, he was asleep on the couch in the playroom! So, he crashed at 7:30! Ballerina, on the other hand, well, this was taken well past midnight when I kept hearing her sing to herself in her bed! Day II of Spring Break 2009! G was feeling TONS better this morning! 1/2 the fam was now on antibiotics, so we figured we were good to go. Thus, after a few errands we were off to the hill country wildflower hunting (one of our favorite adventures together). We were just outside Independence when Ballerina started projectile vomiting!

We made pit stops to clean her and the car up each of the more than 10 times she threw up between there and the doctor back home...Diagnosis = ear infection/strep!She did not want to take off her St. Patrick's day "pretty" even as she headed to bed!

So, all in all, Spring Break is off to a spectacular start, and today has not been the holiday that we had planned. However, the kids are all now in bed, and Eric and I are now in the living room with a good Netflix and a green beverage. I guess the best is yet to come!

Little Cherub

For months, each time the children's choir performs at church we have had a son in meltdown mode. He wanted SO BADLY to be in the choir with his friends; however, because the choir rehearses at 4:00 on Wednesdays (when we are both clearly at work and on bus duty), we deemed it impossible for him to be able to participate.

Yet, little boys can do something to your heartstrings...and they can make you find a way to make the impossible possible. Therefore, after Christmas we searched and searched for a way to be sure that we could get him to choir each Wednesday, and I am excited report with a little creativity, a lot of support form incredible people with which we work and some dear friends from church , G has not missed a Wednesday!

With that, this past Sunday was the first performance of his Little Cherub choir. He is in the top left corner...Ever so proud of himself!This is a bad picture (my angle from the pew was pretty pathetic) of his precious director that he LOVES! He thinks she hung the moon! And running back to his seat after singing! He was so excited that Gigi and K-Dan were also there to see him!

Until his next performance...He WILL be practicing!

Shaving Cream War

In desperation the other night, I resorted to breaking out the shaving cream to amuse the two youngest. However, the 15 minutes I needed to finish the evaluation on which I was working on turned ugly after about 5!

With a 4 year old and an 18 month old...Who would have guessed?

At first, there was independent ugliness...But, then the two joined messy ugly forces...And, ended up like this!In the grand scheme of things, I guess this ugly mess was my fault! What was I thinking? Needless to say, I spent way more than the 15 minutes I needed cleaning the mess I created.