Tuesday, September 30, 2008

Tuesday

Storytime at the library with our friends.Audry & Ellie playing at the park...gorgeous day today!
Ellie, Saedi, & Audry eating lunch by the Cumberland River.


Monday, September 29, 2008

At the Potter's House

Sunday's sermon at church was exceptionally good & I'd like to share a bit about what I got out of it. The passage that spoke most directly to me is from Jeremiah 18:1-6.
The background: Jeremiah was called by God to be a prophet at a young age. A prophet is not necessarily a calling most people want. It often requires one to be the bearer of bad news. God had something he wanted to teach Jeremiah so He sent him to a potter's house for his field-trip lesson.
The text: "This is the word that came to Jeremiah from the Lord: "Go down to the potter's house, and there I will give you my message." So I went down to the potter's house, and I saw him working at the wheel. But the pot he was shaping from the clay was marred in his hands; so the potter formed it into another pot, shaping it AS SEEMED BEST TO HIM. Then the word of the Lord came to me, "O house of Isarel, can I not do with you as this potter does?" declares the Lord. "Like clay in the hand of the potter, so are you in my hand, O house of Israel".
My thoughts: While there was a ton that I gleaned from this sermon, what spoke to me the most is what I emphasied above. God created me as He thought best. That means I'm who I'm supposed to be- faults & all, strengths & weaknesses, likes & dislikes. So many times I get caught up in my world of perfectionism that I get bogged down with the impossibility of "measuring up" or ever "being good enough." Our world has created a fascad of what a beautiful woman should look like & how a lovely woman should act. What I find comfort in, however, is that I am nothing without Christ & that I'm exactly who I should be in Him!

Ellie & Brooke

Last week we had Brooke over to play for the day & we had so much fun together. Ellie & her friends are at a fun stage where they generally play well & are willing to do almost anything...good or bad. I enjoy seeing the girls explore their world & experiment with life. We spent the morning at a retirement center where the girls read books, colored, and had cookies & milk with the elderly. The girls behaved and really enjoyed themselves. Even Saedi did well- she was fascinated by all the wheels from the walkers & wheelchairs. We came home & had lunch, naps, baked cupcakes, & then ran around outside for the afternoon. The combination of awesome autumn weather combined with playful friends & the fact that Riley will be around this fall is making the upcoming holidays even more exciting! Praise God for so many blessings in our lives!

Wednesday, September 24, 2008

Time with Mimi & Papa




Ellie & I had a lovely break from one another. Mim (pronounced Meeeem...Ellie's new nickname for Mimi) & Papa wisked Ellie away for several days & took her to their Michigan home. Ellie had a blast in Michigan & didn't get homesick once (although she did ask for me once after a brief spanking episode). I think Ellie's highlights were feeding the chickens, playing with her cousins (Ty & Asher), baking cookies with Mimi, visiting Papa at the sawmill, collecting pumpkins, reading Peter Rabbit, watching Charlotte's Web...& that's only from her first day home trying to tell me about all she did.

With Ellie in MI & Riley in TX Saedi & I had some nice alone time for the first time since she was born (almost 8 months ago). Everyday life with only Saedi felt easy & we couldn't seem to get enough of one another. She's such a laid back baby & I was able to find a bit of myself back again: I pulled out my sewing machine & had fun with new creative projects, I baked, & best of all I got on track with my morning quiet time again...refreshing!
Here are some of our pictures from the hotel during our pick-up session last night/this morning.

Tuesday, September 16, 2008

Carrot Story


Lately I've been trying to think of ways to reward Ellie more instead of focusing so much on her negative behavior. A new friend of mine made this suggestion: set out 5 m&m's on the window sill before lunch, and everytime the child disobeyes take away one m&m. How every many are left at nap time are the childs. Then, reset and start again after naps. To be honest, I was a bit skeptical: I thought that was too many m&m's & I wasn't sure where the role of spanking fit into that. But, I was excited to experiment (as I always am on my children) so I gave it a go. The first day Ellie received 3 m&m's before lunch & I don't remember after lunch. The next day she received a few here & there, but the 3rd day she received 0 m&m's & here's where the funny part of the story comes into play: Ellie saw that her m&m's were gone. Being the creative girl that she is, when I left the dinner table to put fussy Saedi to bed, Ellie has picked the carrot circles out of my bowl of veggies & lined them up on the window sill turning the carrots into her reward. She proceeded to eat the carrots one by one...all except for one, that is. So, what did she do with the last one? She got her baby doll, scolded baby doll for disobeying, told baby doll that she didn't get the last m&m since she disobeyed Mommy & then put baby doll in time out...It was hilarious! One, for the fact that my child turned eating vegetables into a reward & Two, for outwitting me again! She is like her Daddy that way. wink wink. Oh, and I learned that 10 m&m's a day is not too many for us...wow we have a lot of behavior issues!

Sunday, September 14, 2008

Time with Daddy


Here are some fun pictures of our 2 weeks with Riley


COPS


Last night was a bit of a weird night...eventful in an un-eventful way (does that even make sense? just keep reading). Around 4:30-5:00pm I loaded the girls up in their little red wagon so we could go for a short neighborhood walk. As soon as I hit the driveway I noticed a few police cars on our street & a few neighbors were bustling outside. A cop motioned for me to come over & he said I should probably go home because a neighbor was threatened at gunpoint by her boyfriend, and the boyfriend was still in her house (which is a few houses away from mine). Throughout the next half hour more & more police cars came, the street was blocked off & several cops with rifles were throughout our neighborhood. In fact, I stepped onto my back porch & a man dressed in a green camoflauge SWAT uniform popped out of nowhere & told me to get back inside (he was nice about it) & then proceeded to run across my back yard with his rifle. I never heard any gun shots & the police were gone around 9:30pm so I don't know what ever came to be of the situation (that's why I introduced the story as being un-eventful) but it was a lot of drama for our quiet, usually un-eventful street.

Wednesday, September 10, 2008

All About Saedi



Little Saed-Saed has started pulling herself up to a standing position. In fact, she now prefers to stand over any other pose. As you can tell in picture #2, Ellie is pretty excited that Saedi is becoming more of a play-friend. Just the other day Ellie said, "Saedi's my best friend." Adorable.
Since today's blog is all about Saedi, I should add as well that her first tooth finally poked through yesterday, & just today left-central-incisor (aka, tooth number two) made its grand entry as well.

Monday, September 8, 2008

Goodwill




Most of you know that I'm a thrifty shopper, but even better than myself is Riley. Just this weekend as we were on our way to the Clarksville River Fest we passed "Riley's Goodwill Store" having a 50% clearance on everything in the store. We stopped...we shopped...& here are the pictures of his new Calvin Klein-still with tags on-hot looking-3 dolla' make you holla'-dress pants. Not bad. Not bad at all.

Tuesday, September 2, 2008

The Magic of a Father




My girls are thrilled to have their Daddy home...& they're wooing each other in peculiar ways.
Ellie has been busy trying to boss Riley around playing Mommy & baby...guess who's been the baby? Tee hee. They've had one battle over teeth brushing, but other than that, Ellie has responded well to Riley's correction. Amazing.
And Saedi, the baby who stubbornly refused to take a bottle these past 3 months, took one for Daddy (first try)...& held it herself! Also amazing.
It's so good to have my best friend home & fully engaged with us!