Tidbits for Tuesday

Hello, friends! It's been a busy holiday week since my last blog, combined with a foot and a half of snow to welcome winter -- much of which arrived in a crazy blizzard just over a week ago. As I write this morning it is snowing again, with another winter storm warning in place for today and four to eight inches of new snow expected. In our house, if you are four years old or younger, you are overjoyed by the dramatic beginning to this winter! If you are 25 or older -- and especially if you happen to be the unfortunate one who got her minivan stuck both in her driveway and in the driveway at the church building on Sunday -- you are not quite so thrilled. But I have to admit, winter in the mountains is beautiful!

This week my Hannah will turn three! She has been waiting for her birthday ever since her big sister turned four in October, and she has her whole day planned out. She will start out with "eggs and pop tarts" for breakfast. (Ashley asked for pop tarts for breakfast, too! It's a treat they've only had a few times in their lives -- I guess it's becoming their new birthday breakfast tradition.) She has specific books she wants me to read to her on her birthday and games she wants to play, and she's super excited about going to her daddy's Christmas band's first concert mid-day. For dinner she has ordered "lots of spaghetti, like more spaghetti than you usually give me, and lettuce and cheese, and bread -- but not the normal bread, the yummy bread -- and more punch than you usually give me." Translated, that is spaghetti, salad, french bread, and the birthday punch we like to make from fruit juice and 7Up. :-)

Here's Hannah apparently doing the splits while opening an early birthday present from her auntie and uncle and cousins -- she's so silly!

Follow-Up to Exciting PSA!

While most readers sympathized with my recent blog on the arrival of Starbucks holiday cups -- both the bright shaft of joyful light that they create in the world, and the severity of Lamont's error in neglecting to tell me of their joyous arrival -- I did receive, to my astonishment, a few comments suggesting that I had overplayed the importance of these cups. I am certain that my more astute readers are reeling in shock at this moment, just as I did! Nonetheless, I have graciously decided to provide further explanation, for those (weak minded) individuals who may require it.


Are you ready? Ok. This is what the world, the beautiful world, looks like with holiday cups!






And now...prepare yourselves...this is what the world, the dismal world, looks like without holiday cups.



If that didn't make it clear enough for you, I'm sorry to be the one to inform you, but there is actually no hope for you. None.

On my baby who is no longer a baby...

(Photo courtesy of www.hollyclousephotography.com)

Our first family dinner after Lamont returned from his business trip to Vegas this week, and following a naptime power struggle with Ashley that had her lying in bed for hours while her sisters played without her, this was what Bethany prayed:

"Thank you God that Daddy's home, and Ashley's back, and Hannah loves me, and Mummy's nice to me. In Jesus' name, amen." She looked carefully around the table at each one of us as she prayed, to make sure she wasn't missing anyone. :-)

Bethany has the most endearing way of saying everything twice, wrapping it around our name. So if I give her something, it's "Thanks, Mummy, thanks!" When Lamont is swinging her around the livingroom and she wants me to watch, she calls excitedly, "Wooka me, Mummy, wooka me!" And when Lamont was playing around with her the other day and pretended to cry after he got an "owie" in the game, she wrapped her baby arms around his neck and gently told him, "Don't cry, Daddy, don't cry." It was beyond precious, so this morning I tried the same pretend crying as I played with her; she looked me squarely in the eye and chirped, "Hi, puppy, hi!"

Hmm. Ok then.

I helped Bethany get herself potty trained a few weeks ago (yay for no more diapers! I do a happy dance inside every time I walk past them in the store and don't have to buy them!), and she is so delighted with herself for mastering this "big girl" skill. She's successful at least 95% of the time right now, and every time she goes in the toilet she beams up at me with her little eyes sparkling, and says, "See?!" It makes me laugh every.single.time. Yesterday evening she was even more delighted with herself than usual, so she threw her hands in the air and said, "Ta da!"

Exciting PSA!

Who else gets giggly at the sight of Starbucks holiday cups?! Anybody? When I went through the Starbucks drive-through yesterday and the barista handed me this cup, there may have been some sort of involuntary exclamation on my part. Something like, "Oh my gosh, holiday cups!! *pointing at the cup in question while bouncing up and down on my seat* I'm so happy they're back! It's been so long! And they make me so HAPPY!!!" You know, not a big deal, just a little comment like that. Then I immediately texted Lamont to tell him that the holiday cups are back (!!!), only to receive his response: "I know, I had one on Monday." Say whaaaaat? Did I miss the memo that said we will no longer inform each other of drastically exciting news? No problem, buddy, just don't be surprised if next time I find out I'm pregnant I forget to tell you about it! No, really...if you needed any proof of how very much I love my husband, it comes now as I tell you that after 24 hours of wrestling with the shock of his neglect in the area of Starbucks holiday cup announcement, I have now completely forgiven him. Yes, I know. I am a paragon of graciousness and forgiveness.

...and she will live happily ever after!

(Photo courtesy of www.hollyclousephotography.com.)

I feel like you can see in Ashley's far away eyes here some of the beautiful dreams and hopes and plans that she holds in her head and in her heart. A few of them are:

~She will have one hundred and nine puppies when she is grown up. They will all be the kinds of puppies that will lick her hands a lot, because that tickles and she likes it, and they will all sleep with her in her bed.

~She will have one son and three daughters. I think she's patterning that after her aunties and uncle, my little brother and three little sisters! Two of the girls will be named Leah and Sea. Oh, you think that's odd? Well, her son will be named Boykin!

~She will write beautiful songs to make God smile and laugh, and then she will dance to her songs, and that will make Him smile too.

~She will move to Seattle after she finds a "nice husband who will give her puppies for her birthday", and they will live there together for 40 years. They will then take a boat out on the ocean, and live on the ocean for 40 years as well.

~She will make pancakes every day. She will usually have eggs with them; fried, not scrambled like I usually make them for her. She will never make oatmeal.

~Should the one hundred and nine puppies fail to materialize, she will settle for a camel!

On Ashley Turning Four!

Dearest Ashley,

Four years ago today you burst into this world and into my heart, six weeks earlier than we expected you, eager as you always are for new experiences. In that moment when the doctor told us that you were dying inside me and I realized that I might never have the chance to hold you like I desperately longed to do, it felt like my world was ending. Your daddy held my hand and we stared at your tiny form on the ultrasound machine, praying and crying and loving you. Letting you go was the hardest thing I have ever had to do, but as I asked God to hold you and do just what He had planned for your life from the beginning of time, I knew it was the very safest place you could ever be -- cradled in His arms.

And He gave you back to us, my darling girl, the most precious gift we could ever receive, hand delivered from our heavenly father. And as you have grown into the delightful four year old treasure that you are today, it has been clear each step of the way that you are His beautiful daughter, as well as ours.

Ashley, you absolutely sparkle! The vivacious way you just leap out and attack life leaves me amazed and thrilled -- even though sometimes it's hard for me to keep up with you. :-) You are always ready for the next adventure, the next challenge, the next bend in the road. You want to be learning something new every minute of every day, and you remind me of your daddy in that way. I love to see the way your sisters' faces light up when they see you, and how sweet and playful you are with them. And your love songs to God, sung at the top of your lungs with a beaming smile and usually a funny dance to go with them, are some of the most beautiful songs I have ever heard!

You are truly a miracle and an endless joy, and Daddy and I love you so very much. Happy birthday, sweetheart!

The Children Are Nestled All Snug In Their Beds!

Hello! It's naptime, and this is Hannah pretending to sleep. I'm pretty sure she knows that I know that she's faking. But then again, maybe she really thinks she's that good! When I was young, I really was good at fake sleeping...wait...was I as transparent as my children are, thinking I fooled my parents while the whole time they quietly laughed in tolerant amusement?? Surely not! And Dad, no comments on that one. ;-)

And then Ashley -- well, I know that she knows she's not fooling me, since she obligingly lifted up her pillow when I came to sneak a picture, just so I could get a better shot!

I'm not sneaking in for a picture of Bethany, because she's been sleeping creatively lately (as in, sleeping on the floor in front of her bedroom door) and I don't want to smack her with the door when I open it. I may or may not have done that a few times, and let me tell you, when you wake your baby in the middle of her nap by slamming a door into her, you pretty much feel like the worst person alive!

So the girls are sleeping...or not...and I'm eating my rather late lunch, blogging, doing early prep for dinner, and folding laundry. Sometimes I wonder: once you've become a mom, is it ever possible to stop multi-tasking? I feel like I can't get my hands to stop moving sometimes. Even in the evening, if Lamont and I get a chance to curl up on the couch with a movie for a couple hours after the girls are in bed, and I think I'm completely relaxed, I realize I'm rubbing his back without thinking about it, or putting on lotion, or even eating. Never just doing nothing. It's not that it bothers me, really, because there are a lot of things to be done and I'm glad some of them can be done concurrently. But I'm just curious whether I will always be this way, just because motherhood is making it necessary for a season! Maybe over time, when I have time, I will relearn how to do only one thing at a time. :-)