Wild Olive Tee's

Hey ladies- random post but I couldn't resist the chance to try for some free merchandise from this wonderful company. I heard about them through MckMama's blog. The particular T-shirt they are featuring, Unfolding, is one they collaborated on with MckMama and a percentage of the proceeds will be donated to Until Journey's End.

It is a blessing to see such a neat company offering beautiful T-shirts that have God's Word all over them. One of their buttons says 'Can I Get a Witness?' and I think that rocks. You are testifying about the Lord in such a beautiful and unique way by merely getting dressed. Does it get any easier than that? A win-win as they say. You'll have to jump on over to their site to see what I mean.

And that Unfolding tee? (The hot little button a on left side of blog gives you an idea) They are not going to be around long... a limited edition kind of thing. Check it out and be blessed!

She's a natural...

climber. Just like her sister.

Did I ever tell you about the time Kiersten was 2...well, I suppose I wouldn't have since I wasn't blogging back then. Let's take a quick walk down memory lane, shall we?

When we first moved to our current location we were invited over to my Beloveds supervisor's house for dinner. They are a lovely older couple who took a real shine to the KK girl (our one and only child at the time...although another bun had begun to bake in the oven, but I digress). Anyhow, they had this enormous fish tank. It took up half the length of their wall. So it had to be about 6 feet long and it was rather high up. Kiersten disappears for a short while, for she is the original Little Miss Nosey, and when she comes back she is carrying a step stool she found from who knows where in their house. All so that she could climb up and get a better look at those fish! Honestly! (Between you and me you do realize all her naughty habits come from her father, right? All the sugar and spice comes from me. So long as we are clear. :) )

So, back to Katie. The girl truthfully must have gotten the same climber gene as Kiersten (so many more stories I could tell!). I cannot turn my back without Katie going up on this little rocking chair and then to the couch. Today she kept climbing up so I moved the chair away from the couch.

I thought I was clever. Well, she showed me. Just because I moved the chair did not mean she wasn't going to climb on it. I mean, why would she? Isn't that just a ridiculous assumption?

So after about the 10th time (you'd have thought I would have been a little faster on the uptake) of hearing Kiersten say, "Mom, she's standing on the chair again!" I wised up and took the chair away altogether. This is the pose she struck each time I came to get her down.

I tell you she is going to give me a run for my money! In the morning if I don't get the gate up fast enough she hot foots it the stairs and up she goes. That girl.

Little Miss Nosey

I think this describes our curious little Katie to a T. I do realize it most definitely has something to do with her age... but not all of it.

One of her big things to get into is the dishwasher. That girl can hear the squeak of the door a mile away. You try to be so sly and silent opening it up and low and behold you hear a thump, thump, thump (the quick kind that lets you know she is on a mission) coming from the dining room. In some ways that is nice as it lets you know you have about 30 seconds to finish up and get that baby closed.

When she reaches the dishwasher she either fiddle faddles with all the silverware or it is up and in- as you can see below.

The funny thing is my mom has pictures very similar to these of me at close to the same age crawling in my Grandpa and Grandma Smith’s dishwasher! I suppose the apple doesn’t fall far from the tree. :)

Not only is Katie fascinated by the dishwasher but she also has a thing for the cupboard just next to it- the coveted corner cabinet. The door pulls open, which if it is not closed properly tightly she easily opens it and has a hay day with all the things she can pull out, tip over or bite on. One of her favorite things to get in is the brown sugar. I think she has punctured a few wee holes in it and enjoys a sweet treat as she bites/sucks on the bag. (Side note: I had to use the word ‘wee’. We have some Scottish friends and I adore the accents and little sayings they use. Since the accent is a little harder to pull off I thought I would ‘borrow’ a few sayings. Silly I know, but it makes me smile. The little things really do matter!)

Back to Little Miss Nosey.

She also has managed to tip over and spill my oats and even broke open a bag of cake flour- which is what you see all around her here.

She had a blast ‘playing’ in the flour and got it everywhere. I had already taken off the navy fleece pants she had on when I snapped these pictures. And after all the fun was had Little Miss Nosey took a trip to the bathtub (another place she thoroughly enjoys to play) for some clean-up.

Here is a lasting reminder of what my little gremlin looked like after a fun filled nosey morning.

Total Trooper

My Isaiah boy is a total trooper. I wasn't so sure if that was going to be the case when I felt a loving nudge from my husband to wake me with the words, "Isaiah's crying." I, of course, could not hear him at all nor did I until I reached the bottom of the stairs.

Anyhow, when I got upstairs I didn't put two and two together (as is often the case when it is well past midnight and the sun is not yet shinning). So after calming him down I laid with him for a little while and low and behold he starts to throw-up! Ahhhh, so that is what that wet spot on the bed was when I first came up!

And can I just say I have never seen anyone so calmly throw-up? I have thought this each time he gets sick. He doesn't complain/whine (a rarity, I assure you), cry or do anything but merely tilt himself to face the bucket and do what needs to be done. It is amazing.

We were up for at least an hour getting sheets changed and things settled back down. When he got up this morning it was obvious he still didn't feel well and that he hadn't had enough sleep. As he was the sick one he picked out which movie we would watch- Cars. He fell asleep in the middle and slept soundly for at least 2 hours. That rest did him wonders and by the end of the day he was my Isaiah boy again. What a trooper!

Third Time is a Charm

This weekend I pulled Kiersten lost her third tooth. The other two teeth, both bottom ones, had the big tooth pushing them out. So by the time she lost the tooth you couldn't even tell because the big ones had already grown in. But not this time! :)

As funny as it is I have been longing to see a little gaped tooth smile from her. I find it absolutely precious. I cannot explain why but I think it might have something to do with it making her look younger. Anyhow, she wears the missing tooth smile quite well.

And in my defense for pulling helping her lose her tooth if you look at the pictures above (disregarding the blurriness of the one directly above) you'll see her gums above that tooth were becoming quite red. We were starting to seriously worry about infection and a subsequent traumatizing visit to the dentist. It had been lose for weeks and no matter how much we encouraged her to wiggle it with her fingers (she would only use her tongue) it just wasn't coming out. I did put baby Orajel® on her gums before pulling wiggling it out. She didn't feel a thing and still loves me. So it couldn't have been that bad! :)

RRRRRROAR

At least that is what I imagine this lion Kiersten drew on the driveway would sound like if he was real. Although, he looks to be a rather friendly sort of lion (if there is one) so perhaps he wouldn't growl but purr instead?

At any rate this is what my budding sidewalk artist did to mimic my drawing the other day. It was too cute to not take a picture of it. And as today is rainy and gloomy by us I thought a little something cheerful and bright was in order. :)

Not Me! Monday (1st edition)

Welcome to Not Me! Monday! This blog carnival was created by MckMama. You can head over to her blog to read what she and everyone else have not been doing this week.

Not me! Monday’s strikes me as a fun thing to participate in every now and again. So here is our first go. I will confess that this a joint post between Katie and myself. Since I haven’t written much about the youngest of our clan lately I thought this would be a cute way to let you know what she has not been up to. :)

So, Katie does not love to pull the pictures I had so nicely put up on my refrigerator door. I mean the almost perfect line of pictures 3/4th of the way up is no indication of how high up she can reach now. (Yeah, that lone picture on the bottom…no idea how it has survived. I will say that it once was pulled off but then was put back on. It is a picture of another baby so maybe that is it. Who am I to question the mind of a child?)

Katie does not drop a bazillion Cheerios® all over my floor as she is eating them. You would be sooooo amazed at how this little girl keeps everything on the table, spills nothing on her bib/shirt and never gets any food all over her hair or her face. I mean I never have to change her clothes after every any meal. Little miss neat and tidy she is.

I never let the Cheerios® sit on the floor for any length of time. I always grab broom and dustpan just after she has eaten and get it cleaned up. That way she could not come back and eat up off the floor what she so graciously did not throw off of the table earlier. It is in no way a snack for later type of situation.

And she most certainly does not race me to my pile of flotsam I have just swept up to find any remaining Cheerios® and stuff them in her mouth. I mean who would dare challenge her mama to a race to see who can clean the floor the fastest? Not my baby girl! No sirree.

She does not like to clap…just randomly or because someone says, “Yeah!” For the record she doesn't smile while doing it either. She doesn't use this clapping skill to encourage her older sister as she is dancing. (One of the first set of moves – point, together, point, together, hop, clap, clap- gets her started and she doesn't stop until the dance is done. Big sister's own personal cheering section.)

You do not see chairs moving across our dining room floor as if a ghost were moving them because Katie is in fact using them as a walker and you just couldn't see her little head because the table was in the way. And as she is not walking the chair around she most certainly does not lose her cool and scream in frustration when the chair hits a wall or the carpet line and will go no further for her. She is way to patient for that.

And while we are on the topic of not screaming….she does not throw full body fits and bite the carpet when something is taken away from her or she doesn't get her way. She in no way has a quick temper (and for the record neither do I! Not me!).

Oh, and she completely did not wake up at 5:40 on Mother’s Day a total crab apple to a cranky Mama. Her Father did not quickly give me the cutest card from her signed with his left hand – so it would look like little kiddie scrawl. It did not help my mood and I did not smile over it!

So that is what Katie is not up to.

I do feel the need to tell you quickly what she is. My Katie girl is such a sweetheart. She has this incredibly beautiful smile. The grin, even better. She makes me feel like a million bucks each time I come to get her from her bed and she is already squealing with delight because she merely heard me on the stairs. As I open the door she showers me with this huge grin and giggle. She is my #1 fan (well, I do have 2 other fans…but they aren't as adoring of me as she is) and I have to say the feeling is mutual!

Where's the Love?

I ask you, where is the love? The Katie girl awoke at a bright and chipper time of 5:40 this morning. I will say it was to a very unhappy Momma. And the thing that makes it wrong in more than one way is that she was a very unhappy Katie. Isn't that like adding insult on top of injury?

Ah well, that is the price I pay for having thrown her off her schedule to go and visit our in-laws yesterday (early Mother's Day get together). It was worth it though, for you should have seen the joy and smiles that radiated from my mother-in-law's face.

They have been so lonely throughout Ma's chemotherapy these last several months. I think yesterday felt 'normal' to them. As if things were finally back to how they used to be. Even though Ma still has no hair, looks exhausted and has radiation yet to go she beamed as if all was right in the world. It was good to see.

Well, I need to run as the Katie girl just went to sleep, my family is off to church and I am going to take an early morning nap! :) I guess that in and of itself is a rare treat and a wonderful gift. I'll take it!

Happy Mother's Day to all you ladies out there! Hope you had a most blessed day.

Panda DVD

Yep, I was schmoozed by this company. The DVD on the left arrived from Thailand so we all know what that means- Jesse is stuck with this purchase! Ah, well. I meant it as a gift for my young sister and as we all know little children do not take too kindly to things being ‘different’. I was most certain the Chinese characters on the front would catch her eye and tell her something was amiss. So alas, my children have acquired themselves a copy of the The Lion King.

After more than a week past by of no response back for Panda DVD with my request to send it back and have my money refunded I figured we should open it up and see if it really was in English. Sure enough, after a few options of Chinese or English and then Chinese subtitles (automatically put them up, but we just switched subtitles to ‘none’ and we were good to go) the movie played as it normally would have. Granted there was an option to preview things on Disc Two from the menu and there was no disk two. (*Sigh*)

So I have learned my lesson, purchased another copy to send from within the U.S. (the one on the right) and am only going to be a little over 3 weeks late with getting Rita Claire her birthday gift! Poor Rita. She has most certainly come to expect that gifts from me will be late – something for which I am not proud of. (Christmas gifts didn't get to her until February this year, same as last!)

Aren't you glad that family loves you unconditionally (most of the time) and that little kids’ long term memories aren't really that long? :) Yeah, me too.

Pink

This was the subject of Kiersten's last official journal writing of the year. Journal writing is where she goes it alone. She decides what she wants to write about and without help from me does so. This time I didn't have to provide any ideas on what she could write about. She had one of her own and didn't need me to encourage her to do it. Normally I have to psych her up for journal writing as she doesn't like not being able to get help with spelling. The result was sweet and all girl. I think you'll agree. So without further ado - Pink by Kiersten

I just love pink. Do you nowe why I love pink? Well I'll tell you. Thair are stuff that is pink. My dogs are pink. Some of my stuffed animls nosees are pink. My cradle is pink. That's all I will tell you about pink.

Summer Breeze...

makes me feel fine. :) Okay, so it wasn't a Summer breeze but that is how the songs goes.

This weekend brought nicer weather and I was able to take advantage of it along with the wind. I do so enjoy the smell of freshly wind dried clothes. Although I have to say the smell of sheets hung out on the line is even better. I can't explain why, it just is.

And I just want to mention that I was conscious of your viewing eyes and made sure to get a picture with no 'unmentionables' showing (I still want us to be friends!). :) It would only have been my Beloveds unmentionables as the little ones and mine were safe and sound in the dryer along with the socks!