Big Girl Bed

I almost cried while Jerry took apart the crib. Ambria was more than excited to get a big girl bed and she couldn't get enough of it and laid on it for about an hour after we put it up.

She is laying out her blankie...

Trying out her new bed, with her blankie...

Fast asleep in her new bed, with her blankie,

and her two babies with their blankie.

An Evening at the Beach

There are more pictures on Jerry's blog.

"Bad" Movies

*Mariah: Dad, what are you watching?
*Jerry: Rambo
*Mariah: You mean Rainbow? Like Reading Rainbow?
*Jerry: NO. Like Rambo. (taken a little aback that Mariah would compare Rambo to Reading Rainbow as she adds estrogen to the testosterone filled movie).

(A few minutes later we realize that Mariah was watching the movie during a fighting scene from behind the corner of the wall, so Jerry quick turned off the movie. I took a moment before bed to talk to Mariah about what she saw).

*Me: Mariah, what did you see on the tv?
*Mariah: The guy told the woman he couldn't take her down the river. I also saw a fight. Mom, DAD SHOULD BE IN THAT MOVIE SO HE CAN TELL THEM ABOUT JESUS because fighting is BAD!

10 Year High School Reunion

I had my 10 year high school reunion last night. It was weird. It was weird seeing familiar faces after ten years. I was nervous that I was going to forget people's names, but I did pretty good. Matt? Matt who? Who is that girl with short hair over there? Everyone pretty much looked the same, no one gained an insane amount of weight, no grey hair, no bald heads, not too many wrinkles. Overall, it was a fun night and it was great seeing some of my high school friends again, even though it was pretty weird. I wonder what people are saying about me? :)

Patience vs. Precious--Life With a Two Year Old

Patience
Ambria likes to pick out her own fork for meal time. This is about a five minute process. Then she decides on a spoon. She tries to eat pancakes with a spoon and figures out quickly that this doesn't work very well. ...Start the fork picking process all over again...

Precious
Ambria loves to look for deer by grandma and grandpa's house. We get real quiet in the car and whisper. Last night our headlights lit up a spotted baby fawn as we watched its big brown eyes stare at all four of us. For ten minutes after we drove away, Ambria continued to whisper as she kept saying "shhhh, look for deer." Her soft voice just melts your heart.

Patience
Bed time is another long process. Ambria insists that her blue blankie be laid out flat and her pink blankie be laid out flat. She needs her baby doll and Minnie Mouse to lay on the blue blankie, and then she lays her own head on the pink blankie. Oh wait, it isn't over yet, Ambria needs to be covered with a blanket and her baby doll and Minnie Mouse need to be covered too. THEN she needs kisses from Mariah and a bedtime story from Mariah and THEN she needs kisses from me and/or Jerry.

Precious
After the long bedtime process, Ambria ends with "Night, mom, I love you, mom. Night, mom, I love you." And then it turns into a whisper as I close the door and I can still hear her whispering, "Night, mom, I love you." It makes the bed time process worth it just to hear those words.

Ambria is finding her independence.

Everything just takes a little bit longer.

A little more patience.

Ambria's First Hair Cut

What a big girl!

Sitting sooo still

Loving getting pampered

Thanks Christine!!

My "Be Careful What I Eat" Diet Plan---Big Failure

This was my meal plan yesterday. I reflected on what I ate last night in bed and I started laughing so hard....

Brunch---Granola Bar
Late Lunch---Pop tart
Dinner---One cookie
Dessert---Ice Cream
Bed Time Snack---Two cookies

When a 5 Year Old's Temper Flares

I was giving the girls a bath tonight and Mariah was adamant about washing Ambria's hair as well as her own hair. Well, this process wasn't going the best as Ambria was screaming because water was getting in her eyes, but Mariah didn't stop, as she is very persistent.

*Ambria: Scream, scream
*Me: Mariah, I will do it (as I start rinsing Ambria's soapy head)
*Mariah: (temper starts flaring) MOM, NO! I WANT TO DO IT. (Under her breath) I wish I didn't have a mom.
*Me: WHAT? Dad and I will have to talk about that comment tomorrow!!
*Mariah: (crying now) I SAID, I am GLAD I have a mom!
*Me: nothing (I disguised my smirk)
*Mariah: MOM, I CARE ABOUT YOU!
*Me: nothing (still disguising my smirk)
*Mariah: MOM, I LOVE YOU AND I WILL CARE ABOUT YOU ALWAYS! (still crying)

Ambria's Waterslide "Walk"

We were at my parent's house yesterday and Ambria decided that going on the waterslide was SUPER fun. She couldn't get enough of the slide and her little "strut" is too cute. She was so proud of herself and was showing off to all the other cousins. Ambria also enjoyed swimming in the pool nonstop and was a little water rat all day.

Garage Sale Weekend Reflections

DAY ONE

Forecast: Mostly Cloudy, a chance of rain later in the day, 75 degrees.

Ok, we can handle that. It took forever to get everything from the garage into the driveway but I figured we would make more money if we were out in the open. I was RIGHT!! We doubled what we were hoping to make and our most expensive item was $25--everything was priced to sell! For two hours straight, we had over twenty people in the driveway at all times and a line to pay for stuff. I was loving it.

*Ambria's Garage Sale Day Menu: Breakfast-Skittles, Lunch-Pop tart
*Mariah's Bedtime Snack: Somehow she coerced the babysitter into putting a whole unsweetened pack of lemonade into a water bottle. Nice.

Some highlights from Day One:
*An old lady got stuck in our recliner for sale and couldn't get out.
*Mariah screaming out: "Mom, why are you selling this piece of junk (holding up a baby toy). No one wants to buy junk!"
*Mariah's first Lemonade Stand (check out her blog for pics)

DAY TWO

Forecast: Thunderstorms for most of the day, 80 degrees.

Yup, it poured! We were forced to stay in the garage. Some people braved the storms and came to the sale anyway (now those are die hards!). We didn't make even close to what we did the day before, but we still got rid of some more stuff and made a little money. Mariah changed her clothes four times from getting soaked, but she had fun.

Highlights from Day Two:
*Talking with all the neighbors as we walked to each other's sales. We had seven sales just on our street!
*It was actually relaxing to sit in the garage and watch the rain.

So, all in all, it was a very successful sale and I can't complain because of the rain. It feels great to clean out the house and get organized.

Kindergarten Here She Comes!

Mariah: Mom, what is college?

Me: It is more school after high school. You go to school for four more years to after high school.

Mariah: Ugh! That sounds BORING!

Butterfly Beauty

About two weeks ago we went on a nature walk and we found two beautiful caterpillars (after some research I found out that they were monarch caterpillars). Luckily we brought along a bug catcher (we are a little obsessed with catching bugs these days). We all followed along very closely during the whole transformation process and we are in awe. The pictures aren't that great because I took them through the case, but you will get the idea.

Here are the two caterpillars when we got them home. They ate milk weed leaves like no tomorrow and we actually had to go out and get more leaves from the nature trail (I wanted to get leaves from the exact plant where we found the caterpillars so I knew that they would be good for them).

After about two days the caterpillars hung from the top of the cage and then the next day they spun into their cocoons. Before one was in its cocoon, we accidentally bumped the cage and it fell to the bottom. We were all very sad and thought we killed it, but actually, while we were looking at it, Mariah and I got to see it spin into its cocoon right then! It was amazing. In the picture you can see both cocoons, one hanging from the top and one laying on the bottom. (All those little black things are TONS of caterpillar poop).

Last night, we were able to see the outline of the wings through the cocoon and then actually see orange and black. The cocoon turned black and I knew it was only a matter of hours before the butterfly would come out.

Today, the first butterfly came out of its cocoon. We didn't actually see it happen, but the butterfly is absolutely beautiful! Here is a picture right before we let the butterfly go into the wild blue yonder.

The little bit of orange liquid on the bottom are the sugars that dripped from the wings when they were still wet.

It looks like the second butterfly will come out tomorrow.

I don't know if anyone else finds this fascinating, but we did, and we were glued to the whole process. God is so amazing.

Birthday Party Bust

Mariah and I attempted to go to her friend's birthday party today. It was a beautiful day, the sun was shining, and Mariah was really looking forward to going to this party for a few days. All the kids put on their swim suits for slip-n-slid fun, water games, and a water balloon toss.

Somewhere along the line, Mariah didn't get the memo that the water balloon toss had turned into a water balloon fight!

Mariah turned into a screaming dragon and exclaims, "THAT IS NOT A NICE TRICK" along with other 5 year old obscenities like "I DON'T LIKE THESE KIDS" and "I NEVER WANT TO SEE THESE KIDS AGAIN."

We had to leave the party.

Today my child was "that kid" and everyone was staring at us. Nice. I tried to hold it together to I didn't turn into a dragon either. I was fuming.

Kids.

No More Training Wheels!

We are so proud of Mariah! It only took her a few days to learn to ride a bike without training wheels. Already today she can start, stop, and turn all by herself. She only got one scraped knee during the whole learning process.

A Small Crash

What is learning to ride a bike without a few small crashes?!

Wooden Fun

We went to Imagination Station today in Grand Haven with Jerry's cousins from out of town. This place is 10,000 square feet of pure fun.

Mariah: (in the midst of a 4 day attitude) This place is NO fun. There is nothing to do. This place is only made of WOOD!

Me: No comment, trying to ignore the attitude

Jerry's Cousins: Mariah, if Imagination Station wasn't made of wood, what would you want it to be made of so it would be more fun?

Mariah: Rainbows

Wind: SE 5mph

In the still of the night, as the girls sleep peacefully, my thoughts swirl every which way in my head, keeping me awake yet lulling me to sleep.

Write, delete, delete...

There has been so many changes in our lives, emotionally, physically, spiritually, mentally, financially, socially, individually, and as a family. Positive changes as well as negative changes, up-hill battles and down-hill battles. The sun shines, yet it is cloudy, and sometimes the sunlight powers through the fog.

I am staring at the screen

Write, delete, delete...

There is a slight breeze through the windows

Good night, my Lord, thank you for those soft whispers.

Oh Crabby Face

Scrunch the nose,

Pucker the lips,

Scowl.

"No more pictures, mom, I want to go inside!"

Boring-ness: A Post about Nothing

So I have been thinking about what to write, but nothing "blog worthy" is coming to mind.

*Mariah hasn't had any fun "car conversations" or said anything out of the ordinary lately so nothing to post there.

*Ambria is the polite police. Her new thing is saying "no thank you" or "help please" all the time, but that really doesn't deserve a full blog post.

*I was thinking about writing about all my frustrations but that is a long list, anything from the terrible two's to our unknown future, but maybe later, I feel too vulnerable writing about that.

*At 2:15 last night I awoke to an unpleasant aroma engulfing our house as a skunk decided to roam the area. Again, not "blog worthy."

So, I am resorting to posting more pictures, black and white with pink accents, again. I couldn't resist taking these pics because of Mariah's outfit and she rarely lets me take pictures of her so I cherished the moment.

Cousins

Mariah and Brianna usually see each other at least two or three times a week. Brianna is only two weeks older than Mariah and she doesn't let Mariah forget that she is the older one. Not a week will go by without Mariah asking me why Brianna gets to be the older one and then she adds, "but I am the taller one." These two are like sisters--they play like sisters and they fight like sisters.

It wasn't five minutes after I took these pictures that Mariah yelled, "Brianna isn't my best friend any more!" And then Brianna ran up to me and said, "Um, Aunt Jamie, Mariah said she isn't my best friend any more." Yup, like I said, they fight like sisters too.

Color

I just heard a quote on a tv show that the

colors of nature never clash.

It made me think.

What's in a Name?

A few days ago, we caught a frog at the beach and Mariah named it "Zoe." Yesterday we caught a green caterpillar and she named it "Chloe." Today we caught a huge moth and Mariah named it "Polly."
This makes me recall the story about Jerry buying five goldfish (really as a Mother's Day gift for me a few years ago, but Mariah quickly adopted them) and she named them Polly, Colly, Polly, Colly, and Polly. Well, the poor fish didn't make it through the night, but I guess the name Polly still lives on.

Today Mariah and I took a long walk and we held hands the whole way, dodging the rain drops and talking about flowers and trees. I loved every minute of it.

We have said that Mariah is our outgoing, imaginative child that would dig for worms in a pink princess dress--yep, that is our eldest and we love her to pieces.

How Can You Resist?

First Beach Day

We finally had nice enough weather to go to the beach. It was so perfect, the sun was bright and warm and the water was as smooth as glass (although it was a little cold). We built a sandcastle, took a ride in the row boat, took a long walk and found all sorts of treasures, and Mariah and I even caught a frog, which she named "Zoe." Ambria, although still not feeling herself, was quiet and content for a few hours, and Mariah couldn't get enough of the sand and water.

An Evening Walk

We took a walk last night and fed the ducks. It was such a beautiful evening.