Megan's Prayer

All evening I've been getting up the nerve to write this post. It's really a call to prayer for one of Megan's little friends - Juli. Juli is in Megan's dance class. She's a very special little girl who has overcome so many odds with a genetic disorder and still dances with joy. Well, currently little Juli is fighting a different battle. She got the flu and that turned into Pneumonia.... well it has just gotton worse and currently she's at Scottish Rite in ICU and unable to breath on her own. Click HERE and you can get to her Caringbridge site. It just breaks my heart to see a sweet little girl - who is the same age as my baby - going through this. Then to have Megan pray for her.... wow does that take the cake on breaking my heart wide open. This was her prayer tonight at bedtime....
Thank you God for Juli and heal her body so that she's not sick anymore. One day I know you'll give her a new body that's all perfect and she'll get a crown and live with you in Heaven in your castle with lots of rooms. But then her mommy would be sad and she won't get to dance with us. So it's ok for you to just make her better now and let her dance with me.

Ok - need a tissue now. Normally she doesn't quite pray like that - usually's it's more thank you for mommy, daddy, megan, help me to obey, etc... But something grabbed her heart tonight and she really prayed!!!

I just love her heart and her desire to know about heaven. Almost every night she asks me about heaven. All that to say - we are all very concerned about Juli. So please join us in praying for her and her family.

On another note... I had to go pick Megan up early at school today because she was so tired that she was literally falling asleep at school. This morning when she woke up she just wasn't herself so I sent a note to her teachers and true to form - she wasn't herself at school either. She fell asleep on the way home and still took a 3 hour nap. And then was back in bed by 8pm. No fever, no other symptoms other than she says she's cold. So - we'll see what happens tomorrow.

Outside Once Again

Thank goodness we have had a few nice days and actually got a chance to go out and pull out all our toys. Nicole was in heaven! This is the first time she's been able to play outside as a "walker". She really loves the Cozy coupe cars.. but they are a bit challenging for her at this point.

Ok - somebody moved the steering wheel....

Ok, that's better! Now how do you make it go?

Megan got to get her bike out...

But then she was off and running! More fun to be had elsewhere...

Oh yeah - got to love the playhouse! Thanks Kevin and Kelly (and Daniel, Justin, and Anna) that was the best hand-me-down ever!!!!

Nicole helped Daddy with a little yard work...

Megan jumped in and tried her hand at some yardwork too... By the time we went inside - everyone was filthy.... but it was a great dirty messy time outside

Belated Birthday

Happy Belated Birthday Natalie!!!!! It's been a little crazy and I've been lacking time to get a few pictures posted from our fun birthday celebration. The girls got to go to their first trivia night - at one of our new favorite pizza places. The girls were NO help with the trivia. But they sure did help polish off the pizza. I think Megan had 2 pizzas and that little Nicole wasn't far behind - I think she ate at least 1 1/2 pieces. geez!

But here are 2 of my favorite pictures from the night...

Oh yeah - we make good cupcakes - at least she thinks so!

And Nicole ate her cake too!

Nicole has been pretty grumpy lately -- she's been nursing these 4 teeth for a month or two. Finally the first of them has fully broken through! So tooth #13 is IN and teeth #14 and #15 are starting to poke through. #16 is just a big swollen mess... ugh - that means the grumpiness will continue on for a bit. OH well, thus is the season of life!

Being Sick and Being a Big Girl

There is something about Sunday nights that I don't like... perhaps it's that 2 out of the last 3 Sunday nights, Megan has come down with a mystery illness. 3 weeks ago (the night of the big snow) Megan got sick at dinner... It'll be a LONG time before we go back to that Applebees. Then last night she seemed fine - until about 1:30 when I woke up to her crying in her room. She'd gotton sick - and stayed sick all night. 3 loads of laundry later she's now napping in her room.

Thank goodness she had such a great day yesterday that she earned tv time. Cause we've had a LOT of that today.

Early this afternoon I put Nicole down for a nap and came out to go put Megan down for a nap. She said she wanted to play for a few minutes while I was putting Nicole down. I came out and found this... She's curled up and put herself to sleep on Daddy's chair.

Poor thing....

I moved her to her bed and I took a nap too! A short one..... Nicole didn't cooperate with my plans.

You know it's hard when your babies are sick - and sometimes it just breaks your heart. Last night I was up at 1:30 to Megan crying and standing in the middle of the room. Got her cleaned up, her bed stripped and remade and a load of laundry going - finally got back in bed about 2:20.... only to lie there and pray that she'd have a calm rest of the night. 2:45 the bathroom light came on. I jumped up and there was Megan trying to clean herself up because she'd gotton sick again. It was "mild" and we were on the last matress cover so I got it all cleaned up (anyone who knows that I'm a reactionary vommiter knows that I grew a LOT last night) and we put down a couple of towels over the small problem area (got rid of the pillow that took the big hit) and she went straight back to sleep. I write all that as a prelude to the next part....

At this point it's 3am and I'm beyond exhausted. I fall into bed and hear nothing until 6am. Well evidently at some point at least once, if not twice during those 3 hours of deep sleep, Megan gets sick again and she gets up and cleans herself up and puts more towels down and goes back to sleep. When I realized all this this morning - I felt horrible. One of those huge mommy guilt moments!!!!

This past week we had a very rough behavior week with Megan. She poured her hair detangler down the drain so she could play with the bottle, ran through the house with the end of the toilet paper roll and then put all the tp into Nicoles bath water. Then to really cap the week off on Friday night she got into some of my special craft glue/shellack and spilt it all over her bed, night stand and herself and basically shellacked her leg... she limped for 2 days until we were finally able to get it all off because he leg was covered in a huge crust (talk about living with consequences). We'd already spent some of her christmas money to replace the TP and hair detangler (she went to target and had to pay for it herself - she told the cashier she was learning to not be wasteful). The reality is - most of the things she's gotten in trouble for this past week were because she's trying to act bigger than she is.... and then last night she really was a big girl and took care of cleaning herself up.... I asked her why she didn't come get me or call to me and she said, "But momma, I wanted you to get a good nights sleep." aaaawwww.

So far today she's lethargic but no fever, no coughing, no other symptoms and she's not throwing up... but she's also not eating. Hopefully tonight we can get something in her.

God Gave Us So Much - Book Review

God Gave Us So Much is a limited edition three-book treasure of stories by Lisa Tawn Bergren, illustrated by Laura J. Bryant. The book contains 3 stories through the eyes of curious little polar bear and his family. Each story helps to answer children's questions about God. The first story, God Gave Us The World, introduces that God is a master creator and loves that His creation is all different - just like different bears living in different environments around the world. The second story, God Gave Us Love, introduces the idea that God wants us to show His love to everyone. I love that this story includes that God loved us so much that He gave His Son for us. The third story, God Gave Us Heaven, brings the idea that heaven is God's home, down to a child's level of understanding. I applaud Laura Bryant on this story because she didn't stop at the idea that heaven is God's home, but she "finished" it by including how we get to heaven - that Jesus is our bridge from this world to the next.


My 3 1/2 year old loved the stories, but I must admit they were not "easy" bedtime stories. Each story was a stepping stone for her to ask so many questions. I loved that it provided us with some great teaching moments and we were able to use verses that she knows to support the book. Originally I had planned on reading a story a night and finishing the book in 3 days. Well, in our house it got pretty deep when I introduced the book and she wanted to reread each story multiple times before moving on. I was thrilled it kept her attention, she loves the polar bear family. Her favorite aspect of the book is that the little polar bear cub is a big brother with twin siblings. She could relate to having a younger sibling. This is definitely a keeper at our house. If anyone is dealing with the death of a friend or family member, God Gave Us Heaven is a wonderful resource to help take away the fear of death or separation.


I received this book free from WaterBrook Multnomah Publishing for this review. I was under no obligation to write a positive review. These opinions are my own.

Book Review - Love On Assignment

I recently read Love On Assignment by Cara Lynn James. I must admit that this is not my normal genre of literature. I tend to approach Christian romance with a bit of hesitation, but for some reason this book captured my attention. The story is set in Newport, Rhode Island in the early 1900's and focuses on the life of a young woman, Charlotte Hale, as she seeks to become a reporter. Charlotte begins working her way up in a local newspaper and is offered an opportunity to go undercover as a governess to break a big scandalous story. However, as she seeks the truth for her story, she learns about his religion - which is the source of the scandal. As the Truth comes out, she is faced with a decision to continue to spy on a family she comes to care about, or risk losing her own job and her only means of supporting her own family.

I actually found Love On Assignment to be an easy and enjoyable book. With small children around, finding time to read is rare. However, this book was easy to pick up and dive right into. The plot was predictable, but the characters were endearing. This is actually the second book in the Ladies of Summerhill series and I am now interested in reading the first book. Obviously each book can stand on it's own. I think the historical setting is what I enjoyed the most. I walked away from this book with a greater appreciation of the religious tensions that existed in the early 1900's as big business and factories were booming and workers dealt with deplorable conditions.

If you are looking for a casual and enjoyable book, this is a great option!

I received this book without charge from Thomas Nelson Publishing for review. I was under no obligation to write a positive review. These are my own opinions.

We just call her Sprout

Nicole's hair is growing..... and she LOVES it in her eyes. When ever we put a little bow in her hair she takes it out and shakes her head to get her hair back over her eyes, and then she smiles and giggles. It just cracks me up! But I also hate that I can't see her pretty little eyes (not to mention keeping food out of her hair when it's hanging down). So now, she's out little sprout!

OK, normally I put a bow in also and it lays down - but she certainly is a cute with a little sprout!

Oh, and it's soooo exhausting to be so cute!

Apples

One thing our girls have in common is a love of apples!
Not apple slices - but apples.
If you need a few minutes to finish up your own meal, or I don't know maybe sweep the floor or load the dishwasher --- give the little one and apple and let her go to town (closely supervised of course). Megan loved apples too! This was her first apple when she was about Nicole's current age (Nicole is 14 months 1 week and in these pictures Megan was 14 months and 3 weeks).

For both girls - those apples started out as either Mommy or Daddy's apples and somehow it looked sooooo appealing that the girls decided they wanted to try a bite.

Those little apple lovers - just got to love them!

More Frigid Fun

Finally, today the temps will rise above freezing and start melting our winter wonderland. So yesterday we too advantage of the last below freezing day and got in some final playtime on the sleds.

I just love this shot of Tom walking Megan up the hill... what a great Daddy!

Nicole only lasts a little bit outside, and then we retreat to the warm inside to watch all the action. Shadow stayed with us yesterday and he was keeping a vigilent eye on Nicole.

Well it has been one of those bizarre Ga winters.... a few weeks in and we've already had 2 snows - one that shut us down for a week. It's just so rare that I can't be frustrated by it -it is what it is. And we've tried to milk it for all its worth... but it's also a reminder why I am glad I live in Ga instead of in the frozen tundra up North somewhere. I like my snow "days" and snow "week" but beyond that - No Thank You. I'm ready to get back to the 50's and be able to play outside - on bikes and trikes and swings - not sleds.

If you can't beat it - enjoy it!

We're all starting to take bets on how long we'll be "snowed in".... I'll be shocked if everything gets back to normal before Thursday at the earliest. And I must say that I'm a true Atlanta girl when it comes to all this snow fun... ok, 2 days - we're good. Let's move on! :^)

But since all that is out of my hands - let's just get into the winter spirit and ENJOY! Today we decided to head across the street to attack the hill that is in our neighbors front yard. But on the way over, I couldn't help but demonstrate how icy our driveway is....

Megan and I had a great time on the hill across the street.

Tom was able to take advantage of a little time at lunch to come on out and join in the fun. Megan was so excited to have Daddy to sled with! That's the drawback of working from home - he didn't get snowdays off from work.

Nicole woke up from her nap a bit early (way too early) so we suited her up and she came out to join us.

She seemed to be ok in the little sled.... as long as we were moving.

Tom ended up taking the little munchkin back inside and we were finally able to make our snowman - or as Megan says, "our snow gurl". We realized that if you broke through the layer of ice, the snow underneath was great packing snow (yesterday it was just powder).

Megan was very proud of our snow gurl.

The Snow of Jan 10, 2010

Well - this was one for the record books.... a HUGE January snowfall in Atlanta. We made sure we partook of all the fun it had in store for us. The pictures are not in the correct order - but you'll see how busy we were today. We found out that we have a great sledding hill in our backyard. Our yard is mostly flat, but we have 1 little hill... and it rocks!Megan loved it and got some serious speed going. So much so that mommy even wiped out (to avoid a huge bush in the face - at least that's my story).Megan took that as an opportunity for a "snow tackle." One of the highlights of being "snowed in" is that we asked Natalie to come be snowed in with us. So she came over last night to stay during this frosty freeze and to have lots of fun in the snow and of course, brought Shadow (her dog/our adopted dog) with her.

We tried to build a snowman... but we spent s0 much time sledding that by the time we got out to build our HUGE snowman.... there was a sheet of ice (which is now over 1/2 inch thick) on top of the snow and it was impossible to roll a snowball. So we settled for a little guy....

One of the funniest things was having Megan ask Natalie to help her make a snowball....

so that she could throw it at her....

We made snow angels....

Nicole came out for a little while this morning but it was a little too cold and hard to get around so she spent most of her snowday, inside. But she tried to cheer on all the activities.

I never really thought about the fact that Tom would still have to work today (since he works from home and we had no power outages), so it was a real treat for Megan that Natalie was here. Megan and Natalie got to stay outside when I had to come inside with Nicole. And, having Natalie with us was a REAL advantage for Megan because....

Natalie created her own tow rope to get back up the sledding hill (thanks Shadow for letting us use your leash)....

And that was "luxury"....

Compared to what Mommy says...

"You can do it Baby... you take the sled down, and you bring it up!"

We even hooked up a tow for Nicole.....

Nicole thought enough was enough! Her shoes kept coming off, her mittens wouldn't stay on, and her hat was in her eyes..... what's a girl to do?

But even with baby grumpies.... the fun must go on!

Even Shadow was excited to join in the sledding action!

Shadow was always right there to make sure Megan was having fun and staying safe.

Nicole opted for the safety for her new wagon over the sled.

I hope all our friends and GA family had fun on your snow day - and stay safe tomorrow. Unlike most GA snows, this one doesn't look to melt off in a day. So, we'll be out sledding tomorrow I'm sure, since it'll be all ice! Hopefully our neighbor boys will be home soon (they are snowed in downtown) because Megan is really wanting some sledding buddies (we miss you guys Mandy - get home safely!)

And Tony and Dawn - THANK YOU for finding us sleds last year. Who knew that a few weeks into winter we'd already have used them for 2 GA snowfalls. They ROCK!