For Daddy!

Sterling,

This is what your little girl has been up to this morning! It's sharpie and I can't get it off!!!!

Making it mine

When Sterling's little sister and brother-in-law moved out of our basement they left a couple things. This table is one of them. My sister currently lives in the basement and I asked her if we could trade her tables. It's bigger and we were wanting to move the kids out of high chairs and around the table with us so we needed a bigger table.  I believe that this was the table that Sterling's parents used when he was growing up. It was painted black and I really just thought it was really ugly. So, I decided to make it mine and change it. 

ugly black table before. beginning to strip the paint off.

applying the stain.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I think I'm going to do another coat of stain then seal it. Although the black legs don't look bad I plan to paint it white because it will go better in my kitchen.

1st coat of stain done.

A Mickey and Minnie Mouse Halloween

Tweedle Dee and Tweedle Dum LOVE Mickey Mouse Clubhouse. If we're having a bad day Mickey can turn it around in a heartbeat. During the day I get M2 following me around the house holding out the remote for me to take from her and saying in her cute little voice "bickey. bickey mommom?" Oh my gosh. It's hard to resist but I must because good moms don't just let them watching Mickey all day long. 

So, they were mickey and minnie mouse for halloween. I wasn't sure they understood. On halloween day M1 had therapy. I had a client coming for a set of nails so they went to g-ma and g-pa beams for a few house after therapy. They were dressed up in their costumes. We took M2's skirt and tutu off for a nap and when  she woke up she took them off the bed and gave them to grandma and said "monnie!" (yes, it sounds like money when she says minnie). I spent a good chunk of time making their costumes so I was SO happy to hear that she understood who she was dressing up as!

Cheesy Minnie

Mickey scrounging around under the table.

For our ward halloween party S and I  "dressed up" as Kermit and Miss Piggy. I was planning to borrow a blonde wig from my sister-in-law but didn't get around to it. I threw together the little green thing around S's neck about 5 minutes before the party and my sister did my make up to pigg-ify me. I felt REALLY old at the party thanks in part to all the neighbor kids not know who Kermit and Miss Piggy are. WHAT?!?!?!  What are you people teaching your children? j/k All in all it was a lot of fun. It's fun for that chance once a year to dress up and be silly. 

"Fishing" at the ward halloween party.

Daddy helping M1 "fish". He thought it was so silly.

She's a ROCKER!

Pumpkin Patch Tradition

My parents have 11 grandchildren.  Only 2 of them live closer than 2 hours away. Those two are mine. They used to take my brother's 2 children to the big pumpkin patch every year but they recently moved out of state. So, I was MORE than happy to let them buy pumpkins for my kids. There is a really cute area set up where you can take a picture of your kids on a tractor with hay bails around it. I LOVE Halloween and everything fall and wanted to get some cute picture of the kids. I decided to take the picture on the opposite side that everyone else was taking picture because the light was so bright and would shine right in their face and make them squint. My father (bless his sole, that old hobbly man!) commented that my pictures weren't going to turn out because the sun was shining right at me. Well, I did it anyway. And this post is to show him that they DID turn out after all. Rather cute too I might add. I should say that I took his advice to get way down in the shade so as to avoid the sun and that's probably the main reason they really did turn out well. 

It wasn't a real pleasant process because M#1 wasn't, shall we say, excited to take the picture on prickly hay. But, between 4 adults we got him calmed down enough to take a decent picture. 

 Attempt #1 (not so happy)

 Attempt #2 (not screaming but there IS some left over drool dripping out)

Attempt #3 (M1 is happy but now M2 isn't smiling anymore. Oh well, that's as good as it gets.)

M2's hair WAS done really cute until we got in the car to drive to the pumpkin patch and she must've overheard that I wanted to get cute pictures and she sabotaged it. That stinker-bum!

New things

Micah is rather sensitive about his head which really kind of sucks for me, the mom, because he falls quite often due to his cerebral palsy. When he falls he inevitably hit his head and begins to cry even if it was just a small "bonk". It's hard as a mom not to run over and give him loves but he needs to toughin' up a bit. He also doesn't like to have people touch his head or put anything on his head like a hat or head band. So, when I put this pumpkin head band of his sisters on and he LEFT it on I was so excited I took a picture. It's so exciting to see him do and experience new things. We have tons of therapy appointments and it get difficult for me to run around all week and have people push him to do things he doesn't like to do. This week we had 5 appointments for different kinds of therapy. Ugh! It's makes it feel worth it when I see him do/try  new things. I love my little boy so very much and I'm grateful for the things I am learning because of his challenges. Heavenly Father surely knew that I needed this humbling experience to enjoy all the simple things in life.

 Now, my little spit fire, Mattea. She's always been sassy which was fantastic when she was fighting for her life in the NICU but not so much now that she is almost two. Two years old? Really? How is it that my 2 lb babies are going to be turning two years old? The only answer I have for that is because they are a gift from God. They are a daily reminder that God loves me.

Back to Mattea, she really is a sassy-pants. She's talking up a storm lately. She used to only use sign language to tell us what she wanted. My dad used to say that she was never going to talk. Well, she must of heard him one time because she started copying everything we were saying. Somehow she has associated "no, no" with daddy because when she is telling Micah no, no or repeating back to me that something is no, no she says "No, No Daddy"

She has also started to go outside in the back yard without me knowing. Often times I will catch her playing in the dirt or with the outside broom sweeping up the sidewalk.

I love my baby girl so very much and take many opportunities to tell her so. I have a feeling that God sent her to me to strengthen my patience. That really is an area where I needed work so it's a real challenge some days when I'm on the phone with my mom and trying to tell Mattea, "no, no. the peaches don't go in your hair." or when I come up from the basement and she is throwing the dog food up in the air like it's confetti and scattering all over my freshly mopped, and swept floor.

New Pictures