glimpse of life through the eyes of a 2 year old

To the best of my recollection, I've never taught Emmett to look for shapes in the clouds. We were driving the other day and Emmett said, "Look Mommy, a horse!" I looked around and saw no horse. "In the clouds Mommy". He then proceeded to tell me about more animals he saw, "a horse, and a rhino and ummmmm a zebra." Now, whenever we drive, he points out cloud animals to me. Sometimes I even see the animal he's describing. I love getting a glimpse of life through the eyes of a 2 year old.

Emmett has been doing a really good job using the bathroom. He went all day with out an accident. He's going both #1 and #2 in the toilet and I'm so proud of him. Today when he asked to use the toilet I was in the middle of putting Eisley to bed so I helped him get his pants off and then went back to tend to Eisley. After Eisely was settled I headed towards the bathroom and heard Emmett's little voice talking up a storm. I thought for a second that Eric was in there with him, but he wasn't. I contemplated that he had answered the phone and was talking with one of his grandparents. I stood there listening for quite some time as he babbled about this blanket and where his poopoo was coming from. It was SO adorable. I ran to grab my camera and quietly snuck towards the bathroom...silence...silence...he was done talking. Bummer! How badly I wanted to catch his little conversation on camera. I asked him, Emmett, "who were you talking to?" He replied, "What do you mean?" (which he says all the time). I said, "You were talking to someone and it was so cute. Who were you talking to?" "I was talking to Emmett!" he answered and pointed to the mirror in front of him. Of course, he was talking to his reflection! For months that mirror has been awkwardly placed right in front of the toilet, for lack of a better place to put it. I don't even notice it anymore, but this little boy sure was enjoying it! I love this kid. It really doesn't get any cuter than this!

What we do on a Sunday afternoon

This is what we did this Sunday afternoon. I hope at the very least it brings a smile to your face.

This girl LOVES her daddy! Whenever she sees him she starts snorting (it's really cute), kicking her legs and reaching out to him. Here is just a taste of her loving her daddy...

Eisley's 7 month milestones

Just had to document these sweet little milestones. With in the past week Eisley has:
...had her second tooth come through
...learned to wave (hello and goodbye)
...learned "so big"
...learned to pull herself up in her crib. It's the cutest thing when I come in there and she's
standing up waiting for me. Except that she can't easily get down, so she cries and cries and
cries!

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We went to a double baby shower today. The shower was for two of Eric's good friends. It was because of these guys that Eric and I met. And it is because of Eric and I that one of the couples met! It's crazy to think that 10 years after meeting Andy and Matt, we'd still be friends, hanging out with our children! Andy and Stacy had a little girl named Lydia at the beginning of May. Matt and Sarah had a little girl named Lila at the end of May. Both girls are ADORABLE and have beautiful heads of hair. I gave them each hair clippies from Briar Claire.

And would you believe I didn't take one picture? I know! It's crazy. I'm totally kicking myself.

Confidence Redefined

I never showered today. I didn't have time. The funny thing is, before having kids, I would never have dreamed doing what I did today in this unshowered/unmakeuped state. By 9:00 this morning I, with 4 kids in tow, were trudging through sand to capture one of the coveted umbrella's at our local beach. We had a wonderful time there with 8+ fellow MOPS moms and their kids. With in moments of arriving I spotted the perfect photo-op. Surrounding me were approximately 8 darling little kids all happily seated on the shore playing in the sand. I ran for my camera only to read "Change battery pack" when I attempted to turn it on. I was heartbroken. I then spent the remainder of the day taking mental pictures of scenes like this: mothers snuggling with multiple kids on one single chair (Jennifer), grandma chasing a little renegade (Kara's mom), toddlers' budding friendships (Emmett and Caitlin), toddlers adoring their teen cousin and his patience with them (Amy's cousin/nephew?), babies glowing faces while gazing (grasping) at each other (Stellan and Eisley), babies sound asleep in the stroller (Sylvan), friends lending a hand to hold a baby or hold bags when I'm out of hands (Ann, Angela, Julie), and a 3 year old who's attempt at feeding the infants was actually helpful (Caitlin). As you can see, I was very busy taking pictures.

After spending a wonderful day with friends at the beach I came home to host Cooking Club. Seven wonderful friends, some new and some old, gathered around our tiny table and chatted while eating Creme Brule French Toast, bacon, fruit and Breakfast Cheesecake. Delicious! I am truly blessed to have such wonderful women in my life! Many of the women I spent time with this evening I've known since Junior High. It' s so fun that we are still in touch and are going through all these life stages together.

Here's to taking mental pictures and redefining the source of our confidence.

Getting our Sand on

We spent a lovely morning at the beach. Eisley has never sat in one place for so long. She got alot of sand in her mouth and was looking so cute so I had no choice but to just go along with it and take pictures, of course!









The result of a long morning at the beach...



Eisley took a really long nap so Emmett and I went on a freezie pop binge...between the 2 of us we ate 18 freezie pops!



When Eisley woke up Emmett wanted to take her for a bike ride...they both had a blast

Married to a celebrity

This week I had the honor of being married to a celebrity. No one that most of you probably know (haha, well actually, most of you probably do know him), but someone who has captured the hearts (gag reflexes) of 800 children at our church. This week for VBS Eric transformed into "Skeeter McGunter the famous crocodile hunter", who is actually afraid of crocodiles. His hilarious skits made the children roar with laughter each night. Some of the comments I overheard people saying, "He missed his calling as an actor", "Hurry up, we can't miss Skeeter!", "Skeeter is totally the highlight". I had numerous people come up to me and say things like, "He is amazing!", "He is hilarious", "He does such a great job"...on and on.

I also had people say to me, "Was he ok last night?", "He may need some pepto", "You should probably stop and by some bottom cream on your way home." These comments were all in response to Eric's determination to make this VBS one that the kids will never forget. As a reward to the children for raising money which was donated to a local charity, Eric ate a variety of nasty, southern/water style things. The first night he ate crawfish tails, the second night he took 5 hot shot shots, third night he swallowed 8 minnows. It was all well worth it because the VBS kids raised almost $4,000!

Here are my attempts at getting a picture of Skeeter McGunter in action...

Goodbye Xterra, you will be missed

We packed a lot into my day "off" - that is, my day with only 2 children, not 4.

We've been trying to sell the Xterra for a couple months, so when we got a low ball offer, we were very tempted to take it. Here's what my day of selling the car looked like:

• Drove to car dealer to see what they'd offer us for the car (not much)
  
• Called private party guy to accept his offer
• Spent about 45 minutes at the beach with our friends

• Met the guy and sold him the car

• Came home and forced Emmett to take a nap for 1 hour
• Headed to church for VBS
• Emmett played in the 3 year old room and had a blast
• Eisley doesn't care for the nursery so I wore her and held her carseat the whole night
• I photographed 15+ groups of 4 and 5 year olds
• Watched Skeeter McGunter (Eric's VBS character) eat 5 crawfish tails (EWWW!) as the reward to the VBS kids who already raised over $500 and it's only the second night!
• Got home about 9:30 and put my darlings to bed

Sell a car is a lot of work! Good bye Xterra, you will be missed!

Water Wonderland

With in 10 minutes this morning, we were invited to two different splash pads by two different friends - that's what happens with it's 90 degrees outside! We went to the St Louis Splash pad because that was the call we received first. So we moved the party from our drive way water playground ...


...to the Splash pad...


...however, I think this is the closest any of my children got to the water...

...and you can tell by her face, the experience was less than ideal.

We had a nice picnic in the grass - everyone was quite content there.


And the babies hung out with each other while the toddlers attempted to play on the playground, but really the playground was too hot, so our play date was .

Interesting Birthday Trivia -
Emmett was born in November, 2006
Flora and Lauren were both born in April, 2007
Greta, Eisley and Sylvan were all born in November, 2008
Greta was born on the 13th - Eisley and Sylvan were both born on the 10th

We love our Daddy, oh yes we do!

The kids attended church in special Father honoring apparel. Eisley's shirt says, "daddy's little girl" and Emmett's says, "My Daddy Rocks!"



Sing this:
"We love our Daddy, oh yes we do! We love our Daddy oh yes we do. When he's not with us, boo hoo! Oh Daddy we love you!!"

Eric has now been at work over 16 hours...on Father's Day! Now that is true dedication! It is the day before Vacation Bible School and there is a ton of work that needs to be done. Eric and I have done VBS at our church for the past 3 (or 4?) years and it is a ton of fun! And now that Eric is on staff, a TON of work too!


While Eric was at work, the kids and I rearranged the living room and got rid of our old sofa. About 6 years ago when we got a hand-me-down sofa from Eric's aunt and uncle, we would have never guessed it would be in our lives so long! I attempted to recover it and although the recovering job is pretty bad, I liked it better than the floral print, so it has stayed shabbily upholstered for all these years. We gave it away via Craigslist and when the family was pulling away with the couch in the back of their pick-up I was surprisingly emotional! That ugly and most comfortable piece of furniture was our first couch. We actually never thought we'd get rid of it. We hoped to have it in our basement someday, but our basement didn't come soon enough.

The new to us couches we have (my parents' old couches) were too big for our original living room layout so we had to rearrange. Here is Emmett climbing on the shelf I moved into the garage. He wanted to eat his snack on the shelf. I obliged.



And here is the new layout. At least until Eric suggests something better. Oh, and I'm hoping to hang some pictures to the right of the armoire.