Loving Life

Yesterday after school, we traveled to town to pick up Abby's glasses. She had been complaining last year that she didn't feel like she was able to see very well the things up on the whiteboard. So we got her checked out at the end of the school year, they suggested waiting until the new school year to check again. She was quite excited to pick out a pair of glasses last week. Here are the sides - pink flowers and jewels!  Glasses haven't changed the level of goofiness in her body. :) Ana commented that now Abby looks like me. So they wanted a picture of the two of us together in our glasses. Here you go.   This morning, Abby was quite excited to show off her new glasses to her friends at school. She only told three friends that she was getting them. The rest she was hoping to surprise. Hopefully it's a good day for her! I was in second grade when I first got a pair of glasses too- I didn't need them for much more than a year. They were also pink, b...

Almost two weeks ago we celebrated the birth of our used to be youngest Abby. She turned seven. There are so many things I love about this little girl. She is such a goofball and loves to be silly in order to get the rest of the family to laugh. She has several very strong loves and incorporates these loves into as much of her daily life as possible. They are: peanut butter, bunnies, soft and fuzzy things, sparkly things, and pretty dresses. She wears skirts and dresses every single day. The idea of wearing pants without a dress or skirt over top is synonymous with death to her. She is outgoing, friendly, and very cheerful. She hoards her candy and slowly savors it - she still has candy from before Christmas. How does she do that? Her heart is tender and caring and she cries when she feels she has done something wrong to hurt someone. She adores her baby sister and wants to carry her where ever she goes. Big dogs and thunderstorms frighten her. So do most movies, therefore she doesn...

So apparently I haven't posted for awhile. For all you faithful blog readers (Mom), I apologize. I hadn't meant to let it go this long, but I did. I got caught up in several big projects and didn't get them off my plate until recently. One of the biggest things I did was to transition myself out of a job at our church. I've been the church administrator since we started and as we've grown, it has taken up more and more of my time. Juggling the demands of homeschooling, church work, motherhood with a newborn was just too much. My replacement is doing quite awesome and she has learned quickly, so now I'm only on call as needed which will be less and less as the weeks go by. That transition time took a lot of time as we were also in the process of getting an official church office so Aaron could have a place other than our bedroom/nursery/office room to work in. It's been an all around good thing.  The other major project we did was to put our house on the...

Here's a picture of my three favorite girls. I love them all so much! Abby LOVES her little sister greatly. Out of all the kids, she is the one to pay the most attention to Keilah. She happily carries her around, plays with her, and takes care of many of her needs. I actually find it quite helpful to have that extra pair of hands eager to hold the baby when I need to get something done. I love too see her love on her little sister like that.  I hope Keilah will appreciate it as well. Our New Year's Eve party was low-key, but fun.  We went to some friends house for the early part of the evening. It's always fun to hang out and chat while the kids run off and play happily. Abby, Keilah, and I were at home by 9:00 as Abby wasn't feeling the best and I didn't want her out super late. Aaron, David, and Ana went on to another friends house after we left and stayed up until midnight. Abby wasn't too upset about not getting to stay up that late as she got ...

First, I'll start off with the obligatory tummy picture since I know you have all been breathlessly awaiting the latest picture to gawk at just how far out one woman's tummy can get.  I have less than 3 1/2 weeks to go!  I just cleaned my mirror two days before this picture. It apparently didn't last long.  Grr. Here's a picture that I had David take of me.  I'm trying to explain which button to push and how to focus the camera - hence the weird facial expression. I am so ready to have this baby.  At my doctor appointment yesterday, he said I'm already 2 cm dilated and my cervix is all thinned out.  Yea! That makes me happy that all the random contractions I've been having have not been in vain.  Progress is happening.  As you can see, I never "drop" like other women do. I just continue to stick out farther and farther as my baby packs on the pounds. Abby is also getting ready for baby.  I turned our dresser to...

Abby has developed a habit of "smiling" whenever she is placed in front of a camera.  I'm not sure what that is all about. It seems to have started when she lost her front teeth.  Perhaps she was self-conscious of the gap there, though her grown-up teeth have finally grown back in.  But anyway, when school picture time came around, I knew I couldn't trust her to make a normal looking smile so I didn't order any pictures from school (plus you pay about $70 for three pictures - that's only a slight exaggeration).  I think my fears were justified.  Though we struggled and struggled to get a normal looking smile at Sears , I think we did better than this school picture.  : ) Sunday night, I made some supper.  That's an unusual thing for the weekend.  I usually do not cook on the weekends and we eat either leftovers, or odds and ends of whatever we can find.  But this night I made a delicious supper.  I called f...

Abby had a fever yesterday and stayed home from school. She didn't feel good at all. Thankfully, she had a huge bear to lay on top of her and help her feel better The bear also makes a good snuggling and sleeping partner and pillow. Today, she is feeling a bit better, but still staying home to make sure the fever doesn't come back later on in the day. This morning, David came to me and said, "Dad commited one of the classic dishwashing blunders last night."  Just what is this "classic dishwashing blunder," you ask?  Leaving the dish water in a sink full of dishes. To his defense, he was happily washing dishes for me when he got interrupted by a phone call and forgot what he was doing before the phone call.  But the family knows that there is nothing I detest more than fishing my hand down to the bottom of a sink full of cold, dirty dishwater to let it drain out.  No, I exaggerate. I detest large spiders and centipedes more than cold, di...

Today was a good day for Abby. She had an early out from school today, so I took her to Sears for her school pictures. We are not doing school pictures at school since she is in the habit of this bizarre "smile" when a camera is in front of her.  Sorry this first one is blurry for some reason.  She just wouldn't smile right for anything with these pictures.  I was getting very frustrated.  This one is sideways and I don't feel like going back now and changing it.  Another not normal smile picture. Finally I got her thinking about her riotous bath that she had with Ana last night.  And finally, she started smiling normally.  Success!  Except her shirt was poofing out weirdly, but at least she looks happy. After pictures, we played at the mall play area for an hour.  She had her best friend Grace along with her today, so they had a grand time playing.  Then off to Costco to pick up a few things.  I had heard a rumor that the big bear...

I had to tell my little girl some sad news today.  Abby had seen a giant bear similar to this one when we were shopping at Costco awhile back for only $30 (the one pictured here cost $250 when I googled images of 53" bears) She really, and I mean REALLY wanted that bear.  I thought about it for a little while, but decided that if she was going to have something that huge in her room, then she would need to be the one to buy it.  So she went home, counted her money and began saving every little coin she could get.  As of this morning when she went to count her money, she finally had enough.  Today, I stopped at Costco with David to get a few things while the girls were at school.  We looked for the bears like we normally do when we go through, but alas, they were no more.  I had to come home and break the news to one very sad girl.  It made my heart sad for her as she cried.  Am I sad that I didn't just buy it for her in the fi...

Since I didn't do a good job yesterday in filling you all in about the girls' first day of school, here is a more complete overview along with pictures taken by my dear husband. As I said before, they were both a little nervous about going, probably Ana more than Abby.  But Abby takes her cues from her beloved big sister and was parroting most of the worries Ana was speaking. Heading out the door! Beginning to short walk to school Aaron walked with them the first day and he said by the time they got to the top of the hill leading down to school, they had found some friends and went happily scampering off to school. Ana is more introverted than Abby, so once she got home, she spent a couple of hours just quietly reading and getting some quiet and alone time.  Once that was out of the way, she told me quite happily about all the fun things they did and about her class, teacher, and classmates.  I think she will have a good year, though she's a bit sad that she onl...

We've had a busy last week or so.  Here's some big news in Abby's life.  She lost her two front teeth. They came out about four days apart.  She truly lost the second tooth and wasn't able to put it under her pillow for the tooth fairy.  The tooth fairy apparently isn't as vigiliant about leaving money when there is no actual tooth to collect.  But after a few days, our tooth fairy remembered and finally slipped some money under Abby's pillow along with an extra quarter for having to wait so long for her to decide to show up.  At the same time, David had a tooth under his pillow for about three weeks waiting for the tooth fairy.  The tooth fairy finally had to visit during the day when he wasn't in his room, when she finally remembered to pick up the tooth.  It's hard on the tooth fairy to show up when David stays up later than the tooth fairy does these days.  Here's Abby's new look: She's also delighted with the fact that she doesn't ha...

Aaron coaches middle school girls track and it's tradition that I make cheesecakes for his running teams at least once each season.  Since yesterday was the last official day of practice, I knew I had better get baking.  There are about 50 girls on his team, so I made a chocolate/vanilla marble cheesecake and a lemon/raspberry cheesecake.  I did have to take out a few small corner pieces for quality control purposes.  I also made about 4 dozen cookies for those weird girls who don't like cheesecake.  When Aaron came home, the only thing left out of all of that was three small squares of the lemon/raspberry cheesecake.  Since I'm pregnant, I  immediately claimed them for myself.  They were good! Yesterday was also Abby's birthday.  She is now a big six year old.  They went on a field trip at school for her birthday.  It was her first time of getting to ride a school bus, so she was really excited about that.  She is still lovin...

Abby asked if she could take my camera a few days ago and take some pictures.  I decided it would be interesting to see what she took pictures of, so I said sure.  I had fun going through all her pictures the next day.  So here is a small snapshot of life through the eyes of a five year old. This is Emerald, the favorite tiny doll that the girls love to play with. A doll house decorated with an old medal Abby wanted to take a picture of me.  I had to squat down because she couldn't figure out how to find me when I was standing up.  Ana jumped in the picture at the last minute. We were then instructed to make grumpy faces. Followed by goofy faces. She then needed a goofy face from Daddy.  I had to help her find him in the viewfinder.  She then decided it would be really funny to take pictures of everyone's butts while they were unaware of what she was doing.  Sometimes she acts way more like a middle school boy than my real middle school boy...