Loving Life

Last week, Ana was so excited to finally turn double digits on her birthday. She kept commenting on how being 10 felt so old. She went to camp on her actual birthday, so we celebrated it a week late. She invited her best friend TJ over along with another boy from her class (yes, she's a tomboy). She wanted to make piranha cookies instead of a cake. Since Ana rhymes with piranha, she likes to call herself Ana the piranha and then threaten to eat everyone. Here's her big piranha cookie unfrosted. She then made little circle cookies, cut a triangle out for the mouth and stuck it on the back for a fin, so she could have smaller piranha cookies to share. The frosted and decorated version. Baby piranhas. Here we are singing to her. Blowing out 10 candles. A hot sauce packet eating contest with her best buddy. It seems so hard to believe that my first little girl is 10 years old! I fall more and more in love with this girl every day. She is so very athleti...

Fifteen years ago at this time, I was getting myself all dressed up for one of the longest anticipated days in my life. I met Aaron when I was thirteen years old and it didn't take me long to realize that he was the one I wanted to marry. It took Aaron a little longer to get his head on straight and realize that I was the girl for him instead of my best friend. But once he figured that out and started dating me, we had to wait only four long years until we were old enough and responsible enough to get married. Here I am at the tender age of 19, and Aaron at the age of 21. Don't we look young? Thinking of my own kids getting married at 19 makes me want to curl up in a ball and slow them down on their fast paced race in growing up. Even though we were young compared to most people around us who were getting married, we were ready for that awesome step in our lives. We have never regretted that move! My young looking almost husband. Hard to believe that in 15 years, half ...

Last week, Keilah turned six months old. It's hard to believe that a half year has flown by already. While is was a big adjustment to go back to babyhood again, I'm so grateful to have this little girl in our family. She blesses us tremendously. Here she is asleep in bed with her beloved dog. The moment I put her in bed, she's grabbing for dog and pulls him in close for a good dose of loving. Dog is starting to get smelly because she likes to chew on him as she drifts off to sleep. I haven't washed him yet since I'll be sad to see his soft fluffiness go away. However, his ears are no longer soft and fluffy as those are the favorite things to eat. They are now crispy with dried slobber. Maybe I'll go and wash him now. Shudder. Anything close to Keilah is now fodder for her mouth. If she can reach it, she will grab it. Here she is trying to grab the lens cap from the camera. She rivals David in her extreme happiness. He was the most obnoxiously happy ...

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...

 Hey Everyone! It's me, Keilah. Mom hasn't written in awhile again, so I figured I had better get on here and post an update before even Grandma grows weary from the wait and stops looking for cute pictures of me. Mom claims to be busy and not have time to sit down and write a post. I don't know about that. I'm not sure what her issue is since she seems to have plenty of time to sit down and hold me all day long.  Anyway, it's been awhile since I last wrote and a lot has changed in my life now that I'm a big 5 1/2 month old kid. A couple of weeks ago, Mom got out the coolest new toy for me. She calls it an exersaucer. I call it Heaven on Earth. Before this, I had only two different toys that I got to play with. Mr. Star and Mr. Elephant. They were small and fun, but the moment she placed me in this beauty, I was in Toy Heaven. I was surrounded by toys. It was such a glorious sight. I didn't know which way to look  Or which toy to eat first.  ...

Well, I'm still here, despite not blogging for a week. :) I don't have any excuse to offer other than I didn't take time to sit down and blog. Life has slowed down some and for that I'm grateful. Our house is still on the market and we've had quite a few showings. I've kept my house cleaner than it's ever been in my life. I keep it to where I can have it spotless within two hours at the most. Usually it would be more like 1 or 1-1/2 hours to quickly tidy up. In one way I like having a really clean house. But in another way, it's kind of overrated. If I lived like this all the time, I think I would get really stressed out by continually cleaning and reminding everyone to clean up their messes. But thankfully this house on the market thing has happened at a good time in my life where I can handle it. School for David is winding down, so his days aren't as full now as he finishes up his remaining subjects. My work at church has been handed off and so I...

Keilah is a back sleeper. I know it's highly recommended that all babies sleep on their backs for safety purposes. David was a good back sleeper, but my other two girls WOULD NOT sleep on their backs. They were both solid tummy sleepers. So I wasn't sure what to expect with Keilah, but she hated being on her tummy and would only fall asleep on her back or sides. This sleeping position produces fringe benefits. She has rubbed a bald spot on the back of her head. Right below her bald spot, is her leftover patch of long dark hair from birth. It is growing longer and remaining quite dark colored - my other kids had already turned much more blond by this age. We have a mullet in training. It makes me laugh.