We Have This Saying...

We have this saying at our church congregation that the kids learn at a very young age. It begins with a question:

What is God's ideal for marriage?
And the kids answer with:
One man for one woman for life.

Which leads me to this morning's conversation with my 4yo.She was looking at a picture of her Nana (John's mom who passed away from cancer in 2005), and the questions began.
Where did this picture come from? Did Papa take this picture? Was Papa married to Nana?

And this is where it got interesting. I explained to her that yes, Papa and Nana were married. And they had 3 kids. Daddy, Uncle A, and Uncle S. After just a split seconds thought, she asks, "So boys can be married to 2 girls?.. cause Papa is married to MeMe now."

And this is where "that saying" she knows so well came in handy and made what could have been a difficult conversation with a 4yo, much easier.

Well Nat, what is God's ideal for marriage?

"One man, for one woman for life."

Right, and since Nana's life here on earth is over, that means what?
"ohhhh, so he could marry MeMe"

Yes, and aren't we glad he did! (Cause we sure love our MeMe) :)

I really didn't expect to have these kind of conversations already, but as I stumble through this most important job as a parent I'm reminded of a couple of things.

We must intentionally teach. A lot of times we don't deal with the difficult things until they arise. So we end up doing reactive parenting rather than proactive parenting. But if we teach them Biblical principles early on, it makes things much easier when harder questions or situations arise. It's true, kids learn some things by accident just based on the situation or happenstance. But it is my prayer that I take every opportunity to instill the things of God into my children.

And speaking of opportunity..
Teach your children of God diligently. When you sit in your house, and when you walk by the way, and when you go to bed, and when you rise up. (Duet.6:7)
which seems to translate into ALL THE TIME. It's a tall order. And I don't claim to get it right all the time (or even half the time for that matter!) but it is my duty as a mother. My number one priority to my children.

Their souls depend on it.

The Oldest. (at only 4)

Lately Natalie asks a lot of questions. And by a lot I mean 5,345,679.
She's so very curious and wants to know, well: Everything.
So herein lies my struggle.
I try to answer everything she asks( within reason and to the best of my knowledge), but this means that lately she thinks she knows it all. Which also means we've had discussions about attitude, tone, talking kindly, etc. These may seem like mature words for a 4 yr old, but she's not shy about asking what a word means until she completely understands your explanation.
So how do I find balance between answering her questions and keeping her humble?

I've often ended her string of questions with "I don't know." "we can find out later" and even, "nobody but God knows Everything". (which is usually followed by why? lol)
I'm struggling with how much info is too much and trying to train/teach her not to be a little miss smarty pants.
It's hard.
The kid is so smart.
She listens so well.

Overheard in the van:
(on the way to Mothers morning out - ironic much?)
Nat- Mommy , there's a big truck beside us. Let's pass it.
*Brief pause as truck is passing us.*
Nat- (excitedly) pass it pass it
Mommy- we can't pass it sweetheart.
Nat - why not?
Mommy- because he's going faster than us.
Nat - well go faster and pass it.
Mommy- we can't pass him Natalie.
Nat- why not?
Mommy- because mommy has to follow the speed limit.
Nat- well why isn't he following the speed limit?
Mommy- I don't know baby, that's something we'd have to ask him.
*Pause*
Nat- how are we Gonna do that?
Mommy - How are we gonna do what? (thinking the convo was over)
Nat- how are we gonna ask him why he's not following the speed limit?
Mommy - (stifling a chuckle) We can't baby. We can't.
Nat- but mommy you just said we would have to ask him, so how we gonna do that while we're driving?
Mommy- We're not. Were not gonna be able to ask him. Sometimes we just don't know why people do stuff.

And if I have this conversation wrong or left out any part of it; if I read it to her- she'll be sure to let me know.

Lord, give me patience. But I need it right now. :)

Happy Happy Birthday

Today this girl:
turns four years old! It still seems like just yesterday we were bringing home this tiny little bundle.
John was off yesterday and working today so, yesterday we took her to her restaurant of choice (McD's) for her birthday lunch. We'll be celebrating this weekend with a train ride (that she doesn't know about yet!) and then a family party on Sunday.
She is obsessed with all things Toy Story right now and she especially loves Jessie the cowgirl. We got her a Jessie costume for Halloween, but she has wore it just about every day since we came home with it. Of course she has it on today:
And I had do make a layout documenting a few things about her right now. Made with the October Sussies kit: (I'll have more Oct Sussie Layouts a bit later)

Happy Birthday sweet girl!

Conversations with a 3YO.

At Bedtime:
Natalie: Mommy, I want to sing the song about the 12 sons.
Me: You mean the one about the 12 tribes of Israel?
Nat: Yes!
(So we sing song..which is simply listing all 12 names, set to music)
Me: Do you remember who their Daddy was?
Nat: Jacob!
Me: Very good, and who was the son that he gave the coat of many colors to?
Nat: Joseph! (brief pause) And mommy, his brothers threw him in that thing.
Me: Yes, they threw him in a pit because they were jealous.
Nat: But that wasn't very nice..
Me: No, it wasn't. They ended up selling him as a slave. But it was ok, because God was watching over him.
Nat: What's that word mommy? What does slave mean? Is that like the thing that Santa rides in??

Rice Krispy Treats

I don't know why I don't think to make these more often. They are a favorite with everyone is this house and so easy to make. I had promised Natalie that we would make some this afternoon when she got in from school. She recently learned that you can mix red and yellow together to make orange. When I told her we could do this with food coloring to make orange rice krispy treats she got just a little excited.






Such an easy thing for a 3 year old to help with. And although you can't really tell in the pic, they are orange. She told me we had to wait until Halloween to eat them.. until she tasted a bite and she decided it was ok to eat them today.

A couple of other pics from yesterday while we were playing outside. She loves picking up all the acorns.

Out of the Mouth of Babes

This Girl:


Is about to turn three. Seriously?

She amazes me. Earlier this week I had to take her to the Dr. for something minor. When the Dr. started to listen to her with the stethoscope she completely lost it. She cried and cried, and cried some more.

On the way home she matter of factually told me:
I didn't want that Dr. to listen to my heart because he had swine flu.

And that was that.

Somebody in this house has been watching to much Fox News. And I don't mean my hubby..

PigTails, Hugs and Kisses

I haven't been sure what to do with Nat's hair lately. As it gets longer, it just gets more out of control. It's thin and sometimes so frizzy. She won't keep a bow or hair clip in it, and for some reason only Obie (Grandmom) is allowed to put it in ponytails. For whatever reason she let me put it up today and even let me take some pictures of her in her Tinkerbell shirt.




I've been scrapping some. Here's a page I haven't posted yet. This one took me a while because I stamped the title and then cut out the letters. I don't use my stamps near enough, and I need to use them more!


I've still been editing all the Christmas pics the last few days and there are lots of those up on the photography blog if you haven't been over there in the last day or two. I still have a couple more sets to add.

Wishing you a wonderful Thanksgiving!

Par-Tay!!

The highlight of our weekend was the family birthday party we had for Natalie. It was so much different than her first birthday because she actually knew what was going on. A couple of days before, I was talking to her about it and telling her that it was only a few more days until her party with cake and ice cream. And she said, "AND presents?" and I told her "yes, AND presents." :)

We started out the evening at our favorite pizza place. Between Natalie and Abigail, everybody stays pretty entertained.
Before heading back to the house we went to PaPa and MeMe's new house. This picture of N with Uncle A and Aunt K cracks me up. Love that she has her hand on Uncle A's knee.

We then headed back to our house for the real fun with presents. We laughed so much at her as she was opening her gifts. She got so excited jumping up and down. One present she even jumped up and down, threw her hand in the air making a fist and yelled, "I Love it!"


Notice the crossed arms in this one....


We also dressed her up in her Tinkerbell outfit, which was just way too cute. Birthdays with a 2 year old are definitely more fun.


And I had to do this layout just right after I took these pics of her on her actual birthday because I knew exactly what I wanted to do with them.

We love you Natalie! So glad you had so much fun!

Happy Birthday Natalie!

This night two years ago, John and I were still on an emotional high, sitting in our hospital room with our new baby girl.(In this pic, she is just minutes old. Did this layout about a year and a half ago.)

Now she is TWO. She keeps us on our toes and it's very hard to even imagine life before her.


At this stage in her life, those funny things are starting to come out of her mouth. I realized that almost every day I have some funny thing to tell John about when he gets home from work. But, I haven't been writing them down, so now I will start.

--About two weeks ago we spent the night out at the Wrenn's. While we were there we went to Andrew's first soccer game. Last week Natalie was playing with a big ball she has and says to me, "want watch Andew play sucker ball".

--While chatting away on her toy cellphone (which consists of saying "hello" over and over), I asked her who she was talking to and she said, "Daddy John".

Happy Birthday sweet girl. We love you.

Who Says Kids Don't Pay Attention?

Yesterday while I was getting ready, I was in the bathroom and Natalie was right outside the door in my room. It got really quiet which can be a bad sign. :) I came out to check on her and she was sitting at my vanity.


How you like that eyeliner job? The eye on the left seems to have gotten it the most, but she has it underneath the eye on the right too, it's just not showing up well. So amazing to me that she knew exactly what to do with the eyeliner pencil...

I've been participating in the online crop over at Dixie Pieces this weekend, so lots of pages to share either tonight or tomorrow.
Hope you're having a good weekend!

Our Girls

Things are going well. We're just enjoying these first days at home. Today's post is in pictures.











It's feeling good to be a mom.

Ok, So I'm Biased

Took some quick shots of the girly today before she had a chance to take out the bow that was in her hair for all of 5 minutes.

And she is just the cutest thing EVER!