Moments of note.

I have been thinking about what I might add to this tasty list of posts. (I say 'tasty' because posts are so infrequent that they had better be purposeful...)
Things have been speeding along quite steadily at this glorious place we call home.
Christmas was beautiful and good. A smallish Christmas. Better than the big ones, for certain.
We are busy, sometimes by choice, sometimes not - but busy nonetheless.

We (Avery and Jaron) have been squealing with excitement at the mere mention of the nearness of Christmas for weeks, and though the "moment" in all it's luster has passed, we are still smitten with thoughts of our holiday.

The EasyBake cookies we make taste better than store bought ones.
Our new Trio castle set has spurred on many an elaborate battle plan that had to be jotted down on paper, lest we forget our strategy in the heat of battle.

So many happy and endearing moments have passed this year, I look over 2009 - and though much change has come our way - there is a constant theme of 'blessed.'

Chris really loves his job. He loves to talk about things that happened throughout his day. To the point that my nearly literally speechless husband has become, at times, downright chatty! It's very nice. What a blessing to see him this happy.

Jaron is a shooting star in his class. Learning so much and really becoming interested in big kid things. He got some cologne for Christmas and he and it have become quite a pair. He wears it always, several squirts at a time, several applications a day.
On Christmas Eve, he was working on a crayon drawing in the living room, I walked by and noticed that as he carefully set each crayon down after using it, he was actually spelling out words with the crayons. "I L-O-V-E T-A-R-Y-N."

Avery is still endearingly adorable. She is so tired of being cute and us telling her cute stories everywhere we go. She actually drew the line in the sand last week and said, "I will NOT be adorable." (Which was completely adorable!) Poor adorable thing! I guess there are worse fates...

My brother and his wife are expecting their first child. We call the baby Yoda. I think the nickname will indeed stick. I am not sure whether Richard's Sweet wife likes it or not, but the child will most assuredly be called Yoda every now and again. I have already bought the baby 18+ month toys and the grand arrival isn't scheduled until July! I cant wait!

My sister is in town and is convinced that my kids carry all things bubonic. We have passed our little 'bugs' onto the rest of my family in a ferocious way. What had us down for moments has kept the rest of the clan down for the count. What a rotten thing to 'give' for Christmas... Sorry Sister!

I hope and pray that all those I love and rarely see or talk to had great Christmases as well.
We are looking for 2010 to be a year that brings about change, although perhaps not as much at 2009. We are ready for a bit less of a whirlwind year!

five

Happy Birthday, my angel.

You're five. Super huge five years old.

I went through your baby clothes up in the attic a few days ago. Tears.
The bracelet you wore during your first few months was so tiny. Almost too small to be a ring for me...

Now...
Your hair is long golden brown and your eyes are giant gooey drops of chocolate.
Your hugs are squishy sweet tight and your kisses are soft drippy wonderful.

You are creative and full of sparkling personality.
You still have the most adorable lisp anybody's ever seen and a dimple perfectly placed on your cheek.
You're everything girly anybody can imagine, everything thoughtful, everything beautiful.
You're a cat person among dog people.
Glitz and glam make you swoon.
While all the other kids want Smarties, you're after a chocolate truffle.
You love long dangly earrings and your nails painted (except for the thumb you use for 'sucking').
You shut the door to your bedroom and sing at the top of your lungs - and as long as nobody's watching, you'll sing and dance all day.
You're the perfect combination of baby and big.


You appeared on the scene quietly as a newborn, and it took you a while to find your opinion, BUT NOW you have this enormous personality, with an opinion on everything. :)
You're not a morning person, but you're always in the mood for snuggling.

You're five.

Delicious, glamorous, enormous, snuggly, adorable, thoughtful, opinionated, sparkling, squishy-sweet, shy, chocolate truffly five.

Five wonderful years make me long for the road ahead.
I cannot wait to know the YOU you turn out to be!

I love you, beautiful Avery.

Feel like I should...

Feel like I should expound on this week.

It's been so epic, I'm not sure where to begin...

Let's work our way backwards beginning with what hasn't happened yet.

On Saturday, I'll be 30.
On Saturday, I won't be at the ladies retreat.
On Saturday, Avery is having an early birthday tea party with mostly family and some of the little girls from her class at school. The tea party is at our house - that's important because ...

On Friday, I will install a chair rail in Avery's bedroom, finish the touch up paint in Avery's bedroom and the living room, paint the other side of and re-install the 8 interior doors (half of which got painted Thursday), clean the house, finish shopping for A's presents, make cupcakes and sandwiches, wrap presents, and go have dinner with my old teacher friends at Cheddar's for my birthday. But first, I have to make sure the house is in tip top shape.

On Thursday, I painted one-side of 8 doors in our house, primed and painted a chair rail for Avery's bedroom, finished busting out our master bathroom shower and found it to be in worse shape than previously expected... Thought about crying.. a lot.

On Wednesday, finished painting stripes in A's bedroom (Painting stripes anywhere should be avoided at all cost. Just my opinion, but for what it's worth - don't do it.) , put the finishing touches on J's bedroom - most of which was painted the previous weekend, shopped for groceries, paid bills, went to a good friend's mother's funeral, she was too young...

On Tuesday, really thought about crying. I started painting stripes in Avery's room. Crazy. Why do stripes make her so happy? 6 colors of paint ladies and gentlemen - but it's soooooo cute and cheery! I also took a break on the master bathroom, which at this point looks like a total loss to me...

On Monday, I began demolition on our master bathroom, only to realize that the damage seems to be much more extensive than previously thought. Our master bedroom carpet (which is pink and, if you'll remember - I LOVE) is toast (rotten from leak in shower), as are much of the baseboards and sheet rock on the surrounding walls...

Monday also happened to be our 7th wedding anniversary.
We were so bombarded with life and all that it entails, we barely got to celebrate - but we went to dinner and it was sweet. And very us.

I am so thankful for him. I could be no happier than to share my life with this wonderful man. Many days, it's hard, just because life with kids and a mortgage and 'adult things' is so unpredictable - but more and more, I find myself endlessly thankful for all the turns that led me to him.
7 years. During that time, pretty much the ONLY thing that has stayed the same is the fact the we are still WE.

These last seven days pretty well round out 'normal' for us.
We work hard. We play hard. We live hard. We love hard.
We have lived and loved and enjoyed so much of each other.
And I am grateful.

So an epic week, no doubt. I am ready to finish up my 20's with a bang and look forward to a more 'normal' and less insane decade in my 30's. Please tell me things magically slow down in your 30's...

Don't ever do it! Don't.

My mom broke down and bought Avery this flip book of 500 or so tattoos.
Yes, my mom. Miss Tattoo, my mother, bought Avery a book filled with them.
Not only did she buy these profane things, but they are actually lifelong tattoos, must have been a typo on the package...
They NEVER GO AWAY.
Once you have a pink glitter flame tattoo wrapped around your daughter's little arm, there is no chisel, no chemical, no amount of scrubbing - nothing will get it off her.

We're talking WEEKS of temporary tattoo.
So right after I finally scraped the last bunch of tattoos off of her, Avery straightway begged my mom to apply yet another one.
Once the tat application had set, Avery came clean to my mom about how much I hate them...

(Disclaimer: I don't hate your tatoo. I don't even hate them in general. But there is something wrong with taking your little girl to church in a prissy little lacy dress with a black and pink flame job hanging just below the dainty sleeve...)

Here's the awful part: We're getting ready for a Halloween Carnival at Jaron's school and that second installment of tattoo is the only thing peeking out of Avery's costume, so I grab the nearest thing - a magic eraser.

Yes, yes I did.
And yes, yes it was a bad idea.

Indian sunburn ring a bell? Magnify that times 100.

Yeah. So just in case you're ever curious to see if a magic eraser might remove a permanent object (i.e. temporary children's tattoo that will not come off) from a child's skin...

Don't ever do it! Don't.

Conversations

My mom asks Avery, "What is your mom going to be for Halloween?"
She thinks a bit and quips, " A cooker, cuz that's real scary."

___________________________________________________

I bring out the medicine and Avery starts sniffling like crazy. Like to the point that I am sure she's having trouble breathing.
I realize she has seen the medicine bottle.
I say, "Avery, stop that or you'll hyperventilate."
She sniffles away.
I say, " You just want me to think you're very sick so I'll give you some of Bubba's medicine."
She just chuckles and grins this impossibly cute grin.
"Aww... Ya caught me...," and away she goes.

__________________________________________________

J: "I'm the smartest one in my class, " he says as we drive away from the school parking lot.
Me: "You are pretty smart, but there's no way to know who the smartest one really is. God gave each of us very different gifts and some days you're the one with the answers and other days, someone else seems to know them all."
J: "Nahhh... I'm the smartest."

Confidence is good. But this? Well, I fear we have created a monster...

Only in horseshoes and hand grenades...

Almost.

Nearly.

The kids have been without insurance since September 27th when Chris made the transition between jobs.
Their new insurance will be effective on November 1.

I have been praying and hand sanitizing like nobody's business, hoping we could make it to November without sickness.

Today we are home. Fever. Headache. Tummy ache. Boogers.
October 27.

We nearly made it.
:(

Pumpkin Tooth

(When I go back to to work, I promise to get the chord that magically makes the pictures from my camera land on this laptop.)

Because you have never seen anything as cute as my Pukpkin-toothed boy.

"It couldn't have happened at a better time of year, " he says as his tongue pushes right past the giga-gaps in his sparsely-toothed grin.
I smile back at him in utter admiration and say, "No baby, your pumpkin smile is just what we need this time of year!"

Just a few squishy 'baby squeezes' left on this kid, but I intend to savor every one!
Thank you God for the blessing of J.
My heart does back-flips for his pumpkin-tooth grin!

Because

Everybody's Crazy 'bout a sharp-dressed man!

Oooooooo girls! If you could see my hottie walking out the door in his uniform each morning...
It'd make you wanna slap yo Mamma!

He's a byoot!

:)

How many times....

... can you title a post "life is good" and truly, truly mean it?

Seven years. I waited and prayed and hoped.

Now...

My husband is home at night. My husband is home at night.
He's here every night.

Life is so good.
God is so good.

Remember to praise your great God who loves you so!

Can it be?

It is sooooo wrong to accuse him of this, so I won't.

But...

If I didn't know better, I would swear to you that my husband has been 'fake' mopping the floor...

I come home to a mop bucket filled with water and a mop in the water - propped in the corner of the dining room.

And the floor?

Not mopped.

Is he trying to score points with a girl who knows what clean is?
Is he shooting for the placebo effect?

What is going on here?

I know, most of you would tell me to be happy that it appears as though he's making an effort.
And I am, When he does make the effort.

But this thing, which I am most certainly not accusing him of, is just sooo very like him.

Do you think it's possible?
Is he really just filling the bucket and setting it out to give off the appearance of helpfulness?

No! It can't be...

:)