Beauty in Bloom

The party.

Get ready because I am about to show you a bunch of pics of Faith's birthday party on Sunday.

Let me start by saying that it rained all day the day before and there was a 60% chance of rain the day of. I was a wreck because I did not want to have to move the party indoors because I had no activities planned for the kids. That was what the playground was for! Luckily, it stopped raining the morning of the party. The weather was chilly and the playground was a bit flooded but overall everything turned out great.

The girl had a blast and collected a lot of food for the Hope Center.  Misson accomplished.

The food table centerpiece. Notice that the jars with (fake) strawberries in them look like the invite I sent out. :) You can see those here.

 

All set up under the pavilion at Glazebrook. A favorite park in town.

That is what 14 dozen cookies looks like.

Donation table...before.

Donation table...after. More came in as people showed up.

Guest were able to keep busy by writing Faith a note or a doodle. This is Aunt Billie Jo and Aunt Lynn.

The cake. I usually like to make our cakes but I was trying to keep it simple because we were expecting over 80 people and I did not want to make a cake that big. I did, however, add the sprinkles and the tiny mason jar with the carnation ;)

It tasted great too!

It was so windy. The candles would not stay lit!

Faith opening cards and presents. Even though guests were instructed to not buy presents, some did anyway! She was not expecting it! But, she was very excited!

This owl rag quilt was made by my super talented Mom. I think it took her only 4 days or something. She may have pulled a few late nights ;) Faith told her that she wanted one too after seeing Annie's butterfly quilt at Christmas. Thank you Mom! She loves it! It is purple and it's an owl. Perfect.

Faith and her best friend from school.

Annie had a blast too. I think I took this picture after she had just fell though. Poor thing.

The only picture obtained of Olivia was from Aunt Lynn's cell phone. She only left the playground to snag a cookie! Ha!

See the puddles under the swings??

All the food that was donated.  We had lots of generous friends and family show up to support our Faithy.

I want to thank everyone for braving the weather and coming out to celebrate with us. Faith is a special girl with a kind heart and you helped continue to nurture that within her. She truly had a great time.

Annie told me today that she wanted to have her 6th birthday party here and do the same thing(her favorite thing to be is like her sister).

On a side note...Faith stayed home from school yesterday because she wasn't feeling to well when she woke up. It worked out though because she was able to go with me to drop off the food. She got to see first hand where it went and who will be receiving it. It was very humbling, but she did great. We also met the director of the Hope Center. He gave her a big hug. It was something I won't soon forget...Her little shy face...with that sweet shy smile.

Be still my proud Mama heart.

 

Mason Jar invites

{Ugh! I have been trying to post for days! I finally had to download Firefox to fix the problem because Internet Explorer has issues! I hate technology sometimes.}

So, my sweet Faith is turning 9 on April 23rd. She is getting so big. I love who she is. Smart, loving, generous. That's my girl in 3 words or less. I do miss her as a toddler with a cute little lisp sometimes, but mostly I love being able to have those intelligent conversations with her about what she loves and wants to be when she grows up and a million other things. I am really loving her indepence and willingness to help me out when I ask. SO much. In fact, that sweet girl changed her sister's diaper for me last night because I was just too tired. (Probably won't win any mother of the year awards for that move. Proof here.) She is a major blessing, that is for sure.

While discussing and planning her party this year, she decided that instead of people bringing her presents she wanted them to use the money they would have spent to buy food for the Community Hope Center. Don't you just love that? At first, she wanted to donate all the toys(books, etc) people would have brought her. But, I decided that might be to hard because afterall, she is 9 and that would be hard for me as a 34 year old to donate items that I love that I just received as gifts.  So we came to this solution. To donate food. Our foodbanks are always in great need anyway.

That is why the invites are mason jars. A food theme of sorts. Mason jars are very cute anyway so all the more reason to use them as a theme. I went out on the intranets and found a super cute free printable that I doctored up in Photoshop Elements to add the event details. I made the invites for her friends and people who don't use Facebook. The rest of the people were invited on Facebook, mainly to save money because I invited a lot of people.

(Go here for the original invite, my inspiration)

 

 

Everything else for the party is a little undecided. I will be keeping it simple...that much I do know.  However, I am sure that mason jars will be making an appearance. Ha!

Yay for fixed computers! How is your week going????

My heart is at home.

Been layin' kind of low this week. Playing hookie, not cooking dinner, doing laundry, getting ready for my girls weekend at the Hearts at Home  conference.

You know how when people are getting ready to go on vacation and they are totally useless at work the days leading up to it...ya, that would be me. Totally slackin. In fact, its 10pm and I should probably start packing cause we are leaving around 9am.  I did buy a little food for the hubs & kiddos so they wouldn't starve. So that's good. Ha! 

I look forward to this every year. Sometimes there is drama because such a large group of us heads up to Bloomington together. You know how us women can be. Lots of personalities=Lots of different opinions. Sometimes the conflicts start in the planning stages. However, I am(we are) determined to not let that happen this year! This is a christian conference for pete's sake. I pray that we can keep it together. We shall see. :)

Hey Bobby, if you are reading this, I think you are the best hubby ever. Thank you for letting me go and be refreshed so that I can be the best mama to our babies. Thank you for taking 2 days off of work, and thank you for being willing to sit through 2 and a half hours of dance classes with a fiesty toddler in tow. Big points buddy. BIG.

I mentioned that we played hookie this week. After the weekend we had, I decided to keep Faith home on Monday. We slept in and spent some time together just us girls.

Morning stretches. These girls crack me up. They wanted to sit on the front porch because it was so nice.

Then they moved on to dancing. Faith video taping, of course.

Little weirdos. We live on a busy street too. I wonder what the people driving by were thinking.

By the way, they were dancing but there was no music. :)

Later that morning, we went to the grocery store. Faith could not pass up the opportunity to enter the coloring contest they had going on. Liv did her best too.

In the afternoon, there was more front porch hangin'.

We ate some snacks and read some mail while soaking up some vitamin D.

This kid is something else. Just sayin.

Her newest thing is to carry around her purse. Just like her big sisters. I die.

St. Hubby changed the brakes on the van so that we would be safe this weekend. Another reason to love him.

These rascals hung out in the trunk while he cleaned out the van for me. Yet another reason. :)

Get that snake out of my face.

These kids have just about every toy you could think of and they want to sit in a trunk. What's wrong with this picture?

I love my family. BUT, I am still excited to be bookin' it outta here for 3 days!

See ya! Wait, guess I better go pack first.

 

Weekending

What a big weekend we had around here.

My Annie decided that she was ready to get her ears pierced. This is what I live for as a mom of girls....and this sweet memory did not disappoint.

Before:

{She was so excited...not scared one bit.}

After:

{Look how happy she is}

I had no idea that she was going to spring this one me. All I had to take pictures with was my cell phone. We were at the mall to drop our books off at the library(our library is in our mall) and walked by Claire's. I had to be home in 20 minutes to get her sister off the bus on Friday so I tried to talk her into waiting until Saturday morning. She insisted that she was ready and wanted to do it right then. I think if we would have waited she might have lost the nerve. 5 minutes later, she was a big girl. I loved that this was her decision. She even picked the earrings she wanted. Multicolored daisies. Because her friend has the same ones. All weekend long she showed anyone and everyone her new ears. I think she asked me 100 times if I thought she looked pretty. Be still my momma heart.

Big sister Faith was not about to let her little sister out shine her for long. Faith decided it was finally time for her to face her fears and get her ears re-pierced. You see, she is my starter baby and I may have forced it upon her at an age where she was not ready, therefore, causing them to close up. Live and learn.

Before:

{holding the teddy bear, trying to be brave}

After:

{She was so happy that it didn't really hurt. I am so proud of her, even though she may have done it out of peer pressure or sibling rivalry.}

Her best friend Bella came with us. That was the deal. I will do it if Bella comes, she said.

My sweet 8 year old...you can see the joy in her face.

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On Saturday we headed over to the USO at St. Louis Lambert airport with Faith's Girl Scout troop. The girls were delivering the cookies they sold that were generously donated by friends and family. Such a special thing. We got a tour of the entire facility. They really take care of our soldiers and their families that are traveling. It was truly something to see.

The girls also made special thank you notes to hand out to the men and women of our varied military branches. Oh my goodness, you would have thought we asked them to walk up to them and start singing or something. They got so nervous! Which is strange considering this group of girls. It was adorable though and the guys were very sweet to them.

Here she is with the special delivery...

Other weekend highlights include....Coffee talk on Friday morning with a dear friend, ballet classes on Friday evening, the wedding of a sweet new couple that have recently joined our missional church, girls night out for me Saturday evening, church, lunch with good friends after church, and our missional church meeting Sunday evening.

A very full weekend indeed.

Happy Monday! I am off to Annie's prechool parent-teacher conference.

Linking up with Carissa @ lowercase letters

Random life stuff

Not much going on around here this week.

The weather has been mild so we have been outside a lot.

You must take advantage of 60 degree days in February here in the midwest.

We also went a few places including The Sports Academy, lunch with friends at Pantera's, stopped by the Goodwill, and Jackman's fabric store, and Hancock's fabric store, and Target, of course.

1. Buttons!  2. Pretty fabric. {the paisley & striped fabric came home with me}  3. A score at the Goodwill. {$2}  4. Another score. {$3} The colors make me so HAPPY!

 

 
5. Lunch at Pantera's  6. This SOO came home with me. Does she even know what kind of awesome she is holding??  7. Another reason to love Target.  8. The net place...aka Sports Academy.

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A few pictures of our game of hide and seek...

(she only counted to 3 because that's all homegirl knows!)

(ready or not....she's a comin')

(It was my turned to hide. I jumped out and scared them. Yes, I am a nice mommy.)

(Poser.)

(Poser X 3)

(ok, that's better)

(Another thing they love to do)

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More randoms...

*I kissed my girls a little more tonight*

My husband came home from work today and told me that his co-workers 17 year old cousin{a girl} died in a car wreck last night coming home from work after midnight. Their biggest fear has happened. Her parents world changed forever. Broke my heart in two. I told all three girls that they are never leaving the house. They laughed. I was serious.

I hope they know Christ is all I keep thinking. And please Lord...please Lord don't take my babies too soon.

Changing subjects. I have also been in a good bit of pain since Sunday. My right foot has me limping like an old lady. I had to crawl to the bathroom this morning. It was not pretty.  I went to the podiatrist this afternoon and it turns out that I have achilles tendinitis. (inflammation in my achilles tendon) He gave me some steroid pills that are already working. Thank goodness because I would NOT like to enter my bathroom on my hands and knees in the morning, thank you very much.

I would like to know how you acquire this type of foot pain while being sedentary? Just sayin.

Two more things...

I am teaching myself how to use my dslr camera. Finally. It has only been 6 years. It is on my list of goals for this year. I made a little progress today. I am not sure what I was waiting for. Does anyone know of any good resources out there that are easy to understand??? I want to take Ashley's course but I have to wait until my birthday in June to ask for that.

Another question??  I need some resources for blog designer's that do typepad blogs. They all only seem to design for blogspot. Ugh! Please share if you know of any.

Hope you are having a lovely week!

 

ps... None of these photos were taken in manual mode, just so you know. I mean, you probably already guessed that anyway. I am too chicken to post any of those yet cause they probably stink. I am just happy that I know the difference between aperature and ISO. Ha!

linked here:

My New Year's baby is two.

Oct. 2011 taken by Breathtaking Photography

It's 10:00 pm on New Years Eve.

The house stinks to high heaven.

We are playing Rockband.

It is my sweet baby's birthday. Olivia Jane turned 2 today! Instead of celebrating her birthday or celebrating New Year's with friends, I have been cleaning up her vomit and diarrhea all day. It has been kind of a bummer, but we are spending our first New Year's at home as a family. Which is something we have never done. We are always away from home. Two years ago tonight, I was laying in a hospital bed all alone after giving birth to my sweet girl.

4 days old

Daddy had taken the other two home and the nurse's were taking care of my 3 hour old newborn.

I rested.

Good thing too. Because this chick keeps me running.

Olivia Jane, my dear, you are the light of our lives.

Your sisters simply adore you.

You are so sassy.

You are so sweet too.

You say NO to everything, even if you mean YES.

You hardly listen to me. Maybe it's the age.

I think it's just because you are stubborn.

I am your favorite person.

Baby dolls are your favorite toys.

Macaroni and cheese is your favorite food.

Some of your nicknames are Livy, Livy Lou, Livy Jane, shorty, and Lou Lou.

Just to name a few.

Happy 2nd Birthday to our sweet girl.

We love you so much and can't imagine a life without you!

Sassy in her heels

A little Artist....Nov. 2011

Christmas morning. Playing with a box of course.

Poor girl spent her birthday very sick.

Thankfully I didn't plan to have her party today. I think I will wait a week or two.

  

While I was picking up the older two girls from a sleepover at Grandma's, Bob took Olivia outside for a bit to swing. It was 60 degrees here on New Year's Eve and she was feeling ok that moment so he thought it might cheer her up. I had just left so he was also distracting her too. She will not leave my side for anything right now.

Secretly, I don't mind.

******For the life of me I can not get any photos to load! I will try again tomorrow and edit this post with some photos of Olivia.  Turns out my computer is too new for Typepad's website. Had something to do with Internet Explorer.

I have a computer again. My awesome husband just decided to buy me a new one. We got an amazing deal. It has only been a few days since I have been able to join the online world again.

Happiness.

I am dying to share our Christmas photos, but we have been so busy this week spending time together as a family since Bob has been off work. I wish you could hear him singing "Eye of the Tiger" on Rockband. I am typing this and the girls gave up trying to play a long time ago, so he is just singing by himself.

Pure awesomeness.

Happy New Year!

another September is slipping away.

I don't know where my days are going lately. Responsibilities are to blame. We all have them. Perhaps too many. I just wish they weren't such time stealers.

As I get older I become more painfully aware of this sad fact.

EVERY day is a blessing from God and when I wake up I give thanks for another one, but sometimes I wish that I had more time.

More time for moments like these...

 

 

 

 

 

I want be present in these simple moments. Really present. Because I don't want to get to the end of my life with any regrets.

Did I really listen to my daughters when they told me how their day was at school? Did I hug them enough? Tell them that I loved them enough? Did I read to them enough? Teach them everything they needed to know to become a beautiful woman of God? Was I a good enough example of how to be a good wife, mother & follower of Christ?

If I had to answer these questions right now....I know I would not be proud of my answers.

I am so glad that God is in the business of second chances. Aren't you?

 

{ps...I found Annie asleep behind the sofa today...face down in her own drool. Of course, I had to snap a photo}

This very moment...

 

......I have a 21 month old who is still attached to her bottle. She wakes up and it's the first thing she asks for and will not nap or go to bed at night without it. I know she will give it up eventually, but I don't think I am ready. She probably is, however.

I secretly love that she is dependent on it.

Look at that hand. She twirls her hair when she drinks it. I die! How can she be this big already?

Right now, Liv is into:

Books, Books, and more books! Almost every minute she is awake, that girl is handing me books. Baby dolls. She loves to feed them and put them to bed. Climbing, of course. Doing things by herself. She tries to put her own shoes on and throws things away. Sometimes stuff that isn't even trash! Imitating her sisters. Liv does a perfect somersault, and has been able to for months! This kid rocks our world!

Love you baby girl!

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Over the weekend we started the process of making Halloween costumes. The goal for me here is to spend time with my talented Mom, so that some of her sewing genius rubs off on me. We will see. I have a feeling my Mom will end up doing most of the work.

Mom, if you are reading this....Let me help you!

So far, we have only finished cutting out Faith's costume. She is going to be Snow White. Her idea. She looks most like that princess in her mind. Annabel is going to be Rapunzel from the movie Tangled, and Olivia will be Ariel. I think. We have a few costume patterns to choose from for her so I have a feeling that she will be whatever is easiest to make.

 
 

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Also, today marks the day that I finally went back to the gym after talking almost the entire summer off.

I gained back 9 pounds. :(

I was doing so good too...30 pounders lighter and feeling better about myself. Oh well. I went back.

That is all that matters.

Lessons learned

 

I am sitting here trying to think of the correct words to properly express how proud I am of this sweet soul.  I don't know if it's her age or just the fact that being super sensitive runs in her gene pool, but I am so thankful that she belongs to me.

I give God ALL of the credit for creating her.

I guess I need to explain. Let me start by saying that Faith has a heart for others. Especially those who are less fortunate than her. Tonight, we went on a prayer walk. This is something that I have never done before. I was not sure how it was going to go, but I will say that I was pleasently surprised by how well it went. Our missional church communtity split into a few small groups, kids included, and just walked the streets of a part of our town and prayed over it. We prayed for peace. We prayed that people would know a sense of community. We prayed for the physical and spiritual needs of the people living here. Some of the kids *ahem* (Faith) prayed for no litter. It wasn't particularly earth shattering and I am not sure it made one bit of difference to the people we were praying for, but for our little family, it made an impact. I see more of these walks in our future. Focusing on our specific area of town.

Anyway, I bring this up because as we were driving home I was telling my husband about a women that I saw today that was on Ellen. She is a principal of a school in Nevada where almost 85% of the children are either homeless, hungry, or in need of clothing, etc. She explained that almost immediately upon arriving at this school that she noticed children taking ketchup packets home. She asked other teachers why and they told her it was because they were going to make ketchup soup because so often, so many of them, never knew if they were going to eat at night. This woman took it upon herself to make those kids her mission in life so she started helping these families. She uses her own money and asks for donations and will take anything she can get. She helps them with their rent, food bills, electric & water bills, clothing, & various other needs and all she asks from the parents in return is that they give her their children. She wants them to make sure that they get their kids to school everyday so that she can give them a safe and loving environment on a level playing field so that these kids can get an education. Her hope by doing this is so that one day they will break the cycle. Her biggest motivator...their sweet faces and hugs. Also, Ellen got Target to donate a bunch of money and pledged to this woman that she would always be there to help in anyway. If you watched this, I apologize. I just felt it necessary to explain the next part of this story.

Sometimes I forget that our kids our listening when I am having conversations with my husband in the car. Maybe it's because they are watching a movie on the DVD player or maybe it's because I think they are too young to understand. All I know is that my 8 year old heard her Momma crying over this beautiful, inspirational story.  I was crying to my husband telling him that I wanted to be the kind of person that saw a need and then actually did something about it. I do not want to be this selfish anymore.

Faith was listening. The ketchup packet part of the story just broke her little heart.

We got home and she asked if she could speak to me privately. She wanted to know why they didn't have any food to eat. This sweet girl wanted to do everything she could to fix it. "Mom, we need to send canned goods," she said. She just kept saying that she couldn't believe they didn't have any food to eat. I asked her to begin to pray for them. She did, but started sobbing so I had to finish. I promised her that our God sees everyone and He will not foresake them, or her for that matter. I did the best I could to explain why this is something that happens in the world. I told her that the most important thing she could do was to pray and to be thankful for her many blessings. I hope she understood. She seemed to. In the very near future I want to sit down with her and help her come up with things that she can do to be more outwardly focused. Things we can all do as a family.

 As I sit here and type this it dawns on me what I want most in life for my babies. Of course, happiness is up at the top of the list, but the thing I want most for them is to not lead a selfish life. It's exhausting. I am so tired of worrying about what everyone else has that I don't. What vacations they take that we would never be able to afford. Public vs. Private schools. *Sarcasm alert* Hey, how many activities can we get our kids involved in so that we look like we have it all together? That makes you a good parent right? I don't think so.

If you are still reading this, I thank you. It was about 700 words longer than I normally type in a typical post.

I love you Faithy. I have learned so much by being your Mom. You and your sisters make me want to be better. I promise I will never stop trying.

 That is all. :)

My little lady

 

On Wednesday my sweet & spunky Annabel started preschool. This is her second year, so she is a seasoned pro. According to her anyway. That girl has wanted to be in school ever since she heard the word for the first time.

Anything to be like Big Sister Faith. It's a beautiful thing.

In this house, whenever someone has a first day of school, this Momma makes chocolate chip pankcakes.  It is something they love, but don't get on a regular basis.

Oh, and another thing we do is have a first day of school photoshoot. These poor girls are going to grow up thinking that taking 100+ photos a day is normal. There are worse things.

 
  

Of course, little sis wiggled her way into the classroom. I have a feeling that she will want to start school as early as possible too.

 
 

Oh my heavens that haircut makes her look so grown up! I can't take it anymore!  Here's a random question. Does anyone else's spouse force them to watch footage of their babies when they were smaller? No? Mine does.

Don't they understand that they are subjecting us Mommas to pure torture?

It makes me so sad to see what was but will never be again.

Almost makes me want to have more babies.....almost. I know that will only be delaying the inevitable. This is all just so cruel.  

I am done whining now. But only if I must be.

Tout a l'heure.  (That's french for toot-a-loo)

hehe.