Things Parents Say

Allen:

Do you see what just happened, Lizzie?
Ellie was in the box. You sat on the box. So you sat on Ellie. That's not nice.

Lizzie:

Ohhhh...

Princess Party

Lizzie has been asking to do a Princess party for sometime now, so when her birthday was coming, we knew what the party would be. We ended up inviting a few of Lizzie friends over for crust-less sandwiches, chips, veggies, fruit, gogurt, amazing princess punch (bug my great friend Sarah for the recipe sometime, it is well worth it), and of course cake and ice cream. The cake was beautifully made by another dear friend, Jessica:


can you believe she made it all out of icing!

Anyhow, the party was great, and I think the kids had fun (which is the point). And with the exception of the glitter everywhere, there wasn't much to clean up or fix afterward!



Thanks to everyone who came and made Lizzie's party so special!

Oh, and by the way, Lizzie seems to think that we need another party next week just like it. Hopefully by next week I can get through the idea of a birthday being once a year...maybe I should start by figuring out how to explain how long a year is? Any Ideas????

Gardening Fun

So I started a garden this year, and am pretty please with it over all. I have made errors and killed plants, but over all it is do well.

I should have taken a picture when I first got my plot, so that you could have seen how many weeks and things were in my little section of dirt. But, you all know what weed riddled land looks like!

It started off looking smallish:

Now I have two plots (I needed more room, one of the errors I mentioned earlier): The original plot now

Rescue section of new plot with wild Strawberries and overgrown peas

My overgrown Cilantro (coriander)

Green beans and peas

The true test will be whether anything edible grows on the plants :-)

Hey, does anyone know what to do to rescue tiny squash plants that really didn't like being put so close together, and hated being dug up and replanted to spread them out?

BOZ

So we don't let the girls watch much television or movies, since they are still pretty little, but occasionally we do put in a DVD (usually BOZ or The Princess and the Pauper). Daddy got a shot of the girls starting to watch BOZ this past week.

Boz Dancing

It is pretty fun, though you miss the excitement that took place before the camera was rolling, with Ellie jumping up and down, shaking with anticipation of what was to come.

The 3rd Birthday

Lizzie turned 3 almost a week ago and she had a great time opening gifts, hearing her favorite song (Happy Birthday to Lizzie), and of course eating her favorite foods on her birthday (she picked chicken nuggets and fries with cucumber this year).

The gift opening was quite entertaining, since Lizzie faithfully went through opening each well wrapped gift and ignoring the loud noise next to her. Check it out. First, the link to the YouTube video of it. Then some pics.

Lizzie's 3rd birthday

Lizzie received a helmet and pads from Great-Grandma Sewell and was sporting them along with the bathing suit we got her. Of course also holding her new cell phone and camera (princess) from Auntie Nono.

Spring Came and Went

So the Spring here was quite short (and from what I hear that is normal around here, we have even heard that sometimes it just goes straight from Winter to Summer and virtually skips Spring altogether...anyhow, I digress).

We didn't get a ton of shots, but here are some of the good Spring shots from around campus.

Aloha From Auntie Nano (or Nono depending on the Day)

So my sister Lissa went to Hawaii recently and sent us a "wish-you-were-there-here's-a-taste-of-what-I-saw" package. It was really very sweet of her. There was banana macadamia nut pancake mix, coconut syrup, some chocolate (very addicting macadamia nut chocolate, not to be eaten when watching your weight), and of course for the girls:


Thanks Auntie, what would we do without grass skirts and coconut bras!

Catch-Up Time

So, we haven't uploaded pictures in awhile and now finally sat down to load Lizzie's Birthday pictures, only to discover a plethora of pictures from the beginning of Spring through yesterday. Bear with us while we blog, blog again, and blog some more, but we have a lot to share and finally have some time to do it!



Isn't this sweet picture of Lizzie loving on her little sissy great?! She was instructing her on how to go about pretending to cook.

Where's your line?

I'm posting it, but Steph came up with this question:

At what point are you done with a bag of potato chips?

1. No more whole chips
2. No more half chips
3. No more quarter chips
4. Handful of crumbs
5. Shaking the bag into your mouth
6. Licking your finger to press against the inside of the bag

Shameless Plugs

Another baby-wearing contest

Go here to enter yourself.

Jesus Loves Me

Lizzie has always taken to the song, ‘Jesus loves me.’ We sing it often in this house. It holds a special place in my heart because I would sing the Scarborough girls to sleep with it when I babysat them. In the last week, Lizzie has gotten better about singing along with us. Even getting the rhythm and starting to put the words in the right place.

Tonight, Ellie was having a rough night getting to sleep. So while Ellie was getting changed, Lizzie wanted to help. So Mommy asked her to sing to her little sister. She started singing ‘Jesus Loves Me.’ By herself. Getting the notes just about right and getting the words close enough. I nearly started crying on the spot.

3

Lizzie turned 3 today! Yeah! She is really enjoying her new age, from a big girl bed, to a helmet to practice riding bikes with the other big kids, to having fun playing with all of her books and princess toys that she received from all of you!
Thanks to everyone who made Lizzie's day so special.

It is a wonderful thing to see your little girl so full of joy and pride in who she has become.

Summer 1 done.

Turned in my paper today. Time off for over a month. I'm going to go get a full night's sleep for the first time in I don't know how long.

Credit Card

Need your input here folks. The question is at the bottom.

We put everything on our credit card and pay it off every month. And we reap the benefits. We have a State Farm credit card that accumlates State Farm Dollars. Which we then turn around and use to pay our renter’s and car insurance. It’s worked great thus far. Few minor issues here and there, but overall, pleased with the service. But, State Farm has always been behind the times when it comes to online options for interacting with your credit card (viewing reports, posting things in a timely manner, payment options). They just switched to a new system… and somewhere in the mix up of old and new system the almost $1000 bill for this month just got paid… TWICE.

TURNS OUT. I am an idiot.

I set up the payment twice. Once under the old system and once under the new system. Turns out there was a way to see the old system, I just didn’t look very hard. This was my fault. The guy on the phone wasn’t up to par, but I almost put him in a bad spot. So, my apologies to State Farm.

Don’t know if we’ll switch or not now, but I’m still curious…

What credit card(s) do you use? What perk(s) do they have?

p.p.s My dad has wisely said: “Son, it’s not that you mess up. Everyone does. It’s how you respond to your mess up that matters.” That’s the deciding factor in customer service for me. I’m still not thrilled with how the guy handled the situation, but in all fairness it was my fault. So, there you go. My bad State Farm. My bad.

Massachusetts

So for sometime now Lizzie has repeated the word Massachusetts at very random times. I have again and again tried to explain what a state is, but to an almost 3 year old the concept is difficult at best. I realized as of late that she must have some idea in her mind of what Massachusetts is or she wouldn't say it as often as she does.

I finally figured it out today when Lizzie came up to me, right hand out, waiting for me to offer my hand to her, as if we were making a hard fast deal. Then, as I grasped her hand, she said with great confidence, "Massachusetts!" It clicked. I responded in kind, "Nice to meet you!"

Apparently she learned the name of our state at the same time she learned formal greetings and has been confused ever since.

So for those I have yet to meet who may read this, "Massachusetts!"



Another cute Lizzie side note, today we played a game common around here, Doctor. Lizzie instructed Allen to be the doctor and her the patient. At the end of her "check-up" she said, "and now you give me candy!" Apparently she has learned that all doctors give candy at the end of a visit, which has been true for her! :-)

Blessings From Our Provider

The last week has been filled with blessings for us physically.

First, I got the job!!!! Yeah, starting the 16th I will be caring for a tiny little guy on Mondays and Wednesdays. I can't wait, though I need to do some serious deep cleaning/organizing before he comes.

Second, Allen made $450 in 6 hours (3 hours Sunday and 3 Monday) helping a family pack some books into boxes. They are apparently well off and blessed Allen, and as a result us, with being way over paid for his work. Lets face it no one should be paid $75 an hour for packing books, even my hard working and brilliant husband. The craziest part is that they had advertised on Craigslist and he just contacted them in email. It wasn't even as though we knew them or anything. God works is more than just mysterious, but sometimes down right odd, ways.

Third, Allen has a steady job for the next few weeks painting a fence on a local horse farm for $11/hr which will help pay some bills while he continues looking for more steady work.

Fourth, our foodstamps got raised and now will cover all of our groceries (when combined with our WIC), leaving us one less big expense.

Finally, God has been taking great care of the first garden we have ever planted, and hopefully in time we will reap a great harvest. (pictures to come when I have more time).

Thank you LORD for loving us in such obvious ways!