$300 I did not plan to spend today

It's April. It's Texas. It's storm season. Last week there was a huge one that wreaked havoc all over the city. Trees and fences were down all over. Power was out, including signal lights the next day. We barely woke up and were clueless to the intensity of the storm. Last night there was another storm. It was earlier in the evening so we actually knew about it and I came home a little early from a girls night to make sure I avoided the hail. There was rain, there was wind, we saw no hail in our neighborhood. We thought it was no big deal again.

WRONG!

When we let Hooligan out we saw that our Bradford pear in the back yard had split in half with the fallen half leaning on our roof. The broken part is covering the window over the bed in our room where Sam and I sat from about 9pm on working on our computers and watching the news about the storm. How in the world did we not know that a tree had fallen on our roof and that there were branches literally inches away from crashing through the window, sending glass onto our sleepy heads?

I was really sad because this is basically the only tree in our backyard. We have two crepe myrtle trees up against the workshop but they have a fungus this spring that I fear will mean we have to cut them down this year too. This tree was great for shading about 80% of the yard for Katherine and the kids to play in. We have a chain link fence between our yard and our neighbor's yard and he had to cut down his one tree last year so now it looks pretty open and barren.

You can see what a great climbing tree it was. Nathan enjoyed it this February but now Katherine will never get to climb the tree. Katherine was quite distraught over the tree. She is very empathetic and could tell that mommy was sad. Therefore she was sad too. We spent about 45 minutes sitting in a lawn chair, watching the workers carefully cutting the tree to pieces. She kept saying things like, "Tree fall down. Tree on house. Men fix it. Mommy sad, very sad." Luckily it appears that there is no roof or gutter damage and if I had to choose a tree to lose I would prefer it be this one to one of the oak trees in front.
Now our yard looks so desolate. The stump will be ground later this week. On a positive note, we now have plenty of firewood for the next few years. Good bye tree!

My family has bad luck with trees. Some of you may remember that my parents lost a tree last year too. They live in an area with huge trees and theirs was one of the largest on the street. A week after my dad's heart surgery there was a wind storm that was the death sentence to a tree with a rotted trunk. It fell on the street, their house and several other trees. Here are a few photos from last years tree incident.

Cousins

Every other week I drive across town (45 minutes each way) to go to my awesome chiropractor. This commitment pretty much is our only activity for the day because by the time we drive there, see her and come back it is well over 2 hours. There are two things that make the drive across town better for Katherine. We get to either play with her friend Caedmon who lives in the neighborhood or we get to play with her cousins who also live close by. Today was a lucky day and we played with Caedmon for a short time before out appointment with Dr. Cindy and afterwards we met Shannon and the kids at the park for a picnic.

Emily is 7. Katherine adores Emily. Little girls are funny. Hannah is only 6 months younger than Katherine but yet Katherine just gravitates toward Emily. Really she just loves big girls. I think part of it is that a 7 year old knows how to play and lead a toddler around whereas another toddler is pretty self absorbed and does not yet know how to play with another toddler. You can see that Emily is not only a great cousin but a great big sister leading the little girls to the playground.
The kids started off playing in the trees while the moms finished eating. Katherine's look of concern was for Nathan. He was not having his best day today due to being tired (and being a 4 year old boy too I am sure).
Hannah is one of the happiest toddlers I know. She has the biggest smile. She is also one of the most physical and adventurous toddlers I know. One time we walked into the kitchen and she had brought the chair to the sink to wash her hands. I think she was about 14 months. There are endless stories of her climbing on top of everything. I can't wait until she and Katherine are a bit older and actually figure out how to play together. They will have so much fun.
Guess who took off their shoes? Emily did first and like I said, Katherine adores Emily so she took off her shoes too. For the first time in about a month Katherine actually let me do something with her hair. It has been so shaggy lately. The funny thing is that I thought it looked so cute when we left the house. Looking at the pictures I laugh at how her ponytails stick out and her bows are so huge. What do you all think?

One interesting experience at the park was when Katherine announced that she had to go potty. Hmmmm. What do I do with this? There are port - a - potties but I am sure that they are disgusting and not toddler friendly. Do I tell her to pee in her panties when I am working so hard to have her accident free. Plus I had not more covers for her to wear on the ride home. Then she said, "mommy, pee pee on grass?" Well, OK. So, I took my little girl behind a tree to help her pee pee on the grass and not everything else. Parents of potty trained kids, what do you do in these kind of situations? I see this being a problem for a few years until holding it means longer than 30 seconds.

I got dumped contest

I have mentioned before that as a part of my addiction to blogging I follow the blogs of about 10-15 families who have triplets, quads or quints. Whew! it makes me feel like my life is sooooo easy with Katherine. Anyway, one of the families that I follow, the Murray Crew, has 4 boys that recently turned 1. On her blog she is currently having a contest where you were to submit a photo that was on the card on your camera right then. She called it a "dump" of your memory card, hence the "I got dumped contest".

So, I submitted a photo and it was chosen as one of the top 10 out of 110 entries. Please take a moment to go to their blog to vote by Tuesday night for the cute picture of Katherine trying to smell the flowers. As you can see it was really more of a kiss. And for the record, Sam took this picture, not me.

And, I thought I would copy this great idea and have my own "small town" contest. You know, I have a much smaller readership so I probably will get all of 3 people submitting a photo. Send me a photo that is on your memory card right now by Friday at midnight. No fair taking new pictures. I will think of some cool prize. You can send it to pipandsqueak@gmail.com

Big Bed

The plan for the week was to get all of Katherine's stuff moved into her new room. Over the weekend we picked up a twin bed that we found on Craig's list. It is the same line as the rest of the furniture in the room that I bought when i was single. We had the full/queen bed in there but it was just too big for a little girls room. So, we will be listing our bed on Craig's list now that we have the twin. So, this weekend we cleared everything out of her new room, painted the closet (it had not been done in 37 years since the house was built) and steam cleaned the carpets. Today while Katherine was at MDO, I assembled the bed and put her things in the closet. I hate being pregnant sometimes because I did not do much yet my back is killing me from overdoing it. I am having to learn what my new limits are.

While Katherine was taking a bath, I put on the dust ruffle and Sam moved the mattress onto the bed. She was so excited that she announced that she was going to sleep in her big bed. That was not really a part of the plan for today. In fact, we were putting the bed in the room but really planning to keep her in her crib for as long as she wanted to be there. She has yet to try to climb out and she is sleeping really well right now. But we thought if she wanted to try it we would let her. She has tried to nap in her big bed a few times and always cried so long that she was put in her crib.

She was a little giddy with excitement. For awhile we were all three on the bed being silly. We got it all ready with bed rails, waterproof pad, sheets, pillows in the crack by the wall, etc. Then I crawled into bed with her to read. When it was time for lights out she was fine until I left the room when she started to cry a bit. We watched her on the monitor and she kept calling "Mommy". I had told her that if she needed anything she needed to say "Mommy" and I would come so I went in after a few minutes. She wanted me to lay down with her and she was asleep in only a minute or two. I fell asleep too I was so tired! I am pretty sure she will sleep through the night in her new bed. We will see what she does when she wakes up in the morning. Who knows if this will be a one time novelty or a permanent switch.

Guess where we went this weekend?

Yep, the arboretum. It seems that every week I am doing a post from our trip to the Arboretum but living so close and the weather being so perfect it is hard to stay away. This weekend Katherine and I went with Nana and Pops. The goal was just to have a fun day walking around. No picnic and no photo shoot. Of course I had to take some photos and I got lucky that a few even turned out pretty good.


The arboretum was full of brides taking wedding portraits and young teens getting their quincenera photos taken. I don't know what is up with these dresses but look at those crazy colors! I could not resist taking some paparazzi photos.


I like the red hat ladies in the background amazed at the young ladies brightly colored dress. They were pretty out there with their outfits too!

More Vimins Peeas!

Katherine loves her vitamins. I started giving them to her in March. There have been many tantrums thrown over the fact that I will not give her more vitamins. She only gets 2 a day.

These vitamins are great. They are fruit and vegetable gummies made by Juice Plus+. They are made from whole fruits and vegetables, not synthetically derived vitamins. Sam and I have been taking the adult version for a few years and love it as well.

If you are having a hard time getting your toddler to take their vitamins and want to give Juice Plus+ a try, let me know. I actually sell them and can get you a sample to try. Not every kid will eat them but you might get lucky and have one like mine who things they are a treat. By the way, she no longer throws tantrums over her vitamins but she still gets excited when it is "vimin time"

More Vimins Peease!

By the way, I am a horrible sales person so I hope you don't feel this is too much of a sales pitch. right now my only customers are actually family members so you can see I am not a pressure person. I just thought that if something works for us I should share it with my mommy friends out there.

I am a procrastinator

I just filed my taxes 2 minutes ago - on April 11th. I guess it is not as bad as going downtown to the 24 hour post office on midnight of the 15th or filing an extension but it is pretty last minute. We are getting a pretty fat return which is fun but not wise. I hate giving the gov't an interest free loan for the year. My dad is a financial planner, I know better. I do not know how TI calculated Sam's taxes so off. All of my jobs (small as they are) did not hold out taxes at all. Maybe we had more deductions than we realized. I would rather get a return than owe though. One year when I was single I owed $8 in taxes. That was about as close to exact as you can get. With our fat return I hope to remodel our bathroom. We are in the process of getting bids and deciding what to do. I just hope we can get it done before Squeak arrives.



What do you plan to do with your tax return (if you are so lucky)?

Tonight's bedtime prayer

Katherine did not take a nap today so she is in bed tonight at 7. Not asleep yet, but she is so tired. When it was time to pray, I asked if she wanted to pray or if she wanted mommy to pray. She wanted to pray. Here is what she said:

Dear Jesus
Dear God
Thank you for the day
Thank you for daddy
Thank you for robots
Thank you for mommy
Thank you for nose
Thank you for eyes
Thank you for mouth
Thank you for hair
Thank you for baby sister
Amen

I am not sure how I feel about the fact that I came after robots. Why does she mention robots? Daddy and Katherine love to watch robot videos on youtube.

I love the honest prayers of toddlers. What are some funny things your kids have said in a prayer?

Nervous habit

Katherine has started to twirl her hair. She pulls is into a ponytail or just plays with it. She also loves to play with my hair though sometimes she pulls a little hard.

When she was done with dinner, she started to use her fork to twirl her hair. Ouch!

Well, she twirled and twirled enough so that the fork stayed when she let go. She thought that was pretty funny.

Nightly Routines

We have some new bedtime rituals with Katherine. One regards brushing her teeth. She all of a sudden did not like to brush her teeth anymore. So, I put her on the changing table and I brush her teeth as she brushes mine. It is quite an art to use my tongue to prevent her from choking me but I am able to get all of her teeth brushed well.

Make an on-line slide show at www.OneTrueMedia.com

We have also started to blow dry her hair. She came in once and asked to do it and now we do it almost every night. She likes the way it feels. I use my brush but there is not really too much styling to it and it always looks pretty silly in the morning. She is certainly in an awkward hair phase where it is always in her eyes. She usually either refuses to wear a clip or ponytail or else she pulls it out during the day.

Arbo with the family

Saturday we went to the Arboretum yet again, this time with the entire family. We went when they opened to meet a photographer to retake some pictures of Katherine. It is impossible for me to take good pictures of her at the Arboretum or really anywhere and Brandi had her work cut out for her to get some good ones as well. We should have them back in about a week.

Katherine and daddy while waiting for Brandi
Not quite posing how we wanted.

After we were done with the photographer, Katherine changed into her tutu and we continued our morning hanging out as a family. The tutu was quite an attention getter, especially in the over 50 crowd. Everyone thought she was so cute. Of course I agree!

Most of our pictures were of Katherine walking away.

This photo was right after Katherine said, "Sam, sit right here". Sam and I looked at one another and just busted out laughing. Katherine has known our names for the last month but this was really the first time she used them on our own or to give us directions. It was cute and funny but we are not encouraging it.

Sam was trying to get Katherine to smell the flowers. She would alternate between blowing on it and kissing it.

This photo reminds me of my dear baby brother Will. He was always getting his head stuck as a child. Katherine's head did not get stuck, but I have a few memories of Will like this. She did actually get stuck the other day at the library playground when she wiggled her body through the gate and her head would not fit through. Luckily I realized this before she did and got her back through the gate before we had a crying toddler.

An absolutely WEIRD pregnancy

I am not talking about mine, but rather a couple who is due the same week as me. Apparently they were on the Today show this morning and will be on Oprah this afternoon (follow Oprah link to read story). I don't normally watch Oprah due to the fact that it is when Katherine is getting up from her nap and Oprah is going a little weird on me but I may have to at least record this one.

The summary is that there is a couple in Oregon that is pregnant but it is the man that is pregnant. He was born a female and lived that way until he was 24 when he began taking hormones and had surgery. He kept his internal female organs and that is how he was able to become pregnant. It is hard for me to wrap my brain around and I feel so sorry for the poor child who will be considered a freak from birth.

Comments anyone?!?!?

Purpose

The idea of my life purpose has come up twice in one week, once at Community Group and once at my new Bible study (CBS). I really liked how Josh and Tracey expressed their life purpose as making Christ known. As I thought about that, I was challenged that really that is my purpose as well. I realized that as Christians we all are to make Christ known to those around us. In different seasons of life that will look different. When I was in my single season, I took a lot of mission trips. I went every summer. I went to Russia twice, Spain twice, Guatemala and Japan.

Now I am in a different season, one where I am not going on summer mission trips. Hopefully that season will return at some point but for now I need to reconsider where I am and how I can make Christ known. When we were living in Norway most of the people that I spent time with were not Christians. It struck me as how at home I am in such a bubble and it was really refreshing to break out of it. I am trying to broaden my circle of influence now that I am home by becoming involved in activities where I will meet people who are not exactly like me.

In my current season my main sphere of influence is with Katherine and other toddlers. What an amazing charge to parents to influence our children in such a way that at some point they will make a decision on their own to know Christ. It may not be as glamorous to minister to two year olds as it is to go to far off exotic places but it is where God has placed me right now and I need to embrace it.

One way we have been influencing Katherine is in the area of prayer. We have tried to be consistent about praying with Katherine at meals and at bedtime. She actually has been one to remind us if we forget. I know that at barely 2 she does not totally get what we are doing but she knows that we all get quiet, close our eyes and talk to God.

I am trying to include Katherine more in praying throughout the day for specific needs. When she has been having a horrible tantrum or if I have lost my patience I ask her to pray with me. It is amazing how it can calm her down.

Monday before I dropped her off at school I asked her if we could pray for one of her friends who was having an MRI and blood work done. So we prayed together in the car. When daddy came home I asked her to tell him who we prayed for today and she told him right away. Tonight we received the answer to that prayer and in the morning I need to share with her the answer so that she can see that God answers our prayers.

Most of the time she listens to us pray but on occasion she has wanted to pray. She does not know what to say so she will repeat after us. Tonight at dinner she said she wanted to pray so I said a short prayer that she repeated phrase by phrase. Then in the middle of dinner she wanted to pray again. This time she began to pray on her own. This is what she said"

"Dear Jesus, Dear God, thank you for a day. Thank you for daddy. Thank you for mommy. Amen."

It was so sweet. Mark it down in the baby book as a new milestone - First Prayer.

My prayer is that she would become a girl and woman of prayer and that she would learn to trust God to take care of her needs. It is such a huge responsibility to teach our little ones these important lessons. I need to remember not to keep my spiritual walk and relationship with the Lord private but I need to include her in those things.

So, I am trying to embrace where God has me in this season of life. Where does He have you?

This post is a part of Mammablogga's March/April Group Writing Project.

Playgroup at the Arboretum

Our playgroup had our annual spring outing to the Arboretum. We have a membership so we go to the Arboretum often and have been taking Katherine since she was 5 weeks old. We have some great pictures both in the tulips and the pumpkins.

I have discovered though that we are at a stage where I need to give up getting good pictures. I will still try but she is so active that it is pretty hard. No longer content to sit calmly beside the flowers Katherine wants to run through them and pick them. Most of my time is spent chasing her and making sure she does not pick flowers.

Katherine and Robert

Our best shot in the flowers

Katherine and Ben - both with funny looks

Evie

Katherine's favorite part of the Arboretum is the play houses. When we get there she just takes off. It is funny that she is so independent when we get to the Arboretum because at home she wants to be in my lap.

It is almost impossible to get a good picture of us together these days because she does not want to be held. So, Katherine always looks upset when she is trying to get down.