August Pics

These pictures make me want to cry. M has not had the best luck with friends amoung our neighbors. There's a whole group of girls on our street, but they're all 8-10 years old. No one her age, and definitely no girls for her to play with. Until this month she didn't know the difference; she was just content to play with Mom & Dad. Enter Little Miss W:

W is a chatterbox 10 year old who runs with the older girl crowd on the street. She has "saved" M several times by bringing her home when she wandered off to play while I was working in the front garden. (M was fine, but it was dramatic for W to "save" her) One day, W's friends weren't around, so she spent the whole morning playing with M. M was so thrilled, and kept telling me all about her "friend." When W had to go home, she promised M to come play again in 2 days. M waited on pins and needles for the blessed day. But with her friends back, W didn't want anything to do with a little 3 year old anymore. (You can't blame her really.) But W never came, and M would continually want to go out front to go find her "friend." When we would run into W on the street she would quickly give us some reason why she couldn't play and run off to her friends.

M was convinced W was still her friend, and kept wanting to go find her at her house. Alex and I tried to tell her that W did not want to be her friend or play with her because she was so much older, but she just didn't understand. Finally one day we were out front and M saw W playing down the street. She excitedly ran to her to ask her to play and was broken hearted when W told her she didn't want to play with her & to go home. It hurt me to see her so sad, but what can you do?

Now to explain these pictures:

M was playing in the backyard, just screaming/squealing for fun when suddenly some girls on the other side of this fence started squeeling back. They had a blast echoing each other for a while, and M ran to tell me about the new friends she had made on the other side of the fence. If she peeked through the slats, she could even see them jumping on their trampoline. I asked her if they were big girls like W or little like herself and she was sure they were little. So, at the prospect of a girl her age nearby, we walked around the block to meet her new "friends"


Turns out the "little" girls were actually 8 and 10 years old, and were not thrilled to see a 3 year old that they were forced to be nice to in their yard. I quickly made our excuses (it was bedtime for M anyway) and had to practically carry her kicking and screaming from their house.


For days M would beg me to go play at her "friend"'s house, and I had to insist that we would not be going until we got an invitation from them. (which I knew would never happen, but I couldn't brake her heart again.) So for days, M would peek through the fence waiting for the girls to play in their yard. If she found them there, she would try to play her scream/squeal echo game again. But the girls would never squeal back.

This day, Alex found M in the backyard, just forlornly staring through the fence at her "friends" and squealing, to no reply.

Another day he found her with a kitchen knife in the corner trying to cut through the slats to get to their yard. (picture pending). Oh what I'd give to find a little girl her age on the street for her to play with. :(

July Pics

Princess M LOVES Movies! She went through a phase where she wanted to act out everything she saw on the tv for a while. I knew what movie she had seen by what stunts she wanted to pull afterwards. Several I had to nip in the bud and then endure all the why's afterwards. This one I didn't catch until it was too late.


Anyone want to guess what movie she had just watched before taking the red marker to her sister's face?


If you haven't seen "Nanny McPhee", it really is a fun film (and who doesn't love Collin Firth?) Just be sure to hide the markers afterwards.


M discovered the joy of waterslides this summer.


She's quite the bullet. Fastest kid on the slides.


This one was bitter cold, but she still loved it!

We attended our family reunion this month too. Unfortuneately I didn't get any pictures on my camera. I'll have to get copies of those my sister-in-laws took.

June Pics

I kept thinking I'd make the time to get all caught up with blogging; but I realize I haven't blogged anything since the beginning of June and it's now October. So, I'm just going to do one blog entry for each month and post the pictures we have.

Here's June:

Besides the Renaissance Festival, several other fun things happened that month.


Princess A's 8 month photo.


Does this look familiar?


On really good nights, sometimes Princess M gets to watch a movie in bed, downloaded from netflix. She really loves this treat.


Princess M put the sour cream on her quesadilla all by herself. ;)


My roses were gorgeous this year!


Baby A got her first swim suit which matched Princess M's. M was thrilled!


I love the crisscross.


Isn't she cute?


This is an interesting story. You can't see it very well in the picture, but if you look really close at her eyes...


even closer....You may notice a shine. She found my Victoria Secret lip gloss; which happens to be incredibly sticky stuff that does NOT come off, and smeared it all over her eyes. She wanted to put some make up on.

Upon examining the ingredients, there were several chemicals that we did not even recognize so we got a little worried. I looked everywhere for the number for poison control. Did you know it's not in the phone book? At a loss for what to do, I called 911 to see if they could give me the number for poison control. She wouldn't even talk to me until I gave her my address. I did, and then explained what happened, that it's not really an emergency and I just need them to connect me to poison control. She can't do that, and she can't even give me the number. But she wanted to send out an EMT team to look at her eyes. I protested that it wasn't necessary and it would be a real waste of everyone's time & money. She pretty much strong armed me over the phone to let them come, insisting that they wouldn't mind, and it would be no cost to us.

So that night we had a visit from the fire truck and not just 1 or 2, but 4 firemen who all rushed in and started peppering M with questions. She was so overwhelmed that I think that alone was enough incentive never to play in my makeup again. Upon looking at the ingredients in the lip gloss, they promptly called poison control. And yes, I got the number from them for future reference. There ended up not being any harm done, but it was quite the bedtime drama.


Princess M learned how to roller skate.


That water was Ice cold! But they still had a blast.


Baby A's 9 month pics


My gorgeous girls!!!

Renaissance Festival

I'm finally getting around to posting some pics from the Renaissance Festival that we went to two weekends ago with our good friends. It was opening weekend, which means 2 for 1; always a welcome time. We had a lot more fun this year now that M is 3 and obsessed with everything Princess. Of course last year I was very pregnant too, which curtailed the fun a bit. Unfortunately several of the pics are pretty blurry, apparently a tiny bit of the sunblock made it onto the lens. Bummer.



It was a truly magical time for our very own Princess. She dressed up as a blue fairy (Mom & A were peasants, and Dad wore a jester hat) and was surrounded all day by Kings & Queens, Princesses & Princes, Knights & Dragons, Fairies & Jesters. She watched acrobats on stilts, men breathing fire, dogs that jumped through hoops, and a parade with a real, live, (stinky) elephant. There was a petting zoo, and free butterfly merry-go-round. We picnicked on the grass, shared funnel cakes, and she got to share the whole thing with one of her best friend princesses. Tinkerbell (her favorite actor by far) gave her another magical fairy stone. The Queen let her pick a bracelet out of her treasure chest, and some scary looking vikings gave her a necklace. (Now we wouldn't normally condone her taking presents from scary looking men, but we allowed it this one time.) It was a blast to experience it all through her eyes.

Princess A was carried the entire day by either Mom or Dad, so she was happy as a clam. Both were exhausted by the end and the heavy rain didn't start until we were driving away in our car. (Although most of the day was delightfully overcast, removing the heat, but not quite chilly.) It was nearly perfect!

Now if we could just get rid of all the dirty jokes in the shows... M doesn't understand any of them yet, but I'm sure she will before we'd like her to. There will come a time when we just can't go anymore. Too bad.

Sometimes it's just so True

I saw this clip on the blog of a friend of mine, and was laughing out loud. (Thanks Heather!) Thought I'd share it here too, since I don't imagine we have many of the same followers.
Click Here to Watch

I told her to go brush her teeth...

Apparently she felt the need to shave, "just like Daddy!"




Here's another doosie from a couple days ago, when it was too quiet in the house.

Because Girls trust their Daddies

So we had some friends over for dinner today, and in order to play a little later than 7:00pm we all put our kids to bed. I put Princess A to bed in her crib, Alex put Princess M to bed in our bed, and Our friend put Little L (M's friend) to bed in M's bed.

Upon leaving A's room, I stopped in ours to check on M before going downstairs. She was lying in bed, holding this china doll.



I asked her if she was playing with the doll before going to bed. Her reply was very matter-of-fact and resigned. "Well, Daddy gave me this doll to cuddle with in bed... It's kinda hard."

I asked her if she would like a soft animal to cuddle with, "Yeah, but L is in my room so Daddy can't get one."

I told her I could go look for one for her in the other rooms of the house, "Yeah, but I don't think there are any."

I happen to know that there are stuffed animals all over the house so I quickly returned with one so she wouldn't have to "cuddle" with a hunk of wood. It just cracked me up how resigned she was to her fate; no pouting or whining, just matter-of-fact resignation.

"Well... it's kinda hard."

Alex informed me he was giggling inside when he handed her the doll.

Luke 11:11 "If a son shall ask bread of any of you that is a father, will he give him a stone?"