HAPPY BIRTHDAY PRINCESS!

Because today, you ARE a princess, my darling daughter. Three years ago, you came into our lives and changed the whole world for your daddy and me. We have learned a love that is all encompassing. A love that makes us even pray for our own safety so that we may always be here for you. A love that was given to us by our Heavenly Father.

The Lord blessed us when He gave us YOU. He gave us the precious gift of a beautiful daughter. All the praise is HIS that we can celebrate this day.

But all the celebration is yours, our Monkey Poodle Princess! The day is yours, and we will look for Nori, we will play at CFA, we will eat pink cake with pink icing, we will watch whatever movie you want to watch, all day long. You can wear your tiara that you made with Mommy for the rest of the day if you want. And if you want to take a nap in your princess dress, that's okay with me too.

Mommy will not worry about laundry or email or anything that will keep me from playing with you today. You may be excited to be three, but I get a poignant reminder of how blessed your daddy and I are. And our hearts are full. With love for YOU!

Small step for baby....

Giant Step for Babies-Who-Want-To-Get-Into-Their-Sister's-Things

Tooter has taken his first steps! To be honest, I think Jmk and I both would say that he did some steppin' 2 days ago. But, I'm going to call it official today. Got it on video for Jmk when he gets home. You should have seen his face!!! I would let go of him, pat the couch, and tell him to go for the couch. He'd grin, let out a little "heh", and then teeter forward a step or two. He's a groovy kid.

Y'all have to know that I really wasn't in a hurry for this, as you can imagine. BUT, I also could tell that he was ready for it, and wanted a bit of encouragement. Thus, I helped him out with the whole "go for the couch" thing.

I figure he'll be full on mobile by Thanksgiving. But, we'll see. It is insane that that this much time has passed this quickly. whew. Monkey walked this fast - actually she was walking by 10 months. So, it's not as though I wasn't sort of expecting it. It's just hard to see my baby leaving babyhood behind.

blech.

Jmk and I were looking at pictures from Poodle's 1st birthday party yesterday, and we were a bit overcome at how... well - little and full of baby'ness she was. I swear, it's hard to remember them that little. The pictures are wonderful to have. We know that we'll turn around twice and Tooter will be this little boy. Someone who is turning into a little person in his own right.
I just..... just want to... I don't know - have a better memory or something. I want to be able to conjure up the feeling of my babies as babies. Be able to remember every single moment of their childhood.

Might as well wish for wings to fly, huh?

Yikes - I'm getting a *bit* too dramatic. It's just Tooter's 1st steps. My baby's 1st steps. And I'm so proud of him!!!!

Deck - complete; Boy - cruising

The deck is complete! My dear Bob Villa/Weekend Warrior started this project around the first of September, and has already completed it! (It's beautiful, honey. Thank you for your hard work!) We had a very slight decline in elevation from the patio that Jmk wanted to take care of with some wood-buildin', and he did a beautiful job. (Wife bragging is allowed here). The cool curve on the right hand side goes around the goldfish pond. We still have some landscaping to do around the deck, and in the rest of the backyard, for that matter, but having this big project finished is sort of a cool entry into hunting season. (The time of the year when NO big projects shall be started, thank you very much). When you walk on it, or at least when I walk on it, there is a distinct boat launch/ramp feeling. Almost as though you ought to be able to sit down and let your legs dangle into some gently lapping salty water, with Mr. Buffett playing in the background.

I love it, honey!

In other news, Chunk is starting to cruise in earnest now. (For those who don't bother to keep up with baby lingo - and I don't blame you - cruising is comprised of the baby holding onto things as he/she "walks" around). I.e. - Chunk cruises across the floor by holding onto the couch. Make sense? (This is also known as this-is-your-last-warning-now-finish-babyproofing-the-house movement). He is still moving very slowly, but the movement is now in earnest.
Lucky for us, the house is already babyproofed, complete with green crayon on the walls.
(Jmk has to remind me weekly that we don't need to worry about redecorating, repainting, re-anything until the babes are old enough to understand that Mommy's sanity is directly tied to how much milk you spill on the couch and how many times you let the dog in the house with muddy feet).

Another note of interest, at least to me and Jmk, is that Chunk just fell asleep on the dog's pillow in the living room. I have pictures. Will post them in the next day or so. Why is this interesting? Because he just went to sleep. No rocking, nursing, nothin'. Monkeypoodle nehhhhver did that. Chunk never really has either. He's always been better about sleeping in general, but this is a first even for him.


Off the wall question: Any of you ever clean out your fridge of all the things that REALLY need to find their final resting place in your garbage can, and realize that half your fridge is now half empty?
lol.... oh well. At least now I know where all my tupperware is.

The Correct Order of Things

Jmk was putting Poodle to bed the other night, and I had just left Chunk's room from putting him to bed. Poodle saw me, and walked out of her room to give me a "hug and a kiss". There was a Friends rerun on tv, and she happened to catch Ross and Rachel sharing a smooch. She watched that, and turned to Jmk and me and said:

"they're getting married?"
We said "yes, they're getting married".
Then she said "and now they're married".
"Yep, they're married".
Then she says matter of factly, "And they live happily ever after".

**gulp**

And Jmk says to me "And may she never know anything but that".

What a precious thing the innocence of children is!

No, Ross and Rachel were not getting married. But, to her, when two people kiss, they are either getting married or are already married. At least that's what all the princesses do in all her movies! That's what she knows. That's what makes sense to her.

And, oh, the beauty of her understanding is enviable. It makes the Scripture teaching regarding "Faith of a child" make so much sense to me.

Weddings, Whys and Waves

There are a few things I wanted to share today! Y'all will have to suffer me a little parental storytelling here. The Blog is a sort of public journal that is helping me keep up with things for the years to come. First of all - 5 years ago today, Jmk proposed to me! Yes, 9/11 was an impetus for this occurrence. We had already talked about our future, and he had already been diamond shopping. But as we stared at each other the evening of 9/11, after watching the horrifying scenes on television, there was a palpable feeling of "why are we waiting". But it was a feeling to which neither of us gave a voice. And then the evening of 9/12, I agreed to do the smartest thing I've ever done in my whole life. And that was marry my best friend, my soul mate, my answer to prayers.

The Lord was so good to me when he gave me Jmk!

Okay - enough mush. Baby talk now!

Poodle has started playing the Why Game. We spent 15 minutes at supper Sunday night playing this game-of-no-end. It has already created fodder for amusement - specifically for me and Jmk.

"Why did the wolves chase Belle?"
Because they were being mean.
"Why were they being mean?"
Because..... because they didn't eat their breakfast.

Yes. I actually said "because they didn't eat their breakfast". Jmk lost it, and I couldn't keep a straight face at all. Y'all, please understand that this feeble attempt at answering her question came after 15 solid minutes of whys. I was worn down. My brain was turning to jello. My stamina had been depleted. I. was. spent. Thus, wolves became extremely grumpy and unsociable due to poor nutritional habits. It happens.


In Other News:
Chunk can wave bye bye now! Started that yesterday when he waved bye bye to Poodle as we were leaving her room at nap time. Poodle thought it was just SO cool that the first time he waved bye bye was to HER! He just waves that fat little arm and looks at it his hand as though it is about to sprout flowers. It is terribly cute. Poodle never did the wave bye bye thing when she was this little, so I'm having a grand time getting Chunk to do it.
(Of course, she makes up for her delayed bye-bye'ness by insisting on giving everyone a "hug and a kiss" when they get into their car to leave our house!)

I have another story to tell about Poodle (I know - you're just shocked, aren't you?), but I'll save it for tomorrow. Small children are hankerin' to go outside now.

Thanks for checking in!!!

BIG News!!!

There is a baby on the way!!! Nope, not us this time. It's Robert and Jaime! Big surprise. Big blessed surprise. Anticipated arrival on April 7th, or somewhere thereabouts. We are all so incredibly excited and happy for them - and for US too!!! heeheee!
Tax time baby - on the way!

HAPPY BIRTHDAY GAGA!

Yes - Happy Birthday to my sweet father! The man who for all my life has worked hard and loved his family hard. I have so many favorite memories of my childhood with him, but one that is standing out at the forefront of my mind today is how he used to hug me in the mornings before he left for work. I'd come downstairs for breakfast just before he left for work early in the morning. And he'd hug me, and I'd stay cuddled in his arms for as long as I needed to be hugged. Some mornings I only needed a short one, some mornings I needed a long one. And no matter what, he didn't move until I was "through" getting hugged. I know now how difficult that probably was some mornings. I'm sure there were times that he could barely stand still because of all the things waiting for him at the office that day. But I never knew it. He was there with me 100%. And he still is today - although now it's *my* babies who get most of the hugs. :-) You are the greatest Dad I could have had!

HAPPY BIRTHDAY DADDY!

I'm in love............

Every day when I come home, I fall in love all over again. She meets me at the door and jumps in my arms and squeezes my neck and laughs. We play and play and she helps me cook supper. She reminds me how fun it is to be young. After supper we have bathtime and brush-our-teeth time (with her Barbie toothbrush). We can't leave the bathroom without putting Barbie to bed on her "pillow". We put our night shirt on and brush our hair. We put our many MANY babies to bed and wrap them up in their own blankets (a seemingly endless process, but cute nonetheless). We lay down and we say our prayers. God bless Mommy and Daddy and Tooter. God bless MooMoo and GaGa and Granny. God bless SueSue and PopPop. God bless everyone else she can possibly think of that night. God bless all my family and friends. And God bless me. In Jesus name, Amen. Then we read our night time story. I tell her she's a stinker and she grins and says matter-of-factly, "I know." I sit in the rocking chair and read a little while she watches me or watches the fan or simply drifts off to her own world. Then I close my book and turn off the lamp and lean over and kiss her on the cheek. I whisper in her ear, "I love you babygirl."

......and she tells me, "I love you too Daddy"...........

And One More Thing

The Website has been updated with the link to the latest pictures. It's "the" and our last name with an s dot com. Please bear with me on the website. I'm fiddling with it in an attempt to streamline a few things, and things are a bit cuckoo. Once I have everything down to as few steps as possible, I'll leave it alone! (I'm mostly trying to get a simple site built without using Publisher, which just produces way too big of a "thing" for me to deal with).

love y'all!

Happy New Year!

Yes, for me and Jmk, the day after Labor Day has always meant a new school year. These days, the kids have already been back to school for almost a month already. Course, I think they get OUT earlier than we did. I don't remember exactly.
At any rate, I have that "new year'ish" feeling today. Almost feel like I need to write out some resolutions or something. The main one I have in my mind right now is to lose five pounds before Poodle and Tooter's 3 and 1 year checkups. (I made the grievous error of getting on the scale at Tooter's 9 month check up. ha! What was I thinking? And why do I still weigh so much?) That appt is in November. After Thanksgiving. lol.... nice goal, huh?

Anyway, let's all take a moment to say goodbye to summer and hopefully to the HEAT. Jmk is halfway thru the framing of a new deck/extension of the patio, and we are looking forward to enjoying that with some cooler weather.

Now, on to the really important stuff. Kids' News! **grin** Actually, no major news to report other than a new tooth on Tooter. He is trying to be like his friend J.D. and has finally gotten that 4th bottom tooth in. Ehhhhh - it's on its way in. We're still in the process. Which explains a LOT of the grumpy behavior over the weekend. Thus, we now have 4 on the bottom, and 4 on the top. You know, I'll have to go back and look, but I think Monkey only had 2, maybe 3 teeth at this point. Course, comparing kids is about as valuable as washing your car right before it rains.

So, happy new school year from us old timers who didn't start school until after Labor Day. Kudos to MSU for showing some good promise this past week, and way to go to MooMoo's Ole Miss for looking pretty darn good themselves!

Anyone else feel the need to go to pick up some brand new spiral bound notebooks?

Come Play With Me

Let's All Play What's Under The Couch Cushions!!!
(this game is much more fun if you live with toddlers)

***********************************
Okay. I'll go first:
Various amounts of peanuts, dried pasta, and Fruit Loops
1 Passie
1 Whisk
1 Costume Jewelry ring
Half of a Princess Wand
Fifteen Cents (I KNOW - you'd think there'd be more, huh?)
1 Green Crayon
Wrappers from Hershey's Special Dark Kisses
1 Red Dry Erase Marker
4 Ponytail bands
2 barrettes
1 miniature butterfly hair comb
2 bobby pins
1 plastic gold doubloon
Make that 5 ponytail bands
1 Wooden Spoon
1 Yellow Straw
1 Paintbrush. Also known as a Magic Paintbrush if Barbie Rapunzel is in the DVD player
And, finally, an empty bottle of MK Calming Influence


Okay - now YOU!!!!

It's NACHO NIGHT!!!

Yay! It's Friday! What does that mean around The Zoo? It's Nacho Night!!! It's the night where supper isn't at the table. "Supper" means yummy nachos, couch snuggling, and movies. Granted, it's an abbreviated version of what we hope to have in later years, because Tooter goes to bed at his normal time and Poodle can only pay attention to so much of a movie. And, she definitely can't be quiet during one. ha! BUT, we all look forward to it.

Please feel free to adopt this at your own house. It really is fun once you get a groove going. We sort of adopted this idea from something that a friend at church does with her family once a week.

Join us in Nachos tonite! :-)

P.S. Chunk is doing better. Woke up this morning with barely any fever at all. Still cranky, but I think we're thru the worst of it! SueSue made him giggle yesterday when she and PopPop came by, so we knew that he was on the mend. Thank you Lord that it wasn't something more serious!

New Pics!

The link is the JC Penny's site where the kids just had pics taken. The session was for Tooter's 9 month pics, and we got Poodle (a.k.a. Monkey) to get in on a few of them. The link will take you to a log in page. The customer name is my name, first and last, with the normal space in between them. Again, because of the need for privacy for the wee ones, I'm not going to type out my name. But y'all know it. ;-) (And if you don't, leave a comment with your name and email, and I'll send it to you!)

Click Here for the Pictures

I hope you enjoy them! We had a good day taking them. We went last Friday, and Jmk met us there. We got there at 10:45, got the pics taken and ordered, had lunch at Chick-fil-A (shocker), and were back in our cars by noon. It was a good day for photography!

So, I'm making mac and cheese for lunch today, and I had just poured the pasta into the pot. Poodle likes uncooked pasta, and wanted a few more pieces. So she asked for some. I kind of scrunched up my face and said "oh, honey, I've already put them into the hot water". To which she replied quite calmly and seriously "it's okay Mommy. Just take them out and blow on them. You'll be okay". lol.......... Yes, yes, I will.

Y'all keep Chunk in your thoughts. He's still running that weird fever. Strep and ear infections have both been ruled out. I'm sure it's just an odd "fever virus" type of thing. But he feels pretty poopy.

I hope you enjoy the pictures!

Enjoy the Coffee

This came by way of Kadie, my Boo. Love you girl!

ENJOY THE COFFEE

A group of alumni, highly established in their careers, got together to visit their old university professor. Conversation soon turned to complaints about stress in work and life.

Offering the guests coffee, the professor went to the kitchen and returned with a large pot of coffee and an assortment of cups - porcelain, plastic, glass, crystal, some plain looking, some expensive, some exquisite - telling them to help themselves to the coffee. When all the students had a cup of coffee in hand the professor said:

"If you noticed, all the nice looking, expensive cups were taken up, leaving behind the plain and cheap ones. While it is but normal for you to want only the best for yourselves, that is the source of your problems and stress. Be assured that the cup itself, adds no quality to the coffee in most cases, just more expensive and in some cases even hides what we drink.

What all of you really wanted was coffee, not the cup, but you consciously went for the best cups, and then began eyeing each other's cup.

Now consider this: Life is the coffee, and the jobs, money and position in society are the cups. They are just tools to hold and contain life, and the type of cup we have does not define, nor change the quality of life we live. Sometimes, by concentrating only on the cup, we fail to enjoy the coffee God has provided us."

A Year Ago Today

A year ago today, Jmk and I were basically sitting in our living room watching trees fall, and praying for protection. The Lord was SO gracious and merciful to us. So much more than we deserve. We went without power for about 45 minutes (yes, that's right, less than an hour), and had some minor shingle damage to the roof. We lost 8 trees in the backyard, but they all fell away from the house. The only hiccup to our life was the lack of gasoline in the area. Because I was 6 months pregnant with Chunk at the time, we had to be careful with the gas we had in our car in case of an emergency with the baby. That was pretty much it. It did give us the privilege of being able to help neighbors, family, and friends who needed the help. Although, to this day, I wish we had done more.

I remember the "crack" as the first tree fell. I looked at Jmk, and we said together "what was that". He looked out the window, and there it was. Or wasn't, for that matter. It was a weird sound. You'd think it would have been louder or more dramatic somehow. Just a crack, and a tree was bent in two. The power of the wind was awe-inspiring, in the true sense of the word.

Praise the Lord for His mercy on us and His unmerited graciousness a year ago today!!!

August 29 - A New Outlook

This came to me by way of my friend Layla:

Rewriting the History of August 29th: A Prayer

Thank you for letting me understand homelessness, living without power, without television, without cool air in the heat;

Thank you for letting me understand hunger, the leisure of dry clean clothes and the relief of a place to sleep.

Thank you for letting me understand the deep and overwhelming sadness when forces, beyond our personal control, take the loved, the familiar, the usual.

Thank you for my needfulness and for my newfound empathy for those homeless before the storm and homeless now and for those hungry anywhere, for those in need everywhere.

Thank you for the opportunity you provided to help my neighbor, to be my brother's keeper, to serve food, to patch roofs, to clean yards, and to start mending that which was broken.

Thank you for the chance to change ourselves, for a reprieve from the normal, commercial day, for teaching us to make do, to get by, to improvise, for drowning our conceit, complacency, callousness, for silencing the noise, for stopping the clock, and for the chance to act our best when the worst occurred.

Thank you for the people who reached in, pulled out the living, cradled the dead, comforted the broken and torn apart, wept for the splintered and uprooted.

Thank you for the people who didn't wait but came right away, who opened their homes, who emptied their shelves, their closets, who cleaned, fed, healed, held us, who told us our spirit was amazing, and who keep on coming.

Thank you for the people who measure their faith by their actions, and measure their actions by its consistency with their faith.

Thank you for all the people we have met, who are new friends, new Loved ones, new brothers and sisters, new neighbors.

Thank you, KATRINA.

Not for the wind, not for the water, but for the appreciation of the things no storm can shatter, no water can wash away, no wind can move.

Written by Tom Teel and Reilly Morse
Tom Teel and Reilly Morse are local attorneys in Gulfport, MS.

Before and After Shots

Before Shot - taken from sort of behind the house. Notice the horrid green menace that has taken over everything.

And an after shot from sort of the same angle. (Just with more sun, obviously). Cool stones, huh? The previous owner invested quite a bit in rock for the back yard. Maybe we'll all be able to actually SEE them now!

Another pond shot - we still have a little ways to go, but we are definitely feeling encouraged!

My Mortal Enemy

Asiatic Jasmine. That vine-y bunch of horridness is the most insidious green thing I've ever encountered. U.G.H.
I finally realized that neither I nor jmk has enough time (or the inclination) to keep this mess under control around the goldfish pond. Quite frankly, I'm not sure why it was planted in the first place, but that happened before we moved in. At any rate, it is ALL going. Every last little annoying bit of it. We have uncovered a ton of beautiful rock and a drainage "system" taking rainwater from the gutter out thru the pond area into the yard that we didn't know existed. We have also discovered that the daylillies were about completely choked out, and the little bits of mondo grass that managed to survive underneath all of it are in quite pitiful shape. BUT, after about a week of uttering words not fit for little ears under our breath, we just about knocked it all out today. At least the majority of it anyway. I am very sure that there is plenty of it hiding under this and that and the other, but the majority of it is GONE. Horrid stuff.

Now, onto cleaning up the bushes and Things that are in the pond area so that it is the little oasis that it was probably meant to be in the first place!

I told you we were crazy around here.

Okay - let me explain. First, jmk had a bad headache when he got home from work, so I took the monkeys outside with me, and he stayed inside and worked on supper. (let's face it - food is usually easier than crazy toddlers/babies). However, I knew I wasn't in the mood to just push Chunk on the swing. I needed to "do something". So, because the asiatic jasmine groundcover is taking over the goldfish pond, I thought I might work on starting to take some of it out. But one can't do that AND hold a chunky baby. And I couldn't very well put him on the ground. He'd eat the yard. So, I got out my trusty sheet sling and threw that baby on my back. I did realize how crazy it all looked, but had no idea that jmk had gotten the camera out! After fiddling with the jasmine and the weeds/grass for about 20 minutes, I decided that Buns of Steel has nothing on the new and improved "Baby On Back" workout.

Why Teachers Teach

Granted, I've never taught for a living, so I don't really know the heart and mind of every teacher. But I had a moment today that may explain how they put up with the parents, low pay, long hours, and crazy administration. Watching a child (especially your own) learn something or watching them improve a skill right in front of you is quite amazing.
The brief time that I taught a few ballet classes during my college years allowed me the opportunity to see children improve their abilities. And that was quite fun and rewarding. But I guess watching your own child go thru the process is even more heart-touching.
At any rate, it brought to mind the feeling that a person who teaches as a regular j.o.b. must experience when she sees a little mind improve itself.