{Almost} Wordless Wednesday

Somehow I can't bring myself to post a picture with NOTHING said about it!  


This is how I found Susannah's sandals one evening when I went to get the laundry off the washline.

I love it!

Tiny Talk Tuesday ~ 6/20/12

One thing we have started working on with Susannah has been Scripture memorization.   A few other things she is learning is counting and shapes (among other things, of course).  Bible verses are about the only thing we are intentionally teaching her at this point, the rest she picks up from us helping her count things, pointing out shapes, colors, reading books, and her favorite Baby Einstein movies that she watches on youtube.

The first verse she learned and has pretty well memorized is Ephesians 6:1 "Children obey your parents in the Lord, for this is right."  She still needs a little prompting to stay focused when she is reciting the verse, and she tends to skip a few words like "the" and "is", but she does really good.

When she recites the verses, we have her say the reference before and after the actual verse (to help solidify WHERE in the Bible this verse really is).  Ephesians 6:1 usually goes something like this:

"Ephesians 6:1...2...3...5...6... GOOOOOO!!!"   She often skips 4 for some reason, and this counting to a number and then "GO!" is reflective of her swimming lessons back in April! (We would count "1, 2, 3, Go!" before doing an underwater pass or something like that.)  

For her second verse that she is learning, we are teaching her Proverbs 3:5&6 "Trust in the Lord with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding.  In all your ways acknowledge Him and He shall direct your paths."

For the last line, she says it something like this:

"...and He shall di-ah-RECTANGLE! your paths.  Yaaaaay!!!!"  Last night she said "...and He shall rectangle your paths."

It's fun to hear her say these verses with her own little accents and pronunciations. :-)

 One more cute thing is that she LOVES to sing.  Some days I think she does more singing than not when she is awake.  I love hearing her sweet voice burst into song!  She is just starting to put a few recognizable words into her own tunes, which can be fun.  One particularly sing-y day last week, after supper she burst into song while still at the table.  The tune was nothing we recognized, the words were nothing we could make out... but her distraction in the middle of her song was hilarious!  Daniel and I both cracked up!!   I took the video with my phone, not realizing it was recording a low-quality picture, but you can still listen and laugh yourself when she notices her daddy's bicep. :-)

 

Father's Day ~ 2012

Daniel has been a most wonderful Daddy for 3 Father's Days now.
 

The very first picture of him as a daddy,

with Susannah in 2010.

His first picture with our 2nd daughter, Sylvia,

born this year (2012

This Father's Day he got to celebrate being Daddy to these two sweet girls:

 Our Father's Day was anything but "extra special" in the "celebrate Daddy" department, but we celebrated none-the-less.  It started off with Daniel needing to be at church at 8:15am to practice.  I knew it would be crazy to try and get all of us up, ready, and to church by then (only for me to have to keep 2 little people entertained for 1 hour + until Sunday School started).  We were both up early; Daniel so he could leave early, and me so I could get 3 people fed, dressed, and out the door to make it to Sunday School hopefully on time.  We made it about 15 minutes late.  I say "not bad".

On the way home from church, we both stopped for gas and by that time it was 1pm.  We decided that in light of the remaining schedule for the day to get lunch at Burger King and "eat in" since we were in separate vehicles (and allowing us to all eat together).  Susannah had apple slices with her meal.  In the past I have peeled the slices for her, this time I encouraged her to try eating them with the peels on.  Bad mistake.  She gagged on a piece of peel and threw up.  Thankfully not much "came up" and it was quickly cleaned up with pile of napkins.  (Insert a "You know you're a parent when..." line here.)

By the time we got home it was 2:30 and we dove Susannah into her bed to nap.  15 minutes later she was awake and talking... dirty diaper.  I took care of that and she went back to bed.  45 minutes later Daniel got her up and dressed while I fed Sylvia her afternoon meal, and we headed back to church.  It was much too short of a nap for Susannah, but Daniel needed to be at church at 4:30 to practice for the evening churchwide picnic that started at 5:00.  Not wanting to take 2 cars again (30 min. one way) we opted to all go together and hope for the best.

It was a great evening, but again late until we got home (supper was at church).  I really wanted to get pictures of Daniel and the girls, and had forgotten to have them sign their cards until right then.  Susannah was very much on the edge of meltdown-mode, so we did the best we could for a few minutes and then it was bedtime for her and Sylvia soon followed.

After they went to bed Daniel and I celebrated with the Peanut Butter Pie I'd made for his special dessert.  It wasn't really how I had thought the whole day might go, but in the end Daniel is STILL the very, very best Daddy in the whole world!!  At least we think so. :-)

My Full Hands

Earlier this week we had a piece of mail that needed to be mailed for next day delivery.  Of course you can't just walk to the mailbox, put your letter in, put the flag up and leave a sticky-note for the mail-lady to send it "next day".  :-)  We had to take a trip to the post office.

Running errands by myself with both girls is usually not a big deal.  It can be, but I try my best to keep it from being that (mostly by keeping errands to a bare minimum!).  When we do have to run errands, we just make the best of it and it is what it is.  It takes a little longer, a little more patience, a watchful eye and the art of juggling.

When it is just the girls and I, whenever we are walking anywhere (most of the time) I am carrying Sylvia in her car-seat and I have Susannah hold on to the other side of the car-seat handle (because my other arm/hand is usually full of diaper bag, wallet, etc.).  Then we slowly make our way to wherever we're going.  On this day, that mean into and back out of the Post Office.

We had a good time in the post office, Susannah was well behaved and for the most part kept both hands on Sylvia's seat (what she is to do when I have to use both hands to do something).  I did have to tell her to not lie on the floor; I'm not sure where that idea came from!!

On the way out of the Post Office, we had to cross the parking lot to get to our car.  Another car was pulling into the parking lot and the gentleman stopped so that we could cross in front of him (a kindness I really appreciate when it is obvious to the person that we aren't going to just dash across really quick!).  After we were across, he pulled into a spot close to our car as I was getting Susannah into her seat and buckled up.  I nodded to him in thanks for his courteousness, and he commented in return "You have your hands full, don't you?"

Even though he did not say it rudely, it took me by surprise a bit.  I stuttered back something like "Yes, but it's good!"  I really don't think he meant any ill meaning at all, just commenting that I had my hands full, and he was correct - I did have my hands full!!

However, a split second after I replied, I wanted to say "Just wait till you see me in a couple more years when hopefully I'll have TWICE this many kids!!"  :-)  I didn't say that, though.  The rest of the way home I mulled over the situation and thought of different replies I could give in the future when similar situations arise. 

I think one reason the comment caught me off guard a bit is that with 2 children, I don't expect to get comments like that.  Those are the kind of comments that I think larger families would get.  I suppose that since I would like to keep adding to our family I should probably get used to the idea of strangers commenting on how full my hands are.

Right now, with "just" two, yes, my hands ARE full and I love it!

~We don't have specific plans for how many children we will have.  Right now we do want to have more, but we don't know what "more" means.  :-)