Surprises

Here are a few pics from yesterday and today. These close-ups of Milla were taken just after lunch. I thought Milla needed a change of scenery from the usual bouncy seat or my lap. We don't have a Bumbo seat, so I decided to do the next best thing and propped her up in the corner of the couch. The kids and I sat on the floor nearby and played a few games of UNO. Milla seemed perfectly happy and just sat there for about half an hour making sweet smiley faces and gurgly noises.

After we finished playing several games, I reached over to pick Milla up and found that she had been sitting in a puddle of poo for quite a while. I felt awful! Poor baby! AND...poor couch! I am eagerly awaiting the day when we will buy some new seating for our living room. Our couch was a hand me down. I believe my parents bought it when I was around Mary Alice's age. It has been recovered once. An arm has fallen off. There is a hole poked in one side of the cushion and several permanent pen marks on the fabric. Now, it has been pooed on by Milla! Josh and I have been holding out for a LONG time on buying new furniture. It doesn't seem financially wise for us right now. I would rather wait until we can totally redo the whole living room. The older and more "well loved" our couch gets, though, the more I think it may be time for a replacement.

Anyway... I didn't mean to go off on a tangent about our furniture, but to share these sweet pics of Milla. Who would suspect that all the while she was making these cute faces she was also making a puddle of poo?

And now a word about another discovery that I made this afternoon... I looked outside and discovered the kids sitting in the back of our Suburban, which they had converted to their own special clubhouse. Please disregard the dirty car covered with fingerprints. :( Here they are pretending that they are "Jack and Annie" and reading a book together. Sweet buddies.

Milla In The Morning

We are finally to the stage where I really look forward to getting Milla out of her crib each morning. She wakes up and talks to herself for a while before she starts to cry. When I walk into her room, she turns her head towards me and smiles the biggest smile ever. I LOVE this stage!

After I feed her, I usually put her in her bouncy seat in the kitchen while I make breakfast for everybody.

Here are some pics of Milla from this morning. I got these pj's on clearance for $3at Old Navy. This girl is BIG! She is busting out of Mary Alice's old 3-6 month clothes that Josh just brought down from the attic. At 3.5 months, she now fits comfortably in 6-12 month clothes. Poor gal! She hardly has any clothes right now. We have some shopping to do!

I just love how happy our Chubbers is in the mornings! She is our sweet bundle of joy!

Fairy Land And Glitter Eggs

I am SO mentally done with school. We will finally be finished with everything in the next couple of weeks. I can hardly wait! I am thinking of having a book burning in celebration. I am THAT ready.

Here is what we did on Thursday. We had a little time for some extracurricular activities, so the four of us went outside and played in the mud for awhile. The kids built a "Fairy Land" underneath a shady tree in our back yard.

Milla just chilled in her bouncy seat and watched the kids play. She didn't want to get messy, so she sat by and told her sister and brother exactly where to find the best rocks and things. (She also occupied herself by blowing bubbles.)



Working hard to find quality materials to build a beautiful place for fairies to live...

Flat rocks...yes
Smooth stones...yes
Old Easter eggs...yes
Used Cigar...no
100 pound mega rock that Mom has to carry to the site...no









Our neighborhood is full of birds. The kids see this bird nearly every day. They call him "Junior". Junior watched them work. They wondered what he was thinking.


The inside of fairyland...



Mary Alice really had fun...


Major pretended to talk on a piece of wood that was shaped like a cell phone.


Two best buddies... They argue sometimes, but really do love each other.


The outside of fairyland... (See the forest that Major planted in the front?)


Tiny bedposts for little beds...




Major grew bored of making a fairyland long before Mary Alice did and ran off to ride his bicycle. He has been riding without training wheels for a few weeks and has been anxious to sharpen his skills. :) I love his sweet little boy legs. They are always full of scrapes and bruises from his little boy adventures.


Time for lunch! We ate pizza and made glitter eggs. This was an Easter project done several days later. The kids didn't seem to mind! :)



The glue that we used to attach the glitter (called "Magic Stick Em") smelled just awful! The kids made up the following song about it.

"Magic stick em, we love you!"
"Magic stick em, you smell pugh!"

This song was funny and clever the first time, but grew increasingly less amusing as it was sung repeatedly throughout the day. :(

"Maje the Range"

Last night, Josh and Major met up with one of our old friends, Lane, and his son, Miller, at the Rangers stadium. Lane had two extra front row tickets and invited Josh and Major along.








Today, Major came downstairs in a Rangers costume (actually his old tee ball uniform with a paper "R" attached to the front). He said, "And now, coming up to bat... Introducing...Maje the Range..."









Crazy kid!

Easter Sunday

Here are a few pics from Easter Sunday. Grumps and Nons came down for church and ate lunch with us afterward. It was a great day!

Mary Alice is wearing her special dress that her daddy picked out for her. Major is wearing his big guy tie. (He is VERY proud of that tie.) Milla is in the dress that was given to her by her Aunt Miranda.














And now...

A few pics from this morning...

Major came down the stairs fully decked out in his basketball gear.

I don't know what in the world he is doing in these pics, but they really capture his silly personality right now.

This arm/headband combo reminds me so much of my brother Ben at this age!

Thanks for the cool Bison stuff, Pappa!

Just Another Ordinary Day

"Life is made up of ordinary days."

I think about this quote sometimes when the days stack up on top of each other and I seem to be getting little accomplished. Whenever I struggle with focusing on the negative, I can almost always do a mental about face by choosing to celebrate the gift of the million tiny moments worth of joy found in just one ordinary day. We all have those precious moments, and, if we pause to appreciate them, our ho-hum day can be transformed into a day of wonder and delight.

The smiles on the kids faces

Josh's hug before work

An answered prayer

An e-mail from an old friend

The wonder and excitement of each little (quickly) passing phase that the kids are in

The changing seasons (something new and exciting)

My new shirt

My jeans getting baggy

Milla's soft skin and sweet baby smell

Learning to make a new coffee treat

Finding out something new and being pleasantly surprised

I could literally write a book about the blessings in everyday things!

I love it, though, when one of our plain and ordinary days becomes just a little less ordinary. It doesn't take much to amuse me (or the kids for that matter.)

Thursday was one of those days...just a little extra something in that day to make me smile...

As the end of the school year draws near, the kids grow increasingly hard to motivate. They just want to run and play outside. On Thursday, we switched our routine up just enough to make things fresh and interesting. The kids didn't do their chores that day and started the day grocery shopping, followed by playing outside. Mary Alice had just finished spending an hour or so riding her bicycle on our driveway. I told her she needed to get busy with her school work.

She ran inside, grabbed some books, and proceeded to do her math in her bicycle helmet. I had to get the camera. Mary Alice did most of her school work on our driveway. So cute! The picture of her doing her schoolwork in her bike helmet is so representative of the freedom that we enjoy in our school days at home. I love it that the kids can play outside together in the middle of the day. There was nothing really special about this particular day, other than that we were spending it together. And that, my friends, is worth celebrating. :)



Milla girl loves being outside. She practiced her bubble blowing.


Shootin' some b-ball outside of the school...



The Maje, dressed as a caped crusader... a basketball playing caped crusader :)





Our Chubbers :) We LOVE her big smile. She laughs alot now, a sound I never tire of hearing. :)