My Children Are In The Way

I have a lot to get accomplished.

I have to pick out paint and get it picked up.  I have to paint an insane amount of trim at the new house as well as the entire 3rd floor and dining room. 

I have felt food orders to sew and friends to catch up with.

I have a cup of tea that never stays hot until completion of drinking it.  I have blogs I want to read while I drink that tea.

I have a kitchen that needs scrubbed desperately.  I have laundry that is piling up.  I have floors that are turning the bottoms of my feet charcoal when I walk around barefoot. 

I have thank you notes to write for amazing friends that have supported us financially in our adoption that have sat unwritten and unsent for an unacceptable length of time. 

My children want me to read to them, play with them, teach them things, take them places.  They are in the way of my long to do list. 

And then God ever so kindly nudges me and reminds me of my job description.  I'm a stay-at-home mom.  My children are my mission field.  My children are my highest priority behind my Savior.  My children need me to pour myself into them. 

My children are not in the way of my to do list, they need to be the first thing on my list. 

The House

...is coming along.  I've decided that if I didn't have children for a solid week I could get mass quantities of work done and we would be in great shape.  But such is life.  I'm so blessed by my littles that I wouldn't trade them for any amount of free time. 

This weekend we are hoping to get a bunch more work done.  Painting (that is never ending), ripping out tile in the kitchen, pulling out the old cabinets, and other odds and ends. 

I tried taking some "after" photos of the rooms that have been painted, but the sun was shining through the windows.  The quality is horrible, but you can get the general idea.

Nursery - formerly a peachy tan and now a warm tan.  Ignore the glowing spots of wet paint.  These walls are a bear to paint.  They are more textured than any walls I've ever seen in my life.  Even with a 1/2 inch roller you still have to go back and touch up a ton of deep spots that are untouched by your efforts.

Evelyn's room - formerly bright cornflower blue is now a blue-gray.  I am madly in love with this color.  It looks so soft and feminine when paired with her bedding.  I love it so much that I painted the laundry room the same color.

Master - NO MORE ORANGE!!!  Rich brown is so much more soothing in there.

Bathroom demo!  Out with the old ugly vanity and nasty tile!  I hope to pop over to the house this afternoon to see how it's looking now that some of the new tile should be done.  It will be a slate porcelain tile on the floor and a beige subway tile in the tub surround.

And this is what our rental house is starting to look like.  Photo courtesy of Evelyn.

Unloading pictures from the camera is becoming more and more of an adventure as Evelyn keeps running off with it and taking her own photos.  She did so when Max was down here visiting and took these.

Her skills are improving.  For the most part she's figured out which direction to point the camera.

And finally, this is how I get any packing or work done right now.  Put Belle on the floor with a bowl of food.  This time it was popcorn; a favorite of hers.

A Day of Birthday Fun

Are you ready for this?  You should prepare.  This is mass picture overload about to happen.

For Evelyn's 3rd birthday we packed the day with things she loves.  Pancakes and bacon for breakfast followed by a trip to the zoo with friends.

 Scott wasn't originally going to be able to come.  Then the morning of her birthday Evelyn looked into his eyes and said, "You have to go to work daddy???"  Sucker.

Here she is with her much requested (like multiple times every day leading up to her birthday) chocolate lion cake. 

This is Ally Rae, her best friend. These two were friends while still in the womb. We took our Bradley childbirth classes with her parents and Tara was one of the first people in KC to befriend me.

You have to get two pictures of these crazy girls because they refused to both be smiling at the same time. 

 

We made animal masks at lunch because I'm a dork and think it's always craft time. 

She woke up from her afternoon nap to find Grandma Cindy, Grandpa John, Uncle Ryan, and cousin Max!  So we headed to one of her favorite places, the Nelson-Atkins Museum Sculpture Garden.

The sprinklers came on!

A relatively successful attempt at a group photo.

An unsuccessful attempt to get a photo of the birthday girl.

They were much too busy to stop for a photo op.

So how did we catch this shot?

She was about to jump!

We headed across the street to the park.

Ummmm.  Not sure how to caption that.

Me showing my mom how exciting iPhones are.  She's clearly impressed.

The perpetually happy baby.

Surely sharing some sisterly wisdom as oldest sisters are known to do.

Dancin' boots!!!

Her gifts had a noticeable horse theme.  She was thrilled.

Some new horses for Evelyn meant Belle getting a shot at getting to play with one of her old ones.

More cake!  The candle wouldn't stay lit outside at the zoo, so we got to do the singing thing again.

This is my new favorite photo of Belle.

Thanks Max!  She wasn't upset he blew out her candle.  Her attempts weren't working.

Oh yeah, we bought a house in the middle of all that too...

No Halloween!

This post courtesy of Evelyn.

The squirrel eating my pumpkin!  

(Note the offender running off the deck as I opened the front door.)

That make me so sad.  WAAAAAHHHHHH!!!!!

What you doing?  You 'posed to eat acorns!  Go back to your squirrel house and eat acorns!

Oh Bella, there be no Halloween now.

3 Years of Grace

You don't realize what the true definition of Grace is until you have someone or something challenge everything you once knew about what it's meaning.  Nothing in this life has made me better understand the love and forgiveness and patience that Christ extends to me quite like parenting my darling now 3-year-old.  I didn't realize this would be the case when I named her.  I hadn't had children yet, so clearly I had parenting all figured out.

And here she is.  All 3 years of her.

She reminds me of one of my favorite poems, Eleven by Sandra Cisneros.  And not because she smells like corn.  But because although she's 3, she's also clearly still 2, and 1, and a baby.

She still gets up in the night the way she did as a baby some nights.

She still wants snuggled and held the way she did when she was 1.

She still throws knock down drag out tantrums the way she did when she was 2.  

I still look at her and can't believe she's really mine the way I did when she was a baby.

I still marvel over all the new things she is learning the way I did when she was 1.

I still pray for grace and understanding in my parenting the way I did when she was 2.

This child is going to do amazing things with her life.  I don't think she will ever be a kid who wants to sit down and work at something tedious for a long stretch of time.  She is extremely creative and I can't wait to see what she does with that.  I know that she will have to pick a husband who loves animals and will let her have a million pets unlike her mean old parents.  She will have to work her whole life at controlling her impulsive nature.  Her house will never be clean.  If it is I will be shocked, and she will be assigned to cleaning my house the rest of her natural life to make up for the quantity of messes I have had to take care of.  She is a stubborn persister with every fiber of her being and it will either serve her well or be her greatest stumbling block.

She answered some questions for me while wearing 3 pairs of underwear and no pants, her favorite attire.

Who is your best friend?  Ally Rae

What is your favorite color?  Purple and green

What is your favorite animal? Tigers, polar bears, and horses

What is your favorite thing to do?  Going to the park and watching movies

What is your favorite thing to wear?  Flowers

What is your favorite food?  Bacon

What is your favorite TV show?  Dinosaur Train and Calliou

What is your favorite thing to do in Iowa?  Play with Abby

What is your favorite thing to do with daddy?  Run fast

What is your favorite thing to do with mommy?  Dance and cook

What should I tell people about you on my blog?  That.  I want to play with this (walks away with my camera).

My prayer for you my beautiful girl is that God would give you 

a soft heart so that you see your need for Him, 

a strong mind so that you can face what He puts in your path, 

and a kind spirit so that you exude Him and can show grace to everyone you come in contact with.  

May you be like the orphan who can find mercy in Him alone.

Slides, Wreaths, and Comfort Food

As promised, here are the pictures that should have gone with a previous post.

My cutie before her first haircut, notice the scraggles...

I love the wary look on her face here.  She was really nervous that a haircut would be painful.

A little outdoor fun...

This might be my new favorite photo of those two.

Skinny jeans on a chunky baby are my new favorite thing.

I was glancing at photo albums with my cousin Kate before she moved to D.C. (insert me with a really sad face), and realized I haven't ordered pictures in over 6 months.  Whoops!  Which also means that the girls' baby books are completely neglected.  I'm leaning more and more toward ditching the baby book idea and just making them a blog book with all the posts about them and calling that good.  

Bella is changing so much right now.  She has started walking and talking in the last month.  She very clearly says mommy and daddy.  She's working on saying Evelyn and any other word I try to get her to copy.  She does the most darling roar you've ever heard.  Scott and Evelyn have roaring contests trying to be louder and scarier than each other and she has joined in the fun.  But she doesn't make r sounds yet.  So her roar goes something like this: mmmmmmmmMMMAAAAAHHHHHH!  It's h.i.l.a.r.i.o.u.s.  She's about 21 lbs. already and definitely in 12-18 month clothes.  Her feet have ceased growing though apparently as she can still fit in 6-9 month shoes that fit her in the Spring.  

Meanwhile, while my kids are growing up in ways I'm totally not ready for, I have been on a crafting spree.  The lovely and talented Jami Nato hosted a craft night at her place where 30 amazing women from our church got together and all made wreaths for our front doors.  Now we can all act like we're part of some crazy cult group and instead of Nikes we opt for homemade wreaths.  I'm ok with that though.  These women are fabulous and inspire me and I will happily associate myself with them.  Here's my creation. 

Note, the return of the poof with the addition of a button center.  I told you that you would find things all over your house that need poofed.  

The following night was Holistic Moms Network night which is always a highlight of my month.  I taught a group of ladies how to do freezer paper screen printing.  I will show you my projects later this week on that.  I would love to have lots of pictures from the night and even had my camera packed to do so.  Evelyn however is my budding photographer and ran off with it and took pictures of the whole house instead.  I forgot she had removed it from my pile of stuff, so I don't have any photos of the darling projects the other ladies made.  I do however have a couple hilarious shots Evelyn took of herself.  

And finally, because I am borderline longest post ever, a recipe idea for you.  I was having a particularly long day one day and was craving comfort food.  So I made bacon cheeseburger loaded french fries.  And now you're hungry.  Here's all I did.  

Oven roasted french fries:

Coat fresh cut golden potatoes with butter and olive oil.  Sprinkle with salt and pepper.  Bake at 450 until they look like this (approx. 30-45 minutes).  

Saute onions in one pan.  Bacon and hamburger in another.  And make cheese sauce in a third.  

Cheese sauce: Melt 2 T butter with 2 T olive oil.  Add 1 T brown rice flour.  Whisk to thoroughly mix and heat to boiling.  Slowly add 1 cup milk 1/4 cup at a time.  Wait for each addition to heat and thicken before adding the next.  Melt in a couple cups of shredded cheese and stir until smooth and melty and delicious.  This will turn out if done right the same way melted Velveeta did, but you don't have to eat processed cheese product.  Double win. 

To serve, put a big pile of fries on your plate and pour some cheese over them.  Top with onions and meat.  Then rope someone else into doing dishes since you used a lot of pans and such.