flash back friday

I enjoy an excuse to look through old pictures, so I thought I would do another Flash Back Friday.  Okay, don’t judge 🙂  Anyone who thinks that media doesn’t influence youth should take a look at this.  We didn’t dream up this “look” we just mimicked it.  I think it is quite funny, but that’s just me.

sweet moment

This morning I pulled out this walker/excersaucer thing I got from my mom’s house for a little visitor we had only to find that the  seat was in great need of a washing!  Eli saw an opportunity to crawl in and play since there was nothing to block him getting in.  Of course as soon as he got in Lu decided she HAD to get in, too.  I told Lu to wait for her turn and Eli says “She can get in, I’ll scoot back and she will be the driver”  Very rare moment with two toddlers.  I must mention that this only lasted a minute and then he wanted to drive and she wasn’t thrilled with being “in the back seat” and so it didn’t last all that long, but it was worth it for those few moments.

new-do

This past week we decided it was time to start carrying sunscreen for outdoor play.  These pictures are from the 2nd time this week that we have used it.  Lu’s hair is so fine and light that she is extra prone to getting a burn all over her head so I have sprayed her head with sunscreen.  Great for protection, but not so hot for a “look” 🙂  I guess at her age you can get away with crazy hair!

PIG TAILS

I have wanted to fix lil lu’s hair with bows or ponytails for sooo long!  Today I successfully got her hair in pig tails and she almost let me with no fight …..almost 🙂  It has made my day for sure. they are crooked, but I can deal with that.

flash back friday

Aw, back in the day!  My mom would take me to the beauty school to get perms.  I had so much hair they would recruit extra people just to get it all rolled in a decent time frame!!!!  perms………of course I never permed my bangs, to have them match the rest of my hair just wouldn’t  have looked natural!??  anyways,  there it is.  I wish I had an after picture to share.  I will look and see what I can find.

story teller

We have a little mama on our hands!  Every time I turn around Lucy is attempting to bounce baby in the bouncer, feed her a bottle, give her her paci back, cover her with a blanket or poke and tickle, hug her…..she just can’t help herself.  She loves baby.  This past week she has started to read to baby on her own.  Nathan was able to snap a few pictures of her in the act.  So sweet.

brother and sister

In the past couple of weeks there have been a handful of moments where my kiddos not only played together, but I was also able to snap a few pictures.  Lucy’s wants to do and say whatever Eli is doing or saying.  He rarely appreciates that, but they are slowly learning how to play together and it just makes my heart swell.  They have started looking out for each other.  If one gets a snack, they ask for one to give to the other.  When Lucy wakes up from nap or in the morning she first calls for Mommy or Daddy and then calls out for Eli.  There are a lot of days that I want to pull my hair out :), but I sure do love these kids like I’ve never loved before.

NWA

***warning: this post includes lots of pictures, probably more than you care to see, but I had a hard time picking out just a few. ***

The weekend before last I loaded up my kids and Mema and headed to NWA to visit my brother, his wife and their 3 kids.  My Mom and aunt Pam meet us there.  We arrived around lunch time on Sat and left after lunch on Sunday, so it was rather quick, but we had a great time.  We weren’t in town long before we headed out to Will’s baseball games.  He had 2 back to back.  We don’t get to see the kids playing sports much due to the distance, so it was  real treat to get to see him in action.  After spending a few hours playing at the playground at the ball field and watching the games we loaded up and headed out for a surprise from Nana (my mom) to all the kids.  She took them all to build-a-bear and let them build one animal each.  We ended up with 2 bears, a sheep, a dog and a bunny.  This was our very first time to ever even walk in to a build-a-bear store.  The kids ages range from 11 down to 2 and each one of them seemed to really enjoy themselves.  One of the steps in the process of building your animal is a heart ceremony where you have a little cloth heart that you wave around and repeat after the lady about loving the bear and taking care of it and at one point she asked everyone to close their eyes and make a wish.  Eli closed his eyes to tight as if he was going to wish his wish to life right there! 🙂  Anyway, when we left there, we hopped on a little train for a ride around the Promenade and headed home for some yummy dinner. My sil is a great cook, so any meal at there house is such a treat.  It was a full day, but totally worth it.  Sunday we went to church with them and then hung out, ate lunch and headed home.  Good times!  Here are some pics from our visit.

where does the time go?

Just like everything else in life, there are seasons we go through in our blogging, or at least I do.  It seems there are seasons that I am able to keep the blog updated weekly and then others when there are still just as many things to blog about, but I struggle to get anything posted.  So, you know how it goes, you get behind and then it is overwhelming to think about how to get caught up, so you put it off……….that is where I am currently…….overwhelmed.  I am overwhelmed with the pictures and what order they happened, with thoughts I want to share, with foster parenting things, changes in our life and the seasons we are in as a family and me as an individual.  Just expressing my thoughts about being overwhelmed is overwhelming me a bit 🙂  For all of you that keep up with our family through this blog, I apologize for getting so behind and thank you for not giving up completely.  You may or may not know that we started the journey to become foster parents last Sept. and completed our foster parenting classes, got cpr/first aid certified, had a home study done and became an “open home” for fostering and/or adopting in the state of AR, through The C.A.L.L., by Feb of this year.  Our home becoming officially open and our family receiving our first foster child happened at the same time.  I have had many thoughts and emotions since we picked up our sweet baby, both about having her and experiencing this new chapter in our lives. I  hope to one day share some of that with you all, but it’s just not the right time.  However, if anyone would like to know more about The C.A.L.L. or fostering, please let me know, I would love to talk to you about it by email or phone or something.  That has obviously been a big part of our day to day lives in the past couple of months, but there have been many other things.  Eli seems to be saying some of the funniest things.  Example: one afternoon while Eli was still napping, Nathan decided to go to Sonic for happy hour and get us all treats.  Eli woke up while he was still out and when he asked for a treat I told him about how daddy was getting us Sonic and would be home any minute.  His eyes got big and he gasp and said “Really?! You really know it’s true, Mommy?!! O, thank you!” I don’t know that blogging about this is really letting you fully appreciate how sincerely excited and surprised he was, but I tried.  Oh, and then yesterday we were meeting some one in the parking lot of a gas station.  We were a few minutes early so we parked to wait.  We had parked next to a shaved ice stand.  Eli took one look at it and declared in a very excited voice “Hey, that signs says there are treats here!!!”  obviously he couldn’t read the words, but the pictures were all he needed to know what it was all about.  Sadly for him is was cold and rainy and the stand was closed, so we did not get any treats 😦

My brain is failing to recall all the funnies that I tried to mentally mark in my memory as blog material,what a minute……..one more is coming to mind as I type.  Last weekend I loaded up the kiddos and we headed to NWA to visit my brother and his family.  It was a quick trip, but fun and well worth it.  So my brother’s youngest child is between Lucy and Eli in age.  He is really having a hard time with sharing right now, which really what toddler isn’t?!, but he is in the “i see you playing with one of my toys and you need to know that it is mine, so let me relieve you of that toy and declare it mine even though I don’t want to play with it myself”  stage.  Again, what toddler isn’t in that stage.  So, there are a few tiffs throughout our visit.  As we were leaving their house Sat evening I was telling Eli to say bye and thank you, etc.. to each family member.  When he got to his youngest cousin I told him to say bye and thank him for sharing his toys and playing with us.  Eli starts with “Bye Drew.  See ya later.  Tha……..um, thanks for…….um” then he turns to me and says with a look of confusion “but Mommy, he didn’t share his toys”  He was dead serious.  I reminded him that we all struggle with sharing and it can be hard, but we did play with his toys so we should thank him.   Eli is all boy, full of energy, but he has a really sweet side that just melts my heart.