Leave The Truth Alone

Adrienne is something else. I can't really put into words how she is so similar to Jillian, yet so different at the same time. Her little nuances and ways are uniquely hers, and it just marvels me to think about all the qualities that God knit together to make Adrienne herself. Currently, she has two things she says in the heat of a battle or when she's angry that make me laugh. I had to write them down before I forget...

-"Just leave me alone" This can be said through gritted teeth and jutted-jaw, or it can be casually said in an off-handed way with a frown and a head tilt. It's hard to know which version you'll get.

And my favorite. Oh man, it's my favorite. If I could get it on video, I'd watch it 750 times day....

-You have to imagine that she is crying and red-faced and pouting at the same time, when she shouts in exasperation, "Mom, I'm asking you the truth!"Well actually, it's "troof", which makes it even cuter. She's not telling me the truth or asking me for something, she's ASKING ME THE TRUTH!  I know this is her version of hearing Jillian exclaim that she is telling me the truth when I question something, but she has turned it into a way to try and get what she wants. If she wants a treat and I tell her no, she uses this. If she wants to wear her beloved Christmas dress to Target and I tell her no, she uses this. If she wants to watch a show and I tell her no, she uses this. It's going to go down in history as one of my favorite expressions of hers ever.

First time pushing a cart in Hy-Vee. She thanked me every time I put something in the cart. Can you see the tutu over her clothes? We never leave home without one. In fact, I am looking to order a gaggle of washable tutus in various colors so that she will actually wear the clothes in her closet (under one the tutus of course)

And the pigtails. The pigtails get me. I admit I often intentionally give her pigtails to soften my heart towards her in the day when she is being a ridiculous stinker. It actually works. 

Buddies

The girls are truly buddies these days, and are pretty inseparable. Most of the time, Adrienne plays whatever Jillian decides they should play and things go well. Sometimes Jillian would prefer to do a craft or color and then you can hear Adrienne pleading with her, "Jillian, PLEASE play with ME!" Pretend play schemes are the most visited, and Jillian's imagination runs wild as she creates lands for them to visit, makes up names, and often even tells A what to say (I'm always shocked when A obliges that. She can be pretty stubborn). These are precious bond-building times for their relationship and my heart gushes when I watch them play (except for those hair pulling and slapping moments). They are such a gift to each other, and my prayer is that they nurture their relationship and carry that bond with them wherever they go for the rest of their lives.

Little twinkies at the airport (before we decided not to go)

Playing "slumber party". J is giving me a dirty look because I told her I'm not quite ready for them to have a REAL slumber party.

Playing school. I hope J never decides to wear this get up (see those green undies?) for real.

Trying on flower girl dresses for our babysitter's June wedding

This is what happens when you let your fashion forward risk taking older sister dress you for church. Heaven help me. I was going to let it go, but Matt refused to allow them out of the house like this. I have seen much worse. He has no clue what I let go during the week!

This one kills me. They were headed to "winter land". J has A's socks on her hands as mittens, and the bandanna was functioning as a head wrap. Slight oversight at the midriff sweater, and who needs a skirt when you have tights this cool?  Love A's intentionally all-purple outfit and that big grin.

Reading and Registration

January 29th was a big day. Jillian would tell you that she turned 5 1/4 that day (she did), but I will tell you that I registered her for kindergarten on this date, AND she officially read her first book cover to cover.

OK, so kindergarten. Well, I have waited for it a long time. Doesn't that sound terrible? It's just that Jillian is a kid who likes to be busy and needs a lot of stimulation and structure. It's been hard to piece together preschool experiences to fill her up. All day kindergarten has sounded like heaven to both of us...until today. I stood in line at the records and registration office and glanced down at the papers I held in my hand. On top was her birth certificate, detailing that important information on that important date that seems like just yesterday. And now here we are going to big kid school. Real world big kid school. I felt a little lump in my throat and suddenly panicked that I don't want to let her go into that big kid school and world. Gulp. So now I get it. I get why moms dread kindergarten and whine about their babies going off to school. And I get that this is only the first of many times I will get that lump in my throat as I hesitate at letting her go off into the world for new experiences. I have a new resolve to really make the most of these next months with us all home together most of the time, before life swoops in and takes my big-kid baby to school.

And now, the reading! I bought Jillian a set of BOB sight word books for her birthday, and of course in effort to keep them nice I had them in a cabinet away from the kids since then. That's not a very effective strategy for teaching your kid to read, let me tell ya. Jillian and I were set to have a rare out of the house "date" at the dealership as we waited for some car service after school (A was home with my mom), so I decided to take the opportunity to grab the first three BOB books and bring them along, knowing that J would be delighted to have my undivided attention on this matter. We sat there 30 minutes, and by that time she had officially read all three books twice. I was so proud of her, but more importantly, she was so proud of herself. Grinning ear to ear, and making everyone else in the waiting room smile with her exclamations, "I did it, Mom! I read a book! I'm your little reader!" I of course videoed all of it to send to Matt (who was still in KC at that time), and she was just bursting at the seams as she read. They will be cherished videos for sure. And now for some mom guilt. Imagine what she could do if I took more time for this. She has been waiting for me for a long time to get those books out and sit with her, and I can't help but feel like I've held her up as she longed for this new skill. End of mom guilt rant. So proud of you, Jillian! I hope this is the beginning of a wonderful relationship between you and the world of books that await your little eyes!

The first book. Jillian will tell you it's her favorite book EVER.

Proud of herself

Keeping It Light

I have felt quiet (in the blogging sense) these last few weeks, and I think it's because it's difficult to just record small daily events when you are in the middle of unexpected family circumstances. One moment I was so stressed out about the "burden" of preparing to travel to Hawaii with two small children, and the next I was quickly reminded that life is so much bigger than the things that personally trip me up. Flights were canceled, a different one booked for Matt alone within minutes, and suitcases were unpacked of swimsuits then repacked with winter clothes once I was home with the girls and could formulate a plan. We are so grateful for progress and improvements and resources, and are thankful for supportive colleagues, friends, and family that made it easy for Matt to be away for two weeks, and for me to be with him sans girls for one of them. And yet, I am sobered by the reality that this is only the beginning for us. Our parents are getting older, and they will get sick. They will have surgeries, and illnesses, and medical bumps in the road. And we will adjust. We will do everything we can to support whichever parent needs us at the time, and show our children what really matters--even if it means a few bedtime tears and misunderstandings about why things are "not the same". We will say more prayers, accept kindnesses from friends, and grow our faith. And still--we will keep it light. We will dress in our best and host a royal ball in the living room when the creative whim strikes. By the fire. (Well, probably too close to the fire). These 'princesses' fill me with delight....they are the best at keeping things light (and for the record, probably have watched one too many fairytales recently. Just watch what happens at the end of the dance!)

Birthday Boy

Happy Birthday to our favorite guy, who turned 36 today! You can bet the girls were excited for him to get home so we could celebrate him. As soon as Jillian got home from school, she and Adrienne changed into their Christmas dresses so we could have a proper party. We were happy that Daddy could get home earlier than usual today, and we enjoyed the evening of opening gifts, eating his requested meal (chicken fajitas), and feasting on yellow cake with chocolate frosting (both new scratch recipes for me, and I will definitely be sharing on the food blog--the frosting was a-mazing).  Jillian asked to say a special prayer before we ate, and she so sweetly thanked God for her dad. I wish I could remember what she said exactly, but alas, I do not.  She made sure I understood the meaning of birthdays earlier this morning when she told me that "birthdays are about telling someone you love and care about them; it's not just about the cake and presents". Hmmm...wonder if she'll remember that wisdom come October 29th? Happy Birthday, Matt! May this be a year full of blessings for the king of our hearts.

"Here Dad, open this card I made ya"

"And here, Dad, let me help you with this present I bought for you"

"And let me help you open the gift Adrienne picked out for you"

Every Minnesota man needs some proper snow gloves. 8 years later, it's about time.

Counting candles. He was lucky I only had one-third his age...

Jillian's lips crack me up

Love the happy clappers

Hooray for birthdays!

Music Class

I got an e mail last month from Jillian's former music teacher that she was resuming Growing With Music classes again. Jillian loved these classes, as you may remember, so I was excited to sign Adrienne up for her very first little structured class. Poor second child....everything starts later for her. She was really excited for the first class, and insisted on wearing a "dwess" and "wuby swippers". She was looking quite lovely when we left the house! She was as I expected in class--kind of tongue-in-cheek, diving into my lap, but participating when asked. She piped right up during attendance with her password for the day--"wuby swippers"! She selected the triangle as her instrument of the day, and was excited for her stamps at the end of the class. It was fun for me to see that her classmates were siblings of some of Jillian's previous music classmates--a couple years ago we were all sitting out holding these babies who are now big enough to be in class. Fun memories for all.

Ready to twirl!

Love this little stinker

Polar Vortex

On Monday we experienced the coldest temperatures that Minnesota has had for 20 years. Lucky us! The governor of Minnesota canceled all schools for Monday on the previous Friday. Crazy! I normally don't get too fired up about weather events, but I feel a bit more vulnerable in this house. We are on a well, which means if the power goes, the water goes. So, I have a little ritual of filling our large bathtub (so we can use water to flush toilets if needed) and boiling a couple large pots of water on the stove to keep hot for hand washing, etc, in case the power goes out. On Sunday things started to get really cold, and I got a text from Jenni reminding us to drip our faucets as they were already dealing with a partially frozen pipe in their guest bathroom. We dripped all faucets over night, turned the heat down a tad so as not to run the furnace down, piled extra blankets on everyone's beds, and tucked ourselves in. Monday morning we woke to what looked like a fine scene. Water was running fine, power still on, etc. The windchill was -54 (actual temp -23) when Matt headed to work.  I decided I was thankful for the forced day at home to do all the laundry, and dig out summer clothes to wash for the upcoming Hawaii trip. All was well, until I started that first load and only heard buzzing when I started the washer...no water was running into the machine. Wanna make me panic? Tell me my washer doesn't work. I do insane amounts of laundry. So, I paged Matt right away, texted Jenni, and called a plumber (who was very kind to talk me off the ledge and gave me some tips). Long story short--faucets went from dripping to running on hot, space heaters went in the laundry room and in the prestress area below the laundry room, pacing ensued to watch for water damage/leaks, and I trekked out to the extra detached garage to find some lights to put behind the washer (according to the plumber this was a great way to slowly heat up the wall behind the washer). I prayed a lot. I gave the kids a lot of TV. I ate a lot of cookies. Drank a lot of coffee. I tried the washer about every 30 minutes. At about 3 p.m. I decided I would get my hair dryer and just stand in there for awhile (would have tried this earlier, but the plumber told me I'd be wasting my precious time). After about 10 minutes I started the washer again....and....success!! Yipee!! I ran around the house watching for water leakage as an empty cycle ran through, and was relieved to see that all appeared well. Yee-haw!! I felt like a real pioneer woman. Matt brought home a much larger infrared space heater that night and we left it running in the basement storage (which is unheated and where we assume the pipes run through to get to the main room). This made me nervous, so I set my alarm for every 2 hours to go down and check to make sure all was well. What a night. I was so relieved when I noticed the temperature outdoors hit 1 degree--how quickly my perspective of temperature had changed after this experience. Minnesota sounds awesome, doesn't it?? Yes, Maui will feel pretty nice.

A couple pics of my setup I sent to Matt during the day

Trying to warm up walls around the washer

The magic blue hair dryer is on the left--yay me!