The Faith of a Child...

You will need to scroll to the bottom of the page and pause my playlist so that you can hear


Back by popular demand... At least from Aunt Denise, is the you tube video...

The first is of Emma reciting her memory verses. She actually knows more now. They memorize scripture all summer and ever Wed. night, the kids that know their verses get to make a trip to the pink dipper (ice cream shop). I've learned more consecutive scripture this summer than I ever have in my life..

The video of Chloe makes me cry every time I watch it. We love the "Praise Baby" CD. I want my kids to feel free to praise God with no reserve so that's what we do. We put it in and sing to the top of our lungs and throw our hands in the air and dance (uh huh, that's right we dance).. And we praise God... I have a theory.. My mom used to dance around the living room with us. Usually to Dolly Parton and Kenny Rogers, "Island In The Stream".. Maybe that's where my fascination with Kenny Rogers comes from.. Well occasionally, I will hear one of those songs and I'm flooded with sweet memories from my childhood. So what if I can help my children associate songs about God with sweet memories and happy times... Well, I'm gonna give it a try.






I think this is what Jesus meant when he said, "Let the little children come to me, and do not hinder them, for the kingdom of God belongs to such as these". in Luke 18.

Still on a quest...

To get a picture of Chloe that is frame worthy...

We are back from taking Anna and Rachel half way to WV. We had a wonderful time catching up with them and since we had some late nights with them, the girls are sweetly tucked in and I'm headed there soon.

Emma was busy catching up on time missed with "her teenagers" ( that's what she used to call them). So, I took that opportunity to try to get a picture of Chloe that will go on my wall. Haven't gotten the perfect one yet but here are some that capture her little personality.

Aunt Denise, I did get some video since you requested it.. And as soon as Adam gets them ready, I'll post them. Hopefully these will hold you over until..

Blessings,
Dana












The following may go down as my all time favorite... This is her "you're kidding me right" look that undoubtedly came straight from her daddy.





And, this is what my spunky little Emma was doing while I was taking these pictures....



And it's the hay for me.

Bloggers Block

Or maybe it's Bloggers rush..

When I was first pregnant with Chloe, I was so sick that I let the house get unorganized which if you know me, only made me more sick... Anyway, I got so overwhelmed that it took me a while to get back on top of the mess because I just couldn't figure out where to start... Well, that's how I feel about this blog.. so much to tell.. so little time to do it that I just keep putting it off... Plus, I've misplaced my largest memory card which has a few pictures on it that I wanted to post..

Chloe is moving.. FAST... She's climbing. She climbed the gate up the stairs the other day.. She somehow pushed it over to where it was kind of propped on the stairs and she got her little toes in the cracks and climbed... She was crying the whole time because it was hurting her little toes.. but she kept climbing.. Determination is good.. when your a mother... I'm tired..

Emma walks around behind me all day asking questions... what's that? How do you spell.....? What does Alzheimer mean? Do they forget how to talk? Well do they forget how to sit up? Well to they forget how to......? What does the president do? What laws does he make? What if I had been a boy instead of a girl? What do you think my kindergarten teacher's name will be? What if the sky was red? What if I were your mother and you were my daughter? What makes a horn honk? What number comes after 79? And I'm sure you think I'm exaggerating but I'm not. These are only a few of the ones I can remember for the last day or so. I've always made a point to try to answer her questions.. But now, I think she just wants to hear me admit that I don't know... I DON'T KNOW Emma, let's play the quiet game... All of you mothers with babies just waiting on the first word.. Be careful what you wish for. Once it starts.. IT NEVER STOPS.

Anyway, we're busy. It's a good busy. Not the oh my goodness I've got a deadline and everyone is counting on me busy. I'm not sure that anyone is expecting anything at all from me right now except for my girls. That's the first time for that since well, never. That's wonderful but some how scary to me... Adam's loving being a preacher (I've still got to come up with a better word for it than that. That just sounds icky). I guess we all knew that he would. I sit there during church holding my breath because I'm afraid that he's really stirring people up. And everyone kindly reminds me that that's what they hired him to do. I think he's doing what he was born to do.. Which I guess means I'm doing what I was born to do since I feel confident that God made us for each other but, I'm still trying to figure out what that means for me.

I have a blog post hanging in the draft folder that I started on July 2.. I've come back to it and written a little more a couple of times. I might get it finished before the summer ends. If not, Emma starts Kindergarten in the fall.

So anyway, if you get to wondering where I went, I'm chasing the sweet, sweet, baby girl in only a diaper because she HATES to wear clothes followed by the vivacious and inquisitive five year old who has changed clothes at least 10 times that day. And I'm trying desperately to pack in the last little bit that I can before she will spend more of her time with another woman than she will me. No, I'm not giving her up for adoption... I'm talking about her Kindergarten teacher... And there's a whole other post I need to write!

My bed is calling my name.. Actually, that's not true, it called it an hour ago. Now all I have to do is close the laptop and drift off to sleep. And that's why I haven't been writing in here... I've sacrificed a whole hour of sleep that I needed to store up energy for tomorrow.

Edit: So Anna and Rachel know just how excited we are to see them and that last line was an afterthought just before I drifted off to sleep. I was more referring the storing up energy for a long car ride with the girls and not that Rachel and Anna took a lot of energy...

Tomorrow, we will be going to get Rachel and Anna, two of the teens from WV that are going to stay with us for a week. WE ARE SO EXCITED TO SEE THEM. I plan on just enjoying the week with them so definitely don't expect anything for a while...



Blessings,
Dana

Ten Months Old!

I spent all last week trying desperately to get a picture of my little speeding bullet. I knew that with the way she's moving, trying to get a picture of her on the day that she actually turned 10 months old was a huge gamble. I did get a few pictures I liked better but since this one fully depicts what we're mostly seeing these days, I decided to go with it.


But here is a a little math equation of my own for my school teacher friend Susan.

A determined, moving baby
+
A determined mother with a camera
+
A trip to the park on a 100 + degree day
=
One steaming hot cup of frustration for both baby, mother, and the poor little five year old who "just wants to play".

And here are a few other pictures of Chloe from the past few days that I determined salvagable. Since they are the best I can do right now.

Emma's Five Years Old!

And more on that when I get an internet connection!

No Internet

Just in case any of you are wondering where I've disappeared to... We don't have internet at the house. So if you need me quick, give me a call or e-mail Adam.

Blessings,
Dana

Look at Her Go

I couldn't believe it! Chloe started crawling so early that she was pretty banged up there for a while. She must learn quickly because she has become the most cautious little thing I've ever seen. When most kids are learning to walk (at least the ones that I've seen), they pretty much try to get as many steps in before they fall but Chloe takes one step, steadies herself than goes again. Much different from her take life by a storm kind of sister. They are like night and day. I love their uniqueness. Hmm, don't you wonder what a third one would be like? Well you'll just have to keep wondering.;).



Emma has learned to hulla hoop and can hoola hoop like a mad woman. We have a movie of that too that we will try to get up. I wanted to get this one of Chloe up on the exact date.

Blessings

Birthday Party Invitation

Here is the invitation that I did for Emma's birthday. I had planned on doing a photo invitation but I was running out of time. These will just go out to her new friends at church. Hopefully I will be able to get five year old pics soon and be able to do a five year old photo announcement.

PS:
I changed the address. We don't actually live on candy land lane :)

Hilary is nuts

I have avoided talking about my choice of candidates for the 2008 presidential election mainly because my plan is to write in Harrison Ford. Since the biggest qualification for being a politician is being a skilled actor, I think he is the most qualified. He did a fantastic job playing that role in Air Force One and he's good looking too.

But I do have to make one little comment about current events. Either Hilary Clinton is brilliant and has a conspiracy to split the democrat party to get McCain elected so that she can have another chance in four years or she is completely and totally nuts.

Brilliant or nuts? What do you think?

Politics are twisted...

Finally!

Here are the pictures that I promised. I will try my best to never let them pile up like this again. I worked on this off and on for three days. It was taking the pictures forever to upload. So, it may take you three days to look at it. Here is a summary of our last days in WV and our first days in SC.


On the Saturday before our move, our friend Jessie came and got Emma to spend the afternoon with her. She gave her quite a royal day. They went to the salon to get her hair done, got a princess outfit complete with makeup and accessories, and got her nails done. Emma had a blast. Thank you Jessie you are awesome! We love and miss you!

My sweet little graduate. Okay, the sweet part is a lie if we're talking about when this picture was made but she looks sweet :). We're doing some attitude adjusting as my dad used to say and we're getting things back in line. Emma graduated preschool on May 23rd.
This is Emma reading the poem that we wrote. They had a family homework assignment to make a poster of the things that they loved about preschool. Normally I would have done something using pictures that we had taken throughout the year but we were a little short on time so this is the poem we wrote:

Preschool is great,
Preschool is fun,
Mrs. Maidens and Mrs. Morris
I love them a ton

I like to play
I like to run
When we play on the playground,
we all have some fun

Circle time, I love it
The stories are great
I'll be reading in no time
Going at this rate

Well I'm off to Kindergarten
I'll try with all my might
But I really am hoping
they don't have a red light


All of the children drew pictures of what they wanted to be when they grew up. This is Emma explaining her poster. She said that she wanted to be a mommy. This is a picture of her and her two kids. Mrs. Maidens asked her if they were girls or boys. Emma said that they were girls. Mrs. Maidens asked her what their names were going to be and Emma said that one would be Claire and the other, the daddy would get to name :). That made me smile and cry of courseHere is Emma getting her certificate. Emma's preschool was one of the best things about WV. I think we're going to have a hard time finding as quality of a program for Chloe. Emma is walking around sounding out all kinds of words. She met all of her pre-K goals such as tying shoes, knowing her address and phone number. She had to learn a new address and phone number. We're very proud of her.
So Emma graduated on Friday night and we moved on Saturday. I had my camera ready to snap a picture of the welcome to South Carolina sign and then my mom called and I missed it. This is the picture of the sign at the welcome center. It says, "South Carolina, smiling faces, beautiful places". So far, that proves to be true.
Here is our house. Julie, I know that you are patiently waiting for pictures of the inside but I'm waiting for it to look more like a home than a warehouse of boxes. I'm working on it! If you look in the bottom right corner, you'll see my Chloe girl.

Here is the picture of the sign at the church that Susan requested. So sweet!


I just had to post these next pictures. They are horrible but when I pulled them up, I laughed like crazy. I'm sorry Papa, I'll try again next time. Keith was with us through the whole thing. I had thought that I would get a picture of the three of them on the night of Emma's graduation but it was so crazy that night. We were loading the truck and everyone was yucky and then we had to quit and get ready for the graduation real quick. So it ended up that we took a picture the morning that Papa left after everyone was exhausted and you can tell it in the pictures.

I have to say it publicly that Papa is our hero. There are a lot of times that you say to someone, "thank you, we couldn't have done it without you" Seriously, we couldn't have done it with out you Papa! And really, the move went pretty smoothly considering all that there was going on. Thank you Thank you Thank you Papa!

This is how we helped stimulate the economy as if selling and buying a house wasn't enough...This is the first time that we've had room for a king size bed. We just bought the box springs and mattresses and a frame. I found this place downtown that has closeout mattresses and we got a great deal! Maybe we'll get a headboard and a comforter one day, maybe not. These pictures show what happens when you get a king size bed.





Chloe, Nine Months
I'll try to get back to my little layouts next month...
I was out in the back yard trying to get a picture of Chloe on the day that she turned nine months old and someone came to the door so this was the only one I got.


But these were taken on the next day. The church has an awesome playground. Don't let the smiles fool you, she really was sick and feeling miserable. She just loves posing for the camera. Good thing because her sister is totally going through a Chandler smiling phase.
And so does our neighborhood. The following pictures were taken at our neighborhood park yesterday.




My parents came this past weekend but I forgot to get pictures. That's okay because we're going to see them again this weekend. How crazy is that?

Update on grandma... She's home from the hospital and Aunt Alice is there with her right now.
My grandma went into the hospital with what they thought was a heart attack but turned out to be an anxiety attack from what I understand. Thank you all for the prayers for both of them.

Blessings,
Dana