Swimsuit update :)

I found a swimsuit. It is not necessarily my favorite suit, but by all means it looks the most decent on me. It covers me and I don't feel like an old lady. Next year I will go out looking at the beginning of the season and find one that I really like and fits and hopefully I will be a slight more in shape thus more confident. Have a great weekend.

The dreaded shopping trip

I want to take a moment to complain about what I am going to do this afternoon: ........
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Swimsuit shop! : ( UGH!

I don't know why, but this seems to be my least favorite thing to shop for. I can never find a suit that fits to my liking. It also doesn't help to shop this far into the season since the suits and sizes have already been picked thru giving me even less choices. I will put a smile on my face though and hope to squeeze into one that makes me look a little smaller than I feel. :)

Dolls and Girls

I took the girls to Wal-Mart yesterday morning to get a few groceries and present for a bday party. I let the girls bring a doll in the car, but because I don't want to watch two kids and dolls in the store I told them that they had to leave them in the car especially Gracie's doll which cries, laughs, and kicks loudly. However, when I got to Gracie's side of the car she had a very sad face said, "I can't leave in car, she'll cry for me" and then hugged her baby tightly. I had to smile and decided to be a softy and let her bring in the doll.

Pictures - Not for the faint at heart : )

I thought I would post a picture of Lillie's stitches today since she was not up yet when I posted yesterday for me to get a picture. She is still sore, but over all feeling better. Even more positive, she wants to go back to GEMS (her class at church) next Wednesday.

Gracie kept saying, "My Turn, My Turn" during Lillie's photo shoot, so I will post one of her cheesing it up.

Stitches

Last night we were at church for just a matter of minutes before our night got busy. Alex dropped Lillie off in the gym for her class and as he was leaving he turned around to see her lying on the floor crying. She had been spinning holding hands with her friend Holly and then she slipped. He brought her to me and then our music pastor (also a nurse) looked at it and said we do need to go to the hospital where they will at least clean it. She was pretty tough thus far and really hadn't cried much, nor was there much blood.

At the hospital the nurse practitioner looked it over and said she was going to need a few stitches. I helped hold her during the numbing and during the stitches. But the nurses didn't numb her enough and she felt the first stitch and just sobbed. They had to give her more numbing medicine, but because of the initial stitch it was next to impossible to keep her still for anymore. It took a nurse wrapping her in a sheet and laying over her, me holding her and poor Alex holding her head to get the remaining two stitches in. She kept crying, "I want to go home, I want to go home, I am alright" the whole time. By the time it was all finished Alex was pale (the poor guy had to hold her head and see her eyes the whole time), the nurse practitioner was almost in tears and Lillie was a wreck. She did tell us on the way home that putting the band aid on it wasn't bad and didn't hurt. : ) Everyone at the hospital was great though and I could tell that it was not just breaking mom and dad's heart, but also the ladies' hearts that were working on her. She does get the stitches out in 7 days, so please keep us in prayer as I don't think it will necessarily hurt, but she had so much trauma getting them that I worry about how she will handle getting them out.

To make things even harder, my parents came by and got Gracie from hospital and Alex said she sobbed the whole time getting put in the car and driving away. My mom said she cried the whole way to our house for Daddy and would keep looking for him. Lillie does seem fine this morning also she is a bit sore.

Ironically Alex had to have 5 stitches in his chin at this ago too.

"Unemployed"

We are planning on building on an addition and I had to speak to a loan officer at a local bank. I got a little perturbed because she referred to me as "unemployed" during our conversation. Now I do realize I don't have a 9-5 job like she does, but I am not unemployed. At one point she asked how long I have been unemployed, I quickly answered, "I have been a stay-at-home-mom for four years." I don't know why it bothered me so much, but it did. She made it sound like I had no choice, but to quit my job and that couldn't be farthest from the truth. Staying at home to raise my babies is a blessing that God has enabled our family to do! Well, enough of my ranting (as I could go on and on) and on to the fun side of being home with my babies.

Since I stay at home, the girls and I went to the store on Monday and didn't buy much of anything, but enjoyed just getting out and looking around. Tuesday we made funnel cakes - yummy. I haven't made funnel cakes since elementary school and thought that they would be fun to make with my girls. Lillie absolutely loves them as Gracie does too! For those interested here the recipe I used:

1 1/4 cup flour
2 Tbsp sugar
1 tsp baking soda
3/4 tsp baking powder
1 tsp salt
1 egg
3/4 - 1 cup of milk

Sift dry ingredients together. Mix milk and egg and then add to dry ingredients and stir until smooth. Heat oil to 375 degrees. While plugging the end of the funnel with one finger, pour 1/4 cup of batter into funnel. Let batter pour into hot oil (moving funnel around in circles). Cook 2 minutes on each side, remove drain and then choose topping of your liking. I used powdered sugar and a cinn/sugar mix and mine.

Enjoy the funnel cakes!

Big Brother and Big Girl

Yesterday while the girls were playing house, I heard Lillie tell Gracie that "we need a big brother like Jaelyn has" and Gracie answered, "Yep." Then they went on playing. One of my favorite things to do is just listen to my girl's conversations. The things the talk about crack me up especially when Lillie gets in her teacher mode.

Sunday night I realized that we only had a couple of pull-ups and since I really didn't want to run into town until Monday morning, I put Gracie in panties. We have been really working on potty training and she does pretty good most of the time. I explained that big girls wear panties and use the potty. This went fine (I had a timer set) at first and she stayed dry for the first couple of timer beeps, but with about ten minutes left on the third timer she came out of Lillie's room with an aroma that was not too pleasant. :) After she was cleaned-up, I said, big girls don't poopy in their panties, they use the potty. Don't you want to be a big girl? She answered with stern, "Nope." Then went about her business, playing this time.

I love my girls.

Playing Church

Last night while eating dinner Lillie asked when we were leaving for church. I told her that we didn't have church last night and this was to be family time. She immediately teared up and said she wanted to go to church and do praise and worship. She then asked if we could put church on the computer (we have services available to watch from our church website, www.crosst.org) and play church. She said that Daddy could be Pastor Taylor and preach. It is such a blessing to have little ones who love to go to church. So, we put on a campmeeting service and had a little service of our own and Lillie danced her little heart out in praise and worship.

Ladies don't work

Last night I had planned on making pork chops on the grill, however I took out chicken legs. You are probably think what kind of goof can mix up chicken legs and pork chops, right? I usually buy a large package and then re-wrap them in smaller portions with a ton of plastic wrap and then a zip-loc bag and afterwards if I don't label them, they can be deceiving. I would have just made the chicken legs, but only had picked a pack with 3 legs, not enough for my family.

So I took the girls into town to pick up dinner while Alex worked on some homework. On the way we drove by several buildings including Alex's work. The girls will ask who works in each building. We drove by where Lillie's friend Holly's dad works. Gracie asked where Holly works and I answered that she was a little girl and little girls don't work. Lillie proceeded to explain to Gracie that even when Holly turns into a lady she won't work because ladies don't work. I had to laugh because I realize that I am a sahm as is most of the moms of Lillie's friends and thus she had concluded that once you become grown up, ladies don't work. If she only realized how much more we work. :)

Lillie has been explaining a lot to Gracie this week. They were watching Finding Nemo and I heard Lillie explaining that Nemo's mom died because a shark ate her and she was digested and that means died. There are many more teachings by Lillie, but I will wait for another time to share.

Have a great weekend.

update

It has been pretty quiet around here lately. Alex was off for 6 days last week and spent a lot of time playing with the girls. They spent most of Tuesday outside washing the car and playing on the slip-n-slide. Lillie got a new haircut Wednesday. She got most of her length cut off and now her hair is around shoulder length. It is really cute, but she is looking less and less a little girl and more and more like a young lady. :( I will have to post some pictures (I actually need to take some pictures-I know, bad mom)

Gracie, Gracie, Gracie! I haven't posted much about her bedtime because over a month later and it is not much better. I don't want to complain about it, but arrrggghhh! I have stuck with the same routine. Last week for about 5 days in a row it worked perfectly, but then the ugly I don't want to do this face appeared! I am going to stick to my guns and hopefully soon and very soon I will get her to go to sleep!

Well, I won't make you suffer listening to my ranting over bedtime anymore (at least today). Have a great day.

Zoo

We went to the Indy zoo Friday with my parents, sister and her family, two of my brothers and family. It was a lot of fun. Lillie has been talking about this trip since I mentioned it to her a week ago. She had told me the day before that her favorite friend was Andrew (my sisters little boy) and she couldn't wait to go to the zoo with him. She stuck pretty close to him at the exhibits and sat by him at the dolphin show. Her favorite part of the zoo was the water misting pole by the forest and the dolphin show. I don't have a lot of pictures because that is usually Alex's job when we go somewhere.

Here she is getting to touch a star fish, which she said was prickly.

Here are pictures of Lillie and Andrew sharing peanut butter crackers at the dolphin show. Lillie was pretty impressed that he could eat a whole peanut butter cracker in one bite. : )

I loved listening to my nephew talk to the zoo keepers. He is very bright and knew quite a bit about the animals. : )

Gracie also enjoyed the trip, although all the way up there she kept asking where Daddy was (he had to work). She rode most of time in the stroller, where she was kicking it. Her favorite animal was the tiger, which stuck his tongue out at her.

Here she is watching the penguins swim with Uncle "W".

After the zoo, my parents and I went to eat and then to Chuck E Cheese's while the rest went to the Children's museum after eating. We were pretty exhausted on the way home and I took this video of Gracie falling to sleep literally just minutes after leaving Chuck E Cheese's. It is pretty cute, but while I was finding the camera she kept missing her mouth with her sucker because of how sleepy she was. It is a bit shakey at times due to the road - sorry.

Hope you have a safe and good Fourth of July.

Flowers and Quilts

Yesterday the girls and I went to Wal-Mart and purchased a bunch of flowers for $1 and $.50 and planted them. It was sprinkling most of the time Lillie and I were out there, but it felt pretty good. I am not much of a gardener, but have enjoyed looking at a little bit of color in my yard.

I have also finished the quilt I have been working on for the past several months. I had purchased the blocks on ebay earlier in the year, and had pieced them together, but had to stop mid-way thru for a couple of other projects. I finished the quilting on Monday and finished the binding on Tuesday. It is a bit smaller than I had planned, but I didn't win all the blocks from ebay that I wanted. It is a throw sized quilt. The whole time I was quilting on it, Lillie would ask if this is one we were giving away or keeping? We decided to keep this one for her since she liked it so much.

Tomorrow we head to the zoo for some family time with my sister and brothers and their families. Have a good day and a happy fourth of July.

Slip-N-Slide Fun

Alex picked up a slip-n-slide Monday and the girls could hardly wait to get it out. Since we didn't get it early enough on Monday, I told the girls we could take it out on Tuesday. Although it was not quite as warm as I would have liked it, we went out and played in the water. Here are several pictures of the fun. Lillie would run half way up and then slide on her knees. She is going to have sore knees after several days of that! Gracie didn't actually slide, but would run and then slip at the end pool. I, too, took the plunge and did it a few times, but won't make you suffer with the video that Alex took of me. :)

Lillie running

Lillie sliding

Gracie running

Gracie slipping

Both the girls playing

Gracie ended her fun, with a nice present! :) She was telling me she just had gas, which is what she says when she wants to play and not get changed.

Gracie wearing the zebra binoculars that Gma made at VBS. She insists on wearing them upside down.

Lillie wearing the elephant binoculars she made at VBS.