Today is a day I could dwell on something I wasn't allowed to have.  It could be a sad day, but instead I'm choosing to be thankful; to be thankful for the girls God allowed me to have, to be thankful God allows me to stay home with them, to be thankful for the joy and peace God has given over the last two years, to just be thankful.

I looked in the mirror a little while ago and was surprised at what stared back at me:  A stereotypical stay-at-home mom.  This morning I got out of the shower and just let my hair air dry.  I later just stuck a head band in it to keep it out of my eyes.  I am wearing no make-up.  I am dressed, but not that nicely.  On my shirt is a collection of Dora stickers my 3-year-old blessed me with this morning and I forgot were there.  Under my fingernails is play-doh and my hands smell like the stuff. 

While I usually attempt to make myself look a little bit better than that even if we are staying home all day long, I wasn't upset at my appearance.  I was actually happy.  Happy that I can stay home and just "bum" around with my kids all day.  Happy that the only thing that "had" to get done today was taking care of my kids.  Happy that God allows me to wake up to their smiling faces every day.

I was trying to get all the clothes I had just washed and folded put away this morning when Lorelei crawled over, raised up her arms and said "ma-ma."  How could I resist that?  So, I put down the clothes, picked her up and just snuggled with her.  After all, that's what I'm here for right now, to be her mama.  And I'm thankful for that.

It's only Tuesday, but I feel like it should be much later in the week.  Things have been busy, as usual.  We didn't do anything terribly exciting this weekend.  It was a rainy Saturday, so we spent the day inside and did some shopping for a new printer.  Our old one does not work with the new laptop we bought a few months ago to replace our very slow seven year old computer.  Since I do the church bulletins from home, I must have a working printer.  In the mean time I am continuing to use the aforementioned very slow computer to print the bulletins from.  Oh well, it's not that big of a deal.  Anyway, the printer search is still ongoing.

On Sunday, we had a good day at church and I spent a little of the afternoon out on a story.  I stayed home from church Sunday evening with Lorelei.  She had a runny nose and was just acting like she felt miserable, so we kept her home just in case. 

Yesterday I taught the writing class at our homeschool co-op at church.  I had a good time with that, and I hope the kids did, too.  We worked on writing a letter, and I had them write to the children of missionaries our church supports.

This morning we spent running errands and I have just sent off my most recent article to my editor.  I am very happy that I am getting back into writing articles again, but it is just one more thing on my plate and I need to be very careful to manage my time wisely.  So, I will get around to all of your sites, I just might be  little slower at it than usual.

I'll leave you with a few pictures we took last Thursday evening when my husband decided we needed to carve some of our pumpkins:

Her face is hilarious, isn't it?  Despite how she looks, she really did like scooping all "gunk" out of the pumpkin.

Lorelei wanted to hold her pumpkin, but she couldn't keep her eyes off what was going on at the other end of the table.

Ainsley with her finished masterpiece.  

We've had special meetings this week at church, so needless to say, my kids (and I) are pooped.  The meetings are finished now, so this will be the first night in days the kids will be able to get in bed at a decent time.  Both of them woke up with runny/stuffy noses, so I thought today would be a good day to just rest at home.  Oh, and they both didn't wake up until 8:00 a.m.  That's a miracle in my house!

So today, we've spent playing with playdough and building with blocks... and cooking.  I love having the girls in the kitchen with me.  Ainsley loves to help and Lorelei loves to crawl around at our feet.  She got the Leap Frog Fridge Farm for her birthday.  It's great for keeping her entertained while I'm busy in the kitchen.

So for dinner... I put Creamy Chicken-Vegetable Chowder in the crockpot. 

You can find the recipe here.

And then Ainsley and I made a pumpkin cake that was supposed to look like this.

I gave Ainsley the job of frosting the ice cream cone stem.

Thankfully no one will be eating that.

This is how ours turned out.  You can find this recipe here.

And I think I will be making these to go with our chowder for dinner.

This recipe can be found here.

Now both girls are laying down.  I am going to clean up a very messy kitchen and try to get some work around the house done.  I am going to start picking up some freelance articles again after taking a year off doing that. I already have a few assignments lined up so I better get to work. 

 

We had an absolutely lovely time this weekend.  It was a rare Saturday when there was nothing planned, nowhere we had to be.  So we just started driving to see what we could come up with to do.  We went to a nearby Children's Museum to let the kids play.  Then we started driving and ended up at the beach.  It was a beautful day, but VERY windy on the shore.

Ainsley loved it, of course.  We were only getting our feet wet, but Ainsley managed to get soaked from the waist down. 

Lorelei wasn't sure what to think, but she did like playing in the sand and with this little ball we found left there.

Remember, I said it was windy.

We then continued on to some nearby outlets and bought a few things, but the girls were about done for the day by then, so we didn't stay long.

Oh, and the best thing about the weekend... Josh took me out on a date on Friday night and arranged for a babysitter all by himself.  It was a complete surprise.  He's never done that before, so it was quite nice.

That was our weekend, how was yours?

 

As many mothers do, I check on my children right before I go to bed.  I make sure they are all snug and cozy in their beds and I just love to see how perfectly angelic they look while they are sleeping.  There's nothing better than watching a child peacefully sleep.

Most of the time my children don't even notice I am there.  They may stir a bit, but they roll over and continue in their slumber.  I often stand or kneel next to them and pray over them, many times crying at the sheer greatness of my love for them and at how inadequate I feel to be their mother.  I pray that God will help me and bless them.

Last night Ainsley woke up as I was tucking her back in and whispering prayers for her.  The following is our late night conversation:

Ainsley: "Mommy?"
Me:  "Go back to sleep, sweetie."
Ainsley:  "What are you doing in here?"
Me:  "I'm just checking on you and Lorelei."
Ainsley: "Why?"
Me:  "Because I want to make sure you're warm and tucked in."
Ainsley: "Who were you talking to?"
Me:  "Jesus."
Ainsley: "Why?"  (Can you tell she's 3?)
Me: "Because I like to pray for you.  I pray that I will be a good mommy to you and that I can help you to listen and obey and love Jesus and be a good girl."
Ainsley:  "Does Jesus think I'm a good girl?"
Me:  "Jesus loves you very much.  He knows you can be a good girl, but you can't do it all by yourself.  You have to ask Him to help you.  I do too, I can't be good without Jesus' help either."
Ainsley:  Oooohhh...
Me:  "I love you, sweetie.  Go back to sleep."
Ainsley: "I love you too, Mommy." (This is a big deal, because usually she says she only loves Daddy.)

Then she snuggled in with her precious stuffed lamb, and closed her eyes.  In a moment she was breathing deeply, sleeping soundly once more. 

I've been tagged by Heather.

I'm supposed to write 7 interesting/weird things about myself.  I'm sure there are lots, but who thinks they're weird???  I asked my husband, but he was no help, maybe he thought he was getting himself in trouble.

So, here's what I came up with:

1.  My first real job was working at a pizza place.  I can slap pizza dough, throw it in the air and catch it.  (I know all of you are really jealous now.)
2.  I have very tiny feet.  I often buy shoes out of the little girl section. 
3.  I realized while thinking about this that many of you may not know that I am a PK.  Yes, a pastor's kid.  The horror!  My dad is a pastor in a Baptist church.  He's been in the ministry about 30 years.
4.  While working, I met several U.S. Senators, State Governors (I used to be on the Governor of South Carolina's Christmas card list), people who have run for President, Steve Irwin (aka the Crocodile Hunter), author Nicholas Sparks (who was extremely nice), and some famous TV newspeople.  (Please don't take this as bragging, I was just trying to come up with something.)
5.   I actually enjoy watching sports with my husband and can talk intelligently about them.  I used to think that's what I wanted to do with my journalism degree, be a sports broadcaster, but I changed my mind.  I did write for my college newspaper's sports section.
6.  I play the piano... not extremely well... but well enough to help out at church during congregational singing and the occasional offertory.
7.  I actually like to clean bathrooms.  I would choose cleaning a toilet over ironing a shirt any day.

''Here are the rules which you must abide by if you are tagged.1. Link to your
tagger and post these rules.2. Share 7 facts about yourself: some random, some
weird.3. Tag 7 people at the end of your post and list their names (linking to
them).4. Let them know they've been tagged by leaving a comment at their
blogs.''

So here's who I am tagging...

Alesha

Amanda

Laurie

Debbie

Elisha

Hannah

Beth

Go to it, ladies!

It's knuckle-down day in our house.  That means that my 3-year-old has been getting away with way too much lately, and we must nip my little terror in the bud.  Having family here meant that we weren't as consistent as we need to be with her, and now she is pushing every boundary.  Don't get me wrong, my parents are perfectly fine with the way we choose to discipline our children, but sometimes it's easy to let things slide when company is around.

Yesterday made it very clear that we needed a knuckle-down day.  A day when the ground rules are laid down and consistent discipline is meted out as soon as an infraction is made.  It doesn't sound like fun to anyone involved, but necessary none-the-less.  I started the day talking to her about the way the day was going to go and we prayed about obeying right away and both of us having right attitudes.  After a little trouble this morning, things have gotten a lot better, praise the Lord.  Both of my girls are now napping.  Hopefully the rest of the day will go well, too.

---

Now to something that is sure to make you smile:  Lorelei's one year pictures.

 

There was about a dozen more just as cute.  I had the hardest time choosing.  I still can't believe she's one!

We've had  busy week celebrating Lorelei's birthday and having my parents here.  We had a wonderful time.  Here's some pictures from the week:

Lorelei loved being sung to, but I had to hold her hand back so she wouldn't stick it in the flame.  A local grocery store gives away free birthday cakes for the first birthday, so we gave her that one to smash and I made another one for everyone else.

But she didn't really smash it.  She just kept sticking two fingers into it and then licking them off.

I finally cut off a smaller piece and gave it to her, then she started to get messy.

She got lots of nice presents.  She wasn't so sure about opening them.  She ripped off one piece of wrapping paper and pretty much played with that the rest of the time we opened them.  Of course, Ainsley was more than happy to help.

On Friday, we went to Boston for the day.  My parents had never been there.  Ainsley enjoyed riding the Subway more than anything else.  It was her first time on a real "train."

Mom and Ainsley in Boston Harbor.  We had such beautiful weather for October in New England. 

On Saturday we went to the pumpkin patch.  I think Lorelei liked her pumpkin, don't you?

 

Our collection of pumpkins on the front porch.  And yes, it was warm enough for my baby to be wearing a sleeveless outfit.  It was about 85 degrees.  It was crazy... sweating while picking pumpkins in Connecticut... just doesn't seem quite right.

Mom and Dad with the girls after church on Sunday.  I am so glad my parents get to visit as often as they do. 

Now I am trying to my girls back on schedule and get my house bck in order.  I will be visiting everyone's site as soon as I can.

 

  October 4, 2006

October 4, 2007

I can not believe you are one today.  You have been a great blessing and joy to our lives.  I love your big smile with your dimples set deep inside those chubby cheeks.  I have loved seeing your little personality develop and seeing that you are your own unique person, so different from your sister. 

While Ainsley will always be my first baby, you will always hold a special place in my heart because you are the baby God gave me "after."

My prayer for you is that you will come to know Jesus as your Savior, that you will learn to love Him with all your heart, and that you will follow His will for your life for that is how you will find true joy.

I love you, my sweet Lorelei Joy.

Happy Birthday!