Imagination

I love to watch child development first hand with Hannah each day. These days her imagination has absolutely come alive. She loves to "talk" for her horses Doof, Duflouchy, and Zizzy (and yes, her animal names are all quite creative). I love to watch her get lost in the world of her horses and dogs. Sometimes, it can be quite comical and a bit eye opening to hear how to she talks to her horses. It can sound earily similar to conversations I have had with her.

I have to admit my weakness with this stage though. While I love to watch her active imagination, I have to say that I really struggle with engaging with her in this. I can last for a few minutes of being Doof and carrying on some sort of conversation over the water trough with Zizzy, but it's sad to say that my imagination (or lack thereof) really struggles to keep this up. Is that because I don't use my imagination much anymore? Maybe. Am I just getting older? Possibly. Sometimes I really feel bad that I can't engage more in this, but that is just the honest truth of where I am now in parenting.

I have found it interesting to see how different stages of child development bring out different stages of parenting. Jason is actually much better at the imaginative stage. He can get right in it with Hannah and he seems to have much more patience and endurance for this. Isn't God so good to bring 2 people together who can compliment what even seems like such a small part of our lives as a family?!

Anyway, I got a short video of Hannah's beloved red blanket "talking" to me. Oh my sweet Hannah, you are truly delightful!

A great week

I am seriously behind in posting this, but here are some pictures from when Mimi and Pop visited us last week. They drove out during our spring break and spent a few days with us, which was great. We enjoyed the zoo, the children's museum, celebrating Mimi's birthday, playing games, and great fellowship. Jason and I even got a date night which was wonderful. Hannah was entirely to excited to have us leave her alone with Mimi and Pop and was asking us for days if we could go ahead and leave already...where is the love?!
Anyway, we had a great time with them and were sad to see them leave!
I got a BIG cupcake pan for Christmas and finally was able to make it for Mimi's birthday. It makes a massive cupcake which is really just a smallish cake. It sure was cute though!

Our sweet girl with the new glasses that Mimi and Pop brought her and her dog Kujo. I will give you 1 guess as to who named that dog for her...

This is what we saw the day we went to the Waco zoo. If you have ever visited us and gone to the zoo you know that we actually have a great little zoo. We hear and see this on most days when we visit the zoo. So, enoy our "friendly" little lion. I know we all did!

Why not?

I admit that one thing that I am not naturally good at is giving up some control to our almost 4 year old. What I mean is that I want to watch what she is doing and immediately fix/change/teach her how to do it "correctly." Thankfully, God is slowly teaching me to give up some of that control and let Hannah try things even if she fails at it the first time (or multiple times). Honestly, it is not easy. It would be faster and easier for me to simply do it myself, but I am learning that she LOVES to try and do most anything these days and I need to give her those opportunities. It is a slow process, but I take delight in seeing her succeed and seeing her enjoy the new learning opportunities.

Hannah has a wonderful Sunday School teacher who has taught for many years and writes curriculum for Lifeway. Her teacher is amazing at letting the kids do things that I didn't think kids would be doing at this age (hammering nails, using a screwdriver, cutting fruit with sharp knives, skewering fruit, all kinds of cooking, etc). She teaches them to try new things and feel confident in trying. It really is cool to watch. It is also a great example to me of all the things that she is capable of doing but that I am not allowing her to do.

So, I have been working lately at letting go of my control and trying to let her do new things. She is great at making coffee in our one cup coffee machine (she even adds my special creamer), she is a great help in cooking, she loves to dress herself (in interesting outfits!), she loves to sweep the floors (read: she pushes the dust everywhere!), and tonight she cut her Daddy's hair for the first time. And why not? Daddy needed his hair cut and it was a great opportunity for Hannah to try something new. As you can see in the video below, she took to it quickly!

Silly Daddy!

So, I am continuing to pray that God will allow me to be patient in giving Hannah these learning opportunities which she absolutely loves!

My little Punky Brewster

Hannah has developed her own sense of style lately...and it seems to have taken on a "Punky Brewster" theme. I love it!

California Fun

Hannah and I have been in California for a week now. We are helping Gramma who had surgery last week. Gramma is doing great and is recovering well.
I have taken a few pictures to keep up with the week. Our fun has included parks, a children's museum, baking, playing with cousins, playing with (read:torturing) the cat and dog, and enjoying Gramma and Grandpa.

There is a great new park about 1/2 mile from Gramma and Grandpa's house. We have gone no less than 3 times already. It is great! They have this HUGE climbing structure which we figured out quickly is actually a merry-go-round. This thing is awesome! It makes me wish I was a kid again.

Beginning Reading

Hannah has actually quite surprised me lately by her reading. I bought these great books called "BOB books" which are perfect for emergent readers. She loves them! It also helps that I have a BOB book app now on my iPhone which helps her sound out words too. Anyway, she and I worked on this book the other day and we surprised Jason when he got home by having her read it to him. Obviously, it is a super easy book, but she seems to be understanding more about reading each day.

A "Real" Snow day

We had a beautiful snow day on Friday of this week. I say it was "real" because earlier in the week school was called off for a snowless snow day. Yes, because we live in Waco and people have no idea how to drive in the snow, they called school off because there was a threat of snow. But, come Friday, we had about 3 inches of snow and a "real" snow day! Baylor cancelled classes so Jason got to enjoy the day with us too. It was beautiful outside and Hannah was so excited to play in the snow. In fact, she came down the stairs that morning and said "Mom, thanks for sending the snow for me to play in." I am touched that she thought I sent it just for her...sweet thing.

Molly enjoyed the snow too.

She's a dancing machine

Hannah is becomming quite the dancer these days. In fact, she was busting these moves in the library the other day with no less than 5 people watching her and smiling ear to ear. I have to admit that I love to watch her enjoy life so much that she spontaneously begins to dance, in the library of all places. I also love that she is quite unconcerned with what others think of her. No shame, self-doubt, or fear, just joy in life. Oh, how I wish that this 30 year old mom could live with such abandon of the things in this life that weigh us down so much. The joy that a 3 year has in such things is delightful to watch! Enjoy!

A weekend to remember

I had the joy of returning to Colorado this past weekend to stay with my brother and sister-in-law. One of my very best friends flew in and met me there and we all had a wonderful weekend together. I am so very blessed to have such incredible, Godly, and wonderful family and friends! This weekend was one of sharing our hearts, hearing God's promises for one another, and recounting God's faithfulness. Of course, it was also full of baking, 4-wheeling, Jillian Michaels workouts (AAH!), building legos with the kids, and girl time. I was so refreshed by the conversation, laughter, jokes, late night talks, and beautiful scenery.
We woke up to this..
Drove up the mountain to see this....

And were greeted by this at night...

The scenery was beautiful, but what I enjoyed the most was time with my family and an incredible friend! What a joy!

A funny side note...Jason was so sweet to suggest months ago that I do this without Hannah so the 2 of them stayed here for the weekend. Hannah was beyond excited for me to leave so she could have her Daddy all to herself (where is the love?!?!). On Friday, as they prepared to take me to the airport, Hannah said "Daddy, since Mama is leaving, you are going to do my chores this weekend!"

Floor reveal

Since I mentioned our floors, I thought I would put some before and after pictures on the blog. We love the new floors by the way, but the process of staining concrete is about 95% prep work and about 5% new work. It was certainly interesting to watch.
Here are all the floors after old flooring was ripped up.
Dining room:
Living room:

Master bedroom:

Kitchen:

This was after they cleaned and sanded the floors. Notice the plastic up the walls about 2 feet? They put that on there because part of their process was the run a scrubbing machine over the floor with water and a soy based cleaner. It was a mess to say the least!

Kitchen:

Dining room:

Living room:

Master Bedroom:

And finally, after 4 long days of work by 2 men, we have these beautiful stained concrete floors!

Dining room:

Master bedroom:

Living room:

Kitchen:

View from the front door:

We love the floors! However, if you come and stay with us in the winter, bring slippers! It is mighty cold if you walk on them barefoot. I am sure it will feel great in the Texas summers, but for now, we don't dare walk barefoot.

It's been awhile...

It certainly has been awhile. We have been quite displaced for the past 2 weeks. We had a broken hot water pipe which left us without hot water for over a week during Christmas. And 2 days after we got that fixed we had movers move us out of our downstairs so that we could have the floors completely redone. Now, we are finally back in our house after being away while they worked, but we are still without furniture downstairs. Monday will hopefully come quickly and we will be back to some normalcy around here.
It certainly does remind me though that some are without water permanently and without furniture. It is in these times of discomfort and annoyance that I am reminded to be so very thankful for the days of hot water that we do have!

In our desperation to keep a 3 and a half year old occupied amidst a bit of chaos around here, we sometimes had to resort to desperate measures. In this case...Daddy got his toenails painted blue. He still acts a bit shocked when he takes his socks off as they are still blue after being painted about a week ago! He sure is a good sport!

Merry Christmas from our family to yours

We enjoyed a delightful day here celebrating the birth of our Lord Jesus Christ. This is the first time in our 9.5 years of marriage that we have spent Christmas here in Waco as our little family. I didn't quite know how it would feel not being with grandparents and extended family, but it was actually really nice. We got up, read a Christmas book (How God Got The World Ready for Jesus) which I highly recommend, and then did stockings and gifts as a family. It was a true blessing. I am so thankful for days like this that remind me of the gift of Jesus.
Our "just woke up" picture this morning.

Hannah got her first bike this year and she officially loves it. We got out briefly in the 39 degree weather to ride it, and we plan to take it to Papaw and Granny's house tomorrow so she can ride it even more.

Merry Christmas from our family to yours. May you know the peace that comes with celebrating the birth of our Lord Jesus Christ!

The joy of family

We got back on Tuesday from a wonderful trip to Colorado. We chose to drive out there and we quite enjoyed our family time on the way there and back. We had 10 adults and 5 children meet us there and it was great! We had a wonderful time at my brother and sister-in-laws house playing, laughing, and enjoying God's beautiful creation in Colorado.
This is the view from the backyard looking over to Pikes Peak. Maybe next time we go out there we can venture over to the Peak.

We had (almost) enough snow to sled. Thankfully, the kids (and us adults) didn't know any different and we just gave a good hard push to get down the hill. It was a blast!
My brother pulled out his toys, which included an atv and a bow and arrow, and we all had a good time with them. I love that adults still can get giddy over the joy and fun of these things. I have to admit that riding an atv and successfully shooting an arrow into the target will never get old. Oh the joys of adulthood!

My brother and Jason decided to light up the fire pit and everyone quickly gravitated to it, especially the kids.

There is something so intriguing about watching fire. These 4 huddled together to watch the fire in awe.

All the kids got plenty of time with and love from their great-grandmother. It was a joy to have her join us in Colorado.

I am so thankful for family! God is so faithful in providing us times of joy and refreshment with those we love so much!

Motorcycle fun

Every year, a local motorcycle club comes thundering up to our church to pick up toys for our city's low income and homeless kids. While picking up the toys all of our kids get to sit on the motorcycles and meet all the leather clad drivers...it's pretty cool! This year, Hannah was more interested in sitting on one than last year.

While I love this sweet boy that is on the front of this motorcycle, I have to say that seeing my Hannah flirting from the back of the motorcycle driven by a boy who looks all too comfortable at the wheel makes me just a bit nervous. Let's just say that I should not see this scene for at least another 25 years!!! Moving right along...

Thanksgiving recap

I am a bit behind on putting my pictures up from Thanksgiving, but we had a great time with family. Hannah and I had a roadtrip to Alabama with a fun stop at a hotel on the way. Hannah was super excited to stay at a hotel and just curled right up in her own bed when we got there. We ended up having a picnic on the bed for dinner and enjoyed a girls night out!
Hannah was super excited to get to Mimi and Pop's house and she got to have breakfast out one day with Pop which is something she always looks forward to.

I got to go to Atlanta and spend the night at one of my favorite nephew's house. This was the joyful face I got to play with!

Once all the cousins were together, they had a blast (minus the poor scratch on Bryce's face which was given to him by my sweet child...AHEM!). I can't believe how much these kids have grown up lately. It was really sweet to see how much they loved playing with each other. But, I have to admit that 5 kids under the age of 3.5 is a bit chaotic at times!

All the parents. We got a special night out one night with babysitting from Mimi and Pop. It was really great. I love the laughs that we can all share together.

We took the kids to Chick-fil-a one day and Bryce and Hannah loved seeing the cow.

Aunt Laura and sweet baby Whit.

Sweet Dawson. This little one steals my heart everytime I am around him! Besides the fact that he looks a LOT like my Jason.

Uncle Jason and sweet Kate.

We had a wonderful Thanksgiving and I truly am thankful for this sweet family that I have been blessed to be apart of!