Natalie

This last week was a very hard one for our family. My grandma passed in her sleep on August 24 and so we made the trek down to Ocala on Sunday morning to be with the family and celebrate her wonderful life. I was asked if I could speak at the memorial but felt like I'd never be able to make it through, so I bowed out. But I want to write what I would have said so that those of you that didn't get the chance to know her can get a sense of what a wonderful woman she was, and so that those of you who did know her can understand what she meant to me. I also want a record of this for my own kids and their kids.

My grandma was born in the 1930's. She was a child of the depression and could tell the most amazing stories about living through this hard time period in our history. When I asked if I could have the Molly doll as my first American Girl Doll I remember the look of excitement in grandma's face as she began to share countless stories of how she and the character had very similar childhood experiences. I remember reading through the book series with grandma and talking to her about her own stories. I remember being completely fascinated that her life reflected my favorite book character's life. It seemed like everything was a teachable moment to her and I learned some very valuable lessons from her.

My grandma and I shared the same love for learning and teaching. When I graduated from college and started my first day as a teacher, I remember thinking, I have this job because I never want to stop learning and I want the kids I teach to feel the same way. I think that this is how grandma felt. You could see her love for learning in the way she fully immersed herself in everything she took an interest to. After learning everything she could about a topic, she'd then impart her knowledge on anyone who was willing to listen...or anyone who had ears, really. :)

When I think about grandma the one song that always come's to mind is "Make A Joyful Noise," particularly the verse that resonates, "I will not be silent, I will not be quiet anymore." Because she wasn't silent. She was loud, and wonderful, and full of life and let everyone know it. She had a deep faith in our Creator and she wasn't silent about it. She spoke the truth and she wanted everyone to hear and know and experience who He is. She wasn't afraid and she didn't care what people thought, she just wanted to spread the joy of the good news. What a reception she must have had when she entered the gates of Heaven.

She will be sorely missed. She was loved by many and we feel the sting of loss her on Earth. It's made so much better, though, knowing where she is. Knowing that she isn't in pain anymore and that she'll never be in pain again. She's been called home and what a glorious celebration it will be when we reunite with her one day in Heaven.

Here is the family before the memorial service:

Carolyn, Logan and "Uncle Bill" (Carolyn actually has a picture with Bill from when she was just about Logan's age)

With Aunt Carolyn after the service:

The church was full of people who knew her and cared so much for her and for our family. It was such a blessing. It was particularly a blessing to see so many people who were able to travel. My cousin Peter flew in from NY, my mom's cousin Bill flew in from France, there was family there from Nebraska and California. She was so loved by so many!

Bill and Carolyn:

We loved to see Great Grandpa with Brody, it's such a blessing that my kids have gotten to spend time with their great-grandparents. What a joy it will be to show these pictures to them when they're older!

Just wish Logan was smiling in this next one and it'd be perfect:

I loved getting to spend time with my sister, I miss being around her all the time after having spent so much time together in the summer.

Sweet smiles:

So thankful that we got to go and spend time with the family. Grandma will be missed, but her legacy will live on and her great grandchildren will know what an amazing woman she was.

All About The Girl

A few weeks ago, we remembered that the mall closest to us has a nice little splash pad that's free. We've spent a LOT of time there the last couple of weeks. Logan wakes up asking if that's where we're headed for the day.

Lucky for her, there's also a chick-fil-a in the mall and the food court is a mere 5 steps from the splash pad. We've eaten there a few times in the last couple of weeks, too.

Logan's hair is finally long and even enough to put into braids! It's so nice when she lets me do it because it gets it ALL out of her face and she hasn't figured out an easy way to pull them out yet.

She calls it her big girl hair and has actually asked for it several times.

A few things about Logan that I want to document and remember (along with some funnies)...

Logan knows what stores offer what freebies for kids. Target gives cookies, Harris Teeter gives balloons, the fabric store cuts scraps of fabric off for her, etc. She decides in the morning what freebie she'd like to receive for the day and begins campaigning to go to that store from the minute she wakes up.

When Logan get's into the car, she loudly exclaims, "WOAH! It's a little toasty (pronounced totey) in here today."

Logan's new favorite phrase is, "can you do me a favor?"

Logan requests to wear outfits like the one above frequently. She reminds me a lot of one of her favorite book characters, Fancy Nancy. Always wants the fancy stuff on so she can twirl and "peetend." She's quite fond of pretending now. We find her "talking" on her phone a lot, pretending she's taking her babies to target on her little push toy, or turning any flat object into a checkout counter.

Speaking of talking on the phone....a few days ago we were all hanging out, Mike was on the phone so Logan decided she needed to talk on her phone too. As she was pretending, I noticed Brody needed something so I asked if she'd run and grab it for me. She put her hand over the "speaker" of her phone and said, "please hang on, mom, I'm on the phone." Has she turned 16 yet?

When we're eating something that Logan really likes (like french fries), Logan will exclaim, "don't eat it all, guys! I want to share it with you!" Meaning, she wants to steal your fries when she's done with her own. IF she's even done with her own, as last week she weaseled her way into getting half of my fries before I realized that she wasn't even done with HER OWN yet!

Logan calls Miami "yourami," she thinks when I say it I mean my-ami.

She loves her daddy SO much and has such a special bond with him. If he has to close the store at night she'll get a really sad lip and ask if she's ever going to see her daddy again...don't worry, she's got this down to an art and I don't think it affects her the way she acts it does. She's a bit dramatic. Anyway, to pass the time she'll make things for him to come home to. Last night she made him a big bowl of soup from her kitchen and was not pleased with me when I made him cookies to come home to, as well. She said, quite emphatically, "Mommy, I made him soup so he won't be hungry, he doesn't need your cookies too. Can I have one?"

While I was cutting up a tomato and cucumber for lunch one day, Logan's eyes got wide and she said, "MOM! Don't eat Bob and Larry!" For those of you that don't know, Bob and Larry are the tomato and cucumber characters in veggie tales. She's since gotten over this and only says it to be funny, now.

Here she is in her "ballerina fairy" outfit. She walks around with the wand and screams, "rainbows! rainbows! I'm making rainbows!"

Matchy Matchy

I love finding cute little coordinating outfits for the kids. I don't make it a point to seek out matching clothing, but when I find something cheap or free that matches something that one of the kids already has, I snatch it up! So fun to take the kiddos to church wearing little outfits that coordinate just perfectly. I'm sure one day I'll get annoyed remarks from them as I pull the pictures out to show prom dates; but for now, I'll enjoy that they have to wear whatever I put them in.

I tried to get a couple of just Logan so I could really show the two outfits, but she wasn't entirely cooperative. She did want to give some sweet love to her brother, though.

Today, Mike and I started volunteering again in the preschool room at our church during the second hour. Logan did a fabulous job lasting through two services in her room; in fact, she almost had to be dragged out because she has so much fun. Brody, on the other hand, was not too happy when all of his friends got picked up and he got handed off to the second set of nursery workers. He let me know how mad he was, too, and kept a sour face on for most of the day, as evidenced in this next picture.

(this will be a fabulous picture to show at his engagement party)

Hope you enjoyed your weekend!

Preschool In Review: Week 3

It took me a while to get this post up, we're already almost through with week 4, but we've been busy. So, here's week 3!

This week we learned:
The letter C(c)
The number 3
About cats
We counted three carrots
About diamonds (the shape and the girl's best friend)
And the color green!

We made ice Cream to help emphasize the letter c!

(shaking it up)

Yummo!

We also put together paper cupcakes with diamond sprinkles!

Logan is SO loving our school time and constantly asks if we can do some more. It's so fun to watch her learn and explore so many different things.

Conversations with my 2 year old

We recently purchased Logan a new bible (The Big Picture Bible--highly recommend it for little ones) and have been reading through it nightly to Logan. The first night, obviously, we read about Adam and Eve and how they disobeyed and God kicked them out of the Garden of Eden. The next day we were playing with Logan's friend Olivia. Olivia's mom told her to leave the door open and she didn't listen and closed it. From inside O's room we heard Logan yelling, "Open that door! Your mom said to leave it open, you disobeyed, open it so she doesn't kick you out!"

On that note, this is the gospel according to Logan, "They disobeyed, Jesus loves them. They disobeyed and disobeyed and he loves them. They disobeyed more and Jesus loves you." Sums it up. When she picks up her bible and "reads" on her own this is usually the narrative we hear.

Yesterday, we went to Lifeway to look at Mike's textbooks for the fall. Logan's got kid section radar and immediately wanted to head over that way. When we got there, she started browsing the DVD's and said, "I'm just going to look mom (two hands up in front of her), I need to see what's on sale to make a decision." Mini me, much?

Logan was giving me crazy attitude the other night so I asked her where the attitude came from. Her response? "I picked it up at Target a little while ago."

She is quite a dramatic child. When Mike leaves Logan likes to wax on the drama and will say things like, "Goodbye daddy. I'll never ever see you again. (insert big sigh)"

"Brody can be a baby. I'm not a baby though, I'm a girl." This is fine unless we're at the store and she wants something (you know, like a Finn McMissile car) and then she claims, "Oh mommy! I'll be your baby forever." Uh-huh.

5 months old!

Brody is 5 months old today!

This little boy is growing like crazy. The most noticeable difference to me is in his height. He's a little more than half the size of Logan!

Brody has got the most laid back personality and it fits so well with our family needs right now. It's amazing how God creates families that have pieces that seem to fit together like a perfect little puzzle. Every piece is needed to complete it but each one is just a bit different. He complements us so well.

B started to roll a bit more this month. He can roll to his tummy or to his back but still prefers to just lay on one or the other. He's very content just observing life from either side and can't be bothered with rolling and the possibility of missing something.

We started Brody on oatmeal cereal this month. It went really well for a few days until his tummy decided it was just not time for it yet. We originally thought his extreme fussiness, sleeplessness and irritability was due to teeth coming in, but after 3 days of exclusively nursing we're back to 10 hours of sleep a night and have our happy baby back, so, it's clear he's not ready for food yet. We'll try again in a month or two.

You'll find this kiddo always sucking on something. Fingers, pacifiers, shoulders, blankets, anything that he can get into it. It makes it easy to keep him calm and happy, but I have a feeling it'll be a battle when it comes time to break him of this habit.

B has started to tolerate the car a little bit better this month. We switched him to his convertible car seat and I believe it's quite a bit more comfy then the infant car seat. He fusses a bit when you put him into it but then he settles in with his paci and enjoys the ride.

He found his feet this month! It's a rarity to see him not playing with them anymore.

He also discovered how to play with toys this month. He loves to play with the toys that are attached to his different play things (his bouncer, his jumperoo, his swing, etc) and he loves to lay on his tummy and play with all of his toys. His all time favorite thing to play with, though? Whatever his sister has. Let the games begin.

He continues to be a fantastic sleeper for us. He goes to bed around 6:30, wakes up once before 10 to eat and then is right back down until 6:30-7am. It's really been a blessing. HE'S really been a blessing. We love him so much and just can't imagine our family without him.

We're getting to the point where there are so many pictures in his collage that you have to click and make it large to really see the differences in the month to month. Enjoy!

Updates

I guess it's been a while, hasn't it? I thought I'd just throw a bunch of pictures from the last week up and give everyone a little update.

First off, we moved our little guy into his convertible carseat a couple of weeks ago! He still fit in the carrier pretty well, but I didn't want to pull it in and out of the car anymore, so we went ahead and made the switch. He's been a LOT more comfortable and while he still seems to have a severe distaste for the car, he's getting better.

To celebrate the end of swim lessons, we took the kiddos to the splash park. Logan had so much fun splashing around and having the "waterfall buckets" dump all over her.

Brody enjoyed himself, too.

Logan is showing more and more signs of wanting to be a big girl and not a baby anymore. One of which is her desire to have her hair dried like this, now:

Logan is moving up in her Sunday School class this coming weekend! Mommy is a little sad because every time she moves up it's a quiet reminder that she's not going to be little forever. This last weekend she came home from Sunday School with leprosy:

Tuesday we headed over to Ft. Bragg to get all of Mike's paperwork finished up. We got our ID's and picked up his uniforms so that when he starts drilling he's all ready. We left Logan at home with some friends and took Brody with us. He and his daddy were the best lunch dates I could have asked for that afternoon!

Logan had a fabulous time at home with her new friends and was thrilled when we showed her what we brought back for her! She's all ready to do PT with her daddy, now.

Brody is growing so quickly! He's hit several milestones this last few weeks. He's grabbing his feet, sucking on his piggies, and has started actually playing with toys instead of just looking at them.

Logan and I have had fun making a bunch of fun, sweet, healthy concoctions lately. We started getting a weekly delivery of organic fruits and veggies from local farmers and have been finding fun, creative ways to use them up. Yesterday we made chocolate/peanut butter covered banana slices. Oh. my. heavens. These are fabulous! AND, you can eat a whole banana's worth of them and still not reach half of the calories you'd hit eating a bowl of ice cream. (yes, I'm admitting guilt to eating an entire banana's worth of them AND to eating way too much ice cream, lately. I'm toning it down considerably.)

I've also started using up some of the veggies by making and freezing baby food for Brody. Two weeks ago I was starting to feel incredibly fatigued and almost sick all the time. I knew it couldn't be because I was lacking sleep because both kids have been sleeping really well, lately (last night...a different story...but that's not here nor there). After getting some advice from the kids' pediatrician, I went ahead and started giving B a teaspoon of oatmeal cereal a day to curb his insane appetite and it worked. No more fatigue! My body was just working crazy overtime to give the growing boy all he needed! A couple of nights ago I snuck in a little snip of sweet potato puree into his oatmeal and the kid gobbled it up. I think we'll have another good eater!

Speaking of the little man, he's been putting himself to sleep really well, but only if he's got one of his blankets to snuggle. Unfortunately, I'm not comfortable leaving him all night with a big blanket snuggled tightly on his face so we purchased the "lovey" sized ones for him. He can have the comfort of the muslin material that his swaddle blankets were made out of in less than half the size. Happy baby, happy mommy.

He's already quite attached.

And lastly, this morning we had some nice temps in the 80's so we took Logan over to the seminary and let her run wild while Mike took care of some school/Army business.