Straight or Curly?

Usually it takes me 2 hours to straighten my hair. I borrowed a straightening iron from Amber and it only took me 30 min.! I didn't blow-dry it first so it worked quicker and better and was less frizzy! It's kind of fun to do something different!

My 100th post!

How exciting! This is my 100th post! I'm sure all of you are sharing in my excitement...:)

The poll I posted asked if a 4 year old should go to preschool 2 days or 3 days a week.
Most people voted for 3 days a week. If you voted, can you please share your rationale?
I am interested in the reason for your vote! Thanks!

I'm off to feed the baby's craving of mushrooms...:)

Major Craving!

It is 11:15 at night. We just got home from a date night where we went to Johnny Carino's. I was
REALLY craving something with tomatoes and mushrooms. Shawn and I split a meal that had rigatoni pasta, spinach, asparagus, mushrooms, and TOMATOES! It was SO GOOD!
You would think that my craving was satisfied but as I sit here, IT HAS NOT BEEN SATISFIED!
I have never had a craving this strong with my 2 girls and now I am making toast with tomato sauce and mozzarella cheese on it. It is diet bread and low-fat cheese. This is ridiculous!
We don't have a microwave so I have to heat up the oven....Oh, and mushrooms...but we don't have any and it wouldn't be nice to send Shawn out for a can of mushrooms!:)

Girls in White Dresses with Pink Satin Sashes

Easter Sunday Morning


We had an amazing celebration at church today! He is Risen!
It humbles me to know that Jesus died for me, he chose me, and he rose again! He conquered death!
It has been so exciting to see the seeds of faith planted in Adrianna's heart. She knows the story, but I can't wait for her to accept it for herself. They had a faith walk at church and all the people who accepted Christ this past year walked through a door on stage to let everyone know they made that decision. A few of our friends walked through with their little boys and it was such a neat thing to see. We have been praying for the day when our girls accept Christ and I know those parents have too. How precious to see a little child decide to follow Jesus! They are truly free!

HE IS RISEN...HE IS RISEN INDEED!

Easter Sunday

Yummy Spaghetti at Johnny Carino's in Holland!
We met my parents, Rose & Bob, Keith & Jen, and Sarah & Marc for lunch. Honestly, no one wanted to cook! It was nice to just sit and relax and not have preparation of food or clean-up!





We had fun feeding the over-fed ducks at the Holland Outlets.
Adrianna wanted them to come right up to her. I thought she would be a little scared! Johnny Carino's gave us some extra bread to feed them. I wonder how they like herb bread?..:)






Eliza LOVED the "ducts" as she calls them! They tried to take the bread right out of her hands!
I think she would have followed them into the pond if we wouldn't have stopped her! She has no fear!

Celebrating Easter- Part 4

Resurrection Egg Drop & some Easter baskets!

Our church offers so many ministries for all ages. Every year they usually have a Resurrection Egg Hunt. Since the weather is so lovely outside, this year they had an Egg Drop. It was so hush, hush that no one knew what was actually going to happen. It always amazes me how organized
every event is. They really put a lot
of thoughts and planning into it. The event started with some praise time. We sang 2 songs and I was able to play keyboard along with my sweet friend Paula and some other band members. It was so fun! Pastor Chris gave a short devotional that was so great for the kids. He had a Rubik's cube that was solved. Then there were 4 people standing up there with him, and each person represented a sin. The first boy had lying printed on his shirt. Pastor Chris first said that the solved Rubik's cube was our perfect relationship with Jesus through his death on the cross. When we sin, that relationship gets messed up. The boy wearing the lying shirt turned the cube a little. The next person had stealing, then cheating, then disobedience. Each person messed it up a little bit more. But through Jesus, we can have a restored relationship with God. There was a teen with a white shirt on and while Pastor Chris was explaining how we can know Jesus, this teen solved the Rubik's cube in about 2 minutes! It was a great visual and very well explained.

After the devotional, they divided the kids into age groups and they dropped eggs from the ceiling of the celebration center! Each egg was on a parachute and each kid got to catch one egg.
I really liked the fact that there wasn't a mad dash for candy or eggs and each kid got the same amount. On their way out, everyone got a bag of candy and some other goodies.
It always saddens me when they have a free-for-all with candy, because the fast kids get a whole bunch and the slower kids get pushed aside and lost in the shuffle. This was a great idea! We were done in about a half hour. I would say there were probably close to 1000 kids there. It is such a great outreach for our community!


Easter basket time!

I just love filling baskets for my girls! It is totally unnecessary but fun!





Adrianna loved the movie "Enchanted". I was so excited when it came out this week. It is a great movie for your little Princess!

Celebrating Easter- Part 3 (most important!)

Resurrection Cookies

This is such a great visual way to teach kids about Christ's death and resurrection.
First- You put pecans in a bag and beat them. This symbolizes Jesus being beaten by the soldiers. Eliza thought is was funny and Adrianna had to tell her it wasn't because it was very sad.
Second- You put vinegar in a bowl and this symbolizes what they offered Jesus to drink when he asked for a drink while hanging on the cross.

Third- A pinch of salt to show the salty tears of Jesus' family and friends.
Fourth- Egg whites show new life.
Fifth- Add some sugar to show the sweet salvation Jesus gives us by his death.




After mixing all the ingredients together you put them in mounds on a cookie sheet and put them in the oven. It has been pre-heated, but as soon as you put the cookies in, you turn the oven off. They stay in there all night and in the morning they should be hollow meringue type cookies to symbolize the empty tomb!

When we got up in the morning Adrianna asked, "Can we eat Jesus now?".

Okay, so we are working on our Theology!:)

Easter Celebration-Part 2

Decorating Eggs










This was so much fun! We tried to decorate eggs last year and I just remember it being very frustrating! Now we are a whole year older and some of us are capable of following directions better!:) Adrianna did SO good with the egg dye and with the decorating. She had Princess stickers to put on her eggs and she actually likes eating them! Eliza thought it would be fun to try and drink the dye and pick it up with her fingers. That's why we gave her yellow! She had Elmo stickers and enjoyed putting about 2 of them on her egg and then she was done. She did not like eating the egg!


A rare moment of sisterly love!
And we had to make an egg for the baby! There is no reason why it's blue...:) Just hoping...:)

Easter Celebration- Part 1

INDOOR EGG HUNT!

This was the year of many Easter celebratations. We started on Thursday night with an Egg Hunt in our house. We went on a walk and Shawn kept the girls outside while I hid eggs all over
our living room and dining room. Adrianna was really into it and
loved trying to find the eggs. She's still looking for some!
We hid an empty egg to remind us of Jesus' empty tomb. (I got the idea from Bob & Larry's Easter CD) Adrianna was so excited to
find the empty one.
She's holding an orange creme Hershey kiss!
Eliza had more fun playing with the grass. Does that stuff annoy anyone else?? I really don't know why I get some every year!

Wings to Heaven!

We have been talking a lot about Jesus' death and resurrection this past week, obviously!
We have a book that tells the story of Easter in detail that Adrianna loves to read. We were listening to Family Life today and they had a dramatic reading of the King James Version of Easter. We listened to it as we were eating our lunch.
Afterwards, she says to me, "Jesus died for our sins, so we can go to Heaven." I then told her that I asked Jesus in my heart, daddy has, grandma's and grandpa's have, etc... When the opportunity comes, I try and explain to her about our sins, that Jesus loves us and died for us, and the only way we can get to Heaven is by asking him to forgive us and come into our hearts. She said "I'm going to take grandma's hand when we fly up to Heaven. I think we will probably have wings to get up there."
It is so amazing to see the seeds of faith being planted in her heart. I pray for the day when she truly understands and makes that decision for herself.

Lookalikes?

Socks & Snow White

She is such a comedian! She will do the wackiest things and just laugh and laugh! We were trying to sort socks and it was definitely more fun to put the sock basket on our heads!









Adrianna LOVES to dress-up. She informed me that she wanted to be Aurora for her birthday. Originally it was Cinderella but she said she changed her mind. (go figure)
She loves wearing this Snow White costume mainly because it's the only Princess one we have!

We are also getting her acclimated early to Foosball! Daddy would be so proud!

Patience Waits

So this past month, I really thought we were pregnant. I was 3 days late and thought I would do a test. I will not confess how many tests I have actually done in the past week...:)
Anyway, it was negative. Then I was 7 days late. Still negative. Went in for a blood test...negative.
So frustrating and sad and WEIRD! I have never missed in my entire life and the other pregnancies showed up after being 2-3 days late.
Well, I am now 11 days late. I did a test this morning and a VERY faint, I mean VERY FAINT line appeared. My hopes went up but I still did not trust it! So I did the other test in the package and it was defective! I'm trying to think this is funny....I guess I'm off to buy ANOTHER test...:)

I keep holding on to the promise of God that he will help us through anything. We don't have to rely on our own strength or wisdom to do something. I just need to remember to ask him every morning for his hand to be on my day, in my thoughts, and in my actions!

So, now being 13 days late, we finally have the result we have been waiting for!

We are going to have another baby!
Our baby is due November 8th, 2008!


We told Adrianna last night and she immediately said it was a baby sister. Then we asked her what she would think if it was a baby brother. Now she keeps praying that it's a baby brother!
The Lord is faithful and keeps His promises!

Living Beyond Myself- Part III

The Bible study I have been doing since October is called "Living beyond yourself" by Beth Moore.
It is a study of the fruits of the spirit. Wow, it has changed my life! I would highly recommend it.
The first lesson talked about our own selfishness, how we try and do things on our own and how sometimes things God wants us to do require us to go beyond ourself. To live in God's spirit and he gives us the total strength and courage to do it.
Her definition of Beyond is this- "what we are capable of in the Spirit, we would never be capable of in our own flesh!" A powerful masquarading misery-maker is living inside ourselves. Nothing steals our contentment like self-absorption.

That hit me right on the nose! My own self-absorption was causing me to First, not enjoy my 2 girls, and Second, it was causing me to not be open to God's gift of another child. As I have gone through the study, she gave us small quotes to remember each fruit.
Love never fails.
Joy cometh.
Peace rules.
Patience waits. (boy, God has really used this one!)
Kindness tenders.
Goodness does.
Faith fights.
Gentleness bows.

I have really been growing as a mother lately and just really trying to let God's spirit work through me. Through my thoughts and actions, words, and the way I react to things.
I have actually enjoyed my girls more since I started this study!

Waiting is one of the hardest things we have to do! At least I think so! We have to wait
everywhere we go, in everything we do. It makes me so frustrated sometimes!
God is really trying to teach me patience..grrrr...:)

Living Beyond Myself- Part II

After Adrianna turned a year and I could actually enjoy life again, the Lord blessed us with another pregnancy in August of 2005. Honestly, I wasn't quite ready for it. We went to Chicago as a family for Shawn's birthday that year and on September 14th, I miscarried our little baby. I never imagined I would ever have to go through that. Through it I still felt God's arms holding me and telling me to wait. I might never know the reason for that but I look forward to the day when I can see our little baby in Heaven. On February 17th of 2006 we found out we were pregnant again.
I had a little bit easier pregnancy, but still had gestational diabetes. Eliza was born in October of 2006. Her full name is Eliza Jacquelyn, meaning "Renewal of God's promises". She is named after my grandma who is one of the most amazing and godly women I know. Her entire life emulates grace and love. I was reminded again of the promise God gives us that he is faithful, that he takes care of us, and he knows EXACTLY what we need. She has been a blessing too and she has really helped heal my soul. I did not suffer post-partum depression like I did with Adrianna.
I honestly did not feel we were done having kids, but my head and heart where telling me NO WAY! I kept thinking of the difficulties of my pregnancies, the depression, the adjustments, and I didn't want to go through that again.
I really value what little time I have to myself and I didn't want to give that up. I looked around at other families with more than 2 kids and I did not want to have to do it. I think we adjusted pretty well to Eliza and I am just now getting used to family life with 4. I still feel like there is a little boy for our family that God has already thought of, but up to this point, my heart has been unwilling to even try to get pregnant again.

Living Beyond Myself- Part I

The Lord has been changing my heart in many ways recently. I wanted to share a little bit of my personal journey that started back this fall when I decided to take the Beth Moore bible study "Living Beyond Yourself" at church. I started to reflect on when this journey actually started.

Thinking back 6 years when we started trying to get pregnant with Adrianna was when I think God started to really work on my heart, though I didn't know it yet. We had tried for 2 years to have Adrianna, and after some fertility drugs, we were finally pregnant! The soft words of the Lord through that time was always "wait". It was a very difficult time but a time of intense growing in my reliability on Christ. I remember about a week before we found out we were pregnant that God whispered to me "It's time". It was so amazing! I had a very difficult pregancy with gestational diabetes, hypertension, preeclampsia, bed rest, and severe post-partum depression for a year after she was born. I REALLY did not want to have any more children after that. After Adrianna turned a year, I remember the clouds parting and actually felt like I could live again! Her full name is Adrianna Grace and it means "Protected by Grace". It was so humbling to see how God's grace was so abundant in every step of our journey.
She truly has been a graceful blessing in our family. It's amazing to see how God fulfills our heart's desire beyond what we can imagine!

Cute sayings

Adrianna, Eliza, and I were sitting at the kitchen table playing with a new toy she had earned when she looked at me and said "I miss my daddy so much, I just love him so much". I said, "Do you love mommy too?", She looked at me, rolled her eyes and said "Of course I do!".

Fast forward about an hour and we were sitting on our porch (yeah! The first time this season!), and she says, " I love my daddy now and I'm not going to be mean to him, or jump on him meanly, or do anything else mean to him".

At lunch Adrianna said "I'm going to buy an elephant". I asked her where she was going to buy an elephant, and she said "Oh, maybe at the neighbor's house. I also going to buy a horse too. It's going to be a really big one!". Then I asked her how she was going to buy it and how much it was going to cost. And she replied, "About $40 Bucks"!

Pride cometh before a fall....literally...

So we have 4 March Birthday's in the family! Shawn's mom, sister, our brother-in-law, and the little boy they are waiting to adopt. We went up to Jeff & Sheryl's house on Friday to celebrate! I volunteered to make the cake. Both Jeff & Sheryl play guitar so I found this cake idea and thought it would be perfect. I was so anxious to show everyone and yes, a little prideful that it actually turned out! Well, we got there and the driveway was about a 2 inch thick sheet of ice. I was trying to be so careful about putting the cake in the car where it wouldn't slide around and as I was carrying it into the house I found just the right spot and slipped....dropping the cake that I had spent 2 hours decorating! The neck of the guitar flew off, one side was smashed, and the whole thing shifted on the plate. I was so devastated that I started bawling! It was still edible but it made me so upset! Anyway...at least we have one good picture of it!

Can you guess what these cupcakes were "supposed" to be?
As the other cake fell I almost threw these on the ground and in the process they all got smashed together in the Tupperware.
I clearly have anger issues....:)






Pa is so excited about the little lambs they got for Adrianna and Eliza!













This is the little boy that Jeff & Sheryl are waiting to adopt.





Smashed cake never tasted so good!

Do you see it?

Yes, that is a small little barrette in Eliza's hair! Yes, it only stayed in her hair for about 3 minutes but at least it's a start! I need to get her used to having stuff in her hair or she will never let me fix it!
I have been waiting a long time to be able to do SOMETHING with it. It has got to be the slowest growing hair EVER!







This is her reaction to the foreign object on her head...:)

The infamous ceiling!

Some people wanted to see a picture of this, so here it is!

The Conclusion of the Saga

We are finally done painting! I think we finished at about 11:30 pm last night but I LOVE how the bedding and paint turned out!
We still have a few touch-ups and some pictures to hang but no more plaster! It finally feels like "our" room since the last color we did not pick and have never updated since we moved in.

Next project- The downstairs bathroom! Anyone want to help??:):)

Arguing..."I'm not arguing"

Does anyone have any great ideas for getting an almost 4 year old to stop arguing? Adrianna will argue with EVERYTHING I say. She is very independent and wants to do everything herself.

If I say "We are all done with the water", she will say "I'm just going to get a little bit more."
Me: "We are going to get in the van now" Her: "Just a minute, I have to do something first."
Me: "It's time to clean up", Her: "I'm going to play a few more minutes"
Me: "Stop grabbing Eliza" Her: "I'm just trying to help her".
Me: "There is ice in that glass" Her: "No there isn't".

It is a never ending challenge of everything I say. I need some creative ideas to show her it's arguing and what do I do about it?
Does anyone else have this issue?

Meanwhile Eliza has learned to say "excuse me" and thinks it's her pass to do whatever she wants!
I am sitting here trying to type this and she is climbing on the back of my chair, pushing me, saying "cuse me". Isn't she precious...:)

Eliza loves Bubbles!

Eliza turned 17 months old today with pneumonia and wheezing! We have an antibiotic and albuterol treatments so she should be feeling better soon. She has been sick for about 3 weeks!
Her vocabulary has exploded these past few weeks! She has about 20 words so far. My favorite word that she says is 'bubbles'! She loves them and this was her first bath with bubbles. It smelled like Vicks but she didn't care! She is very observant of everything and if we can keep off of the kitchen table, out of the toliet, and out of Gus's food, she is pretty easy going! She loves Elmo, babies (especially Alexis T.), books, toys that make noise, and climbing. She is such a people person too and will usually wave and say Hi to anyone who will look at her.


A look of love for her daddy!











My biggest challenge with her right now is that she screams whenever Adrianna comes near her. She does not like to share, and if Adrianna tries to help her, show her something, or try to share whatever she has in her hand, she will scream or bite. I am really trying to be equal in my discipline with the sharing battle, but it is frustrating! Does anyone have any ideas?

The Saga of the Ceiling

IT IS STILL NOT DONE!
My hopes for getting our room done in 2 days has not turned into 3 and will probably take us 2 more! We are now on our 3rd bucket of textured ceiling paint...:( Our friend Jeff F. came over on Sunday to help us. Wow, it was so nice to have help! He gave us some great ideas for fixing the ceiling. One of them was to scrape off what Shawn had already done (basically flush a tub of paint down the toilet), and start over. So.......Shawn and Jeff scraped and flung paint chunks everywhere. After about 5 hours they got a little over half done. I'm sure it would have taken Shawn double that to do it himself. Thanks Jeff!!!
Shawn continued to work on it tonight and ran out of paint when he just has a little of the ceiling left! So to Home Depot we go for the 4th time. :)
If anyone ever needs help with painting their ceiling...don't call us!:)










What do you think of the color?








Not many friends would volunteer to come over and help scrape paint off of the ceiling! We appreciate you Jeff!






Imagine this mess ALL OVER THE ENTIRE ROOM!








Stay tuned for the hopeful conclusion of this saga......

1st House Project by Ourselves!

As I was looking at the plans for the weekend, the calendar was BLANK! So.....I said to Shawn, "Let's paint our room!". You can imagine the look of angst he gave me! When we moved in almost 2 years ago we didn't have time to paint our room. It was painted a sage green and actually matched the bedspread we had at the time. Well, I am tired of the green! I found a 16 piece bed set for an incredible price at Linens-n-things and it definitely did not match the green. This is actually our Christmas present!
Our goal today was to get it primed and get the ceiling done. My dear husband is NOT a big fan of household projects. But because of his serving spirit and easy-going character, he helps out with most anything! (except dusting) We got the priming done during the girls' naps and it only took about 1 1/2 hours!
We thought we had enough ceiling stucco but alas...not enough.

Here a few things I have come to realize when doing a house project:
1. Take the amount of time you think it will take you and double it!
2. You have to be prepared to take AT LEAST 2 trips to Home Depot.
3. ALWAYS put a drop cloth down even if you think you can go slow and not spill.
4. ALWAYS give your hubby extra kisses and lovin because he is doing this for you!

Shawn has been working on the ceiling for about 2 hours now and is still only a 1/4 of the way done. He has already used a 5 gallon tub of stucco..(hmmm), and it not working so well. It is a slow, tedious task and I'm hoping he does not get TOO frustrated! This is going to be one expensive ceiling!
(Oh, where is my dad when we need him! I think he has helped with every big house project we have ever done. He is a super handy-man! Shawn and I have an understanding about this! He likes the challenge of doing it himself but actually prefers to have my dad's help!)

Here are pics of stage 1 and I am praying that we get the color done tomorrow! I'll post pics of our finished room.

My job is done! Adrianna walked in and said she liked our room!
I guess blotchy white primer looks good to an almost 4 year old!









Can you feel the enthusiasm?:)







Notice the lovely blob of white goo on his eyelid. Very attractive hunny! I think he's about done for the day. :)