Monday, May 21, 2012

On the Horizon

Big things are on the horizon for little pirate.  She only has 5 more days of kindergarten left! When she gets off the bus next Tuesday she'll know who her first grade teacher is going to be. FIRST GRADE people! They have tests in first grade! I foresee another period of morning coming on in August for this mama. 

And those kids getting off the bus don't know it yet, but they will be ambushed with water balloon, silly string, and super soakers as soon as the bus has rolled away. The "Last Day of School" celebration will begin! Who doesn't want to get off the bus to a surprise ice cream party! 

Unfortunately, 2 days after the last day of school, Soph goes in for a hernia repair surgery. Bummer. I hate it so much for her. My typically brave girl will be so scared on Thursday morning. Keeping her down for recovery is going to be so hard on her. The doctor says that she should only be down for a few days. We shall see. I hope she is right because no one wants to start summer being bed ridden.  No swimming for a few weeks is definitely going to be the hardest part. 



Just like last year she is going to have a babysitter 2 days a week and go to summer camp at her old pre-school 3 days a week. This year she gets a super sweet teenage babysitter. I've only met her once and talked to her a few times but I already really like her.  And I LOVE that there is a week that she can't watch Soph b/c she has animals in the county fair that she has to be with the entire week. I.love.farm.girls. There is something to be said about a girl who isn't afraid to get dirty and can waltz a cow around. 

And speaking of farm girls, Little Bit is all signed up for horse came for the end of July. Giddy up! Steven is going to have to pick her up though or I'll be driving down the interstate going into anaphylactic shock because my girl will be covered in horse hair. I think I'm more allergic to horses than Soph is allergic to peanuts!

This guy is doing really well and he puts up with a lot. 


Except for the fact that he will NOT leave my side. And I'M NOT THE DOG PERSON in this house! He is keeping me at the vet though. He had a skin issue so he's been on meds for over a month now. Even the girl at the vets office admitted that she felt sorry for me. 

Check out the world's tiniest acolyte. 




CUTE. Ignore the weird face. She was eating a doughnut. She's a little on the obsessed side though. She thinks she could get to be an acolyte every Sunday.


Wednesday, April 18, 2012

Hair Today, Gone Tomorrow


See this long lovely pony tail? Well it's GONE. Hacked right off :(




She's been asking for a hair cut for quite sometime but I've been putting her off. I'm not sure why. Maybe because my hair can't grow very long. It starts to look like poo after it hits a certain length. Not that it looks that great right now. It's currently in a state of disgrace. I got this bright idea that I was going to grow my hair out to its original color and start anew once all of the processed crap had been chopped off. It's a lovely striped mess right now. A little gray on top, followed by my natural mousey brown, tipped in lovely brassy dye job.

Anyway, back to little bit. I guess she got tired of me putting her off because a few days ago she walked down to our neighbor's house (who is a hair dresser) and asked if she had any scissors and if she would cut her hair! Nice. I guess that's one way to get your hair cut! Stacy didn't have her scissors with her on that night but the next night she brought them home. Obviously, the kid was serious that she wanted rid of her long hair. Apparently, she was getting tired of her hair getting caught in buttons. Seriously, that was her reasoning. But whatever, by that point, I had relented. So Soph and Ms. Stacy had a hair cutting session on her back porch.

I don't have any pictures of the new do yet. So for now, I'll just enjoy pics with the old do.




Saturday, April 14, 2012

A Holy Day

Warning: Long and rambling blog post ahead :)


For more than 5 years, I (and Steven too) had been failing our family. We put so much effort into making our lives comfortable with new houses and cars and things. We've made sure that Little Bit's childhood has been as wonderful and magical as we could make it. Living in the suburbs with friends everywhere you look, trips for no reason what so ever, and mythical creatures and people who come to our house to visit in the middle of the night, sometimes bearing gifts. I plan Halloween costumes months and months in advance. I attempt to create family time at our house. I have always believed that if everyone is home, dinner should be around the dinner table. Family outings sometimes need to be just that, family outings, without other friends along. I worried about her smarts. Little Bit has been read to every single night since we brought her home from the hospital. I'm even conscience of what she watches on TV. Granted, sometimes I find it odd that she's content still watching Max and Ruby and episodes of Little Bear. But other times, I'm glad that she has no clue what's happening on Icarly.

But it hit me that we were failing big time in her spiritual happiness and well being and in our own. This has crept into my mind on numerous occasions. I would even think about the future and think about when the day comes that Little Bit wants to get married. When you are currently nothing, where do you get married if you want a church wedding?! Every summer, Little Bit would go to VBS with friends. I loved it so much as a kid. It really hit me when Oscar the Boxer died and I had to explain for the first time about death. She had no grounding. My heart of hearts knew that we needed to find a church. Some Sunday mornings Little Bit would want to go outside and play and I would have to tell her that so and so isn't home, she's at church. That's when Soph would say to us, "why don't we go to church?" Good question my dear.

Over the years we had hit the church circuit. I remember going to one in Winfield and there were like zero other kids around, so we marked it off the list without even a second thought. There there was another giant one where there were PLENTY of kids, but as we sat listening, I realized I wasn't buying what that particular church was selling and I couldn't raise my daughter believing in certain things. And really, that was the problem. What I was raised, and the person that I had become today weren't meshing. So I felt stuck. I felt the familiarity in the type of churches that I went to as a kid but inevitably as I would sit in the pew a voice inside my head would say, "this is not you, this is oil and water trying to mix."

So I talked to friends. Because in your thirties this is the type of stuff you talk about. You don't talk about which bars are the coolest or what you are going to wear next week. You talk about your kids, your husbands, what you are going to cook for dinner, and bigger issues, like God.


I would go home and think and Steven and I would talk. And I kept coming back to Jackson's baptism two years prior at the Episcopal church. Jenny and Jared had asked me to be his godmother. I remembered the calmness I felt during the service. The beautiful rituals. And the overall feeling of happiness as he was baptized. So 2 years later, we walked back in there not knowing a soul or how things worked. And it felt right. It felt like that was where we were suppose to be. It didn't matter that we were raised differently. What mattered was that we were there. And I looked around at all of the different people and it felt good. Sunday at 10am in America is the most segregated hour of the week. Yet, I looked around me and there so many different people from all walks of life coming together. But that was it, they were just people. People there for the same reason.




It's been going on 8 months now. And we LOVE it. We are involved. I never thought I would be baking a cake to take to a church dinner. And I guarantee that Steven never thought he would be cutting grass for his church. I think I've missed 1 or 2 Sundays in all that time. Steven, on the other hand, had this little thing called "tax season" creep up, so he's missed more than 1 or 2.But we all went on Easter. The most important holiday in the christian world has now become even more special to us. For along with remembering that Jesus arose from the tomb we can also mark it as the day that Sophie and Steven were baptized. Sophia Carr was BEYOND excited about it. She would tell everyone coming and going what was going to go down on Easter. She would even run into our bedroom the week before an announce "guess what!? 3 more days until I get baptized!" I'm sure other kids were probably saying, "guess what?! 3 more days until the Easter Bunny comes!"

The service was beautiful and perfect. I was so nervous that she would say something totally off the wall to get a laugh. When she didn't I just combusted with pure joy and the tears came. She was beaming. Easter has now moved up the hierarchy in my memorable holiday list. So that's the story.


Here's a quick pic of the beautiful silver box from Jenny and Jared that Soph styled with her cross necklace from Aunt Paula and Uncle Humpar. Jenny also got her gorgeous cross earrings, but don't you know, girlfriend will be able to swap out earrings soon.


And as an aside (if you have made it reading this far), if you have this tugging feeling about your church situation, as we did, that little voice, that's the Holy Spirit pulling on your heart. He's trying to tell you to get up off your bum and do something about it. It just took me awhile to answer. It doesn't matter what you were, what you think you are, or what you want to be. Just go. Just walk on in somewhere.


Oh and finally, we got a certificate to prove it ;o)





Wednesday, March 28, 2012

Wednesday Randomness

1. Random conversation with the hubster:

Me: I took Louie on a walk up the hill today. I don't know, the more see him around the neighbor's dogs, the more and more I think he looks like a pitbull.
Steven: Maybe, he's a mix. We'll really never know.
Me: Maybe it's because he's black that I'm thinking he looks like a pit.
Steven: I think you just racial profiled our dog.


And is that dog bed not a hoot?! Sophie and a friend lugged it home from a neighbor's house (thank you Tammy ;). Obviously, it was purchased for a toy poodle and not a big dog. Louie fit in it for approximately 2 days. It's now a cat bed/baby doll bed.


2. Random text with a friend regarding Sophie and Steven getting baptized on Easter:

Me: So Sophie is definitely going to need god parents to stand up.
Friend: No problem! And hubby says he'll be Steven's godfather. And he can refer to him as "The Don." Really, it's an offer he can't refuse.

3. Random text with a neighbor regarding Louie:
Neighbor: you know, ever since you got a dog, we text about poop a lot.
Me: I know, sad isn't it.

4. Random phone conversation with my mom:
Mom: Just so you know, I am NEVER going to your house again during the day and doing you a favor if you don't have toilet paper in the bathroom.
Me: Sorry. We know to look first, then do your business.
Mom: You are getting a giant economy sized thing of TP for your birthday. Just like you got for Christmas!


5. . Random note found in our house:


Truer words have never been spoken! Inspiration for this board came from here. The giant piece of notebook paper was found at the parent/teacher store. The frame is an 11x14 from Michaels.







Wednesday, March 21, 2012

Someone Got Her Ears Pierced

Sunday was a big day. After Grammy and PapPap headed back to PA we loaded up the 200 pounds of dog food to drop it off at Little Victories. The same no kill shelter that Louie came from. They greatly appreciated all of the donations. Anywho, on the way there, Little Bit announced that now that she was 6, she was ready to get her ears pierced. Now this is not the first time she's said that she was ready to get her ears pierced. Two or three Christmases ago she asked Aunt Amy to take her to get her ears pierced. Off we went to the mall. They put the earrings in the guns and she chickened out. However, that still cost $40 thank you very much b/c the earrings had been open.

The next time she was 5 and she woke up one morning and asked her daddy to take her to the mall. She was all set to go until she watched a 16 year old boy get his ear pierced and he made a face that said basically said, "OUCH!" At that point, Little Bit announced that she would wait until she was either 6 or 7. But last week, a friend came bopping across the street showing off her newly pierced ears. I think it lit a fire and created a fierce determination. So this time, she swore that she was ready. All three of us looked on the rough side and really shouldn't have been seen in public. But off we went.

She climbed right up in the chair.



She held still when the lady marked her ears.



She asked me to stand in front of her and hold her hands while it all went down. And without even really flinching....


her ears were pierced!





And she was so happy! Thrilled actually. And for some reason, I was sad. Even though I'm the one who had asked her on multiple occasions if she wanted to get her ears pierced, when it actually came down to it, part of me wanted to grab her and run out of there. I wanted to keep her perfectly cute ears holeless for a little while longer. But there is no changing her mind when she has it set on something. And girlfriend wasn't leaving that mall without pierced ears.


She looks so stinking cute. We had to call everyone on the way back home to tell them the news. Especially Aunt Amy.


Tuesday, March 20, 2012

What...


You didn't think that she just got dog food for her birthday did you?




Now she has the second coolest bike in the neighborhood. We rock. Both courtesy of the Gi and Papa.

Monday, March 19, 2012

6 Years

Dear Sophie,

You turned six on Friday. I can't really make my mind wrap around that fact. But six you turned, six you are, and six you will be for a whole year. We started celebrating your birthday on Friday morning. We loaded your room up with balloons while you slept so that you could wake up knowing that it was "your day." And girlfriend, we didn't stop celebrating until Sunday. Once the the weekend was over, I looked at daddy and just smiled. We both smiled. This was the most memorable, most awesome birthday ever. Celebrating six was something special. I can think back over all of your birthday and remember something special about each one. But thus far, six as taken the cake. I'm going to go out on a limb and say that it will go down in my history of you one of my all time favorites.




We celebrated you quietly with GiGi and Papa on Friday evening with dinner at your favorite restaurant. No one loves an asian hibachi quite like you. On Saturday, Grammy and PapPap drove down with your cousin Tyler to join in the celebration.




And Saturday evening we had one blow out of a party at the YMCA pool. So many people came to celebrate you! A sea of kids splashing and laughing and there because of you.








And as each kid came to your party lugging bags of dog food, cat food, dog/cat toys, treats, cleaning supplies instead of gifts for you my heart grew about 10 sizes. 200 pounds of food all together. 25 bags and boxes of treats. 15 toys and tons of cleaning supplies. Only a few simple gift from friends.




There is something about you that is so over the top special. Maybe it's that you are over the top. I mean, who else starts their own Birthday Song at their party by yelling, "one, two, three, HAPPY....!?" All weekend we told you how proud we were of you and how awesome it is for a six year old to collect so many items for homeless dogs and cats. You kind of just shrugged your shoulders. It wasn't a big deal to you. But my love it was a big deal. Just another way you showed how over the top special you are to us.




Love Mama