Eggs!

This morning my daughter brought me a handful of sweet peas from out in the yard. They're a surprise flower because we planted tons of them this spring and none of them lived! I guess we spilled a few seeds and were blessed with some beautiful blossoms.

On eggs and chickens:
This is our chicken Little - she's not really little anymore though! She was the tiniest out of all our chicks in the beginning and Maddie named her "little."  Do you see the little egg she layed? There are also some golf balls in there to encourage the chickens to lay their eggs in the nesting box...

Earlier in the week she started laying eggs! They're tiny little things - more the size of a bantum egg than a full-size chicken egg. We've only eaten one so far and it was quite tasty - although it was weird eating her egg - I see what they eat!

The other chickens should start laying soon - Winnifred - our Golden Laced Wyandotte - is from the same setting as Little and should start laying soon. Her eggs are supposed to be brown, so I'll be able to tell the difference. Coco - our Araucana will lay blue or green eggs and it seems the other breeds we have will all lay brown eggs as well (except the silkie who will lay small, white eggs). 
This morning Little was sitting on her eggs - she layed TWO! The four previous mornings she just left them in the egg box, but this morning she was sitting on the nest! I had to move her to get the eggs (to my surprise there were two!). She's been very consistent - laying 1 egg a day since she started laying. 

Maddie was encouraging Little as Winnifred (dark) and Chloe (white) poked their nosy beaks into the egg box (or rather baby bath tub recycled into a nesting box).

digging a hole

The kids and I were out in the backyard just now - working in the garden and such. My father "papa" walked into the backyard and started digging a hole with a post-hole digger. 

I inquired several times why he was digging a hole in my backyard and he refused to answer.

"You'll see," he said.

After he'd dug a rather deep hole - he went back to his truck and came back with a huge, black pole. I got it at that moment - remembering that the basketball hoop from his driveway was dismantled and in the bed of his truck last night.

Wyatt was ecstatic! He now has his own "real" basketball hoop just off the back patio and it's been lowered to the perfect height. He can shoot hoops to his hearts delight.

Thank you papa for such a sweet surprise!

Superman to the rescue

"I'm superman, I'll save you" Wyatt tells his sister (who is always the damsel in distress). 

It's amazing to me how the simple act of tying on a blanket - a fleece, penguin blanket in this instance - can create minutes (hours one day?) of fun.

"Stop falling Maddie!" Wyatt screams at her as he comes over to ask me to remove his cape  - "I'm not superman" he tells me. 

I guess in this case it only created a few seconds of fun, but it was fun watching them.

At almost 3 and 5 their verbal skills are improving daily and I love listening to their conversations. They don't always speak nicely to each other but there are a few moments here and there.

Presently Wyatt is running around in his diaper with a spiderman sticker on his chest. "I'm going to the water, mom! I'm going to see the mermaids and go swimming!" 

Honestly I'm proud of my son who is so verbally affluent - even if he's going swimming with mermaids.

"Daddy's fishing," he says. "Daddy doesn't love me" (What? of course he loves you!) "I'm crying."

Why are you crying I ask? 

"Because I want dad," he responds.

Mike is fishing today and it's always hard when he's gone on the weekends. Our weeks are so full - school, mom's day out and various other activities - they don't get to spend much time together except on the weekends. 

Well the moment is deteriorating and it's time for a certain little boy to take a nap!

On water and "home" and changes

There's nothing like a little water to turn your life upside down.

Last week what I thought was a little water from a roof leak turned into a major supply line leak - tons of water hidden under cabinets and flooring and a lot of mold. 

In less than an hour the cabinets were ripped out and apart, flooring ripped up and out and the walls followed shortly after that. 

The house isn't realistically livable - especially after the boxed up contents of my kitchen, along with salvagable cabinets and appliances were piled into my living room and the room sealed off with plastic.

I guess we could live in the 3 bedrooms and bathroom, at least that's what the insurance company tried to say - but I won out - thankfully the adjustor agreed that it wasn't a good environment for the kids to be around. 

So at the moment we're living in a beautiful condo in Destin - one owned by people we know - who graciously offered it to us. Who knows how long we'll be here or any of that  - it seems to be moving in slow motion now. 

just wanted to let you know what's going on...

Eggstravaganza in the backyard

We've done the Egg Dash - our city's annual Easter activity - a few hundred kids line different ball fields strewn with eggs and toys and the entire event is over in about 2 minutes.

It's not that great in my opinion - not for the amount of time you spend in line versus the time dashing for eggs.

So instead of dealing with the craziness this year I decided to host a small egg hunt in my back yard - with one special addition: The Easter Bunny!

It's been a few years since Angel has donned her Easter Bunny costume for us - and I'm so glad she agreed to dress up for us this year!

We had a blast - the kids had to actually hunt for the eggs versus finding them scattered out on the ground for them - it took them a while to find them all and even then I still found a few at the end of the day!

Another special treat for the kids were our two bitty baby chicks - they tolerated the holding and petting so well!

Here are some pictures:

A new style

When I was a little girl - probably about 5 years old - I had beautiful hair.

It was long and golden and well - from the pictures I've seen - it was just gorgeous.

My kindergarten pictures show a little girl (who decidedly looks like a boy). 

Those locks were cut off in a terrible boy-cut. My mother - probably sleep deprived and desperately seeking some area of her life to control with a preschooler and newborn - decided that she was tired of listening to me whine and complain about having my hair brushed.

So she went a little off the deep end.

I think part of me still holds a grudge to this day (sorry, mom - but you already know this!).

I hated it! Not only was it short, but it was a terrible cut - millions of layers that required agonizing months if not years to grow back.

Twenty-five years later my hair has yet to recover - I blame this one cut on my inability to ever successfully grow my hair to a longer than shoulder length.

Where am I going with all of this you might wonder?

Well you see - I have a daughter - with the most brilliant blue eyes and beautiful golden, blonde hair that has been growing for more than 4 years. I suffered through the in-her-eyes-and-face-all-the-time phase when she was a toddler - resolving never to cut her bangs short. I invested an obscene amount of money on bows and hair do-dads in an attempt to help her look cute when she was in that awkward growing out stage.

We've cut her hair three times in her short lifetime. Once when she was 2 years old - just to clean up the ends and even things a bit. A short trim again about six months after that and then just a few weeks ago we cut a whopping 4 inches off her hair because she had been begging me for months to get her hair cut short.

It was at this last hair cut that we discovered her hair is actually wavy, perchance even curly. The stylist explained that some kids' hair actually changes around their fourth year - as she showed me how my normally stick-straight hair daughter had hair growing out spiral from the roots.

So tonight I was in the bathtub with Master Wyatt - who has had a terrible fever all day long. He was happy for the moment pouring water all over the bathroom floor (why should it stay in the tub, he wonders?). 

Mike walked in with a section of hair - Maddie's hair undoubtedly. It was LONG. He'd seen it on the floor or maybe on her bed.

I think I said something about going to look for the scissors to put them up - but instead he returned with substantially more hair. 

"MADDIE!" I yelled from the bathtub.

What I saw made my stomach lurch and I asked myself how I missed this and when did she commit this atrocity? I recalled how she had "locked" herself in her room and I'd discovered that she'd eaten all her Easter candy from her class party. I am usually a detail person but I totally missed the hair laying on the floor. 

It looked like she'd grabbed handfuls all over her head and held them up and cut them off. There was no rhyme or reason - some was the top layer, some the middle and bottom - several large sections were all the layers. 

There's one particular section where she cut it all - leaving about 2 inches to her scalp - it encompasses one whole side of her face.

At first she refused to divulge where the scissors were, "I don't know," she tried to tell us.

But after a little prompting (threats?) she said they were behind her baby crib.

Mike found the scissors - but he also found a good bit more hair. 

After things died down a bit - there was some screaming and crying and lecturing and yelling and all sorts of hullabaloo - I called her preschool teacher - who I love dearly.

She reassured me that despite her deviousness at hiding the scissors and hair that my daughter was not a psychopath! She did in fact have a conscious and she knew she'd done something wrong. 

Apparently no matter how frustrating it is to me her behavior is normal for her age. Ms. LaVina told me she loved me and sent me back to the terrible trenches of parenting - with a few suggestions for disciplining my dear daughter's deceitfulness.

I made her vacuum her room - which she protested terribly - but ended up deciding she kind of liked.

Tomorrow we are going back to the stylist - and she is getting a much shorter hair cut - to try and "fix" what is left of her hair. She's not happy about this - in fact she wants to leave it the way it is, but I can't do it. 

She will not watch TV tomorrow and she's not allowed to have a treat after the hair cut.

And hopefully she won't put me through this ever again. I vowed never to cut my daughter's hair short like what my mom did when I was a child - but she's already got it started and the job needs to be finished now. 

Holy Week - a time to reflect

Here I am again - surprised to see me? I'm sure you're starting to think that I might never write again!

Last night I had the joy and privilege of participating in a church-wide performance called "Yahweh." It was a compilation of songs - chronically the journey of Jesus as he arrived on Palm Sunday - through his crucifixion and resurrection. More than 100 voices, instrumentalists and other support people (like our wonderful AV team) worked hours to deliver this performance. 

Now as we are in the midst of Holy Week - I am reflecting and pondering on just how great and awesome these events truly are - in my own personal life and that of the world. 

One of my girlfriend's recently sent me a link to a video on YouTube. It's a skit done to Lifehouse's song, "Everything." It moves me to tears - as it chronicles the life of a young girl - searching for Jesus and then being swayed by the devil and finally fighting her way back. It makes me think about all the little things that can get in front of my relationship with Jesus and is making me seriously reconsider the priorities in my life. 

I really hope that you will take a moment to watch it - and have a tissue handy because I've watched it maybe 5 times now and it's brought me to tears each time. 

Kids and Easter...

No matter what the holiday - and I'm talking about the big ones - you know the two times a year people are more likely to go to church - Christmas and Easter... I want my children to know the real reason we celebrate. It's not about the Easter Bunny or Santa Claus - but about an event crucial to our heritage as Christians.

I'm so thankful for my church's strong commitment to children. We are fortunate (although it's really been a struggle) to have Madeleine in preschool at the Wesley Academy where she is getting a good start in how much God loves her. She also adores her Sunday School teacher Miss Sophie - who is a high school student volunteering her time to teach the three-year-olds!

Yesterday was a long day and Maddie took a very needed, but late nap - hence the almost midnight bedtime after a very long day for Mommy. We were laying in bed together talking at who knows what hour and she was telling me how much she loved the concert and started telling me all the components of the story of Jesus - from his ride into town on a donkey and the palms to his crucifixion, and that the angel's name was Gabriel - she had all the details down perfectly!

I stand amazed that a four-year-old little girl can tell me perfectly this story. I know she doesn't yet truly understand the significance, but it's a very promising start. 

Her enthusiasm inspires me to be a better Christian - so often I am caught up in the little things of life that I don't take the time I should for Christ. 

On Good Friday our church will be having a special service. We missed it last year, but I'm not missing it this year (I hope they have nursery!). It's called "Passion Poured Out" and if you're local - it's well worth attending.

Here's some information:

Our 2009 Good Friday Service is “Passion Poured Out”

 Friday, April 10, 2009, 7:00 p.m.

Nestled between the joyful days of Palm Sunday and Easter are days that, in the last week of Christ’s life, were full of suffering, grief, and sacrifice. Join us as we gather together and, through communion, song, and symbol, experience.

I hope no matter where you are that you take Easter beyond the bunny and remember the true reason we celebrate - that God sent his Son Jesus to die on the cross for our sins. It's hard to stand by and watch what is going on in the world today and not see the many prophecies coming to light. We need Jesus now more than ever!