Child Of The King. Wife to my Best Friend. Mother to my Beauties. Avid Blogger. Coffee Addict. Chocoholic. Worship Singer. Natural Living Explorer. Simply Me.
Who needs a "Pet Peeve Of The Day" post or a " Love Dare recap" when you can feast your eyes on all of this cuteness? Those posts are coming but maybe not this week. We are going to round 2 of VBS this week and it's at my in laws church this time.(Speaking of which, VBS is going to get a post all it's own!) So that is making for a busy week. I'm up for "light", easy, and fun posts this week.
Can you believe this little girl is going to be TWO in a little under two weeks? I can't. She sure is a ball of fun. Her quirky little personality makes me laugh every day. It's so different than Katelyn's yet they play so well together(usually). She definitely has more of a"dry" personality and sense of humor than diva Katelyn does. Where Katelyn is all out volatile on some days, Madelyn is more steady. She does have a temper and has been throwing some terrible- two fits here lately, but those are usually rare. And only when she's tired. She brings us so much joy and we love her to pieces!
Then Jesus called a little child to Him,set him in the midst of them and said, “Assuredly, I say to you, unless you are converted and become as littlechildren, you will by no means enter the kingdom of heaven.Therefore whoever humbles himself as this little child is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven.
The setting: My kitchen. I'm doing dishes. Katelyn comes in the kitchen as starts talking all about her block creations(see pictures below) and going to a planetarium and this and that. Talking my ears off! Then suddenly she stops and we start this conversation.(Written from the best of my memory from two days ago! Ah!)
K: Mama, is Jesus going to take me to Heaven? Me: Well, Jesus is going to take everyone who believes in Him to Heaven K: I want to believe in Jesus so He can take me to Heaven Me: Ok! You can believe in Jesus. All you have to do is tell Jesus you believe in Him and ask Him into your heart K: Ok, I want to do that right now.( Then she closed her eyes, folded her hands.) K: Jesus, I believe in you. And I want you to come into my heart and take me to Heaven. And I love you very, very much. Me(crying tears of joy but trying not to show her so she won't be concerned): Sweetie! That's great! I'm so happy! Jesus is soo happy too! K: Is Jesus going to take me to Heaven now? Me: He will take you to Heaven when it's the right time.
And so the conversation went. I was so amazed and inspired by her simple, child-like faith. It was so pure and innocent. Just the way Jesus asks our faith to be. There were no strings attached. No doubts. Just pure faith that if she believed in Jesus He would take her to Heaven.
What a blessing it was to see that and be a part of that. What a great lesson to us jaded adults.
I added some videos from that day for your(meaning my mom's) enjoyment.
Have a blessed day. I hope this post blessed your heart today.
We had a great Fourth Of July weekend. Friday night we went to Fourth of July festivities hosted by the town my in laws' church is in. Their church set up a booth and sold corn on the cob with all the fixings for it. It was delicious! The girls enjoyed running around, looking at all the different booths and eating ice cream,fried dough and of course, freshly grilled corn on the cob. Saturday we spent the day at my in laws' house. We swam in the pool and grilled hamburgers, hot dogs and corn on the cob for lunch. We didn't get to see any fireworks, unfortunately, but it was still a great time.
Our Fourth Of July Pool Babe
Unfortunately, I didn't get any pictures of this, but Madelyn also went down the slide. And since this day, not only do the girls go down the slide, they jump off the diving board!Madelyn floats around on her own with her floaties( under our watchful eye ,of course) and kicks her legs to get around. She's turning into a fish just like Katelyn did.
And here are some videos from our first time in the pool and Fourth Of July. I had a couple of better videos of the girls but they were soooo not flattering of me and Mike. So...I spared your eyes.
Katelyn has been learning some Bible verses from a really cute book called "My ABC Bible Verse Book". I wrote about it and included a picture of it in this post. I totally recommend this book for parents who want to introduce Bible verses to their preschoolers and younger elementary aged children. Katelyn has learned her verses up until the letter "L". Each page has an illustration that goes along with the verse. As we're learning the verse we talk about what is going on in the picture and what the verse means. It's just a really cute book.
This first video is of Katelyn saying her verses at the end of dinner time. You'll have to excuse Madelyn's fussing. Since Katelyn was on a roll I didn't want to stop filming!
This next video is a cute one of the girls dancing while we were watching the auditions for the show "So You Think You Can Dance". That's my favorite summer show so they will be watching a lot of dancing this summer! You can also see a little bit of Madelyn pretending to be a frog but you have to listen closely and look past Katelyn's crazy dancing.
If you are one of the few people in the world, (like me!) who hadn't seen Susan Boyle's performance of "I Dreamed A Dream" from Les Miserables on "Britain's Got Talent" you have to see this. I was crying buckets throughout the whole thing. She just blew me away with her voice. I got so angry seeing some of the audience's derisive facial expressions when she came out. I hope they were so ashamed of themselves afterwards. I tried to post a video but youtube has the "embed" feature disabled on her videos. Go Susan!!
I come from a musical family. My parents sing and play piano and guitar. My mom even plays the accordion!
(insert Partridge Family comment here)
I sing and play piano. My sister sings and plays piano, guitar and drums. My brother sings and plays guitar. And apparently is learning all sorts of other instruments in his quest to be a better worship leader.
My grandparents sing and/or play instruments. My aunts, uncles and cousins all sing and/or play an instrument.
Music is a way of life for us.
When I am able to get together with my siblings we like to sing together. Growing up my brother was always shy and didn't really do much musically. He has grown into a very musically talented young man and is now the worship leader at my parent's church! My sister and I have sung together for years. When we were on deputation as missionaries, way back when, we would always sing a children's song in portuguese and english together. If it was the same song in both languages-even better!! Most people thought it was cute. Well, we've evolved since then and have sung many songs together at many different places.
(Insert Indigo Girls comparison here)
Now that my brother has come out of his musical shell the three of us make pretty good music together.
(insert Hanson comparison here)
That is one thing I really miss living so far away from them. I wish I could be around more to sing with them.
Here is a song we sang this past Sunday together. My brother didn't sing with us on this song. He played guitar, my cousin David is playing bass and my brother in law, Waylon(not seen in the video), is playing drums. Hopefully, soon, I'll post a video of the three of us singing.
I hope and pray Katelyn and Madelyn get the music gene.
Oh, and any other future children I may have.
Can't forget them....
*Oh, and the reason there are two videos is that the camera accidently got shut off for a sec while filming and then started back up. So the first video has several seconds and the second one has the rest of the song on it*
(Just wait...I realize I have to turn the camera the right way in a few second!)
We went to the Fort Worth Zoo a few weeks back.I just uploaded the pictures yesterday. The Ft. Worth zoo is an awesome zoo and one of the best I've ever been to.
Interesting tid-bit: "Barney At The Zoo" was filmed there. Any of you have/had kids that were into Barney? I did. So this was a nugget of info I cherished.
Anywho...
Here they are!
Waiting in line to get in.
My brother Bryan and the adorable penguin having a special moment
That penguin was so friendly. And so cute!! I followed us around the glass.
Some lethal and poisonous snake. I hate them but I love how clear this picture came out
My mom, Katelyn, Madelyn and my brother in front of....well... it's pretty self explanatory
We were standing right under than flamingo and it didn't budge.
Bryan and Madelyn in the alligator section
One of my favorite pictures of us
Single male alert! He's young, cute, Christian, musically and artistically talented and just got a great job. Any takers? Please send personal info and a picture to me.
Fun times in the giant rocking chairs in Texas Town(I think that's what it was called!)
Enjoying some of the kiddie rides at the zoo
This carousel was ancient. Not the most flattering video of me.Certain parts of my anatomy are not made to fit the saddle of these horses.
Feeding the birds in the aviary. Those were some competitive and cut-throat birds! You should have seen how they knocked each other away and off the feeding sticks.
There was a baby elephant with the bigger ones. He was so cute!
Yesterday it was in the mid to high 80's here. I've gotten to connect with several old friends. I've been surrounded by family. Yes, I'm loving it here. I've been more relaxed here. It's felt like a looong vacation for me. Of course, I've helped my mom clean her house and I've done laundry etc. but it's been nothing like what I was doing at home before I left. I've played outside every day and the girls have had a blast playing in the dirt patch in my parent's backyard. We've been on several walks, to the zoo and to the park. I think my girls do miss all their toys and hopefully will have a better appreciation for them when we get back.They are certainly going to miss being able to play outside every day. I've been catching up on season one of "Lost" and I am sooo addicted. Once we put the girls to bed in the evenings my mom and I get on our laptops, put our ear buds in and each watch our episodes of Lost. That has been so fun.Without further ado here are some more pictures...
me and my grandma Woolbright
geemaw and Maddy
me and my sister(and Brooklyn in her belly)
The worship team at my parent's church-GracePointe Baptist. My brother is the worship leader/guitar player, my cousin Paul is playing bass, Gloria is one of the singers, my sis is the pianist/singer and her hubby Waylon is the drummer. Baby Brooklyn is singing back up.
My sis Steph and hubby Waylon. Steph is showing off her 19 week belly
The "younger" Sunday school class. My dad is teaching
Auntie Steph with Katelyn
Auntie Steph with Madelyn
This is a video clip(mostly for Mike's enjoyment) of the worship time at my parent's church. You will also see Katelyn and her little friend Kylie standing next to each other trying to sing. It was really cute how much fun they had together during song time. I want to post a video soon of me and my sibs singing together. As of yet I don't have one with good sound quality. It's coming soon!
(**UPDATE*** Check the bottom. I forgot to post pics of the girls on the carousel! They have been added now.Whew)
Hi Daddy,
Texas rocks.
I've been having a lot of fun here although I am starting to wonder if I'm going back to Maxachuzits at all. I keep wondering if this is my new house or not but mama keeps telling me that this isn't. We do have a set date to leave here now. We're coming back to see you on Sunday, March 15th. I know mama will be happy to see you. I still haven't found my mimi and I think mama is a little more upset about it that I am. I hope I don't have to go back to our house without it. I also miss nana and papa and I have a whole lot of stuff I want to tell them about this trip.
I wanted to show you some pictures and videos of some stuff I've been doing here. Some of them may even have Maddy in them. She's been having fun too. She really likes to be held all the time by geemaw. And geemaw loves to oblige. I'll bet you didn't know I knew such a big word. Anyway, I really want you to see this videos. I love you! (and so does Maddy)
This video is about me and how I rode the carousel and this huge mall we went to. I even said "thank you" to the lady who turned it on for us. She thought that was nice and called me "Darlin'". Why does everyone keep calling me that here? I had to tell her my name wasn't "Darlin'". I looooved riding the carousel. I was super excited about it.
Oh, and here's a short clip of Maddy riding in geemaw's lap. She did not want to ride a horse. She didn't want to because she's a baby. I wanted to because I'm a big girl.
Here are some pictures mama has taken of us recently. I hope you enjoy them!
This one is of me swinging on the big girls swings at a playground close to geemaw's house. It was a beautiful day and I had a ton of fun.
Maddy loved going up and down that ramp
Here I am climbing on the climber like a big girl. I didn't fall off once. Although, mama did drop the camera right after this shot and dented the lens. It's all fixed now so she said I could tell you. Oh, and she also said to make sure I told you it got fixed for free.
Here I am with great grandma Woolbright. Did you know their house is on wheels?? I thought that was so neat! I wanted them to drive it around but they said it wasn't safe right then.
Madelyn was being kinda grouchy that day and she was kinda shy. She didn't want her picture taken.
Here I am with great grandpa Woolbright. I had fun playing with him. He gave me lots of piggy back rides He also wore a cowboy hat, cowboy boots and took his teeth out! I thought that was so cool!!I tried to take mine out but they wouldn't come out no matter how hard I tried. That was a little disappointing. Grandpa let me touch his teeth though. I didn't think it was nearly as gross as everyone else did.
This is what I spent a lot of time doing with great grandpa W. He said something about needing a nap after we left. Who would ever want to take a nap?? Not me!!
Maddy had something to say to you in this video. So watch it carefully.
We love you! Oh, and we miss you too.
Ya'll.
( we apologize for the not so good video quality. It was not taken with my camera. Hopefully, future videos will be better. If not, it's Youtubes fault.)
Madelyn has been copying Katelyn when she shows us that her mouth is empty while eating dinner. Madelyn now says "Mouf!, Mouf!" and opens her mouth wide and sticks out her tongue. I guess you'll just have to see for yourself!
In this next video Katelyn is dancing to the "Dora's Pirate Adventure" DVD that she LOVES. She's trying to copy what the characters on t.v are doing. Madelyn is walking around doing her crazy thing. You don't get to hear it completely, but Mike says " When did we give birth to a T-Rex?" at the end of the clip because of the way Maddy was "growling" and stomping around. To that I say- WE? I love ya, honey, but I'm the one they pulled our little "T-Rex" from!
