Kate

To my sweet Kate,

It is now almost March of 2008. You are 3 years and 2 months old. You are no longer a baby. You want to be a big girl and you are becoming one very quickly. You love to do "school" and trace pictures, talk about letters and numbers and all sorts of things. You want to know everything. You are a great big sister. You love Claire and love to play with her. She adores you and so does Henry. If he is crying, you've figured out that if you touch his face, he'll stop crying so you love to help "settle" him. You love to help me do everything, make dinner, do the laundry, dust, etc. You are also quick to point out when Claire disobeys. I have memories of doing the same with my sister. I haven't quite figured out how to stop this but hopefully I will someday.

You love to dance on your father's feet and you ask him all the time, "Daddy, can we dance"? Every time you say this I literally have to hold back my tears. I know I'm going to close my eyes and when they open, you'll be saying that at your wedding. You father loves to dance with you too and I know in his heart, he's thinking the same think I am.

We found out this week that you have to get glasses. I took you in for your 3 year check up and they did a routine vision screening. They do this by taking a picture of your eye. Your left pupil was smaller than your right which can be an indication of being farsighted so we were referred to a pediatric opthamologist. I thought it was crazy because as far as I could tell, you could see fine. You recognize and point out letters and numbers and can trace and draw. We went for your examine and they did a more comprehensive screening and we were told that you are in fact farsighted. The doctor said we couldn't tell because your brain compensates for the vision problem by working extra hard and it does allow you to see. He said the problem comes if not corrected because the brain will continue to over compensate which would eventually cause your eye to turn in. Your vision is +2.5and +3.0 which honestly means nothing to me! He said you may grow out of it so I'll be interested to see if it has or not when you read this letter.

You were THRILLED to find out you needed glasses...it was so cute. You love wearing sun glasses so when I told you you were getting some glasses that you had to wear all the time, you thought that was the best. We are going to order them on Saturday and it's been hard for you to wait. You keep asking when you are getting your princess glasses. (I'm not sure where that came from!) I'm thankful that we live in a time when this problem can be caught early and corrected. That is truly a blessing. The Lord is good. I am near sighted so the next time I will see perfectly will be in when I see my Savior. If you remain farsighted, you will have the same blessing I have.

I Cor 13:12 "Now we see but a poor reflection as in a mirror; then we shall see face to face."

I can't wait to see your cute face in your "princess" glasses

I love you always and always,

Mommy

Claire - 22 months

My dear Claire,

You are 22 months old! We celebrated your 22nd month by potty training you. You are such a big girl now. It's amazing how that one milestone can make you seem so much older. In this letter, I'll explain to you how I potty trained you so that when you have children of your own, you'll know how you were trained. Maybe there will be some fancy method by the time you have children and my way will seem silly. All I did was stop putting you in diapers, except for when you were sleeping. You went straight to "big girl panties" and I never used pull-ups (which, in case you don't know, are like diapers that you pull on and off.) I would take you every 15 min or so the first day and I expected accidents. The only way you can learn to control the sensation is to know what an accident feels like. The first day you had 5 accidents.
When you had a success, I would reward you with either chapstick or lotion because you love both of those things. To encourage you so stay seated on the toilet, we'd sing songs or read a book. The second day you had about 10 accidents. It was very hard because I'd put you on the toilet and you wouldn't do anything and then I'd let you up and you'd go on the floor! I can promise you those first 2 days of potty training have been the most frustrating days I've had so far as a mother. I knew that you didn't know how to do it and that's why I was training you but it still was hard. Around 3:00 the second day you got it. It finally made since and you have been accident free for over a week now. I've left you with other people in the church nursery, bible study and the gym and you've been fine each time. You tell me when you need to go and it's just so great now. You are still in a diaper at night and I'll just wait until you are staying dry before I take away that diaper. I trained your sister in the same way and her experience was identical to yours. I'll be interested to see if training a boy is harder. I've heard it is so we will see.

This may have seemed like a strange letter this month but I feel like I should pass on information to you that will be helpful to you when you're a mother. I pray, Lord willing, that you'll be able to ask my advice when your in the midst of training your children, but here is the help I have to give you while it's fresh on my mind.
I hope we can one day read these letters together. It will be interesting for me to see what I was thinking. I'm sure I'll think I was so inexperienced. But no matter but much I learn going forward, one thing that will never change is my love for you. I wish I could explain how I love you. I wish you could feel they way I feel and know how my heart actually aches with love for you. If you are holding a baby of your own, know that the love you have for you child is what I have for you. No matter how old we become, you are my daughter and you are my baby. And now you are such a big girl.

All of my love,

Mommy

Henry at 12 weeks

Please excuse the scratch marks on his face...I'm terrible at remembering to cut his fingernails!! But yes, I have cut them since this picture was taken!

Favorite Quotes of the Day

Kate: Mommy, I'm going to take a good nap for you today. (And she did...3 hours in fact!)

Me: Claire, what does whinning get you?
Claire: Nothing!

Henry: Gooooo, Ahhhhh

For Annie and Lily Kate

Today Annie came to play while her mom went to the doctor. My girls were singing up on their "stage" (a cardboard box) and apparently Annie thought they were crazy. (Please make sure you watch the entire video...it's only 22 sec)
I'm so glad my girls have each other to play with and couldn't help but think that in a couple of years, Annie and her new sister Lily Kate will be acting silly together too.

This week's highlights

Henry - went for his 2 month check-up 3 weeks late. That's about right for the third baby. He weighs 13 lbs 2 oz and is 25 in long. That puts him at 70% weight and 90% height which trust me....means nothing. He also is consistently sleeping 11 hrs at night without waking. As soon as we get a few good 12 hr nights, (which hopefully will come this next week) he'll start going to bed at 7:00 with his sisters! YEA!
All of our children have started sleeping 12 hrs around this point...tummy sleeping is the only way to go!

Claire - is 22 months old now and potty trained (except for diapers at night.)I started on Monday and she had 4 accidents, 10 on Tuesday and then the light came on sometime around 3:00pm on Tuesday and she hasn't had an accident since. Now she tells me when she needs to go and has actually gone a few times by herself!!
I just stopped putting her in diapers and took her frequently until she got it. Trust me...it's a rough couple of days but worth it. I did the same with Kate when she trained.

Kate - is 3 years old and apparently has become a socialist. Claire's reward for going to the bathroom the first couple of days was chapstick. (Both girls are obsessed with it.) Anyway, every time Claire would have a success, Kate would scream, "YEA CLAIRE! Now I get some chapstick"!
We all know Rick's stance on Ron Paul and apparently we can guess who Kate likes (as long as universal health care includes chapstick.)I'm glad Rick didn't try and potty train Claire because I can hear the conversation now:

Claire: I DID IT!
Kate: YEA! Now I get some chapstick!
Rick: Neither of you get chapstick...I paid for that chapstick...you girls both can go work to pay for your own! You're not entitled to anything around here!
HAHA:)

So that's it!! It's been a BIG week in our house!

My "Birthday" Party

My birthday is not until May, but I had a wonderful birthday party on Monday.
Kate called me into the living room and announced that she was having a birthday party for me. She and Claire sang "Happy Birthday" and danced (which really consists of jumping up an down and marching in place really fast.)
Then Kate sat in my lap and "read" me my birthday card. (I had been writing thank you notes and she had one of those.) She said, "this card says thank you for the birthday party, love kate."
She then said, "it's time for a story. (she had one of rick's seminary books.) this story is from John and it's about a sicamore tree and zacheus. the people were really mad at him because he took their money but then God changed his heart and he gave their money back. the end."
Then I had a birthday cake, hamburger, fries, cucumber, banana, and coke all made by the girls in their kitchen.
I must say that even though my mom threw me some great birthday parties as a child, this once topped them all.

Space Paintings

Some people can do amazing things, and I always find myself asking, "How do you ever learn to do this?"




Super Sprayer - video powered by Metacafe

Things you may or may not know about me

Just for fun...

1. I'm 28 yrs old and my birthday is May 1st.
2. I was born at Baptist Montclair Hospital which is also where I met Rick, 20 yrs later.
3. I was voted "Most Helpful" in 5th grade and was humiliated!
4. I took ballet for 10 years
5. I also took fencing lessons!
6. I've been to Mexico, England, France, Germany and Belgium
7. Rick and I snuck into the World Series in Atlanta in 1999.
8.I had a beach romance at Hilton Head
9.I tore my ACL and MCL snow skiing in Colorado and had to have reconstructive surgery
10.If I had sole naming privileges, my children would probably be named Ellen, Lizzy and Henry

I tag Jessica M, Meredith H, Melanie H, Natalie A to do the same!

Pictures from Hilton Head

We went on a family vacation to Hilton Head Isand, SC this past week. Here are some pics!
I promise Henry was there!

First Day of Ballet

Kate had her first day of ballet yesterday! I was calling to enroll her for the fall and they had an opening for the rest of this year! We thought it would be great to put her in for these last few months to see if she likes it before we sign her up for an entire year. I actually did not pose this picture so I guess she's a natural! I took ballet for 10 years so I'm interested to see if she'll like it or not.

We are all domesticated wild pigs

I read an interesting interview in from the July 1975 edition of Reason Magazine. The article is available here. One answer from Reagan that stood out is below. The interviewer asked Reagan if the Federal government should stop funding colleges and here is Reagan's response:

REAGAN: Well, if I answer that question then I’m answering
that we should do away with our state universities and frankly I haven’t given
enough thought to what could be a counter-system.
At first, there was a great
opposition to most of the Federal revenues that are going to education on the
part of many educators. Once the money was there, however, it was like the
farmer who went into the woods and came back with the wagon loads of wild pigs.
When they asked him how he had done it–they’d been wild for a hundred years–he
said, "I built a fence and I put corn down and fed them, and they got used to
eating the corn there, so l extended the fences’s sides and finally I had an
enclosure and I corralled them." He said, "If I can get them to take food from
me, I’ll own them." And this is what really happened with Federal aid to
education. You know, the Federal Government could have done it differently if
the Federal Government did not at the same time want control.

When considering everything we depend on the government to do for us today, it seems this analogy is fitting for most areas of our lives. Consider the fact that the government evaluates basically everything we consume to tell us if it's safe or not. We have lost the ability to do our own research to determine if newly invented foods, drugs, or whatever are safe or have been properly tested. The easy road consists of sitting back, paying taxes, and not asking too many questions. Is that freedom? It is...in America today.

John McCain - Super Tuesday - The political system is failing

Doug Wead wrote an interesting blog post today considering the impact of Ron Paul's 2008 presidential campaign on politics in the nation. I hope he's right in his point that this election year will be the beginning of great change.



I hope many will have their eyes enlightened to see that John McCain is a wolf in sheep's clothing. We often hear people cry out in our country that we must leave the personal lives of people out of the public square. This is wholeheartedly false because how one acts behind closed doors is an excellent picture of their integrity and values.



John McCain divorced his wife and is accused using "his authority to arrange frequent flights that allowed him to carouse with subordinates and "engage in extra-marital affairs." There are too many unanswered questions about John McCain for him to gain my support.



Politics as usual won on this Super Tuesday. I've heard so many people say that we need to elect someone that will be able to beat the democrats. Each time I mention the name Ron Paul to someone, I hear the response, "I'd agree with what he says and would vote for him if I thought he could win." So, it's now more important for a party to win rather than ideologies to be assessed. Consider why you are republican (or democrat). I was "born into" the republican party, and now everyone (media) tells me that if I'm conservative (Christian), I need to make sure those evil democrats do not get into office.



I ask you this one question. Can we really trust John McCain to hold to his vows? He has continually crossed lines over to side with those "evil" democrats, and now he tells me he is the most conservative person running for President....I don't believe him. He's proven he cannot be trusted.



For this reason, I sure hope Doug Wead is correct in his assessment of the Ron Paul revolution. We need a change, but none of the "front-runners" are speaking of change. The next 4 years will continue us on the path we are currently on, and I for one will not be happy (politically speaking that is!).

Mickey Ferguson - Fox 6's Comedic weatherman

For those of you without the pleasure of watching Mickey Ferguson present the weather forecast each morning, here is a small taste of Mickey. Yes, it can be scary, but he is definitely humerous.

Remember the Gummi Bears?

This was my FAVORITE cartoon! I wanted that GummiBerry juice more than anything!
We'll be posting our other favorites in the days to come.

Money, Money, Money, and more Money

This one's for you Jay!

Henry 2 months old 2/3/08

To my son,

Today you are 2 months old. I can't believe you have been in our family for 2 months. The time goes by so quickly. It feels like we just brought you home. You are a good baby. You are sleeping between 8 and 11 hour straight each night. We are in Hilton Head this week and you didn't cry at all the entire way over here. Of course, you've cried none stop since we've been here but that's Ok. You sisters still love you to death and are sometimes a little too helpful! Claire calls you baby Henry but it sounds like "bobby harry" so that's your nickname for now.

My desire for you is that you will love the Lord with all your heart and learn to worship Him. It is a great responsiblity to be your mother as the Lord has called me to train you and to teach you about Him at all times. May the Lord grant me the ability, strength and wisdom needed. May you be a man of prayer and discipline; a hard worker for the Lord and for your family.
And may you at this moment...stop crying! :)

I love you my dear son,

Mommy