Happy Thursday

We love Thursdays in our house because for our family, Thursday night is the start of the weekend! Chica loved hearing tonight that her daddy is going to stay home tomorrow. Maybe that will give me some time to write a real post. Until then, Happy Thursday from our very grown up looking Big Girl to you.

without a doubt

Without a doubt,

she is

my favorite girl

in the whole

wide

world.

The End.

candy land

A few weeks ago I bought Chica her very first board game. My mom has a few toddler games that Reese loves to play with the cousins so I thought it would be a good time to upgrade. Plus the heat is outrageous here (99 today) so I'm up for anything we can do to keep busy/sane indoors.

She got the hang of it pretty quickly, but it never fails that about 10 minutes into it, she'll start tweaking the game to her own liking. The Rainbow Trail causes all kinds of debating and questioning and explaining and gnashing of teeth. For a short-cut it sure wears me out.Recently I've caught her picking up several cards at once and shuffling through them to find a candy card. Girlfriend loves her some candy cards. This is the face she makes when she gets one.

She'd rather draw a candy card and go all the way back to the beginning of the board (by way of the Rainbow Trail) than arrive at the candy castle and win the game. If someone (including herself) wins with hardly any candy cards having been drawn, she feels short-changed.

Usually mid-way through the game, especially if it has been a low candy card round, she'll ask to switch colors with her opponent. (Not places, just pieces.) Only one of her parents allows her to do it . She knows how to sucker him.

And if it's just the two of us playing and we've selected our colors, she throws the other two pieces back in the box declaring that "nobody wants to play with us." This makes me feel bad so I explain that nobody else is home. And then I make each of us name five friends to prove we aren't loners.

Candy Land. It's just one more thing my ever-growing Big Girl is up to these days.

two portraits

My toddler drew a picture of me.

I've never felt so beautiful, unlike the time she compared me to Goliath or recognized me in one of her children's books. Can you see my neck? Before she drew it, she examined it closely saying, "now I'm going to draw your tail."

"My tail?" I asked, "don't you mean my neck?" Of course she did. Neck, tail, same thing. An artist can't be bothered by such particulars.

This is a portrait of her Daddy.
He's convinced all the more that we gave birth to a genius. :)

a trio of toddlers

Trying to get a picture of three cousins (ages 2, 3 and 1) together is nothing short of a wacky side-show. We made quite the scene in attempt to get these toddlers to all look at the camera at the exact same second with a brilliant (yet natural) smile plastered on each of their faces. Turns out, some of the best shots are what happens in between the "keepers." To top it off these three had spent all of Labor Day weekend together and were practically bursting at the seams with their mutual love for each other. Here's to all the candids we can blackmail them with later on in life. :)

first day of school (and more faith)

Yesterday Reese started school. She's in a Mother's Day Out program that she'll attend twice a week. It's the same place as last year and she LOVES it! I thought for sure I would ugly cry when I dropped her off and prayed I'd make it safely to the car before losing it.

Surprisingly I shed no tears getting her ready that morning. I did really well until we got in the car. Chica was whining a little, so to distract her I asked her if she wanted to sing. Without waiting for her response I launched into the first song that popped into my head-He's Got the Whole World in His Hands. It's a sure fire crowd-pleaser because you can change "whole world" to anything you want to fit the current circumstance. It's biblical and entertaining all at the same time. :) We sang "first day of schoolers" and "crazy mamas." Both got a good chuckle from the back seat. Eyes moist with tears, I silently thanked God for His sovereignty over every situation (especially the particularly sensitive ones that involve our children!) as we pulled into the parking lot.

As God would have it Sunday morning at church the pastor taught on faith. His first child is due next year and he's already starting to realize how much faith parenting requires. As I dropped Chica off at her classroom my heart felt the pull of its faith being stretched a little farther.

As her mother there is so much I want to control about her little life, but can't. I can't determine what she's going to say to her teacher, how she's going to treat other children or even if she'll be in the same clothes I dropped her off in because she remembered to tell her teacher she had to use the bathroom. All I can do is step out a little farther in faith, offering my worries and hopes to the One who loves this precious child even more than I do and believing confidently that His specific plan for her life is good.

go tigers

2 Things:

1. For some reason when I took this video on my phone and I turned it sideways, it looked straight up and down anyway. So sorry that wasn't the case!

2. There is one very good reason she calls back "M-O-U!"

In Mickey Mouse Clubhouse they sing, "M-I-C-K-E-Y, M-O-U-S-E." In her Mickey-lovin' mind our Alma mater battle cry of "M-I-Z" sounds just like the beginning of the intro song of her favorite TV show. If she ends up loving the Mizzou Tigers with half of the love she has for the Mouse, we'll have raised her right. :)

tall as a tree

A few weeks ago I was getting ready for the day. Chica ran into the room, peered up at me and exclaimed, "Whoa, you're TALL Mommy! You're tall...like a tree!"

I laughed because I've always been on the shorter side. In dance recitals the tall girls got to dance center stage while the short girls were stuck on the end of each row. Debs can attest to the fact that we were the bookends of the second grade tap line. A part of my 5'3'' self always wanted to be tall. I've yet to surrender that dream and make due as a pseudo-tall girl walking around in the highest shoes I can find. So you can imagine my delight when my own daughter thought I looked like a supermodel (my rough translation of what I thought she meant when she so eloquently compared me to a tree.)

Fast forward to a few nights later. It's time for bed so we've pulled out Chica's Bible to read. She has several Bibles, but this is the one we're using for now and she loves it. I let her flip through the pages to pick out a story.

Of course, I knew what she was going to pick, because she picks the exact same page every single time:
My child is fascinated with Goliath. I'm not quite sure what the draw is or if I should be worried, but it's what she picked so we went with it. I launched into the story for the umpteenth time, but this time around, the third line sounded oddly familiar:

Turns out it wasn't a supermodel my toddler had in mind when she saw me getting ready. She took one look at me and thought her mother looked just like that huge, burly, angry giant she'd read about all those times. Heaven help me.

Truth is, if I'm going to be comparing myself to a character in the story, I think I'm more like these guys- on the winning team yet often terrified by the huge obstacles standing in the way of victory.
The back cover promises this toddler Bible will "entertain your young ones" and "teach them biblical lessons that last a lifetime."
But I'm hoping she forgets the Goliath/Mommy association pronto!

start spreading the news

No time to blog. Or reply to emails. Or return phone calls. We've been working around the clock at all hours of the night. Today I felt so guilty about all the TV Chica's been watching, I took her to McDonald's for a happy meal and even let her order fries instead of apple dippers. Nothing shouts world class parenting like the combination of TV and fast food. It was a fun lunch date though. Talked to each other through the whole thing, except when people approached us to interact with Chica. I don't blame them because she's impossible to resist.

Still working on the house. But we have a ton of pictures, so if any of you local blog readers know of someone who might be interested, I can send you some.

rhinton10@gmail.com

Start spreading the news....