too cute to not post

Esther has been being a great mommy here lately.  Tonight is priceless as she insisted on taking baby to bed with her.  I wish I had my flip when she was trying to snuggle in with her.  She was laying on top of her with the hard plastic hand in her eye.  It seemed this was going to work for Essie until finally I couldn’t let her do it and had to help her get her beside her.  She flung her arm over instinctually.

Then my 2 cuties having some bath time fun… and I promise I try to keep the toys out of their mouths.  They took their opportunity as it became available and my hands were on the camera!!!

How tall is tall?

I would say Adeline is TALL!

She measured in at her 3 yr old well check at:                       40 inches – 96%  and weight was 36.8lbs at – 92%.

You go girl!

We went to a new Pediatricians' office: Healthy Steps and loved it.  Thanks to Julie B. for telling us about them. Super duper close to home and super duper nice.  Adeline was so excited to meet Ms. Alison.  She said right away she could tell she was well behaved – praise God for that.  Adeline loves to make good choices.  Julie who checked us in was great too.  They had received the flu mist the day before.  So check check we did that and she has a minor runny nose. 

Your B-day party was a blast (post coming).  Many thanks to MANY hands!!!  Several folks have been ill after the party….Though many have been ill thereafter the doctor assures me you were not infectious 48hrs after your last bout with the stomach flu.  You were so grown up when you were sick.  I gave you a bucket and you used it without any hesitation.  You had no accidents with this.  I can hardly believe it.  We were all so sick I didn’t even think to get a picture.  You were such a trooper that the picture wouldn’t even have shown probably you were sick.  We had a pallet in your room during the night b/c we were all up.  Then we moved out to the living room during the day and took turns resting and watching movies.  Meme made us Jello.  It was delicious!

Dearest Adeline:  I have a few things to share with you so you can look back and know how blessed we were.  You are smart and funny.  You love to laugh and make us laugh too.  You read out loud any story  you have heard once from memory and you are really good at making it up as you go if we haven’t read it to you. You love going to the library.  You pull out every book and would take them all home with us if I let you.  You get excited when I come to pick you up and hug me and tell me “I made good choices today”.  Your teachers agree!  You have clear speech and so many words.  You are working on not whining so much.  You love to play at the dinner table (and this drives me crazy).  You LOVE candy.  We put bubble gum on your cake b/c you love it so.  You love to get ice-cream, especially with Daddy on a special Addy/Daddy trip.  You are an excellent sister.  You share so readily.  In the car today you were sharing your gummies with Essie.  You hand her toys, give kisses and care for her when she gets hurt.  You do have a bad habit of pulling her down to the ground with hugs.  You love singing hymns and really anything.  Your Daddy took you to an Annie Moses Band concert at our church last week and you listened for close to an hour.  At one point you realized there were hymnals there and broke it open and began belting out Victory in Jesus.  It was adorable, though everyone else was wanting to listen to the Band that was there.  You are slightly timid with physical feats.  However you will try just about anything.  Swinging. You did swimming lessons with Meme this summer and loved them. You blink big blinks when water gets in your eyes, put your face in the water and blow bubbles, kick your feet and almost propel yourself forward, float on your back and somewhat dive for rings.  You love shoes and we were given about 8 pairs that you rotate through on almost a daily basis.  You love your “tinker bell flip flops” the best I do believe.  You love your princess, veggie tales (just starting to get into these guys), Bible DVD, Sam  I Am, Ms. Patty Cake is slightly out of favor.  You talk on the phone with family most of the time. You love bracelets and necklaces as well.  We paint your nails pretty regularly.  Your 2yr old teacher Ms. Shelia gave you the stuff to keep this going – so sweet!  

We have recently been to see the “Bat house” at UF, the Zoo at Sante Fe Community College, and regularly go to the butterfly museum (annual pass).  I got us into 2 music classes at the library.  You and Essie loved this.  You just started 3yr old choir and we are looking forward to a Nov 1st debut in the evening service.  You have newly mastered riding on a Big Wheel and can do the tricycle pretty consistently on short distances.  We don’t seem to get much time to practice.  We were riding our bike or Mommy would run us down to the “wooden park” near our house.  We have fun and you get a pop ice!  You are fully potty trained and have been for some time.  Though I will say we gave up the evening diaper just last week and so far no accidents – such a big girl!!!  Bryan takes you into school and I pick you up.  You eat almost all foods, though a little sketchy of those we don’t regularly eat like avocado, celery, etc.  You eat whole apples.  You love the river and hence we go there regularly.  Your birthday party was there.  We had so much fun!  You are helping us teach Esther sign language and do so with such compassion.  You have an “office area” in our living room.  You love to go to parties.  We have gone to 2 birthday parties and have had a blast.  You go to bed at approx 8pm and get up when Essie wakes you up (6am) or you get lucky and sleep through her crying until 7 (you share a room).  You just started the 3 yr old class and your teachers are Ms. Holly and Ms. Christie.  You aren’t too thrilled about spiders, but do not mind looking at them.  You get dirty and have fun doing it. 

We thank God for the gift of you (James 1:17a Every good and perfect gift is from above.).  We pray and you pray every night before bed.  We have started memorizing God’s word.  This is the day the Lord has made, I will rejoice and be glad in it. Ps 118:24  Almost every morning you walk outside and say “ what a beautiful day!”.  It is heart melting.  How can you not have a good day after that!  Adeline we pray that you will love His word with all your might and you would have a hunger for it all your life. That you will love God with all your heart, soul, mind and strength.

I have been listening to Beth Moore’s Feather from my Nest.  A sweet book on encouraging parents to parent!  One tidbit is that she focused on making memories rather than documenting them.  I don’t know just how well I can grasp that.  I want to live and breath every moment of your life and not forget a one of those seconds.  You are growing up so fast.  It wasn’t biblically based truth, but I do need to be careful about where I spend my time.  That is from the Bible.  I am thinking about giving up facebook. gasp!  Though I am not fully connected in reality by any means.  We shall see.

Adeline turned 3 today!

HAPPY BIRTHDAY ADELINE!!!

I think she is very happy to be 3!

And oh what fun we had. We are ALL recovering from the stomach flu... so it was pasta and rice and some cheese. And of course for Adeline all she wanted was a Blow-pop and Ring-pop. So she got those too. Her party is tomorrow out at the river ... we all can hardly wait.

Adeline loves the Ring-pop!

Essie wants to try the Ring-Pop:

Make that: Essie loves the Ring-pop!!!

Adeline and Daddy writing in her new book.

Just had to get nostalgic on ya: Comparing her 1yr old hand print to the now 3yr old hand.

River FUN!!!

We were out at the river this past weekend with the college folk from our class. We had a blast with Tony, Kyle and Hannah. Martha and Bill were there to join in on the fun. Esther is running about full throttle. Adeline is growing up so fast.

My little ray of sunshine! She loves sitting on these kid benches.

My adventurers! Adeline didn't complain once about the rain.

This was a fun day, Mommy

I guess really you could say the fun started last night having a pizza dinner with Martha & Bill and Annie & Chad.

Tonight on the way home....from a fun packed day Adeline said "This was a fun day" about 8 or 9 times. Granted we just got the kids in bed... literally - don't judge me :)
We started out the day by making pancakes. Though honestly it was the least amount of help Adeline has ever been, she was too busy cooking in her kitchen. Then we were off to the Library to get books (Jill just taught me about reserving them online – really cool). Adeline loves them. She choose to go there first over our next stop, which was the Butterfly garden. We went home and grabbed Esther (after a nap she requested at 9:30am - she was the fussiest in a long while and was begging for an early nap, which worked perfectly). After I had the 2 girls for the butterflies we headed to Jarrod Reed and Megan Renfrew's wedding. Where Adeline got to see many princesses. She questioned why would they have on such pretty dresses and not twirl around in them. Crazy! We will have to look into that one. We even got to peek into their special Limousine. Then we headed home for a nap (I got to eat popcorn and read a good book, while Bryan installed a motion light out back). After that was some fun around the house, shoes, shoes, shoes, baby dolls taking naps, and reading the new library books. Then we met up with a sweet family with 3 precious girls for dinner at Bentos. The big agenda for the night that we had been talking about for days was going to see the bats on the UF campus. It was a thrill. So many. And thankfully not as stinky as we have experienced before. Then to be truly adventurous we went over to Lake Alice and of course we saw an alligator. Next was a trip to the Ben Hill Griffin Stadium. Adeline showed off her gator chomp and knowledge of Timmy Tebow. So much fun!!! Now off to bed! Thanks to so many for a great weekend and we are only half way done. Praise God!!!

Sitting on the fence awaiting the great Bat escape:

Bats:

See the alligator eyes (if you can't, I'll tell you they are there):

Fun at the stadium:

Essie:

Is she okay?

Adeline asked if Ms. Jill was okay.  She originally had asked where was she as we were waiting to meet her in a parking lot to finish our journey to a well hidden park - Cofrin park.  (we love this park,though don’t go often… it does have a nice nature trail) I said she was probably stuck at a traffic light.  Then a few minutes later is when she asked “Is Ms. Jill okay?”.  It then hit me she thought she was ouch-stuck and not sitting-stuck.  So explained the difference.  We also  have had some “inretesting, intressing, interssting” conversations as she tries out not only saying some difficult words, but also using them in a sentence days or hours later from a conversation overheard. She can recognize most of her numbers, and knows a good many letters.                        Just a pic of my cutie!

Esther is going to be my girl on the edge of excitement (aka… my heart flutters often).  I am thinking about taking out a prepaid ER plan as well as a prepaid college plan.  She not only climbs all over the fire place hearth (which we thought we had barricaded by a couch and some pillows that now have paved the way for her to climb onto a table top), a step stool with graduated steps, but now a good little stool that she has to hike her legs up on and pull on up with who knows what so that she can play in the kitchen sink.  I have a picture of her at the bathroom sink that she has been navigating a week or more.  The most recent stool is much more difficult and only in the last couple days.  Bryan found her at the kitchen sink with kiddie lids and bowls from their lunches.  She has been climbing into Adeline’s standard twin bed for a while with the help of a miniature stool (a few inches off the ground).  With her height and courage we are going to have to be praying hard for safety.

I have been looking in to Awanas here of late b/c I think Adeline will start this in the Fall.  I am rather excited. It seems to equip children and parents in teaching their children about the love of Jesus.  I have a call into the church to see about parent orientation of sorts.  Online there are a lot of extra resources for parents.  Even a day by day calendar, a link within that last link for parents with ideas, etc.

Teaching Tuesday: Cooking it UP!

So Esther is great at mimicking us.  She holds shoes to her feet and has a way of demanding them to be put on. She puts purses on her shoulders, bracelets on her wrist, and  brushing her teeth.  Here she is cooking.  This was a difficult evening when I hadn’t cooked ahead of time.  So I give both of them some pots and pans as a special treat.  I have tried to get them to make music with them, but it ends up they both started cooking away with them.