And Then My Heart Literally Stopped

I left my purse in the shopping cart at the grocery store.

Usually, I am fanatical about knowing where it is at all times, but for some reason today my mind was elsewhere. I strapped in the kids, unloaded groceries into the trunk, and then drove away in complete oblivion. I didn't even notice my bag was missing until I pulled into the garage and went to reach for it as I was getting out.

And it wasn't there to grab!

Oh. My. Goodness. Talk about total and utter panic! After making a lightning fast perusal of the interior of the car and trunk, and NOT finding it, I jumped back into the car, and we sped off in the direction of the grocery store. Only I use the term "sped" lightly. Why is it that whenever I'm in a desperate hurry to get someplace, the traffic in front of me seems to be crawling? I think I aged ten years in the five minutes it took to get there!

Seriously, though. Just a half hour before all this drama began, I had been at the bank taking out our household cash for the month. From the bank we went directly to the grocery store. So, in my purse at that moment was a substantial amount of cash, my checkbook, my debit card, credit card, both numbers for our checking and saving accounts, and my driver's license. Oh, and my cell phone. Basically everything. Our lives were on the brink of being absolutely rocked. It felt like my chances were slim that whoever found it would actually turn it in. My mind was so distraught, the only prayer I could get out during that terrible drive was, "Please, dear God...please, dear God!"

Thankfully for us, this story has a happy ending. It was an amazingly kind-hearted and honest person who found my bag in the shopping cart. My purse was waiting for me intact and untouched at the Customer Service Desk. It still seems incredible to me, considering the amount of cash hanging out in my bag, that whoever found it DIDN'T just take it and run. God kept His hand upon it and protected it, and I am weak in the knees with relief and gratitude!

About Lydia

Lydia is growing up fast, and it's hard to keep track of (much less blog about) all the new and fun things she's been starting to do over the past few months. So I thought I'd post a small list of some stuff that we are loving about our sweet La-La right now for all you friends and family out there who don't get to see her very often.

Here it goes:

- She shakes her head and says "no" to every question we ask her no matter what it is.

- She claps, waves, blows kisses, eats with a fork, drinks from a big girl cup, and pretends to "talk" on the phone.

- She can make the signs for "more" and "all done" - but only if she's getting her diaper changed or thinks we aren't paying attention. Never when we actually want her to, the little stinker!

- She absolutely loves to torment her sister by grabbing one of Iris' beloved toys and then running away with it as fast as she can so that Iris will chase her.

- She's starting to say a multitude of words, among them: shoe, jacket, coat, Iris, daddy, mama, no, touch, and bear, and we've heard her say some phrases: Daddy's shoe, don't touch, all done.

- She loves to experiment with accessories, draping herself in bracelets and necklaces and hats, and she likewise loves to play "babies", pushing them in the stroller and feeding them.

- She adores shoes and jackets. She prefers to play with these items over any other toy we might have. The boot and shoe basket in our garage is the greatest thing that ever happened to her!

- She totally understands everything we say to her now and can follow simple directions and find objects we ask her to go get even if they're in another place - her memory is expanding in leaps and bounds!

- She holds my hand so tightly whenever she's walking anywhere with me, and if I let go for even a moment, she's searching for my fingers so that we can be connected again, making sure that her little fingers are holding at least a thumb at all times. I love it, and I'm dreading the moment she doesn't want to do it anymore!

And that's our Lydia in a nutshell at the big age of almost fifteen months. She's a determined, mischievous, sometimes naughty, goofy, affectionate, funny little thing - such a big personality! She keeps us on our toes, that's for certain, but we feel so completely blessed that she gets to belong to us.

A dress-up junkie in the making

The End Of An Era

And so it's happened.

Our TV, our only TV, the TV Todd has had since 1992 and I'm not even joking, finally bit the dust. It's been trying to prepare us for the inevitable for over a month now, but we've been having a hard time accepting it.

Here's an example of what we've had to resort to in the last days:

Sadly, this past Friday, we were forced to come to the realization that the end for our faithful little TV had arrived. Enough was enough.

After a few moments of grieving (because, seriously, we will never find another TV that lasts nearly 20 years!), we packed up the girls and headed to Walmart.

Say hello to our new, modern, flat screen TV:

We've now officially joined the ranks of the rest of the world.

Iris-isms

Last night while hanging out on the couch before supper...

Iris: Mommy! Can you sit next to me?

Me: I am sitting next to you.

Iris: But I want you to touch my arm!

(I scoot over so we're sitting arm to arm)

Iris: Yeah. (satisfied) Now we're cozy.


Piping up from the backseat while out running errands in the car...

Iris: Mommy, I wish I could get inside my heart and take Jesus out and play and play with him!

Designed to Sell - Part Two

Todd installed crown molding in the girls' bedroom this past weekend:

Not too shabby for a first ever try at hanging molding, if I do say so myself. He did a great job, and it looks absolutely fantastic! Most importantly, it completely covers up the multitude of sins residing where the ceiling meets the wall from some very jacked up drywall hanging by the builders of this house. Without going into too much detail, I'm pretty sure they forgot that you actually have to use nails (or screws, if that's your thing, but you must use something) when you hang drywall. So, the main purpose of the molding has been accomplished, and we are very pleased with the results. Doesn't every room look just a bit better with crown molding?

And because I just couldn't stand it any longer, I went ahead and painted our kitchen as well:

We are free, free at last from the bondage of hideous yellow paint! All spaces have been satisfactorily neutralized.

So now we are finished painting. It has been a job and a half, and I am so, so done. I was musing last night as I was cleaning brushes for the last time, that I don't care if I ever see another brush or can of paint again! I think the girls would second that thought. They're ready for things to get a little more normal around here.

Next up: Hanging a ceiling in the basement

Vomit Makes For Great Dinner Conversation

We've been attending the membership workshops that our new church hosts once a month. We've really been enjoying them - not only because of the wealth of valuable information they impart, which is incredible, but also because they offer childcare and feed us supper (it's so nice to not have to scramble for babysitting...or cook!).

Well, last night happened to be a workshop night, and when we got about halfway through the material for the evening, our food arrived, and we stopped and took a supper break. Todd and I got the girls all set up and situated with their food and drinks, and we got ourselves all set up and situated with food and drinks. Everybody's calm - eating, talking, joking, laughing.

All fine and good, right?

In the midst of all the fun, Iris turns to me, points to my salad and says, "Mommy, are you eating Lydia's vomit?"

Poor, poor girl. She was a front row spectator during Lydia's vomiting debacle at the babysitter's. Apparently, the sight of it left a deep impression upon her.

And you know what?

Looking down at my salad, I realized that it did, indeed, resemble Lydia's vomit from that night.

Yum!

To The Park

We paid a little visit to the mini-park in our neighborhood after lunch today. The weather has been so nice here the past few days we just had to get out and enjoy it!

Here's some video footage of Lydia going down the slide I just had to share. I'm so proud of the way she can do it all by herself! She thinks she's pretty cool too and proves it by repeating the process over and over. And over. Aren't slides great?

She's such a determined little thing...determined and brave. Later on, I caught her walking across the suspension bridge trying to get to the bigger slides on the other side!

We had fun, and we're actually headed back to the park this afternoon after nap time. We're taking full advantage of this weather while it lasts!

Designed to Sell - Part One

In light of the fact that less than a year from now we will be putting our house on the market in preparation for our move to Lincoln, we've been taking stock of our little home sweet home over the last few weeks, making a master list of things that we feel need to be fixed/improved/installed (hello, basement ceiling!) before we're ready to sell.

And we've decided to start knocking items off that list as soon as possible. Partly because we want the improvements done so that we can actually enjoy the fruits of our labor before we have to give up the house, and partly because it's winter, and I'm itching for a project or twelve. I'm pretty sure it's genetic, this desperate craving to always be in the midst of some household renovation, to not feel completely satisfied unless up to the elbows in paint or spackle or sawdust, to get insanely excited at the prospect of a project. Seriously, I really honestly cannot remember a time in my life that my parents have not been renovating something, whether it's been a house or a car or a piece of property. Right now it's a house. So see? I don't really have a choice. It's in the blood. Luckily, Todd's pretty handy and more than willing (usually) to tackle anything I might suggest. And whatever he can't handle, my dad can, as he happens to be the handiest dad ever!

So. First project up was painting our living room/entryway.

We've been slowly neutralizing our house over the last few months, painting first the bathrooms and then the bedrooms various shades of taupe. Buyers love neutral shades, right? This has made a HUGE improvement over the red, orange, and puke brown that were in those rooms to begin with. I'm always asking myself why (WHY!) we ever thought those colors in particular would be good choices to cover our walls. And how did we live with them for five years before making a change? Yikes!

Here's the Before:

Our walls up until a few days ago have been a deep yellow mustardy color. But not mustard yellow in a good way. Mustard yellow gone way, way wrong. A yellow so hideous that I am pretty sure it has been causing me to go slowly crazy over the last few years, an idea that causes Todd much laughter, but I am positive is true.

Here's the After:

It didn't turn out too bad. I didn't particularly care for the shade at first, I must admit. This taupe is the exact same color that we used in our basement, and we love it down there, but for some reason, on our upstairs walls it looked like it had too much gray in it. Too much gray for our yellow-based decor. For a while I wondered if maybe we had made an even graver mistake using this taupe than we had with the yellow. However, with just a few accessory changes, our living room looks much, much better, and the color is growing on me. I can't get over how light and bright our house looks now! Unfortunately, all that lightness and brightness makes our kitchen, which we have not painted yet, look extremely, well...yellow. Alas, the kitchen, our last painting frontier, is a bit farther down on our list due to the fact that there is a lot of work besides painting that needs to be done in there. I only want to have to move the appliances once!

Part Two: Crown molding in the girls' bedroom

Tiny Dancer

Isn't she so sweet? Lydia totally begged me to help her put on that skirt. She kept bringing it over to me and trying to stick her foot in the waistband. I think somebody wants to be just like her big sister...

And speaking of big sisters, did you happen to catch "Pirate Iris" swashbuckling across the bottom of the screen?

I know she was rather hard to miss considering the fact that she was shouting, "Chocolate Prunes!" at the top of her voice as she was swashbuckling. Don't ask. Let's just say that she loves the things and leave it at that. So. "Pirate Iris" happens to be her current favorite persona-of-the-moment. There's been a lot of "aaaargh"-ing and "ahoy, matey"-ing going on at our house these days. Oh, and lots and lots of sword fighting. Because you can't be a good pirate without a lot of sword fighting, don't you know.