24 Weeks

Vivs started sitting up all on her own this week!  She seems to have caught on quickly with only a few crashes here and there.  I have to be careful to keep her away from the hardwood - a different experience for us compared to our fully carpeted old house.  Her sisters have been enjoying playing dress up with her, as you can see by the wings and wand.  I think so far she's been a fairy, a vampire, and a bat!

Vivian Rolls Over

Starting yesterday, Vivs has been rolling over every time we stick her on her tummy.  She still complains like crazy while she's doing it, but she's doing it.  We'll take it! 

Lydia Loses a Tooth and Other Randomness

Lydia lost her first tooth this week.  It's actually been loose for weeks, but she babied it, preferring to gently tug and wiggle it with her tongue easing it into greater and greater looseness over time.  At the right moment, it popped out, no blood or anything. Easy peasy.  

Iris has been on the later side of losing teeth, and it appears Lydia may be on the early side, but one thing I want to savor is the memory of Iris kneeling beside Lydia's bed on the first night we discovered Lydia's loose tooth, offering up some big sisterly advice about the best way to wiggle and move her tooth to loosen the "stitches", as they call the roots.

Viverkins turned five months old on Monday. Such a big girl!  This picture shows the face she makes all the time now.  I think it's her way of mimicking the face we always make at her.  Completely adorable, in the words of Iris. She's also started reaching out to touch us and grabbing her toes, and she's almost sitting all by herself.  And she CAN roll from tummy to back, although she won't do it very often.  We made a big deal out of the first time she did it and scared her, and now she stubbornly refuses.  Already a big personality.  She also prefers to be paid attention to...all the time, so we'll be working on that in the months to come.  I'm sure it doesn't help that there is usually always someone to pay attention to her.  I guess that comes from being the littlest.  

Last night, Prescott hosted their annual costume parade, and Todd snapped this right as we were leaving.  Iris is a vampire, and Lydia is sporting my attempt at a homemade bat costume.  Not bad, if I do say so myself.  

First Solids

Overall, things went fine.  She definitely prefers a more soupy texture.  The tears came when I tried to give her a thicker bite, crazy girlie.  I think it scared her.  I'm curious to see how her particular-ness regarding eating will play out with solids.  I probably should start amping up those prayers for patience now!

Eighteen Weeks

 

(sitting like such a big girl!)

Our little lady, or Viv-ster as the girls like to call her, is officially four months old!  It is crazy how fast the times goes by, and I'm pretty sure I've said this a million times, but it really does.   Iris was musing the other day that it seems as though she's always been a part of our family, that it's hard to remember what it was like before she was with us.  How sweet is that? 

She is such an easy baby.  Apart from a rather quirky particularity when it comes to drinking milk, she is so mellow and happy.  And I think I can officially take a break from freaking out over her weight gain and growth as she was 14 lbs, 4 oz and 251/2 in long at her four month check this morning! 

Some of the things I am loving right now:

*Vivian laughing hysterically when either of the girls jump.  I laugh hysterically watching them jump like maniacs trying to get her to laugh.

*Vivian holding on to her toes

*Iris talking sweet baby talk with her and letting Vivian chew and hug her beloved Poochie

*Not doing the 10:30 feeding anymore.  Hallelujah for getting to go to bed whenever I please again!

*Vivian trying to get my attention when someone else is holding her by "talking" loudly so I will notice her  and moving her body towards me.

*Hearing her shriek of delight at hearing me when I go to wake her up from naps

Lydia Learns to Ride

First Day of School

Happy Birthday, Lydia!

Iris Goes to Kindergarten

And you know what? We survived our first week.

Iris is totally fine. Super grown up and acting all casual about going to school as if she's been doing it for years. The lump in my throat at drop off these past few days has been mostly for me, I think, missing her and trying to get used to her not being around all day. Lydia and I are going to have to figure out a new normal.

So yeah, I guess, onward we proceed. I'm actually kind of excited about all the things that come with having a school age kid now. Curriculum nights, PTO meetings, lunch money, homework - and the really super fun stuff like learning to read and write sentences and spell and do math.

Hmm...I think I'm going to have to concentrate on the possibilites, and dare I say it: the unknown of this coming year. It kind of makes the ache a little less...

And the Training Wheels Bite the Dust

Yup, that's right.

Iris can now officially ride her bike without training wheels.

We actually took them off about a month ago because all the neighborhood kids could ride their bikes without training wheels, and she was worried about being left behind. But she was a little too freaked out by that tricky balance thing, and so her bike sat forlornly in our garage...until a few days ago when she suddenly experienced a burst of determination and figured it out. We are SO proud!

And just for fun times, here's some footage of the girlies biking together:

Pretty cute, huh.

Strawberry Pickin'

We ventured to the strawberry patch for the first time ever last week. We've seriously never been strawberry picking which is a kind of strange, I think, especially considering that I'm pretty sure there was a little patch right down the road from us practically right in our neighborhood in Missouri. I guess maybe we were really focused on apples and pumpkins?

Anyways, we went, and the girls loved it! Lydia ate so many strawberries while picking I was afraid she'd explode, or at the very least, turn into a strawberry (hee, hee). Her mouth looked like she was channeling Twilight so stained was it with juice:

Even Iris got in on the eating action:

And they were both great picking sidekicks:

(silly Lolls, sneaking bites when she thinks I'm not looking!)

We definitely want to do this again. Aw...our first Nebraska tradition. And it looks like it may be sooner rather than later considering the fact that I left the box of strawberries sitting on top of our refrigerator, got distracted and forgot about them until about three days later. Not a pretty sight. Oops!

End of Days

Our house is sold!

I've been wanting to write about it for awhile, but there have been so many what ifs and doubts and fears clouding my brain these past few weeks as we've waded through the craziness of inspections and appraisals and trying to find a new house in Lincoln and all the subsequent craziness that has come as a result of actually finding a house in Lincoln, that at first I was too afraid (it appears I have some growing to do in the faith and trust department) and now there just hasn't been a lot of time!

Everything has turned out fine. Is that not usually the way it happens? I worry, worry, worry, and usually for no good reason other than to make myself looney. Our buyers have received their loan commitment, and there was only one "minor" setback which resulted from our inspection. We had to install a radon mitigation system which came as a rather unpleasant and expensive surprise. Fun! But as a sort of off set to our irritation over our radon issue, Todd received a lot of compliments on his professional-looking basement finishing skills from all the various people who've been in our house during the last four weeks which was nice to hear considering all the blood, sweat, and tears (literally!) that have been poured into that space - especially in the last six months! So now we are on track to close next Tuesday and meanwhile are knee deep in packing boxes and piles of our stuff.

Here's a picture of the current state of our living room:

Our basement looks pretty much the same. For a family that purges on a regular basis, it seems like we still have too much stuff! How is that possible?

The next few weeks are going to be very busy and very bittersweet for us as we wrap up things here. Todd is leaving after work this Friday to move all our stuff to Lincoln, and then turning around and coming back Saturday so that he can be here for our last Sunday at The Summit (sniff!). Next week we close on Tuesday, Iris has her preschool Christmas program on Thursday, and we leave to move to Lincoln for good that Friday morning. And crammed into all the nooks and crannies as much as we can, there will be lots of goodbyes (temporary!) to people and places we love.

Along the same lines, the next few months are going to be some of the most stressful of our lives as we make this incredible life transformation into church planting. Nothing about our life is going to look the same which can be at times a very terrifying and overwhelming thought. We covet all the prayers we can get, so please, please pray for us! We would love to make it through this time without losing our minds and with our family still intact.

I'll try to post if anything changes, and I still want to post pictures of the house we'll be buying in Lincoln! I've been wary because I don't know if it's actually OK to post pictures of a house we don't technically own yet. We have a contract, but we're doing a special kind of loan in order to incorporate some of the repair costs into our loan, and we're still waiting for all that to get approved by the bank. We're super excited about this house and the neighborhood it's in, but you have to promise not to laugh when you see the pictures. I swear this house has major potential!

Our crazy Lolly turned the big two today.

Happy birthday, sweet girlie!

Miss Artiste

Iris has been flexing her drawing muscles of late, and I just had to share some of her latest examples:

This one is Iris and Daddy holding hands. Notice that she is red because she likes red, and Todd is blue because he likes blue. Isn't his little beard cute?

And this one portrays our whole family hanging out by a tree. Again, we're all color-coordinated according to our favorite color which I think is so funny! Of course, no family portrait is complete without blankie(black) and Poochie (brown).

I'm so incredibly thrilled that she is big enough to actually be drawing recognizable things now. How cool is that? I love, love, LOVE it! I'm totally going to be the mom that saves every piece of artwork and schoolwork that my girls bring home. It's so much fun...I don't know how I'd ever decide what to throw away!

Iris Takes a Field Trip

Yesterday, Iris' preschool class took a field trip to the Pumpkin Patch. And wouldn't you know it? I forgot to check the batteries on my camera before we left, and they pooped out as soon as we got there. Go figure. So the pictures you are about to see are a mix of what I could squeeze in before they fizzled out completely and what a lovely new mommy friend so graciously took for me (thanks, Sarah!). Lesson learned: always check the batteries before leaving for an important event.

One of the highlights of the whole trip was getting to ride on a bonafide school bus! Iris has longed for this day since the moment she first noticed a bus dropping of children in our subdivision back when she was a wee girlie. (I swear she was way more excited than she looks in this picture!)

The first activity they did, besides getting to pick out a pumpkin which, sadly, I didn't get any pictures of, was to walk across the troll's bridge. Once across, they got to go into the dark and spooky troll's hut. This was a perfectly thrilling adventure for our little lover of all things scary and spooky!

Next activity up was a trek through a maze in a field. I'm embarrassed to say that I have absolutely no idea what kind of field we were in. Somebody suggested sorghum? I guess that means I'm a complete city girl now. Iris did great, despite her initial apprehension regarding the mud.

Lastly, as a grand finale, they got to climb a ginormous hay pyramid. I think this was her best part. Who doesn't love climbing up huge stacks of hay? And inside the pyramid was another dark and spooky tunnel. They all had a good time running back and forth through it scaring themselves silly!

I would say her first field trip was a success. I think it weirded her out a little in the beginning to have me there, but by the end of the morning, she was fine. I have to admit it was a little weird for me too. Together, we're still figuring out how this school thing works. Iris and I are so much alike it makes me laugh sometimes. Always suspicious of anything new or out of the ordinary. She is definitely her momma's daughter!

The Moment has Arrived.

Our house is officially up For Sale.

Isn't that crazy? I think Todd and I both have been feeling kind of stunned since the sign went up. Obviously, we've known this day was coming for awhile, this whole year has been one huge preparation for this day, but now that it's finally here, we kind of feel like, whoa, slow down! There's something about this last final step of selling our house that just makes it all so very real. Our future is rushing in at top speed, and there's no going back. We're really doing this. We're really going to be planting a church. It's sad and scary and exhilarating all at once.

And now begins what I think of as the Great Wait. We've done everything we can, there's nothing more to do EXCEPT wait, and well, because I'm slightly neurotic (only slightly right?...right?) there'll be just a teensy bit of worrying to do, of course. And for Todd, there will be much checking of budgets and plans. I say all this laughingly - we are such a raving OCD duo! In reality, we are trusting hard in the fact that our future rests in God's hands. He already knows what's going to happen with our house, and he already knows what's going to happen in Lincoln. No amount of our worrying or stressing is going to change the outcome!

With that said, this is such a crazy, emotional, unknown time for our family. Please pray that we would continue to trust in His sovereignty over our lives, and that we would remain strong in that trust and not succumb to fear or worry or doubt. We want to be able to truly savor and enjoy every last moment we have here in Missouri unclouded by any angst!

A New Chapter Commences

Well, we are now officially parents of a preschool-attending girlie. Iris' first day of school was today!

Here's a little glimpse of how she felt about going:

Isn't she sweet? She has been over the moon with excitement about starting school for the last week - ever since we went to her Open House and got to meet her teacher and see her classroom. Last night we packed up her school supplies into her brand new Tinkerbell backpack and laid out her special "first day" clothes (which she picked herself), and she could barely contain herself. She was so cute and so grown up and yet so very heartbreaking at the same time.

As for myself, I don't think I was feeling quite as cheery this morning as she was about the prospect of her going to school, you know, she being my baby and all. Little flashback movies of her life up until now were playing through my head all throughout breakfast and getting dressed. I know, it's crazy, it's only preschool. I can't imagine how I'll feel when she goes to kindergarten...and beyond...yikes!

Some First Day photos:

Iris modeling her first day of school ensemble on our front stoop - can you tell she likes pink?

Walking into school - doesn't she look big? Or maybe her backpack is what looks big...

Waiting for her teacher and the rest of her class...

...with Mommy and Lydia...

...and Daddy.

Lining up with the rest of her class to head off into the Land of the Big Kids.

She did great and nary a tear besides her mommy's was shed. Thankfully, I wasn't the only mommy, or daddy, for that matter, who got a little teary and choked up. Isn't it funny how the kids usually do fine and the parents struggle? And Lydia, oh poor lonely girlie - we barely made it outside before her little forehead wrinkled up into a frown and she said, "Where I-is? Where I-is, mommy?" This was the constant refrain of the morning as we ran some errands to fill the time. She wasn't very pleased about "I-is" being missing.

And so we survived our first day. Things went pretty well, I think. She liked playing on the playground, having a snack, and the coloring game they did with a school bus. There was only a minor altercation at the end. Iris had a bit of a meltdown when it came time to hand over her school supplies. Apparently, I had neglected to go over with her that once she actually got to school the supplies could come out of her bag to share with her teacher and the other kiddos. She had a hard time budging. According to her teacher, her mommy told her they were to stay in her bag and were not to play with. Oops!

Our Little Dancerella

Is she not the cutest little ballerina you've ever seen?

A friend and I signed our girlies up for a four week summer session at the dance studio just down the street. They'll be introduced to the basics of ballet and possibly tap, I think, over the course of the class, and can you believe that Iris goes in and does her thing all by herself with nary a backward glance at me? Yup, no parents allowed inside during the class. We have to be content with sneaking furtive peaks underneath the blinds instead, and let me tell you, I've decided that the most adorable thing I've ever seen is six little girls in full ballet get-up dancing. Oh my goodness, they are so sweet it's heart breaking! And Iris, of course, in my opinion, is the sweetest. And she seems to be doing pretty well so far. She's paying attention and following directions and trying hard to learn the steps - she's quite precise and graceful! It's pretty amazing to watch, actually. I think it would be so much fun if dancing turned out to be her thing!

Stay tuned because on the last day they have a mini-recital, and I'm hoping I'll be able to get some good footage of her performing to share on our blog!

The Summer Fun Has Begun

Can you believe it's kiddie pool time again? It's boiling hot and humid here already, so the girlies have been spending A LOT of afternoons in ours. They aren't complaining, though. They love it! Lydia, especially, loves the hose. She thinks it's her own personal play thing, and I have quite the time wrestling it away from her when it's time to turn it off!

And Iris, my big girl, started swimming lessons today and did absolutely great! She was so nervous about them that her tummy hurt when she woke up this morning, but we prayed together, and I think that helped. I was a little concerned going in that she might choose to be stubborn and not participate, but there was only one game she decided to sit out, and I was fine with that because the rest of the time she kicked and splashed and smiled and laughed and had a fun lesson! We are very much alike in temperament, I completely get her fear of the unknown, and so it always makes my heart ache with tenderness when I see her overcoming her fears and being brave. She completely exceeded my expectations, and I'm so proud! Yay, Iris!

First Popsicle