"Laugh With Me" - Part 3

Sorry, I am getting behind on these. Here are some from March and April:

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March 19th

We got out the Easter decorations and Bug was so excited. "Look Mommy!" she kept saying as she pointed to everything I put up. "Easter!" She got her basket and some eggs and went around the house hiding them and finding them all morning. She apparently thought the eggs were called Easters. "Look Mommy, Easters on the the bed!" "I'm hiding Easters!" "Where'd my Easters go?"

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March 20th

Daddy and Bug were in the kitchen. She has been into whispering lately. He whispered, "Come here". Bug went over, "What?" Daddy whispered in her ear, "I love you little one." K pulled his head down so she could whisper into his ear and said, "I love you big one." :)

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March 21st

Noni was teaching Bug a new song and it had the words justice and righteousness in it. After they practiced it for a while Bug said, "Noni, let's sing about Hayden now." Noni was confused. K tried to clear it up for her. "We sang about Justin, now let's sing about Hayden!"

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March 25th

Daddy and Bug were making popcorn for movie night and Daddy started telling her about how he used to make popcorn with his Grandma Dot who lives in heaven now. A few minutes later Bug came into the living room and started talking to me. She said, "I have TWO grandmas. My Grandma Kathy and my polka-dot Grandma."

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March 27th

We had some of our extended family come for a visit and they brought presents for the girls, an adorable outfit for Boo and some stickers and tattoos for Bug. She used almost all the tattoos in one sitting and the next day when Daddy was washing her hands with a washrag she said, "Daddy! Don't wash my too-toos off!"

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April 15th

We were eating dinner and talking about where people live and families. We were trying to explain to her about how Daddy used to live with Grandma and Grandpa but then he married Mommy and we became a family and now we live together. I told her, "When you grow up you might get married and start a family of your own." She looked at me and said, "No! I NEVER do that!" She started giggling, "I will live with Mommy and Daddy forever." T said to me, "Write that one down!" :)

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April 10th

Daddy and Bug were talking about babies. Daddy said, "Should we have another baby?" Bug said, "Yeah!" Daddy said, "Maybe we should have a brother this time!" Bug replied excitedly, "Yeah! Let's get Waylon!" That would be much easier for Mommy but somehow I think Auntie Nae and Uncle Wade would have something to say about it. :)

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April 14th

I ordered the stuff for Bug's party online. It came in the mail and she was SO excited. She played with it all day. I had made her invitations and let her have some of the extra pieces. "I'm making ta-tions Ma-ma. For my party. You can come. It's going to be my best! My whole life!" She is so dramatic sometimes. :)

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April 19th

Lucky Charms remain the favorite breakfast fare at our house. Bug wants them EVERY morning. Lately I have been trying to mix it up instead of having the same thing over and over. I said, "Maybe we could have some eggs for breakfast today." She looked at me and said evenly, "Maybe not."

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Okay, well that caught me up a bit. I'm sure she'll come up with more. She never ceases to make us laugh.

Celebrating

Yesterday we did some celebrating. We celebrated the wonderful moms in our life and we also celebrated Boo!

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What better day than Mother's Day to publicly dedicate our sweet girl to the loving hands of our Heavenly Father?

We want to raise our girls to love and serve God with their whole hearts and "dedicating" them is a way to announce that desire, and to ask our family, and church family, to keep us accountable to that goal, and also, to help us achieve that goal. Our church family is going to play an important part in their lives as their Sunday School teachers, AWANA leaders, and the parents of their friends.

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It is such a comfort to place Boo in God's loving hands. There is no better place to be! As much as we love her it can't compare to God's love for her. I would give my life for hers, but He

already did.

I love this picture because Boo is smiling!

I finally got a good picture of Grandma, Grandpa, and the girls!

I am so thankful for my family! They were so thoughtful yesterday. Daddy and Bug made breakfast, and were just so sweet all day long.

Four generations! We are so blessed!

We got this picture b/c my grandma (and my aunt), Boo, and I all have the same middle name. We'll have to get a picture of the three of us with my aunt this summer!

And Bug's middle name is the same as her Noni, whose is the same as my Grandpa's sister. We like to keep names in the family as you can tell. :)

I had such a wonderful Mother's Day. It was definitely the best yet! After church we went out to lunch with the family and opened some sweet gifts. Then we went back to Noni and Papa's house. We let the girls spend the rest of the day with them while T and I went into town and did some shopping. It ended up being the perfect Mother's Day arrangement. My mom and Grandma got to spend time with the girls while I got a nice break. Perfect!

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I read a sweet devotional this week that was speaking to women with young children. My favorite thing about it was this phrase, "The years are short and the days are long." That is so true for this season of my life. Sometimes the days seem never ending, and yet somehow my sweet "baby" is already three years old. Some days it is a struggle to appreciate these times, and others it's not hard at all. I have to remind myself on those more difficult days that the time is going to go by so quickly.

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In a blink of an eye they'll be grown and gone so I'm going to hang on to these moments as tightly as I can.

Hope you all had a wonderful Mother's Day!

21 Gun Salute

For some reason I never posted about this incident...oh wait, I remember. Exhaustion. That was the reason. That and the fact that I was too tired to take a picture and I like to have pictures when I post. I wrote a lot of "poop" posts about Bug so Boo needs at least one. :)

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The incident I am about to describe happened when she was a few weeks old. I was still getting up twice a night with her at that point. It was during one of those fatigue laden times that the event occurred. I believe it was somewhere around 3:00a.m. Boo woke up and I went into her room to feed her. At that point I was keeping the small lamp on in her room so she would get the idea that it was nighttime and she needed to go right back to sleep after eating.

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I fed her for a few minutes and she started to fall asleep so I decided on the classic method of inducing wakefulness...changing her diaper. I put her on the changing table, took off her jammies, and started the process. I had the first diaper off and was doing the wiping. Right when I lifted her legs in the air to get the...undercarriage she decided to let loose. It was like a miniature fire hose. It literally came out in a stream about half and inch in diameter.

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The room was almost completely dark. But not dark enough that I couldn't see the carnage that was EVERYWHERE. Including the warm, dripping mess that was cascading from my hand and arm to the changing pad. So I decided to count the targets. What else are you going to do at 3:00a.m. when you are in the dark and covered in baby poop? It was either laugh or cry, and somehow I managed to laugh. Here is a compiled list of the items that were decimated.

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1. Changing table (wood part)

2. Changing pad

3. Mommy's hand

4. Mommy's arm

5. Mommy's shirt

6. Mommy's pants

7. Mommy's slippers

(yes the carnage was incredible)

8. The A + D rash ointment

9. The wipe warmer

10. The Johnson and Johnson Baby Lotion

(they didn't mind, they are a family company after all)

11. Rubbing Alcohol

12. Baby Oil

13. The old diaper

14. The new diaper

15. The basket where we keep the diapers

16. About ten clean diapers that were nearby

17. The wall (that is several feet away)

18. The kid-sized cow hide rocking chair

19. A blanket that was on said chair

20. Calendar that was hanging on the wall

21. And of course, the floor

And that was Boo's 21 gun salute!

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Here is a picture of the nursery (from last summer). You can see the trajectory she achieved. She was laying in the middle of that tan changing pad and she managed to hit the wall.

Here is a picture of her around the time of the crime.

Unfortunately for me, Mommy was the one who did the time.

Birthday Videos

Okay, there must have just been something wrong with the system yesterday b/c it let me upload today. Here is the video of the bouncing balls. You can see that Bug doesn't quite understand how it works. She's pretty much just jumping up and down while holding onto the ball. She'll get it eventually. :)

This video cracked me up. I don't know if she turned 3 or 13! She was so emotional on her birthday...too much cake and fun? Whatever the problem was she was having major mood swings. If you don't believe me just watch this video. She goes from happy and determined to sad and pouting then back to excited. I hope this is not indicative of the next fifteen years! :)

3 Years Old

Yesterday our little girl turned three years old. I keep telling myself that. It seems like just the other day that I woke T up at 2:22a.m. and told him that I thought my water may have broken. We excitedly got our things together, drove to the hospital and exactly seven hours and twenty-one minutes later we began the miraculous journey of parenthood. It's funny that it seems like such a short time ago and yet it also seems like Bug has always been in our lives.

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Being a parent is definitely the most wonderful, most emotional, most stressful, most amazing, most frustrating, most joyous thing I have ever done. I cannot imagine my life without this precious little girl. She inspires me to be a better person, to live a better life, and to love God with all my heart so that her little eyes will see something in me that makes her want to do the same. I am beyond thankful for her little life. What a blessing she is to us.

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Yesterday morning when she woke up I, Boo and sang her "Happy Birthday" and I let her eat a piece of cake for breakfast. :) We got ready and waited for Daddy to finish up a meeting. He wanted to take the whole day off but had an important 7a.m. meeting that he couldn't miss. It took a little longer than he thought so by the time we were leaving the house it was already nearing lunch time. Bug picked McDonald's for her birthday lunch. We don't go there very often so it is a treat for her. She got a happy meal and we let her play in the play place for over an hour.

After we ran a few errands we headed over to Noni and Papa's house for cake and presents before Papa had to leave for work.

She got some really fun things from the family!

She got new puzzles, books, stickers, and a mosaic tile kit!

My Aunt gave her a book with a cassette of her and my grandma reading the story to Bug! What a fun idea!

Pawpaw and Nana gave her an adorable floor puzzle and book about the Armor of God that is so cute!

This one, of course, is from Aunt Wendy! LOVE it!

Noni made a pound cake with Bug's favorite...strawberries!

She's really getting a hang of the candle thing!

Noni and Papa with the girls.

Hugs for Mama.

And this was her present from Noni and Papa! Those big bouncing balls, one her size and an adult sized one! You can tell by the look on her face that she LOVED it! She didn't quite know how to bounce but she was having a blast anyway. :)

I got a really cute video of her and Noni bouncing but for some reason YouTube will not let me upload them, and blogger is still being temperamental. I will try to see if I can get it to work later.

How many three year olds would choose to go bowling for their birthday? I have no idea, but when we asked her what she wanted to do that's what she picked. I was impressed with the way she stayed with it. She waited her turn and bowled all ten frames. Her score was 73! Pretty darn good! Sometimes we helped her and other times she did it all by herself. Her method is slow but sure. The ball would literally take over a minute to get down to the end but she knocked pins down every time...well, with the help of the bumpers. :)

Noni and Uncle Sean joined us at the bowling alley.

T and I gave her a necklace for her birthday. She has been admiring my jewelry lately so we decided to give her a "big girl" gift. One of my friends showed me a website where you can order little charms with personalized names so we got her one with her name on it and put it on a necklace for her. I think she feels very grown up with it. So cute. :)

Well, that's all for the birthday festivities! I also have a hilarious video of her bowling that won't work so I will try to get both of those uploaded soon.

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Happy 3rd Birthday Bug!

Happy Birhtday Sweet Girl!

I can't believe she's three!

Elmo Likes to Party!

It seems like just the other day we were coming home from the hospital with a tiny newborn but somehow our little Bug is already three years old! Since her birthday is tomorrow we decided to have her part yesterday so that people who had to drive a ways could come. A few weeks ago I chose several party themes and let her choose from them. She picked Elmo.

One of my friends gave me this cute cake pan so I made the cakes and Grandma decorated them. Didn't she do a great job?? I thought they turned out so cute!

We invited a bunch of Bug's little friends and quite a few were able to come!

Boo got to have a bottle with Grandma during the party so I could run around getting things ready.


The kids all sat down and ate so nicely! I was very impressed. I guess they were hungry. :)

Birthday Girl!

Cutie pie!

Bug requested hot dogs...probably not the most healthy thing but she does love her hot dogs!

The kids ran off and were playing in the nursery. When I went in there this was how I found them.

They were playing hide and seek.

But I don't think they knew quite how it worked. :)

I bought "Pin the nose on Elmo" since it was only $3 from the party place. It didn't exactly work out but the kids were so cute playing it. I think it was the blindfold that threw them. They didn't really want to be blindfolded and the two I did blindfold were able to see anyway. :) The 5 year old at the party was the only one who really "got" it, but we had fun. :)

It is so funny how kids help each other open their presents. Bug didn't mind! She wanted everyone to join in her fun!

She got so many cute and fun gifts!

(most of) The party goers!

"Happy Birthday to you, Happy Birthday to you!"

Bug's little friend S saw that candle and did what any self-respecting 3 year old would do...try to blow it out! Her big brother was on the ball and clapped a hand over her mouth before the air could escape. SO funny! (Love Bug's face!)

Big brother held her off until Bug finally got that candle out!

My mom put up all the streamers and Grandma and Grandpa brought the balloons. Everything turned out so cute and festive!

I let her have a cupcake AND a small piece of Cookie Monster. I figured, what the hey, it's her birthday.

She collapsed into bed about 9:15, and awoke from her sugar coma at 8:40 this morning. :)

Thanks everyone for making her birthday party so special!