gearing up for caroline's birthday!

it is sink or swim around here this weekend as we get ready for caroline's birthday party on saturday! we are headed under the sea for the fish party that our soon-to-be three year old has been anticipating for a very long time. caroline can hardly wait for saturday to get here. if you ask her when her birthday is, she announces, "november 14, and it's a fish partyyyyyyyyyyy!" and anytime we get ready to go somewhere, she hopes it is to her party. the other night, brian and i had a date night, and as we were leaving, caroline asked with great enthusiasm, "are you going to my fish party!?" we had to laugh!

i think i've got everything i need for the party, and the decorations are almost finished. i have really had fun with this one. until saturday, here's a little sneak peek (and proof that i have not waited until the very last minute to get this party planned!)...


be back soon (or sometime next week!) with all the details from birthday central!

a potty party!

hey everybody... it's caroline here! i keep hearing my mommy say that she needs to blog about my potty training... and i have checked this blog over and over to find nothing about my big success. i know she's a busy lady. so i thought i'd help her out and just write this one myself!


way back when it was really hot, after a long long trip in the car and after ethan's beach birthday party, mommy announced that it was finally time for me to get to use the potty! yippeee! i was so excited. i had been asking and asking to use the potty like ethan. when the big day came, mommy showed me the wall in the bathroom... i couldn't believe it! there was a princess potty chart! my mommy is not crazy about all the princess stuff, but i guess she knew that this would make me want to pee pee on the potty. and she was right! after she showed me the chart, she showed me something even more exciting! the jar of m&m's! princesses and chocolate! can it get any better than this?!

on monday morning, we put away the diapers and pull-ups, and i got to wear pretty pink panties! mommy set the kitchen timer for 10 minutes, and she asked me allllllllllllll the time if i was dry. when the timer went off, if my panties were dry, i got an m&m! (ethan got m&m's too... and that made me want to do a good job- ethan was so excited for me!) then we ran to the potty to see if i needed to go. i didn't have to sit on the potty very long, just long enough to try to go. if i went pee-pee, i got another m&m and a sticker on my potty chart! we did that every 10 minutes day after day, and i did a great job! i didn't have one pee-pee accident in my panties! (i did get my panties a little messy a couple of times until i got the hang of it, but mommy said it this was so much easier with me than with ethan.) i got to eat so many m&ms!!!! mommy also gave me princess stickers for my shirt for awhile. here i am on my very first day of potty training!


my potty chart was filling up with stickers pretty quickly, and everytime i made it to a princess on the chart, that princess had a present for me! snow white gave me a package of princess panties! i could not believe it! now i had lots and lots of panties to choose to wear. i liked to spend lots of time each morning deciding just which pair of panties i would wear. mommy is glad that i don't do that anymore.


when mommy could see that i was doing a great job staying dry after 10 minutes, she started making the timer go longer. i surprised her with still no accidents! i heard mommy tell someone that i was very easy to potty train, which i guess makes up for all the other stuff that i have not been so easy about. when i made it to the end of my chart, i got my super-duper prize: four princesses! ethan told me to do a "thumbs up", but that is pretty hard to do! i worked and worked at it for this picture....



this is the very last sticker i put on my chart!


i played and played with those princess girls. they have been rescued countless times by ethan's rescue heroes, and they even tried to stow away to the beach.



my favorite is cinderella.


so all of that was a way long time ago, and i have still been doing such a good job. my body has gotten used to not having to pee-pee in a diaper, and now i can wear panties during my naps and at night! i am such a big kid like ethan now! since i am wearing panties to bed at night, and mommy and daddy do not want me pee-peeing in my bed, i like to ask to go potty over and over once i'm in bed. too bad my parents have figured me out... they don't let me get up! and daddy will sometimes make me wear a pull-up if i keep asking to go potty. so i kind of gave up on that one. my latest attempt at delaying bedtime has been going poo-poo right before bed. i sit on the potty for a very long time trying to poo-poo. i can usually go, and that works great because i get to sit there even longer! i don't know how much longer this one is going to work because daddy is getting very tired of waiting for me every night. but how can they argue with a girl who's gotta go!?!? :)

so there's my story of how i became the big girl around here. if any of you mommies are wanting to teach your kids to go potty, i think you should give them lots of stickers and m&ms. a definite thumbs up to the m&ms!

a heart for uganda

last week, we attended a fundraising banquet for ministry work in uganda. one of our pastors has such a heart for uganda, and his love for these people across the globe is contagious. it is not uncommon for him to take different members of our church with him to use their gifts and talents to bless our brothers and sisters in Christ in africa. after laura came home from her first trip to uganda two years ago (i think?), she was determined to organize more and more help for the suffering people in uganda. what a blessing it is to hear about children that once had no hope... that have diseases and disabilities that go untreated because they cannot get to a doctor... and loving hands have taken them and given them the help they need. there are countless people that are in need of healing, both physical and spiritual. it seems so trite to say that i sat in an air-conditioned room with electricity and comfortable chairs and ate a huge meal all in the name of supporting this ministry for the sick and helpless. there is so much more i should be doing. but i do want to share about the banquet.

in addition to the delicious food (which is a huge understatement),


we enjoyed hearing the testimony of a beautiful ugandan woman. after surviving her mother's attempt at aborting her and after losing her sister during her third abortion, God opened doors for her to begin a pregnancy resource center in uganda. God has used her and others to save hundreds of babies from the horrible reality of abortion in her city. praise the Lord for what He is doing in uganda. this precious woman also attended our ladies' retreat the next evening, and it was such a blessing to get to know her a little better. (i am sure she thinks we are all crazy now, but i hope she was also encouraged!)


several of us sang a couple of songs during the banquet, God of this city and a new hallelujah. i still can't get the words out of my head: arise, let the church arise. let love reach to the other side.


there were beautiful items for sale that were made by the precious hands of the ugandan people. this basket was not made by a machine.


and these beads... i love these beads. the women of uganda make these out of paper. aren't they wonderful!? the proceeds go to help the students of a christian school in uganda.


cylle sells hundreds and hundreds of these beads in hopes to give as much help as possible to the students across the globe. and lauren (on the left) is getting ready to work in uganda for a year! i am sure she will be of great service during her time there... and maybe she will learn how to make these beads!


i think the beads were a big seller at the banquet! nancy did her part to help the ugandan ministry...



here is a close-up of the bracelets...


and this is just a fraction of the colors to choose from. i could not stop taking pictures of them.


if you are local and are interested in purchasing some of these beads, cylle is planning on having an open house in november to sell the hundreds of beads that she has in stock. i'd be happy to let you know more details about that... so just let me know! i wear mine all the time, and just wearing them is an effective way to spread the word about this important ministry! (and i am a testimony to their durability with my grabby 9 month old!)

i have never been to uganda. i have seen the pictures and heard the stories. i wear the beads and pray for those hands who made them. but i have never been there. if the pictures and the stories bring me to tears, i cannot imagine the impact that actually being there has on an american christian. everyone always comes back and says that they were blessed more than they felt like they blessed the ugandans. i would love to go one day. i would love to hug the bright-eyed, totally content boys and girls, and i would love to share Christ with them. i would love to sit down with the mothers and learn from them as they give literally all that they have for their children. i would love to do more than blog about uganda and wear beads. i would love to reach to the other side.

amelia is 9 months old!

this has been a big month for sweet amelia lynn! it is so fun to see her personality starting to show. she is still laid-back and content, praise the Lord! she is still sleeping and eating well for the most part, though those top teeth have been making for some restless nights lately. one has finally poked through, and the other is almost there! now that amelia is pulling up on things, she decides to practice this new skill in her crib at bedtime. she will be absolutely ready for bed but still want to play around for a long time. i don't get it!! the problem is that she is not really sure about getting down once she's pulled up, so we have to go rescue her. i figured out that if i send her to bed with a chew toy, she gets distracted with that and forgets about pulling up. she chews on the toy and falls asleep. so far, so good! (i'm sure as soon as i click "publish", she will wake up and pull up in her crib!) amelia's defining "trick" right now is shaking her head. to everything. the kids LOVE this and think she is saying "no". so we have fun with it and ask her all kinds of questions and laugh as she shakes her head. here's a few other things she's been doing lately:

amelia started solid food a couple of weeks ago and is loving it!



but you wouldn't know it by this picture....


after a few bites, amelia got used to the taste, and she has gobbled everything down since then.




(technically, she had her first real food a couple of months ago when i found pink toy horse hair in her diaper. a lot of it. as a result, caroline's pink glitter horse now has somewhat of a layered look going on with her tail. this can be part of amelia's memoirs as a third child.)

we did buy a new baby swing for our poor, neglected third child! she giggled and laughed the whole time.


and amelia has discovered her new favorite toy: the garden. we bought this for caroline for her first birthday, so i was pleasantly surprised to see how much fun amelia has had with it at her age. she crawls in it and plays for a good long while. she checks the mail...



she plants (and eats) her veggies...


and she has worked so hard at pulling up on the front door. too bad she's not the least bit happy.


amelia spends the rest of the day crawling, crawling, crawling. she is fast and she is quiet. stealth is a good word for her. i've managed to keep her in the living room so far, thanks to my trusty hall monitor, ethan. he has learned that he is not allowed to push her back into the living room, but he's gotten pretty good at letting me know when she is headed toward escape. :) here she is planning her next mission. she's thinking, "if i can't escape the living room, i can at least suck on some baby doll hair while caroline is singing on the potty." (and in case you weren't sure, her eyes are blue.)


i've been wanting to get amelia out in the backyard for some portraits for the last few months, and it finally happened. we ran out there one day after she'd just woken up, so i am sad to say that she still looks sleepy in most of the shots. i was happy with how this one turned out, though.


so our baby girl is 9 months old. so much changes in a month when they are this little. i'm trying to soak in every little thing about her. like these chubby little hands. and her fat little thighs. (too bad those things still aren't cute at 30!!) and her fuzzy little head.



i love this girl. and i praise God for her.

a trip down memory lane

i have some drafts of posts that i want to be working on. i've loaded the pictures, and i just haven't taken the time to sit down and finish them. tonite, i sorted my posts so that i could see only the drafts. and i found this from early february 2008. caroline was 14 months. she had just started walking and talking. (those were the days.) ethan was 2 1/2. oh his little voice melts my heart... i almost deleted this draft... but i just couldn't. so here ya go. :)

original post:

in this video, you will see caroline doing her version of the motions to "itsy bitsy spider"... i was then waiting for her to ask for "eeess" again, but i realized that brian was silently doing it beside me. oh well! after the little pause, you will hear ethan singing the song for her.



this was on that day when caroline wasn't feeling so hot, so she looks a little rough! but cute nonetheless. :) and please excuse the unsightly surroundings of our kitchen like the ugly green towel on the hutch turned on its side... we're still pluggin' with the remodel... but that's another post for another time.
and no, our kitchen is still not done. but the green towel is no longer in our kitchen and the hutch is no longer turned on its side. that's progress, right!?

i'm still writing posts in my head. i'd better get on here soon to publish them before they auto-erase!