Night 7

Last night as Dave and I were eating dinner he turned to me and said, "It is 7 o'clock." I was confused about the comment, but then realized it was 7 and I was not hearing a sound come from upstairs. Yea! We have arrived, the girls are doing a great job of being in the room together and it is so wonderful.

This morning Annelise woke up early, cried for about 5 minutes and then went back to sleep without waking up Hadleigh. Sweet!

They are still getting up around 7, which is a blessing. I love having a little later morning, though once I get over this cold I am going to start getting up with Dave again. I lost my voice on Friday and I would REALLY like to find it again! And feeling better would be nice too.

Night Two

Last night as Dave and I were climbing in bed I noted one thing for sure: Hadleigh is an extrovert and Annelise is an introvert. Of course I could be wrong, but after the happenings of the last two nights I feel mostly certain.

The girls went into bed at 6 last night, after some worship songs and prayer (I think Annelise loves this part, and was even quiet as we prayed). We encouraged Hadleigh to be quiet, and that did last about 30 minutes. But they were both SO excited to be with each other again last night. The squacking continued until 8, when I went up and put a stop to it. When I went up, Annelise was lying down in bed trying to sleep, and Hadleigh was standing up in bed yelling to Annelise about something. Hadleigh was all wound up and Annelise was exhausted...energized by people...worn out by people. See where I am going with this extro, intro?

Anyway, we only heard some random noises out of them last night, nothing like the night before. And here we are at 7.26 and I just heard some stirring. I need to put the oatmeal on to boil.

Night One

I just had to report that last night the girls slept in the same room. There was MUCH rejoicing over this move and I think they finally settled down to sleep at about 8.30pm (their normal bedtime is 6). Hadleigh was just beside herself and you could hear both of them squealing together. We thought this was pretty sweet, so we let it go, although occassionally Dave would say (in a deep, loud voice), "BE QUIET". I did end up going up there twice. At about 11 Hadleigh cried out for me, and when I went to her she asked aboutmy Kermit the Frog?" I took that to mean she was just awake and did not need anything. The incident did however wake up Annelise.

Now it is 7.32 in the morning and I am just hearing Annelise wake-up. So far, so good. Hoping for a more quiet night tonight.

Grace Upon Grace

This past weekend I was able to attend Intown's women's retreat. I don't have much time to say anything more than this is the fav song from the weekend. It is written by Sandra McCracken and if you do not know who that is it is a MAJOR shame. She has written a lot of music for Indelible Grace and if you do not know who that is it is we might not be able to stay friends. In any case you can link below to amazon to see her cd and preview this song...I will just write the words since I am singing it today.

Grace Upon Grace
In every station new trials and troubles
Call for more grace than I can afford
And where can I go but to my dear savior
For mercy that pours from boundless stores

Chorus:
Grace upon grace every sin repaired
Every void restored you will find him there
In every turning He will prepare you
With grace upon grace (to intro)

He made a way for the fallen to rise
Perfect in glory and sacrifice
In sweet communion my need He supplies
He saves and keeps and guards my life

To thee I run now with great expectation
To honor You with trust like a child
My hopes and desires seek a new destination
And all that You ask Your grace will provide

Miss Hadleigh Claire is 3

It is true, the little miss celebrated her third birthday on Saturday. Amazing. I am a little nervous because we had a really rough two weeks leading up to three, so does that mean the twos went out with a bang, or the threes are entering with a bang. Yikes! In any case Hadleigh has calmed down a bit and we are looking forward to a good year.

We had a little party for her a couple weeks ago. It was small and uncomplicated. I have heard from other parents that sometimes birthday parties are the most un-fun time for the birthday child. I hate that idea, so we have always tried to keep things super simple and thus far we have had great success with all our parties. She had three of her best buds come over and they all brought their parents with them. And then our good bud Jess came too. We had yummy hamburgers and hot dogs, guacamole and chips, and fruit. Dave made the cake which was Elmo...that was a last minute decision, but it turned out well. The kiddos played, we ate lunch and cake and we played some more and everyone left. Pretty simple and no melt downs. Hadleigh got really nervous when it was time to blow out the candles. She realized everyone was looking at her and did not know what to do. She did end up blowing out the candles but as you can see from the pictures she looks concerned.

Enough about the party and onto info about Hadleigh. We have told her that 3 things happen when you turn three. 1. You start going poop in the potty (still working on that one). 2. You will start sleeping in the same room with Annelise. 3. You will get a special chore to do everyday. We are still working on all three of these things. I think this next week we will be moving Annelise into the room with Hadleigh, but we are all ready to begin that endeavor and I think it will be a good move. I have heard other moms say that once they moved their children into the same room the kids began to get along better. We will see, but I hope that it will continue to grow their relationship as sisters. We are also still trying to figure out a specific chore for Hadleigh to do. Any suggestions are welcome. We are thinking about putting her dishes in the dishwasher. Making her own bed. Putting her clean clothes away...I am just not sure which one I want to give her control over.

We have had a lot of sharing wars over the last month, drama! I wish there was a magic bullet for that, but we are working on it day by day. She has also become a little more dramatic and there has been a lot more whining and lot more tears. That results in a lot of "breaks" where she goes u pto her room to gather herself. That seems to be working. We also continue the, "do you hear me speaking to you in a normal voice? I would like you to ask me in a normal voice." That is working on the whining. It is TRAINING all day every day it seems and I get tired of it. But I figure if I don't want her to whine forever I better begin to nip this. I do not have any delusions that the whining phase will go away quickly.

There are so many fun things that Hadleigh does these days. She is always so excited about life in general and I LOVE that. She loves school, her friends, going outside, getting special treat, working on special projects, etc. It is somewhat easy to distract her from her fit by getting her excited about something else. We love going on walks, or just playing outside. She loves getting in the van to go somewhere, especially the park. She loves her friends and gets SO excited when she sees them or they come over to play. She helps me do a lot of cooking. She also helped me plant seeds for our garden. So far so good. They are still in the pellet form, but everything is beginning to sprout! She loves animals and is always asking if she can pet any puppy she sees.

Her vocab is growing and she is always asking questions like, "what are you doin' Mama? what are you doin'?" and "what happened Mama? What happened?" and "Where is ______(Dada, Annelise, or any other friend she can think of) and "Going to school today, Mama? School today?" She obviously likes to repeat herself. I do not know if that is because I fail to answer her sometimes, or if that is just her way. Sometimes it is hard because these questions tend to come right at a tense time...when I am trying to find something, or get everyone out the door, or...you get the idea. I am working on that. She is just curious which is SO fun and I love it, it just also gets tiring.

Last night I heard her in bed singing, "My God is so big, so strong and so mighty there is nothing my God cannot do." Dave and I just laughed. She loves going to church and learning about God. And we also try to teach her about God when we do things around the house. I know I have mentioned this before, so I will skip the repeat.

She loves Annelise and would do anything for her. She is so excited about sharing her room with Annelise and is always willing to get Annelise's bunny or puppy for her. When she gets in the car after preschool she always walks over to greet Annelise. She watches out for her and of course Annelise LOVES Hadleigh. I look forward to seeing them continue to grow.

Snow in Georgia

I am a bit behind in posts, but am working on catching up. March came in like a lion this year with a big snow. It was amazing. I felt like I was back in Germany because it was that big, fluffly, sticky, snow. And we got a lot of it. You can see from the pictures it looked like it dropped 4-6 inches.

It was Sunday morning when it started and snowed for several hours, so after the girls napped I bundled them up and we went outside to play. Hadleigh kept saying, "snowy day, mama!" We made snow balls, made tracks through the snow, and kicked around the soccer ball.

Annelise wasn't too excited about walking in the snow, she liked just looking at it without having her feet in it. Hadleigh enjoyed walking around in the "slipperly" snow. I obviously enjoyed catching the snow in my mouth.

The Elf is 16 Months

As you can see from the picture below, my little angry elf has come a LONG way. Annelise's middle name is Louise. We picked that name for a couple of reasons. The first is that one of our favorite places in the world is Lake Louise in Alberta, Canada. GORGEOUS! I cannot wait to go back there one day. Also, Louise means warrior, and after being prego with Annelise and going through labor with her, I just felt like she was a little warrior. And upon meeting her, she still seems like a little warrior, but a super sweet too!

She continues to be soft and cuddly, she loves to give kisses and hugs. She LOVES people and has a few favorite outside her family. She loves Dada and exclaims his name when he walks in the door, and she runs to greet him. She loves Hadleigh and exclaims her name, which sounds like "Daddy" and runs up the stairs after her nap to see HC. Of course she loves me...she also loves our nursery worker, Hakima. There are a few other folks that she really likes and will instantly go to when they walk in, and it is so sweet to see her interact and love people. This is something that we pray for both our girls, that they will love the Lord and all kinds of love people.

Her vocabulary is expanding which is super fun to hear. She thinks every animal says "rough", and especially likes to says, "Ooo puppy! Rough! Rough!" She likes to talk about her shoes and socks, her cup, etc. She is a girl that knows what she wants, so when in doubt she will point until you get it. She always says "thank you" and she also has been using the word "mine" for quite sometime. I love the thank you, but could do without the mine. Ah well!

She likes to feed herself these days. This is always a little painful to watch, but she does a decent job of getting things into her mouth. We also hit a big milestone and got rid of the bottle! This was PAINFUL! She was taking a sippy cup for her juice but had refused to drink milk out of a sippy. She only wanted her milk in a bottle. So when we took the bottle away she refused to drink milk. We did that for 3 days, and in desperation I called a mommy friend. Help Dianne! After much discussion she suggested offering her only milk to drink (I had been giving her juice too). Sure enough after her afternoon nap she was thirsty enough and drank down 3 cups of milk. VICTORY! But in the process she sure showed her stubborn side...wow. So now she gets milk and juice from a sippy.

Annelise has mastered walking, and is now working on running. It is weird to think that when HC was this age she wasn't even walking yet, and here is Annelise running. She loves the stairs and knows how to go up and down them "like a big girl" (on her tummy). She is quite the daredevil, so I do sometimes see her peering over the edge at the top of the stairs. I think she longs to walk down standing up...but we are hoping to put that off for a while.

Singing is a fav past time with both girls. I will sometimes hear Annelise in her crib singing "EIEIOOOOO". And Dave said the other day he heard her singing "Happy Birthday". She has also mastered shaking her bootie. I love it when she dances, so CUTE!

It is sometimes hard to get things done with Annelise around. She seems to want to be with me a lot. That is great and I need to enjoy this while it lasts, but sometimes I just want to cook dinner without her hanging onto my legs.

I think that is about all I have to report for The Elf. I love my little, crazy girl!

16 Months Ago

Dave and I were looking through old pictures and found this one...I don't really think I need to comment.