A Woman of God....

For Christmas, Ken bought Coralee a Daddy/Daughter devotional Bible and I couldn't be left out so I bought the Mommy/Daughter version for Valentines. Ken reads his before bed time and I read mine at nap. The devotional starts with this title... "Becoming a woman of God.... A woman of God......." Well, she's preached those phrases quite loudly for a while but last week, she added something new. She said, "A Woman of God trusts in the Lord with all her heart." Very sweet for a Mommy to hear. Well, last night Ken and I cracked up because she was reading and said, "Becoming a woman of God... A woman of God trusts in the Lord with all her heart and gives her calf skim milk." Umm.... okay. Obviously we're confusing things a little. :-) She has a farm book that has a line about Betty giving the calf skim milk. Today in the car she came up with
"Becoming a woman of God, a woman of God trusts the Lord with all her heart, armadillo." This of course is after her armadillo book from Chick fil A. It's adorable to hear her say "armadillo", too, since she says, "armadilluh" and isn't happy if you say it correctly.

A New Attitude.... we think

I had seen the "If-Then" Chart at several friend's homes and thought it was really neat..... offense, applicable Bible verse and blank spot for consequences. We've been at the point where we felt Coralee was ready to understand WHY she should or should not do certain things. She needs to know that obedience is a matter of the heart not just because Mommy & Daddy say so. I was very excited to order my charts and get them on Saturday but we didn't get a chance to sit down and really talk through things until Sunday evening. I wanted to use some of the things I've read in Lisa Whelchel's Creative Correction book instead of just "sit on the step" and I'm going to take away "Happy Marbles". So, I searched the book for ideas that would work with different offenses. We also have the "Blessings" Chart with positive behavior listed, then Bible verses and rewards to balance out the negative stuff. I believe fully that God's word is powerful as it says in Hebrews 4:12, "For the word of God is living and active and sharper than any two-edged sword, and piercing as far as the division of soul and spirit, of both joints and marrow, and able to judge the thoughts and intentions of the heart." It was funny on Monday that just this verse (Phil 2:14) made such a difference in our day, "Do everything without complaining or arguing." She gave Ken a hard time at bed time last night but he said her attitude was different. What an encouragement to me. Today has been better although definitely had it's rough spots.

A Saturday Project

For our 9th anniversary we stayed in a hotel here in Austin. I really liked the neutral color on the walls and decided we should re-paint. Well, fast forward a year and I finally went and picked out the paint. It's probably not the same color but oh well. That was in January. We didn't paint that weekend and then a week or so later I found out I was pregnant so haven't even given it much thought again until now. Ken didn't even realize the

paint was in the garage. He thought we were going to have to go through the whole paint color choice process, etc. I guess we'll blame this and all the other projects we've done on nesting and trying to make sure things are somewhat orderly before Lincoln gets here. I just know we won't have the opportunity to do this stuff for a while. I still need to staple the fabric onto the headboard to change that around. I just put it on top of the old one so I could get an idea of how it would look. I'm pretty happy with how things turned out although one project brings another.... to cover up the leftover yellow paint it would look nice to put some crown moulding on the ceiling. I bought new curtains but need to get a curtain rod or paint an old one we already have. Yep, one more project.

Oh, and I should say that we got a new mattress/box springs a while back and Ken is saying that there is a mattress tax - kind of like the "wife" tax. It's much higher so we needed deep pocket sheets and a new mattress pad and a new blanket. We finally got the bed frame on Friday (sales person didn't order it originally) and it's amazing how much higher that thing is! Oscar still hasn't figured out that he can go under the bed again since the mattress has been on the floor for weeks.

Coralee's Photography Skills

We let her stay up later on Friday night to finish watching "Movie Cars" with the desperate hope that she'd sleep later so we could sleep in on Saturday morning. I'm still not quite sure what time she really woke up but there was "evidence" of some of her activities in various places.... toys out and then I uploaded pictures from the camera and found these beauties. We honestly didn't hear her stirring until she was actually in our bedroom around 8:45. I'm thinking she was playing for an hour before then. You think we need to clean the camera lense a little after this?

Pedi Party

We hadn't done this in a while so I felt like it was time. We've started having pizza & a movie nights on Fridays which is a fun tradition and it's also a nice relaxing evening for me since I don't have to cook. This week, we threw in a pedicure and milk shake. Needless to say, Coralee enjoyed that. It just doesn't get better than soaking your feet with bubbles and getting your fingernails & toenails "painked".

HOA Pool Party

Our HOA doesn't have a pool of it's own but for this party, they rented the city pool where we took swim lessons. Coralee had fun just playing in the water.

Father's Day

Coralee & I made Ken snack mix and decorated the can with pictures that reminded us of him (okay reminded me of him - some things are just easier without her help). She was really excited about that since it had mini-Oreos. She had a fit, though, that I used her hat box to "wrap" his gift. It wasn't pretty! Ken's parents sent him one of the "Movie Car" cards that makes noise and Coralee was pretty sure that was really hers. We went to Catfish Parlour for lunch which was great as usual. Ken even got a free back scratcher which is funny since the last time we went for Father's Day he got a "home & auto repair kit" aka duct tape. That evening we went to our neighborhood pool party and had a great time hanging out in the pool with Coralee.

Birthday Re-do Pictures

Or at least dessert pictures. :) We had dessert at Cold Stone Creamery and took a few pics.

Hanging Out in the Trunk

We've been working at sorting through the closets and now the garage to make room for Lincoln. It's taken a while but we're getting there. We threw away the leftover napkins from our wedding.... 10.5 year old napkins! If they hadn't been outside in a dirty box, I might have kept them to use just to be silly. One great find from this day was my necklace that Ken bought me when we got married. I had found a missing earring when we cleaned out the boxes (from the apartment no less) several years ago but couldn't figure out where on earth the necklace was. I was really excited to find it in one of the boxes in the garage. Coralee had fun playing in the garage but was a little in the way. Ken had cleaned the stroller and umbrella out of the trunk so we could make a trip to Goodwill and he let her play in the trunk for a bit. Don't worry, we didn't close it and she didn't even try to close it.

Play date

We had our neighbors over to play in the pool. Of course when I pulled the pool over from the corner of the yard, the support for the slide cracked. Guess that's what we get for storing it outside all year. I'll be looking at Target at the end of the season for a cheap replacement. We also had some watermelon and the kids literally devoured it. It was SO funny! I think they ate half of the watermelon!

My Birthday ~ June 13

Does it say anything that we had to do a "do over" because that day was so rough? We went to swim lessons in the morning and then picked Ken up to go have lunch. We went to Top Notch Burgers (the epitome of fancy restaurants you'd choose for your birthday, I know, but fried chicken sounded so good). Ken and I had finished our meal and were waiting for Coralee to really start eating her grilled cheese instead of just eating french fries. She was playing with the salt & pepper shakers and we kept telling her not to do that and that she needed to obey. Well, sheh continued to play with them and then started screaming when we said "No!". We threatened that we were going to leave if she didn't stop and unfortunately had to follow through on that. Of course we were in the back booth so we had to walk by everyone with our screaming 2 year old.

She was obviously exhausted because she was fighting going to sleep on the way home. I thought things would get better after nap but they didn't. I've been making her stay in her room for 2 hours during nap. I just need the time to myself. Most days that isn't a big deal but of course on my birthday it was. I was tired and beyond emotional, too, so I didn't react as well as I would have liked. I cried and screamed about her ruining my birthday. It was bad.

Our neighbors Shannon, Colston & Hudson (which are pronounced all in order as one word by Coralee) were really sweet and brought over a dump cake.... by far one of my favorite desserts. After they left, we were going to go to dinner but it was becoming more and more clear that Coralee wasn't going to make that pleasant. She revolted about sitting on the step for whatever offense and Ken told me to go shopping with my birthday money and he'd take care of her.

We've been battling bed time for months now. Maybe daylight savings time isn't my favorite any more. Ugh! She's clearly tired but you can't get her to go to sleep before 8:00 and that's with a generous amount of correction and discipline. To say we're frustrated would be putting it lightly. I think that night it took closer to 2 hours because Ken pretty much immediately bathed her and tried to get her to go to sleep.

My reaction to that wasn't too great. I ended up crying the rest of the evening out of frustration with the whole day. I'm going to blame a lot of that on pregnancy hormones and being tired. I'm really glad next year's swim lessons for her don't involve me!

So, for our "re-do".... I was so tired in the evening that the last thing I wanted to do was go somewhere for dinner. So, on Saturday morning we went to get bagels for breakfast, made a stop at Babies R Us to look at double strollers, went down to the Sunset Valley Farmer's Market, made a quick stop at Neiman's Last Call and then went to lunch at The Tavern. It was a much better day. After Coralee's nap, we went through some of the boxes in the garage (total pack rats) and found the necklace that Ken gave me for a wedding present. That was a nice surprise although I have no idea why it was in a box in the garage. We finished the evening by having some chips & guacamole at Chipotle and ice cream at Cold Stone Creamery.

Another semi-naked fit

I have no idea why she was supposed to be sitting on the step but she didn't want to do it and part of that process is removing your clothes. Ugh! I'm surprised she hadn't thrown the shoes yet.... that's part of the "I don't want to be on the step", too. ;-)

For Renae - Reality

I will admit that I took this picture after we cleaned up for Mom Time. Coralee usually has a few toys out but it's nothing like it was the last time you were here. Since she's bigger now we don't need to have as much stuff out downstairs now. It's nice! The swing and bouncy seat will be making their appearance soon enough and then we'll move to the bigger baby toys and eventually back to the not so kiddie living room. ;-) For now, I'm just going to enjoy the way things look this evening.

For Teresa - Couch Pictures

Here's the new couch. We're getting 2 couches, the chair with the padded arms and an ottoman.

Swim Lessons Week 2

Ken came to see lessons today and of course Coralee was thrilled. She's been doing really well with her ice cream scoops and soldier kicks but is not so keen on the floating on her back and blowing bubbles. Yesterday was the first day she would ride on the "sailboat" which was an infinite improvement from the tears on days past. Her other favorites are jumping off of the wall to Mommy and of course the "Little Green Frog" song.

Daddy's Handiwork

We've been working at getting things organized and cleaned out before Lincoln's arrival. One of his projects has been shelves in Coralee's closet. She has had the funniest response to them.... she's SO excited! I think it's great since all her books are in there instead of in Lincoln's room. Much more convenient for cleaning!