Hats, hats, hats (sung to the tune of Girls, Girls, Girls)

We are quickly approaching my little guy's 2nd birthday. Where did the time go?!! I can't help but look at him and think he's one of the cutest things ever. (His brother is the other cutest little thing.) But, Lord, is he a handful! S and I often say G just goes from room to room looking for things to get into. You can not leave this one alone for a second. But, he can be so sweet too. He'll lay a kiss on you in a heartbeat and wrap his little arms around your neck in a tight hug. My mama's heart just melts when he does that. He is a daddy's boy for sure, but at night when he wakes up and is scared, all he wants is his mama to hold and snuggle into. I'm okay with that.

Little G is also my hat and shoe boy. W would rather be barefoot and only grudgingly wears hats. Little brother loves to accessorize! Don't get me wrong. He is all boy, but he gets the biggest kick out of wearing hats and wearing his "shuesh". Evidence below:

Little has also been known to sleep with his shoes on.

(Backstory: The other night apparently I didn't notice that he still had on

his "shuesh" when I laid him down. I did try to take them off when I went to check on him

and realized he had them on, but he wasn't having any of that.)

So you can see, he can be a bit of a diva too!

my funny Valentines

A boy's story is the best that is ever told.
-- Charles Dickens

Happy Valentine's Day!

Circus FAIL

I am probably the only mother who was not in a hurry to take the boys to the circus. Don't get me wrong I love the circus. I also felt like lil'G would love it as well, but dear, sweet, lovable W is very much susceptible to sensory overload. He always has been. He's never liked loud noises. He loves firetrucks but won't get near them. He was well over 3 before he would try inflatable bouncies or slides, because he didn't like the noise. He was overwhelmed by the crowd on the Quad before the UA/Penn State game. He loves, and I do mean *loves*, the Zoo and the animals, but if they even hint of coming up, he moves as far away as he can as fast as he can.

You can see why I wasn't in a hurry to take him to the circus. But also, I wanted him to love it when I did take him.

So, when I heard that they march the Circus elephants from the train to the Civic center, I thought that, perhaps, this would be something they would both love. Last Tuesday, despite the rain and cold, we went to see the elephants in a much more demurred setting and we had a ton of fun!

Where are they?

Snacks make the time go past.

And, the Cheetos make us look like clowns.

Here they come!

And, there they go!

After seeing the elephants, all W could talk about was going to the Circus. Oh my! I had my hesitations, but after scoring free tickets for the boys and getting discounted tickets for us, we were going to the circus!

I prepped W will all day regarding the noise and the crowds. He was prepared and so excited.

So excited to go in!

Enjoying the pre-show

See the clowns!

And we lasted all of 45 minutes - 25 minutes pre-show and 20 minutes into the show before asking me non-stop if we could go home. When the clowns juggled fire, we had our first mini-meltdown. S took him out to buy popcorn hoping to get him to calm down, but when they started walking back to our seats, W melted into the floor crying togo home. S got him to me and there I sat trying to calm him down.

Lil'bit, on the other hand, sat in his seat with the jumbo tub of popcorn (aka pop-pop as he called it), eating it as fast as he could, and yelling "YAY" every five minutes.

We had several more attempts to calm big boy down, including me walking him around the entire arena and culminating with him sitting close to me with my hands covering his eyes and ears. When the fire and cannons shot off signaling the men walking the hamster cages, the crying and hysterics reached epic proportions and I waved the white flag because I knew there would be no calming down and enjoyment after that.

With all of that said, I still have hopes of W one day loving the Circus. Perhaps, we will try again in a couple of years... or thirty.

January Ice Storm Photos

We had an ice storm in January, and I caught some cute pics of the kids. Since we didn't have a computer, I couldn't get them up. As the old adage goes, better late than never, right?

Look at all this ice!

Mama said not to throw the ice,

but apparently, I don't listen too well.

We had fun sledding with daddy.

My little snow bunny coming back for another sled ride.

The magnolia had the most amazing ice leaves.

Ice leaves are crunchy.

Lil'G thinks they are scrumptious too.

The Sparrow

"Are not five sparrows sold for two copper coins?* And not one of them is forgotten before God. But the very hairs of your head are all numbered. Do not fear therefore; you are of more value than many sparrows. ~Luke 12:6-7

During my deepest, darkest times, this scripture has resonated within me. Today,my friend, Amy, shared this link on Facebook.

What a beautiful way to begin today.

Sparrow

Tags: Courage

I have always loved the verse that says God cares about us more than sparrows.

I’m not sure I’ve always believed it, though.

For the longest time I kept it to myself, always nodding at the right time while in Christian circles, furrowing my brow in agreement when it was brought up. As if I was considering the depths of this unfathomable love, and swallowing it like sweet tea in the hot sun.

Delicious.

But that wasn’t what I was thinking.

I was actually imagining what it must be like to honestly believe God would love me that way.

Those girls in Bible study had their act together. And all I had was a Bible that had brand-new stuck-together pages and a date with a guy who couldn’t remember my last name.

I decided it was a complicated last name and stifled the desire to be known by either one.

But the image of a sparrow chased me everywhere I went.

Years passed.

Decades, in fact.

And I continued to believed that a God Who would love someone like me wasn’t worth loving back.

And one day, over a cup of too-cold coffee, I decided I wanted to know what it was that made this bird so important. I had gone through a very dark time in my life and I was looking for Him, for answers, for a reason to believe He even cared, let alone loved me.

Quite frankly, I wasn’t that worried about love.

I just wanted to know I existed to Him.

Why would He care about the number of tears I cry, or hairs on my head? I just wanted Him to know I cried at all.

I waited on Him.

After about an hour I came across (I was tempted to say stumbled, but we all know that isn’t true at all) an article on a particular type of bird. It wasn’t a Christian reference, but rather a zoological-type book with statistics and pictures for someone who knows much more about birds than I do.

I skimmed it until I came across a sentence that explained how this certain type of bird learned how to sing. I didn’t finish reading it before the tenderness overcame me.

“And this particular bird cannot learn to sing in the daylight because it is always concerned with the chatter around it. Instead, its cage must be covered so that it is in complete darkness. Then, it is able to hear its master and will learn to sing…”

More than a sparrow.

More than the pitch-black-darkness.

He loves me.

And in that place of feeling left alone, unwanted, disregarded, abandoned, He whispered to my weary soul;

Sing, love.

In the black night, I listened to His voice and I heard Him in a way I never had before. I stopped trying to focus on the silhouettes around me, panicked and desperate for my bearings. I accepted the fact that it might be a long while before I knew where I was and how to find my way back. Slowly, I started to believe that He treasured me enough to trust my voice in the dark. Nobody watching, nobody to judge.

Just me and the One Who told me I was worth it.

Have you heard Him, too? I pray so.

Sing, love.

Despicable as the shadows may be, they hold the promise of the Master’s voice. Worry not about tomorrow, wondering if the sun will come again.

It will, as it always does, in some sense or another.

In the meantime, raise your voice to the One Who loves you.

He loves you.

It isn’t too late to fill the sky with the sound of song. And when you do, know I will be not-so-far away, joining in with you as we await the dawn.

Sing, love.

The Master is listening…

By Angie Smith, Bring the Rain

Now the computer's back, where were we?

This month we gained 2 new additions to our family. Meet Mr. Toad and the wet Sprocket.

It took me a year and a half to convince S that we should get some, but he finally caved and we have had so much fun with our African dwarf frogs. Their names are a double entendre of sort. Mr. Toad's name comes from Wind in the Willows which I loved as a kid. When you put Mr. Toad with Sprocket, you get a great band - Toad and the Wet Sprocket. Ha!

In any case, W has the dubious honor of getting to feed them and he proudly tells S, "Daddy, that's MY job!" Lil'G, on the other hand, he is more like the girl "FISSS-SHE's" that the dentist wants to give Nemo too. So, our job, is to save the frogs from G's loving but deathly embrace.

Hard lesson

This month started out with a bang. About 3 weeks ago, little G, unbeknownst to me, highjacked my large bottle of water and poured it over a closed, but running laptop. Yep, sweet baby boy had caused over $800 worth of damage. Thankfully, the good Apple people took pity on this poor mother and the Genius guy, without me asking, went to his management to ask them to cover the repair costs. Then the clouds parted and the angels started singing because Apple management said yes to covering the repair costs although it really was our fault. (It pays to be nice and funny to service reps!!)

With that said, there is always good with the bad and vice versa. When we got the computer back, we had lost all our precious pictures, videos and music collection. We were not able to backup the computer before we took it because it just wouldn't run long enough. We almost physically sick thinking about we had lost... over 6 years of wonderful, precious memories. (We do have an external hard drive, but, like idiots, we hadn't backed up the computer in quite some time. More than that, we can't locate it. (It had been kept downstairs, but was moved due to flooding and construction in the room.))

So here we are, trying to piece the last 7 years of our life together. Fortunately, S remembered he might have some duplicate files that he had been planning on deleting at work. He brought the jump drive home and I nearly cried. We regained over 6,000 pictures! Praise be! I have never been so relieved! We got back most of our photos, with exception of the last year and a half.

And I hate that. Because, it means I've lost so many photos of precious baby G. I cried for 2 days as the realization sunk it. We had photos of his birth and the first 2 months of his life and then nothing. I can be thankful that we have great family who are willing to give me copies of their photos, but I have a hard time swallowing that we've lost those day-to-day pictures.

On Friday, I went out and bought a new external hard drive. I backed up everything immediately. We will not go through that again.