The Battlefield

As many of you know already, I'm making some changes. I've embarked on, what I'm calling, a 'wellness journey'. It started with answering, yet another, ad in the paper for a home based business. It turned into something else completely. Something about this company and the words they said awakened something in me. The company I am working with is in the wellness industry and we sell wellness products (weight loss or gain, more energy, and so much more). I have started with the weight loss program and lost 5 pounds and several inches after only 2 days! But it's more than just the weight. I feel sooo good! Before, I would wake up everyday feeling exhausted, as though I'd been run over by a truck. Now, I wake up and feel good! If I don't loose another pound it's worth it for me to just good waking up feeling good in the morning (and without the back pain I've endured for years). I'm on a mission now ~ to get my body and life healthy. To set a good example for my kids and to be able to keep up with them too. I've even started keeping a video journal so that I can blog about my wellness journey. I'm not quite ready to share that blog yet as I'm having some trouble getting some of the videos to upload. Hopefully, in a couple of days I'll have that up and running to share with you.

That one phone call changed my life. I've made that same phone call a million times before. This one was different. I really feel that God delivered a solution to a situation and a message ~ GET IT TOGETHER. Everyone knows I always use the 'get it together' speech on my kids, my sister, my mom, my dad, myself ~ virtually anyone. If I feel you need to get it together, I'll let you know. Well, I think God was tired of my spoiled brat ways (complete with temper tantrums and pouting spells). For a while now my soul has felt very uneasy, almost restless. Sometimes it will actually be very intense and overwhelming. I'm amazing when it comes to ignoring something and running from it. Which is pretty much what I've been doing. To try to settle my soul would mean change. Well, I'm done running and ready to deal with myself. When God tells you to Get It Together, that's serious. So now I feel like my soul is on a battlefield, which I suppose it is. I'm determined to walk through this and comeout on the other side with soul healed and stronger than ever. I was at church yesterday and asking God why my soul had to feel so troubled and stirred and wounded and almost terrorized. I swear He said to me so clearly, "Wendy, when you burn all your bridges you have to walk through the fire to get back." Well, I'm willing to walk through the fire to get back Home. It will only make me stronger when I get there. So, please keep me in mind and say a prayer for me on my journey. It's gonna be a good one!

Mamaw's Quilts

My mamaw makes all of the grandkids a quilt. She made one for me and my sister and all of our kids too. This is the one she just made for Levi. Isn't it just too cute? I love the quilt and so does Levi. He always make it me lay it down on the floor and then he gets his cars and drives them all over it. Mamaw even made him a matching valence for his bedroom window. Thank you so Mamaw!!

Go Fly a Kite

Before the wind became too intense last Sunday, we attempted kite flying. We have a wind advisory in effect so my family grabs the kites and heads outside~ that's normal, right? My only intent was to be the camera person but I ended up being the kite retriever. Since the wind was so intense it was super easy to get them going again. Basically all I had to do was pick it up and let it go. The kites flew with no trouble in the strong winds but they also took some serious dives straight down (point first). Since I had become the kite retriever I spent most of time directly in the path of the death kites (that's exactly what they looked like from my view). Strawberry Shortcake and Barbie were really cute until they were bearing down on me faster than the speed of light with a vengeance.

The girls enjoyed the kites. Sienna's ended up in a tree, sadly. But Sierra grew tired of hers and Sienna was more than happy to take over. Eventually Sienna grew tired of the kite as well and Dave was the only one left flying the kites (always a kid at heart). It was alot of fun. A few hours later our power went out (right in the middle of making dinner) and did not come back on for 20 hours!

Levi's Favorite Things

This is all about Levi's favorite things right now. Alot like 'Oprah's Favorite Things' except it has nothing to do with Oprah and I'm NOT giving ANYTHING away for free. Levi is at such a fun (and challenging) age. His absolute favorite thing right now is his cars. By cars I mean his trucks, tractors, cars - anything with wheels. He plays with them ALL day long. He's even started refusing to leave the house without a hand full of them. As soon as I say "It's time to go bye bye" he takes off running to get his cars. I finally just gave him a small little canvas bag that he can carry his cars in for bye bye time.

The Disney Cars movie~ have you seen it? Levi LOVES this movie. He is slightly obsessed with it right now. He's never been too into tv until we watched Cars one day. Thank goodness I recorded it on the DVR because Levi won't stop asking to watch it. As soon as he gets up in the mornings he says, "vroom vroom" and points to the tv. So I ask him if he wants to watch cars to which he responds with "yeah,yeah,yeah" accompanied by extreme head nods and hand clapping. As soon as the movie goes off he makes me start it up again. Luckily, I don't watch any tv during the day so it doesn't bother me to let him watch it over and over again but the girls are getting a little tired of it. It really is a cute movie though. I'd rather have him be obsessed with Cars rather than Barney or, dare I say it~ the Doodlebops! (It makes me shudder just thinking about the Doodlebops!)

Horses~ Levi loves horses right now. It started this summer with Mom's firgurine horses at her house. Everytime we would go over Levi would point to them and cry for them. He could never play with them though. So, I finally bought Levi some small horse firgurines of his own. He loves these things. They always get to come out and play with all the John Deer tractors. He found one the other day that had been missing (the toy box has that affect) and he was soooo excited when he (Sienna) found it. He started yelling "Ma, Ma, Ma, Ma, ooooooh, oooooh, Ma, giggle, giggle, Ma" and he took off running through the house looking for me. I was in the pantry but came flying out to find him when I heard him calling for me by name. He usually just calls me DaDa (just like everyone else in the entire world ~ his dada obsession is nauseating.) So what a delight for me to hear him actually call for ME. I just about broke my ankle tripping over the broom trying to get out of the pantry to see what all the excitement was about. He loves the real horses just as much. He loves to see them out the van window. I'm slightly ashamed to admit that when he gets super fussy in the van I tell him to look out the window for horses even though I know there aren't any out there. Is that totally terrible?

The Melon Festival

We went to the Melon Festival this weekend. The kids had a blast! I was really surprised by Levi. He wanted to ride EVERYTHING. I figured we'd be lucky to get him on the carousel, let alone anything else. But no - he jumped right out of the stroller and walked right up to all the rides. And he didn't get scared when the ride started up. He got a little impatient a couple of times waiting for the ride to start, but other than that, the rides were awesome for Levi. Do I even need to mention that Sierra and Sienna rode everything (and still wanted more)?

Levi wanted more rides too. This is a picture of Levi refusing to move away from one of the rides. I think all of the excitement was alot for Levi to deal with. He threw several fits during our trip to the festival. When David is home, Levi would prefer to be with him. This used to hurt my feelings because I had to be the one to deal with all of his fits, behavior issues, diaper changes (wrestling match) and then Dave would come home and get 'happy' Levi. But David got to see a different side of Levi at the festival. I think it was alot for Dave to deal with. Levi would scream and kick and hit and scratch each time he had to get back in the stroller. (this picture shows what Levi did when we tried to let him walk) It took Dave and I working together to get him back in his stroller. When Levi saw the van he started screaming GO which was accompanied by whatever thrashing he could accomplish in his stroller. He did not want to get in the van. Dave was so aggravated (and a bit frazzled) with Levi. I couldn't help but giggle a little to myself because I saw me 6 months ago in Dave's approach to dealing with Levi. There is no 'stopping' a Levi fit. Once the fit is started it must run it's course. It's almost like an entity of it's own. The more you try to talk to Levi the worse the fit becomes (even if you're giving in to him). The only hope you have is to be silent and do what you need to do and hope for the best. I give the fit ZERO reaction and somehow that helps me stay calm. This was not Dave's approach. Dave was exhausted when we got home from the festival and I felt like a million bucks. I think he was so whooped because he's not used to dealing with Levi's extremes. I felt good because I finally had a little help dealing with Levi's extremes. It's kind of like only doing half your workout. But even with his fits I still had a ton of fun with him. He LOVED the carousel. He's really into horses (and john deer) right now. Levi's good out shines his bad by far.

The girls love everything about the festivals. And they do pretty much everything. They were really good with Levi too. Especially Sierra since she's the one who has to 'hang on' to him. The last couple of things they did I decided to leave Levi in the stroller. Dave agreed when I asked him if he wanted to deal with putting Levi back in the stroller again. The girls were very patient waiting and helping Levi all day so I thought they deserved a couple fun things without having to deal with Levi.

I've got great kids and a great guy. Dave loves taking the kids to the festivals and he spoils them there from start to finish. Especially this year since this is the only one we've done (except the Basket Festival where they don't have rides so that kind of doesn't count). The girls wanted to make the sand art stuff and Dave couldn't say no. I was waiting hanging out with Levi and I looked over and had to get a picture of Dave. It was one of those moments where you know 'I love this man'. I won't mention that right after I took this picture everything got thrown to the ground to answer his phone. Still, I captured the moment.

We had a great time. Here's some more shots of the kids having a ton of fun!

The First Day of School

The first day of school! Yeah!!! The girls were so excited this morning. They both surprised me by making some last minute wardrobe changes. I will admit that I was disappointed that Sienna decided not to wear the dress as planned. The dress is soooo cute (and casual). Oh well, when she does wear it I'm still posting a pic because it's just that cute. Levi insisted on being in the pictures this morning. This is unusual since normally he always turns away from the camera. But not this morning~ he came running in and jumped right in the picture and said cheese (a new word!).

Sienna walked into the preschool like an old pro. She found her new cubby and then found her name tag right away. She said hello and good morning to everyone she saw. We walked over and she found her book, gave me a hug and kiss and said goodbye. Almost all of the other kids around were SCREAMING and crying. They had ahold of their mothers around the neck with a death grip. One girl was screaming "Me don't like school!". The first boy we saw in the parking lot (as soon as we got there) was literally throwing himself down in the gravel and then thrashing while screaming. I couldn't believe it. It was like a mad house. I was afraid that Sienna would be a little scared of all this (since I was a little scared of it all) but she wasn't. It didn't phase her one bit. I just don't remember it being that extremely intense last year on the first day. When I left Sienna was sitting nicely on the carpet looking at her book with a returning friend from last year, one of the teachers (there's only 3) already had one screaming boy on her lap, another teacher was in the process of prying a screaming girl from her mother's neck, about 6 more parents were lined up with screaming girls and one parent was having a complete emotional meltdown in the parking lot. It was crazy!

Sierra had the nervous tummy this morning. She has a male teacher this year and is a little scared of that. We met him last night and he seemed to be a very nice man. Everyone we talked to at open house told us how nice and what a good teacher he is. She's still uncertain though. The first day is always a little scary. I reminded her that she felt this way last year too right up until she got into school. She said that she knew the feeling would go away after school started but that didn't help her much for right now. I reminded her how beautiful she looked and that was a slight comfort. :)

It'll be a great day for both of them. I can't wait to hear all about it. Here's a little video of Sienna doing something (I'm not sure what) this morning before school when we made a quick stop at Aunt Shell's.

Ready to Go!

Tomorrow is the first day of school! Yeah!! My house is so excited! I am so excited! Tonight is open house at the elementary so the kids can bring in their supplies and find out where their room, desk, and locker is at. This helps the kids feel more prepared for the first day. It helps the jitters be more about excitement rather than nervousness. Sierra is so excited about the open house that it almost feels like some sort of premiere or gala rather than going up to the school. Outfits have been picked out, hairstlyes have already been tried out and approved, breakfast has already been decided - we are ready, to say the least.

A Fun Day in the Sun

Summer is quickly coming to an end with only 3 days left until school starts! So today we went to the rec and we took Christen (Dave's niece) with us. The kids have so much fun with her. They all fight over her. I was so surprised to find that the rec pool was nearly empty. There was really only a handful of people there. It felt like we had the pool to ourselves. Well, right up until a little boy showed up who wanted to ball with Levi. Levi did not want this boy to touch his ball. Levi yelled at him and shooed him away. I finally just told the boy that Levi was not very friendly and didn't want to play. That boy looked at Levi like he was nuts! It was just a really fun day.

Levi's Birthday Party

Press play.

Happy Birthday Levi!!

Happy birthday to my handsome little man! I can't believe he's two already. The time goes by so quickly. It seems like just yesterday I was waddling around knocking things down with my HUGE belly. Levi teaches me so much everyday. He's such an amazing little guy. Everyday I watch him grow into his own little person. He is so unique and different from any child I've ever encountered. I love him so much and I am sooo thankful for him. Happy Birthday Levi!!

First Time Banger

'First time banger' is what the stylist called Sierra yesterday. We did some school shopping and the first stop was the salon. Here's her before and after shots. I love the bangs (much to my surprise)!

Please Don't Go....

Can summer already be approaching it's end? How can this be?! I'm no where near ready for summer to end. It's just not fair (that's my kids' favorite phrase, thought I'd try it out). Sierra's birthday has already gone by and Levi's is coming this week. School starts back up in 14 days. That's the only good part of summer ending - school starting!! It just doesn't feel like summer's been here nearly long to be leaving already. There's so much I still want to do ~ like swim everyday, take the kids to the zoo (although, I've been waiting for cooler weather) and the same for Cedar Point. I suppose that I can still those things (except for swimming) in the fall weather, it would be more comfortable. But that's not the point! I still don't want summer to end!

The Hannah Montana Concert

The Hannah Montana concert was on tv Saturday night. If you have a tween daughter or know any tween girls or ever shop at Wal Mart then I'm sure you've heard of Hannah Montana. If not, then I'll tell you that she's a 15 year old girl (daughter of Billy Ray Cyrus, 'My Achy Breaky Heart' guy) that the money making machine known as Disney has morphed her into a tweeny bopper TV/Rockstar. She's all the 'rage' on the tween scene right now. Disney aired the concert on tv and it also featured The Jonas Brothers, which are a Disney tweeny boy group of three brothers (one of which has caused Sierra to fall in love). Wal Mart has been giving out free 3-D glasses for weeks in preparation for the big premiere. The concert was being shown in 3-D (probably should have mentioned that).

The girls were soooo excited for the concert. They talked about it all day. Sierra had a countdown running. We had bought Hannah Montana microphone headsets as part of the treat bags for Sierra's party and the girls were planning on using them during the concert. The concert started at 8:00 so at 7:45 the girls ran upstairs to change into their Hannah clothes. I had no idea that they had 'hannah' clothes so I was anxious to see what they were going to wear. As they changed I started the popcorn and ice cream floats that I had previously promised. The girls arrived in the living room in their Hannah attire.

The concert started and so did their screaming. For a second I thought Hannah Montana was standing in my living room. I had so much fun watching them. They were aggravated with the 3-D glasses. They wouldn't stay on. So, I got out my hole punch and some leftover curling ribbon from the party and tied them to my children's heads. FYI: FREE GLASSES WILL REQUIRE MOMMY'S CRAFT BOX. With glasses back on so was the concert. They screamed, they danced, they screamed, they sang, they screamed, they ate, they screamed. It was like they were actually at the concert. I can only imagine what it would be like to take them to a live concert. It was alot of fun just watching them have so much fun.