Natalie vs. Repunzel

So Natalie has been bugging me for weeks to cut her hair like her friend Taylor's (to her chin), and I have put her off because I want her hair to be long. Her daddy told her she could cut her hair if she wanted which made it even harder for me. Her hair is very fine so it doesn't take but a few minutes for it to look stringy and dirty even when she's straight from the tub. I really noticed it this afternoon. After an early dinner I was bored, so I asked Natalie if she wanted me to cut her hair before getting in the tub and she got so excited. She was running all over cheering and jumping around. It was too cute to resist. So we went upstairs and I cut her hair off! AHHHH!!! These are the before pictures...


See how stringy it is? So anyway, I chopped 5 or 6 inches off like it was nothing! It was actually kinda fun.

I had avoided cutting her hair also due to the fact that just doing a trim on her is difficult. She moves all over. But tonight she did pretty good. All I had to do was ask her if she wanted me to cut her hair. She would say yes, and I would tell her that she had to be still or turn her head this way or that and she would. I was very impressed. After bath time, I dried her new hair do and did a few touch up before taking these cute pictures...




Now I have to admit that when I started cutting I had no idea where I was going with the hair style. I just started cutting. I knew that I needed to get quite a bit of the length off because her hair is so fine, but I didn't want to loose too much length from the front. What you see is what we ended up with. It reminds me of someone I used to know....

She is so excited! She LOVES her new hair! She has been looking in the mirror all evening. She's so excited to show Daddy who has no idea what I did. He'll be thrilled but want me to cut mine the same way. (It's his favorite way for me to wear my hair--the above picture is his absolute favorite picture of me ever.) She's got big girl hair and a big girl birthday coming up. Let's all pray that big girl panties will come soon too!

How Great Is He!

Laughing Babies

Rejoice In Suffering?!

"Therefore, since we have been justified through faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have gained access by faith into this grace in which we now stand. And we rejoice in the hope of the glory of God. Not only so, but we also rejoice in our sufferings, because we know that suffering produces perseverance; perseverance, character; and character, hope. And hope does not disappoint us, because God has poured out his love into our hearts by the Holy Spirit, whom he has given us."
[Romans 5:1-5]

"By entering through faith into what God has always wanted to do for us—set us right with him, make us fit for him—we have it all together with God because of our Master Jesus. And that's not all: We throw open our doors to God and discover at the same moment that he has already thrown open his door to us. We find ourselves standing where we always hoped we might stand—out in the wide open spaces of God's grace and glory, standing tall and shouting our praise.
There's more to come: We continue to shout our praise even when we're hemmed in with troubles, because we know how troubles can develop passionate patience in us, and how that patience in turn forges the tempered steel of virtue, keeping us alert for whatever God will do next. In alert expectancy such as this, we're never left feeling shortchanged. Quite the contrary—we can't round up enough containers to hold everything God generously pours into our lives through the Holy Spirit!"
[Same passage--The Message]

Natalie's VeggieTales Friends

Natalie calls all of her Fisher Price Little People her VeggieTales. We had given her a set of VeggieTales little people based on Duke and the Great Pie War for Christmas two Christmases ago. So those, the Little People, My Little Ponies, and all other small toy have become her best friends. She carries them around in a basket that I had given her to use becasue I was tired of her dropping them everywhere! So she takes them all over the house with her when she plays. They are usually with her when she comes into our room in the mornings. My favorite thing she does with them is when she lines them up all over the house.

I have alread found them on the steps, in the kitchen, on the side of the bath tub, etc. She carries them around in a basket and talks to them as though they were real, which I'm sure they are to her. One time she had them lined up on the steps and she was singing to them. Another time, I caught her reading them a story in her room after she had lined them up. One day, she came running downstairs yelling for me to come look at her friends. She told me that she built her friends "book houses." This is what I found in her room. Each little friend had its own book as their "house."

Often while I'm making dinner she will line them up on the kitchen floor. Again each friend had its own sqare on the floor.

Last week, I heard her telling them that she had to go potty, so I quiety followed her to see what she was doing. (Keep in mind she prefers her diapers to wearing panties right now. Panties, she says, make her pee pee go down her leg to her socks.) She told them as she went that she needed to pull her pants down and go pee pee. The she had to wipe her bum, flush the toilet, and wash her hands. I peeked around the corner to find her sitting on the floor with her pants down around her ankles--diaper was still on--pretending to go potty. (I was sick that the camera was in Scott's office because it was the cutest thing ever!) I jumped on the potty training opportunity and asked her if she wanted to go on the real potty. She said, "No, I go pee pee in my diaper, Mommy." And that was the end of her teaching her VeggieTales how to go potty.

On another note: The middle of this last week was beautifula nd the temperature was in the 70's. Natalie had gotten some sidewalk chalks earlier this spring and it was finally nice enough to use them. Here are the results....
(These are her barbies: Ariel, Belle, Snow White, Cinderella, "Little Man," and Taylor.)



As you can tell, Mommy ended up doing most of the drawing with the sidewalk chalks. Natalie was very specific about what she wanted drawn.

UPDATE: For All My WI Friends...

EARLIER (11AM)... Just thought I'd give you something to chuckle at. The last couple of days have been warm and spring-like. Last evening the temperature began to drop and today it is only just in the 30's, but it's raining. It may get colder so the schools have been closed in preparation of the ice we may get. Can you believe it! I mean I know that ice can be VERY dangerous--MD--WI--it doesn't matter, but to close schools for ice that MAY come tonight. It seems a bit ridiculous to me.


LATER (7PM)... Ok, so I will admit that the weather has proved to be quite dangerous by any standards. This morning when I posted the above I was shocked that they were already cancelling schools and events for the rain. The rain turned to sleet by 230 this afternoon and by 4 is was ice. The temperature has continued to slowly drop, so now we have snow on top of ice. I can hear the snow/sleet/ice hitting the windows as it comes down. Scott wanted to go over to Wilmington to get this pair of shoes that we have been on a mad dash for the last two days. I refused to go and forbade him to go as well. (Just like a good submissive wife should do! Ha!) Sometimes he just doesn't think things all the way through. Bless his impatient heart. So we are snuggled in for the night. We rented some movies and are having a late dinner. I just took another picture of our front yard. Quite a difference from this morning.

Musings

Each day we are awoken by the Lord and given a fresh chance to live the life we have always wanted to live. We get the opportunity to make wrongs right, to start over, to try something we're scared to death to do. Whatever each day holds for us is a wonderment, to be certain.
God gives His children good gifts. When we stand for Him through the dark times of life and tell the world, "I HAVE to believe!" God's gifts far exceed anything we could ever ask or hope for. He loves us and longs to spoil us with His goodness. Wow! What a thought that is!
Is has been a struggle for me these past few months to continually stand and declare that I DO BELIEVE and I TRUST Him with my life. When all the circumstances surrounding me seem to say life is coming apart, that is when God says, "Will you still stand and trust me COMPLETELY?" That is all He asks of us. It sounds so simple and easy, but I am telling you today--it takes guts to stand against all that this world has to offer. But I stand and hold fast to His Word because I know that in the end, it will all be worth it. He will make it worth it. He is the only one who makes life worth living. I am holding on to that with all my might.

My Head

....is pounding.

Please pray.

So Long In Coming...

My brother sent this video of my niece to me months ago. I always wanted to share it with you all because it's just too darn cute to sit in my inbox. I have finally taken the time to do what needed to be done so that I could post it on my blog, and here it is... My sister-in-law, Anissa is filming and the voice you hear.

Make video montages at onetruemedia.com

Ok, so the funniest part of this whole video is Anissa's singing and commentary. Leith is so adorable, but Nis just makes it belly-laughing fun!

Powder Room After

So, I just realized that I never posted pictures of our powder room after it was painted. That was the first room to be totally finished. It's been done for 4 months now. Thanks for patiently waiting. :) I didn't put the before pictures up because it was just a white room with a sink and toilet--not blog-worthy! Here's what it looks like now. It looks really purple in the pictures but it isn't. It's a dark plum color. I think the color was Plum Wine or something like that. Terri Lowe would remember. This is the only room with a distinct theme and it's still pretty understated. It's my beach room. If I could, I would have put sand down, but the thought of the mess was more than I could handle. I have been looking for a beachy print to put in there, but haven't found the perfect thing yet. Maybe this summer I'll take the perfect picture and have it blown up and framed. Anyway... back to the powder room...



Notice the nightlight? I took a regular nightlight and hot glued shells onto the cover. The shells were ones that my Grandma had picked up on the beaches of Florida over the years. (They wintered in FL for years.) It was fun to be able to use them finally.


So I think that this rug is what makes the whole room. It's my favorite part! If I can't have sand, this is the next best thing.

Living Room Before and After...

Kitchen Before and After

Here are the long awaited before and after pictures of my kitchen! It truly is a beautiful space now. It is warm and just waiting to be filled with friends and family!!!








I have an amazing picture that is getting framed that will go right where the flash is on the red wall. It is Vincent Van Gough's Cafe Terrace at Night. It's getting framed in the most incredible frame too. My dad found it in a junk pile and had it buried in the back of his garage. At Christmas, we cleaned it up and refinished it. Now it is so beautiful. Anyway, when I get it back and get it hung, I will be sure to take a picture of it! For those of you who may not have ever seen the print, here it is. It's been sitting in my closets for 4 years now, just waiting to be framed and hung in a place of appreciation. This painting was the inspiration to much of my kitchen design and color selection. I love the feeling that it envokes. Ok, so anyway...

Fun In a Box

Natalie and Scott were playing after dinner tonight. Oh my goodness!!! It was the funniest thing I've every seen. Natalie was sitting in a box and Scott was pushing and pulling her all around the house. They were both laughing soooo hard! I couldn't resist taking pictures.

Jim Beaton

For a while now I have been bugging Scott to get a dog. He has resisted with great force. I came to the realization that FOR NOW it's better to let it drop than to keep pressing the issue. When we have a house with a yard...

But to prime him for that day, I decided we were getting a fish. He was totally on board for it, too which really kinda surprised me. Yesterday we headed to Petsmart to get ourselves an aquarium. We had this great 10 gallon tank in the cart, but then realized that if we found that fish aren't our thing, what were we going to do with all the stuff that went with the fish? We could always sell it on ebay, but that can be more work than it's worth. So we decided to put the aquarium back and start with a betta in a fish bowl. We found the most beautiful betta and bought a cool bowl that could be used for flowers in the future if the whole fish thing didn't pan out.

All the way home we talked about what to name him. Natalie wanted Nemo, but I wanted something more original than that. When we got home and I got the newest member of our family all settled in, Natalie told me she wanted to call the fishy Kitty. I couldn't believe it! It was so clever! Scott and I loved it. Well, today she came home from the Pinewood Derby and told me that she had re-named the fishy, Jimmy. Well, that was what Scott and I wanted to call him all along. His full name being Jim Beaton, Jimmy for short. You see, Jim Beaton was our State Farm guy in Wausau. For a long time Scott used his name as his passwords. So we thought it would be appropriate to name our fish after him. (When we were going to get the bigger tank and 3 goldfish, we were going to name them Jim Beaton, Gerry Nelson (our guy at the Wausau Saturn dealership), and Nemo for Natalie.)

So I'd like to introduce the newest member of our family, Jim "Jimmy" Beaton, a Siamese Fighting Fish. He was adopted on February 9, 2007. (We are registered at Petsmart and Petco.) He has an irridecent emerald body that can change to a sea blue, and even appear purple from different angles. His front fins are a deep magenta. Jimmy is quiet and sleeps a lot. He doesn't like his picture taken, nor does he like to have his bowl tapped. (He flares his fins up for both.) He is a good eater and loves to relax near his grass.


As you can see here (sorry about the blurry), he wasn't too happy with me for taking his pictures. I don't think he liked the flash much.







By the way, here are pictures of our actual accumulation the other day. They closed schools for that!? Seriously people!!!

Let It Snow, Let It Snow!

Last night it snowed with some accumulation...FINALLY!!! Nothing like waiting till February for winter to start. Here are some pictures...





Ok, so that's not really North East, MD, but I did have you going, didn't I? Those pictures were taken in 2005 after a huge snowstorm hit Le March, Italy. Actually we only got about 3 inches, but I can't find our camera to take any pictures, hence the above. Can you believe that I am actually watching a ticker tape of school closings as I write? For 3 inches?! And MD is not unfamiliar with snow. Every so often they get huge Nor'easters that can have feet and feet of snow. It's just snow--no ice--just snow. Anyway, just thought I'd share my wintery wonderland with you... sort of. :)