Overwhelmed!!

I feel like my life is as blurry as this picture... but at the moment I'm not having nearly as much fun as these girls were having today! I'm feverishly preparing for my first-ever craft show on Saturday. I have no idea what to expect- but I don't know any other way to work on something- last minute stress has always been my M.O. I tend to do my best work under some pressure... but today I was feeling it a bit more extremely than is very good for me. It didn't help that I woke up (later than I'd hoped to) on the wrong side of the bed to begin with and that my day started out with criticism from one person (not my husband thankfully) and jealous feelings toward someone else. It also didn't help that something of my negative attitude translated into my children and between the temper tantrums, excessive screaming, outright defiance, and food throwing that were part of my day today- I was just about to run shrieking from the house when my husband came home tonight! [there are moments when it is totally irrational how much I want a third child- I guess it's probably a good thing that we don't always get the immediately affirmative answers we're looking for when we pray for more children- God knows the best time for us to really "need" to upgrade to a vehicle with more seats- but even after a day like today, I still pray that that time would be soon! Crazy, huh? Does God still give babies to crazy people...? Don't answer that...]

But of course I had too many bows halfway started in the basement for running shrieking out to do any good... so instead I hunkered down there and met my goal for the day and I can now go to bed tired but feeling like I at least made some accomplishment today. It may seriously kill me, but it is going to be as awesome of a craft show booth as I have it in my power to create. :) I made some very beautiful butterflies today and some other very lovely things yesterday and the day before and earlier in the week. And tomorrow I just have to add the finishing touches to several things and price it all out (no doubt a much bigger proposition than I'm planning on it being right now), and then go set it up tomorrow night. I'm really excited for this next step into this world. If you are in the area, you should stop by Princeton Reformed Church in Kentwood sometime between 9 and 2 on Saturday. I'll be there. :) And so will the flock of butterflies I made today. :)

Boo

I love this shirt that I splurged on at the Gap for Nora. It has the cutest little ghosty on the front and on the back it says "Boo." It actually fits and it is an 18-24 month size- so i think she is growing! I finally  moved out all the 12 month stuff from her room, and when I took her to the doctor last week because of a fever that turned out to be a $30 nothing, she was officially over 20 pounds! :) Still such a little peanut and probably always will be... but I love it. :)

Today during Carolyn's Kindermusik I took her outside to take some pictures of the candy corn clip I made for her hair. She found this wood pile with some lovely rusty nail sticking out and she was totally fascinated with it, and all the more so after I told her to stay away from it. Little stinker.

Sometimes she's lucky she's super cute. :)

She's also quite coordinated! There is a big hill outside the church where our classes are, and it is quite steep and she made it down almost all by herself without falling once! Amazing kid. :)

Field Trip

Carolyn's preschool class had their first field trip today to the apple orchard. Brad took Carolyn since it was his day off, and he took some nice pictures. :)

They learned a little apple song.

I love the looks on the kids' faces.

Here's Carolyn's best little preschool friend, Olivia. :)

And the whole class (none of them looking at the camera) and their teachers, Mrs. Snider, and Mrs. Christians.

More Apple Pictures

Here are some more pictures of our apple picking adventures yesterday.

I loved these adorable hats I picked up at a craft show for the girls!

Here's the Bean with the apples. Not sure quite what to do at first.

For some reason in this picture, Carolyn looks like such a Big Girl to me!

This is what Elliot did while we picked apples. :) Of course, he was perfect in every way. I loved that I got some good baby snuggles. I needed them this week! :)

Carolyn's showing me the apples she picked.

Here, I asked her to smile and cooperate for pictures once. :)

She ultimately did. And she's so cute. :)

Elliot was very helpful. :)

I don't have to bribe this one for pictures. She just does it- or maybe she's not been around enough to be so thoroughly sick of my camera as Carolyn is. :)

Trying so hard to pick the apples- but they were stuck pretty hard on the branches... and most of the ones Nora "picked" were actually on the ground already. :)

"Helping" fill the bags.

All done, and resting from their labors. :)

100% cuteness. :)

Story of an Apple

The light was great at the apple orchard today and I took a ton of pictures. But these were worthy of standing alone in their own blog entry... so I will post the others tomorrow or so. :) Besides I'm tired and I don't want to mess with them all anyway. So, without further ado, here is Story of an Apple, by Nora. :)

Girls Night

Brad is taking his final boards this weekend, so we had a girls' night tonight. :) Auntie Laura came over to keep us company, and I tried to combine as many of the things I love with the things Carolyn loves, and we had a great time together. We started with dinner, and I (foolishly perhaps, but it worked out okay) allowed her to drink (diet) cherry 7Up from a real crystal glass. I remember how cool it felt to me to be permitted to drink from my mom's special crystal glasses- especially on the rare occasion when we got to drink cherry 7Up. :)

We didn't do well with the dietary choices... but it was fun nonetheless... We made "minute steaks" (aka minute "snakes") for the first time in a few years- greasy, fried, horrible for you minute steaks, but boy were they good. I was so reminded of my Granny as I smelled that oil cooking... that woman could make some mean minute steaks!

After we got Nora to bed, we made chocolate chip cookie dough and some cookies.

Carolyn was very pleased to be allowed to eat cookie dough. :) After we had had enough and any more would have made us feel mildly sick, we went downstairs and watched the new Tinkerbell movie and I painted Carolyn's toenails pink.

It was a fun night together. She's still a little young to know for sure yet, but I really think that Carolyn's "love language" is quality time. She just loves it when we spend really good time with her and it seems to really "fill her up." So I've been trying lately to be more intentional about spending special time with her, because I don't want to "miss" these fleeting days. She is so rapidly growing up. I sometimes wish I could freeze time... but no one can. It passes, stages of childhood and parenting pass... but new stages have new and different fun things about them. She's no longer a toddler and is so quickly growing past even the preschool phase into seeming more and more like a child. I can scarcely see the baby in her, and mostly when she is asleep- and yet now that I have known her for nearly 5 years (it will be 5 years next month to the day when I found out she was coming)- I love her, if possible, even more, because I am able to love her for who she really is. What a precious gift from God she is! [of course, they BOTH are; but tonight I was posting about Carolyn!]

Sleeping Beauty

Carolyn actually took a nap today. :) I just love watching her sleep- takes me back to those baby days when I'd just hold her while she snoozed, so beautiful, and fell in love with her moment by moment. :)

Today she made me laugh, and I had to tell the story. Overall, she hasn't been nearly as angry in recent days as she has been in the past- but she does sometimes still get mad and throw little fits, especially when she feels her lot in life is unfair. Today she dawdled too long finding a toy to bring in the car and then didn't get to have one so she got kind of upset. After screaming for a little while in the car, she quieted down and I asked her if her angry heart was gone. She told me that Jesus had tied ropes to the angry heart and was trying to pull it out. A few minutes after that, she said in a bright voice that the angry heart was gone and a happy heart had come! I asked her how the happy heart came, and she told me that Jesus had pushed it in instead of the angry one. I love how the fantasy world is so real to children her age- and sometimes how wise they really can be. I often have to ask Jesus to restore my own "happy heart," though I'm not sure I ever would have thought of Him attaching ropes to my angry heart! :)

Smiles

There are no faces more precious to me than these sweet smiling ones!

I love that these two little people love me so much that they'll smile at me like this.

And I can't wait to see this boy's smiles in person this weekend! Elliot is coming to visit me! Oh and his mom is coming too. :)

Ashley's Pictures

Tonight I am tired because I actually picked up a shift at the pharmacy tonight because someone had an emergency, so I will let the awesome pictures Ashley took speak for themselves. :)

Real Time Photo Lessons

Today we spent the afternoon at a hayride/donuts/cider/corn maze type place. They're everywhere out here, and one of the things I love most about fall in Michigan.

Nora loooooves cider. I think she likes it better than donuts. 

This is Carolyn's "seriously Mom, put that camera down" face.

After a few turns around the pony pen, she changed her mind about being friendly for pictures. :)

Nora was well cared for between Ammy and Papa on either side of the pony.

She held on very seriously.

My friend Ashley very sweetly invited me to come along with her to this hayride place where she was doing a photo shoot for some of her photography clients so I could sort of shadow her and see what she does in a photo shoot. I love taking pictures, though I don't have any dreams of being anything more than an amateur- still, I would like my pictures to be as good as possible, because (you may have noticed...) I love professional pictures of my family- I just love the crispness of the images and how the colors look like they really do- some of those pictures look like you could just step into them and re-live that moment. However professional pictures are very expensive... and it's probably just cheaper for me to learn to take pseudo-pretend-professional pictures than to have a photo shoot every week. :) So it was really fun for me to see what Ashley does. She helped me to get some real world experience with taking pictures, and for you photography nuts, I actually tried taking these pictures in RAW and I like how they came out, even though no one really wanted to cooperate for pictures by the time we were taking them. I hope Ashley got one that's decent! :)

There was quite a lot of interest in the corn field. 

The girls were very intrigued that the corn actually was on the plants.

We had to convince Nora that it was not for people to eat.

We went through the corn maze to give them more fun in the corn (it turned out to be a little more time than we really wanted to spend in there)- when Nora got tired of walking, she let Papa carry her. :)

After we got out of the maze, this beautiful rainbow was in the sky. :)