Tuesday, September 30, 2008

So Love to Sew

Ok, I just get so proud of myself when anything I sew turns out halfway decent. I bought a sewing machine with my birthday money two years ago. I read the manual cover to cover and got a very short tutorial from Carey (he grew up in a house with many sewing machines). The first thing I made was a closet curtain out of a bed sheet for Riley's room. Our rent house had those awful bi-fold doors that little fingers get caught in so easily. Anyway, it was surprisingly easy and I was pleased with the outcome. Since then, I have made pajamas, Victoria's baby bedding, our Halloween costumes last year and the maintenance of patches, hems, etc.

Well, I have discovered that I enjoy "free sewing" much more than using a pattern. The patterns stress me out a bit ... it feels more like work. I would rather just eye-ball it and figure it out than try to stick to all the notches and dots and such. It is fun to do. I really enjoy it.

Well, Mrs. Bush sent out a wish list of items and aprons were listed. So I thought that would be easy enough to make. I discovered some leftover western material I had (which is her theme in the room) and used that to make it:


She loved it. I saw her showing it to her other teacher friends. That makes me feel so good. I think everybody loves to get those handmade things. I know that some of the best gifts I got at my showers were handmade. It reminds me of my great-grandmother (Mama) and every Christmas she would give us new pajamas that she had made. Just full of time and love. There is something about someone taking the time to make something for you.

Thursday, September 25, 2008

Victoria Jean 18 Months Old

Victoria Jean is now 18 months old and is still an absolute JOY! She does have her drama moments (don't we all), but recovers quite quickly. She is happy most of time, as long as she is not being ignored, and is a delight to be around. This is my most favorite outfit on her (well except for the mismatched shoes - her idea). It is just so simple and comfortable and she just gets so excited when she sees this shirt with Mickey and Minnie hugging on it


So, we went to the doctor for her check-up his week. On a side note, i just love our pediatrician. He was mine growing up and he was just fabulous with Victoria. As with most 18 month olds, there is some separation and stranger anxiety and she just wasn't sure about the doc. Well, we had Baby doll with us and Dr. Jones examined Baby first and then Victoria. It was so sweet! That he would take the time to do that to make Victoria feel more at ease ... I love it. However, she got a little upset when she saw him coming after her ears, threw the doll on the floor and started screaming. Done with that game! Oh well, it was worth a shot doc. Anyway, she had gained 4.5 pounds and grew 3.5 inches since her twelve month. Well, those amounts are typical for the ENTIRE second year, so we have a big girl on our hands! She is now estimated to be 5'8" and 140 pounds. Must be all that protein. At dinner time, she only eats the meat off her plate. Weird ... never seen a baby do that. Riley just started eating his meat this past year! I am sure it will all change. Riley used to eat broccoli like candy. Now, it is a struggle for him to eat just two "trees."

Her likes at 18 months are:

Playing with Riley's toys.

Cars, trucks, trains ... pretty much anything with wheels
(mental note - we have got to get more girly toys in this house).

And of course, playing with Riley!

She also loves her crocs (must have them on at all times), meat, shoes, bananas, baths, eating dog food (which totally grosses me out), playing outside, when Daddy comes home, when Mommy comes home, pretty much when anyone walks in the front door, shoes, music (she sings the tuba part at the beginning of the Veggie Tales theme song), the Boz videos, books, shoes, sleeping (just like Momma), looking at pictures, and Oreo cookies. Did I mention shoes? Loves to pass them out to everyone, take them off and put them on, mix and match, try on other peoples shoes and wait for you to notice and start laughing (she is a bit of a performer ... loves an audience).

Dislikes the vacuum (see below), the car seat, an empty juice cup (will spike it on the floor), Daddy putting her to bed, getting out of bed when she first wakes up (she needs about 30 minutes to herself first thing in the morning), not getting to play the Wii, Mommy on the computer or phone, and pasta.

I found her doing this on the couch when I was vacuuming the other day.
I guess this is her coping mechanism ... too funny!!

Her vocabulary has expanded a bit.

Wha-wha (water)
Mommammammamma (Momma)
Chi-chi (which can be Daddy, Gigi or choo-choo - just have to be paying attention)
Pay (plane)
Bord (bird)
Chi (tree)
o-dare (over there)
char (car)
chru (truck)
chra-er (tractor)
wee (read)
yew (I want that, gimme)
Mie (mine - thank you very much for this one Riley, we hear it all the time now. I told Riley just yesterday, "mine" was not a word we use in this house anymore. If I hear it, whatever it is, is now mine - kinda mean, I know, but clever, huh?)

But I would say one of my most favorite things she does right now is when I tell Riley to go wash his hands for dinner. Victoria stops in her tracks, leaps to her feet and runs to go sit in Riley's chair at the dinner table. Everytime, it never fails! Absolutely hilarious!!! We have got to get it on camera.

I love her to pieces! Her smile and her big-o eyes are just beautiful, along with her little flip of curls in her hair. She is a sweetheart and loves to give hugs and kisses. She is strong-willed most definitely. The Lord made her this way for a reason. We just have to find the balance between raising her to be who she is without denying her to be who she is. It's a big job and we cannot do it without the help of our Heavenly Father, the true example of what we should strive to be as parents.

Some parenting verses I cling to:

"Teach your children to choose the right path, and when they are older, they will remain upon it." Proverbs 22:6

"Teach them [God's word] to your children, talking about them when you sit at home and when you walk along the road, when you lie down and when you get up." Deuteronomy 11:19

"Children are a gift from the Lord, they are a reward from him." Psalm 127:3

"She [a wife of noble character] speaks with wisdom, and faithful instruction is on her tongue." Proverbs 31:26

"The Lord is compassionate and gracious, slow to anger, abounding in love." Psalm 103:8


Tuesday, September 16, 2008

Our Other Anniversary

Today Carey and I celebrate our other anniversary. We got married on July 11th, 1997, but we started "going together" on September 16th, 1992. I remember it was a chilly morning like this one. It was See You at the Pole day. My BF had told Carey's BF the day before that I had a bit of a crush on him. He was just so cute and funny and goofy and had hands down the BEST smile in the world (braces and all). We had gotten to know each other pretty well from that summer, working together at VBS and had hung out in the youth group together over that past year. He was just fun, not as serious as all the other guys at church or at school. Anyway, that day it was of course different around him because he now knew that I had a bit of a crush on him and I now knew that he had a bit of a crush on me. C'mon, you remember that feeling too, right ... it is the best.

That night at church, he officially asked me to "go with" him. We had our first date a few weeks later on Homecoming. We went out to dinner before the game to the Southside Diner in Weatherford. I was in drill team and he was in marching band, so we had to eat early to get back to school in time. Of course, I drove. You see the big scandal was that I was a Junior and he was a Freshman (but I am only 1 year and 3 months older than him). In fact, years later, a teacher of ours (who is now a good friend) told us that we were the talk of the teacher work room for a while ... Aledo was a bit smaller back then. I guess a Junior going with a Freshman was big news. I didn't much care what everyone else thought (which was huge for me to think that way back then). It didn't take long for me to realize that he was my dream man. He loved the Lord, he loved other people and was kind, considerate, sincere, funny ... all traits that I was totally attracted to. Not to mention that he was voted Most Friendly in his Senior class, thank you very much.

Little did we know that the Lord had brought us together at that time for a reason. Over the course of the next two years, many life changes would come our way. Carey's Dad moved back to Michigan, his BF moved to Oklahoma, his mom would remarry and my supposedly BFs would turn into the biggest back-stabbing you know what's in the world. Well, all of these can really shake up the world of a teenager. But the Lord brought us together so that we could be there for each other. All of these changes/trials turned out for the good. Carey's dad remarried in Michigan to a wonderful, sincere, loving Godly woman, who my kids call Grandma. Carey got a new BF Jason, who still fills that position today. And I dropped all my girlfriends (who were into drinking, partying and doing alot of other unmentionable things) for new friends that not only talked the talk, but walked the walk. It was such a blessing when I look back on it that we had each other to talk to every night on the phone and someone to look forward to seeing at school everyday.

Carey's Freshman Yearbook picture. See ... doesn't he just
look like he is so much fun to be around?!

Me on Drill Team my Junior year (fortunately, I could not
locate my yearbook picture ... wasn't a pretty one).
I wish I could get back all that long curly hair.

Not sure when this was, but he still looks the same to me!
Not a total band nerd ... he played football too,
but I couldn't find a picture of that.

This morning in my prayer time I just thanked God that he is so loving and involved in the our lives and is always looking out for us and preparing us for our trials ... even when we are 14 and 16 years old! He is an awesome God!


Sunday, September 14, 2008

Yucky Gross Kindergarten Germs!

Well, I will not be winning the "Mom of the Year" award again this year (actually I probably lost out on it that first week in January). I sent Riley to school SICK on Friday. He said that his arm hurt and his tummy hurt. Thinking that he was probably having "growing pains" in his arm, I gave him some ibuprofen and thinking that he just had an upset stomach (inherited from my lovely side of the family), gave him some medicine for that too. Then off to school he went. Picked him up at 3PM with a 100.3 degree fever. URGH!!! I am such an idiot! He never fakes being sick ... NEVER! So why would I think that he was ok to go to school when he said he didn't feel good. Another lesson learned.

Then to top it all off, I have been sick all day too. And now I am at that point where I have slept so much today (thank you to my wonderful husband) that I can't sleep now, but still feel absolutely terrible. Don't you hate that?! So now I am going to finish watching Coco Chanel on Lifetime and have some milk and iced oatmeal cookies (or as we call them in my family, snot cookies - pretty gross huh?) and some tylenol PM.

I can't post without a picture, so here is little Miss Victoria helping me with my caffeine addiction (at least it is diet):

Good girl!!

Thursday, September 11, 2008

Homework

So Riley had his first homework assignment for Kindergarten. Each week he is supposed to complete an alphabet worksheet at home. The letter this week is O. So he traced the upper case and lower case O and wrote out three of each on his own. Then we had three choices of activities to do:

1. Go around your house and find oval shapes. Draw these oval shapes on a piece of paper and turn in to the teacher. (B-O-R-I-N-G!!)
2. Draw a series of opposites on a piece of paper and turn in to the teacher. (Sound like alot of work)
3. Make an obstacle course around your house, take a picture and tell your class about it (SO MUCH FUN!!!)

So you can guess which one Riley picked. We hurriedly picked up after dinner and setup the obstacle course. Took about 45 minutes from setup, to run through three times, to clean up. Riley had a blast! He couldn't wait to tell his teacher and his class about it.

When I was loading the pictures up that night to have developed the next day, I started thinking that maybe he could show all the photos in the order of the obstacle course to help him rememer what all was in it. Then I thought that it would be hard for the kids to see if he was just holding the pixs, so why don't mount them on poster board?! So needless to say, the homework turned into a tiny project. But, I had Riley do all of it himself. He put the pictures in order, drew a big letter "O", taped the pixs to the foam board and wrote "Riley's Obstacle Course."

Don't you just love the way little ones write their letters?

He was so proud of his board. He walked into class and all the kids came up to see what he had. They were all so impressed. I am so proud of him. It was so great to see him "light-up" about school and get so excited!

Thursday, September 4, 2008

Lesson Learned

So, I am a planner. I plan my day out in my head most of the time before my head hits the pillow the night before. I like that. Well, today did not go as planned. My plan was to drop Riley off at school, come home and get Victoria and me ready to be gone for about 3 hours at a doctor's appointment, go to the doctor's appointment, come home, lunch, nap, laundry, pickup Riley, blah, blah, blah. Well, everything was going as planned until ... traffic. I am beginning to realize that Saginaw is a wonderful place to live, but it is very difficult to travel east or south of here. My doctor is in Arlington (SE of here) and I allowed myself 45 minutes of travel time. Well, when I had only traveled about 8 miles from my house in 35 minutes, I started to get a bit nervous. Then I missed my exit to go south on 820 (I believe I was be-bopping a little too much to the opening song of The Curious George movie - I love the music in that movie!). So, I decided to take a different route. Well, by the time 10AM came (the time of my appointment), I made a courtesy call to the doctor's office and told them I was on my way and would be there at 10:15. I was then told I would have to reschedule. URGH!!!! I was so very terribly angry, and when I get angry, I cry. Well I just cried a mountain of tears right there in the car, so much that Victoria started crying (poor little thing). So many thoughts came rushing into my head:

(1) If I totaled the number of hours I have waited in that waiting room over the past 6 years for my appointments, well, I probably could have started and finished 6 novels.

(2) just 15 minutes ... reschedule for 15 minutes ... come one ... give me a break!!

(3) do they not realize what a mother goes through to get out of the house at a certain time with all the equipment and necessities to keep an 18 month old occupied/entertained/dry/fed/happy ... and I did it to just drive around for an hour??!!!

(4) SNF

Well, once I started the way back home, I could feel my mind getting a bit out of control. It was then that I looked to the Lord. You know, I had no control over the course of events this morning that led to me being late for the appointment. God has total control. He is a God of details and he is into every detail of my life, whether I relinquish the control or not. What I have to decide is whether or not I will look at each and every life experience/occurrence as a way to increase my faith in Him or increase my faith in me. So, I "dried-up," turned around and saw my little princess sound asleep in the backseat and decided that this was not all for nothing. Not only did I learn a valuable lesson from my Lord, but I also now had the opportunity to ...

GO SHOPPING!! It was a bit chilly this morning, and poor Victoria did not have a thing to wear. We were given some hand-me-down blue jeans size 2T, which absolutely swallowed her up this morning. So she was wearing a long dress with socks and tennis shoes (she looked ridiculous ... but cute). So she was in dire need of some long pants and tops for those chilly mornings of taking the little man to school. I drove right by my exit for the house and headed straight to Kid 2 Kid. Love that store! We shopped for about an hour and this is the damage: 4 pair of pants, 6 tops, 1 sweater, 3 winter dresses, 3 summer dresses for next summer (only $1 a piece), and a pair of shoes for a grand total of $59. Can't beat that! I will have to survey what we have before I venture back for matching bows. My window of Victoria happiness was shutting as it became lunch time so we headed home. But first we stopped for a slurpee and a Diet DP.

So, it wasn't so devastating to miss my appointment after all. I rescheduled (for the 3rd time) for next week. We will see what happens. Now I am off to my first work-out at the Saginaw rec center. The Thompson family is gonna get in shape!!

"Trust in the LORD with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding; in all your ways acknowledge him, and he will make your paths straight." Provers 3:5-6

Tuesday, September 2, 2008

The Week Without Our Riley

So Victoria and I did surprisingly well without our Riley this past week. I have adjusted her schedule somewhat since she is getting up an hour earlier (7AM instead of 8AM). Now we do lunch around 11:30 and nap at noon ... then wake-up at 2:30 to get to school to pick-up Riley by 2:45. I am so very surprised at how fast the day goes by. The time from noon to 2:30 goes by the fastest, of course.

I was really good at the beginning of the week ... cleaning, organizing, getting all my to-do's to-done. But I must admit I did break-down on Thursday and "helped" Victoria take a nap (meaning I took a nap too). I had been up with her the night before, which NEVER happens ... haven't done that in like 13 months. She required a little rocking to get back to sleep. So, during naptime, I turned on my fav show (right now it is Law and Order: Criminal Intent - I DVR all the episodes) and fell asleep watching it. I don't feel too guilty for the nap ... I think it is healthy from time to time for both body and soul ... and Mommy's attitude.

So Little Miss Victoria is turning into Mommy's little helper around the house. I give her little tasks to do like take something to Riley's room or put things back where they go. She does very well. Her thing lately is that she gets upset when she makes a mess. So I am teaching her how to clean it up.

Oops, spilled milk while riding Thomas.

I missed this spot right here.

Got it all!

I have noticed that she likes to do alot of things like Mommy ... load the dishwasher, clean the floors, carry a purse, put on make-up. I didn't experience this with Riley (and for that I am grateful!). I am really loving having a little girl ... drama fits and all! As you can see we still have the plug (pacifier). I am going to get rid of that soon. Not sure when ... it really helps with those drama fits!