A WORLD AWAY!

Saturday we took Mike to the airport, and said our goodbyes. Little Pearl shed lots of tears, which caused this mommy to start crying. Mike was heading to Africa for the next two weeks. After 28 hours of Travel with a lay over in Amsterdam he finally arrived in Nairobi, Kenya. So far he has had lots of great coffee met with some board members and had pizza at a mall. Sounds rough haha. Tuesday morning (which is actually only in a few hours Kenya time) he will be leaving the Capitol City and jumping on a very tiny plane and flying to Northern Kenya. There he will be experiencing life in a whole new way. I am praying for his experience and interactions during this time are both enlightening and help him to continue to grow a heart for Blood Water Mission's mission! Please say a prayer for him to have a safe flight on the puddle jumpers and to be blessed and be a blessing! Pray for me and the girls as well will probably not hear from him until Friday or Saturday since it may be hard to get internet and Pearl is really missing her daddy. Click on this enlightening video of Larachi, a very rural and poor village sharing the need for water and how it affects so many things. I believe he said this is one of the places they will be visiting.

First Day of Kindergarten

Rose had a hard time waking up for school. Her school starts at 7:40 which is early for a little girl who usually doesn't wake up before 8:00.

We snapped a quick picture before we rushed into the car to go.

We love her kindergarten teacher Ms. Carter. She has been teaching for 37 years! At "Back to School Night" she told the parents that she wants us to know that she loves our children and had been praying for them to be in her class this year. what a wonderful thing to hear from a public school teacher.

She had a few "new" outfits for school but they were mostly too hot for starting school in early August in TN. So Rose picked this dress out at one of our favorite consignment stores.

She also picked out her own shoes. They are not exactly what I would have picked for her, however she loves her "Twinkle Toes". I can still remembermy favorite shoes in Elementary school. I had Kangaroos that I kept my lunch money in the zipper pouch and then I remember a pair of Nike's where the "swoosh" was rainbow colored but sort of changed colors when you moved. So cool!
Rose does not have a lot of time to each lunch at school so she shared her leftovers with her little sisters. Now when we pick Rose up from school Violet gets excited when she sees Rose's lunch box and says "cracker-cracker" and Rose always finds something to share with her baby sister.

Violet's 1st Birthday Brunch!

We have been busy and I have not been very good about blogging lately. I am going to try to catch up this week. I'll start with my sweet girl turning one in June!

She enjoyed the singing since we had been singing Happy Birthday to her all week!

Violet's friends-neighbors Silas, Stewart and Anna Rose. (We are blessed to live right next door to great friends.) We ask Violet "Who are your friends?" we say "Silas and..?" she says "Stew-ett".

The birthday girl with Mommy and Daddy!

She loved her party and was in a great mood the whole day!
She is very social and enjoyed all the people.

Her stroller and her babies are her favorite toys.

Originally I wanted to a do a "violet" theme, however she loves ducks so I thought this would be more fun for her. I made the cake just hoping it would look enough like a duck for Violet to recognize it. When she saw it she said "quack-quack"!

I made the "Happy Birthday Violet" banner by just printing out letters in color and gluing them on my scrapbook paper. A good way to use all my cute paper since I have not been scrapbooking in a long time.

The tissue paper ball directions are on Martha Stewart's website. The hardest part is cutting through all of the layers. The delicious blueberry muffins are from my neighbor, Debra. Mike made Lemon Ricotta pancakes with homemade lemon curd. (He used to work for the Sunkist and travel with the "Lemon Lady".) We also had several types of quiche, hashbrown caserole and fresh fruit.

My mom (aka Mim) came to celebrate Violet's special day.

Dear Violet,
You are so precious to our whole family. Even with two girls in the house already daddy and I were so glad to have another baby girl. Every morning and after nap when I get you out of the crib I am just as excited to see you as you are to see me. You are a very smiley and happy baby and like to be around people. You are also very independent and already know what you want. You have the worst temper in the family when you don't get your own way! You love to play with your sister and are starting to say "Sissy" when you talk about them. Pearl loves to kiss you and can really get you laughing but when you are done you let her know . Rose loves to talk to you and teach you new signs and words. You are talking more every day and even impressed your pediatrician at your one year check-up when she asked if you are babbling and I told her you can say words like chocolate and cupcake. You giggled when I asked you to say it for her but a few minutes later when you were ready you said "Chocolate". You also say Cracker, duck, quack-quack, Mama, Mommy, Dadda, Violet, Stewart, six (when we ask you how old you are and when you pretend to count objects), baby, cupcake, fish, and sissy. You can sign all done, more, please, outside, swing, tree, bunny, squirrel, and fish. You love to clap and dance to music and now you try to sing along. You have been taking steps for awhile now but did not really "walk" at your first birthday. Just this week you have started to walk most of the time. You have also been finally sleeping through the night so I am not yet taking your pacifier away for fear of you keeping me up a gain. You drink whole milk from a sippy cup and eat all regular food. You are a little pickier then your sisters but you love all fruits, bananas and watermelon are you favorites. You eats lots of yogurt. You weigh 23 pounds and have the yummiest chubby legs still.
We love you to pieces baby girl and are so glad we are blessed to have you in our family.
Hugs and Kisses,
Mama

My Healthy-Yummy Oatmeal Cookies
(sorry no picture but we ate them all)

In my quest to find healthy but still tasty oatmeal cookies I have combined and tweaked several different recipes and come up with these delicious cookies. We add different add ins each time and often divide the batch in half and make chocolate chip craisen for Pearl and I and raisin coconut for Mike and Rose. This is actually for a double batch and I usually freeze at least half of the dough in small balls on a cookie sheet. Press them flat before freezing so they defrost easier. Once the balls are frozen (about an hour) I toss them in a gallon freezer Ziploc and then can pull them out as I need them. I usually let the frozen cookies set out on cookie sheet about 10 minutes while the oven preheats.

If you don't want to freeze them you can cut the recipe in half.

Cream together
2c. butter softened
1c. brown sugar
1/2c. white sugar
4 eggs
4tsp vanilla

Mix dry ingredients
1 1/2 C, White flour
1 1/2 C, Wheat flour
2 tsp. Baking SODA
1 tsp. salt
2 Tablespoons Flaxseed

Combine wet and dry ingredients well then add
6 Cups of Oatmeal ( or one whole container of small size 18 oz)
(at this point you may want to split the batter in half to make two different types of oatmeal cookies)

Now add any other ingredients such as
Craisins
Raisins
nuts
Coconut
Chocolate chips

Bake at 375 degrees for 10 min.
Makes about 60 cookies. I use my pampered chef scoop to make them nice and round.
My girls love to have these for breakfast. They tell me they are healthy so are good for breakfast. I am sure they are better for them then many sugar flavored- artificially colored cereals.

Violet is 11 months already!

Violet you are 11 months old and the light of our lives. Your sisters love to play with you and make you laugh and you let them know (especially Pearl) when you have had enough hugs. You love to be kissed and tickled and have the best laugh. You are a happy independent baby and love to crawl around exploring your world. You love to play in water and try to get in the tub each time you are in the bathroom. If we are not looking you will be happy to just splash your hands in the toilet water. Speaking of toilet you are very good at using it for the proper use too. Since you were about 6 months old mama began putting on you on the potty if you had to poop and you quickly became quite good at peeing on the potty also. While you are not potty trained you do pee in the potty several times a day when I put you on it. Now if only you could tell us when you want to sit on the potty. That won't be to far off as you are following in the footsteps of your big sisters and showing signs of being an early talker. You can say baby, Hi Dad, bye, duck, quack, cracker, clap, good job (well sort of), doggie (gigi) and have even said strawberry and Cherrio once. Occasionally you say mama, but you are definitely a daddy's girl. You also use baby signs for several words, more, all done, potty, dog, bird, wind, rain, duck, swing, tree, flower. You love to go in your swing in the backyard, play with your baby dolsl, put the balls in your ball popper and call daddy on my cell phone. Anytime I am on the phone you yell "dada-dada-dada" no matter who I am talking to and try to take the phone away from me. You push things around the house to practice walking including push toys, your doll stroller, stools and even dining room chairs. You are not really interested in walking without holding on yet but have started to stand up without holding onto things until you realize what you are doing. You eat regular food and usually just have what we are having. You do seem to be a bit pickier then your sisters when it comes to eating veggies and prefer to smush your peas rather then eating them. You are almost weaned from nursing and drink whole milk from a sippy cup throughout the day. You weigh 21lbs and are wearing 6-12 months and some 12-18 months. And as sweet as you are you have an awful temper when you don't get your own wa,y but we love you and won't give into your little fits. Some day you will thanks us for that. We are praying that when you grow up you can use your strong will for helping others. We love you and are so glad God blessed our family with you.

Cinco de Mayo

Five and a HALF!!!

This past Sunday Rose celebrated her 1/2 birthday!

She got to spend some special time with mommy.
She loves all things crafty, so I took her to paint pottery.

She had fun painting a crown piggy bank.

She painted it all by herself. I had to get my own project to paint so I wouldn't not tell her what to do. Haha!

The top of her crown bank. Anyone that has painted pottery knows it is not easy to write with the paint pens. I think she did a great job. We also got to go in the back room and see the kilns and the steps in glazing the pottery. She is excitedly waiting to pick up her finished piece this Sunday. The colors will be much bolder and shiny.

This is a picture of Rose outside of the factory in Franklin where the pottery store is located. Isn't she gorgeous and so grown up. We keep asking her were did our baby go and how did she get so tall.

While Rose and I were out Daddy and Pearl baked this 1/2 birthday cake for her!
Tomorrow is Pearl's 1/2 birthday! More surprises coming soon...

Violet is 9 months old!

Momma is so sad because her baby is growing up too fast!

She has been growing some dark hair!

I hope her eyes stay this violet blue color.
I love the combination of dark hair and blue eyes.

She is crawling and has figured out that she can follow me from room to room.

She is very sweet!

She has learned to pull up on anything and practices "walking" by pushing the girls step stool around on the kitchen floor.

She melts her our hearts with her smile.

Violet is happy most of the time as long as she has her own way.

She puts up with her big sisters lovin on her but lets them know when she has had enough!

Violet loves her dollies so much that she has learned to say "Baba" for baby doll. She also says "baba" for bye bye when she waves. Her other favorite word is Dada. We are also teaching her some sign language her favorite signs are milk, banana and more.

She has learned to clap and loves to clap when she hears music or people clapping on TV.
While we were watching the Olympics Hockey game between the US and Canada she was clapping away when Canada won because she heard all of the people clapping.

Violet has the cutest rolls and weighs 20 lbs now. She is a great eater and is now eating mostly table food. She has 6 teeth three on the bottom and three on the top. Haha.

She loves to have her toes tickled especially by Dada.
We love you very much precious baby girl!