I’ll come clean–I was going to skip blogging this week.
Yes, I had a birthday, but, well…I honestly just didn’t have too much to say about it this year. (I know, I know…which is surprising for this normally long-winded girl…)
Until there I was at the gym right before the fitness class started, chatting with my Zumba friends, and one of them mentioned that she wouldn’t be there Thursday night because she had a funeral to go to. Apparently her daughter’s friend had just finished his first year of college and he and a bunch of his friends were celebrating…by jumping off a bridge into a river. Well, her daughter’s friend drowned.
We all said our “I’m so sorry’s” and then the music began to play. Normally, my Zumba hour is my “let’s-pretend-I’m-on-a-professional-dance-team-and-actually-good-at-it” hour, but not tonight. I couldn’t follow along with my usual carefree-ness. I couldn’t stop thinking about that young man whose life was over when it had barely begun, and about his parents who were obviously sitting somewhere, completely devastated. Did he know the Lord?
And then my mind wandered to me…and to all of the incredibly stupid, stupid, stupid things I did back in the day, all in the name of “fun” or “celebration”…and how any of those things could have ended the way this man’s life did.
He has been so merciful to me.
He gave me another year. He has given me so many years. Thankfully my stupidity level has significantly decreased since a.) I surrendered my life to the Lord at 18 and b.) since I have gained a tiny bit of wisdom over the years (I found an ENORMOUS gray hair on my birthday…proof of my crown of wisdom, right?!!) but all those years of just being unwise…of feeling invisible…of thinking nothing could harm me…He was there. He kept me. He guarded me and protected me. Every.Single.Time I hear a story of how someone’s mistakes early on are wreaking havoc in their lives today, I hit my knees in my heart as I listen. Because that could have been me.No, that SHOULD have been me, save for the grace of God.
“For by grace you have been saved through faith, and that not of yourselves; it is the gift of God, not of works, lest anyone should boast. For we are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand that we should walk in them” (Ephesians 2:8-10).
I have been saved not only from physical death, but from spiritual and emotional death. I have been saved from living a life of immorality, I have been saved from the death of anger, unforgiveness, bitterness, resentment and fear. I have been saved from the chains of insecurity and confusion and hopelessness. He saved me. I am His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works.
Thank you, Lord, for teaching me to walk in them. Thank you for giving me another year to do so.
“If we are faithless, He remains faithful; He cannot deny Himself” (2 Timothy 2:13).
Cheers to another year of knowing and loving the Lord with all of my heart. And cheers to my dear (local) friends and my precious, precious family!!
Celebrating with queso and sweet friends!Birthday morning snuggles with my favorites…
These two…they are SO into wrapping presents. Daily I will find a new “present” to open and inside is one (or many) of my possessions. Selah literally gets so excited to watch me open one of these “presents” that she shakes and squeals with delight from her tippy toes on up. Here, Selah wrapped up tons of our crafting stuff. When I opened it and delighted over the array of tape and crayons and markers, she just beamed with pride :). Oh, how I love her!!!! And Elliott made me this puppet out of an old vitamins box! CUTE!!!
And, a birthday date with this man and some lobster-stuffed shrimp. Mmmmm……
My love.
How about you? If you’re reading this, He’s given YOU another day. Have you seen His mercies? Have you received the free, undeserving gift of salvation?
I am constantly trying to see the Lord in all that I do in a day. He teaches us all the time, and I don’t want to miss a lesson from Him. So, so often I understand His character through watching my children and taking note of the way my heart, as their mother, responds to them. Because if I know how to give them good gifts, how much more so does our Heavenly Father? (Matthew 7:11). So I let Him teach ME about Him through parenting.
One particular morning…”errand morning” to be precise…my little girl had just had it. She had been on the edge all morning, but when we rolled our little Costco cart out of the building and towards the car, the receipt (you know–the one where the kind old man had drawn a portrait of my daughter on the back with a marker, curly hair and all?) was taken captive by the tornado happening in the parking lot. She had had her heart SET on taking that receipt home…cutting it into pieces and gluing it onto construction paper. She had plans. She had dreams. And all of them were blown into oblivion with that huge gust of wind. She totally and completely fell utterly apart. And as I attempted to unload our groceries into the back, all the while clinging to that enormous Costco-sized watermelon with all my might in hopes that it would keep me anchored, my darling daughter had her face plastered against the car window, shouting out suggestions through heaving sobs of how I could “just chase after the receipt.”
It was literally so windy I was afraid WE were going to blow away, and against my better judgment I attempted to try and explain to her how far away China was and how, at the rate the wind was blowing, her receipt was surely already there.
“BUT WE CAN JUST GO THERE!!!!” she sobbed.
“We would have to take a plane, and then our groceries would go bad.”
“WELL YOU CAN JUST CALL THE POLICE!! PLEASE, MOM!! JUST CALL THE POLICE!!!” she begged.
How do you gently explain to your crushed 3 year old that her receipt is not important enough to call the police for? Oh my. So she cried hysterically all the way to the place where we pick up our milk. I tried to reason with her and sympathize with her for a few minutes and then I just stopped talking, quieted myself, and let her cry. Because, come on, she was devastated and therefore totally unreasonable. And I get that. It just didn’t feel like a moment to correct her. She was refusing to be comforted by me. How many times have I been too busy pumping my fists and shouting suggestions at God that I have refused to be comforted by Him? That was an insightful question to ask myself.
We arrived and I unbuckled my red, swollen-faced little girl, grabbed our milk box, and we walked inside. I set the box down and…
There, stuck to our milk box, WAS A COSTCO RECEIPT. With a curly-haired little girl drawn on the back. I had to blink about 700 times but it really was there. I checked the items and they were items I buy, but not items I had purchased on that particular day. But still…it was a virtually identical Costco receipt. I knelt down, showed Selah the receipt and talked to her of the Lord’s mercies towards her. That there was no way I could have orchestrated that, but God did. That God knows her heart and her desires and He cares about them…because He cares about her. Her receipt may not have been important enough to a police man, but it was important enough to God. So there I was, talking to her, but more than anything I was talking to me, because I desperately need to understand that lesson. That when I am screaming and crying and hysterically shouting at God, and He is silent, that that doesn’t mean He doesn’t have a plan. It’s just not time to find the receipt yet.
So then we headed to the next grocery store to get the few items we need from there. And Selah decided she MUST sit in the blue car cart. I mean, it was a matter of life and death. I explained to her for the third time that we only needed 3 items and we had to hurry if we were going to get the items, drop our groceries off at home and make it to Elliott’s preschool to pick him up on time (thankfully we didn’t have to take a detour to China anymore!). And she lost it. Sobbing and hysterically crying all the way into King Soopers. She had finally calmed down by the time we got to the cream cheese and we made our way to the check out as I checked the time for the billionth time since setting foot in the store.
After paying, the teller slipped a penny across the counter. “Would she like to ride the horse?
“The HORSE?” I asked.
He looked at me, dumbfounded. “Yes, the HORSE…you know? The penny horse? The penny horse is the only reason people shop here!” We had been to that store dozens of times and not once had anyone mentioned this horse that was apparently the main attraction and certainly had I never been given a penny to ride it! I looked in the direction of his pointing finger to see a brown toy electronic horse, with a “1c” sign hastily scribbled on with spray paint. I will admit, we are not “grocery store ride” people. I have never even glanced twice at one of those things, but I will say that 1 penny wasn’t a bad deal at all! My mind raced with the fact that my little one had been hysterical for the better part of the last hour and that she certainly didn’t “deserve” a ride on the penny horse and that we didn’t have two minutes to waste in this particular moment…when…
Mercy. I could see God’s mercy. Not getting what we deserve. God seemed to be going out of His way to give my emotionally-unstable little girl new mercies that morning. And I certainly wasn’t going to get in His way. I gave up my agenda and bent down, for the second time that morning, and explained to Selah how the kind man had given her a penny to ride the horse, but how really it was God giving her yet another new mercy. She listened intently as I preached my little sermon and when I asked if she would like to ride the horse, she stared back at me with those big blue eyes, mouth open in wonder, and slowly nodded her head up and down. Because sometimes His mercies come in the shape of recovered Costco receipts and penny horses.
The Penny Horse.
Thank you, Lord, for all of our new mercies this week.I refuse to miss seeing YOU and your heart for us in the little moments of life:
The Moberg version of Saturday morning cartoons…“How did the deer cross the road?” “By using the crosswalk, of course!!”Spaghetti Squash Chefs!Homeschool Space Tinkering Day…we made instruments and learned about Space with Quinn and Kari!A preschool Mother’s Day tea with my boy who was the first to let me be a mother full-time. Thank you, Lord, for this little miracle of a man.Mother’s Day…with my kids and my Mama in beautiful Colorado!
And last, but not least. Elliott’s hunger for reading is just exploding. He’s reading so much!! He and Brian read the Bible every night and a couple of weeks ago he just started sounding out the books of the bible. So Brian went through them with him and the rest is history. Check out our little man!!
Your turn. What new mercies has God given you this week?
This week, I was blessed with double “Jillian” new mercies!
My sweet friend Jillian from Tacoma was in town and I was SO blessed to get to grab a quick breakfast with her. Such a treasured friend. We met because she was my student teacher, which seems like EONS ago!!! But I knew we would be friends from the moment I read her application and profile. Definitely a kindred spirit and her friendship has blessed my life. I didn’t even think to snap a pic!! It was such sweet fellowship to see her!!
And THEN, my OTHER dear Jillian (Jilly-Bean, to be more precise) sent us package!
First of all, WHO ON EARTH sends a package this beautiful!?!! I’ve never received a package where the box itself is a piece of art!!!
I’ll tell you who. Jilly Bean. Artist extraordinaire. Seriously–I mean that. She is UNBELIEVABLY talented. Check out her work here!!
I’ll tell you what’s a new mercy–HAND-ME-DOWNS!!! We are SO blessed to get boy hand-me-downs from Jill’s boys and girl hand-me-downs from Kari’s girls.
The box was FULL of amazing treasures, including these AWESOME Lightning McQueen slippers for Elliott. Olivia also passed down two sets of jammies for Selah (although they are probably close to the same size at this point since they are just a few months apart!). The kids TORE through the box like it was Christmas day and then immediately stripped their clothing and tried everything on. It was so darling to watch. They were SOOO thankful, just squealing and giggling with delight. So precious.
Later in the week, Selah and I got a little girl time and she wanted to play Bingo. We were towards the end of a round when she suddenly started dumping game pieces on my board, and then LAUGHING ABSOLUTELY HYSTERICALLY. She did it again and again to the point where I was laughing hysterically at HER laughing so hysterically and then…it happened. She got the hiccups. When she laughs so hard that she gets the hiccups, (which she does a lot) I just absolutely lose it. I think it’s SO RIDICULOUSLY FUNNY. Anyway, I finally grabbed my phone to try and capture the moment. We must have laughed for 10 minutes straight.
My girl who always has us in stitches.
And THEN, I was cleaning up our craft room when I found THIS little gem! I am SO thankful that I write things down because I had totally forgotten about this picture despite the fact that I had just written down the caption a few months ago! Selah drew this picture back in February, handed it to me, and explained what it was. I wrote exactly what she said on the back of it:
Come on, now. Who is this girl?? Her imagination!!!!!!!!
And last, but CERTAINLY not least…
While I was making dinner, Brian embraced me and said, “Happy Anniversary, my Love.”
My brain immediately started rattling as it was not computing…what is today…May…May what?…May 2nd…what is May 2nd….AHHHHH….
“The day you proposed to me!!!”
I am certain we have forgotten this anniversary many times, but this day we didn’t.
What a new mercy. We were just laughing through our dating story with some new friends on Saturday night. What a story :). But (almost) 7 years in and I couldn’t be more certain that God’s mercy was on my life and my heart while we were dating to open my eyes. Boy was my little heart guarded and hurt and BOY did it take me some time to realize that there was no other man on the planet that I wanted to spend the rest of my life with. But God dropped the walls off my heart and confirmed in my heart that Brian was the man. Every day I am thankful for him. Every day I am thankful for God’s mercy in opening our eyes because they were certainly CLOSED to each other for a long time!!!!! 8 years of friendship+6 months of dating+3 months of engagement=new mercies every day. Thank you, Lord, for this man.
Promised to each other for 7 years!!
And if you haven’t read our *incredibly* lengthy engagement story, you can click here :).
YOUR TURN!! What new mercies has God brought to your life this week?!!!
This edition of New Mercies Monday…brought to you on TUESDAY. Because, life.
Between nursing my very sick husband back to health, snuggling my very emotional 5 year old who just got over being sick, making uber amounts of garlic tea and chicken stock and onion poultices…oh my, my newest mercy yesterday was that we all SURVIVED!
BUT…I’ve been excited all week to share about our new mercies from last week…so here we go!
We all needed some new life around these parts so I decided to get us some caterpillars towards the end of March! When I told my friend Courtney about them she was super impressed, asking me if we went out and caught them ourselves…which, we basically did…from Theeee Amazon!! Not the jungle, but the internet site. They’re basically the same thing, right?
The sweet little buddies arrived and it was so much fun to let the kids open the box and discover what was inside. We observed, journaled, drew pictures, did art crafts, checked out a million books at the library and filled our little brains with all there was to know about our new special friends.
We watched them get bigger and bigger and bigger and were so excited the first day that we saw one hanging in a “J”!We did lots of caterpillar crafts……and even found a caterpillar at the park!!….
…until we came home from preschool on Tuesday and FOUND A BUTTERFLY!!!!!!
We put some oranges in a bowl for him and sweetened his “flower” with some nectar that we mixed up together.
The next day, we woke up to ANOTHER butterfly!!! We were all so excited! And then, for the next amazing act…I was staring at one of the Chrysalises because it seemed like it was totally clear when all of a sudden, I saw the butterfly’s head poke out!!! I frantically called for the kids and Brian and raced to get my phone and got back just in time to capture THIS on video!!! (And please excuse my frantic calling to Selah…she was missing the whole thing because she was so intent on explaining to her Daddy what was happening! I didn’t want her to miss it!!! Ha.)
How SPECIAL is that?!!! Oh my goodness, I couldn’t get over it!! It was such a thrilling experience!!
The fourth butterfly came out later that day and the fifth came out the next morning! Hooray!
We read a million butterfly books and talked about symmetry and did lots of butterfly activities. One of our books talked about the types of flowers butterflies are attracted to, and Elliott could not get it out of his head and continually asked us if we could, “buy some perennials that butterflies are attracted to and plant them!!!” If you know me, you know I certainly don’t have a green thumb, but we figured it out and finally were able to plant the flowers this week once the blizzard passed. We’ll let you know if they actually grow!!! (Aunt Melanie, are you SO proud of us?!!!)
I found the following project here, and I think they are simply stunning!! I folded a paper in half, drew half a butterfly on one of the sides in pencil for each kid (and for myself!!) and then poured some black paint into one of our half-filled glue bottles. The kids traced my pencil outline and then made whatever designs they wanted on the inside. The folded them in half to imprint the black outlines on the other half and waited for them to dry. Then we filled them in with watercolors!
This was a good challenge for Elliott…not trying to figure out how to paint the butterfly in symmetrically, but how to not be a PERFECTIONIST about painting him in PERFECTLY symmetrically…Selah wasn’t so keen on the whole “symmetrical” thing…as I’m sure I’ve mentioned before, she takes artistic license with everything she does! 😉 Isn’t her butterfly beautiful?!We also did these fairly quickly with some regular paint. They just painted one side and folded in half to make it symmetrical.
And you’ve just gotta see the kids’ journals. Oh my, I think they are the most precious things on the planet!
Selah’s journal. I (obviously) wrote most of her words and I’m pretty sure I drew the two caterpillars in “Js” and the chrysalis on Day 13 for her…all the rest of the artwork is hers!And look at this big man’s work!! WOW!! He knocked our socks off. He did most all of the writing himself and ALL of the drawings himself!!We had a butterfly snack, which felt a bit like a pinterest fail…how on earth do you get the pretzel wings to stick up in the peanut butter??!! I have no idea. The kids didn’t care…they gobbled them up!!
And finally, we released them. It was fairly warm out, but a SUPER windy day. They were definitely hesitant to leave their little cage. One finally flew to the top of the cage and then I gentle put my finger under his feet. He crawled on my hand and we got some cute memento photos before he took flight. I finally grabbed a stick and used it to reach in and gently put it under the other butterflies’ feet. Selah was brave enough to hold a stick with a butterfly on it, but Elliott kept his distance ;).
If you read about Selah’s potty training experience, you know she is very descriptive when it comes to describing her poop. Sunday night after struggling a bit to get a long one out (is this tmi?? Sorry…) I finally heard it splash into the bowl. I said, “Wow, are you alright?” She responded, out of breath, “Yeah. Wow, my poop was like a chrysalis hanging from my bottom!!!!”
Teachers, can we all agree that this here 3 year old met the learning objectives and understands the life cycle of a butterfly?! Hahahaha!!!!
So there you have it…such a new mercy for us this week!!!
And three other bonuses for you:
Thank you, Safeway, for making our trip to the grocery store as thrilling as a ride at Disneyland!Watermelon is finally cheap at Costco!! Hooray!! The kids have been begging for it but we told them we had to wait until it was (more) in season. Can you tell these children have missed it?!! HAHA!!!And THIS was the sunset on my way home from the gym one evening…WOW. Thank you, Lord.
And now it’s YOUR turn!!Comment below and tell me about the Lord’s new mercies to YOU this past week! I’d love to hear about them!
When I shut down my facebook account over a year ago now, I made a mental note to blog more often. And well, that didn’t really happen :). My zeal for writing and recording in this virtual scrapbook here has somewhat windled down to birthdays and holidays. Most of that, quite honestly, is that I’m so tired in my spirit. It’s been an incredibly weary-ing few years in many aspects and when I look in the mirror, all I see is tired.
Virtually every night before bed, Selah asks if we can sing, “Great is Thy Faithfulness.” It is the song that I listened to on repeat in the weeks and months leading up to her birth and the song I played over and over while in labor with her. It’s the song that steadies my fears. He is faithful. Always. Every day.
…Remember my affliction and roaming, The wormwood and the gall. My soul still remembers And sinks within me. This I recall to my mind, Therefore I have hope. Through the LORD’s mercies we are not consumed, Because His compassions fail not. They are new every morning; Great is Your faithfulness. “The LORD is my portion,” says my soul, “Therefore I hope in Him!” The LORD is good to those who wait for Him, To the soul who seeks Him. … Though He causes grief, Yet He will show compassion according to the multitude of His mercies. [Lam 3:19-25, 32]
The beginning part of the chapter is much of how I have felt these last few years, but…BUT. I recall to mind, constantly, that His mercies are new every morning. Selah reminds me daily. (Of course she does–that is what her name means!) I am so thankful for her reminder to make me stop and think about how great God is and to meditate upon his mercies. Last night I asked her to tell me what had blessed her about the day and she rattled off a list several minutes long of all the things she was thankful for. She finished, smiled, looked at me, and returned the question: “What are YOU thankful for, Mommy?” My heart is abundantly blessed by who she is.
And so…this little series is born. New Mercies Monday. Rather than devoting the start of my week to simply meal planning, grocery shopping, cleaning and laundry, I want to devote them to Selah-ing. To stopping, to pausing my to-do list, and to meditating on the new mercies that God has poured out to us in the previous week. Because, He is worthy to praised. I am so grateful throughout the week for the ways the Lord has lavished us, but sometimes, you just gotta testify! Can I get an amen?!
Monday: An afternoon in Denver with Elizabeth and her darling crew. Elizabeth, my gentle-spirited, wise, like-minded friend. So thankful she is in my life.
Popcorn and play time!
Tuesday: Sometimes I see so much of myself in my kids, and it tickles me to my core. This particular day, I saw me in my dear Selah when she asked me to tape the broken arm back onto this (ancient) Playmobile man. (Have you read the Gecko story? Well, if not…take a peek. I re-read it today and was majorly encouraged!)
All taped up and all better!
Wednesday:“A day at the zoo with Kari and Quinn is like a milkshake to your soul.” (Have you read that verse in Proverbs? It’s true.) So ridiculously blessed that we get to do life together, even if we do live 30 minutes apart.
The zoo was epic. We hugged a (fake) giraffe, fed and pet (real) giraffes, fed the birds, pet a pony, climbed a (fake) elephant, watched a (real) elephant take a bath, rode the carousel, played at the playground, watched the lion cubs frolic and wrestle…all with the wonderful company of our dear friends!
And so of course we ended the day with milkshakes!
Thursday: Lull in the week=Let’s try a new pizza place! Have you tried it? MOD pizza? I guess it started in Seattle. It was fun! And had very yummy pizza :).
Pizza Pizza!!
Friday: My parents had us over for dinner (which is always a bonus!) along with another family and I made a new friend!
Saturday: Blizzard! Family snow day.
Sunday: So encouraged by the Word of God and the parsing of Scripture with other believers at church, who challenge all of us to live according to what it says.
Want a bonus?
These are from the previous week but I just couldn’t help but add them here after sorting through the pics on my phone…
**The kids BEG to help me in the kitchen preparing meals. A couple of months ago I taught Elliott how to slice up some zucchini for dinner and Selah has been pleading with me to let her try. That day was the day. She was in heaven…just look at that face!! So thankful for children who are eager to serve and help.
I snapped this photo and then set my phone down quickly so I could helicopter her cutting!! (Yes, I just made “helicopter” a verb all right!!)
**I just adore this picture…it cracks me up!!!
A hot chocolate date with the kids!
Well there you have it! God’s new mercies on us this past week. This may take on a different form and may not be every week…who knows!
How about YOU? What mercies were new to you this past week? Will you join me in testifying??
Elliott turned 5 on March 20–a phrase he has been telling EVERYONE he has met for the last 8 months or so: “Hello, my name is Elliott and I’m turning 5 on March 20th!” To which the person would almost always respond, “You’re 25?” To which I would jump in and correct, “He’s TURNING 5…” Hahaha! I think we’ve had that conversation at least 100 times with various strangers in various places!!
He requested going to breakfast at Mimi’s (“I want to go to the breakfast place where we sat by the emergency exit and had apple sauce!”). We wrapped up a couple presents for him and Selah helped wrap hers. He got to open one first thing in the morning and then we hid Selah’s present and our other present for him in his car seat to find on the way to Mimi’s.
Can you see the train Selah drew on his present? She and Elliott are sleeping in the back. I was so impressed! We made him his very own return address labels, personalized with his name and a picture of him at Lego Land!Elliott’s new favorite color is blue-ish green, with navy coming in at a close second. I had just found this shirt on the clearance rack At Gymboree for $2!! Win!!!! Perfect birthday shirt!!!
That afternoon, special guests Grandma, Grandpa and Aunt Angela drove in! We packed them back up in the car and headed to Grampa & Nonna’s house for the Mauss family birthday celebration.
Happy Birthday, dear Elliott!
Now, for his actual birthday party…this is the party he’s been planning for well over a year. Last year I was thinking he would want to have a Lego birthday, but he approached me in January telling me he wanted to have an animal birthday party. When I suggested a Lego party he responded, “I would like to have an animal birthday this year and a Lego party next year when I turn 5.” What can I say…the child has my party-planning blood in him!!!! So the last time we were at Lego Land, I was sure to take lots of pictures of our boy in preparation for his 5th birthday party!
One afternoon I showed him lots of pictures from various Lego parties and we talked through what exactly would bless him at his party. He has very strong opinions about what he wants! 🙂 One of the first things we did was design this shirt together. He told me exactly what he would like (a light blue shirt with a dark blue lego guy, but with a hat, and he wanted the lego guy to also have a light blue shirt). I designed the CUTEST little Lego guy with a hat, but Elliott didn’t like how the bill went to the side…so we ended up with this…which I tried to strongly urge him to go with the sideways hat instead, but he was insistent on this, because “the bill goes in front, not on the side.” I think it looks like a helmet 🙂 but he loves it! So…win!
Elliott and the helmet Lego Guy!
The next thing we did was make a zillion lego crayons out of all of our crayons for party favors.
His favorites were the multi-colored ones, so we made sure that everyone got one of those, too.
Next it was time to work on invitations. Oh my, these were too much fun to design and the kids had a blast making the outsides look like Legos. One of the things Elliott was insistent on was that the party colors were: blue-ish green (turquoise), light blue and dark blue. So everything from the invitations to the decorations were in those colors. We had a picture of Elliott with Emmett and Brian figured out how to make the background transparent and I put together this little ditty:
Elliott punched out the dots with my circle punch and put foam stickers on them. Selah played around with the dots for a while and then helped attach them to the actual invitations :).
Next up, we worked on painting this Lego Man together, and of course, the kids had to make sure he “worked”! And, as you can see, we decorated the doors to our craft room to look like Legos, along with our front door.
I convinced Elliott to let me draw the hat “sideways” so it actually looked like a hat :). I sketched him out on a box that I had painted white, and Elliott painted (most of) him inside the lines I sketched.Next up, I printed off tons of pictures of him from Lego Land and put them on Lego brick backgrounds, and then the kids “built” Lego towers out of the pictures on the walls.
Brian framed these two pictures of Elliott at Lego Land out of Legos!
And how can you have a Lego Birthday party without Lego soap??
We saved jars for a couple of months and made them into Lego Heads…
I think they are adorable!
I printed off the Happy Birthday Lego sign from here. I covered our t.v. and two boxes with Dollar Store tablecloths, then wrapped paper bowls with the tablecloth scraps and taped them onto the boxes. And thanks to the Blizzard that blew through on Elliott’s birthday party day (more on that in a minute!) I got the idea to cover up the picture that normally hangs on our mantle with the last tablecloth I had left and printed out the Elliott 5+ sign. Also, we used the scraps leftover from his birthday invitations to make the multi-blue colored Lego banner.
And with that, our living room was ready to go!
And THEN…a blizzard blew in on the morning of his birthday party!! On the third day of Spring!! And it was a bad one…we realized within a couple hours of waking up that no one should be on the roads. So a hundred text messages later, and we were able to move the party to the next afternoon. Elliott was pretty sad, but after agreeing to let him put together a practice Lego Man (the first craft activity of the party) he was in much better spirits :).
And Aunt Angela makes everything better 🙂
And THEN…he got to open his gifts from Grandma & Grandpa and Aunt Angela…..
A sand box and sand toys! The kids had a BLAST playing in the sand box on our kitchen floor…while the snow and wind beat on our house outside!
Which meant I had all day to keep thinking of new Lego ideas and finishing up the old ones I had had…it’s a good thing we didn’t have TWO snow days or this party would have been out of hand!!
We got the favor bags all ready to go. I designed, printed, and cut out the Lego circles with my Silhouette and Elliott attached them to the bags with foam stickers. Each friend got a lanyard and Lego badge with their name on it, a laminated tag with their name, a Lego notebook, Lego crayons and a Lego coloring book that I put together.
We set out the food and drinks. We looked through several different types of Lego cakes, and Elliott really wanted the kind with M&Ms on them, and he really wanted it to be blue. Brian is *highly* opposed to food coloring, so after doing a little research we picked these up at Whole Foods. They are made from vegetables so there is nothing artificial in there. I thought they worked out great and were a great alternative to food dye. The colors are not nearly as bright and bold as regular food coloring but they totally accomplished their purpose! These Lego Brick cakes were definitely challenging for me to make as I’m not super gifted in the baking arena and the frosting didn’t turn out as smooth as I had imagined it would 🙂 but Elliott loved them and that’s all that matters, right!! I also whipped up some Rice Krispie Lego Treats to have a gluten free option on hand.
Elliott wanted a Lego man on his brick, and he picked a firefighter…in case the candles got out of hand, the fireman would be there to assist 🙂We wrapped juice boxes to look like Lego bricks (downloaded from here) and Elliott and Selah built the fork and napkin holders!
And now for the actual PART-AY!!!!
Guests arrived and Elliott handed them their Lego badges to wear. The first activity was creating your own Lego guy, which I cleverly re-named “DO YOU WANNA BUILD A LEGO GUY?” in honor of the Blizzard the day before. (Get it??? Sung to the tune of “Do you wanna build a snowman?”!!)
We had yellow Lego guy cut outs (thank you, Silhouette!) with shirts, pants, hats, stickers, googly eyes, crayons and markers so the kids could decorate them. They didn’t put as much effort into them as I thought they might (note to self: most 5 year olds are not as into crafting as my son is!) and some finished as quickly as possible so they could play in the bin of Legos on the floor :). We also had several Lego coloring sheets set out as well.Here are some of the finished Lego guys sticking up out of their bags…cute!!!
Next up was Pin the Head on the Lego Guy. This game is always such a hit!!! The kids each decorated their own Lego head and then took turns trying to pin it onto the headless Lego man. Everyone was cracking up!!
Then we played Lego Bingo. I downloaded the Lego Bingo cards from someone else who had designed them, but we changed up a lot of them because, as Elliott puts it, a lot of them “don’t bless God.” It’s true. What is with the terrifying Lego pieces that are out there? Anyway, it was cute because we used pictures of Elliott at Lego Land and it made the game a lot more fun and personal.
We used Legos for our markers and this game was also a big hit!
Then we had a spoon race…which team can carry the Lego pieces on a spoon into the Lego head the fastest?
And finally, Lego Creationary: each child builds something out of Legos and the other kids try to guess what it is! This was fun!!
Then it was cake time!
And I almost forgot on the day of, but thankfully Elliott reminded me! Presents!
And everyone got their photo in the Lego man, of course!
What a fun group of kiddos!!
Our Big Man!!And of course Selah wanted a picture up there, too 🙂
5th Lego Birthday Party SUCCESS!!
And as if we hadn’t had enough fun, that night we went to Red Robin for his free birthday burger!
Happy 5th Birthday, our beloved Elliott!!!
(And in case you’re wondering…yes, he already has his parties planned out for the next 4 years!!!HA!!!!)
I’m taking a break from my normal long-windedness 🙂 and blogging this year’s Christmas through pictures! Enjoy!
Get out the Christmas decorations and decorate your felt Christmas Tree!Go pick out our Christmas tree!Put up Christmas lights!Make Christmas gifts for our friends! (A project I envisioned doing for many more friends, but these were FAR more difficult and time-consuming than I had anticipated…so only two friends got gifts this year!)Build rocking horses together!Take out all of our Christmas and winter books!Journey to Bethlehem as a family! (“Breakfast in Bethlehem”…a breakfast/crafting/interactive living nativity put on by a local church! We all had SO much fun!!)Counting with Christmas Trees, Pom-pom sorting, Pipe Cleaner Straining…Zoo Lights!Stained Glass NativitiesSnowman Pancakes!Elliott’s Christmas Program at PreschoolReindeer Cookies!The kids’ program at church, Nativity Stickers, and Christmas Magnet Pattern BlocksGingerbread Men with the McCabes!Nativity Window Clings!The North Pole!!New pajama shirts (made by me because I couldn’t find any Christmas p.j.s that I like this year!!) and popcorn and a Christmas movie!Make baby Jesus some cookies and cupcakes…out of playdough!Christmas Eve…the kids each got to open one present (a new puzzle for each of them) and we all worked them together. Then church!Christmas Eve family shots!Christmas Day!!!Christmas with the family!
It’s incredibly hard to believe that our baby girl turned THREE this year!! Here are the highlights from her birthday and birthday party…
She woke up with a room full of purple balloons……and the first present to open of the day…a dress I personalized for her with the word, “three”!She got dressed and went downstairs for her next surprise…a huge 3 in purple balloons!!Grandma & Grandpa were in town, so we took Elliott to preschool together. Here she is outside of his preschool, in all of her birthday glory! She picked out this dress for her birthday and would have stayed in it day and night if I would have let her…Then we stopped at our favorite coffee place for a birthday hot cocoa…and the barista put a candle in her whipped cream and everyone sang “Happy Birthday” to her!!
She went to gymnastics and then Grandma, Grandpa, Selah and I went to go pick out a cupcake from a bakery. For weeks I had been asking her what she wanted for her birthday, and her ONLY response was, “A cupcake.” I tried to tell her that I was already making cupcakes for her birthday party, but she could think of nothing else she wanted. The day before her birthday, she reminded me that she would like a cupcake for her birthday. I reminded her we would have one on her birthday party day a few days later. She looked at me as if I had not heard the 1 million times that she told me she wanted a cupcake for her birthday and almost burst into tears. So :). We decided to let her pick out a special cupcake for her actual birthday.
After naptime, she got to go into the basement and see her special gift picked out and put up by her Daddy…he added a SWING to her beloved birthday present from last year–the gym in our basement.
Needless to say, she LOVES it…(and her Grandpa, too!!)
We went to Red Robin for dinner (her choice) where, of course, they sang her Happy Birthday and she buried herself into me as she normally does when put on the spot!But she definitely enjoyed her ice cream when the singing people went away :).Us!And then she had her long-awaited cupcake at home afterwards!!
HER BIRTHDAY PARTY:
Selah is our super tactile child. She LOVES playing in rice and sand and squishing play dough between her fingers. So we decided to party hard for her 3rd with play dough, her favorite friends, and her grandparents.
Our most wonderful Selah Bean is turning three!
She’s our silly, hilarious, playful one (as you know),
To you, her favorites, she asks: “Will you celebrate with me?!”
Join us for a party with games and PLAY DOUGH!!
We decorated our craft room with purple!Made favors for our friends!Personalized an apron for every kid!Decorated cupcakes with sprinkles!And waited patiently for our friends to arrive!
Our friends arrived and put on their aprons!Here’s everyone ready to create with play dough!Selah was overjoyed to have play dough in her hands and her favorite girlfriends by her side!Happy birthday girl!
The first challenge was to create a cupcake that Selah would like to eat for her birthday.
Elliott’s cupcake creations!Quinn’s delicious goodies!Charlotte’s yummy looking cupcakes!Selah’s dough-light-ful birthday cupcake!Ava’s cupcakes definitely took the cake 🙂
The next challenge was to create a playdough version of Selah. Here’s what we got:
Pretty good!!And Elliott’s playdough Selah is very creative!The dearest friends!!!!
The kids played with play dough for a little while longer until it was time for cake!
My darling girl and her cupcakes with sprinkles!Happy Birthday to you!Selah and her Nonna, who usually always wears purple, to Selah’s delight!!She opened some super fun and thoughtful presents from friends and family!Happy Birthday, our dear Selah Bean!!!
If you’ve made it this far :), here are some extra special birthday bonuses…
Here she is in the “three” dress that I made for her…
And THIS is a picture of ME when I turned 3, alongside of Selah on her birthday. My mom made this sweet Care Bear for me for my third birthday, and here is Selah with it as well!!
Our darling little girl is growing up so quickly before our eyes, and she brings an exceeding amount of joy into our home every day. Selah lives life as if it were a musical–and we adore it!! She literally sings her way through life…she sings throughout the day, sings herself to sleep, and wakes up with a new song on her tongue every morning.
Here’s a video of one of her latest songs:
It is so easy to see her mother’s heart burst out of her every move…she is constantly so eager to take care of everyone around her and serve every chance she gets.
We had the joy of taking care of my niece a few days a week at the beginning of the year, and Selah (and Elliott) were on cloud 9 to have her in our home. Here is Selah feeding her a bottle……and reading her a book, in sunglasses of course!
And that heart does not exclude her babies and stuffed animals! It is not rare for us all to be playing together and for Selah to jump up in the middle of our playtime and exclaim, “I hear my baby crying upstairs! I’ll go get her and bring her down!” She is the epitome of sweet and kind and loving. And although she has definitely learned how to push her brother’s buttons this year :), most of what comes out of her heart is genuine love.
A few months ago, I overheard this conversation:
Selah, as she takes Elliott’s pencil and sits down: “Elliott, I need to use your pencil.”
Elliott: “But Selah, that’s MY pencil.”
Selah, in the sweetest, most genuinely convincing voice: “Yes, I’m SHARING it with you!”
Elliott: “Oh! Thank you, Selah! Thank you for sharing it with me!”
Selah: “You’re welcome, Elliott!”
It’s hard to articulate the depths of her heart, but this conversation was so typical of her…she was truly not manipulating him, but she just genuinely believes that she was giving Elliott a gift by letting HIM share with HER!
As she approached her third birthday, any time it would come up in conversation and someone would ask her old she was turning, she would respond, “Three…THEN FOUR!!” I think she is determined to catch up to her big brother! 🙂
She continues to be our amazing gymnast.
Strong arms on the bars at almost 2 1/2!
She is truly talented and it is such a joy to watch her doing something she loves. We did the “Mommy and me” gymnastics class last year, and a couple of weeks before she turned 3, she started the 3-4 year olds class, which is a class without her Mama!! (Granted, I do sit right outside where she can see me and watch her through the window…baby steps for both of us!) I talked to her about it ahead of time, wondering how she would do without me (and let’s be real–how I would do without her!!!) and she said she was excited to do it. The morning of her first class, however, as we were getting her into her leotard, she said to me with a voice that quivered more with each word: “Mom? I was just thinking that I actually want you to come into my class with me…” and then she erupted in tears. My heart broke and I held her as she sobbed…Elliott and I comforted her and prayed with her and he gave her advice on what it is like to go into a class without me. It was precious. Sure enough, when I walked her into her class a couple hours later, she let go of my hand and waved goodbye to me with no problem. It has been so incredibly fun to watch her thrive!!
The first few moments of her first class all by herself! (She’s second from the front in the pink)Climbing the rope!Peeking through the window at Elliott who got to be there for her very first class to cheer her on!!And a celebratory hot chocolate afterwards because–come on! That was a big deal!!!! Cheers to big girl gymnastics!!
She is wild and messy and silly and free and creative and and hilarious and we adore every part of how God created our little girl!!! Enjoy a snapshot of her year below!
Selah takes artistic license when it comes to doing anything…eating dinner, crafting, writing her name…
One night while out to eat as a family, I looked over and saw Selah doing push ups like this! Bahaha!! (I know–bad Mom for taking a picture…I took a picture and then reminded her of what good table manners are…)Most kids sit while crafting, but not this girl. She crafts while balancing on one foot.Oh look, here she is sitting to craft…but with nothing but her brother’s backpack on. She can’t do anything the “normal” way!!She LOVES puzzles as much as her big brother! At 27 months, she could complete this 48 piece jigsaw puzzle all by herself.She loves to build and create at Home Depot!“Look, Mom! It’s a monkey sitting in a high chair!” She is a budding artist who draws extremely hilarious and creative pictures!!“Look, Mom! It’s a snowman walking!”I found her like this at the chiropractor one day. The chiropractor is one of her favorite places to go :). (Yes, yes…she takes after me!!)Did I mention she is messy?!!!At Chick-fil-a…making goofy Chick-fil-a saucy faces at herself in my phone…Thanks to Aunt Melanie, we figured out how to FINALLY get her hair into pig tails!! She was about 2 1/2 at the time… We continue to hope and pray that she GROWS SOME MORE HAIR!!! 🙂
Selah continues to have a love-hate relationship with animals of all kinds. She screams in absolute horror if our friends’ cat even takes a step into a room that she is in, but then she can be in a pen filled with Alpacas and literally chase after them yelling, “Here, alpaca! Here, alpaca!”
Chasing down Alpacas, trying to feed them vegetables…And here she is feeding a bird at the zoo. I love that face!!!She actually looks like she’s really enjoying being in the mouth of this Alligator!She loves dressing to match me!!Goofy face!She ADORES her big brother and his friends!They truly are BFFS…She still loves to dress up in all varieties of clothes…Probably one of my favorite things about Selah is how FREE she is. She doesn’t have a care in the world. She sleeps like this most of the time…hands above her head, baby by her side…in total peace.And yes, I know…we are the only people on the planet who still have a monitor for their (now) 3 year old…but come on…I would have missed all of these precious sleeping moments if we didn’t have one!!!!!My darling girl!!Here I am at 2 as well. I was probably an early 2 and Selah is close to 3 in this picture, but I think we look pretty similar!!Welcome to age 3, my love!!!! I cannot wait to see how you change and grow in the coming year!!!!
Our big 4 year old started Pre-K this month! He is going to a very small little preschool that we just love so far. The director is wonderful, the teachers are incredibly loving and…his good buddy Malachi is in his class!! How could it get any better? 🙂 This preschool as the option of letting the kids stay an extra 45 minutes afterwards to eat lunch. I was not even thinking about that as an option but when Elliott found out about it he begged me to let him stay. So…alas…I let him stay for lunch on the first day (sniff, sniff…) And as you can see below, that is one of his top three favorite things about school!
Some stats:
Age:Almost 4 1/2
Height: 44 1/2 inches
Shoe size: 12
Clothing size: 5T and 6
Loves: CRAFTING. Oh my, how this child loves to craft. He could literally sit and craft all day (and often does!) He loves to write letters to people and make cards and pictures for others. He also still LOVES to read and build.
When he grows up he wants to be: “A space man and a firefighter.”
Favorite part of Pre-K so far: “Eating snack and eating lunch.” When I asked if there was anything else he said, “I have one more thing…that Brooklyn is there!” and then he got a huge smile on his face, turned beet red, and ran away… haha!! 🙂
Happy to be going to school again!These two…bbbThe mandatory goofy pictureWe made these jars together and picked flowers for his teachers…Walking into school with the cards he made for his teachers, his backpack, and his lunchbox.Malachi!
Meanwhile, back at the ranch…us girls went and got coffee and hot chocolate at our favorite little local coffee shop…and then went to the park, of course!
I love my girl!This was her requested activity during Elliott’s first day!
We went home, ate lunch, and raced back to pick up Elliott, whom we missed so much!
Selah joining the big kids for the last part of lunch on the first day…
All in all, it was a great first day and a successful first week of school!
