I have struggled to find adequate words to describe the wonderfulness who is our Selah. She is such a bold, passionate, wild little girl, yet somehow carries the SWEETEST spirit ever… I simply can’t get enough of her. She makes us laugh constantly. She awes us every day with her fearlessness. She melts our hearts with her bold love. She is so PLAYFUL and goofy, she LOVES to sing and she LOVES do everything her big brother does. I can frequently get her to laugh so hard she gets the hiccups. She cannot HELP but tickle you if she is nearby. If you get up from your seat to get something, she will instantly run over to where you were sitting and steal your spot. She counts to 12 and then, just like her big bro taught her, moves onto 18, 19, and 20. She is SO polite, and regularly says, “please” and “thank you” unprompted. She also says, “Bless you!” if you sneeze, cough or burp! Haha! If you ever bump into something and say, “ow” out loud, she will drop what she’s doing, run over to you, kiss you, and say, “I’m sorry.” Other than “mama,” her first word was “amen,” and she is so quick to pray. Any time we drive by a “broken car” (what Elliott calls them) she immediately starts praying that everyone is okay. If Elliott is throwing a fit or having a hard time, she stops what she’s doing to pray for him! Oh, how she delights our souls…
Here are a few (or A LOT!) of the things that our sweet little girl loves…
To say that our little girl loves to climb, swing, and tumble, would be a dramatic understatement. She has BLOWN us away with her strength, fearlessness, and love for thrills. She has pushed every limit I had in my mind for what a baby or a toddler “should” be doing, and I’ve just had to learn to let her lead to some degree instead of constantly restraining her. She is our little gymnast, and we’ve learned to teach her how to be safe in what she’s doing versus not letting her try. She is simply something ELSE…
At 15 months…she had been attempting to climb into her chair for a few weeks but I had been deterring her…until the day I turned around to FIND HER LIKE THIS! HAHAHA!!! She climbed up there all on her own…15 months, folks!!A few days later, I came downstairs after putting Elliott down for a nap, to FIND HER HERE….oh, my word…17 months…alone on a big kid swing! Ahhh!!!18 months…18 months…this is the first time we saw her hanging…and she hasn’t stopped since! She will hang on ANYTHING she can find…and has had more than one bonk from hanging on things that should not be hung from!! :/19 months!19 months!19 months!It’s hard to see what’s going on here, but this is CLASSIC Selah. She is playing at our playroom table, but she is BALANCING on my knee. She’ll never choose to stand or sit–she would always rather be balancing on something or standing up high on something.As in, this is how she chooses to sit while watching a show…And this is her preferred way to eat…
All within a few days (while 19 months old), she learned how to jump, how to jump off one step, and then how to jump off of our ottoman!
She’s always loved hats, but this year her love for attire of ALL sorts has certainly grown. Every time I turn around, she is CRACKING me up!!!
A purse that doubles as a hat…And double the hats…And Elliott’s hat…And Elliott’s other two hats…And Elliott’s jammies AND Elliott’s hat…Elliott’s socks and shoes…Elliott’s shirt…Elliott’s construction gear.Wearing her snow hat and gloves while Elliott wears his…on a 70 degree day.Grandpa’s socks and grandma’s shoes…Her sunglasses.My sunglasses.My hat, Elliott’s vest.All her clothes…but do you see her dress is on inside-out? She insists on dressing herself :).Yes, this was a day that she insisted on dressing herself.Elliott’s shirt…around her waist, of course.Daddy’s shirt…Daddy’s shoes.Daddy’s other shoes…Mommy’s shoes…on backwards, of course.
She just brings so much JOY into our home!! She has such a goofy and playful side to her which has us laughing constantly. One of her favorite games has always been “peek-a-boo,” and there are few things that thrill her more than when something is “hi-ding!” (always said in a thrilled whisper). My favorite is when she points to my coffee cup and says, “Mama! Spoon! Hi-ding!!!” in the most thrilled little whisper. Sigh, I love her.
Mama?! Can you see me through this window?!Here she is at 19 months old. When Elliott and I would go up to get her once she had woken up from her nap, we would find her like this…wanting a kiss through the crib slats. She would move around to every part of her crib, and wouldn’t move until she got a kiss :).*mwah*You never know where you’re going to find her, because she is constantly crawling into places she shouldn’t just so she can hide!! (and climb, of course.)He-ey!“Peek-a-boo, Mama!!”And, don’t you know that you don’t actually need a hiding place to hide?! She gets an incredible thrill from closing her eyes and saying, “See me, mama?! I HI-DING!!”And when I just can’t seem to find her, she is gracious enough to open her eyes and surprise me! “Peek-a-boo!!”Playing peek-a-boo in the sun!However, once she started rocking the pony tail, it became a little bit harder for her to be as inconspicuous as when she simply closed her eyes :). I see someone’s pony sticking up…Where is that Selah??Peek-a-boo!!
This child LOVES FOOD. I mean, LOOOVVVESSSSS food. I can’t believe how much she can eat and how much she ENJOYS food. Definitely takes after me on this one–I see fine dining in our future!! 🙂 She will literally shove handfuls of food into her mouth just so she can free up her hands to point to more food. It’s incredible. When she hears the final timer go off for dinner, she throws her hands in the air and sings in her loudest voice, “LE-E-E-T’S EEEEEAT!!!!!!!!!” When I get her up from a nap, 9 times out of 10, the first thing she asks for is some random type of food that she’s clearly been thinking about! Ha!
She RARELY gets a sugary treat (I know…she’s SO deprived, as one can clearly see from the previous pictures…haha) so when we let her have some bites of this Mud Pie from Red Robin, she was, um, in heaven. She ate it quickly and enthusiastically…as you can see :).At some point, we introduced raisins and graham crackers to her and they became the very substance for which she lived and breathed. It took her a little while to figure out how to say “raisins” and so she was constantly begging us for “wee wees.” Oh my word…so hilarious!Not only does she love food, but she loves VEGETABLES. And she is a food SNATCHER!! One day, while prepping lunch for the kids, I turned around and saw her stealing handfuls of Elliott’s peas before he got to his plate! She’d grab a handful, shove it into her mouth, and then go back for more…haha!!One day while chopping carrots, I turned around to see this! Veggie snatcher!! Haha!!She has about 8 zucchini slices in her mouth right now! (We’re still working on those manners, ha!) Zucchini is, by far, her absolute favorite veggie.Think I’m kidding? This child LOVES zucchini!!!Bananas on the back steps!And, if she ever DOESN’T like a food, she wrinkles up her nose, tilts her head like this, and hands it back to me, saying, “No yike this…”She’s also very sure to tell me when she knows she’s NOT supposed to eat something…like this paint we’re working with here. She can’t help but hold it up to her mouth and tell me, “No eat it, Mama.” Look at her face…such a goof ball. 🙂
She loves her brother and loves to wrestle!
Multiple times a day, out of the blue, she will just run over to Elliott, tackle him, and then start tickling him!She is his little shadow, and it is the sweetest thing ever (most of the time…)
Despite her love for wrestling, she also has a deep love for babies. It’s the sweetest thing.
Here she is meeting her cousin Ember for the first time…she was in love then and is still in love with her now!
She soooo badly wanted to ride a bike like Elliott’s when she was just a wee little one. As in, 19 months old. One day while letting Elliott practice riding his bike, she asked over and over again to ride it. We told her it was Elliott’s, and somehow she took that as Elliott’s TURN. So, she waited UNBELIEVABLY patiently (so patiently that we didn’t even know she was waiting!!) while he rode it, and as soon as he got off she RAN towards it, saying, “my turn!!” When we told her she was too little, she completely broke down. We felt SO bad, and decided to just go ahead and give her a turn on the bike.
So here she is! 19 months! LOL! I love this memory…she didn’t want us to touch her or the bike handles to steady her, so she just sat there…like this. Lol. I just adore her.ROCKING the stride bike at 22-23 months! She rides it INCREDIBLY fast!!
She is feisty and confident. 🙂 We’ve had to work hard already on a mouth that is gracious and not demanding. And, I will say, she’s come a long way in the last few months!! I love having a daughter…there is so much that I understand about her “sure” heart and there is so much about her heart that is a mystery to me. But either way, the Lord is giving us patience for her…to train and teach her to grow into a woman of grace. Sigh. So much prayer necessary!!! But when she is sure of something, there is NO convincing her otherwise. One of my favorite recent conversations happened with Brian:
Selah, bringing a puzzle piece to Brian to ask him what type of construction vehicle was on it: “Is it, Daddy?”
Brian: “Oh! That’s an excavator, Selah!”
Selah: “No. Loader Backhoe.”
Brian: “Oh, no, sweet girl…that’s an excavator.”
Selah: “LOAD-ER. BACK-HOE.”
Brian: “Well, actually, it’s an excavator.”
Selah: “LOAD-ER!! BACK!!! HOE!!!!!!”
Brian: “Hmmm…Selah, does it LOOK like a Loader Backhoe?”
Selah, pleased: “Yeah!” 🙂
Hahaha! This conversation happens at least once a day…Selah convincing us that we don’t know our construction vehicles, insects, or animals…hahaha.
When she doesn’t get her way, this is her face :).
Her confidence and determination doesn’t stop with climbing, jumping, swinging and construction vehicles, though…she has been insisting (for months) that she buckle herself into her car seat. She’s been able to do one or two of the three necessary clicks for a while now, but at exactly 23 months, she buckled herself completely into her car seat all by herself!!
She did it! Safety goggles on and everything!! That’s my girl!!
She LOVES to sing and has the most adorable voice ever. Her favorite songs are “Jesus Loves Me” and the “ABC song.”
Recently though, she’s been really loving the “Happy Birthday” song. Here she is, preparing for her birthday! Doesn’t she have the most adorable voice?!!
She is REALLY into jigsaw puzzles, probably because she wants to be just like her big brother :). We’re pretty impressed with how well she can work them!
Working diligently…
We finally enrolled our little gymnast in a gymnastics class, just before she turned 2. Needless to say, everyone was pretty impressed when she saw a set of bars for the very first time, ran up to them, and did this:
This is no bat…this is my daughter.And this :).Happy second birthday, our sweet, sweet love!!!!
Get it? Like tutu…but TWOTWO…? Haha…okay, moving on :).
We spent A LOT of time thinking and talking about what would really bless our little girl on her birthday this year. She doesn’t really have any friends her age, because most of her friends are 3 and 4 year old boys! What she loves most is to jump, swing, climb, hang and tumble. We recently enrolled her in a gymnastics class to help grow her natural talent and love for gymnastics, but we ultimately decided the best thing to do for her birthday was build something in our basement where she could swing and climb and hang to her heart’s delight any time she wanted to. We looked into buying them and wowsers–they are NOT cheap!! So, Selah’s UNBELIEVABLY AWESOME Daddy designed his own set for just the cost of a 2×4 and a few simple rings, bars, ropes, etc. to hang from it. So impressed :). Pictures below…
So, we had a super simple birthday party for our sweet Selah B this year. The colors were purple (her FAVORITE color) and gold (because isn’t everything better with a little gold glitter?!). I made her a special outfit, Brian made her the INCREDIBLE new gymnastics play set in our basement, and we had the grandparents over for dinner. It was a special afternoon/evening, followed by a birthday dinner at Red Robin on her actual birthday. Have I mentioned how much I LOVE celebrating?!! Such a joy to celebrate our little girl.
The morning of her birthday celebration, we let her open up her first little gift:
Nail polish!This is the very first time I’ve painted her nails!I love when her little bottom lip sticks out like this…the moments that she’s concentrating REALLY hard…Purple with sparkles, of course :).
She took a nap, and Brian helped me decorate like crazy. She woke up to this:
Purple & gold!Her TwoTwo cake!And her TwoTwo outfit. Shirt and skirt made by yours truly! (Well, I bought the plain cream shirt but added the bling myself ;)).Brian brought her down the stairs…She was so sweet pointing and naming everything she saw…“2!!”This is such a classic “Selah” snuggle…a shy little smile and she snuggles into you when she’s excited about what she sees!She LOVES her Nonna!!I took her upstairs to put on her special TwoTwo outfit, and she just LIT up…along with lighting up the room!!Then we brought her downstairs to her biggest birthday surprise…Needless to say, she was VERY excited to see multiple objects that she could hang from hanging from the ceiling!!This is what she saw!And this is what she did!This is our little gymnast!!She could eat, sleep, and live like this…seriously!She loves the rope ladder!…and the rope swing!We also got our thrill baby this little roller coaster :).Um, she loves it :).Periodically she would stop her tumbling and swinging and go hug someone :).Or stand on her head :).Time for cake!My darling two year old!Twins with her cake!Happy birthday to you!She conquered those two candles!!The out-of-town grandparents!The in-town grandparents!Y la familia 🙂
HER ACTUAL BIRTHDAY! The morning of her birthday we went to the park with some friends.
Because there’s nothing like a little excavating on your birthday!And who WOULDN’T want to crawl inside a giant hippo on your birthday?After her nap, she laid on my bed with me and just SNUGGLED me for soooo long, which is not something my active little girl usually likes to do :). I was so blessed.We blew up a purple balloon!
Daddy got home from work and Grandma, Grandpa, Elliott, Selah and I all loaded into the car…
…and brought this bright 2 year old to Red Robin!We ADORE her….
She got several super sweet gifts, but I won’t include every picture I took from her birthday here :). One of her favorites was this baby doll we got her. She ADORES real babies, and so we wanted to get her a “real-looking” baby doll. She was IN LOVE immediately. (That is, until her Aunt Amber, Uncle Jeff, and cousins got her a DIFFERENT baby doll that has far trumped this one, haha!!)She studied every detail on her baby……including how her eyes opened and closed…
Then, she went downstairs to discover that Grandma and Grandpa had gotten her two play mats to put beneath the swinging things!
She was SO thrilled, and ran and jumped on them with her baby in hand.And did a somersault……with her baby in hand!She showed her baby her new roller coaster.But did set her down to do this :).
What JOY to celebrate our wonderful two year old!!! I think she was blessed. She certainly slept well that night…
I’ll never forget the moment that, after weeks of battling the same problem with Elliott, I had a massive revelation.
“The Scripture doesn’t say that my parenting techniques will not come back void…it says, ‘The WORD will not come back void.’” (Isaiah 55:11)
I don’t know how I got two years into the whole parenting thing without ever having that thought occur to me, but it was profound for me, and surely an act of mercy from the Lord.
Elliott had (for the most part) been an incredibly kind and loving big brother towards Selah her entire 7 months of existence. But somehow, right around after he turned 2, he began experimenting with some behaviors towards her; as in, “What will happen if I kick her in the head as hard possible?”
Clearly, clearly…NOT OKAY.
She had JUST started pulling up onto furniture, and she loved being close by Elliott. So many times when he was sitting in his chair eating a meal or a snack, she would crawl over, pull herself up onto the chair, and he would kick her little head until she fell over.
We were at a loss. We had tried everything, and he wasn’t changing. If you know me, you know I have quite a bit of patience towards my kids regarding character development issues…I just recognize that many, many things will probably take YEARS for them to have true heart-change in. But, BUT…this particular issue needed to change IMMEDIATELY.
But, I’m not going to talk about exactly how he changed, because my point is something far more important: that THE WORD OF GOD WILL NOT COME BACK VOID.
Another “incident” had just occurred and I remember kneeling on the ground, holding Elliott gently by his shoulders and pleading with him to stop, using words like “being nice” and “that’s not nice” and etc., etc. I had just taught the Kids Church lesson a few hours earlier to Elliott and all of his little buddies and it was about the good Samaritan. I suddenly paused and that’s when the revelation hit me: Why am I using such “powerless” words, when I could be speaking the very words of Life, that are promised to return in power.
EVERYTHING changed about my speech that day. No longer do I tell Elliott to do things “because I said so” or “because it’s the ‘right’ thing to do”…but I am teaching him to act according to God’s Word. It is THE ONLY thing that will not return void.
This is our heart for our children:
9 For this reason we also, since the day we heard it, do not cease to pray for you, and to ask that you may be filled with the knowledge of His will in all wisdom and spiritual understanding; 10 that you may walk worthy of the Lord, fully pleasing [Him], being fruitful in every good work and increasing in the knowledge of God; 11 strengthened with all might, according to His glorious power, for all patience and longsuffering with joy; 12 giving thanks to the Father who has qualified us to be partakers of the inheritance of the saints in the light. 13 He has delivered us from the power of darkness and conveyed [us] into the kingdom of the Son of His love, 14 in whom we have redemption through His blood, the forgiveness of sins. 15 He is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn over all creation. 16 For by Him all things were created that are in heaven and that are on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or principalities or powers. All things were created through Him and for Him. 17 And He is before all things, and in Him all things consist. 18 And He is the head of the body, the church, who is the beginning, the firstborn from the dead, that in all things He may have the preeminence. 19 For it pleased [the Father that] in Him all the fullness should dwell, 20 and by Him to reconcile all things to Himself, by Him, whether things on earth or things in heaven, having made peace through the blood of His cross. … 27 To them God willed to make known what are the riches of the glory of this mystery among the Gentiles: which is Christ in you, the hope of glory. 28 Him we preach, warning every man and teaching every man in all wisdom, that we may present every man perfect in Christ Jesus. 29 To this [end] I also labor, striving according to His working which works in me mightily. [Col 1:9-20, 27-29 NKJV]
Yes, we MUST teach our children that ALL things were created through Him and for Him. And He is before all things, and in Him all things consist. Our children must form their worldviews around this Truth. And so they MUST know the Scriptures, and how THE SCRIPTURES should shape their thinking and their actions. This is a great endeavor, obviously, that will take a lifetime to begin to teach, but I am amazed at how much it has pressed ME to know the Word more, because I need to have a specific answer on my tongue! I need to be able to teach them what God says about the generous person when they are confronted with sharing issues. I need to be able to recite by memory what God says will happen when they obey their parents when we have a moment (or a hundred) of defiance in a day. I need to be able to tell them what Jesus said about love when they are not treating each other lovingly. I must know what He says, so they will know what He says. There was a season where I taught the kids a Proverb a day and it was so helpful for ME. I read one chapter a day, picked one verse from that chapter, wrote it up on the white board in our playroom, and taught it to them first thing in the morning. It’s amazing how many Proverbs are the solution to almost every conflict between the kids :).
I was struck by the simplicity of Romans 12 as a concise “handbook” for (some of) the ways of the Lord a few months ago, and decided I wanted to memorize a chunk of the chapter with the kids over the Summer. My goal was 13 verses, and we got through 6, which I was very pleased with :). We started out with Psalm 128:1 (“Blessed are those who fear the Lord, who walk in His ways.”), and I prefaced the whole series by talking about how we must understand that God says we will be blessed when we walk in His ways, and it is of utmost importance that we regard Him with utter holiness, with complete resolve that He is THE WAY. Then we went on to learn about what some of those “ways” are by memorizing Romans 12: 9-13.
9 Love must be sincere. Hate what is evil; cling to what is good. 10 Be devoted to one another in love. Honor one another above yourselves. 11 Never be lacking in zeal, but keep your spiritual fervor, serving the Lord. 12 Be joyful in hope, patient in affliction, faithful in prayer. 13 Share with the Lord’s people who are in need. Practice hospitality. [Rom 12:9-13 NIV]
It was SO HELPFUL in my daily parenting, because not only did I have specific (powerful!) language (that won’t return void!!!!) to use with the kids during conflicts and disrespect, but because it helped form my prayers. Many times throughout the day, my prayer is, “Oh, dear, Lord. Have mercy.” (Anyone else have prayers like that during the day??) But when I am focusing on a specific Scripture a day or a week, my prayers are filled with more vision and more faith. “Oh, Lord…please turn Elliott’s heart to TRULY honor his sister above himself.”
Since we’ve entered the “3s,” whining has been one of our biggest battles. I will admit, when I am SO worn out from the constant whining, I usually just look at Elliott with pleading eyes and beg, “You’re killing me. You’ve GOT to stop whining!!” Hmm, as you can imagine, not the most effective or mature parenting technique :). So I was SUPER excited when we hit the verse that tells us we are never to be lacking in zeal. Finally, I had biblical language to tackle this whining monster. I did lots of role plays with him and we acted out what it looks like to be lacking in zeal and what it looks like to keep our spiritual fervor, serving the Lord. Oh, my, did it help, thanks to the grace of God!!! The monster FOR SURE still rears its ugly head daily, but Elliott’s taken a lot of ground.
So, my mama friends–I wanted to share the Scripture verse cards that I made in case you’d like to use them! (Why reinvent the wheel?!) We worked on one verse a week, and usually by the end of the day or at least by day 2, Elliott had each one memorized. Selah (at almost 2) runs around singing, “Walk in His ways!!” which I LOVE. Yes, my dear, that’s exactly right…let’s be devoted to walking in His ways.
Click on the picture below to download all 6 verse cards!
Verse Cards
Want to do this with your kids but not a “natural” teacher?
YOU CAN DO THIS!!! I promise!!! Here are 6 simple tips for you:
1. Read the Word and allow the Lord to STIR YOU!
If you are excited, they will be excited, too. If you know me, you know this comes awfully naturally to me–you KNOW that if something has changed my life, I will tell you about it so it can change yours, too!! 🙂 More often than not, I have taught my kids a new verse just because I was reading the Word and was so stirred I couldn’t help but share it with them. Even if we don’t do an entire “lesson” on the verse and memorize it, I trust that it’s being deposited in their hearts. When this happens, I call them over and say, “Kids! Come listen to this!!!! Listen to what God promises us!!!” So, this may go without saying, but when God has stirred YOUR heart with His Word, that is the first step for your childrens’ hearts to be stirred as well. When they see YOU moved by His word, it shows them practically what a changed heart really looks like.
2. Call your kids over to come sit down and learn the Word of God!
If you have carpet squares or one piece of paper for each child or a chair for each child or SOMETHING the kids can sit on so they know their job is to sit and listen, that is VERY helpful.
3. Songs, Visuals, examples and role-plays are helpful!
I always try to have my bible with me so they can really SEE that everything I’m teaching them comes straight from the Word of God. (I remember getting to college and re-reading the bible with new eyes, and being SHOCKED at how much Scripture I knew from songs, liturgy, etc, that I hadn’t realized was SCRIPTURE! Isn’t that crazy?! But it held a WEIGHTINESS to it once I found out it was THE LIVING WORD OF GOD versus just some lyrics to a song that a writer scribbled on a piece of paper. It is SO important to me that my kids understand that the things I say and the rules I give them come from GOD, not just my own good ideas.) Even when I have a verse card printed out, I read the verse out of my bible first. Then, I show them the verse card and talk through each word/phrase with them, pointing out how the pictures show the meaning of the words. We then hang it up where they can see it.
Our six verses, all in a row.
My kids are YOUNG (almost 2 and 3) so I need to use lots of visual and acting to help them understand the meaning of each verse. Obviously, the older your kids are, the less visuals and acting you will need, but these things are still VERY useful for teaching ALL kids how to really APPLY Scripture to their daily lives.
Here’s an example:
Verse: Love must be sincere. Hate what is evil; cling to what is good.
What I said: Okay, kids, listen to what God says: “Love must be SINCERE.” Can you say “sincere?” Sincere means really, really, really MEANING what you do. So if you ask me to play with the toy I’m playing with and I say, “Fine! Take it!! Hmmph!!!” and throw the toy at you, I did the “right” thing, but I wasn’t loving you like God defines love. My love wasn’t sincere. Now if you ask me to play with a toy I’m playing with, and my heart really DOES want you to have the joy of playing with it, too, then my heart sincerely wants to love you. In that case, I could say, “Oh! You want to play with it, too?! Sure!!” That means my love was sincere, and that means I am walking in God’s ways.
Since my kids are so little, I keep the “lesson” to less than 5 minutes long. I had to break the initial teaching of this verse up into two days since the idea of “sincere love” was complex enough to fill 5 minutes. The next day we talked a lot about what evil is, and what it means to run away from it (lots of funny role plays!!) and what it means to CLING to something that is good.
SING!!!! How much easier is it to remember something when it’s put to music??!! I hope you know about Seeds Family Worship…they are AWESOME. They sing Scriptures! We have listened to “The Good Song” probably hundreds of times: “Blessed are those who fear the Lord, who walk in His ways!” The kids and I often worship together, singing at the top of our lungs, dancing around our living room, sometimes with instruments in hands. I love worshiping the Lord with my kids!!!
4. Teach it on day 1 (and sometimes day 2) and then use the language of the Scripture as often as you can throughout the week (and forever!).
I only had the kids “sit” for a “lesson” on the days that I initially introduced the verse and its meaning, which took 1-2 days. Then, the “teaching” of it was much more “organic” throughout the week in that I would point out how that Scripture occurred throughout our day. Anytime the kids do something according to the Scripture I am sure to point it out to them. “Oh, Elliott! The way you just shared that toy with Selah was truly sincere love! Thank you for loving her so sincerely! That blesses God and it blesses me!! How does your heart feel when you see how blessed Selah is?! Isn’t it awesome to walk in God’s ways??!!”
Or, if they were having a hard time, I would use the same biblical language with them. The MOST often used one this Summer has been: “Oh, buddy…are you devoted to Selah in love right now? Are you making sure that you are honoring her above yourself?”
It’s SO HELPFUL for them to see how the Word is in all things and before all things…they need to understand how Scripture is RELEVANT to their daily lives and actions, and they need to SEE how to apply it. Like I said earlier, this will take a lifetime, so we’d best start early!! 🙂
We would say our verses together every time we were driving or sometimes when we were sitting and playing and we would always tell Daddy when he got home from work what our verse of the week was. This is actually Elliott’s favorite verse and I catch him ALL the time saying, “Hate what is evil, cling to what is good.” YES!!
5. Always, in everything, teach them about Christ
There is no sense in teaching any of these things without also teaching the Gospel. Our children must understand that it is only by the grace of God that we can escape sin, thanks to Jesus Christ. We have worked hard on this with Elliott. I’ll never forget one day that I looked at him and said, “Elliott, you are the only one who can choose to obey. You’ve got to do this. You’ve got to choose to obey!” And before I had barely finished talking, he interrupted me and said, “NO!! Jesus and GOD help me obey!!” I remember taking a deep breath, realizing that my frustration had gotten the better of me, and told him, “Buddy, you are right. Let’s pray together. We BOTH need the Lord’s help to obey Him.”
6. PRAY, never-ceasingly
The moment I knew I had to start training, teaching, and disciplining Elliott (long before he was 1), I have been faithfully praying for HIS HEART to turn towards obedience to God. The LAST THING IN THE WORLD we want are children who “do what the bible says” but do not really LOVE God. Scripture is so clear: When we love God, we obey His commands. Children are so tricky because we must teach them to obey (“…train your child in the way he should go…”) long before they have a sincere love for God. But I am faithful to pray for their hearts to turn EVERY time I teach, train or discipline. Because it’s not ME that’s going to turn their hearts to love the Lord; it’s the Holy Spirit. So, I would exhort you: Never teach without praying. Always pray as you teach.
Remember the verse from above: For this reason we also, since the day we heard it, do not cease to pray for you, and to ask that you may be filled with the knowledge of His will in all wisdom and spiritual understanding; 10 that you may walk worthy of the Lord, fully pleasing [Him], being fruitful in every good work and increasing in the knowledge of God…
KEEP ON KEEPING ON, MAMAS!!!! May the Lord fill you with STRENGTH!!! And FAITH!!!! May YOU, by the grace of God, never be lacking in zeal but keep your spiritual fervor as you serve your children and in doing so, are serving the Lord!!!!!
We’ve had such a FUN summer. I have been healthy, my kids are MORE FUN THAN EVER and we have just had a BLAST. Some highlights in photos:
We swam.And looked adorable doing it :).We played with friends.We went to the Denver Aquarium.Where Selah petted a tiger.Siblings that paint together, stay together.He doesn’t even mind getting his hands dirty anymore! 🙂We went to a kids’ roller coaster park.Aaaaand, we moved. Because what would we do with ourselves if we didn’t move at least once every year?Elliott was seriously an INCREDIBLE helper…everyday he would beg me to pack up more boxes so he could help.This little darling didn’t miss out on the moving action.And, what good would a move be if it didn’t have a little adventure mixed in? While Brian was driving the moving truck to our new home, the rest of us realized we were locked out. My big brother saved the day, climbed a window, and broke into our new home! (Have no fear: he didn’t really “break” in…the previous renters had left a window open, so he just had to pop out the screen…)This picture does a great job of summing up how exhausted we all were. (This is totally not posed!!) We could never have made it without Brian’s parents help to finish packing up the old house and unpacking in the new house, or without my parents–who fed us for the first two days we moved in to keep us all alive.Brian and I were SO tired, that we took a day to get away and go to Water World (coolest water park EVER!) (Yes, it’s blurry. That’s how tired we were…)Brian asked Elliott if he wanted to help him set up shelves in the garage, and Elliott immediately ran to get his working guy gear so he could help. Such a mini Brian (minus the striped Polo shirt)…I love it.We got a little settled in, and went on a road trip…I’ll just post the pictures of them sleeping because that was pretty much what they did the whole trip. (OR NOT, haha!) But we all survived :).We went to the zoo multiple times.And always fed the giraffes. *Note: it’s apparently a requirement to stick your tongue out like the giraffe while feeding him.We did a LOT of trampoline jumping on our new toy. (Don’t worry: it does have a net!)Our little gymnast is BESIDE herself with joy!Grandma & Grandpa came to visit TWICE!! This was to commemorate one of our Focus on the Family trips. Selah apparently didn’t want to commemorate.We learned a letter a day and did a fun craft to go along with it.Selah learned right along with Elliott!At the beginning of the summer I drew a few shapes to build a car out of construction paper and was a little shocked when the big man did an incredible job of cutting all the shapes out! His cutting skills are pretty awesome at this point, and he loved cutting out each letter for the coresponding craft.“M” is for marshmallows!We BBQed with friends. Our new house came with a BBQ!! I’ve always DREAMED of having a BBQ!!The littles eating BBQWe went to Chic-fil-a. And even met the cow!Grandma & Grandpa got us a baby pool and this Baby Bean did LOTS of lounging out by the pool!!All of Brian’s family came to visit!We played at tons of parks, including this really cool modern one that we found!We rode bikes almost every day.This little girl got SO GOOD at the Stride Bike that I often have to run to catch up to her!!We baked muffins and banana bread and ate outside on the patio.During one of Grandma & Granpa’s visits, everyone went to The North Pole while I was at a bridal shower.This girl DIGS motorcycles. Seriously. Especially motor cycles from The North Pole.We took our kids on their very first hike to celebrate Kari’s birthday! It was so much fun!!!Charlotte, Selah, Quinn, Elliott, and AvaWe had lunch with Daddy at work!One of these things is not like the other one…Aaand, these little ones spent more time than ever with me in the kitchen. Looking at those faces, would you be more than a little nervous to eat what’s in that pie??
Adios, Summer!! You’ve been good to us. Now, bring on the warm boots, cozy sweaters, beautiful leaves and all the colors and smells of FALL….!!!!
Those of you who know me, know that I love to throw a good party. I used to be an avid crafter until, well, life got WAYYYYYY too busy for that. I still have managed to make time to throw my kids’ birthday parties and a shower here and there, but otherwise, my crafty side has remained dormant.
That is, until, everything changed on October 5, 2013.
We threw a little birthday party for our tweet one year old, and though I started out by saying, “I’m going to keep it SIMPLE!” I just got swept up in the adorable theme and couldn’t help myself. My mind was flooded with birds and puns and ideas to bless our daughter, and they all came into existence. We invited just a few close friends and family, and my dear friend Kari was one of the guests. I’ll never forget the moment her eyes had just scanned ALLLLL of the birds around our house, each intricate tail, beak, wing, and body cut by hand and she said to me, “You didn’t cut these all out by hand, did you?”
“Yes, I did!” I said proudly.
“Ummm, haven’t you heard of a Cricut?” she asked me, stunned.
“The insect?”
A slight smile slowly spread across her face as she stared at me in disbelief…”No…..the machine that would have cut all of this out FOR YOU…”
I was TRULY baffled. For years, I have made every one of my decorations by hand…in that one moment, my memory flashed back to Elliott’s ball birthday party where I cut out EVERY SINGLE BALL by hand and his Construction themed birthday party where I cut out EVERY SINGLE CUPCAKE CONSTRUCTION SIGN by hand and then I stared at each bird, each cupcake topper, each number that marked the different years of Selah’s birthday banner and I thought about every minute that it took for me to cut each one out by hand…and I almost cried.
“It does WHAT…?!”
She tried to explain to me the concept of this “electronic cutting machine” but I was so overwhelmed at the idea of it–and all of the hours I had spent that didn’t need to spent if she was, indeed, telling me the truth. It was as if I had been making the trek every day to the river to wash my family’s clothes with rocks in hand and somebody told me there was a MACHINE that would do that all for me. Brian jumped off of the couch and began to research. (One of the many reasons I LOVE this husband of mine!) Within just a few minutes he had found a different version of the Cricut–an electronic cutting machine called a Silhouette. It got far better reviews than the Cricut and for several reasons it seemed like a much better option. We sat there while guests continued to mingle at our house and we watched the promo video for it. I’m sure there was a puddle of drool on the floor beneath me because I couldn’t BELIEVE the things this machine said it could do. Where had it been all my life??!! I was in love.
I spent the next few hours, days, weeks and months convincing Brian that this would be the BEST investment we could POSSIBLY make for our future and our household. 🙂 After a few good nudges come December, I opened up my very special gift on Christmas day.
My three favorite things about this photo: 1. Elliott’s bedhead. 2. The three of us in our Christmas jammies. 3. The CLEAR affection that my daughter already has for crafting!! 😉
There she was…in all of her beauty. She was gorgeous, and terrifying. I knew I had to jump in right away and figure out how to use her quickly before she sat dormant too long.
Brian and I opened the box together, read all the instructions, and watched the video. I designed a simple card and made my first cut.
And sliced right through the cutting mat. (Palm to forehead.)
Good thing it came with two :/. Needless to say, it has been a huge learning curve for me. I have moved from designing a few very simple cards to some fun signs for Elliott’s 3rd birthday to making banners and wedding presents to some meaningful gifts for friends to…my latest projects…home decor.
I stumbled upon a facebook group that is like a Silhouette support group. Everyone who is a part of it is AWESOME–everyone is so kind and helpful and it’s SO MUCH FUN to see people’s creativity and to share a bit of mine. Each month, the group hosts a “challenge” with a theme, and I finally decided to be brave and jump in this month. 🙂
This month’s theme is HOME DECOR. I had just finished this project, and so I figured this would be a fun way to share it!
Several months ago, I came across this scripture while reading the Word one morning. It resonated so deeply with me, because this is SO who Brian and I long for our children to be!
“May our sons flourish in their youth like well-nurtured plants. May our daughters be like graceful pillars, carved to beautify a palace.” Psalm 144:12
YES. I have mentioned it briefly before, but I LONG for my son to not be quenched in his “boyness” but to FLOURISH in his youth. Yes, I want to raise him to be respectful and kind and thoughtful, but all the while being brave and mighty and BOY. Our society has a tendency to want little boys to act and behave like little girls, and then years later when they become a man and husband, their wives are upset because they are passive. I won’t go off on a tangent now 🙂 but this is so our heart’s cry: that our son would FLOURISH in his youth. We have gone to great lengths to nurture our son; his heart is SO sensitive and soft that, like a tender shoot of a young plant, he takes a LOT of nurturing. We have tried so hard, resting on the grace of God, to know his heart and shepherd it, while at the same time encouraging him to be brave and bold. Oh, Lord, may he flourish in his youth!!
And, our sweet Selah. THIS GIRL. I tell you what, she is STRONG–strength like a pillar. I LOVE this description of a girl: a gracefulpillar. YES. We want our daughter to be filled with grace, both in her speech and her actions. And at the same time, we want to teach her to STAND FIRM. To be unwavering and unmoved by the ways of this world, but firm in the knowledge of our God. A graceful pillar. Like the son who flourishes like a well-nurtured plant, we are striving to teach her what it looks like to be such a graceful pillar; she must be shown how to stand firm and not tossed by the waves. Like a pillar carved to beautify a palace, so we are teaching our girl. We are praying for her heart that she would be like the fragrance of Christ and that just by looking at her, people would pause to stop and think about how great our God is! (Selah!)
All that to say, once I stumbled upon this scripture, I knew I wanted it up in the new rental home we were moving into the next month. And once we were here, Brian and I embarked on making this sign together!
First, I spent a bit of time designing it through my Silhouette software. Though I’ve always wanted to be good at graphic design, this isn’t necessarily my strength (yet). So I spent a while, playing with the colors and the fonts and learning about the program. After a while, I settled upon this:
Brian went out and got a wood board from Home Depot and cut it down to the size we wanted: 14″x 36″
I spray painted it white, and decided to use a stronger vinyl for the letters than the regular vinyl I have used for other basic projects since I wanted to make sure it would stick to a painted surface. (During my last project, I couldn’t get the vinyl to stick to the medium I was using and my Silhouette support group came to the rescue and taught me about Oracal 651…an outdoor vinyl that’s much stronger.) I loaded the vinyl into my Silhouette, pushed the little button on my computer and my awesome machine cut out all these letters for me!!
Using painter’s tape, I transferred the letters that I wanted to remain in white to the sign.
See the rolls of TP under the table? This picture represents REAL life around these parts…this is how we roll! (Haha…)
**Mistake #1: I FORGOT to lay down the verse reference, which I wanted in white as well. I didn’t realize I had forgotten this until the END, so it was definitely frustrating to have to go back and fix that. Lesson learned!
Then, Brian spray painted the whole thing turquoise. We let it dry, I peeled off the letters, and then I applied the rest of the scripture that was to remain in black. (It was at this point that I realized I had forgotten to put the reference down two steps earlier, so we ended up having to tape off the corner, spray the bottom corner white again, put on the letters, spray paint it turquoise, and then remove the lettering. Thus, as you can probably see below, there are lines around the reference which totally bother me, but, honestly, it’s a good reminder that perfection is not required to be a good parent :)).
Using a sandpaper block, I distressed the edges of the sign a little bit.
The finished product!
**Mistake #2: It wasn’t until we got the sign all hung up that I realized the tiny hyphen that should be present between “well” and “nurtured” didn’t survive the transfer. Gah! So…I had to go back and re-cut that little piece and attach it to the sign. I learned so much through this project!
We put the sign up on the wall in our playroom with several of my favorite recent pictures of the kiddos…pictures that show them flourishing and filled with joy.
A glimpse of our playroom!This little cutie woke up from her nap while I was snapping photos. I set her up with a snack, but she decided the subject of my photo should be something far more interesting than a wall in our playroom. So! Here’s my pillar…snacks in mouth and all :).Our flourishing youth & graceful pillar!
I love how it turned out, mistakes and all, and I love the reminder that it serves on the wall of our playroom!!
I hope you enjoyed learning about one of my very first home decor Silhouette projects :).
Now…do you love crafts and home decor as much as I do?? And do you…
Want to Check Out More Silhouette Projects?
My Silhouette Challenge buddies and I are all sharing projects on our blogs today, so peruse the projects below for a wealth of Silhouette inspiration!
I couldn’t let 2013 slip away silently, without writing a little something to REMEMBER who we are as we finish out this past year and begin a new one. If I had written a Christmas letter, this is what it would have said. 🙂
There’s not a day that goes by that Brian and I don’t turn to each other and say, in some fashion, “We are so, so, so blessed…” Now don’t get me wrong…we have had QUITE the year in some aspects, and someone looking at all of our various challenging circumstances might call us anything but “blessed” this past year. But “blessed” is all we can see when we look at what matters eternally. We are so grateful for the goodness of the Lord and how He’s carried us through every trial and lavished us with AMAZING children, faithful parents, loving relatives, and deep, life-changing friendships. How could we possibly be more blessed, even when our circumstances are trying?
SELAH, 15 1/2 months
Our sweet and spunky thrill baby who is extremely passionate about her favorite things. She has a special love for hats, coats, and shoes still, often trying to put a second pair of shoes over the ones she currently has on.
“Help, please, Mama?”
She loves picking up various articles of clothing laying around the house and putting them on her head or around her shoulders like a scarf.
“Look what I found!”“I didn’t think he’d need them while he was on the potty…”
She loves to dance, especially during worship, which means she is a perfect pair for her big brother who has recently started singing ALL the time. He often breaks out in spontaneous song, and she breaks out in spontaneous dance! (Watch this cute video, and ignore the fact that I don’t really know the tune or the words…)
She, like her big brother, is very particular about the way things should be (where on earth do they get that trait from??) and tells me how various parts of our routine should go. After getting her pajamas on for bedtime, she very passionately insists that she wants to read a book and she gets very, very upset when we don’t have time to read one. When I get her up in the morning she points to the chair where I nurse her and asks for milk, then she points to the boppy and says ,”Boop!” Then she points to her blanket which she likes over her during that morning nursing time. She finds every tiny piece of trash and food on the floor and brings it to me. She also LOVES to throw things away, and I think I’ve finally trained her to only throw away diapers and trash, not toys. 🙂
She can’t get enough of the trash can…
She still climbs ON and IN EVERYTHING including our HIGH kitchen table chairs which has caused many near-heart attacks for this Mama :/.
“Just helping you with dinner, Mama!”
She loves to take a “bipe!” of anything that we are eating, and besides yelling out, “bipe!” she opens her mouth INCREDIBLY wide to show us that she means business. If you ask her for a kiss, this is also the same face she makes…so you never know what you’re going to get :).
“Can I have kiss, Selah Bean?”
She is so, so playful. I love seeing how her spunky little mind works. She has several little “games” she plays with me…one is that as soon as I go to get her in the morning, she won’t let me pick her up until I’ve played peek-a-boo through the crib slats at least once with her. She also has this funny little game where she breathes out through her nose several times, waits for me to mimick her, and then she growls. I think it is SO FUNNY.
Sometimes, if I’m in the kitchen and she’s playing in the living room, she’ll call out to me and then do the breathe out/growl thing. As soon as I do it back to her, she’ll go right back to playing :). How awesome is she?? She fills my heart with utmost gratitude, joy, and constant laughter and awe.
ELLIOTT, 2 3/4 years old
I’ve said it before…but this child just brims my soul with delight. He LOVES friends, his sister, the bible, “building a big house” with duplos, wearing his jammies, singing songs, tiny things (ANYTHING that’s “tiny,” he LOVES), his daddy’s old playmobile set, puzzles, being a “working guy,” and animals. He still has a love-hate relationship with animals: he only ever wants to eat off the two plates that we have with animals on it and loves playing with his animal figurines, but refuses to go near an animal that’s alive and breathing. Recently, he’s developed a huge passion for stickers; he will go through an entire book of stickers and stick them in one pile onto another piece of paper.
“Don’t worry, Mom, I think I can fit at least 400 more stickers on this sheet of paper.”
His super power, besides having a phenomenal memory, is noticing incredibly subtle nuances or when anything is new or different. As we moved into the winter season and I began wearing more sweaters and warm things, he noticed every time I put on something he didn’t recognize. “This is new?” Recently he has discovered the word, “Why?” which has certainly given me a run for my money as a mom :). We did have some breakthrough recently…usually every day as Brian leaves for work, Elliott asks which car he’s going to take. When Brian answers, “the truck,” Elliott asks, “Why?” and Brian explains that he wants to leave the Suburban here in case we need to go somewhere. Well, the other day he said as Brian was leaving for work, “You take the truck? You take the truck so we have the ‘burban in case we need to go somewhere?” Elliott memorized his very first bible verse at the beginning of December, and loves talking about bible stories. A few weeks ago, he put a laundry detergent clear plastic cup on his chin like a beard and said, “I am Noah!” We then built our own ark out of duplos and filled it with animals!
“Let’s build an ark!”
He LOVES, and I mean L-O-V-E-S, applesauce. He eats an unbelievable amount of applesauce in a day and we definitely have to cut him off after a while. One morning while I was putting Selah down for a nap, I could hear Elliott opening and closing things in the kitchen and obviously working on something, I came downstairs to THIS face…INCREDIBLY pleased and delighted himself:
He couldn’t WAIT to show me what he had done ALL BY HIMSELF as soon as I got back downstairs…
Turns out he had gotten a bowl and spoon out for himself, opened the fridge, took out the applesauce, poured it into his own bowl, put the applesauce back in the fridge, and enjoyed his special treat that he prepared himself. As you can see, he was SO PLEASED with himself. So then I opened the fridge to look at the brand new applesauce jar that I had JUST opened, and this is how much applesauce was left :).
I keep telling him he’s going to turn into apple sauce if he keeps eating it at this rate!
Elliott has such a tender heart towards the Lord and LOVES to read the bible. He makes sure that we read it every day in this household…talk about accountability!! 🙂 One night a couple months ago, after requesting several stories that didn’t happen to be in the children’s bible we were reading, he finally said, “Read about Jesus, God, take mine sins away….Jesus DIED!” I’m in awe of his faith already at the age of 2…a toddler who does not want band-aids or other soothing methods when he gets an “owie,” but who cries out for Jesus to heal him instead. Pure delight to my soul.
THESE TWO….
BFFs.
Having two siblings who love each other (most of the time, haha!) is simply extraordinary. I think to myself multiple times a day, “What a GIFT to have two children who LOVE, and who are LEARNING to LOVE, each other…” The majority of the time, they play incredibly well together. Elliott is such a phenomenal big brother most all day long, and looks for ways to bless, serve, and help his little sister. When she’s crying in the car (which is most of the time, haha!), he sings, “LA, LA, LA, LA, LA!!!” at the top of his lungs until she starts to sing along, too, and forgets why she was crying. When we pull into our cul-de-sac he says, “Look, Selah! See? See??? We’re almost HOME!!!” When I get Selah in the mornings, as soon as I’m done nursing and changing her she asks for “Dada” and “Elliott!!” She will ask for him until he finally wakes up and then she RUNS into his room screaming because she can’t wait to see him. As soon as I get Elliott up, one of the first things he always asks is, “Was Selah asking for me?” They are truly BFFs. Lately they have been holding hands a lot, and it is the most precious thing ever.
Running around the house, holding hands…
He makes her laugh. I love how much laughter is in our home each day!! (You probably don’t have to watch the ENTIRE video to get the point…) 🙂
They have some sort of sleeping unity that I think is CRAZY. We have video monitors in their rooms, and I’m telling you—SO MANY TIMES they end up sleeping in the exact same position at the exact same time. I’ve probably taken a picture of it a dozen times, but it happens SO OFTEN! Isn’t that crazy?! Has anyone else experienced this??? I took these pictures seconds apart…
Her.Him.
He is also super helpful with her…feeding her when I am getting dinner ready and constantly telling me what she needs.
SO helpful, and she LOVES being fed by big brother!
When Elliott needs to go sit in a time out, she automatically goes and joins him. Kind of defeats the purpose of him being a little bit isolated so he can gather back up his self control, but it’s just so dang cute that I have a REALLY hard time telling her to move…I just love her love and admiration for him so much!
“Ahh, thanks for the sympathy, Selah! I’ll take it.” 🙂
She would be content snuggling and hugging him all day long…unfortunately he doesn’t ALWAYS have the patience for that :).
“I LOVE you, Elliott!!”Though he doesn’t always have the patience for hugs, he is constantly giving out kisses…
US TWO.
I continue to be the most blessed Mama on the planet, constantly in awe of the privilege it is to raise these children and spend every single day with them. I got to help teach a parenting class during the Fall, and it stirred up my faith even more for being a mom! Of course it can be challenging to train up these little ones, but the joy just so far exceeds the challenges. I LOVE my job!!!
Brian just finished one business adventure, and is on to the next. So although we are very much looking forward to ending our year-long transition streak, we are also super excited and expectant for what’s ahead. We are realizing that our entire marriage has been one big transition after another, yet it’s incredible to see how transition has made our marriage that much more stable. Brian and I so often say to each other, “I’m so glad it’s YOU.” We have had our fair share of trials and challenges this past year, but each time we have come out with a much deeper faith, much deeper confidence in the goodness of our God, and much greater love for one another. There are SO many questions we have pressed into in the last year, regarding life and godliness, and each time we examine the Word and come out in agreement over what it says, we praise God for the rare gift of unity that He’s poured out on us. THIS Scripture has been life:
“So be truly glad. There is wonderful joy ahead, even though you have to endure many trials for a little while.These trials will show that your faith is genuine. It is being tested as fire tests and purifies gold—though your faith is far more precious than mere gold. So when your faith remains strong through many trials, it will bring you much praise and glory and honor on the day when Jesus Christ is revealed to the whole world.” 1 Peter 1:6-7
I think I can honestly say that I do not take a single blessing in my life for granted. Each day is a gift. My time with Elliott and Selah is so precious…I will never get these little years back, and although some days seem very LONG, I just don’t want to waste a single minute of each one. Each day with my husband is a gift. I married a man who works incredibly hard at every task that is set in his hands, who serves without question or expectation of reward, who guards his tongue, who selflessly takes care of those around him, who lives with integrity of character despite being misunderstood and mistreated, who holds a high standard of godliness in our home, who cherishes me and lavishes me with praise daily, and presses me to not settle short for less than the fullness of Christ. Never in a billion years could I possibly choose another. When I said on my wedding day, “The Lord has seen to every detail of what I need” I had no way of knowing how deep and profound I would come to understand that statement four and a half years later.
Transition and loss, new days and gain.Adios to Mexico, Hello, Rocky Mountain plain.Trials and joys, sickness and healthAnd a faith that is stronger than the greatest wealthWe thank you for your lessons but bid you farewell, 2013…This entire year you showed us that we are so very blessed indeed.
With great love,
The Mobergs
I had big plans of baking a birthday cake for Jesus with Elliott on Christmas Eve, so we could throw a good ol’ fashioned birthday party on Christmas Day. And…it for sure didn’t happen this year :). Add it to the list of things to look forward to for next year!!
We made a big family breakfast and decided to let the kids open their first gift since we knew we would get home close to bedtime. We got Elliott Mr. Potato Head and Selah got the Mrs.! I THINK he’s only seen one of these once, but he recognized it RIGHT away and exclaimed, “I GOT A SWEET POTATO!!!”
“My SWEET POTATO!!!”“I have no idea what this is, but Elliott is REALLY excited about his and so I’m sure there’s a reason to be excited about mine, too!”
Our church didn’t do a Christmas Eve service so we searched around for a service to bring the kids to so we could sing some carols. We got a little bit dressed up…
Come ON, now!!! How adorable is this little Christmas baby?? (And, of course, the BEAUTIFUL stockings made by my dear friend Courtney!!)Christmas Eve, 2013
…and made the trek all the way down to Centennial to attend a service that was offering camel and donkey rides afterwards :).
She was hesitant at first, but then really enjoyed the ride, I think!The boys, and the cute donkey pony.
Then we all went out to eat at Panera together, which was very fun and unique for Christmas Eve :).
CHRISTMAS DAY!!
We let the kids open stockings before breakfast, and I’m pretty sure those little trinkets from the dollar store are some of their favorite gifts :). After our big breakfast, we dove into the pile of presents.
The Big Man on Campus
The big man got a big basketball hoop! (Can you see that he’s holding one ball in his left hand as he throws another one towards the hoop? That’s my boy :)).Elliott loves his new truck from Uncle Kevin, Aunt Tabitha, Taylor, Hailey & Micah!
The Baby Bean
Selah was nothing short of PURE DELIGHT as she opened up each gift. Though she was MOSTLY passionate about climbing on the presents…
“This whole present thing is an awesome obstacle course!”
But when she finally got to open them, she would SCREAM at the top of her lungs as she opened each present, and then proudly show it off…
“THIS!”
The Daddy of the House
I won’t even bother telling you about all of the thoughtful, nice gifts that I got for Brian, because THIS one was his favorite and the only one he talks about…
Brian’s “big” gift……a new trash can to hold our recycling that fits under our kitchen sink. No, seriously, this was his FAVORITE gift…you should ask him about it sometime!
La Mamacita
Apparently Santa picked up my several (hundred) (not-so) subtle hints about what I wanted…
…the two best gifts anyone could ask for AND…a Silhouette Cameo 🙂 🙂 🙂 :).
My other really fun gift was from Elliott, who apparently has been quite bothered by my “broken” slippers (they have had a hole in the toe for months)…he told Brian they should get me new slippers for Christmas!
When we started talking about opening gifts that morning, Brian said to Elliott, “Big Man! Should Mommy open the gift from you first?” And he instantly responded, “Yeah! They’re SLIPPERS!!” Hahaha!!!Merry Christmas morning!!
We celebrated with my family the next day, and it was truly a memorable meal that involved smoke alarms and a ridiculous amount of smoke :). NOT my mom’s fault…definitely the oven’s fault, but wow–it was quite the ordeal. Doug and Melanie saved the day by keeping all the kids happily locked in my parents’ bathroom and playing very entertaining games to keep them laughing hard and distracted from all the craziness. Brian stood on top of a ladder and disabled the smoke alarm that wouldn’t quite ringing, and somehow, in the midst of it all, my mom STILL managed to produce the most phenomenal Christmas dinner. There’s just nothing like your mama’s cooking, is there?! It was excellent.
Here’s part of the Mauss clan! )Minus the Smith family, who wasn’t able to make it out to CO this year.)I’m not afraid to say it: My nieces are the most beautiful nieces on the planet! (Including my niece Courtney who’s not pictured!!)
Haven’t had enough yet? Well, here you go:
Sporting her brother’s shades…A little snow play…Merry Christmas to all!!!
WHAT a FUN, FUN, FUN Christmas season this was!! Elliott was finally old enough to justify putting in some effort towards the Christmas countdown and the kids and I just had a blast. I kept it ULTRA simple and it was all fun with no stress. Next year I’ll try and solidify my activities more in advance so that I’m not making a trip to Michael’s every week for supplies :). If you have a toddler, these activities were pretty good for him. I decided to post what we did (successes and failures!) because I found others’ lists so helpful as I planned!! My biggest advice if you’re planning on doing this next year: 1. Make sure you have a Michael’s nearby! They had a few really fun, cheap crafts that were all cut out and ready to put together. I strolled through at the beginning of the month and added those crafts to the list! 2. FOR SURE take it day-by-day. I had my list of activities in an excel sheet and often printed out the cards weeks at a time, but I never placed them in the envelopes until the night before…sometimes the morning of depending on what I was up for! One thing we did post-Christmas was inspired by my super talented friend Elizabeth who made red and white peppermint play dough for us! I set the kids up with the yummy-smelling dough and some Christmas cookie cutters and they BOTH loved it! Such a fun idea!! Next year, when the kids are older, I’m excited to do more “giving/serving” things and also go on some more adventures…like to The North Pole which happens to be in Colorado Springs!! 🙂
Here’s our envelope tree! Elliott got to open one envelope every day, but always wanted me to pull the card out after the very first one he pulled out got a little wrinkled :). I would hand him the envelope, he would lift up the flap and then hand it back to me saying, “You open it, please? Don’t wrinkle it!”
The Christmas Countdown!! (Or should I say…”Count UP”??The anticipation builds as he says, “What does it say?? READ it!”I LOVE surprises 🙂 and seeing his face light up with joy after I read each day’s surprise to him was MY FAVORITE PART…
Besides our fun Christmas activities, we made it a point to read the bible as a family together every night. Brian reads to Elliott from the “big” bible every day, usually while I’m making breakfast for everyone, but for the month of December we read through the Old Testament of the Jesus Story Book Bible (which is AWESOME if you don’t have it!) and tried hard to make it a family event each night after dinner. This bible is so cool because every single story points out how God orchestrates everything to lead us to Jesus. It writes about how God rescues His people time and time again, and then explains that soon He would send an even greater One who be The Rescuer. It’s just awesome. Then, of course, on Christmas Eve and Christmas Day we read about how He came!! I printed the Advent reading schedule from the internet, colored it, and we simply put a star next to the Day once we had read the story.
And the time was sweet. Usually at some point throughout the day, Elliott would be in the midst of doing something and suddenly shout out, “Mommy! READ THE BIBLE!!!” at the top of his lungs. And I would remind him that we were waiting for Daddy to get home. After dinner we would all sit on the couch. Selah insisted on having her water bottle with her each time and she would climb up onto my lap as Brian would start to read. Then, she would push her way into Brian’s lap and point to the picture on the current page and say with passion and enthusiasm, “THIS!!”
“THIS!”
After a few minutes of pointing as Brian read, she would climb back into my lap and wrestle and play.
During wrestle-mode
Elliott has been in the “WHY” stage so he spent most of the bible stories asking “WHY” about everything. “Why he have a beard?” “Why he in a whale?” “Why he sitting against a tree??” 🙂
I also got to teach Kids Church this month so it was super fun to lead Elliott and his little 2-3 year-old buddies into an understanding of Christmas. He even learned the month’s memory verse, Luke 2:10-11, several weeks ago! I had never worked on it with him; I had just been teaching it to the whole group of kids (mostly targeting the older kids) on Sundays. So I was shocked one day as I was listening to him play and he started saying, “Don’t be afraid! Because I bring you GOOD NEWS…” He normally runs around the living room in circles saying it, but below is the best recording I have.
Click on the “CC” button at the bottom of the YouTube video to turn the close captioning on…it’s a little difficult for the common ear to understand his pronunciation sometimes :).
This Christmas season just felt so FULL (in the BEST sense of the word)…full of Jesus, full of hope, full of sharing in the wonder of the miracle of his birth, and–of course–full of FUN. Elliott is super familiar with all of the people who played a role in the Christmas story. He picks out shepherds every where we go, saying, “Shepherd! He has his staff! So he can guard his sheep!”
Here is our Christmas Countdown!
Day 1: Decorate the house and tree as a family!
Our little nativity set from Grandma & Grandpa was one of the first items we took out of the Christmas bins……it provided HOURS upon HOURS of entertainment this month. Plus, it was a super handy prop while teaching kids church! I would HIGHLY recommend this 🙂
Day 2: Decorate your own little Christmas tree with Selah!
I had seen this idea on Pinterest and was planning on buying the materials to make it, when lo and behold Michaels was selling the entire kit all cut-out and ready to go. For 50% off, of course! Yes, please.
My little elves at workAlthough the felt pieces don’t stay on SUPER well, Elliott still had fun with it throughout the month. Selah definitely enjoyed it from time-to-time, too.
Day 3: New Christmas movie: Charlie Brown Christmas
I’m not kidding you…this is often how they watch shows!! Melts this mama’s heart.
Day 4: It’s snowing out! Make snow crafts!
When we woke up to snow, I knew we had to do something snow-related.
My beauty, staring out the window at everything covered in WHITE…
This snowman was super fun because I literally came up with the idea on the spot when I saw the snow and we had all the supplies in our house. I just drew the main body with glue and Elliott pretty much did the rest. (I cut out the hat and scarf and did the mouth…) We used salt for the snow at the bottom since that’s what we had!
Building his snowman…SNOW cute, huh?! 🙂He really liked this craft 🙂
Day 5: Counting with Christmas trees
Super fun idea from Pinterest! And super easy to put together with supplies I already had in the house.
I had to help him count “the ornaments” for some of the trees, but he overall did a pretty good job on his own!
Day 6: Bubble bath “snow”
Selah’s first bubble bath, and–I think–Elliott’s second! Why don’t I think to do bubble baths more often?? Elliott helped me make the “snow” and jumped right in to play, but Selah was pretty confused and disgusted at the white fluffies over-taking her normal, beloved bath water.
Elliott helps make “the snow” while Selah won’t move from this position…“WHAT on EARTH? My hands are FILTHY with this ‘snow’! I thought baths were supposed to make me CLEAN!”
Elliott saves the day by showing her how harmless and fun this “snow” really is…And she finally relaxed a little and started to have some snowball fun!
Day 7: Family Breakfast! Snowman pancakes
So. Much. Fun.
Elliott’s snowman (oops…forgot the hands and hat!)I don’t think he noticed 🙂There we go…my snowman had all its parts!Brian wasn’t a big fan of putting all of that candy, fruit, and bacon on his pancake so I made him a melted snowman :).
Day 8: Go out to dinner as a family, look at Christmas lights, come home and drink apple cider!
This was kind of a disaster :). We should have just picked a few houses to look at in our neighborhood, but instead we drove about 25 minutes away to hit several houses that were listed as some of the best Christmas lights in the city. Well, Selah’s not the biggest fan of long car rides :/ and so she was crying long before we even arrived at the first house. AAAAND….it was a bit of a LONG night. Note for next year: stay local :).
We took a picture of this house so we could decorate ours like this next year. 🙂We came home, put that poor, screaming Baby Bean to bed and got Elliott all pumped up for his first taste of real apple cider. We stared at him as he took his first sip, HUGE smiles spread across our faces from ear to ear, and held our breaths…When he came up for air after his first drink, this was the face we saw.
You would think he LOVED it, right? Well, soon to find out, I think he was just trying to play along with the excitement on our faces. Because after his first sip he laughed with us and when we asked him if he liked it he said, “yes,” but when we asked if he wanted to take another sip he said, “No, thank you…” and gently pushed it away. HAHA! This is the kid who could scale a mountain for a sip of apple juice. Oh well. We tried :).
Day 9: Since it’s still too cold to play in the snow, let’s make our own!
Did I mention it wasn’t just snowy that first week of December, it hovered around ZERO DEGREES the entire week. It was C-O-L-D.
Start out with some baking soda……add a little shaving cream…And you’ve got yourself some SNOW!And a one year old who still isn’t impressed with this whole “snow” theme…And a two year old who was in Heaven 🙂He may have had a little help with this snowman 🙂
Day 10: Build a nativity set!
Michaels saves the day again. Elliott pretty much couldn’t do anything to put this together other than punch out the foam pieces, but he LOVED the activity. He also LOVED taking it completely apart the next day :/. And, for some reason (?) the many, MANY little separate mini pieces have provided hours upon hours of entertainment for him…he just sticks them all together and then unsticks them and then REPEATS… Hey, more power to him.
Punching out the GAZILLION tiny pieces….He put all the completed put-together people and animals in their places…And here we have our very own little “homemade” nativity set.
Day 11: Wear Christmas jammies all day, make Christmas cards and mail them out!
This was a good idea that went very, very badly. Note to self for next year: wear smocks over Christmas jammies. Or wear Christmas jammies on movie day (which, now that I think about it, makes WAY more sense…) Elliott got a TINY amount of paint on his Christmas jammies and it was ALL OVER from there. Melt down city. Fortunately, once the jammies had been washed, he recovered and we were able to finish the Christmas cards :). And just look at how cute they are in those jammies!
Oh my goodness…is he MY kid, OR WHAT?!! HAHAHA!!!!Got the thumbprint lights idea from Pinterest and then we added our own captions :).
The green “lights” were Selah’s thumb…obviously completely guided by me. I also ended up guiding Elliott’s thumb, too…I think if he had had a better day 🙂 he may have been able to do it himself, but he definitely needed help. Probably a better craft for 3 and ups.
Day 12: Make a Christmas decoration for the house with Selah!
An adapted Pinterest idea
Day 13: Family Movie night with popcorn (Veggie Tales Christmas)
This was one of those days that I was grateful Elliott can’t read yet :). At the last minute we decided to have some friends over for dinner so it ended up needing to be a FRIENDS movie night. When I pulled out the card I carefully said, “Well, tonight you get to watch a new movie with your FRIENDS!” Haha…
Day 14: Go out to breakfast as a family
Because at the very last minute we decided to ditch the idea I had planned of going to a Winter Fest…so we came up with this super creative idea very quickly…haha :).
Day 15: New Christmas book, hot cocoa & carols
Day 16: Work a brand new HUGE nativity puzzle!
If you don’t know already, this kid LOVES puzzles. We haven’t gotten him a new puzzle in a very long time and he can practically work all of his with his eyes closed. So I searched around and FINALLY found this one…which is AWESOME! It was the perfect level of challenge for him.
And it was huge, which was really fun. He’d never done a floor puzzle before.Selah really, REALLY wanted to help but her “help” was frustrating the puzzle master at work. So I tried to distract her with her own while he finished up…Almost done!!Tah-dah!!
Day 17: Make special treats for our friends!
He helped me make Mint Brickle!
Day 18: Make presents for our friends (and Daddy…shhh) and deliver everything to our friends!
I really wanted to do something along the lines of giving, and this was a good start. Due to a variety of circumstances, he only actually got to DELIVER the treats and little presents to one family (because the rest ended up coming over!), but it was still really fun!!
I got this idea from Pinterest, but adapted it by using bells (instead of wooden beads) for the heads and figuring out how to use the pipe cleaner to hold it all together so I wouldn’t have to use glue. (Because who wants GLUE on their Hershey’s kiss??”Then we put them in baggies and stuck this little message on there to go along with the verse they were all learning during kids church…I got this picture-puzzle idea from Pinterest. Though he couldn’t really help place the strips of the picture on because that needed to be exact, he could paint the modge podge on himself!Fun, huh? And we kept it a secret from Daddy until Christmas Day!
Day 19: Peppermint Day!
Oh man, this was so much fun that I’m thinking about doing a Peppermint WEEK next year…Maybe I could do themed weeks like “Snow Week,” “Peppermint Week,” etc…and do things each day that correlate. We all dressed in red and white, ate candy canes and Elliott did two candy cane crafts. Favorite quote from the day: As Elliott took his first bite of candy cane, he said, “I like it! It’s cold!” I said, “The candy cane is cold??” He responded, “Yeah–see?” as he breathed out super heavily. “See???” And he breathed out again. I realized he was trying to articulate that cool, pepperminty feeling that you get when you eat mint! Haha…I love it :).
After several failed attempts to get all three of us in our candy cane clothes in a pic, this one will have to do :). You can see how cute the kids are and I am wearing a white shirt and a red vest :).This was SO simple and SUCH an age-appropriate, GOOD craft for Elliott. I simply cut out a white candy cane shape. We talked through how to mark every other stripe red, and then he colored in the stripes with red dots in them.He then dipped cotton balls and red pom poms in glue and had to place them on the red and white striped parts!Here he is, showing off his completed candy cane artwork while singing, “Angels, We Have Heard On High.” And Selah is posing near him because she just assumes that’s what she’s supposed to do when I have the camera out :).He also did the classic “pony beads on pipe cleaner candy cane ornament.” They were out of red and white beads at the store, so I had to go with a multi-pack, but as we started the craft I realized it was better this way–it provided one more element of challenge. This was another super age-appropriate craft for him as he had to think about patterns, and he was able to do the whole thing entirely by himself.What a cutie with a cool candy cane!
Day 20: Wrap your own “presents” while Mommy wraps presents!
Another GREAT idea (I thought) from Pinterest that went horrible :). Wrap up a sheet pan from the dollar store, stick magnets on bows, and there you have your very own “presents.” The blog post I got it from talked about how this provided hours of entertainment for the kids. “Perfect!” I thought. Well…not in this household :). Elliott kept snatching Selah’s bows from her so she couldn’t decorate hers and even after correcting him several times he just couldn’t keep his hands off her present. After multiple rounds of tears, correction, discipline, second chances…I just put the “presents” away and decided to wrap mine at nap time. Oh well…it’s the thought that counts, right? Haha. 🙂
I took this picture MUCH later on…not on the day that it didn’t go so well :).
Day 21: Go to a Christmas party!
Day 22: Zoo lights!!
We met up with our friends the Sundbys and although it was FREEZING and Selah was not a happy camper unless she was walking BY HERSELF :/, it was really fun to go.I think Elliott somewhat liked it, but his favorite part was…DEFINITELY the REAL elephant that we got to see.
He kept asking the whole time where all of the animals were, and so I told him they must have been sleeping. Almost every day since then he has asked me if the giraffes are awake yet :). When we got in the car afterwards, I asked him if he had had fun. He answered, “Tiny bit.” 🙂 So maybe we’ll skip this next year when he’s not free anymore…
Day 23: Make nativity puppets
This was just like the nativity set from Michaels, but puppets instead. Again, all he could (mostly) do was punch out the foam pieces, but he just LOVED this craft, and had so much fun playing with the puppets.
Well, because I think I’ve already far surpassed writing the world’s longest blog, Christmas Eve and Christmas Day details are in another blog post :). Click on the link to read all about it!
There are few things more fun in life than celebrating the life of your children. Yes, I DO celebrate them every day of their lives…but once a year, a super special date rolls around, and I get to go a little above-and-beyond. My baby girl only turns one once!!!
A few good friends flapped on over to join us, and Brian’s parents even flew over for the festivities! What a joyous day!!
“It’s TWEET to be ONE!”
Let’s get this party started!“TWEETS”
Selah Beans, Ruffled (Feathers) with Bird Droppings, Boiled Bird Eggs (read: Deviled Eggs fail!), Bird Beaks, Bird Seeds, Fruit From a Big Green Egg, Bird Nests, and a Bird Bath
My, oh my, how the first year flew by! Put the Selah Birdies in order from month 1- month 12!Selah’s Birthday BannerThe Birthday Girl!!!!
Everyone ate the “bird food” and the big kiddos got to do a craft.
Here’s Miss Ava, showing off the awesome bird she created! (You can’t see it too well, but she is feeding the bird a gummy worm!) 🙂
Time for CUPCAKES!!
My friend Tish did all the cupcake baking for me! They were AMAZING!!!!
We couldn’t wait to see how Selah would react to her very first taste of sugar! I think this is my favorite part of the 1 year old birthday parties :).
As everyone sang, she didn’t even noticed the flaming pink and chocolate yumminess that I was holding for her. She just stared at everyone…studying everything! Maybe we were off key??Elliott helped her blow out the candle.…and then she carefully inspected the foreign object in front of her.“What on earth is this squishy sponge-like substance?”“Okay, now it’s on my hands…eww.” (In other news…Like father, like daughter; like mother, like son…look at each of our faces, haha!!)So when she wouldn’t take a bite, Brian finally gave her a taste……aaaannddd she wasn’t super impressed :).“What did I do to deserve THIS? Is this a rite of passage for turning one?”“Mama, can we have a little talk about this cupcake thing? Privately…in another room, please?”“Maybe if I offer it to someone else with a cute smile on my face, they’ll fall for it…hee…hee…”“I’m full now, Mama…may I please be excused from eating this pink and brown sponge?”
PRESENT TIME!
Selah was lavished by our friends and familyElliott was a VERY good helper and VERY willing to help Selah open all of her presents. Such a servant :).Selah has a slight obsession with hats and shoes. Since we live in Colorado, I thought it only appropriate to get her a cowboy hat and boots. We couldn’t WAIT for her to open it up! Here she is trying it on for the first time.Our friends the Sundbys got Selah this AWESOME giraffe chair, without even knowing that her favorite passtime is throwing herself without caution onto floors, couches, pillows, beds, etc. This giraffe chair has provided HOURS of entertainment as she lounges, rolls, somersaults, climbs and throws herself on top of it!
Some of our FAVORITE PEEPS:
So grateful that Selah gets to walk alongside of Miss Ariel as she grows up. What a beautiful, tender-spirited, kind, already-godly 9-year-old role model!Family photographer 🙂 and dear, dear friend… Auntie SuzSweet Charlotte teaching Selah how the doll she gave her works.Playing peek-a-boo with Kari and AvaThere she is!“Your turn!”Finally getting to meet Sara and Emmy!The guests who traveled the farthest to celebrate our Selah Bean…Grandma and Granpda!!Us.The favors
We celebrated a couple weeks later with my family down in the Springs. Her super special birthday gift was this beautiful, hand-made blanket by my mom.
What a gift to be treasured!!
October 8, 2013: HER ACTUAL BIRTHDAY!
The night before Selah’s birthday, I was on my way home, thinking about the day that Selah came, and I just began to cry…how had one year FLOWN by already…It was Brian’s birthday, and I vividly remembered every detail of where I was, how I was feeling at that VERY MOMENT one year ago…resting in such faith, knowing that The Great Shepherd was writing her story. There were so many unknowns. And oh, how faithful He was, and how faithful He has been…to guard, protect, and guide her life. It’s a crazy concept to grasp, but nothing could be truer: God loves her more than I do. Whew.
So, eyes wet with tears, I came home to such a fun sight: Brian and his dad putting together the play kitchen that his parents got for Selah. We were so excited for her to wake up to it on her birthday!!
Brian and I turned in for the night and began to relive those very moments in time, one year ago. And as I blubbered through my mess of “He was just so faithful to us!!” Brian burst out, “Let’s go sneak into her room and write her an email!!”
I love it. If you don’t know already, both our kids have email addresses (and they’re waiting to hear from YOU!). We write to them regularly, often attaching pictures off of our phone from the day’s events. So we snuck into her room around 10 at night with our little lap top in hand…It was PITCH BLACK and HILARIOUS as we fumbled about, trying to be quiet but without ANY source of light. We finally got the computer on and began to type to her as we listened to her breathe. It was perfect. And a million times more fun than the labor I was in one year earlier at that very moment :).
And many hours later, our baby girl awoke…as a ONE YEAR OLD!!!!
And both the kids got right to work!!Thrilled to be one, thrilled to be in Daddy’s arms…This shirt is SUPER special because, besides the fact that it is adorable, it is a hand-me-down from Kari’s girls, Ava and Charlotte…who wore this shirt for each of their 1st birthdays, too!We celebrated by doing the thing that Selah loves most–going to the park and going up and down the slide OVER AND OVER AND OVER again…She just loves to be thrilled!!!After the park we got out her other special present from us–a stroller! With a super sweet baby doll from Auntie Melisa!She walked with it for a minute or two, until……she realized it was the perfect object TO CLIMB…“I think I’m starting to get the hang of this stroller thing…do you think the doll minds that I’m stepping on her face?”“Okay, this is AWESOME! NOW I see why you got me this toy!”And, finally, we tried round 2 of the whole “cupcake” thing. She was much less cautious this time around…And even looked like she ENJOYED it :).Happiest 1st birthday, Baby Bean…what a JOY to celebrate you!!!!
Every day she grows more independent. Every day we see more of her personality budding. Every day she gets closer and closer to become ONE YEAR OLD.
But she’s never been as close as THIS. How is it that my next blog post of her will be her TWELVE MONTH blog post?!! In some languages, “12 months” is translated to “one year.” Could it really be????!!!
Well, hello, month 12. Nice to meet you. Let me introduce you to the baby girl who is now entering your sphere.
This baby buns tells you HOW it is.
The fruit of the status of “little sister” is loud and clear. If Elliott takes a toy out of her hand, she clenches her fists and makes this face. If we tell her something is off limits, she clenches her fists and makes this face. I am so thankful I got it on camera 🙂 because I just think it is the most precious “I’m upset” face that I have ever seen. I have said this before about her, but I LOVE when she tells me what’s on her mind, even if she’s upset about something. I’m glad she’s learning how to communicate!
“But that’s not what I WANTED!!!”
Her “chewer” status remains current and up-to-date.
“Hmm, could I get my mouth on this?”“This is a start…but I bet I could get more in mouth if I just turned it a little….”“There we go…that’s better!”
And if she’s not chewing on it, she’s wearing it.
She LOVES hats!“I don’t think Elliott will mind if I borrow this for a little while…”
Conquerer.
She is the most determined baby I have ever known…she will face ANY obstacle…she LOVES to climb, and she will not back down.
She is SO into the Bumbo this month because it’s a new obstacle to climb. She climbs in and out of it, and pushes it against things so that she has a step up to climb. I found her on the couch the other day because she had used the Bumbo as a step to get up there!She climbs up onto this train……and rides it all day long…
Her Favorites
Her favorite inside places to be are on the couch and beneath tables…especially if Elliott is in either of those two spots. When she finishes dinner before him, she immediately crawls to his chair and laughs and giggles at him while he finishes eating.
“Hey, Elliott…throw me some scraps, will you?”And then they cuddle.
“Get me OUT of here!”
She must have my sense of adventure because she still has a total obsession with the back door, the front door, and the door to the garage. Anything that lets her OUT makes her very, very happy.
“Selah, if you would just learn to walk, Mommy would let you outside to play more often!”
Butterflies
We ventured to the Butterfly Pavilion so Selah and Elliott could get an up-close look at the beautiful creatures. Elliott HATED the butterflies (“No like butterflies, Mommy!”) and Selah slept through most of our experience. But, she eventually woke up and a butterfly landed on me as I was holding her! Brian got a picture for Selah’s good friend Olivia who loves butterflies! She just moved to England.
This one’s for YOU, Olivia!! I hope you’re more excited about the butterfly than Selah was in this moment…haha! P.S. I know it doesn’t LOOK like a butterfly, but I promise it is!! 🙂La familia
“Up-pa!”
She does THIS all the time…therefore melting my heart ALL DAY LONG. She crawls up to us, stares up with those huge blue eyes, bats those mile-long lashes and says…
“Up-pa!”
Bet that makes you want to come pick her up yourself, doesn’t it? Well we had three special visitors this month who thought the same…
Grandma & Grandpa!THRILLED!
“Now, Grandpa, I really think that I-90 is going to be your best bet for the drive home.”And one week later, “Aunt Anage” came to visit!!
Standing Firm
She has been standing for a few seconds at a time for a couple of months, but this month she gained total control. She can stand as long as she wants to.
There she was, just a walkin’ down the street!
“Look, Mom! One hand!”Singin’ “Do-Wah-Diddy, Diddy-Dum, Diddy-Do!”
Our Delightful Bean
Some other fun milestones from the month are that she grew two more teeth for a total of eight, she started DANCING by moving her arms from side to side out in front of her any time she hears music or someone is singing, and she learned how to go down the stairs feet first!
And she remains the sweetest……silliest……most beautiful……baby girl in the existence of all the earth :).
