FOUR!

Happy Birthday to the Goose!  She is now a whopping FOUR years old! 
Here are some highlights from our marathon birthday celebration...

A New Room!

In preparation for Baby Sister's arrival, the room formerly known as the guest room is now the goose's room.... though she still calls it the guest room.  Daddy worked tirelessly putting together the new dresser AND the big surprise of a baby care center (fully-equipped with a changing table, tub, closet, dresser, mobile, & fake washer/dryer for all your baby doll needs... if only they made one of these for real babies!)... Unfortunately for Wes, the all-in-one baby center required about 1000 tiny parts and hours of assembly... SORRY!  But... she LOVED it... and it even matches her new decor

(which is still a work-in-progress). 

We had the "big room reveal" the morning of her birthday...



barely awake, but very excited!




testing out the new bed...



And I quote... "Watch this Daddy!" (as she pretended to sleep)

The Family Party!

The birthday extravaganza continued with a party just for our famliy... For the first time in her life, the goose was ready to bypass cake, even leaving her ice cream untouched! all to get to the mountain of presents sooner.  She did pause long enough to eat most of one piece of cake before diving in to her gifts...

"A baby carrier!  I wanted this."

The goose had placed a special request (for the last 6 months) with Gamma ...
a little brother for Rebecca (her bitty baby)... and here he is! 

I do believe this was her favorite present... And little brother now has a name too... Jackson



Either you have a huge head...



... or that tiny hat is not for you, silly goose!



No Peeking!



One Last Surpise... A New Bike! 



... with a seat for a baby of course!



The Not-so-Fun Birthday Surprise...

Shots... Four of them...  She really did well at her check-up, much better than I expected actually... though she did NOT want bandaids on her arms (strange, I know), so we had to sit in the room holding kleenx on her arms until the bleeding stopped.  Now just to prove that four shots make a little goose not feel so good... she took a nap, which is unheard of in our house for the last two years...

It was quite sweet and sad...



One last party... with our friends!

The Goose's favorite show is Curious George, so we took all our friends to monkey around

and then to our favorite place... Chick-fil-A! 

Whew!  After all that fun, I am glad we only have birthday's once a year! 

Friends...

Friends... aren’t afraid to admit their flaws...

Friends... chase the poopy pigeons away...

Friends... put on a bonnet in public just for a laugh...

Friends... constantly seek to better themselves....



Spring Flashback... EASTER

Since it has now been over 90 degrees pretty much every day (and even over 100 some days), I think summer is officially here... guess I should hurry up and share our spring memories! Here's a flashback to the cooler days of Easter...


The goose and I made a valient attempt at egg dying... somehow activities such as these always turn out better at Gamma's house... I cracked at least four eggs in the process, but in the end, the goose had 10 mostly brightly-colored eggs to enjoy hiding and rehiding for days. She's quite the hider too... there's still one blue egg out there somewhere (unless the wildlife/local dogs have found it)!

We also attended our friends' annual Easter egg hunt, where the goose (after a mild melt-down of course) had much fun... she found so many eggs that Wes says she's going to need a bigger basket next year! These eggs even had fun prizes and candy inside... double-fun!  Then she topped all that fun off with a delicious cupcake...

Then came Easter Sunday... I made the mistake of thinking that we could get ready for church in time for a quick family photo with the aid of the tripod and self-timer... WRONG!  Well... we did it... but it was a stretch... the goose fell twice in the process... my camera base doesn't work with my old tripod... and so we only got two pictures, neither of which the goose looks very excited about, but... oh well! 

And one last picture to top off our day... this one was none-too-easy to get either... trying getting a three-year-old to be still and and 96 year-old to look up at the same time is a bit more challenging than I expected, but in the end, there was at least one decent great-granny/goose shot....

All-in-all, a fantastic weekend of celebrating our Savior.



Carowinds Fun

Wes and the Goose have a new favorite weekend activity... Carowinds!  They have been every Saturday morning for the last 4 weeks, at least!  I went along the first time to witness the fun, but since I can't ride anything and have been busy for the last 3 Saturdays, the two musketeers have gone on their own... And they have had a blast!  Take a look...

 

Back to my ordinary life

Wow, after a 4 month hiatus, I have finally emerged from the land of paper-writing and speed-reading (which is really not at all speedy) and returned to my ordinary life. Don’t get me wrong, I love seminary and learn so much in my classes, but I do believe I love boring days of ordinary house-wifedom/stay-at-home-momness better. There is just something strangely gratifying about cleaning out closets, organizing everything under-the-sun, getting rid of things you can’t begin to remember why you kept in the first place, cleaning the shower!!!, and yes, even making the bed (a task which is normally reserved for those rare occasions when we have company).

 

Let me be clear, I live under no disillusions that I am a good house-wife or stay-at-home-mom (to which I am sure Wes can attest), but I have learned to truly love the ordinary stuff. I used to feel discouraged by the success of other women, especially those who seem to accomplish so much with houses full of children. Somehow I was certain that I was simply a failure… at everything... at motherhood, wifedom, business endeavors, blogging, friendship, etc. I didn’t feel I excelled at anything, and by trying to do so much, I failed, at least to some degree, at everything. To a certain extent, that is still true, but I have finally learned a few things…

 

• I can’t do everything… I cannot be Pioneer Woman… and though I love/envy her talent, I generally leave her blog feeling guilty and inadequate for all I fail to get done… I cannot do it all, or even half…
• I can’t be a business woman… while I admire those women who manage to raise children, start/run a small business, all the while appearing successful and happy… I am not one of those women. I love my “little-clothing-business-that-could” but it has become the “tiny-clothing-business-that-is-more-like-a-semi-annual-hobby”… 
• I can’t take three classes in one semester… I am remedial… It will take me many years to finish my masters... but I will chip away at it SLOWLY and hope that by the time my children graduate, I will too…

 

Perhaps this seems to be quite a negative view of myself, but I think I just work backwards… I had to realize what I couldn’t do first and then figure out what I can do, should do, love doing, and am called to do… I have finally learned a few things…

 

•  It’s ok to just do a few things… a very few things, and maybe if I just focus on a few, I can do those things quasi-well instead of just barely good-enough.
• It’s ok to take a long time to finish school… making the decision to start was the hard part… I took that step, and I will keep stepping, slowly, sometimes backwards but mostly forwards, and eventually, I will finish… I hope! Perhaps I will even retain more by going slowly, instead of just rushing through and checking things off the degree-requirement-list.
• My first and most important job is to be a mother and a wife… and when I give myself time to actually BE that… I L-O-V-E that job, more than any other. In truth, it is more than a job… it is my calling… right now, I am called to nurture my family… this is the task God has given me, and I am not just labeling it as a “calling” to make myself feel better… I somehow understand more clearly now just how important, huge, and difficult the task is of raising children… not just meeting their physical needs, but teaching and showing them how to be good, loving, Christian people. Even if I fail at everything else, I pray I don’t fail at this.
• I am a child of God… I cannot fail at that, no matter how hard I try… or more aptly how little I try to be a good child… I am still His, even when I fail… and fail… and fail… even when my priorities are all wrong… even when I feel like a failure at everything else, this I still am and will always be… I hope to be a better child… in fact, I plan on that… but I am sure I will still fail, at least occasionally…. And that’s OK.

 

Perhaps a better title for this post and my life would be “And that’s OK”… because it is… Ordinary is OK… actually its better than OK… it’s fantastic. And I am called to live my ordinary life the best way I can. You see, I realize now that God calls some people to extraordinary lives… some are meant to be “successful” and amazing in the world’s eyes… and some are meant to be great at being ordinary… going largely unnoticed by the world, but not without affecting their own small piece of it… I am one of the latter… and that’s OK.

 

Potty Power!

This is not a flashback (more of those to come later)... I just couldn't resist sharing today's hilarity/mayhem. 

Circa 1am our power went out due to the rediculous wind accompanying the equally rediculously strong thunder/lightening storm.  Circa 6am the goose wakes up and heads straight for the potty... two seconds later the tears start when the light won't come on... and because she has to let daddy help her... and because we won't let her flush.  You see, we have well, and no power equals no pump, hence no water to flow in to flush said potty.  This, to an almost-four-year-old is VERY troubling... AND prompts EVEN MORE questions than the standard 100/hour.  We did our best to explain why the lights won't work and why we can't flush the potty, then proceeded to bribe her into ceasing with the 50 questions game by letting her carry around the battery-operated Snow White night light, which is clearly better than a flashlight any day.  Well, Wes had to take the dog out, and I couldn't take the questions on the very few hours of poor sleep I had, so, being the stellar mother that I am, I sent her out with him, the dog, and, of course, the Snow White light... (Enter 4 minutes of peace... ahh!) Upon her arrival back in the house, the goose, who is now no longer scared of our lack of power, proudly informs me...

"Mommy, there are a lots of leaves and sticks in the yard... I think that's why we don't have any potty power."

Yes, Goose, I think that's it.  And the moral of this story... never underestimate the importance of potty power!