Hello Heaven...

Jesus Is Born, By Paprika (age 5)

Paprika (age 5) is very interested in Jesus, and wants to know all about Him. She has a little Children's Bible that my dad and Nana Nancy gave to her, and she reads it and loves looking at the pictures.

One day, I came down to the computer, and she was drawing all these pictures in Microsoft Paint...all on her own, no help from me even turning on the computer!

The picture above she saved at a super low resolution, but I still think you can tell what it is. It's a nativity scene- but Paprika didn't call it that. She calls it: Jesus Is Born.

This next picture is called: Mary Holding Jesus



Here is: Jesus In Heaven, When He Is Still An Angel



And: Jesus In the Cradle



This one is called: Vivian and Annemarie



And her final picture she drew that evening? This one is inspired by The Lion King movie.

It is called Princess of Africa:



Kinda makes me want to sing, The Circle of Life!

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7 Months!

Baby Violet is now 7 months old. For my own records (and so she can read this when she is all grown up), this is what she is doing now:

Violet can roll over, and can go from laying down to sitting up all on her own. She is trying so hard to crawl. She can push her self up onto her knees and rock, but she doesn't get very far!

She can say mama and dada. She loves being held, and is very partial to her mama. When she is tired, she doesn't want to be held by anyone else. She loves to be held when she is sleeping, too.

She is a great little nurser. She is starting to eat some baby food, but she's not a huge fan. She likes hummus and that's about it. She likes to teethe on frozen bagels (one of my friends told me that trick)...but she usually just tosses it from the high chair about 30 seconds later.

Her favorite toy is a frozen water bottle. I could not make this up. She also loves shoes - if you place toys on the floor for her to play with, she will instead roll over to the nearest shoe and want to play with the laces. We have a lot of girly shoes in this house, so maybe that's why!



Violet is happiest outdoors. When she's fussy or tired, we'll go for a walk outside and it will soothe her. She has very specific musical taste and if you put on a song she doesn't like, she will let you know (Paprika was the same way! Paprika only liked female vocalists at this age).

Violet can wear anything from size 6 months to size 18 months clothes, depending on the brand. She mostly wears 12-18 months clothes now! She wears a size 3 diaper.

She loves her sisters and lights up whenever they are around. You can tell that all she wants to do is play with her sisters, and be part of their group.

I am guessing she is going to have red hair, like Mr. M. Although, I said the same thing about Ginger and that didn't turn out how I expected it. Haha!

Most of the time, she still sounds like a dolphin when she's "talking" to us. I love hearing her little voice, it makes me smile always.

I can't believe our little Pavenzia is already 7 months old. Doesn't it feel like I just announced I was pregnant with her? She is such a dream baby. I am so thankful every day that she is in our lives. She is everything good and sweet and true...all rolled up into a chubby little chunk-a-lunk. Love this girl so very much. Every day she splits my heart into a million pieces and heals it all at once again.

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End Of An Era!

It's the second to last "Wacky Wednesday" at Paprika's school. All Wacky Wednesday means is that all the afternoon kindergarten kids have to come earlier in the day every Wednesday due to teacher meetings in the afternoon.

Every single week it throws our schedule off and sends us for a little bit of a loop. Today I went in Paprika's room to wake her up for school and she was sleeping so soundly it kinda broke my heart. Then I felt her and she felt hot, so I was worried that maybe she was getting sick (since Ginger and Violet were both sick last week).

I decided to call her in sick to school. I wonder if her school has noticed that Paprika is only sick on Wacky Wednesdays? Coincidence???

Anyway, she woke up half an hour later and was totally fine, and in fact was upset that she missed school. We had a little talk about how maybe if she didn't stay up all night talking to herself about how movies are made (last night's monologue), then maybe she would wake up earlier.

I really can't win on this one. If I wake her up, I worry that I'm going to stunt her growth and she'll end up dwarf-sized, and her dreams of Olympic swimming will be dashed. If I don't wake her up, then she's a truant.

Yet another reason I should homeschool... chalk that up to reason eight billion!

Speaking of swimming, today was her last day of private swim lessons. It really is the end of an era. She's been doing private swim lessons three times/week since February. She has had the best teachers this time, and we were all sad that it's coming to an end.

She made the sweetest card for her teacher, Benji. I got a picture of the two of them right before today's lesson:



Here she is earlier in the season with her teacher, Jeff. He was awesome, too. He was the one who got her to first swim laps.



I can't say how thankful I am to these guys. Paprika has found a sport she loves to do and that's great for her. It's really exciting to see your child succeed at something they love.



But not to despair, we start lessons again in a week and a half. For the summer, I have Paprika and Ginger doing group lessons (4 kids per lesson) for four days/week. With both the big girls in the pool, I'll be able to lay in the grass and relax with baby Violet. I remember all last Summer, all Fall, and all this Spring - for a YEAR now- I have chased Ginger around the pool while Paprika had her lesson, trying to keep Ginger OUT of the pool. My afternoons often looked like this:



Fingers crossed Ginger loves swimming as much as her big sister does. We shall see!

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There She Goes!

Someone said to me the other day that her son "turned a corner" at age 3. All that crazy toddler energy and overwhelming behavior kind of subsided, and basically, he grew up.

I think we are there now with Ginger. Just like that, almost overnight, she has gone from being a toddler to being a kid. When did it happen? Yesterday? Last week? I don't know. But the change is here.

Like many moms, I find the ages between one and three exhausting. Really trying and overwhelming, and at times quite stressful. The terrible twos are called that for a reason! ;-)

But now, sitting at the precipice of three, I am sad those years are behind us. Bittersweet is maybe a better word. I am excited about what is to come, for sure. But this week (especially), I am teary over saying goodbye to Ginger's babyhood.



All of a sudden, she wants to do everything herself. She can get her breakfast in the morning. She can play Starfall on the computer by herself. She can put on her own shoes. She can brush her hair and get dressed. She holds my hand when we're walking (not always, but sometimes). She listens to directions mostly.

I can have real conversations with her. She can clean up her own plate after dinner. She can wait patiently when she needs to. She can play independently. She can run with the big kids.

These are all good things, I know. I just miss all the little stuff, too. Just the other day, she was a teeny baby in my arms and now she's a "big girl" (her words). I am so glad I get to watch her grow up, I just wish it didn't hurt so much!

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That Crazy Old Possum!

I totally forgot to write about what happened last Thursday! Eeek!

First of all, I finally took Violet's "6 Month" pictures...you know, two days before she turned 7 months old. I almost put on the 7 month sticker right after I tore off the 6 month sticker...but I didn't. I am doing these photos about a month apart - so two days before she turns 8 months, she'll get her 7 month pictures done. Haha.



Paprika took this picture of me at school pick-up. Baby Violet was really cute about her little flower headband- she actually kept it on and liked it. Maybe I have another girly-girl here!



After we got home from school, we were playing in the backyard...having fun with Daisy, bouncing on the trampoline while I was supervising. Just hanging out. All of a sudden, Daisy started barking like CRAZY. I looked over at the top of the fence and there was a GINORMOUS possum walking towards Paprika. It probaby weighed 25 or 30 pounds.



I let out a blood-curdling scream. Paprika looked over and saw the possum and started to walk over to pet it. Again, I let out another blood curdling scream. I was like: EVERYONE in the house NOW!!!!

I have a huge phobia of possums (bet you didn't know that)- so I was basically hyperventalating. I ran next door to my neighbor's house and she called Animal Control (way to keep her head clear - unlike me!)

I took all these trampoline pictures right before the possum came along. I actually have a bunch of photos of the possum, too, but I just can't post them. They gross me out- and my blog is my happy place, full of beauty. :-)



So, the girls and I hung out over at my neighbor's house until the coast was clear. The girls thought it was a great adventure (of course) and Paprika still wanted to pet the "cute and cuddly little possum!"

It turns out that the possum had dementia and was diseased, so it's probably good that she didn't pet him. I swear, our little neck of the woods is straight out of Wild Kingdom. Raccoons, skunks, and baby ducks...what's next?! A bear?!



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