My Closing Argument for Three-Year-Olds

Let's be honest. (Almost)three-year-olds can be scary. And there are days; oh yes, there are days when Andy comes home from work and I ask him how on earth an actual alien from the netherworld invaded our child. Like who, what, where, when and why did I get spanked twice today? You read that right. And who on earth hired the tiny trash police to tell me that throwing her deflated balloon away is "RIDICULOUS." Well, it sounded more like, "Mommy, you few my boon in da twash! Dat is widikuwus!" So at least there's that.

But then there are days when the breeze blows right....on...in... and there she is, pure human sunshine. And I wholeheartedly believe that everything is going to be juuuuust fine. That she will be more of everything good in this world than both of her parents combined.

She will turn her face toward the sun while sitting in her car seat and announce, "Mmm look at that GOOD, WARM sunshine!"

She will ask to see a picture of God on my phone. She will ask to see a picture of cavities after that.

She will pull a tampon from behind her back and ask, "Mommy, what is DIS for?!"

Her single, solitary prayer before bed one night will be, "Dear God, thank you for the sunset."

She will almost eat a dandelion while trying to blow on it. She will finish the feat by telling me she "wished for Mommy to give Daddy a kiss."

When I ask her to please get me a bowl from the kitchen, she responds with, "That's one bowl coming right up!"

She will keep us confounded by being a perfect puzzle of wariness and wild. She will want to ride the roller coaster. She will hide from the vacuum.

She is shy, but in a fit of courage while eating at a restaurant, she will tell the waiter, "Quiero quesadilla!"

From the corner of my eye I will see her whispering in her baby sister's ear, "I wuv you." Slobber, slobber.

And when that sweet three-year-old breeze blows in, I will wonder how on earth I got so lucky to be her mom and what on earth invaded my body to make me think anything other than THESE DAY, filled with all their sin and grace, ARE THE VERY BEST DAYS OF MY LIFE. 

The Little Ankles that Could

 Let it be noted here that yesterday, right in the heart of Easter, Miss Brite Wren took her first steps, three to be exact.  SHE IS WALKING...and now twice over, my heart is on the move.  

Easter!

While Easter weekend can be a bit hectic, it is definitely one of my favorites. We brunched, egg-hunted, spent time with family, and watched the girls open their Easter baskets with easter-grass-awestruck wonder.  Honestly, if pink sparkly grass was the only thing we put in them, we would have knocked it out of the park.  So ALL the other goodies were just icing. ;) And in true parenting fashion, we brought plenty of conversations with Marin back to "We celebrate Easter because...", hoping that the death and resurrection of a Savior would wiggle it's truth into her heart in some small or big way. And in true kid fashion, she helped us recalibrate our own hearts to a really BEAUTIFUL truth put into very simple terms.  We are so very grateful for a God who would send His child, especially as our knowledge of that type of love grows.  He is RISEN and because that tomb was empty, our hearts have a chance to be FULL of hope and real life.  What an amazing thing. HAPPY EASTER, FRIENDS! 

Easter Egg Hunt

We may have picked the coldest day of Spring to have our neighborhood Easter egg hunt, but how else would we weed out the real egg hunters from the rest? ;) Good thing we brought a contender (see below). I sure do love that delightfully intense egg gatherer.  Sometimes I wish I could see those little thoughts, probably thinking something very important on the matter of candy-filled eggs. And just for documenting sake: this moment was sandwiched somewhere between giving one of her beloved pink eggs to a friend who didn't have one and the moment where she exclaimed that the Easter egg hunt was the "BEST PAWT OF HER DAYYYYYY!" Needless to say, it was 20 glorious minutes of egg hunting goodness.  Happy Easter week, friends! 

Easter Basket Gift Guide

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Happy Friday! I've had such a fun time picking out a few things here and there for the girls' Easter baskets this year, so I thought I'd share a few ideas I've come across.  Books are one of our favorite gifts to get them and That's Not Funny, Bunny is such a sweet story about how true friends love you for who you are. I think Marin is going to really enjoy it. We are also putting this book and this book in their baskets. And those surprise carrots! I actually have no clue what's inside them, and I think they're party favors, but they were just too close to their kin, the highly acclaimed (at least in our house) YouTube surprise eggs. ;)
Easter festivities start this weekend with the girls' first Easter egg hunt, and I'm sure it's going to be a blast to watch!  Hope everyone has a great weekend!

Marin, Marin, how does your garden grow?

With silver bells and cockleshells and Papa helping you put your seeds in a row. ;)

Atlanta was beautiful this weekend, sunny and perfectly warm, and we spent as much of it outside as we could.  Saturday morning, my dad came over to help Marin build and plant her first garden.  He did this with me and my brothers when we were kids, so I thought it would be fun for her to share in the sweet memories.  My dad is a pillar of patience and took so much joy in teaching and helping her, oh and also brought a delivery of pink donuts before we got started! She LOVED every tilling, worm-catching, planting, (and eating donuts) part of making this garden. Here's to hoping for something, ANYTHING, to pop up from the soil in a couple months, especially since a certain someone used her body to mix the soil after the seeds were planted. hehe ;) 

Happy Monday, friends! I'm off to make breakfast and smooch little groggy faces! xo

Friday and I'm (P)in Love

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Happy Friday! Are these warm weekends breathing a little extra life into anyone else? We are especially looking forward to this one because I just got the Getting ready to board plane. Can't wait to see my girls text from Andy. Dad is headed home! Woohoo!  Miss that guy when he is gone. ;) 

We have tons of exciting things to look forward to in the next couple months, including both girls' birthdays. Sigh. Lately, whenever Marin gets asked how old she is, she proudly says, "I am almost FWEE and Britey is almost ONE!" Then my heart breaks a little. BUT when my heart is done melting to mommy mush, I start getting excited for birthday parties for these little ones. And with birthday parties, comes pinning and with pinning comes pinning of things totally unrelated to what you set out to pin originally.  Following me?  So, today I thought I'd share some of my favorite Spring-party-hosting-Summer-wardrobe inspired pins. ;)  Hope everyone has a great weekend!

Our Disney Trip

We are home from our Disney trip and already starting talk about another visit. Funny how the mind quickly forgets the chaos of traveling with kids. ;) We made it to, and through, the airport pretty easily and even had time to sit at the gate and watch the girls spot airplanes. And lucky for us, only one child had an entire drink spill on her and only one parent was covered in a strawberry banana yogurt pouch by the time we sat down on the plane, so we will call this a win. Plus, Brite seemed to really love her oversized jersey shirt from an airport kiosk anyway. ;) The flight was super fast and we were landing within an hour. 

We took the Disney shuttle to our hotel. Our section of the hotel was decorated in The Lion King theme which Marin LOVED, calling out all the characters when we walked by, "Hi, Mafiki!"  She raced down the hotel hallway, stepping on all the lion paw prints on the carpet and just all-around already thinking DISNEY IS AMAZING!

That night, a friend of ours who works for Disney met us at Hollywood Studios for the Frozen sing-a-long. And how cute was it when Marin busted out the dramatics for Let it Go? Arms flailing, singing-at-the-top-of-her-lungs cuteness! Andy and I were even able to snag a quick ride on the Rock-N-Roll roller coaster while there, a really terrifying and exhilarating mini date that filled up our date cup for weeks to come. SO fun.
The next day we ate a quick breakfast in the room so we could get to the Magic Kingdom for our allotted time to meet Repunzel. Andy has been to Disney before but for the rest of us, everything was so new and really GRAND, like bigger and more magical than I expected. That walk down Main Street to Cinderella's castle! Really amazing. 

We spent the day meeting princesses and riding a few rides. Marin can be a bit shy in unfamiliar situations, (even if they make her happy) so she acted pretty reserved when she met the princesses but got increasingly more comfortable the more we visited.
Belle was the last princess we met and I feel a bit silly saying this but she was such a beautiful person. When she noticed Marin looking down at the ground, she crouched down (in her big beautiful gown), scooted really close to Marin and whispered something about Marin's pretty, sparkly shoes and about being a big sister. And there it was, a beaming grin from our girl (who even looked up to take the picture)! I think I cried. I might be tearing up right now. ;) 
We stayed for the parade, one of my favorite parts of the day, and we were headed back to the hotel by early evening. Marin was having the time of her life, BUT I couldn't help but think she seemed a bit off. I even asked her a few times through out the day if she was feeling okay. We decided to spend the rest of the evening at the hotel.

At 6:00 am on Sunday we discovered the reason for Marin's "off" spirit the day before, a stomach bug struck. Poor girl was puking all day but was the sweetest sick person and after every throw up, seemed reinvigorated and ready for fun. Andy and I were hopeful that whatever was ailing her tummy would subside by the evening so we could take her back to the park. By 4:30 we decided to chance it since she seemed content. We spent the evening at the park and our little warrior even wanted to ride rides! Enter stunned face {here}. She giggled all the way through the race cars and sat enthralled with the Buzz Light Year ride. We stayed at the park for just a couple hours then headed back for early bedtime, not our dream day BUT only one of us got the stomach bug so we will continue to look for the magic here mmm k?

 

We made it home, safe and happy, even though big girl is STILL fighting this virus. Blah.
Despite a little sickness and craziness, our hearts are full from this magical time. May Beauty and her barf remain a distant memory. ;)