Why I love Sundays

There are a myriad of reasons I love Sundays, but here are the two that top the list. I love dressing these two little cuties for Sunday mornings. Their wardrobes rock in comparison to mine and they wear it so well! On this particular Sunday Nick was at the Men's Retreat and we hit up Mickey D's for lunch. The girls got their rockin' happy meal toys, a microphone and an iPod. They didn't put them down all day, they were even in their beds for naptime.

Brooklyn has not yet learned the art of cheesy grins.

AHHHHHHH! The shoes, they're too cute. I can't wait for the teenage years, I can only hope we all wear the same size shoe.

Transparent & Vulnerable

Don't you love it when your spouse makes a suggestion that you can't find a way to back out of? Last week we headed out to get pictures of the kids taken and had planned again to get a shot of Katy, a shot of Brooklyn and a shot of the sisters. Isabella's hair was incredibly awful so when she said she wanted to wear a toque I said sure. I then attempted to negotiate with her on which toque she would wear. She wore her regular winter toque, not the cute one I had picked out to match her shirt. When it came time for the photo she insisted on a prop, hence the flower. It has no meaning or explanation other than the fact that Isabella is Three.



As we walked over to the photo studio I was thinking about Isabella's wardrobe choices. Just as I settled within myself that having a picture of her just as she is would be wonderful, Nick threw me a curveball.



'Honey, do you think we could get a family picture today instead of one of the girls?' (Cue batting eyelashes).



I stammered, I paused, I searched, I begged for a good excuse to say no. I think you could say I've been a leettle overwhelmed as of late with the care of my family and personal hygiene has been shoved back on the shelf a bit. I'm not proud of it and I'm not sure why I feel compelled to even share this detail. I only managed a spit shine shower before heading out for photos, not thinking anything of it, I mean I was not going to be in the picture!.



Yet in good conscience I couldn't deny this request. How could I put my daughter in front of the camera just as she is and not be willing to do the same myself. I may blow up that picture and paste it upon my fridge as motivation to do something about the fugliness, but then again I may be able to draw upon enough grace to realize that nothing in that picture is fake. Not my wardrobe nor my lack of primping, especially not my smile.



We are happy, happy as pigs in slop I suppose.



Hopefully next time that happiness will show up with a matching hair-do and not hiding behind her children. For this part of the journey there is waging a war and I'm a soldier straight out of training camp.

Wholly Moley

This is Kathryn's four month shot. Don't you just want to put that gaze in a frame and look at it all day long? This month she wouldn't pose any which way, all she wanted to do was snuggle her Poppa, so we let her. Kathryn has never liked a soother. I had an out-of-body experience in which I stepped back far enough to see how ridiculous I looked trying to convince her to take one so she could be calmed like every other baby I've ever met. She sucks on her fist. Not her thumb, not a few fingers, her entire fist. It's quite cute, even when she chokes herself. She's going to have a lot of fun with that in college. With those baby blues and stupid human trick the boys are going to have to watch out!

Strong as an Ox.

When I was pregnant with Brooklyn I was gripped with an inexplicable fear that something would go wrong while I was pregnant with her. For a few days I feared losing her, although I had no indication that anything could possibly be going wrong. That completely irrational fear abetted but in it's wake left me with a sense of uneasiness- an uncalmable dread that somehow she would not be 'quite right'.

I don' t know what caused that fear to hang around for so long. There are some days even now that I look into her eyes and tear up that I can still see their sparkle and relish in the moment the unequivocable thankfulness I have for her and that she's a part of my life.

Once I was gripped by that fear I began to pray. I prayed in earnest that Brooklyn would be strong in every aspect. Three hundred and sixty degrees of strong. We've always known that she is physically strong. Lately we've begun to see her strong spirit. It's not all that pretty sometimes. When she stands there with a smirk upon her face stomping her feet and swinging her fists it's almost as though she's laughing at me. I am a pretty stubborn person, but I don't think I have anything on Brooklyn.

I often try to romanticize her strong spirit. I imagine it keeping her from struggles in the arenas of peer pressure and body image. I imagine her doing amazing things with that strength like solving world hunger. I pray that it doesn't lead her down dark paths while she works out her faith. We watched the movie Flicka here a while ago and I can see her being that Wild Mustang, I wonder if there will be anyone who can tame her.

I am amazed at how thoroughly God answered my prayers for her, even the parts I didn't intend to pray. It boggles me how solidly she defends her turf, how stubbornly she sets her course and how fiercely she loves already. At only 18 months old she is amazingly strong, and although my prayer for her has been edited as of late, it's only that she would be able to be weak with one even stronger, and that she would always know there is a soft place to fall because we can't be strong all the time.