Friday, May 6, 2011

cinco de mayo

I had hoped that today I would be posting about my fabulous Mexican feast from yesterday. However, it didn't quite live up to expectation. I attempted to make homemade tortillas, and it was a pretty big fail. Sarah liked them (God bless my wonderfully non-picky child), but they made a horrific mess, frustrated the daylight out of me, and generally just weren't very good. I think buying tortillas is a perfectly reasonable option. I liked last year's Cinco de Mayo (at a restaurant, with live music) MUCH better.

On a different note, since I "told" on Natalie's bad behavior, I'll be fair and tell the good stuff too.  Every day, school begins with prayer, Bible, and a book to help children learn parts of the Westminster shorter catechism.  Big Truths for Little Kids: Teaching Your Children to Live for God Natalie is present during all this, and apparently a little bit of it is "sticking."  She frequently tells us, "God cares me!" or "God cares you!"  And last night while she was in the tub Nelson overheard, "Pray Mommy, pray Daddy, pray God, amen."  So there is a silver lining--and a pretty big one at that.  :)

(Again, the link is an affiliate link).

Wednesday, May 4, 2011

someone is two...

...very, VERY two! Miss Natalie is turning into an outright mess.

Tonight she dumped water out of the bathtub. When Nelson firmly told her that water was supposed to stay in the tub, she adorably exclaimed, "I sorry!" "No, you're not," Nelson retorted. "I know!" Natalie answered cheerfully.

"For Pete's sake," Nelson muttered to himself as he cleaned the mess she had made. "Pete's sake!" Natalie echoed.

Yesterday was the real kicker, though. She had dumped Sarah's math flash cards all over the living room floor. I told her to clean them up. She said no. I told her she could clean them up, or sit in time-out. She said, "Make me."

I'll admit to being a bit taken aback (where'd she learn that one, anyway?), but that didn't keep from responding. I swatted her diapered bottom and put her in the play pen. She wailed in outrage. But after she was down to the last few sobs, I asked if she was ready to clean up the cards. "Yes," she replied.

The funny thing is, even though "Make me" is a horribly disrespectful thing to say, she sounded so unbelievably cute saying it! I didn't let her know that of course, but she did. I think my mother is right, and God makes kids cute so you don't kill them.

Tuesday, May 3, 2011

Easter and birthdays

I promised myself I wouldn't post this first story until I had the pictures to go with it. But here I am, doing it anyway. Oops. (I do have good news for a certain SIL of mine--our church is doing photo directories, and guess who's being dragged off to do a family portrait? Guess who's not really looking forward to this? I may call in dead. But that's another post.)

Anyway, we DID take pictures of the girls in their Easter dresses. Natalie wouldn't do a picture without me in it. Since I haven't quite figured out how to photo-shop myself out of the pictures, I guess I'll show up too when I get them on here. No, that isn't why they aren't up yet...at least not consciously. :-p

We went to my parents' house for supper on Easter Sunday. As we were leaving, I tried to get Natalie to say, "Bye! Happy Easter!" With all the enthusiasm in the world, she exclaimed, "Bye, Easter!" She did this several times. Even in the car going home, as we talked with Nelson's mom, Natalie kept happily proclaiming, "Bye, Easter!"

Fast forward to this morning. It is Nelson's birthday. I told the girls to tell him happy birthday. Natalie immediately and cheerfully came out with "Happy Easter!" NOW she gets it right! On the wrong occasion!

I'll try to get the pictures on here soon. Until then, bye Easter and happy birthday and all that. :)