Look! No Hands!

My daughter is such the little athlete! I love it! She has done Somersaults forever now but tonight she started doing with them with no hands! I guess all her busyness and "Spiritedness" has contributed to some cool coordination. Take a look!

America's Best Dance Crew with Spirit

My girl LOVES to dance. R loves this show America's Best Dance Crew. B decided to follow some moves and I decided to capture them on video. This is right before bed, after not having a nap btw. No energy here...

Sorry its so dark, my digital camera doesn't do the greatest videoing. And I have tried editing my video's so they are right side up. I'm not sure if its Blogger or what. Hope you enjoy anyway!

Some Spirited Outfits

B has loved to dress herself for almost a year now. She changes clothes over and over and over. There have been days when she literally changes them 10 times a day. Now, I know there are parents that put a stop to their toddler taking their clothes off and such but I gotta tell ya, my daughter finds so many things to entertain herself, some of which are dangerous, that when she heads to her dresser drawers, I couldn't care less. We are still working on putting the clothes back that she gets out but she is really coming along in this so that works. I thought I would share a picture from today and some past pics to let you share in her funny habit. It cracks us up most of the time. Mind you, these are all outfits she has pulled together on her own and we will be in the next room, knowing she is playing in her room and she comes parading in. Very Fun.

This was today. I have been telling her when we put tights on that she needs my help because they are hard to put on. She insists she can do it herself but I don't let her mess with it. This is how she came downstairs this morning. Apparently she can do it herself. Once again.

This was a few weeks ago. She wanted to try some layering I guess.

Notice how she accessorized with markers.

Love that hair!

This was where I found her about 4 months ago. Notice the nice outfit and collection of clothes she pulled out. Oh, and her hair she did herself.

Cool Cat with Court's Shades

Ok, so she didn't dress herself in this one but a fun outfit none the less. Halloween 06.

Beginning stages of the self-dressing.

And before she put clothes on all the time, she took them off all the time. This was the first time she put something back on and was dancing around in the bathroom on vacation. Holy cow she's cute! Look at that baby belly! :-)

Finally, Skiing!

Well its only taken me a week. Here is my adorable girl skiing for the first time! She had a blast but called it skating the entire time. We absolutely could not convince her to call it skiing. I wish I had that kind of resolve for things in my life sometimes! This was a fun "first." Of course, now my daughter has gone skiing as much as her mommy! Hmm, that's kind of sad... Well, enjoy!

Posing. Well at least it looks like it.


Daddy helped her get all ready with her cool red boots


Slippery Beginnings


Standing like a pro with her Daddy



This is her falling on purpose. She started doing it over and over and liked it!


She was bothered with the snow on her skis, she kept trying to get it off.

Braids

We are having a great Sunday today. We are just resting now. I'm considering doing some eBaying but I'm suppossed to be on strike. I sure do wish eBay would get some competition from some Google auctions or something like that but for now I guess we are addicted, umm I mean stuck. So anyway, trying to get caught up on some picture/computer items and hope my next entry will hold the skiing videos and pics. I thought I would share B's Braids. We did these for the first time today. I had to convince her that her favorite person in the world, Courtney, liked to put her hair like this--so wouldn't it be fun to do this morning? She agreed and then wanted to put the bows in (that she's holding) as well. :-)

Just a funny side note from today. Apparently she is having some gender confusion. She has told me a few times today that Daddy is her girl. Also, earlier when she was changing into some jammies for her nap she told us to "Please get out girls!" meaning her Dad and I. And when we left she promptly slammed the door behind us. I'm sure glad we got some practice parenting with all those teen girls this past year!

Enjoy the braids!

How Could I Forget???

I forgot to add a little story from our busy Sunday. I forgot because I was busy with getting ready leading worship and then leading worship when the incident happened. R was hanging out with B Sun morning at church before service due to myself rehearsing with the band. At about 7 or 8 till I went looking for them to make sure they didn't need anything before B had to go to class. I couldn't find either of them anywhere but figured they had run out to the car or something. I commented to our guitar player that I couldn't find them but I hoped they were in the same place.

About 7 or 8 min after worship began, R walked into the room. I remember thinking, shew, he has the communion meditation in two more songs, good thing he is here. Come to find out, he had taken B to use the potty in the nursery and for some crazy reason that door locks from the outside!!! He and B were locked in there for about 15 min and noone could hear them. They were pounding on the doors and walls till finally someone saved them. I suppose we would have gone looking if he hadn't shown up to do the meditation.

We had the best time tonight at a dinner party with people from church. I haven't laughed that hard in forever. WE LOVE OUR CHURCH! But anyway, they were teasing R about it while we were there and I decided to get that in the blog. Got skiing pics and videos downloaded finally but they are on the other computer so I'll get those in. Soon, very soon.

Merry Christmas!

B sat at the table tonight while I was making dinner. She was busy with nothing in particular and saying to herself, "Ho Ho Ho, Merry Christmas!" over and over. Finally I asked the silly girl why she was saying that. She stated, "Because I'm in the Kitchen." Well of course, what was I thinking?

I know I still need to post some skiing videos. I will, I will. Soon.

A Busy Sunday for "I'm not a Monster"

So its actually Monday and we had a huge day today with a Youth Group Ski trip but no time to write about that tonight because I want to include some fun videos and pics. But I had to share about our ultra busy day yesterday...



We had church of course and I led Worship due to our Music Minister's mom passing away which was very sad. We had been sick all week so we were just dragging anyway to get moving and get over to church an hour early. (Never mind we usually get there about 10 min late). For some crazy reason our girl decided to be up around 5AM and was all chatty about various subjects, just asking about Dora and where her pants were and that sort of thing. So maybe dragging isn't the word for me. I was only by the grace of God and my newly found Boston Stoker Coffee, able to open my eyes enough to get to church and look semi-normal. All in all, Church went very well and we headed to pick up a van for the ski trip today before home for her nap and then to small group.



So we get to the van rental place and she immediately announces she needs to go potty which is just her way of being nosy and checking out new places. R took her and of course she didn't go. Then she started playing with the blinds and managed to pull the entire blind off the window and it came crashing down and scraped her nose. Of course she started crying and we got the blind back up and could not wait to get out of there. It was finally our turn at the desk and we got B busy with a pencil and some paper on the chairs. A gentleman in his mid 50's walked in and said hi to B and kept telling us how cute she was and that she should do commercials, etc. He was going on and on and chatting it up with her. She told him she was hungry and he said, "Me too!" "Let's go get some steak and Lobster!" She said, "NO, NO!" He replied, "Well you said you were hungry!" To which B replied, "NO, I'M NOT A MONSTER." And then we laughed. Because that's what we just have to do with this little Spirit. Nope you're not a monster little girl. You are funny though. And we love you more than you can ever know.

Happy V-Day!

Happy Valentine's Day! We don't do too much to celebrate around here but I did get some cute things from my girl and my husband. And, the best gift of all, my girl, who has had a cold all week, is currently taking a nap which she skipped yesterday due to her coughing. Thank goodness. Of course I have the same cold so I'm sitting here sniffling away. I think the worst is over though for me. Hopefully for B too. But I thought I'd take a moment to post my little Valentine girl. Although I think these pics make her look about 4 years old so that's no fun!

Hope all is well in your world! Keep the comments coming! I look forward to seeing who has sent one!

This weekend

Wow. We had a big Saturday! B got to see both sets of grandparents, her cousins, and some family friends. And not all in that order. She was good in spite of all the chaos though she fell asleep on the way home and took a 5:30-7:30 nap. So it was fun times trying to get her to go to bed. I thought I would share some pictures of her and a video of her with her baby cousins. They are 10 months old and just the cutest little things--second to my girl of course. So here was our adventure in pictures....



Cousin #1





Cousin #2 --Yes, they are twins. :-)



The three together. Umm, it may take a few
years to get a good pic of the three of them...




And let them eat cake!

I think that's Shakesphere or something...
This was at the shower we went to for a former
Teacher of mine who is adopting two children from Columbia!
This is her buddy C... Notice how B is about to eat her cake with such flair
while C nicely takes bites.




Aww, they are friends!





And this is my girl acting like, well, my girl! Poor Baby.
I made B apologize afterward...

I guess the positive is She knows what she wants and goes after it! Or something like that. :-)

Thanks for reading our blog!

I love this girl!

I love to share pics of my girl so I thought since I'm a little behind in the game, I would post some of my favorites overall... Not enough space for all I would love to post though...

Top 10 ways to know your life is filled with Spirit!

I decided to do a top 10 list about how to know that you have a "Spirited Baby/Toddler". Those of you who have one will identify right away, those of you who don't well, you'll just shake your head a little and maybe breathe a little sigh of relief.

10) The nurses in the hospital keep making little comments about her "attitude" and "set of lungs".

9) Even after asking that your baby be kept in the nursery for several hours your second night at the hospital because you are starting to get a feel for what your life will be when you get home with this little strong willed creature and are desperate to get some sleep before you go it alone (with your husband in my case), the nurse, who has probably heard more newborn crying than any mom in the world, comes in, and insists that your wailing, screaming, insistent baby needs you right now, that there is absolutely nothing they can do for her in the nursery.

8) You write long, run-on sentences like the one above about your infant's first days because in reality, it was all a complete, run-on blur.

7) You feel eternally grateful to Tracy Hogg, the Baby Whisperer*, for helping you understand you are not doing EVERYTHING wrong, you just have a "Spirited" baby.

6) You feel mad and upset at Tracy Hogg, the Baby Whisper*, because she has so eloquently articulated what the spirited baby and toddler are like and now you are scared to death!

5) After much hard work and persistance on your part, you start to get things evened out with your baby and get her sleeping and such. This makes you feel accomplished as a parent and like you may just have this "Spirit" under control. And then, everything changes...ie: you get her on a great routine and she's sleeping well, etc. and then for whatever reason she does a complete 180.

4) You dread vacations and other fun happenings in life because you know it will create chaos in your life for an extended period of time due to your child's distinct distaste for any change in the routine. (Mind you I say routine not schedule--its a big laugh to think you can have a spirited kid on set schedule but by the skin of your teeth you can get the same rotation of events going in their life to make things a little calmer).

3) As your baby becomes a Toddler you realize what the terrible two's are but that really they hit around 14 or 15 months and then build up as they approach Two and then just keep going! At this point you become eternally grateful for the Baby Signing Time Videos that your parents bought for her first birthday because at least communication is easier with this little one through signs.

2) Your toddler insists that she can do just about everything by herself and to your amazement she really can. Including helping open the door with the child safety knob on it for another mom at MOPS who couldn't get herself and her child out the door. I kid you not, the mom was getting all frustrated trying to turn that little plastic thing with the button on it, B stepped up and said, "I do it!" and quickly proceded to turn the knob with absolutely no effort. Of course she had been practicing at the group home (where we lived) where we tried to contain her in the 7500 sqft of space with these safety knobs. They stopped our teenage girls from being able to open the door but my then 20 month old daughter could turn the knob and open super heavy fire doors with no problem.

1) You find yourself at the end of the day very thankful that she is asleep (whenever this may be) but also very thankful for the fun ride with a crazy little girl. And on most days, you feel privileged that God thought enough of your parenting skills (which he gave me) to raise this extraordinary child!


**I read Tracy Hogg's The Baby Whisperer which is just an amazing book that helps you understand your baby and helps with routines and such. She is kind of a middle road between attachment parenting and the baby wise movement. This saved my sanity with a newborn!

A little about us...

For those of you who may stumble on my blog and don't really know us, here is a little background. My husband and I have been married for 10 years this past month. We met at Kentucky Christian College, now Kentucky Christian University on bus trips because we both played sports. We would play cards together and the rest is history. We had our first baby in June of 2005. And she truly is the inspiration for this blog. Our lives were fairly boring until she came along it seems. Plus I stink at doing her baby book and scrapbooking but am always on this computer so why not blog?

We got married and moved to Indiana where my husband had already been serving at a great little church. We moved onto a church in Ohio where he served for two years as a Children's Minister. Then in 2000 we moved back to Indiana to serve as the Student Minister for Nashville Christian Church for seven years. We LOVED and do still love this church. It is a great place to serve whether you are paid staff or not. Its not perfect but it sure is a good snapshot of what God's picture of his earthly church should be. We are so thankful to have been blessed by serving there and dearly miss the people--Not the odd little tourist town in October, but definately the people. :-)

We took a job at a girl's group home for about 9 months after leaving Nashville. Woah, that was an experience. Due to many factors we began looking for a job after about 6 months there and happened to find a posting for Southwest Church on the Christian Standard website. It was an older posting but after looking at their website and finding out that the church was almost right in the middle of both our sets of families we decided to try emailing anyway. Through a series of what could not have been coincidental events, proving that God had guided us here to serve further in Student Ministry, here we are! We absolutely love this church and the people. The area is wonderful and we are hoping to stay put for a long, long time.

Which brings me back to the blog. I am an at home mom now thanks to the church providing us with Medical Insurance. So I spend my time with a wiggly, adorable, spirited little curly headed girl who is harder work than any job I have gotten a cash paycheck for. I have thought about blogging forever and am very excited to do so. I hope this blog will serve as a fun place for our family and friends to check up on us and for other families who have "Spirited" kids to have a fun place to read stories about other families and leave comments of their own so that we can all be in this together!

And it begins...

My very best friend in the world has been telling me I should blog about my little Spirited toddler and our lives together forever. So here it is friend!

How should I begin...I am the wife of a Youth Minister at a church we love and the mom to the most beautiful little 2 1/2 year old blonde curly headed girl around. And with all that blonde curly hair comes a strong will like no other! I believe the current "politically correct" way to say it is "Spirited". So while she keeps me hopping, she also keeps me cracking up. Take this week for example. On Tuesday she got into my brand new mascara in the 2 minutes that I ran downstairs to put some laundry in. She had been previously engrossed in Clifford on PBS so I assured myself it was safe, even though deep down I knew better. I came back to mascara in her hair, down her cheek, on her hands, and yes, even on her eyelashes. My mascara had been located in the medicine cabinet but she is a little monkey and had climbed up on the sink and gotten to it. I was starting to feel a little bad about what she was locating and getting into trouble with for the day since only a couple hours earlier she had sprayed her Dad's cologne into her eye and sat around all morning, (haha, she never sits around, what am I saying???--ran around) with a red watering eye. We made it safely through the rest of the day until about 7PM when my husband had to go to a meeting. I decided to call the internet company to confirm our high speed and get it registered so I could finally get online. Within about 30 seconds of being on hold, B came down holding her hands under her mouth which was DRIPPING WITH BLOOD!!! Apparently her medicine cabinet fascination had continued and she tried to shave with one of her Dad's razors. She took a chunk out of her lip. I gotta tell you, it is not an easy task to get your 2 year old, especially a busy, busy one like B to sit still so you can put pressure on her lip. It took about an hour and 8 dora bandaids to get it clotted.

Shew, the day was finally over but of course it took about an hour or more for her to fall asleep because she has trouble these days (more on that later) and because her poor lip was all busted up.

This evening she was playing on the bed with her Dad and I and she got too rough and started kicking him and was all bothered because he was on the blanket she wanted. R told her that she needed to stop and that he didn't want to play with her anymore if she was going to act like that. She paused, looked him straight in the eye, and said very strongly, "Traitor." At which point we both burst out laughing. She explained something from her Veggie Tale Movie about "Moe" and "Traitor." Evidently she knew exactly what she was saying. Oh my, who knows what the days ahead hold with her! It sure is a fun journey, most of the time. Right now as I type this she is screaming in her room because she doesn't want to go to bed. I'll be sure to blog about our bedtime issues soon. Not that most of you who are reading this won't know that already! :-)