The Ravines revisited

We made a trip to Palatka as one of our Spring Break soirees, to visit the Ravine Gardens. Diaper issues weren't on the radar this time, thank goodness, so a good time was had by all.

Mer was our official tour guide, considering she lived in P-town through her high school years and she made sure to point out the old high school and tell stories about the "good ole days."
The flowers were beautiful. I think we hit it at the right time this year.
Check this out. The only way he would take a picture next to her was if she was kneeling down below him, was not touching him and allowed him to have a hold of her neck. Can you see "I'm a stinker" written all over his face?
Capturing some Mer/Grandson love. No, that's not staged or anything.
I thought this was interesting. The following two pictures were taken within feet of each other. This one was in the sun, showing the hard shadows.
And this one was two steps back in the shade. Huge difference, I think.
Sometimes I think it would be fun to be a fly on the wall (or in this case, a tree) when I'm out with my kids. For some reason, I felt extremely compelled to explain what the word "suspended" meant to Katherine, as we were walking across the suspended bridge. She was the least bit interested, but I still chased her down, explaining the whole time and even trying to give her examples, of what "suspended" meant as I held her up with my arms, weak stomach muscles and all. One day she'll get old enough to tell me she really doesn't care. Until then, I'm coming after you sister.

Mer's 31st anniversary of her 29th birthday / NC Family visiting

In this house, we're all about looking for some excuse to make some type of sweets, and thankfully, since the good Lord decided to turn down my control-freakedness a notch or two, I'm a lot more comfortable with letting kiddos be more involved in the kitchen. It's rather cute and gives them a chance to practice and apply all those good skills like following directions, math, fine motor skills, blah blah blah. Mostly it's cute.
So, I put Little Lady in charge of decorating the cupcakes. She was good at it. I'm pretty sure most of the icing was applied to the cupcake for consumption by someone other than herself.
She thought I had lost it when I told her she could put the sprinkles on all by herself. (We've had those sprinkles for what seems like forever and I was ready to finish them off.)
And I apparently put the right gal in charge of that. She's rather meticulous for a 4-year-old, but can have a heavy hand.
And for any grains that might be left, she's got a plan for those too.
So a couple of days later when we decided to have the "formal" birthday party, we celebrated on the 4th of July.
The big birthday finale was sitting on the front porch, chatting, watching the fireworks being set off around our area and listening to Nathan exclaim, "Boom, boom!" every time one went off.
We had an extra special treat this year because we got to celebrate with my mom's brother and his family. I haven't seen them in two years. It's amazing how much kids/teenagers change in two years. Nathan was in utero last time they were here, Katherine was used to being the only child and the girls were starting college and high school. They are a kid-friendly family, which is so very helpful, and are good people. Even though it's not that often, I'm glad we get to see them.

Girl's Night Out

"These economic times" have really opened up a new and exciting time of getting creative when it comes to finding fun and inexpensive things to do, and this just happens to be a perfect time of the year to take advantage of many of them. Our latest outing was special in so many ways...

We went to a free ballet here in town. It was put on by a local Christian ballet school that's been around for over 25 years. Katherine was excited about wearing her new super-twirl dress and seeing big girls in "beau-tee-ful" dresses, dancing. She was also very excited that Mer and Bamah came along. And the icing on the cake was our best buddies Miss A and AC coming along also.

Are these two cute or what?

What made this trip so extra special (for me at least) was knowing that our little girl has both of her grandmothers living close that can do special things like this. Not many little girls can say that. It was a girl's night out and with her being a card-carrying, registered-and-paid-the-fees girly-girl, it was very exciting for her. What more could a girl want? Twirl dress, mommy, both grandmas, best buddy, dinner at her favorite restaurant and refined, up-scale entertainment.

Little Miss Shy decided to poke her head out of the shell a little bit that night also. After the show was over, she thought it would be the perfect time for her to perform. Up on the stage, she practiced twirling and jumping all with hands in the air.I enjoy having a girl so much. My girly-girl side was put on the back burner, if not lost for a loooonnnng time, so painting fingernails, getting dressed up and talking about girl-stuff is so much more special now, because she's the one that brought it back.

Disney on Ice

My precious little girl and I had the wonderful opportunity to go see Disney on Ice, and what made it even more special was that it was enjoyed by four generations. My mom and grandma went also. What a blessing! I am so fortunate to have my mom still living within half an hour and my grandparents moved here about 6 years ago from NC. I didn't see much of them growing up so it's fun to spend time with my silly grandma now that I'm older (and I do mean silly).Katherine enjoyed the lights, music, dancing on the ice, pyrotechnics and mostly the princess characters. Her first view of the show and some of the princesses:

My ultra-sappy-self got teary-eyed when I first saw Katherine's face as the show started. I saw it as such an extraordinary opportunity and privilege for me as an adult and certainly for a 3-year-old. As much as I struggle with it, money does provide opportunities and those opportunities provide tools to expand knowledge. Finding the happy medium between not over-doing it (leading a child into over-stimulation resulting in unrealistic expectations) and providing a healthy amount of age-appropriate experiences is difficult for me. Many times, the decision is made for me because of cost. And to lead my decisions even more toward the "doing less" corner of the ring; my definition of poverty is drastically being challenged (thanks pastor T).

Here's what I mean: Our society has defined poverty as having not enough money. How you arrived at not having enough money is up for a heated political debate on both sides. But, is the lack of money more of a by-product or symptom of a bigger problem? I'm leaning more toward, yes. Poverty is certainly lacking of some "thing" and is it possible that the core "thing" lacking is interpersonal relationships?

We are not near poverty-level, but the discussion in SS stirred up some pretty strong feelings and made me evaluate once again what our goal is as parents and where are we building our road for this family to travel on? The funded opportunities we partake in should be nowhere near as important as the relational opportunities.

It felt good to see Disney on Ice, no doubt, and I am so glad we went. I'm glad it's only offered in this area once a year.

Elbow Genetics

My mother came over today and took me up on the offer to stay for supper. While I was attempting to assemble something closely resembling a meal, she so patiently was playing with Katherine and Nathan. There are some things only a grandmother has patience for and today she used her jumbo-sized plastic pencil (attached to a string necklace around her neck) and "wrote" all over Katherine. She "wrote" on her feet, arms, head, face, legs, back, neck, everywhere. Now she wasn't really writing and the plastic pencil's tip was about as hard as an eraser, but Katherine loved it.

As I was chopping broccoli, my mom called from the office where they all were playing:
Mer: Mekelle, she has my elbows. (She's referring to Katherine's elbows)
Me: What? (as I scrunch up my eyebrows, squint my eyes and look to the side; perplexed)
Mer: My elbows. She has them.
Me: What makes an elbow look like one person's or another's?
Mer: Watch, she can do this...

She held out her arm in front of her with the bend of her elbow and palm facing up, then she twisted her wrist to face her palm down, while the bend of her arm stayed facing up.

Mer: Can you do that too?

Well of course I had to try, and I succeeded.

Mer: Is that something everybody can do?
Me: Who knows. I'm not familiar with elbow genetics.

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My little lady has literally picked up on my language. Lovely. Some comments she's made lately:
"Oh great. Gracie is going toward the road. Lovely." - with a disgust-sound in her voice
"Mommy, it's such a lovely day outside."
"Mom, literally these shoes don't fit." - very matter-of-fact

She's picked up on the tone, definition and context ALREADY!

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My little man took 53 un-assisted continuous steps by himself yesterday. Yes, I counted them all. This video was from another walking trip.


He's also shown a "frogs, snails and puppy dog tails" fascination with lizards (the next Kamikaze creature around our house). This baby lizard was on his own as far as I was concerned. It was cool just to see how close Nathan could get to touching him.