Miss Hailey...

This girl has once again taken several big steps in the direction of overall girlie-ness!!

Step 1: Her mommy-ing.
She recently got all packed up for a slumber party at Nana's house. We widdled her pile of items down to these two, but only after some fierce negotiation. She wanted to take her doll, dolly bathtub, dolly car seat, dolly pack n play, AND a huge diaper bag. Oh, and the pink, fluffy rolling bag for herself.
Step 2: Knowing the importance of Real Simple magazine.
She was reading Real Simple to "Big Lion" this morning. He learned some very important skills, like how to decorate the edges of a frosted cake with a clean hair comb and which top-rated mascaras can be picked up for under 10 bucks! Life lessons, I tell ya...Step 3: Her first Barbie doll!!!!!
This one is near and dear to my heart, mostly because during all of the years of my childhood there was never a day you wouldn't see Christy and my bedroom floor COVERED in Barbie stuff. Love it. Todd was pleasantly surprised to find that for modesty purposes this Princess Aurora Barbie came with a pair of undies permanently attached to her body. I mean, we don't want people to be uncomfortable at the sight of a totally naked Barbie, do we??

Now we just need to figure out a way to keep Princess Aurora's shoes out of the mouth of this guy -

Any suggestions?? :)

it's totally manly if you growl while playing a princess piano and playing with your sister's pretend eyeshadow...

It's NOT about me!!!

I've been doing ministry with high school kids for almost 7 years now. This has been a year of tremendous growth for me as God has decided to make it very clear that it's not about me. Imagine that, huh?? :)

I've always had a very easy time finding common ground with the girls that I work with...until this year. The girls God has been drawing through the doors on Mondays could not be more different than me...and they've got WALLS up! I've literally spent entire car rides with them in complete silence. I mean, how long can you ask them questions about themselves without sounding like some sort of investigator?? Several months ago I started asking God for help. That He would break down the walls, show me the common ground, and begin to develop relationships centered around Him, not me. These prayers have seemingly gone unanswered...until last night...

I went to the school yesterday at lunchtime and met a few new girls. I invited them to club for a big spaghetti dinner and they said they'd like to go. Normally, this means "I'm going to say yes right now, but only so you'll go away. I'm blocking your number as soon as I get to my 4th period class." I had plans to pick up 6 girls. I ended up with 5. PTL!

Two of these girls in particular seemed really talkative and open. I really enjoyed our conversations, and then when we got to club they could not stop loving on my kids! That always blesses me to pieces when my whole family gets to do ministry together. :)

After our big dinner it was time for the talk I'd been working on. This was literally one of those talks that I was unsure of until the moment I stood up and began to talk. The Lord calmed my nerves like I could not understand. I guess I shouldn't be surprised...if He can calm a deadly storm he can certainly calm my nerves... At the end of my talk, after explaining the importance of Jesus' raising from the dead, God put it on my heart to have the kids close their eyes and listen while I explained the gospel step by step.

Then came the moment of truth...is anyone in this room ready to accept Christ?? I sure hoped so. I invited anyone who was ready to say "yes" to Jesus to just open their eyes and look at me.

I saw 9 sets of eyes look up at me.

Praise the Lord! Thank you Jesus for teaching me that I am only to be a vessel for you to love kids THROUGH me! I can do none of this on my own.

AND, after passing out Bibles to all of these kids and a few others, 2 of the new girls sat with me asking questions about how to read their Bibles and how to understand Scripture for nearly 20 minutes while their friends played in the gym.

Mr. Papa...

She gets cuter EVERY day...

And smarter...she drew and wrote this all by herself!! :)

Big Boy Hair...

Before ~After ~

Getting this after picture was quite the chore...the only good way to take a picture of Owen these days is to take it while he's eating. ;)

"Everybody"...

Here is a picture of the Easter dress Hailey wore. Why isn't there a picture of her in it?? Your guess is as good as mine...

While the Easter dress is awfully cute, it's not the point of this post. The point, you ask?

My daughter has many imaginary friends these days...and when speaking of them as a group she refers to them as "everybody".

For instance, she says the other day that "everybody" was sitting at my mom's dining room table. Hmmm...

Their names, you ask? Well, first there is "Lola"...but you've already heard of her. Her boyfriend is "Joseph". And the rest of their friends are "Noogler", "Nooglock", "Noglog", "Noglock", and "Nooglook".

I realize that these names are all very similar, but trust me. She knows the difference between each of them.

I do appreciate them at times, however. When Hailey told me she was scared of the monsters in her room I asked her what made her think there were monsters in there. Her response was this, "Mommy, my baby dolls told me that my room was a monster room!!".

Cool. Thanks, dolls.

The next day, however, she informed me that "everybody" told her that her room was a sprinkle room and that Jesus would keep her safe.

Nice work, "everybody". :)

Playing together...

The age gap is closing in and my kids are really starting to have fun together. :)

It's real cute.