Abounding Angels

Our family attended the Christmas Eve service at our church and I was part of the worship team.

The service ran a little differently then usual.

Instead of the worship team doing their "thang" and then exiting the stage for the sermon all of the songs were dispersed throughout the message.

I informed my Papa Pastor that I didn't think my girls would behave very well with only one adult wrangling the monsters.

I may have been discredited though because this did follow me letting everyone know that the line "Holy infant so tender and mild" gave me the distinct impression that jesus was being referred to as a savory steak...

but I digress...

Come service time we made it a full two songs into our worship set before Addison decided that she wanted to be with Mommy.

Imagine if you will, seeing this little beauty...



crawling up a rather large stage to give her mom some fantastic snuggles.

"Awwww!" definitely escaped some mouths.

Pastor Randy did a fantastic job and kept going with the sermon in spite of my show stopping middle.

She snuggled for approximately 30 seconds before she realized that not only was she onstage but that there was an audience.

Paul says she had a fantastic look of shock right before she focused all her energy on glaring at the back of Pastor Randy's head.

She stayed on stage for 1 full song and a small portion of the sermon at which point she decided that the stage (or Mommy) weren't "doing it" for her anymore and needed to exit quickly.

She climbed down from Mommy said her goodbyes and proceeded to literally jump center stage.

Center stage is a good foot lower then the rest of the stage.

She got some air.

Landed with the sound of a small giant.

Face planted.

Then snaked on her belly off the stage.

Everyone in the congregation was sniggering right up until Pastor Randy came back with...

"I guess we have angels abounding too!"

to which everyone laughed out loud.

This kid never ceases to embarass me.

Good thing she's cute.

The little abounding angel.

Public Humiliation... Toddler Style.

Addison and I walked into the very large bathroom at Fred Meyer per her request to go potty.

The second we entered the bathroom this conversation began.

Mind you the bathroom has 8 other ladies in it.

"Mom. That lady POOPED."

"Mom. That lady is POOPING IN THERE!"

"Mom. Someone's POOPING!!!"

A couple of the women started to snicker as I quietly told Addison to shut her embarassing trap.

We made it to the very last stall and shut the door.

"Mama! There's POOP in my BUTT!"

I told her that she needed to use her inside voice as I listened to the ladies in the restroom laugh just a little bit louder.

"Don't look at me while I POOP MOM!"

I turned around and covered my eyes.

 (she really doesn't like anyone one watching her "do the deed")

As loud as humanly possible I listened to her groan the ENTIRE time she was doing her business.

Upon completion she loudly declared...

"Mom. I pooped out my BUTT! You WIPE MY BUTT MOM! YOU WIPE IT!!!"

The ladies were howling.

I was frantically cleaning the child and trying to get out of there before she said anything more embarassing.

Without fail, my lovely toddler drove the last nail into my embarassment coffin.

"Mama. If you poop, don't forget to wipe your butt and your 'gina."

She threw open the stall door and proudly exited the bathroom.

One pound lighter and with a red faced Mom.

All eight ladies had stayed for the duration of my childs fecal and vocal performance.

"Oh, she's cute!"

I don't think I've ever exited a Fred Meyer faster.

We've Got Ourselves...

a 'puller-upper'!



She sure is extra proud of herself too!

Mischief...

Someone in my house...

Has Been up to no good.

Don't think for one second that she didn't get encouragement from an anonymous source though...

even if she'll deny involvement to the very end.

Monster Quotes

I realized today that I've only ever put up 'Quote Posts' for Addison.

It's something that needs to be fixed IMMEDIATLY.

Enter Lily:

The Master of Hillarious Verbage

Please enjoy a few of my favorite conversations with the Lily Monster...

~

Lily: Dad, do you cry?

Dad: Yeah, when I'm really really sad.

Lily: When you cry do you scream like a lady?

~

I like your shirt Dad. I don't even care if you're wearing purple!

~

(Paul owns lots of soccer balls... now you may continue reading...)

Addison! Daddy is really sensitive about his balls! Don't touch Daddies balls Addison! He doesn't like it when people aren't gentle with his balls!!!

~

Having Scarlett was totally worth it!

~

Lily: wouldn't it be cool if we could have slaves?

Mama Velvet: People shouldn't be slaves sweetie. That doesn't really work out well.

Lily: Fine. Then Dad should build me a robot slave that I could boss around. I really need more time to do fun stuff.

~

Lily: Something tells me we're close to home.

Dad: What tells you that?

Lily: Restaraunts.

~

Dad: We had a hard time listening yesterday AND this morning so we're gonna be talking about naps later if we don't finish our lunch.

Lily: I will eat my lunch Daddy! Do or do not, there is no try!

~

Mama Velvet, if you have a boy you should name him Ders Erpes.

~

I have to go potty. I can hold it for 6 minutes and then I'm gonna have an accident. 6. I have warned you.

~

Addison and I have the same germs because she bites me a lot.

~

Mama Velvet, I think I need to go up to my room for a bit. Just to think about what I did. Just for a little bit. Then I'll come back down and say I'm sorry for not listening, and you'll say you forgive me. But I really think I should go up to my room first, you know, to think about what I did.

~

Dad: Lilyanna you are getting SO BIG!

Lily: I know! If you were to measure me next to Mama Velvet I'd be up to her... you know... nipples.

~

Mama Velvet: We did conferences with your teacher today Lil! She says you're one of the smartest kids in class.

Lily: Well duh, that's because I AM smart.

~

Scarlett is the cutest little baby I've ever seen.  I guess I should say the same about Addison... but she really annoys me sometimes.

Terrible 2's

It's a very real thing.

The Terrible 2's.

I would like to offer up exhibit "A" as proof.



Exhibit "B": A small collection of terrible quotes and (if needed) there even worse translations...

Gib me yo ko-los. I need candy. = Give me your quarters. I need candy.

THE BABY MADE A STINKY DANGIT! = Mom and Dad... Scarlett has pooped in her pants and it is disgusting and unacceptable.

I need my yight-say-bo. Wanna fight?! = I need my lightsaber. Wanna fight?!

(The "Wanna fight?!" portion usually includes being wacked over the head WITH a lightsaber.)

yeave me a-yone. I coloring. = Leave me alone. I'm coloring.

Mama. You stop talking to me!

Mama. Don't see what I'm doing. Don't tell me no.

Sampson pooped in the yard!

I need chocolate. You find some for me.

Yeah Jackass! = Mom fail. It happens from time to time.

Water Works

I have a baby.

She's only 7 months old and she's mastered the art of manipulation.



Happy Baby.

Until she realizes I'm holding my camera.

"Mother, this is HIGHLY unacceptable. I WILL NOT allow you to take my photograph."

Que water works and load of snot.

There are 40 more photos exactly like this... just in different stages of "agony".

Kid knows how to work it.

I see epic power struggles in our future.

Oy.

That Face...

Do you have any guesses as to what caused this face...



or this face...

or ANY of these faces...

She kept dropping this...

Her toy camera.

It's okay baby girl.

Mommy would have the same reaction!

My Big Middle Little Girl

In case you've never had the pleasure of meeting Addison in real life I have something to tell you.

She's shockingly large for her size.

Her two year pediatricians appointment went like this...

Nurse: Wow, she's only 2?

Nurse 2: So this is her 3 year check up correct?

Nurse 15: Oh my gosh! For 3 her hair is very short!

Pediatrician: You know she's the size of a 3 year old right?

Mom: Yes. No. She's only 2 and Duh.

Beyond how obnoxiously tall she is for her age group she's still my little baby!

To prove it...



She still has to use a stool to brush her own teeth...

AND stand on tip toes!

I love my Big Middle Little.

Soccer Studette!

Lily is doing soccer this year!

She's over half way through the season and loving it so far!

I've got a couple photos from the morning of her very first game to share with you all today!

This is Lily in the front yard!

Her first "soccer" pose.

This is Lily in the parking lot!

A little less enthusiastic about the soccer pose and the picture taking.

This is Lily after I told her I was gonna take 80 more pictures cause she looked too darn cute not to!

This is Lily in the parking lot with Daddy taking pictures.

We'll just refer to this as her "game face".

The real name of this face can't be typed because this is a family friendly blog.

This is Daddy making Lily laugh!

We needed at least one more smiling photo!

This is Lily after we bribed her with treats.

Anything for a smile!

Don't judge me.

So we headed off to her first game and I'm proud to report she did a fantastic job!

After the first 10 minutes of this...

and this...

and a little bit of this...

Coach Daddy was able to kick her butt into gear and get her ACTUALLY playing soccer!

Go Hot Shots!!!

My Family by Worlds Apart Photography

I ran across Hannah's beautiful work this time last year and new she would be the one to take our Christmas photos.

I rarely get to be in any of our pictures because I'm usually the one taking them.

I fell in love with her work immediately!

This is our 3rd photo shoot with her and it will not be our last!



Thank you so much Hannah!

I love how you capture my family.

Liepold 2011!

Every year we pack up the family and head down to Liepold farms for the corn maze, pumpkins and carmel corn!

Nom nom nom.

This year was no exception!

Lily has always had the honor of choosing which direction we head once we're in the corn maze, but this year Addison was old enough to have her own opinion!

We made them duke it out with some rock paper scissors to see who got to choose first...



I feel like this picture says it all.

Before we took off full bore I made them love on each other for a bit so I could snap a picture.

Worst Mom ever, right?

One of these signs was posted at every dead end.

 

It's a little smug man with a picture of different insects for a "treasure hunt".

If you give ol' cranky eyebrows something to hunt for she turns into a girl on a mission!

The middle on the other hand could have cared less.

She wanted to run.

And run.

And run some more.

The girls wanted to pretend to be stuck in the beehive.

So we yelled for help a lot.

Cause that's what you do when you get stuck in an imaginary beehive!

Then we found the mold monster who "vanted to suck our berry juice!" and yelled for help some more.

We've really got the damsel in distress roles down.

I'll give you one guess who didn't want me to take a picture...

The Daddy Monster helped a Mama out though and I was able to get this picture!

She's a happy girl!

I promise!

To get Lily to smile I told her I'd let her take pictures with my camera.

From this photo on everything is Lily captured!

Addison, knuckles deep.

I swear she thinks boogers are a hot commodity.

This is what my face looks like at any given moment.

It's why I stay behind the camera.

"Kiss him like you mean it!" sounds weird coming from your 6 year old.

Just saying.

We've got 24 of this exact picture.

It's what happens when you give Lily a camera.

That poor poor sign.

Seriously.

I should just stay behind the camera.

Lily gave the camera back so that I could take a picture of her loving on Addison.

I had to change one of them to black and white.

It reminded me of one of my favorite photos of these two...

Lily had crawled into her bouncer seat so she could snuggle her and kiss her cheeks.

Which just reminds me of how much Addison has grown...

Addison last year to the day.

Rocking her big sister shirt.

We'd just told her Mommy was making a baby just for her and she was so excited!

Now our family is complete!

I get our family photos from Worlds Apart Photography tomorrow and I'll be sharing those on here as well!

I'm super excited with our sneak peek!

I can't wait to share the rest with you!