Mother's Day

Mother’s Day was an adventure this year! It was jam packed with activities. It started with the 1^st-6^th grader’s performance at church of the musical “The Amazing Grace Race” by Celeste Clydesdale. I was part of the director team again and helped teach the children the music, lyrics, and reminded them to sing loud with a smile.

Directing the kids during the first song.

Their performance was wonderful! Each one of them worked so hard to memorize their parts and they each were spectacular! I’m always so impressed with their performances.

"Coutch Potato" song

A side effect of helping to direct the musical is that everyone in your household learns the music and lyrics. The kids did two performances, and we let Kayley set in on the second one. Oh my goodness was she into it. I was busy directing, so I only got to hear the stories about how she was trying to do the hand motions and singing part of the songs with the kids. I did hear her a few times clapping and cheering after each song. I guess she’s getting ready to join in when she gets old enough.

The musical performance of course made Mother’s Day special, but it was extra special to us because Shilo was dedicated! In my blog about Mother’s Day last year I explained that Kayley was dedicated and explained it as “Andrew and I saying in front of our church family that we will raise Kayley to know God, and asking our church family to keep us accountable to that (Proverbs 22:6 Raise up a child in the way he should go, and when he is old he will not depart from it). It’s different from baby baptism, which I disagree with, but that’s a whole other theological story and explanation.” We actually took Kayley up on stage with us because we wanted her to be a part of it as well.

Pastor Craig interviewed each parent to learn a little about their little one (5 children were dedicated this year). We explained why we picked the name Shilo; not only did we think of the name because of a good friend named Shilo and her great characteristics as a Christian woman, but that the name can be translated to mean a resting place and is a biblical name. During my pregnancy I had to continuously find rest in God and get strength from Him, especially since my emotions were even crazier than they were with Kayley and I was constantly getting sick. We bestowed Hope as her middle name because both Andrew and I agree that we find our hope in the Lord, and we both thought of a worship song that emphasizes that. Mine was “I Will Not be Shaken” by Tony Guerrero (lyrics at the bottom).

Pastor Craig also asked what we’ve been able to see of her personality thus far. Andrew explains Shilo is the thinker as opposed to Kayley who is the doer. As I’m explaining how she loves to examine things and puts any and everything into her mouth she began reaching for the mic with her mouth open wide, perfectly demonstrating what I just explained.

We also shared how our hope and aspirations for her is that she will also find her hope and rest in God and will trust in Him at a young age. We also hope she will continue to be curious about the things around her and see God’s work in all things.

We know we are all sinners and fall short of the glory of God, but to the best of our abilities we want to raise our girls to know the truth and follow after the one true God. Part of this is to be godly examples to them and continuously strive to be more loving like Jesus each day. If you are a believer in the one true God, we’d love for you to help keep us accountable to this. If not and you have questions, please feel free to ask.

Mother’s Day didn’t end with just these two exciting things. As I explained in my last post we then had a family party for Kayley’s 2^nd birthday. We’re so glad Andrew’s folks were able to come join us for it all, and that they watched the girls the following day so I could get my Mother’s Day gift: a movie date out with Andrew to see Iron Man 3.

(I Will Not Be) Shaken by Tony Guerrero

My soul finds rest in You, my fortress and my rock

My hope for life, my hiding place, my refuge and my God

In You I've found my home, my shelter from the storm

And I'll pour out my heart to You and lean upon Your throne

I will put my trust in You, I will put my hope there, too

I will stand upon Your word and I will not be shaken

I will let my praises show, holding on to what I know

‘Cause I know You're always there and I will not be shaken. I will not be shaken!

I will not be moved, I'm leaning on the throne

‘Cause You died for me and called me to Your own

And even when the strongest winds begin to blow

I will stand my ground, I will not be moved, I will not be shaken

Two

Mama: Kayley, how old are you?

Kayley: Two!

That’s right! We officially have had a two year old under our roof for a week now. She is currently very into the birthday song (“Ha-ha” as she calls it) and telling you she is two when you ask. She had lots of opportunity to practice this too. Here’s how we celebrated her birthday.

The weekend before her birthday we went to the zoo with some of her little friends to enjoy seeing some animals and having a picnic. Kayley loved having all her little friends there with her, and like always, she loved seeing the animals.  Highlights for animal sighting for this visit were the gorillas, hippos and baby sloth bears. I think we all enjoyed the picnic part the best. It’s always amusing what happens and what is said with toddlers and their parents are around.

Sloth bear and her two cubs

Picnic time!

Kayley loved everyone singing happy birthday to her and being out in the sun with her friends.

Group photo

The little people.

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The morning of her birthday I woke her up by singing the happy birthday song, which she immediately told me I was doing wrong because I was not holding her pretend cakes while I sang. Oops. Next time I will be better prepared. We spent the morning at a new park with my mom and had a tasty lunch at Olive Garden. 

Bubble time!

Jump!

A face full of pasta

Kayley even drew a picture of a birthday cake on her menu.

Kayley's drawing of a birthday cake

That night we took Kayley to Red Robin to celebrate some more! The waiters sang for her and brought a sundae for her to enjoy. Kayley loved the singing, but didn’t want to have anything to do with the sundae, except for the rainbow sprinkles.

Red Robin!

Clapping and singing

Excited for the rainbow sprinkles

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We had more birthday celebration on Mother’s Day when we had her family birthday party. Andrew’s folks were even able to fly up to join in on the celebration! 

The girls with their grandparents

We had a relaxing BBQ before singing happy birthday and having some cake. Oh my goodness was Kayley excited for us all to be singing while the candles were lit. She knew exactly what to do without any prompting and immediately blew out her candles when the singing was done. She was a total pro!

Blowing out her candles like a pro

She enjoyed the vanilla-lemon, egg and milk free cake and kept asking for more. The fact that it was rainbow colored probably had something to do with that too. Andrew and I had fun planning how to decorate it and ended up icing it blue, using letter candles to spell her name, brown sugar for an island, and then we used toothpicks and construction paper to make the palm tree and mermaid tale.

The cake

My first rainbow cake

She loved being able to open her gifts from her family. She now has legos, a kitchen, kitchen supplies, a backpack,a Rapunzel and Ariel toys. She’s is quite the happy toddler and has figured out how to use all these toys at once during play.

Cooking some dinner

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Wow! Kayley is two! It’s hard to believe she’s becoming a little girl and slowly growing out of the toddler stage. Her vocabulary is sprouting, along with her creativity, problem solving skills, kindness and social skills. God is doing so much in her and it blows me away how much our Squigawiga understands things. I’m sure He has a lot more in store for her and I’m excited to be a part of it all.

Thank you to all those who wished her a happy birthday and joined in on the celebration!

Six Month Check-up

Happy six month birthday, Shilo!!! And to celebrate she got a trip to the doctor’s and three shots. Not the best gift, but hey, it will help to keep her from getting really sick in the future. Here are her stats:

Weight: 16lbs 9.5oz (50-75%)

Height: 27 inches (90-95%)

Head circumference: 17.3 inches (75-90%)

Shilo is very close to what Kayley was at this age. Though their size and build might be similar, it is so interesting to see how different the two are by the 6 month mark.

Tummy time:

Kayley didn’t prefer it, but she would do it and thus rolled a lot and did inch worm crawling by 6 months.

Shilo hates tummy time mostly and flat out refuses to do anything while on her tummy. She has rolled over a total of 3 times in the past 2 months, and has no interest in crawling.

Sitting:

Both girls started sitting around 4 months.

Both girls help to pull themselves up into a sitting (or standing) position when holding onto someone’s hands.

Kayley liked to sit and play with things, but she wanted to try and move while she did it too (thus started tripod crawling at 6 and half months).

Shilo just likes to sit, play and watch. She is just starting to reach farther than she can to try and get toys. She is however starting to try and pull herself up onto my leg and seems to also be trying to pull herself up to stand.

Fine motor skills:

Kayley could move objects from hand to hand and turn objects by using her wrist.

Shilo is a pro at this and mastered it before Kayley did. This is where Shilo has been focusing her development and can manipulate objects really well. She is also already starting to do pincher motion to pick up things, and also scoops up toys sometimes too.

Attachment:

Kayley really loved when I held her, but also really liked it when anyone else did. Yes she preferred me, and then her daddy, but she could have cared less about who held her at family functions and at church.

Shilo only want me. She seems to prefer other women over men. Unless in a good mood and she doesn’t realize I slipped out of the room she cries with a fierce demand to be back in my arms or at least have me be in touching distance.

Both girls love being in a jumper, being held so they can standing on the ground and can mimic walking and jumping. They both loved to laugh and giggle, though completely different from one another. Shilo loves to examine things orally, while Kayley would just pick up an object to check it out and then it would possibly go in her mouth. Both talk and babble, but that’s completely different too. It’s funny to see how similar and different they are just within the first 6 months of their life!

Anyway! Shilo’s appointment went really well. Even though she isn’t rolling over, everything else is on track or slightly ahead. I was never worried about her development, but it was nice to hear a processional say she wasn’t either since Shilo is focusing on other areas to succeed in. I do have to say that Shilo loved the paper! It was so fascinating to watch her feet as she used them to crinkle and grab the paper. I’m glad she got to have a bit of fun before getting her 3 shots. She did great though. Less than a minute of crying and only a single solitary tear, and then she was fine. She is extra tired and I’m guessing she will nap late today. 

Crinkle! Crinkle! Crinkle!

Notice her feet. She was having fun looking in the mirror in front of her so she could watch herself play with her toy and the paper

About 2 minutes after her shots and she barely looks like she had been upset. That's my little trooper!

Easter

Easter was a beautiful sunny day. So sunny I even got a sun burn. I’m strangely happy about this since we haven’t had this much sun in a while. The sad part about the day is that Kayley, Shilo and I had colds (and still do, along with Andrew) that we didn’t want to spread to our dear friends at church. We thus stayed home and missed Easter service. =( We were very bummed about that. But my family gave the okay for us to still join them for the rest of the day since they had already been exposed to our germs. 

A beautiful day

 We started our day slow and gave the girls their Easter baskets at home. We don’t know how much Kayley understood, but we explained to her that she and her sister were getting a special gift because on Easter we remember the greatest gift that was given to us: Jesus’ life, followed by His resurrection so that by grace we can be forgiven of our sins. She has been reading her Easter book a lot lately, so we have told her that Jesus got a really bad ouchy to help us not get the worst ouchy of all, and that His ouchy only lasted three days. Every time she reads her Easter book, she spends more time looking at the page where it shows Jesus’ friends being sad that He died on the cross. Many conversations have thus happened in relation to that scene. 

Chewing her new book

Kayley reading Shilo's book to her new sheep

We then headed over to my mom’s for a quick lunch and nap time. Nap time was followed by chalk time so Kayley could use one of her new gifts. She really liked being able to draw on the ground and was very interested in helping you draw your picture. She eventually decided to draw her own picture.

 

Then it was time to look for eggs! Kayley and her cousins, Sara and Katie, were exiled to a room while me, Andrew, my mom, sister and brother-in-law hid eggs for them to find. Andrew and Rick had fun hiding eggs for the older girls, while us ladies had fun putting eggs all over the grass and deck for Kayley to find. We hid a few eggs for the older girls to find too.

Find the egg!

Find the egg!

Kayley was pretty excited to look for eggs, and she caught on pretty quick to what she was supposed to do. As her bucket filled she marched around the yard saying “more more!” as she found more and more eggs. She was so into it that I had her give her aunty the eggs she had collected at one point so that Heidi could hide them in the yard again. Kayley was a delighted little girl, and Shilo slept through the whole thing. Sara and Katie had a lot of fun too, and their eggs were really hidden. It was fun when Kayley figured out the eggs opened and that there were little surprised inside. Hers were all candy free, and filled with stickers, a few small toys, “toddler snack” instead. I believe a craft time involving many stickers will be happening soon.

Collecting eggs

"More! More! More!" This is how she was marching around.

We had a lovely dinner that followed that my mom mostly prepared, and had a fun time at the table together. Then for dessert we had Easter Basket Cake. Something I grew up eating for Easter. 

Kayley and I are behind the camera

The Easter Basket Cake

And since it was so sunny, we took some lovely and fun family pictures too. This is when we discovered, that unlike Kayley, Shilo loves to play with grass. It was so hard to get her to look at the camera because she kept watching her toes wiggle in the grass and watching her fingers touch the grass. So cute! 

Happy Shilo

Classic Shilo

Our little Easter bunny

Rock Star Easter Bunny

Both playing with their toes

<3 Sisters <3

Our little family

Our goofy family!

Happy Easter everyone! He is Risen! He is Risen indeed! Thank you God!