Happy Birthday Maren

My 'baby girl' is 5 years old today! Starting kindergarten this fall, and experienced chicken pox, caveties, and love... no more a toddler, it's bittersweet. We all love you very much Maren! Happy Birthday!

Coincidently when she was born, the song that I heard on my c.d. rotation while in labor was "Isn't she lovely" by Stevie Wonder, though I had no clue Maren was in deed a 'she.' I thought for certain I was having a boy.

My purpose was felt becoming a mother to this child. Don't ya just wanna smooch those lips?! :)



Baby blue eyes, a live wire of independence, and a keen observation for her surroundings was evident in her from day one. She is very intelligent, and there never has been a day with Maren where I felt like she wasn't absorbing every last bit of existence in this world until she rested her head on her pillow.


She's slow to laugh deep and hard, much too reserved this little girl is! But she isn't slow to smile! And especially when she is nervous, she falls back on the "oh i know that I'm cute" persing of her lips until she gets past her nerves. She's confident of herself, she loves sharing her testimony, learning the mechanics of everything that exists in her world, and then teaching everyone else about it all. I love all 3 of her cute dimples on her face when she does light up with joy.


Sometimes I get exhausted of days full of "Mommy watch this, watch that, did you see me? Was that funny? Was that awesome?" And I should relish in those moments more because they'll be gone soon.
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She's quirky, and highly imaginative! She was two years old when she told me about her first 'bad dream.' She was hysterically upset, crying and shaking telling me about the "mean soldier that blew a whistle really loud in her face." I had to hide my smile, but I realized that small things really do hurt her feelings, and how tender we must be with God's precious ones.


Her first year of preschool had two
marraige proposals, which she narrowed it down to the best choice in my opinion! Boys fuss over her, and girls flock to her. She really is a people person, luckily she treats everyone well too.




We started her in ballet for the hopes it would help with her clumsyness and her physical problems that she has. But it gave her an outlet to the creativity in her heart, and her days are full of dancing and singing, many times ending in tears because she didn't get to do a 'show' for Daddy if he didn't make it home before bedtimes.



I thought she was the prettiest baby on earth when she was new. And she just gets prettier. She has learned that it is more important to be beautiful on the inside, and to treat others well. Sometimes it's hard at home with that virtue, and it has been super difficult lately with her transition away from the baby girl into a young girl. But I know deep down she's just struggling to feel her independence, and she has a gem of a heart. I'm so proud to be her mother, it was her that first gave me that purpose. If this blog endures time, and Maren can view these enteries as she would a journal of mine someday, I hope she never questioned if I loved her, or how much. With all of my heart baby girl. Every single bit of it.

I'm in love

To answer your question Kate, yes you can love a vaccum! What a 'housewife-y' post this is too.

I've had the Eureka Contour upright for 3 years, I thought it was an okay vacuum. Until I got nice carpet last month. Our carpet is a longer fiber, twist style weave. And I'd run the vacuum over and over, yet still feel crumbs from the kids stick to my feet, or step on small sharp pieces of 'crippy craps' as my mom calls them.

So I don't even know how you get on the subject of vacuums at a nice resturaunt, but Kate and I sure did! She mentioned that she had the Dyson 'Animal' and I 'oooh-ed' and said I wanted the Dyson Ball. She commented on how she thought she'd never spend that much for a vacuum, but she did! So Saturday morning I looked up reviews about them both and compared them. EEK! $549 for the Dyson Animal! Is it worth that?!?

Well, I hadn't decided which one I ultimately wanted. But I knew the Eureka wasn't cutting it by a long shot. So over the weekend James and I hit up Best Buy to get some computer software and check out the vacuums. They had both of the models from their floor models for sale. SA-WEET!! Alright, time to rip the bandaid off and pick which one I really wanted and just get it. All reviews said it was worth the money.

So I bought the Dyson Animal :) LOOOOOOVE it! I wanted to be sure it was worth the $400 I got it for, so I vacuumed my entire house with the Eureka. Very slowly. Twice! Then I ran the animal, with the floor bristles in motion as recommended for my longer fiber carpet. And this is what it picked up after I thought that I had "cleaned" ??? Woah. SOOOO worth every penny! (That's about 4 cups of dirt, by the way. I vacuum atleast every 2 days, and I've only had this carpet for a month! Wowsers, the other one was pretty much throwing $100 into the wind if this is what it left behind.)

Who needs a man?

My christmas decorations have been sitting in my kitchen for 3 weeks now. They didn't get put up in the attic right away because I had twisted my back and was in a lot of pain. So James was waiting until I could help him hoist the boxes and bins up the ladder.

Then came the procrastination that I'm used to. "I'll do it tomorrow, tomorrow, tomorrow." Ha! I know better than to place money on that statement from the Mister.

Last night Tiffany and her hubby came with a plate of goodies (yum, again babe! Thanks) And her hubby asked about mine, wondered if he was working late again. Yup, of course. And with the cold weather means pipes burst from freezing, and lots of jobs to take care of. Her hubby said with sincere concern "Do you need anything?" I considered for a minute to ask him in to help me hoist all the christmas stuff up to the attic. I was tired of my house looking like the worlds worst housewife lives here. (She does, I just don't want everyone to know it!) But I didn't ask him to help me. Tiffany is about to have a baby any day now, and she was waiting miserably in the car.

So today I couldn't stand it any more. I went up into my attic, and moved all the boxes around to be organized better. I got down the walker/stationary toy center for Max. I finally found other items I had begged James to look for. And I... the little woman... lifted all the christmas decorations up into the attic all by my wee self. Even the tupperware with the christmas tree that was easily 60 lbs. Even my christmas dishes that was probably 50 lbs. I lifted them up the ladder.

And my big burly strong man didn't believe me that I did it all by myself. Because he kept saying he needed me to help HIM. Ha! Man? I don't need no stinkin' man. But mercy, I sure do love them. One in particular.

Embarrasing

Maren has always seemed like an old person in a tiny body, but I think she's getting too big for her britches way too early!

She and I have been butting heads a lot lately, she's constantly scolding Kellan and overriding something I've instructed him to do, it's a daily reminder she needs to remember she's not actually the boss- being bossy ins't the same thing! Even when we're home, if she gets in trouble about something, it's horribly embarrassing to her to be corrected- a trait she got from her Daddy!

Last week she got upset at me for asking her not to sit on the couch's arm, she does it anway, so I scooted her off and told her that it was now naptime since she was having a hard time listening. She fusses about it and says to me "Fine, then when I grow up-at my wedding, I'm not inviting you to my wedding."

Um. Okay. (Silently holding back my hurt feelings because she doesn't really mean it, right?)

Then yesterday I took her to a friend's house to play. I try not to be the embarrassing overbearing mother who spit cleans her face and kisses her lips while I pat her on the butt and tell her how much I'll miss her while she's in the next room playing.

The mother of this friend made a veggie plate and some dip, and some potatoe chips as a snack. Maren loaded her plate with potato chips, a little veggies, and then said she didn't have any room for dip. Both the other mother and I were standing near the kids, so I told her that was too many potato chips and put some back. She kept saying to me "Mom! Gooooo, please go away. Geez Mom! Please go now."

Appearantly kids get embarrassed by their parents around 5 now? My attempt at being the cool mom in her mind has officially crashed and burned.

Poop-poop-a-roo

I feel like I'm channeling Jack the Pumpkin King saying "What does it mean, what does it mean?"

We took Kellan to the pediatrcian yesterday because his complaints of his tummy hurting seemed escalated when we saw blood in the toilet after he went to the bathroom. (Sorry, t.m.i. I know! But what kind of mother would I be if I didn't have to deal with poo?)

He had been complaining beginning around the time he got chicken pox. I just chalked it up to that, since nausea and lack of appetite, diahrrea, etc. are all symptoms. But he kept saying "I don't have chicken pox anymore, but my tummy still hurts!"

The fun business is to collect a sample from the business end of Kellan and take it for testing for cultures, parasites, viruses, all that jazz. But the doctor was trying to look on the bright side by saying things like "It could just have been a tear from a previous bowel movement, or from excess acid in his stomach from the chicken pox."

I had the best of hopes for something simple and easy to take care of. Until last night. Maren has the same thing happening to her too. She got chicken pox 2 weeks before him, what are the chances that both of them showed blood in their stool on the same day, and it still might be related to chicken pox? Not likely.

I'm scared of it being salmonella, have you heard about the outbreak involving 42 states right now? They have no clue what caused it for 400 people.

I'm more scared of it being e.coli. Thank you U-AHH for being the worst case senario of that one.

Here's to hoping it was just the coloring from the beets they ate the night before! Har har har. I know it's not. And no, Heather, they didn't get salmonella from undercooked chicken pox. You're hilarious! More to come when we have some lab results back, I'll keep you all updated. The first one to poop in the collector bowl wins a sucker today! Woohoo! ;-P

Testimonies

Yesterday was Kellan's first day as a Sunbeam now, he's no longer in the nursery class at church! I can't believe he's old enough to sit in primary now (hopefully he is sitting anyway!)

And since it was Testimony meeting yesterday, the primary teachers gave the little kids the opportunity to share theirs.

2 people came to find me after church just to tell me what Kellan had said.

"When we get ripped in half, silly worms snakes will come out."

I think I need to practice sharing his testimony with him?