Thursday, January 29, 2009

Isn't she lovely, isn't she wonderful?




Of course, I could be biased.....nah. These are courtesy of a friend whose wedding we attended in December.

Tuesday, January 27, 2009

Out of the Mouths of Babes

It’s really funny (sometimes embarrassing too) to watch as Makenzie picks up her vocabulary and learns expressions that the adults around her use. It’s really hard to even get mad at her for it because we all know where she gets it (her daddy of course), but man am I fearing her teenage years. Here are some of her more recent “sayings”:

She has a habit of strewing her toys out in the hallway outside her playroom. A couple weeks ago, her daddy walked out and started to admonish her to put them away and she put her hand up in the air, never missed a beat, kept walking and said (as she rolled her eyes at him) “Don’t say it Daddy.”

When she dropped something while playing last week…”Oh my S*%T!”

As we drove to school this morning…”Mommy, slow down—you need be careful!”

When Tim turned up the radio on the way home from the store….”It’s too LOOOUD!”

She’s picked up the nasty habit of picking her nose (and, God help me, even indulging in what she pulls out!). We’ve tried every trick in the book, but I finally started telling her that pretty little girls don’t do that—only yucky boys. So now every time I tell her to stop doing something she says “Boys do it?”

Makenzie is very um, “feisty”, and gets really worked up and frustrated when she can’t do something or make it work right (ie, putting on baby doll’s clothes, trying to reach something on a tall shelf etc). We often tell her to calm down and be patient. So the other day, Tim was getting a little short with her and she said “Daddy, be patient!”

Thursday, January 22, 2009

Divorce

Divorce is an ugly, wretched thing. I should know—I’ve been there and done that myself and experienced the divorce of my parents too. My parents were married in 1966, and were married over 40 years before their marriage ended. I was an adult but it hurt nonetheless. Sometimes the pain came as close to emotionally unbearable as you can get—so bone-deep that it felt almost physical at times. It wreaked havoc on our relationships within our family and I felt like no matter what I did for one or the other of them, it wasn’t the right thing and it resulted in hard feelings from the opposite party.

I don’t think either of them ever got a good grip or understanding of how my heart ached over it. Understandably, they were focused on the demise of their marriage and were mourning the loss of a lifetime together.

Today I read a chapter of an autobiographical "book" that chronicles the real-life love story of The Prairie Woman (AKA: Ree) and her “Marlboro Man” husband. In one chapter of the book, she describes what it was like to witness the crumbling of her own parents’ 30 year marriage as an adult:

“I loved my parents, loved them dearly. But as an adult, watching the thirty-year marriage of your mother and father implode and disintegrate and blow to smithereens is like watching a train wreck happen in slow motion. And your parents are the conductors, and on the train are four grown children, and many lifelong friends, and all the future grandchildren, and a community, and memories and hopes and dreams. And they’re all about to die in a firey, deadly accident. Oh, and you’re on the train, too. But you’re also watching from outside the tracks. You want to scream, try to scream, try to warn the operators of the train of the devastation that’s about to come. But it’s a nightmare, and your voice is squeezed and squelched and nothing comes out. And you’re powerless to stop it.”

I could never form the words to explain what it was like to experience it, but this is a deadpan description of what it was like. I didn’t/don’t blame either of my parents although there were certainly legitimate causes for their marriage failing. It’s all over now and the truth is, my father is dead now and the grief from their marriage breaking up pales in comparison to the grief of no longer having him in our lives—I’m sure my mother agrees—she loved him til the day he died.

Tuesday, January 20, 2009

Little Mama

I've mentioned before how Makenzie is such a "little mama." Well, today she got a certificate for being super duper helpful at school. Whatever did she do to receive such an honor?? Why she patted her friends to sleep at nap time of course. Isn't that the sweetest thing?
Here are all of her babies, bears, and even Elmo lined up tonight for "snack time" at home.

December artwork



Tuesday, January 13, 2009

Pray for Abby

You’ll notice a new “button” on my sidebar today. Please click on it and read about little Abby. She is a Guatemalan girl who was adopted by an American family and was diagnosed with leukemia last summer. She has been undergoing treatment and her family recently found out that she has a genetic mutation that makes her particularly susceptible to the lethal effects of treatment.

Today she begins the most grueling and dangerous portion of her treatment. Please say a prayer for little Abby and her family today and add them to your prayer list for the foreseeable future.

Friday, January 2, 2009

Happy New Year!

We spent the evening last night with 2 different couples who are dear friends to us. We started off at Xavier and Mindy's house snacking, drinking wine and playing on the Wii.

Tim, Xavier and Mindy rocking out!

We were their groupies....
Had to put Daisy in here--she's their dog and she's Makenzie's favorite playmate.
The we headed over to Michael and Julia's house for even more Wii playing--man I REALLY want one of those now. We rang in the New Year with them and were greeted at our car with a citation for...wait for it...



...parking greater than 18 inches from the curb. Yes, you read that right. An $80 fine--Happy New Year folks!