Tough Decisions

I never thought that the decision about where to send your child to kindergarten was going to be so tough!!

Right now, Lydia is going to a small private Pre-K. We LOVE it!! But they don't have a Kindergarten program.
There are two "parent choice" schools in Edmond where you apply for a lottery. They only have 2 teachers per grade level compared to the other school which have 4, 5 or 6 teachers per grade level. Needless to say, we didn't get a spot & were 81st & 84th on the waiting lists...so never mind!!

After looking at our nieghborhood school's test scores, Scott was not impressed. Not to mention Orvis Risener was an ALL day kindergarten program with 5 teachers, at 22-26 students each...TOO MANY KIDS & TOO LONG OF A DAY!!
So we put in for a transfer to Chisholm Elem. which is just down the street as well.

We started "jumping the gun" & looking at houses in the Chisholm area. We found one that was AMAZING!!! Almost 2100 square feet, LARGE bedrooms, LARGE master bathroom & walkin closet, beautiful backyard with an amazing patio & SO MUCH STORAGE (in the living room, hallway, bedrooms...)!!! I was in LOVE with this house!! It was priced at $170,000.
Here were the "hang-ups":
1. Not much privacy in the backyard....I guess Scott plans on mowing the yard in his underwear..
2. Since we have ZERO credit score, (because that's what happens when you don't have any debt!) we couldn't get a loan!!
3. After DOZENS of phone calls, we had SO many people helping us, it was so sweet...people calling "their people", the realtor calling bankers they knew, we were finally able to find someone who thought they could finance us!!

BUT after running the numbers, Scott decided that it was more house & price than we could chew. He didn't feel comfortable with the money left over that the end of the month....We could buy that house, but we couldn't eat!!!

I was REALLY disappointed!!! I really thought that the house was something that we could afford. If I'd KNOWN that the house was out of our price range, we would have never gone to look at it! I felt like it was within reach, but apparently not.


I guess we will go out & finance some furniture so we can have a credit score so in three or so years, we won't have so much trouble!!

Clean up your heart!

Lydia & I had an interesting conversation about sin the other morning. I want her to understand that everyone sins & needs a Savior. Sometimes at age five, sin is a difficult concept to comprehend. She thinks she doesn't sin because she acts good at school & doesn't get in trouble like some other kids. So as we talked, a light came on...a dim light, but a light.

She said she remembered when in Sunday school, they put mud on a heart & that was sin & then they cleaned it off & that was God "cleaning their heart" from sin. WOW!! That's a cool illustration! I need to remember that for Caraline!

A few days later, Scott & I were having a heated dicussion about something & the girls were in the room. Lydia does not like to hear us disagree & always tells us to "stop fighting". But that day she walked up to us & said "Clean up your heart!"

You can't argue with that!

"Create in me a clean heart, oh Lord, my God & renew a right spirit within me"

a verse from a song called "Create in me a Clean Heart"

I Love Jesus Valentine's day party & Katy's 34th birthday

We LOVE Valentine's day at our house.

Lydia wanted a "Happy Birthday Jesus" party arounf Christmas, but with the "Blizzard 2009" with 14 inches of snow, that wasn't possible. So we decided to have an "I love Jesus" Valentine's day party on Feb 13th. Lydia & Nana organized the whole thing. The Churchwell girls, Nana & Papaw & the Furgason family came to celebrate the love of Jesus. Nana read a story, we exchanged Valentines, had homemade pizza & snacks. the girls did Valentine crafts that Nana brought from Sunday School. Lydia had a great time & she was so happy to have this special party.

We made Valentine's day cards for our family with an owl on them at said "WHOOO loves you?" & inside we had a picture of the girls (or the grandchildren) that said "WE DO!" Getting the right picture was a little difficult, but we finally got ONE!!

My 34th birthday was the 15th. Scott had taken me out for a birthday surprise the Saturday before. We went to lunch & then to see "The Blindside". It was a great movie.

Monday night is the night I get together with Lisa & Christie. We have gotten together every week for 2 & a half years! They had a surprise planned as well.

I took me to the dollar movie to see "New Moon" (which I hadn't seen yet) then they gave me a gift card to Hobby Lobby! To top the evening off, we went to Orange Tree for yougart!!

What a wonderful Valentine's day & birthday!!

Three year old terror?!

That Caraline is such a character!! She is SO onry!!! She is SO different from Lydia!! Lydia wants to be safe & gets nervous easily. Caraline has NO FEAR!!

Recently, she ran out of the doors of the library & almost into the street! The same day she darted under the garage door a started running up the driveway!

The other day, Lydia came in the kitchen & said, "Mom, you better go see what Caraline is doing.." Oh no!! I walked in, Caraline was topless, standing on her nightstand & saying "Me the king, me the king!" Then she says "Watch me!" & jumps off the nightstand & immediately takes off her pants & stands there NAKED!! She gets back on the nightstand & starts singing "Jesus loves me!" (Yes, I got most of it on video!:))

I think this girl is VERY intelligent & creative, but is a mess! (and maybe a little bored.) She learns things the hard way!

Today I told the girls as we went to the library that they had to stay right by me, no running since last time we went to the library, Caraline ran all over the place! I also told them that if they didn't stay by me, we would get what we had at the time & promptly leave. In the first 3 minutes, Caraline ran around & I couldn't catch her unless I ran too!! I was very upset! I took her to the corner, spanker her & told her she couldn't walk by herself anymore, that I was going to have to hold her & we were leaving.

She started crying & wanted to help me check out the 5 books we got (we normally get about 20-25 books at a time..5 is NOTHING!) I repeatedly told her NO & sat her on the floor beside me!

I hated that it seemed like everyone was looking at me thinking that I'm a terrible mother, but I felt good that I stuck to my word about running & leaving. I felt bad for Lydia because she was great, but she understood.

There is a reason she is the second & last child!! And I LOVE HER!!

Caraline Grace

My Caraline is three!!

Caraline is very different than Lydia. She has no fear!! She will try anything! She has a mind of her own & she wants to do EVERYTHING herself!!

Caraline called Lydia "La la" but just recently, she calls her "lydia".

The girls got a new baby cousin in August. Caraline was not so sure about baby Sadie at first, but she warmed up to her very quickly.

Everywhere Caraline goes, she is RUNNING!!

She loves to play with Lydia...but the laughter can turn to tears in a matter of seconds. Caraline pinches, but Lydia bites!

She has quite the "attitude" sometimes & can scream as if she were in a horror movie!

Caraline has two imaginary friends, "Leah" & Googala". They are twins...they get in trouble alot like going outside without asking permission or not buckling in the car seats!:)

Caraline has a BAD habit of unbuckling her chest harness in the carseat. We have to pull over & buckle her back in!

This year we went to Red River, New Mexico on our first family vacation. Caraline handled the 10 hour drive pretty well. She had a GREAT time! Her boat won third place in the boat races! (She was asleep on my shoulder at the time!) As we were pulling into the driveway when we came home, Caraline started crying...she said "I want to go back to Red River!"

She likes to play like she's the mommy & I'm the "honey". Sometimes her "mommy" is a little hateful..oops!

She likes cars & animals figurines.

She is a turkey...and she knows it!!

She is SO fun & I can't wait to see what the next year brings!:)

Caraline's third birthday!!!

WHAT??!! I know!! My "baby" Caraline is THREE!! I will post pictures SOON!!

Today we did a mini "photo shoot" in her room with a white sheet....I got some funny pictures!! Some of them are "SO 'Caraline'"!!
Lydia had a little bit of a hard time today...we were gushing over Caraline & Lydia wasn't the center of attention...she was a little jealous.

She went to the dr today & she weighs 25 pounds & is 2 feet 11 inches tall. She is a little girl! She is in the 5th percentile!

We are having her party tomorrow..should be a lot of fun! We can't go outside, it is going to be 0 degrees!!

Happy third birthday, Caraline!! We love you, you little "turkey"!

More memories of 2009

I always get a new calendar for Christmas, but this year, I didn't....I waited until January 1st. I have discovered it I wait until the new year starts, SOME of the calendars are on clearance!!

So I bought a new calendar & I always use the old calendar to write in everyone's birthdays on the new one.

As I was reflecting on the old calendar, I noticed that I had written a few things that Caraline had done. I didn't write down a lot of things, but Scott wanted to keep the calendar....well, with the limited space in this house, I decided to record them here on the blog so I could recycle the old calendar.

Here are a few things that we wanted to remember:

January 15: Caraline pooped in the potty & had a bad cold. (She had just turned two)

January 31: Caraline got a "big girl" bed. She moved out of the crib to twin bed.

February 13: Caraline was saying "Cara-line" & "au-wa" for water

22nd: I cut Caraline's bangs

march 11: Caraline is now saying "Mommy" & "daddy" instead of "mama" & "dada"

march 25: Tori & Russ found out they were having a GIRL!!

April 6: Caraline said her first sentence. (5 words long)

April 20: caraline can count to ten

22nd: Lydia saw her very first movie in the Theater, "Earth"

May 6: When I went to wake Caraline up from her nap, she said " Get up? NO!"

July 11: Tori & Russ' baby shower

August 25: Sadie was born!! We almost missed it!!

September 27th: The girls got to run the bases at the Bricktown ballpark.

October 3th & 16th: I had my first photo shoot with the Schmidt family @ OU campus.

On the 16th, I had my first "hired" photo shoot with the Moinion girls @

bricktown. Both sessions were SO much fun!!

December 4: Caraline has really started pottying in the potty & wearing panties all day. (even out of the house, she's in panties) She has also started pottying by herself, without me asking or helping her.

Great memories!!! A new year, a clean slate....I know God has many more blessings ahead of us for 2010!