Funny Things Kids Say

We've been working on potty training Trevor for the past week. He does great when we are at home. This morning he had no accidents and told Chris every time he had to go to the bathroom! So I think we are going to start turning a corner where there is no looking back. He's said a few funny things along the way.

First off I went to the bathroom the other day and I came out and Trevor said " Yeah mommy, mommy gets a treat!"

Secondly the toilet got plugged up the other day and well didn't look to pretty. Trevor didn't want to go in a dirty potty... go figure. So yesterday morning I cleaned it and when it was time for Trevor to go potty he walked in and saw the toilet and exclaimed "You cleaned Mommy! You cleaned it for ME- thank you, thank you!" Yep Trevor I cleaned the potty just for you... and everyone else that has to use it :-)

Taylor joined in the fun with her own moment... She has transitioned to taking showers since school began. She has loved the independence and I've enjoyed not straining my back. Well a few mornings ago I came in there and she had all the bottles lined up in some sort of order. I should mention she takes showers in my bedroom... I give the other two a bath in my room while she's in the shower. Anyway she needed some help opening the conditioner. I opened it up and put the bottle back down. She looks at me and says laughingly, "Silly mommy that is NOT where the conditioner goes!" As she picks the bottle up and moves it to a different spot. It made me chuckle- right Taylor cause see this used to be MY shower until you came a month ago. I'm sure I will be praising God for her organizing eye in future years!

David Wilcox Concert

Chris and I went to a David Wilcox concert last night with our friends Dale & Megan. It was so fun getting out with Chris in this way! We felt young :-) David Wilcox is a christian folk singer. He is an amazing storyteller/songwriter. The concert was at the Rhythm Room- a lounge like setting. We were there early and had front row seats! They ran out of chairs so David went in the back and helped set up chairs for more people. That was really cool- how many concerts have you been too where the artist is out serving. The air conditioning broke before the concert started. Yep you read that right- so it was HOT. You know it's hot when they open the doors (in AZ mind you) to let in air. At the end David was making jokes about how hot it was. He said if this was a back east concert people would've complained and left from the beginning. But we've been in training for this concert all summer. Not really... but it was worth it!

You can check out his music at www.davidwilcox.com

Here are a few video's of last night. Someone who sat pretty close to where we sat put them up...





This song, kindness, is one of his older songs. A song he wrote for his wife. It takes me back to when Chris and I were first married. I can remember dancing to it with Chris back in our old house on Ellsworth newly married! Ah so sweet :-)

Happy Belated Birthday Dad!

Thankfully I wasn't late in wishing him happy birthday in "real life" but I am a little behind here. We had a fun time celebrating on monday night with the family and he has continued in festivities with my mom throughout the week. I love you dad- everyone who knows you will agree when I say you are one of the most selfless people I know! You constantly give and give or yourself expecting nothing in return. You are a wonderful Godly husband, father and Papa. I love seeing you with the grandkids and there is no doubt they LOVE papa! Whenever he comes over to drop something off, kill bugs or just to say hi, the kids run to the door exclaiming PAPA! And of course in no time Trevor is on the floor tackling papa.

All I can say is you look great for 48 :-)

Love you Dad!

Hilarious Hat Day

Thanks Luz :-)

God Is Sovereign Over Scorpians

This is something you will hear me muttering under my breath as I live in my house the next few days. There really isn't anything "exciting" about living in AZ. The year we lived in MA there was a tornado warning, a hurricane, storm outages, snow storms etc. You won't find that here. But you will occasionally find- a scorpion. It's just something you deal with and more than likely if you live in AZ for long enough you'll get stung by one. I was 19 when I was stung by one that was hiding in my jacket. That was the last time. Some neighborhoods, or houses, have more trouble than others. This house is by far the worst I've lived in. We've maybe had ten in the past three years living here. God has been so kind- no one has been stung yet! Oh but it got to close for my comfort today. The worst of ALL places. Trevor's sheets. Trevor was entering through the back end of his bed. He likes to swing on the metal bars and jump in. Well I start to pull the sheets back and he starts to swing in and lo and behold there's a live one. I grab Trevor as fast as I could and tried to keep an eye on the scorpion so I wouldn't lose it. I threw the kids in the bedroom, kept Rylee in the highchair and... called Chris, who was unable to come home. I guess my hyperventilating over the phone wasn't enough to convince him that I really wasn't up for killing it. See I've seen them, been stung by one, but NEVER had to kill one. Now Chris would've come home any other day but today was an important all day, all pastor's, team meeting. These things seem to happen to me on weds. too. Remember the turtle tragedy. Yeah that was two weds. ago. Anyways, by God's grace I called my dad and of all places he could've been he was a mile away. Daddy to the rescue!! You wanna know how he killed it? I offered him a shoe and a heavy book I had nearby just in case the scorpion tried to escape and it was up to me. He informed that those methods wouldn't have worked, good to know. So he grabs a wad of toilet paper and squeezed it until, in his words, "you hear a pop- then you know you've killed it". Right so a popping sound is what I want? I don't think so....

I am so thankful to God that no one got stung. If I hadn't pulled back the sheets I might never have seen it and would've put Trevor down who most certainly would've gotten stung at some point during his nap. Scorpions really aren't all that dangerous. I got a little nauseous from my episode at 18. But it can be dangerous to a child- especially skinny ones like mine. So as I continue to live in my house, a little on edge, I'll keep recalling all of the ways God's has been faithful and that he is Sovereign over those ugly, horrid, from the pit, eight legged venomous invertebrates!

Party Time

Yesterday, we celebrated Rylee's birthday. We woke her up with the Daukas balloon tradition. Every birthday kid gets balloons in their room on the morning of their birthday. This year we waited to do balloons until the day after so Taylor wouldn't miss it. The kids had fun playing with the balloons that morning. Later that night we had a party at Peter Piper Pizza. This was the first party we've ever done at an establishment. Our families have gotten so big and it's too hot to enjoy the outdoors. So we thought it best to move it somewhere other than our house. I really enjoyed the part where they provided everything and cleaned up after us :-)

It was great to see all the cousins together and to catch up with everyone! Rylee loved the pizza, got some great presents and had a beautiful cake. (Compliments of a friend from church!)



Some people wore their hats...


Trevor and Cousin Ethan took many rides in this car:


They let Rylee join them for some of it:


Aren't these shoes so cute? :-) Taylor wore them for her first birthday. They totally impeded her walking ability but hey it was worth the cuteness!


Here's the adorable cake:


Rylee loved eating her first piece:




The best part of the party, by far, was finding out my cousin, who is like a sister to me, is pregnant again! Notice the "baby"
writing on her shirt!

Happy Birthday Rylee

I still remember the day I found out I was pregnant with Rylee. In my mind I wasn't "supposed" to be pregnant, in other words she wasn't planned. I tried my best to be excited knowing that every child is a gift from God. But in reality it had been a long nine months with Trevor, who at that point was still getting up one to two times a night, and I was exhausted. I wasn't sure I could do it again so soon. My friend Jenni, a couple we went to the Pastor's College with, found out shortly she was pregnant too. We had a few e-mails back and forth and then the e-mail came that her baby had a terminal birth defect. From then on out my pregnancy was never the same. God used her son Chase's life to show me the sin in my own and I was never again not thankful to be pregnant. Thank you Jenni for letting us all partake in Chase's life!

A year and a day ago I went to the dr. and was told I was at 4 cm. Having strong contractions for a few days I figured I'd be dilated. But a four? Wow, who stays there for days. God graciously gave me a great night sleep and I woke up at 5 am with contractions. Determined to keep them coming I went to the gym and walked furiously until I could no longer breath through the them. Not something I'd advise to other pregnant women :-) I drove myself home and Chris and I shortly went to the hospital and had Rylee a few short hours later. My brother Ryan who walked downstairs to get a fork walked back up and she had been born. It was that fast! He said to my parents " I just went to get a fork!".

She has lived up to her middle name since birth- Grace. She has brought so much grace to our lives and has been very gracious to me through her first year of life. She must've gotten word of Trevor's sleeping difficulties because from four weeks on she has slept 11-12 hrs at night and has only woken up two or three times in the middle of the night -always due to a fever. She is really easy going, following wherever her brother and sister go. She has the most contagious laugh and beautiful smile. She appears to be fearless like her brother. That was a new thing for me after Taylor, a fearless girl? She is a determined one as well. I'm sure I will see more of that this upcoming year. You can see it in her eyes when she has her mind set on something... there is no turning back! She is also my most cuddly baby. If you've seen her with me you know she is quite the mommy's girl and I don't mind one bit! She loves to snuggle and bury her head into my chest. We love her dearly and are so thankful to God for bringing her into our lives!

Happy Birthday Rylee Grace!

Christmas in August

I have this thing where I don't like to purchase new things when Christmas is near. Apparantly six months is close is my mind. Chris still remembers when we were dating and the new Jars of Clay CD came out in September and I wouldn't buy it because I could ask for it for Christmas. I think he ended up buying it for me early. Well one of the things that's on the top of the list for Trevor is "boy" stuff. He has really taken to pretend play and the only stuff we have around here is Taylor's. Not that that's stopped him. But enough was enough and Chris took us out monday night to toys- r- us for some early Christmas shopping. It was time for Trevor to stop pretending he was a princess :-)


We bought two outfits from imaginarium. A train conductor piece and a construction worker set. All I can say is he loves it and I'm so glad we didn't wait till Decemeber. He wore the train outfit the entire day yesterday and then putting him to bed last night he wanted to sleep in it. It came with a stopwatch, walkie talkie, train whistle and train tickets.





If you've ever heard Trevor tell one of his train stories you know that it always includes "Oh no, train went off the track" Then it continues on with Trevor the train conductor fixing it. Here he is making his "Oh No" face:


He gave rides in his train all day to Rylee. Mommy took some turns pushing him and Rylee as well. I did one ride with all three kids and realized, I'm too old for this or out of shape, as my back began to cramp up!




Here's some pictures of the construction outfit:

We got a walker in the works...

Rylee's been taking a few steps here and there this past week. However, today she was the most ambitious I've seen her. She was letting go of things left and right and walking. I caught her in the act with the camera. She let go and walked right towards the camera... wanting it of course :-) I'm eager for her to walk. Sounds crazy I know for a mother of three but I'm ready for clean knees, for her to be able to hold my hand when we go places, and to be able to walk around outside and join in the fun with her siblings. You can remind me I said this later on...

Train Bed

When we moved Trevor & Taylor into bunk beds I had to retire Trevor's cute Train Junction pottery barn toddler/crib set. It was sad for me... I loved the bedding and it of course went well with his train obsession. I've been searching places for the past two weeks for new bedding. I found one that I loved but could not handle the price tag. I resovled to just get him a set of sheets and put the search on hold till Christmas. That was until Wednesday. I went into TJ Max/Homegoods store and lo and behold they had a train quilt on clearnace. Much like the one I found elsewhere but for half the price. The only bummer part was that they didn't have the matching pillow sham. Just the quilt. But I figured he's two he won't care... after it was on his bed for awhile he began to study the picture on the case it came in. It had a picture of a bedroom decked out with all the coordinating pieces. He looked me right in the eyes and no joke said, "Where's train pillow?" Can't get anything pass him!

He was so cute when we gave it to him though. I wish you could've seen his face. I've never seen someone so excited over bedding! It brought me so much joy to see him so happy. I put it on his bed for him and he ran and jumped up and down on his bed saying " I love my bed, I love my bed!"

Now if I could just get him to stay in it at night and not climb up to be with Tay,tay... another post for another time I guess.

School Days

I thought I'd give an update on some things we've been doing for school. Last week the kindergartners had a silly sock day to reinforce the letter "S". That didn't go so well at first... I got some white socks and helped her glue on shapes and color with a permanent marker... it looked ok at first but when she went to put the socks on, everything fell off and it looked horrible, not silly. I finally convinced Taylor that it would be very silly if she just wore multi- colored socks layered over each other.

This week they've been studying the letter "T" and the color yellow. Each week the teacher assigns a letter to a different child and they are given some activities to prepare to share with the class on friday. Well Taylor is the first child to be given a letter so we've been getting ready all week for tomorrow. First she had to cut out the letter T that was sent home and find five things that start with the letter and glue them onto the paper. Second she had to find two items that begin with letter "T" and place them into a paper bag. Then she needed to prepare two clues for each item to share with her class to help them guess what she brought in. Of course turtle starts with "T"... so it's been used A LOT this week including a paper turtle they made in class and a toy turtle that will be in the bag tomorrow... just can't escape it I guess. An optional activity is to bring in a snack that starts with the letter T. Of course I couldn't pass up the opportunity to make my favorite lemon sugar cookie! Taylor and I made them today and used a teddy bear cutout. Then we made frosting and colored it yellow.

As if that isn't enough, each kid was given a paper T-shirt to decorate that is now hanging in the kindergarten hallway. Taylor enjoyed placing different jewels, stickers and adding some of her own artwork... if only her mom wasn't so craft challenged :-) So needless to say we been busy this week but it's been a lot of fun!

Local Date Night Ideas

The past two date nights Chris & I discovered some great new places. Both have opened within the past month. The first one is a Brunswick bowling alley on Gibert & Warner. It's behind the Chipotle. While eating dinner there last week we noticed the sign and walked over to check it out. We were very impressed with what we saw inside. Not only did it have nice, clean, smoke free bowling alley's but it also had a really cool arcade. And this isn't like any arcade we've every seen. It reminded me a lot of Dave and Buster's. If your guy likes shoot em hoops and shooting gallery's like mine than he'll love this place. And of course they have my favorite, air hockey.

Another place most guys I know love is YC's mongolian grill. One just opened this week at Gilbert & 202 on the South/West corner. We ate their the other night and the food was delicious. It's the kind of place where you go through a line and pick out your meats and vegtables raw then pile on some noodles and pick your favorite sauce. Be sure to buy a doggie bag as you'll always have leftovers!

Hope this inspires some of you local married ladies!

Goodbye Laura- Turtle Sage Pt 2

Well I got in touch with my neighbor. She was out of town and with the help of one of my other neighbor's I got her cell phone. Turns out the kid next to us has a turtle too so Tracy (turtle owner) had our neighbor friend look in the shoebox to confirm it was indeed Laura I killed. Sure enough it was, the kid's next doors turtle is much bigger. Maybe I would've seen him. Tracy was really nice her first response was "Hey at least it wasn't a kid." Uh, wow, yes I guess that is a good thing... I hadn't really thought like that until you brought it up... She also said "We have another one in the backyard." That's good to know. Note to self there are two more turtles on our block.

Yesterday when they arrived home she came over with her four year old in her arms. She looks at her daughter and says what do you have to say to Tara. I'm thinking great... what's she going to say to me... She starts off with "Tara did you...?" I waiting for, "Tara, did you smash my most favorite Turtle with you car (tears streaming down face)?" But Her mom interrupts and says no remember what we talked about. "Tara it's ok you ran over my turtle I know it was an accident. He's with Jesus now!" It was so sweet... I figured now was probably not the time to tell her that I began a study on Heaven yesterday (after running over her turtle) and that the bible doesn't really speak to the subject of turtles being in Heaven. Her dad came over with a pair of gloves and took the shoe box from our backyard over to theirs. Her mom says aloud "Ok, well we are going to have a little service for Laura now." I gave my condolences as they walked away. At least they didn't invite me to the service... that would be a little awkward, "And now a few words from the driver..."

Piper's Response to Bridge Collapsing

I thought this was an excellent article. I love how he lead his daughter through processing this tragedy. May his words encourage us all.

John Piper's Blog

I killed a turtle today...

Something tragic happened this morning. Janis, friend and fellow pastor's wife, came over to give me a few hours out to myself. (not the tragic part) I had some errands to run and then I packed up some books to begin a study on Heaven. So as I back out of my driveway, keep in mind to study heaven, I run over my neighbor's turtle and crush it to death. Apparently their gate was left open and the turtle got out. I could make excuses like, "It was moving to slow!" or "Who watches out for turtles as they back up, really?" but truthfuly I feel bad and it'll take awhile to get the sound of me running it over out of my head. It was an honest mistake... never-mind the fact that my neighbor was at my house a few nights ago warning me about their scorpion problem and how her husband wants to get rid of the turtle so the bug man can spray stronger stuff and now I just made that possible.

So, I don't know what one does when they kill a turtle or any animal. This was a first for me. My neighbor wasn't home, actually none of the neighbors were home. I called Chris and he tried calling their cell phone but no one answered. Thankfully an intern from the church came over and removed the evidence for me. I didn't want them to come home with there five year old daughter in the car and her see their beloved turtle laying flat in the street! So, now it's in my backyard, in a shoebox, just in case they want to do a service.

Oh and no it's not in the interns job description to come and clean up Pastor's wives messes... Ryan did it out of the kindness of his heart. Thx Ryan!