Missing those Girls

My girls...those silly and giggly girls, those loud and rebellious girls that drive me crazy! 
I have been missing them for 4 weeks. (they come home this weekend! yay!) They get to spend 5 weeks with Dad each summer.  And it's getting harder to do the summer thing the older they get. 
It was CRAZY hard to send my itty bitty girls - 6 months & 2 yrs off for the weekends it was hard to send them for a whole week at 4 & 6 yrs. and it was REALLY hard when they were 7 & 9 yrs, to send them off on a plane for spring break (that was doubly hard because I was induced the next morning for Tallen). 
But now that they are 13 & 15, it's even harder!  They have friends to see, places to go and obligations to tend to. Sariah wants to get a summer job. Miranda needs to start getting conditioned for fall sports.  They have Youth Conference and Girls Camp to prepare for.  Oh, and did I mention that I miss them?  I miss the loud laughter and girl-stuff they do in their room (curling hair and make up and talking of boys :o) ) I don't miss the arguing so much and am not looking forward to that again, but I guess it's kinda part of the FINDING ONESELF during the teen years, that goes on.
Anyhow, I was looking around on YouTube and found this song. "Walking Her Home" (good song. you'll see)   It especially makes me think of my girls. My sweet growing up “thinking of boys” girls.  I want them to have a good experience with love,  THIS kind of love.  The kind that lasts all those years: through the kids, the work and lay offs, the injuries and offenses, the in-laws, the good and the bad.  This song makes me think of my sweet Steven and the love we found and now share (and hope to continue to share as we head into the twilight years of life.)  I want my girls to grow up and feel the love of a GOOD man. A strong and upstanding man, To build a life and a marriage to the Glory of God.

Tallen and the Priesthood

Sariah was assigned to give a talk today at church. Her first one and she’s sick and won’t be giving it.  She feels bad and she feels bad about not giving the talk.  I made the call and explained. Sariah will give a talk another day. All is well…

KINDA.

Sariah feels rotten. I told her she needs a blessing when Daddy gets home from his camp out. That’s when Tallen – age 41/2 - offered to give her a blessing instead.

“I’ll give her a blessing. I can do it!”

I explained that he was not big enough yet.

“I can get the stool.”

I explained that he needed to have the priesthood. That he would get that when he is 12. He gently reminded me that he HAS it. I asked him “where do you keep your priesthood.”

“In the storage unit” was his sweet reply.

This kid cracks me up!!!!

(I did explain more about how it all works. About being 12 and the authority and all the important things like not keeping your priesthood in the storage unit.)

Howell Balloonfest

Each June, Howell hosts the Balloon Fest. Challenge. It’s a hot air balloon race of sorts.  It amounts to lots more traffic through town, lots of area churches making the charging to park people on church grounds,  yummy fair food (so not good for you),  and there are plenty of hot air balloons that go overhead. There is also an arts fair and carnival.  Thursday night was “park for free and go to the carnival for $15 arm band night.”  Everything else opens on Friday.

The girls were dropped off early to hang as a gaggle of girls until 7pm when we got there with Tallen.

Tallen was not sure how to do this all and WOULD NOT get on any rides – and we had just paid $15 for the arm band!!

So needless to say, Mama was getting agitated by the boy crying and not riding. 

THEN, I had an “AH HA!! Moment” and pulled Randa off her rides and she introduced Tallen to the joys of carnival rides. 

             MUCH Better!!

 

 

Then, for the rest of the night it was hard to get him OFF the rides!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Happy Boys are a good thing!!

Steven and I didn’t go for the arm bands, but I wanted to ride one ride with Tallen. So we chose the Huge Ferris Wheel  

Here is the top most car from the ground. WOW!!

 

 

 

 

 

 

This is Steven taking pictures. We were still on the ground.

 

Here he is from my view at the top of the Ferris Wheel. (He’s the tiny yellow dot) Boy was it high up!

 

 

 

The plan with the girls was for them to hang in the gaggle of girls and call or text me every so often to check in.  This is actually Sariah dialing the phone to check in with me. 

 

I crept up and scared them….

hahaha  !! (evil laugh)

 

I know, I’m bad!!

These girls  are  so beautiful!

I forget sometimes how grown up they are becoming.  I am finding that balance between holding them tight and letting them test their wings…but I digress.

Back to the fun…

 

Here are the kids while waiting to go on the bumper cars I think.  Sariah and Tallen drove together and Miranda in her own car.  We had tons of fun and stayed until 10pm!!! They rode and rode and rode!  Good value on that arm band.

 

 

This is video of the the girls on the tiny roller coaster.

And after of the roller coaster…don’t get motion sick. hahaha

This is one of Tallen on HIS roller coaster – his favorite ride of the night.

These are a Few of my Favorite Things

A friend of mine had a list like this on her blog, so I’m copying you…you know who you are!! I LOVE the idea to keep track of the kids growth and development this way.  The girls’ birthdays are in the winter, so I’ll just do it now. Tallen’s birthday is next week!  Eeek! Where does time go?

Sariah is 13 .  ..a TEENAGER!

Favorite Food: Shrimp

Favorite Color: Aquamarine

Favorite Restaurant: Red Lobster

Favorite Song: Telephone by Lady Gaga/Beyonce

Favorite Primary Song: The Wise Man and the Foolish Man

Favorite thing to do: Facebook

Favorite sport: Cross country

Favorite place to go on a Mama date: Shopping

Best Friend: Ashley & Megan & Makayla & Karson

Favorite clothes: Skinny jeans, mismatched socks, poofy white shirt and her Vampire sweatshirt

Favorite treat: Between Buckeyes & Lincoln Logs

Favorite snack: chips with salsa

Favorite dinner: chimmey-chongas

Greatest wisdom to share: The teenager is the smartest person in the family =)

Miranda is 11 now.

Favorite Food: sweet and sour chicken

Favorite Color: yellow

Favorite Restaurant: Red Lobster & IHOP

Favorite Song: Our Song by Taylor Swift

Favorite Primary song: Baptism

Favorite thing to do: Ride my bike

Favorite sport: volley ball

Favorite place to go on a Mama date: Knitting night and then Dunkin Donuts

Best Friend: Kayla

Favorite clothes: red plaid pj pants and teal top

Favorite treat: Donuts

Favorite snack: BBQ pretzels

Favorite dinner: stir fry

Greatest wisdom to share: Be yourself, and no one else.

Tallen …we’ll do that another day. (when WE are not so tired)

Farm City Day…

When I was a girl, my sister and I would visit my Mother in Pennsylvania on the dairy farm she and her husband ran. There were like 200 of these:

So Megan and I got to feed the calves their bottles, feed the “teenager cows” feed and water (I loved the water dispensers…VERY cool to a kid) and even GOT to help in the milking parlor in the evenings and clean up the parlor and scrape the manure afterward (to put it politely) into the barn to later make it into the pit out back and into the fertilizer spreader later.  Being on a farm was a vacation for me until I graduated from high school and moved there to live and was expected to do my part…but that’s a different blog entry all together. 

During the summers, there was a thing called “Farm City Day” when the kids from the city would come out and play farmer for the day. There were milk drinking contests, hay rides, goat milking, and other fun farm stuff.

My children would be THOSE city kids! 

How foreign farm animals are to them!!

We started off Spring Break 2010 by going to Kensington Lake Metro Park.  They have a Farm Center there with a barn full of animals downstairs, where all the babies are born and an educational area upstairs and then the more open farm areas outside. 

Sariah made a point to tell me “I’ll go see the baby pigs but I DON’T want to walk around and see the other stuff.” (Where did she think she’d be while the rest of us were wandering?? Needless to say, I put her in charge of photos and she was all about walking around to EVERY SINGLE ANIMAL!)

Checking out the goats

 

 

 

 

Trying to PET  the goats

 

 

 

 

 

      He isn't so sure yet about touching them.

 

 

 

 

 

 

STOP! 

Before you look at the next photo, let me tell you a bit about this girl.

Sariah is my “Ultra Clean” child.  She doesn’t like to be dirty, WOULDN’T finger paint as a small girl…not even with Chocolate pudding and is allergic to soft and fuzzy animals.  Her eyes puff up and tear. And remember she “wasn’t going to LIKE seeing all the animals”

Here SHE is:

(OK – you can look now)

I happen to adore the look on her face!

It says:

“Look at me!! I am TOUCHING A REAL LIVE, UP CLOSE    C-O-W!!!!”

 

 

 

Now Sariah is so COOL with it. 

“I do this all the time. This is so old hat!”

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Miranda and the same cow.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

They spent about 10 minutes with this cow taking bunches of pictures as she was eating her dinner.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Then it was on to the pigs. 

Ask Sariah what she thought of the pigs…it’s a funny story but I don’t want to embarrass her here.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Spring is lambing time.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Mama… a.k.a. Mrs. Ewe

 

 

 

 

 

1 day old lambs! So Cute!!

 

 

 

 

 

And oh so soft!

 

 

 

 

 

Dinner! Come and get it!

 

 

 

 

 

There were plenty of other lambs with their Mamas and other animals to photograph as well…

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

  

 

 

 

 

Usually there are quite a bunch of piglets, but this year there are only 4.  They are cute and so funny.

The kids had to show off their strength and try out the pulleys. When you lift 20 lbs alone it’s REALLY heavy, when you use pulleys they pulleys do some of the work for you.  The more pulleys, the easier it is on you.

Here is Tallen demonstrating the pulleys

Getting ready…

     

 

 

 

 

 

 

One pulley…

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Two pulleys…    

(so much easier)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Three pulleys.    

so easy he almost fell pulling the rope.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 Miranda just showing off!

She is so strong!!

 

 

 

 

 

A lot of gals have to WORK for arms like this…I tell her to keep it up. Stay active and healthy.

 

Ready to carry milk into the house from the barn.

 

 

 

 

 

 Oh…, right, we don’t hand milk cows for milk.  But they are ready!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

How many hands high are you??       

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

    Sariah is 15 hands high

    Miranda is 14 1/2 hands high

 

 

 

 

 

    Tallen is 12 hands high

 

 

 

 

 

It was a great day out with the children.  After the farm we stopped for a little while at the playground. Very fun. Sariah sat in the van and listened to her Mp3 player, Miranda and Tallen played and I was able to sit for a spell and knit.

 

 

 

  

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Tallen’s new favorite activity

Climbing!!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Sweet

Success!!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 Today, was a good day. I was able to enjoy the nature around me…

 

 

 

 

 

 

…and to just BE with my kids and not have to worry about the laundry, the dishes or the rest of the chores

 

 

 

 

 

 

Tomorrow I will go back to feeling a little like this chicken

(I feel this way often actually…)

 

 

 

 

 

 

    The children will keep     growing older…

 

 

 

 

 

 

   …and need me less and less…

 

 

 

 

 

 

    …and grow further and further  from me.

 

 

 

 

 

    But this is how God intended it to be.  It is the circle of life! We teach them and then they go out on their own…

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I am glad they’ll always have each other!!!

But for now they are still up close and personal and oh so beautiful!

 

SARIAH

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

MIRANDA

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

TALLEN

 

 

 

 

 

 

(I give up!! I put it in the program and TRY to upload my beautiful and creative entry and it ends up looking like this…..SORRY, I did the best I could.)