marin turns 2!

you're thinking, "poor girl, still doesn't have any hair!" this was actually her 1 year old picture. :)
" see! i have lots of hair! because i'm 2 years old!"
a nice new noise-making bus to play with! thank you gran and pawpaw!
now you can see even more hair! she looks so old. i'm sad. :(
we had a dairy queen ice cream cake! yummy!

dear marin,
you are now a big 2 year old. but still our baby. last year you had just started walking and now you run, hop, climb, twirl, somersault... and you have a bit more hair. here are some things that come to mind about your little life so far.
1. you are a talker. don't know where that comes from.
2 you are a singer. right now you love to sing, "ABC," "happy birthday," "twinkle, twinkle," and some original tunes that only you know.
3. you don't really like being/playing by yourself. maybe that comes from having two slightly older siblings around all the time. but on days when they go to preschool, you are never more than a few inches from mommy. even in the bathroom. geesh!
4. you love to eat. not so much veggies. but definitely fruit, meat and carbs. we go to the dr. in a couple of days so we'll see where you fall in the percentiles. right now, according to our scales, you weigh more than your older brother.
5. you are stubborn. and can have a bit of a temper. when you don't get your way you make your face turn all red and shaky. and you bite. remember when you bit mommy's cheek this morning?
6. you love going to daddy and getting "orders."- "go kiss mommy's nose" "go kiss mommy's ear" -back and forth you go.
7. you can count to 10 and say most of your abc's.
8. you love to "help" mommy fold the laundry. thanks.
9. you love to talk on your phone. aunt susu gave you her old one and somehow you can tell that it's "real" and don't even touch the fun plastic ones that we have.
10. after the dr. visit we now have the official stats.
weight-31lb 7oz 93% WOW!
height- 34.5 inches 69%
head circumference- almost 19inches 29% your little head is just filled with brains!
11. you love talking with ellory at night after we put you to bed. ("elllllll reeeee! townsend bite me!" ) townsend finally got you back the other day for all your biting on him. :)
12. you love taking off your pants and diapers and running around the house.
13. you are starting to pray and sing "jesus loves me."
14. you are much loved and adored by mommy, daddy, towney, and ellory.

prayers

last year we moved out to denver with 2 other families to start new denver church. one of the families, the reddens, have 2 boys, ethan and andrew. now we really haven't spent a ton of time with them but this past week we did borrow some cowboy boots and hats from them to wear to the stock show and rodeo. maybe that prompted this? don't really know.
today i was with townsend in his room.
townsend- "what is ethan's daddy's name again?"
mommy- "stephen"
townsend- "what is ethan's mommy's name again?"
mommy- "kate"
townsend kneels down by his bed and says, "jesus, i pray for stephen and kate."
later when we were praying before bed he asks their names again and during his prayer he prays for ethan, andrew, stephen and kate. it was so sweet. he always prays for our family and will go through aunts, uncle and grandparents but he really never prays for non-family. i'm so curious as to what prompted his little heart to pray for the reddens. actually kate is out of town right now so maybe stephen needs the prayers! :)

conversations

this happened yesterday.
townsend to ellory- "hello, dora!"
ellory to townsend- "hello, diego! nice to meet you!"
townsend to marin- "hello, zoe!" (cute little muppet on sesame street)
townsend to mommy- "hello, big bird!"

i'll take that as a compliment.

lions, TIGERS and bears-oh my!

so a couple of weeks ago we were with the kids in the living room. playing around. i can't remember exactly how it happened but the kids started talking about tigers being in the house. or something like that. norton gets up and says that he is going downstairs to the bathroom. not true. he quietly goes out the side door and comes in through the back door to our sunroom. there is a door between the sunroom and the living room. pretty soon we start hearing scratching noises on the door and a low growl. ellory was pretty calm. but marin immediately put the throw blanket over her head. townsend started to cry. then marin joined in. they were so scared. norton opened the door to show them that it was just him. but they kept crying. it has been over a week. maybe two. and marin still talks about the tiger in the house. if i go to the bathroom, she is right with me and won't go into her room or the living room by herself because of the "tigers." we keep asking them, "where are tigers?" and they answer, "in the zoo." but they are still a little afraid. poor things.

our first tree as a family of 5

last Christmas we were moving to denver, thus we did not put up a tree. so this is our first tree as a family of 5. daddy and townsend did a great job of picking a perfect one. i also had daddy get some poinsettias as they were on sale at home depot. i guess i should have had a longer talk with the kids about flowers. i was in the kitchen making dinner and the kids were in the living room. playing so nicely. no fighting. no whining. every once in awhile i would hear one of them say, "decorations." and i would just say, "we will put up the decorations after supper." well, when i finally went into the living room i saw that the kids had already "decorated" the tree. with poinsettia petals. it looked kinda pretty to be truthful. but what the kids didn't know was that the pretty red petals would very soon wilt and turn brown and crunchy. :)

lots of ornaments down low.

mary comes and thanksgiving 2009

i cannot believe i do not have one picture from our friend mary's visit. or thanksgiving at the rolfs. i will try to get pics from mary and ann and put them on.
mary flew in from austin early on the tuesday before thanksgiving. i was so excited to see her but of course we had the potty training going on so that put a bit of a damper on things. thankfully, she is the kind of friend who just likes to hang out so we did. at home. cleaning up marin's messes. :) after about two accidents mary was kindly suggesting that we go buy diapers but we held on another day. when marin stood in her chair at the table and peepeed into her booster seat and didn't think a thing about it, i finally concurred. but back to mary's arrival. actually, i think the first thing mary did was clean my kitchen. she is very thorough and everything looked so beautiful. then we started cooking and well...not so clean now. she brought some new coloring books and markers for the kids which scored big with them. now they always pray for mary at night. on thursday we went over to the rolfs early and had breakfast. the kids played and then after they went down for naps the adults had thanksgiving dinner. so yummy! the next morning norton and townsend went to home depot to get a tree which is where i finally got my camera out and started taking pictures. mary and i took the kids and did a little shopping but she had to head back to austin early that afternoon. come back soon mary!

pottytraining school dropout

well, we finally threw in the towel after 6 days. there were many many towels actually. to clean up the many many messes. on day 3 marin used the potty two or three times and i thought it was going to click. but days 4, 5 and 6 were disasters. and we had company, our friend mary, starting on day 5 so she had to endure it all too. sorry mary! we decided that we couldn't take marin to the rolfs for thanksgiving with her peeing all over the place so i had a talk with marin and we put her back in diapers. i felt so defeated. but much less stressed. : ) note to self-do not try to potty train within a month of any holiday.

potty training #3

after watching her big brother and sister use the potty since early july, marin has been following them into the bathroom every time they go. she has even pulled down her pants, pulled off her diaper and sat on the potty. the method that we used recommended starting potty training at 22 months. well, marin is about a week away so we decided to just do it. day 1-put all diapers in a bag to give to a "baby" who needs them. put big girl panties on marin and tell her to let us know when she has to pee. that's all! not so much.
see my princess panties?
mommy and daddy don't want me on the couch at this time. but i think i'll get on it anyway!
day 2-lots of fluids so i will go peepee. are they crazy? why not just stop and make a fun puddle right on the floor? i can even slide in it!
day 3-after going two whole days not getting even a drop of pee in the potty marin finally went three times. the last time she even went in the bathroom herself, pulled down her panties and went without telling anyone. i was helping ellory get ready for bed and all of a sudden heard the "sound" and assumed she was peeing in the hallway. don't get me wrong-she had plenty of accidents today. and i really wanted to go outside and scream at the top of my lungs. but instead i was just grumpy with all the kids. poor things. grumpy is probably putting it nicely. :) i tried to not have high expectations but we really really thought she was going to be the easiest to train. but i have confidence that she will eventually get this. and i will be able to get out into the world again. today while the kids were napping, i was going through a box that hadn't been unpacked yet. in one envelope were all of the ultrasounds that i had taken. the ones where the babies went to be with Jesus early on and the ones of marin that kept showing a baby getting bigger and bigger. i wept as i thanked God that marin was here for us to potty train. i guess i'll cut her a little slack. :) we love you marin.

elvis is in the house--again!

townsend has the funniest hair. sometimes when he wakes up it just sticks straight up. and it stays that way!


these were taken over a year ago. they are still my favorite. :)
i ain't nothin but a hound dog!

just beefing up the marin posts

she's really very entertaining to be around. love you mare bear.