Last day of School

Mady's last day of preschool was yesterday, at least for the academic year.  She goes back in July for four weeks, while I teach summer courses.  We have really liked her school!  Her teachers are wonderful, the staff is great, and we really feel comfortable having her there.  So thankful to have found this place :)

Mady on her first day of school

Mady on her last day of school

Her awesome teacher, Mrs. Rose.  Definitely going to miss her next year

My little helper

Mady had a lot of fun the other night helping me make french bread pizzas.  But I think she had more fun eating the cheese and pepperoni than actually helping me put them on the bread.

We have a 2 year old

Two weekends ago we celebrated Mady’s second birthday.  It’s hard to believe that two years have passed since she came into our lives, and what a fun ride it has been!  We had a party for Mady with family and friends on the Saturday before her birthday.  She loves the show Doc McStuffins that comes on Disney Jr.  It’s about a little girl who is a doctor to toys.  I made stethoscopes for all of the kids and set up a spot for them to do check-ups on the toys.  Mady loved having all her favorite people with her at once and the kids had a lot of fun.  A big thank you to my brother-in-law Cody, who without him, I would not have had any pictures!

My take on a Doc McStuffins cake

I just love Pinterest

Sunday was Mother's Day and I couldn't think of a better way to spend it than celebrating Mady's actual birthday.  The day that made me a mother.  We went to church in the morning, and then had a great lunch outside in the beautiful weather at one of my favorite restaurants, with our mom's who were still in town. The whole weekend was so wonderful.  Looking around at the party at all the people who came to celebrate her was such a blessing.  Thank you to everyone who came!!

So what is Mady up to these days?  She is talking so much.  She strings together 3 to 4 words at a time.  Her vocabulary has grown so much.  She still loves dancing and music, with her favorite song being, I’m ashamed to say,  Trouble by Taylor Swift.  She wakes up requesting “trouble, trouble, please trouble”.  And yes, I do have that song…don’t’ judge me! 

She knows all her letters, numbers (1-10), shapes, and all the primary colors, plus a few others like pink of course!  We’re still working on counting, which right now mainly consists of (1, 3, 7, 3!), so cute! Just today she counted from 1-10 all by herself while going down the stairs!

She loves her babies, one specifically, that she brings everywhere with her, including school.  Speaking of school, she loves going to school.  She walks right on in now without even looking back to tell me bye.  While it does make me a little sad, I much prefer that than the crying and screaming, which is what we had the first few months. 

She is getting better at eating.  She is still pretty picky, and I can't get her to eat vegetables for anything, but we are seeing improvement.  She still loves fruits, which I am very thankful for. I continue to feed her our dinner, and she never gets anything special made for her.  If she doesn't eat what I make, then she won't eat and I think that has helped a lot.

We are entering the terrible two's and that does show in the increased tantrums.  She can be very stubborn and strong-willed, but time-outs right now are working for us. Fingers crossed, that continues.  She is so fun right now though.  She has the best laugh and is so fun loving and caring.  We are really enjoying her.

As for potty training we haven't done much of that.  We bought her a potty and she knows what it is and will sit on it, but not with her clothes off!  I don't think she's quite ready for that so I'm not pushing it.

This is Mady's last week of school.  We have the whole month of June off together, and then I teach classes the second summer session, so she'll go back to school in July.  Here's to a great summer!

So proud.

This past week we have seen a lot of tragedy in our area with the tornadoes.  It has been heartbreaking to watch all of those affected lose their homes, belongings, and loved ones.  Tornadoes have always scared me in the fact that they can cause so much destruction with very little warning.  I still remember when Mady was about a week old and the three of us were huddled in the closet because of the tornado threat, or the time I was rushing home to Mady from school, when there were tornadoes in Dallas.  I'm praying for those affected and hope through God, and the community around them, they will find strength to stand up and start building again.

I will say, however, that in the last week I have grown an even deeper appreciation for what Nick does.  This week we saw how important the work they do really is.  I heard many times on the news what great warning time was given to everyone.  Many lives I'm sure were saved due to their hard work at predicting and getting the word out.  Nick worked really hard during the tornado outbreak we had south of us, and at one point had been awake over 30 hours!  But, he didn't mind at all and kept going because he loves what he does and has a passion for it.  Thank you Nick and all of you for the hard work you do.  We are very lucky to have people working tirelessly to keep us safe!

If you are looking for ways to help, here are a few links to organizations who are accepting donations to help those affected:

American Red Cross

Samaritans Purse - Oklahoma

Samaritans Purse - Texas

Oklahoma Regional Food Bank

Salvation Army

The next link is to a church in Norman, OK that our friends attend.  They are accepting donations and will be using the proceeds for short-term and long-term relief efforts including (but not limited to):

- Andrew Burkhart (pastor of Acts 29 church in Moore, Love & Justice) and his family who lost their    house and belongings
- Love and Justice Church as they serve people in their neighborhood who have need
- Chick-fil-A of Moore as they serve the immediate Moore area.

Providence Road Communities

Ladybug

This was maybe the first time where I laughed so hard while Mady was crying.  This evening Mady found a ladybug crawling on her chair outside.  She was AMAZED!  She's seen them before and knew what it was, but even so,  it was the coolest thing in the world to her.  Over and over she kept saying "adybug!"  as she followed it all around.

She watched it crawl all over her chair until she couldn't find it anymore.  Turns out, while she had her hand on the chair the ladybug decided to crawl onto her hand.  I thought she would love this, so I told her it was on her hand.  She looked down and when she saw the ladybug it was a look of terror.  She instantly swatted the poor thing off of her hand and started screaming bloody murder!!  She was terrified that this ladybug had found its way on her hand and all her mommy could do was laugh.  I wish I would have caught this on camera.  It was definitely worthy of America's Funniest Home Videos.  Unfortunately, I got no picture of her after the discovery either :(

Nick came outside and was so confused as to why I was laughing while Mady was crying her little eyes out.  No worries guys, she was back at watching the ladybug within minutes.  The ladybug luckily survived and went on her own business.  

Bluebonnets

We were a little late in checking out the bluebonnets this year so there weren't near as many as last year.  Nevertheless, we still got a few good pictures.

Cannot believe this little girl is going to be 2 in three short weeks!

Easter

This year we spent Easter weekend at home, just the three of us.  I think this may have been the first year that we didn't go out of town for the weekend, or have anyone up here.  We definitely missed our families but it ended up being a really great weekend.  On Friday we kicked it off with an Easter egg hunt with our church.  This was Mady's first Easter egg hunt and she had a great time! She caught on pretty quickly on what it was all about and we came home with a ton of eggs!  It was a great time with great friends.

Dropping them off and going back for more

Think she has enough?

Mommy, I'm done!

Saturday I volunteered at the church for the 5pm service and then we headed out for a yummy dinner and then to see some friends and watch some basketball!  Easter Sunday we started the day with an awesome service at 121.  Wow, they did a great job!

I cooked a ham for the first time, all by myself, along with wild rice, asparagus, mashed potatoes and rolls for dinner!  Yes, be impressed, haha.  Then we ended the day with some time at the park.

While we kept busy throughout the weekend we did make sure we kept the meaning of this Easter season on the forefront of our minds.  One thing that has stuck with me from the sermon on Sunday was a question our pastor asked: Jesus considered us worthy to die for, so do we consider Him worthy to live for?

That's a great question to ask, and while I say, absolutely yes! I admit, sometimes, my actions don't always reflect that.  But I know that's ok, because we aren't perfect.  We are works in progress, and if we allow it, God can mold us into the people He created us to be.  Hope everyone had a wonderful Easter!