Faith of a Child

Just a quick little post but I just think kids are so cute when they pray. Ever since I convinced Addison to pray out loud a few months ago, she has prayed the same prayer every single time. I did not teach her this- it's 100% her own although I do try to get her to add a little on at the end ;)  This is how it goes:

"Dear Jesus,

Thank you for all the fun day I have,

Amen."

Don't you think we could all learn from this? No requests, no complaints, just thanksgiving.

Easter

We had a quiet day at home because Addison was sick on Saturday :( She woke up fine on Sunday but we didn't want to accidentally share any germs so we stayed home just to be safe. We still had a good day though!

Addison was on her way to our room when she noticed the baskets!

She came running in to tell me :)

Kaitlyn heard the excitement and got up to check her basket out too :)

Addison LOVES her new makeup!!

Kaitlyn liked her pretend food, but she's no fool!

She knows the Reese's are the best! 

She quickly devoured atleast six of them :)

Then we watched the Veggie Tales Easter movie

Then Kaitlyn took a nap and Addison and I did a Resurrection Day craft.

I figured she should still have a good lesson in why we celebrate Easter,

even if we didn't get to go to church this year.

It was a super cute idea that I printed. 

Half of one sheet was a tomb for her to color, then fold and glue shut.

She also had a picture of Jesus to color and I cut a hole in the tomb paper.

We talked about how Jesus died and his friends put him in the tomb

BUT He didn't stay there!! The Jesus figure easily slides in and out of the tomb.

She loved it!

After Addison napped (and a failed attempt to get K to nap again)

we went outside for an egg hunt!

I tried to get a few pictures before they hunted,

they thought I was crazy!

They could see eggs all over the yard and couldn't wait to go get them!

She already had quite a few by this point!

She was so cute! 

Enjoying the fruits of her labor

Addison joined the candy eating party and I tried

to get a picture of the two of them...

This is as close as it got- screaming.

Sweet girls who still wouldn't look at me at the same time ;)

Daddy and sweet Kaitlyn :)

She was being especially fun that afternoon

Sweet to Mommy too!

Addison was building a tower out of chalk, leaves, sticks and berries ;)

Hope you all had a great weekend!

Great Idea

I hate it when I cannot find something that I just KNOW is in my house. Especially when it would be super useful. I remembered today that we kept my old camera when I upgraded so that Gordon would have a camera to take with him when he goes on work training because he always goes to all these cool places and never has any pics to prove it ;) Anyways, there is a good reason I ditched that old camera but it is better than nothing!! I was quite pleased with myself for thinking of this and walked to our room to retrieve it from where I THOUGHT it was.... not there. Or anywhere else I can think of :(( I must have put it in a really "good spot".  Don't you hate it when you do that?

Just a normal week

Sorry I have been neglecting all 8 of you, my blog followers ;) I am officially addicted to reading blogs by moms who have adopted- especially those who have adopted older kids! Alas, though, I should keep you updated on our  the girls' life!

This week on Monday we went to the beach with some friends but I took not one single picture! We were only there for an hour and a half before exhaustion set in due to the super busy week we had last week. O well, it was still fun and we got to see a different batch of friends than normal ;) 

Our friend Maddox came to play Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday because his school was on spring break. Addison and Maddox had a GREAT time playing! She was super sad when he left each day. She was overjoyed when they got to have a "sleepover" on Wednesday at naptime. There is nothing that girl loves more than a sleepover! She loved it so much that when he got here on Thursday she was ready for it to be sleepover time by about 15 minutes into his visit- at around 9:30 HA! 

Also, we have made snickerdoodles twice in the past 3 days and of course Addison HAS to help :) She helps with more and more each time and I must say, she's no more messy than I am so I can't complain.

These giant spoonfuls of flour she insisted on transferring to the bowl 

ALL BY HERSELF did make me a little nervous...

She was sure proud of herself though!

And since this post seems to be mostly about A,

Kaitlyn needed some representation too!

Her new OBSESSION centers on flip-flops, 

especially those that belong to a certain big sister.

She puts them on all by herself and walks around quite well!

Finally, sorry for the not-so-great picture quality :( My camera completely died for no apparent reason so it will be iPhone pics until we go home in May and I steal one of my mom's old cameras ;)

If any of you hear of an amature photographer looking to upgrade to a nicer camera, please let me know! I really want my next camera to be a "real" camera aka a DSLR but I need it to be used ;)

Fun Family Weekend!

Ok... this post is a little late but o well ;)

On Saturday, Gordon and I took the girls to Dauphin Island to play at the beach. I love that Kaitlyn is old enough to really enjoy these fun days now. When she was little, I always felt a little bad because it almost seemed like she was just tagging along (sleeping in the stroller) when we took Addison somewhere fun. Not anymore!! She has as much fun as anyone else at the beach... usually ;)

We played down close to the water for a very short time but it was a little chilly and VERY windy so Daddy and Addison decided to build a sand castle while Kaitlyn had a snack.

Really Addison was mostly supervising...

 Kaitlyn started out like this just to hide her face from the sand being blown around by the wind but quickly fell asleep :)

Addison was excited because Daddy finished and told her she could crush it

Attack of the giant!!! Addison quickly told us she is just Addison not a giant or a monster ;)

Daddy trying to defend his last tower

But Addison the Great made it right past his barrier!

Smash!

Yay for a picture of Mommy!

She stayed asleep like this for at least a half hour!

Addison recently bought a kite with her piggy bank money

She loves it but this day it was incredibly windy so Daddy needed to help

All in all it was a great day!! All of us had fun and made it home in time for nap time :)

The Unknown Mommy

Creating this blog has brought to my attention the fact there are VERY few pictures of me with the girls, and especially of me with just Kaitlyn. This must be solved so please, when we hang out, help me out and take some pictures of me with the girls ;)

There will, appropriately, be no picture posted with this entry :p

Another New Tooth

Kaitlyn was a bear on Saturday. I knew she had a tooth coming soon and when I put some orajel on her gums it was barely covered by gums at all. Sure enough, Sunday morning a new tooth had emerged! She now has 17 teeth (the new one was her upper left cuspid). The upper right cuspid is coming soon too, I hope it comes in tonight. This teething business is exhausting for everyone ;) Three more to go and then we get a break until the 2 year molars start on their way in!

Heaven

Tonight was a first for me. Addison and I had our first real conversation about Heaven :)  I have been making a point to read her a Bible story every time I put her down for either a nap or bedtime. We had been letting her pick any book to read but now I read a story and if she asks she can pick another book to also read. Her "Jesus Story Book Bible" does an awesome job of having each and every story point to Jesus by the end so it gives us lots of opportunities to talk about how Jesus came to save us and how God loves us SOOO much that he sent His son so that we can be forgiven for our sins and go to Heaven to live with Him forever.  I must admit, I did not tighten down on this so that we can talk about salvation, although I praise God for these opportunities! My motivation was that maybe through the incredible power of God's Word He would change her disobedient heart that's been rearing its not so pretty head lately ;)  As is consistent with His character, He more than came through!
I am excited to see where these conversations take us :)

Tonight it went a little something like this:

Mommy: (after reading about Joseph and then about the Israelites' Exodus out of Egypt) Who is our Rescuer who came to save us?
Addison: JESUS!
M: That's right! God loves us so much that He sent His son, Jesus, to come and save us from our sins. He had to die so that we could be forgiven for the bad things we do, called sins, so that we can go to Heaven to live with him forever.
A: Why dey called sins?
M: Sins are when we do something bad like when you are mean to Kaitlyn or to Mommy. Jesus came and had to die so that we can live in Heaven with Him and God forever.
A: Where's Heaven?
M: It's where Jesus, God and the Holy Spirit live.
A: Why you say Holy Spirit?
M: Because God is like three people in one. Crazy huh? There's God the Father and Jesus is His Son and the Holy Spirit lives in your heart so that he can help you know the good things you should do and the bad things you shouldn't do.
A: Why he says about bad things?
M: Because it makes God sad when we do bad things. Bad things are why Jesus had to come and die so that we could go to Heaven.
A: I want to go to Heaven right now.
M: No, you can't yet...
A interrupting Mommy: But I want to riiiigght nooowwww.
M: No, we can't until we die or maybe Jesus will come back soon and then we can go.
A: But I want to go right now. Why we can't go?
M: Because we can't just drive there. We can't go until after we die and I don't want you to die.
A: Why we can't drive there?
M: Because Heaven is way up in the sky and we just can't go yet. Maybe Jesus will come back soon and then we can go.
A: It's in the skyyyy???? Why we can't go up there in the sky?

Somewhere around here we decided to pray and then I tucked her in after she got a hug from Daddy but I couldn't believe we had such a long and seemingly deep discussion about salvation! :)  I just love that little girl!

Getting Started

I've been thinking about creating a blog for quite some time now and just haven't taken the time. Well, there's no time like the present! I don't expect this to be anything profound, just a little something more than Facebook for those who like to know what we the girls are up to day to day ;)