Archive for the 'Eliza' Category

Well, I finally did it. It wasn't easy, but it was time. She is 4 years old, after all. Today I took Eliza to my mom's for her very first haircut. My mom has experience with this sort of thing, and I trust her with my own hair, so why not Eliza's? The stringy blond ends of Eliza's hair have been with her since she was a tiny baby, and I admit, I was kind of attached to them. Perhaps I thought if she could just keep this one remnant of babyhood, then I could keep her from growing up quite so fast. True, her hair has been looking a little ragged lately, but not too bad. She used to have curls, once upon a time:

2006

2007

2008

Until recently, the tips of her hair would still curl a little, reminding me of the curly-headed baby she used to be. I knew that once her baby hair was gone, that would be the end of the curls. And I haven't been ready to let them go…until now. After all, Eliza will be a big sister soon! Maybe it's finally starting to dawn on me that we will have a new baby in just a few weeks. Well, I still can't quite get my head wrapped around that, actually! :)

Here are some before and after pictures of Eliza's new 'do. I will hopefully post another picture later this week after her hair has had some time to adjust.

Before and After

Does she look different?

Today is Eliza's 4th birthday. That girl is a blessing, a ray of sunshine, as well as a little stinker. She makes me laugh and groan, often at the same time. She is a good friend to her brother, although they have their little spats, she is always ready to make up. Her laughter is contagious, and she has a smile that melts her Daddy's heart every time. Eliza's sense of humor is so like Jay's, intentionally misunderstanding things to get a laugh. She is a devil when she's tired, an angel when she isn't. She is so excited about being a big sister, and I know she will be a good one. We love our sweet girl so much!

Yesterday we had a party for her with my family at a lake in Pine Bluff. Jon and Adrienne brought their boat and the kids got to go tubing in a double tube. They loved it! Eliza said it was the "best birthday party ever!" We had pizza and cake, and of course, birthday presents! Pictures coming soon!

Ever since Father's Day, when Eliza's Sunday School teacher had each child say a special prayer for his or her dad, Eliza has been including a request for dads in her nightly prayers. Here is how it usually goes:

"And help our daddys to do the right thing. Help them not to say bad things, like 'dangit'."

Last night she changed it slightly: "Help them to not say bad things, like 'shoot'."

Jay doesn't even use these choice words that often, but I guess it is often enough that Eliza notices. But, she is praying for all dads here, not just her own. Mostly, I think she is looking for a way to say the bad words without being in trouble (although I don't recall getting on to her for saying them, but perhaps I have made the comment that they are not very nice words to say.) Anyway, I guess we could all use some prayers in this area to live up to the command found in Ephesians 4:29:

"Do not let any unwholesome talk come out of your mouths, but only what is helpful for building others up according to their needs, that it may benefit those who listen."

Amen!

I took Eliza to the store this morning to pick up a few groceries. As we were passing someone on the bread aisle, Eliza said, "Watch out for that old lady!" I don't think the white-haired woman heard her (maybe it's a good thing that hearing tends to get worse as you get older!), but it was a little embarrassing, so I told Eliza that it's not nice to call people that, even if they are old. The next aisle over Eliza was running around the cart and nearly ran out in front of another lady's cart. I apologized and said to Eliza, "You almost ran into her cart. You should be more careful." Eliza looked behind us and yelled, "SORRY, LADY!" "Eliza, don't call people 'Lady'!" I said. She replied, "Well, I didn't call her 'Old Lady'!"

Well, it's not raining right now, but it's still cloudy. It has rained some every day for the past week. I don't mind the rain, but I do like to see some sunshine every now and then! Here are some things that went on this weekend:

James' friend Ethan came over to play Friday after school. They had a great time playing the Wii, but they also got to go outside for a little bit (one of the few times it wasn't raining!)

Saturday it rained all day, and we all had cabin fever by supper time. We asked my family if they wanted to join us in going out to eat. We met at Cracker Barrel, and had some fun family time. Poor Eliza, though…she kept complaining about something being in her shoe, but my sister Adrienne had taken it off and didn't see anything. Finally after we were mostly through eating, she complained again and I went to look. I had put her shoes on the wrong feet! What was funny, though, is that Adrienne didn't notice when she took it off!

Sunday our church was having an emphasis on loving our community, with an early worship service so that groups from the church could go out and serve the community afterward. The rain made it necessary to postpone many of the outside activities, but the service was good, and we got out of church really early!

During a game Jay was playing on the computer Sunday night, one of the characters said, "You can count on me!" Eliza asked Jay, "Does that mean that you can put their numbers in your phone, and call them if you need help?" She thought that it must have something to do with numbers if they were "counting"! We thought that sounded like a pretty good explanation!

Jay likes to misinterpret things. He has a good sense of humor, and I think he must have passed it on to our kids. They are always saying funny stuff, just like their Daddy. Here is an example:

I had just gotten through tucking James into bed and was singing Eliza her nightly lullaby, when I heard James yell to me from his room. I kept singing: "Twinkle, twinkle, little star" (then yelled) "JUST A MINUTE JAMES!" (then continued singing) "How I wonder what you are." Eliza giggled and said, "Does the song go, 'Twinkle, twinkle, little star, just a minute James'?" She thought it was quite funny. The little booger!

It has been very warm this week…the kids have played on the playground almost every day after school. We had a high of 76 on Thursday! Needless to say, we really enjoyed the warmness. And today? Today it is snowing. Big white flakes are coming out of the sky. It is the most snow we have seen this season, and it will likely be the last. But who knows?

The weather is probably the reason I have not felt well today. I woke up with a horrible headache that made me feel nauseous. After staying in bed most of the morning, I felt well enough to accompany Jay and the kids to Chik-fil-a for lunch, but I couldn't eat but a few bites of my delicious chicken sandwich. I went back to bed after lunch, and I was finally able to eat something several hours later. I feel a little strange now, but I think I'm mostly over whatever it was!

A quick funny story about Eliza: she was digging through the pantry, looking for something to eat, when I reminded her it was supper time. "What can we have for supper?" she asked. "I don't know," I said, thinking. Without missing a beat, Eliza replied, "We're having 'I don't know' for supper?"

I don't like to brag, but I have some pretty neat kids! Here are some of the things they have been doing lately:

James is getting better and better at reading. Here he is reading his library book to Eliza. They really love each other, you know! He is pretty good at writing, too, and got great marks on his report card from school.

Behind that goofy look is a pretty smart girl! She sounded out these words and wrote the letter they begin with by herself, with only a little help from me ("owl" is kind of hard to figure out from a simple phonetic standpoint). Pretty good for a 3-year-old, I think! She still loves numbers, and is getting good at figuring things up in her head.

James just finished his workbook for AWANA Sparks, meaning he memorized all the Bible verses in it. Now he gets to go back and review the verses to make sure they stay in his head!

Eliza woke up this morning and was singing "Father Abraham" in her bed. I guess she learned it at school. It was pretty funny to hear her just singing away!

The kids have started singing their bedtime prayers to God. I have to admit, this is a little frustrating for me (unbearably cute as it may be), because I usually don't leave much time for prayers (I know, bad Mom!) and it drags out the process because they like to hold the ending notes: "Dear Gooood, thank you for this whole daaaaaaay, thank you for this whole time we had togetheeeeeer." They are probably not getting enough sleep as it is. Oh, well.

James lives for the weekends, and Eliza lives for her next school day…they are so different! I love these little boogers!

A recap of our year in pictures:

Eliza got a bicycle for Christmas last year and she loves to ride! She has grown so much this year!

In February, Jay and I got to go to San Francisco to help some friends move into a new house. It was my first visit to California, and marked the end of Jay's year-and-a-half of traveling for work. We are so glad to have him home every evening, instead of just on the weekends!

We had snow in March, and I love this picture of James playing in it.

This was the most snow we've seen here since moving into our house in 2004. Jay was able to build this great snowman.

Spring finally came, and we took our annual trip to Wye Mountain to see the field of daffodils.

Our niece, Hannah, turned one year old in April!

We potty-trained Eliza this year…here we are celebrating her accomplishment!

James had his first experience with organized sports. He had a little trouble staying focused, though. :)

We all made it to the top of Pinnacle Mountain this year…no baby backpacks!

I had my 10-year high school reunion. I haven't changed that much…

We celebrated the Fourth of July by the river in downtown Little Rock.

Eliza turned three! Here she is practicing her dance moves in her new ballerina outfit. She also started preschool this year, and she goes 2 mornings a week.

We got to go to Disneyworld with my family. It was our first big vacation, and we had a blast.

James started kindergarten! It has been a big adjustment for us, but he is doing great.

I can't believe my baby is 5!

In October we had a family reunion, and it was the only time my whole immediate family was able to get together this year. Usually we are missing Joseph and Nicole who live in east Tennessee. It was good to see them!

The kids were Mario and Princess Peach for Halloween. I had fun putting their costumes together, but it was a lot of work!

This is the first time I let the kids help me make Christmas cookies. They especially enjoyed decorating them!

This is our Christmas card picture, which just shows how big our kids are getting! It has been a great year!

God has blessed us with many great Christmases, and this year was no exception! Santa brought the kids a few things Christmas morning, then we opened a few more presents before packing up to drive to Memphis that afternoon. We had Christmas at my Granny's first, then a few blocks away we had Christmas with Meemaw and Grandaddy at my aunt and uncle's house. If I am counting correctly, there were 45 people there; the only family members missing were my brother Joseph and his wife Nicole (missed y'all!) Yes, my mom has a huge family, and she did her best to make it bigger! My kids are still the only great-grandchildren on that side, but I expect within the next ten years or so there will be a baby boom, as all of my cousins are 21 and younger. Anyway, the kids had fun playing with all their first-cousins-once-removed!

We slept at my Granny's house, which is always an adventure! I think there were only 13 of us in her 2-bedroom house this time. It was not a good thing when Eliza woke up crying one night and couldn't stop. She cried for a good 20 minutes, with me holding her and talking to her the whole time. She just could not get calmed down! I'm sure we woke up the whole house, except James, who said he didn't remember it at all.

The day after Christmas, we drove over to Jackson, TN, where Jay's sister lives. Jay's mom had come up from Mississippi, so we had our Christmas with his family there. It was quite different from Christmas with my family! We had fun playing with Hannah and opening presents. Mammaw gave James a real guitar, which James loved and immediately started playing (even if it didn't sound that great!); he even started making up songs as he played along with Robbie, who had brought out his own guitar. It was great! I have a few pictures from all our adventures on my flickr. Videos coming as soon as I can get around to them!

We were all sick with colds the week before Christmas, but were mostly better by Christmas Day. Jay, however, took a turn for the worse after his brief time of feeling better. He has been sick ever since, and is thinking about going to the doctor if he doesn't start getting better soon. He had to work Monday and Tuesday, which didn't help! He doesn't have to go back until next Monday, so he has a little bit of time to recuperate from the holiday madness.

We are taking it easy today, enjoying our time off (especially James!) and trying to figure out where all these presents are going to go! May God bless you in this New Year!