Ada May 2 Years Old!!

I simply cannot believe that two years has passed since Ada was born! 

It simply doesn't seem possible and I can hardly remember what life was like before she made us a family of 4.

 (What birthday is complete without a trip to Target?)

We had a simple celebration this year. We do every other year party celebrations and we did a party for her first birthday last year so we did the same thing as Cora's 2nd Birthday celebration, family dinner at CiCi's! 

She is pretty obsessed with Hello Kitty so of course I had to make her a special Hello Kitty birthday cake!

You can see a slight dip in Kitty's chin on the left there - that would be where the girls taste tested the cake before I iced it as it was cooling. haha Life is always interesting with kids! Cora told me they had eaten some by walking up to me and holding her mouth open wide and telling me that she had some yummy cake in her tummy! 

 Some fun facts about her that I don't want to forget -

She's wearing 2T clothes but can still fit in 18 month pants and shorts for the most part.

She is solid - this girl feels like she weighs as much as Cora, almost two years older than her!

She is still nursing, I'm pretty ready for her to wean but she doesn't seem interested in that.




She is speaking very well! 2 and 3 word sentences and if we remind her not to whine she will say pretty clearly what she wants or needs.

She says thank you by humming it.

When she drinks out of a bottle, particularly wide mouth, like gatorade etc she puts her whole mouth over it and sticks her tongue in there to lap it up.

She dances by basically liming around in a circle waving her arms in the air.

she says okay as "otay"

She can follow 2 and 3 step directions well but has a defiant streak and gives me a run for my money often!

She will sit on the toilet and occasionally goes potty! Her first time to go potty by herself was when she was with her Papa while I was at a birth. 

She enjoys going to Race Trac with papa to get a "coke"! 

She finally will take a pacifier on occasion, she really just chews on it but if she is getting antsy and wants to nurse and we're out of the house and I can't because of what I'm wearing or we're shopping etc I can usually get her to settle down with the pacifier. 

She can sleep in a shopping cart or stroller! I'm not always sucessful in transfering her to it, but considering I've *never* managed this with Cora, this is a big deal for us! 

She's really hot natured (still) she doesn't want to wear pajams, isn't a cuddler and does not like to sweat. When she is upset by it I can sometimes calm her down by gently blowing on her face. 

I have to trim her bangs once a week it seems! 

Her favorite shows are Sesame Street (Elmo and Abby), she tolerates Daniel Tiger (her sister's current favorite) and loves Doc McStuffins!

Adores Hello Kitty, not sure how this obsession started. She has a pair of Hello Kitty stride rite shoes and she pretty much refuses to wear any others (even though these are really stinky!). 

Her favorite toys are anything to do with dogs and her dolls

She loves swimming and is fearless in the water (as long as she isn't tired, then she's glued to my hip).

She stands up and jumps to me without warning, like out of shopping carts or off of places she shouldn't have climbed up. I haven't missed catching her yet...

She still takes one nap a day around 11:00 and if it's a really busy day she'll take another one in the late afternoon. 

She isn't shy at all. She waves to strangers and says hello. She used to wave really big back and forth but now she has this princess wave where she keeps her fingers together and just slightly moves her hand back and forth. 

She really likes horses.

She loves blueberries and bananas. She prefers salad to pizza and loves italian food, especially spaghetti and "ada ravioli". 

I can't wait to see what my sweet girl is going to grow into. She is so fun and adventurous. Such an absolute blessing from God! 

Friday Favorites

It is a long story and I'm just not up for sharing everything right now but it has been a h.a.r.d couple of weeks. So, in light of that and with things getting back to normal-ish I wanted to blog some current favorites and acknowledge the blessings we have! 

ONE
I just love that she still cuddles for her naps. She doesn't like cuddling at night but she sleeps best in my arms for naps!

Can I keep her little forever?

TWO

YNAB - also known as You Need A Budget. I have blogged about this in the past, years ago, but they have changed things up and it's now a paid subscription (like $4/month) but with being paid there are a lot of really nice features with it! We are pretty good about budgeting big things and we do a good job on most small things but we've had some unexpected expenses and they will continue for a few months so we are going to have to make sure we are watching where every single dollar goes so we've returned to the YNAB ways. 

THREE

I mentioned in a previous post that I ordered some fun bags from a bulk buy group that I'm a part of on Facebook. They finally came in!

Look how big the utility tote is! I can't wait to use it!
And I'm already loving my new purse. All the praise hands for a purse with zippers. My other purse is going in my box of things to take to the freecycle table at moms Bible Study as soon as we start back for the semester.

This group is kind of my new addiction and I'm already doing some fun Christmas shopping through it! If you want to be added, let me know! It's a secret Facebook group so I have to be friends with you long enough to add you :)

FOUR

This is my newest thrifting find. I have been searching for this for the better part of a year. That's the thing about thrifting, you have to be patient!

It doesn't look like much... but it's the top of a china hutch. My desk is a HUGE old school teacher's desk, complete with a cabinet for a typewriter haha. It was my grandfather's desk at his church.

We are short on storage space in our house so I need to start moving vertical on my desk. I would love to paint both the desk and the shelving but that's low on the priority list and the wood mostly matches. I'll share a picture when I get it all set up - because of our crazy couple of weeks, it's currently sitting in the middle of my kitchen floor.

FIVE

We took the kids bowling during a half price special and they *loved* it! It was a bit stressful for this momma, a couple of balls only made it half way down the lane and came to a complete stop. The kids weren't the most courteous bowlers with taking turns with the people in the lanes around us etc but it was a lot of fun! Next time I'll just think to ask to be put on an end or away from others if possible.

FIVE

I was running into a Tom Thumb grocery store to grab a couple of things. I'm almost never ever in some of these bigger grocery stores that have nice floral areas so maybe I just have been missing out on this... but I love this terrarium! I have recently-ish jumped on the succulent bandwagon after some clients last fall gifted me some in a beautiful handmade planter box.

I've been wanting to plant some more but haven't taken the leap but I think I'm going to try my hand at something like this! I think it will keep little hands out of the plant which was one of the issues we've been having with our existing plants.

SIX

A while ago I talked about how I had always been apprehensive about doing my Bible studies on my phone. There's just something nice about holding and studying my physical Bible. Let's get real though, because of that I wasn't in the word as often as I'd like.

I started off with the She Reads Truth app and still love it but I just recently went ahead and put the YouVersion Bible app on my phone so I can pick exactly what I'm reading instead of following a planned Bible Study like you do with SRT.

I've been camping out in Psalms recently. It has been exactly what I need. There have been days where I promise, each breath comes as I fully rely on God.

SEVEN

My Dad went to Missouri to visit my youngest brother Joshua while he's stationed there for some classes the Marines wanted him to take. He had planned to go a little further north from where Josh is stationed to see the eclipse in totality last week but unfortunately he started having car trouble and wasn't able to go that little bit further. :(  But, while he was there he found beach towels on clearance for $2 each!! He got each girl one of each of these and they are loving them! They are building forts, cuddling up with them like blankets and they've been sleeping with them.



I'm linking up with  Andrea, Erika and Narci for Friday Favorites!

PreSchool at Home '17-'18

 We kicked off our school year this week! 

We had several attempts at the obligatory "first day of school" piciture. None were fantastic, I was in a hurry to leave to get to a work meeting and all of them include the flashlight Ada insisted on having #2yearoldLife

So far, school days are going very well! Teaching both of them and juggling the slightly different lessons takes much more time than I thought it would, so our school days are going to have to be early starts and at home well into the afternoon. 

Ada napping turns into a perfect time to do one on one activities with Cora that require more of my attention and direction.

 

I feel like I've had a full time job just getting everything gathered and ready for the school year. I am loving our tactile letters and they turned out to be so much easier than I expected.

 This year we decided on ABC Jesus Loves Me for the curriculum. It is a free, online curriculum but you have the options to purchase different books etc to go with it. So far we've bought the lesson plans so I'm not constantly opening up web pages and bouncing back and forth or writing down things that I can just reference from a book.

I love that the lessons all revolve around teaching the children about Christ and the Word. Right now we are learning about Creation and from that we have the chance to talk about different colors, shapes and concepts (like zero... that's a tricky one to teach a 3 year old!) 

Ada was pretty excited about the new printer! 

 

We also broke down and bought a printer. I really need one for work, so it wasn't just a school purchase but honestly I'm excited to easily get what I need. I hate printers and find them to be very finicky and a general pain in the rear, so we'll see how this goes!  

I'm loving our homeschool station where I'm storing everything we need for lessons. 

 Best thrift store purchase I've made in a while! I hope to do a post on how I've set up for lessons and our schedule soon!

I'm linking up with these lovely ladies. 

Weekend Recap - reptile surprise

I kicked off the theme of this weekend on Thursday. I scheduled myself off from the birth center so I could be home for our new driveway gravel to be delivered.

We selected recycled asphault, it's supposed to be less dusty and it's inexpensive so win win! As they delivered we got our quote on getting it spread and it was four times the cost of the gravel! I am a big fan of supporting small businesses and I understand that services have lots of hidden costs and it's important to charge a living wage but oh my gracious. Let's just say we will be figuring out spreading the gravel on our own!

As the kids played in the new gravel I sat on the phone for 3 hours trying to get a dig test done by people who had never heard of a dig test. We suspected a water leak in the front yard but last week our small, "oh that's probably a water leak" became an "oh my gosh, we have a huge water leak that must be dealt with". We had hoped to put this project off because we knew it meant running an entire new supply line to the house.

Friday I had a doula interview with a potential client and while the kids were with my dad I ran child free errands.


I picked up an old television hutch for $20 from a local Goodwill to become our homeschool central. I've been gathering and putting things away since getting it home. After John got home Friday evening we went to town and finished school supply shopping. We've decided to do ABC - Jesus Loves Me with both girls this year and I'm scrambling around to try to get started this week.

A post shared by Rebekah (@bekah.jane) on Aug 4, 2017 at 6:52pm PDT

On Saturday morning I took the girls to church where they hung out with other children while I attended our Summer Rendezvous.

It was exactly what I needed in life right now! Fellowship with other moms, lessons on thriving in life, facing and dealing with anxiety and fear and some fun arts and crafts!

I'm trying to figure out what else I can emboss! I see the embossing heat guns and powder at our local thrift stores all the time but I've never considered getting one before.

When the girls and I got home after a quick gatorade run at Target John and my brothers Robert and Jacob were hard at work on the water line. Our ground is a very hard rocky clay dirt that even with the rented trench digger it took 5 hours to dig the supply line.

We worked well into the night Saturday and finally went over to my dad's house to sleep since we didn't quite have water supply to the house again.

That's what 1/2 a Ton of sand looks like! There was another half under it... turns out putting a ton (litereally) of sand in the truck was a poor decision. 

Sunday we managed to sleep right through church. Poor John and my brothers were all so sore (and sunburnt). We got up late and headed right back out to the house to work some more. Satuday afternoon and a good bit of Sunday we were in and out of the house and my children (and likely an adult or two...) are apparently incapable of closing doors behind them. I'm pretty sure I said "we don't live in a barn, close the door" around 100 times.

When water was working again we went to town to grocery shop with two tired, grumpy children. I really don't like grocery shopping on Sundays, the stores just seem to be so crowded and the shelves seem to be more bare - just not my favorite way to spend the day.

We returned home and put away the groceries. Both girls had gone to sleep on the way home but Ada woke up as we tried to transfer her to bed. She was standing next to the dining table drawing when I turned around from putting something in the school hutch and realized with absolute horror that a snake was slithering right at her! At first the snake stopped for a second and I yelled at Ada to freeze but she was entirely oblivious to what was happening and kept stomping her little feet which seemed to aggravate the stupid reptile. I ran up and grabbed her and stood on the couch yelling for John (mind you Cora has slept through all of this one room away).

I took Ada outside and put her in her carseat and began planning an escape to my Dad's house. John grabbed the first tool he could (a post hole digger, so not ideal) and sought out the snake and got a few good blows in but failed to decapitate it which turns out is pretty key in killing one. It was definitely dying but it managed to get between the baseboards and floor where apparently we had a small hole and while he was coming to tell me it was dead/dying it escaped into the wall. :(

I took Ada to town to get the necessary supplies to seal up the hole it crawled up into and every single heavy-duty glue board that walmart had. John searched the house and under every single piece of furniture to make sure that we didn't have any other surprises hiding. After we got it all secured we went and slept at my dads house. So far no sign of the snake. Today our friend was out here helping us finish the water project and he thinks it was a garter (harmless) snake. They live even further out in the country and they deal with many more (and poisonous) snakes and he helped us strategically place the glue boards so I've agreed to sleep at home again.

We're pretty sure it came in through an open door at some point. I doubt my reminders about the door will be seen as nagging anymore... and suddenly installing a self-closing screen door jumped up on the priority list. Some days I really hate living in the country! Now that we've dealt with this, my Dad told the story of when he killed a snake in his kitchen (came in from the garage door left open), a friend told me about killing several in her garage, my brother remembers hearing of my grandparents having a snake get in their bathroom and my grandfather shot the snake leaving a huge hole in the bathroom floor.

 How was your weekend? Do you have snake stories that will make me feel better?