Snippets May 30, 2009

-Direct quote from my mother-in-law while we were shopping this weekend:

“There isn’t a hat in this world that doesn’t make me look like Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farm.”

She’s right.

-Prophetic fortune cookie fortunes:

• Andrew: The laws sometimes sleep, but never die. (Of course. Changed my life).
• Vanessa: You never hesitate to tackle the most difficult problems.
• Nathan: A nice cake is waiting for you.

I mean, what can you do? We went to the nearest bakery. You can’t escape FATE.

Transitioning to the Transition May 29, 2009

So, Andrew headed up to Iowa yesterday. Isn’t that crazy? He’s there until Baby Girl and I are ready to head up (maybe mid-June, house-selling-dependent). It’s pouring down rain (AGAIN), so I really have no excuse to not be tackling this humongo to-do list I have written for myself. The job is resigned, the work email is done, the traditional weekend-after-school-is-out-one-last-frantic-report is written, and I am feeling a little lost. My loose plans are to spend time a lot of time with some friends and finish the rest of the packing. Oh, and I need to clean out my car from the school-year-clutter. That should take about 3 days all by itself. Oh, and keep the house immaculate so it can be shown. Riiiight. BG is amazingly unmotivated to keep the house NOT strewn with toys.

Wordless Wednesday May 20, 2009

Why we were late to small group last week May 17, 2009

At no time in her life has Baby Girl been the type of child who falls asleep mid-play. She has always needed her bed and the whole bedtime song-and-dance, or a sling when she was smaller. She’s never even fallen asleep watching TV (an art perfected by her father). However, here’s what happened Wednesday night right before we needed to leave for small group:

Priceless.

And just because he’s adorable:

So glad Missy had her camera! May 16, 2009

Here are some photos of the aforementioned couch-jumping-joy of Baby Girl and her new friend in Iowa:

Travel Stories May 11, 2009

First off, I cannot believe I didn’t think to bring my camera on this trip. About 20 times each day I caught myself thinking, “That would be a great picture!” Dumb.

Anyway, we decided to bite the bullet and take Baby Girl with us on this second trip to Iowa as part of Andrew’s candidacy process with Grace Community Church. We started off the trip in typical fashion–at 10 pm the night before we left (our flight was a 9am), we had packed not a thing and I was just starting to wash diapers. We’re brilliant. World travelers, obviously.

Some highlights:

• BG LOVED the airport shuttle. She hopped right up on the back bench seat and positively beamed with pride at everyone on the “little bus.” She was so proud she was bursting.
• See this crazy contraption below?  This, my friends, is the single greatest invention known to potentially-insanity-inducing travel with a small child. I now have to name my next-born Erin to thank my friend for lending to me. I will now be sucking it up and paying whatever-the-heck the store wants to buy one of my very own. The kidlet sits in it like a stroller as you breezily wheel it around the airport. Because BG has spent most of her babyhood in a sling/carrier, she still thinks strollers are peachy keen. You pop the wheels off on the plane, chuckle to yourself that you had to plastic-baggie your freakin’ lip gloss and hand sanitizer but can carry onboard a big rubber wheel attached to a large metal rod, and buckle the whole shebang into the airplane seat. Pure genius, as her carseat weighs approximately 98 pounds and believeyoume everyone on that plane wanted BG to be in a carseat. With really strong buckles.
• 

• Despite her insane parents asking her to obediently accept 50 transitions in a day, all with strangers in a strange place and not a “y’all” in sight, BG did very well. There were only 2 times during the trip (and 4 flights!) that I was embarrassed to be her mother. Both times were on the very last leg, Chicago back to Nashville. I literally held her onto the scary airport potty (“Noooo! It is too much plastic!!!”) and forced her to pee as she SCREAMED the entire time. Then she flopped to the floor and screamed as we boarded the plane. Good times. Portable DVD player = weight in gold, I tell you.
• For just about every meal while we were in IA, we were hosted by lovely people who can cook much better than I can. At one house, BG found her kindred spirit in a little boy. These two little friends had an immediate and lasting bond, which they celebrated by doing the following: jumping off of the coffee table (yep), crashing their heads together (forehead to forehead), diving off the couches (tuck and roll), making a sleeping area on the kitchen floor, and composing piano music. Can you SEE why I was dumb to forget my camera?
• Rather than a hotel this time, we were hosted by a lovely couple from the church. BG was unimpressed by the heated tile floor in the bathroom (lovely–no idea this existed), but was fascinated by the angel collection in this house. This was dangerous territory, but I think we made it without breaking any (which is nothing short of a miracle). BG has an obsession with putting little things inside bigger things (about 5 baskets floating around her room all the time), so she was content to carry some of the less-breakable angels (and a wooden baby Jesus) around in a basket. Never mind that the basket was holding the poor family’s cards and letters they wanted to save. No problem–just dump those out on the floor, Baby Girl. Really, go ahead.
• New movie obsession: At the end of Horton Hears a Who (“Winnie the Who” in our house–how cute is that?), there is a 7-minute Ice Age short film. Guess who ONLY wants to watch this? Guess who is very, very tired of having hit the Play button over and over and hear “Noooo! I no like Winnie the Whoooooo!” in the meantime, every 7 minutes? Anyone know where I can get a used copy of Ice Age?
• One more. Just outside the Cedar Rapids airport, there is an airport-themed McDonald’s. Uh-huh. Anyway, we stopped there in hopes of a playplace. No such luck, but there IS a giant Ronald McDonald welded onto a bench in the middle of the restaurant. BG parked herself right up there for the whole meal. She ate one nugget, then tried to sit in his lap. The result was that she was basically straddling the statue, so I hopped into action and put a stop to that with my fabulous redirection skills. Then, she decided that she was going to pray for her food. We have never had her kneel when she prays, but they must kneel at her Mother’s Day Out. She knelt beside the bench and said a sweet, precious little prayer of thanks for her food, but Andrew and I were too busy snickering to appreciate the sweetness. Why? Because we’re bad parents. Oh, yeah–and because our child looked like she was WORSHIPPING the red-headed clown and his addicitive, deep-fried goodness. Again, me with NO CAMERA.

These are just the ones I remember. We should travel more.

Winds of Change May 10, 2009

Great. Now I have that 80’s song stuck in my head..

Take me to the magic of the moment
On a glory night
Where the children of tomorrow dream away
in the wind of  change…

Okay. That was totally not my point. Moving on.

We have big, big news. Are you ready?

At the end of this month, Andrew will begin an exciting new job as the Director of Worship (that’d be the guy with the guitar if you don’t speak contemporary church music, like my grandfather) at Grace Community Church in North Liberty, Iowa. This is an amazing opportunity for our little family, and we are very excited to set off on this new adventure. We traveled to Iowa this weekend for the official job offer and shared the news with the congregation of Harvest View this morning. We will be so sad to leave our church family here at Harvest View–however, I absolutely will NOT be crying until the last day, so just hang on until then if you want to grieve all over me. You know who you are. North Liberty is a suburb of Iowa City, and Andrew will have you know that it is 4 hours and 6 minutes from Wrigley Field in Chicago. There’s also some nonsense about something called the Iowa Cubs, but I had already tuned out at  that point.

Andrew will start at Grace Community Church on May 31st, and Baby Girl and I will head up for good at some point mid-June. She has a flower girl gig (can’t wait!), and I have to (apparently) pack up an entire house. Eeek. Stay tuned for packing woes, our hilarious travel stories from this past weekend, and all the things I will miss about Tennessee. Please pray for our house to sell quickly and for us to be prepared to say good-bye to all our family and friends. Both of our families are here in Tennessee, and we are taking the only grandchild on both sides with us. Can you imagine our poor parents?

Be sure to check out Andrew’s blog, too!

Feminine Milestone May 1, 2009

Baby Girl wanted in on the fingernail-painting fun. I tried to get her to let me take a picture. She held her hands out down by her feet, so I told her to hold them up. Here’s what I got:

Then a few more terrible shots:

I asked her to please take one more, and she replied by trying to place the lens cap back on the camera. I guess I can take a hint.