These Days

Pictures of our adventures this week. Little Nut Brown Hare visited the local Barnes and Noble today. Miss Mouse said "No kiss him. Maybe Nut Brown like hug?" I assured her he would. After the fact she explained "Nut Brown Hare cute. He see Miss Mouse. Nut Brown Hare think Miss Mouse cute, too." For sure, honey!
Big hug! She had to be pried away.

Shoes from Auntie Steph.

Yay! Life is good!

Hmm....not sure about something here.

No words for this one.

This is our newest pass-time. I dug out some tapes (yes, tapes), so now Miss Mouse will beg for a tape to be put in. She'll sit and watch it (keep in mind, you can't see the tape moving; it isn't that sort of tape player) through the whole tape. When it quits and needs to be switched to the next side, she says, "Tape taking rest." The favourite right now seems to be "Magnificent Masters of Music" which has a story about each composer put to a famous song from that composer. Pretty cool.

Skateboarding at Alex's 2nd birthday!

It was a pleasant surprise to find these blooms mid-week.

She's sleeping. Not really, but she'll pull up the covers, close her eyes, and say "Mama better check Miss Mouse. Miss Mouse sleeping."

Be Still

I'm not so good at being still. The whole "Be still and know I am God." Yeah, not so good at that. I like to do things, get things done, check things off my never-ending lists. This little Baby Mouse, however, is teaching me much in the "being still" department. Miss Mouse was content and happy to sleep in her swing for naps three times each day at this age. I ran frantically around the house, doing laundry, unpacking stacks and stacks of boxes from our move, working on presentations about my thesis, etc. As she got older and napped in her room (from about 8 months on she napped in her room rather than in the swing), I changed my focus and worked on hats, crafting projects, and other things for my fledgling little business.

Enter Baby Mouse.

The sweet, sweet baby who needs to be held to nap, or who at least wants to be moved in her car seat in order to get more than a 45-minute snooze. I don't foresee this being a huge sleeping problem as she gets older, probably because I didn't face a crisis from rocking her older sister. So, I don't think she'll be scarred for life because she prefers to be cuddled or moved at this age. It does, however, put a cramp in my "get everything done while they're napping" mode. I've been forced to sit and hold a baby! Gasp! Sometimes I can work on a hat, but most of the time, my energy, my thoughts, my focus are directed to this beautiful, sleeping infant in my arms.

And I've realized it is good.

The older Mouse is teaching me much about patience. The Little Mouse is teaching me how to quiet myself, or allow myself to be quieted.

It is very good.

We Said Hello.....

At the Same Time, We Said Goodbye......

So went the chorus to a song played during a slide show at Baby Gabriel's funeral on Friday. Ugh. No one should ever, ever have to go to a funeral for a baby; those funerals shouldn't exist; they shouldn't be needed because babies shouldn't die. This little boy's parents knew from about 20 weeks that he would not live due to some severe birth defects. The pictures they showed were beautiful, and the song left me sobbing. Thankfully I can cover my mouth and sort of not breathe so that I don't make any noise. I do shake the pew, however. And it is not attractive. We were able to go to the funeral together, just the adults, since our neighbors could have the girls.

We're four years out from the pain those parents are experiencing now, but the words to that song still speak to the pain I feel. Will probably always feel, because that is exactly what we did. We welcomed our beautiful little girl around 11 p.m. tonight, and as we held her, as her Daddy bathed her and dressed her, as I and other family cuddled her, we said goodbye.

Two weeks ago when we were at a graduation open house, someone came up to me and said she visits Hope's grave from time to time and just had visited it the other day. She wasn't someone I was close to when we lived there. Our paths just never really crossed at all. It meant a lot to know that our little girl touched someone that we weren't even close to!

We visited Hope's grave again today. Miss Mouse is so impressed with the pink butterfly I put out there last time, and she still just loves "Baby Hope's flowers". She doesn't get it at all, of course, and asks regularly when we'll go to "Baby Hope's house". When I tell her Hope lives in Heaven, she wants to know where that is. Good question, Miss Mouse. Wherever it is, it is with God and it is good.....He is the only one who could love her more and better than we....

Seven Years

We celebrated our anniversary today! Seven years. It was a crazy day - fitting for the two crazy people we are (insert sarcasm here!).

Truly it was a beautiful day today, similar to the day we got married. The girls slept in which meant we got to sleep in, as well. The truck took our tree trimmings, which Mr. T had been so worried about (they weren't as much "trimmings" as huge chunks of tree removed from the backyard). Miss Mouse came running in around 9:30 yelling "garbage truck!!" When we asked if she'd like to watch it, she said "Yeeeaahh", as in "obviously".

The rest of the day was spent on yardwork for Mr. T. He's doing a remarkable job getting trees down on his own. We've tried several times to entice a professional tree service into the job, and we just get no response. I think they look at me - stay at home mom in ratty shorts with little ones running around - find out my husband is a pastor, and decide that either the job is too big for them to tackle, or that we couldn't afford them even if they did!! :) Anyway, he's doing a great job on his own, even though it worries me to see him hanging in a tree stand on a rather spindly-looking old tree!

The girls and I had multiple outings. The carseat is a good head stabilizer for Baby Mouse, so we had two short stroller rides this morning and one very long one this afternoon. Miss Mouse was treated to a stop at the park where she has turned into quite the little monkey. It's neat to see how adventurous and sure-footed she is this spring as compared to last spring when I had to still help her up the stairs. I still hover behind her, just in case.

Mr. T treated his girls to quite the meal tonight. The menu was: appetizer=crackers with havarti cheese and proscuitto, main course=baked potatoes, broiled trout with lemon, dill, white pepper, butter sauce, sauteed asparagus with tomatoes, baby portabella mushrooms, and feta cheese. It was tasty stuff! I treated us to ice cream for dessert. Miss Mouse was happy with her dried apricots, though we had to limit her on those.....her Daddy had an experience once with a whole pound of them.....

It was a beautiful day. We've had several beautiful anniversaries, weatherwise, and we've had several horrible anniversaries experience-wise. Hopefully this will be the start of a year that mirrors the day today!

Happy Anniversary! One cat, one dog, one graduate degree earned (after marriage), one move, two houses, three babies, and seven years later - I wouldn't have wanted to experience them with anyone else.