A Motherly Service Announcement

Dearest Mothers of Young Children,

First of all, consider yourself blessed.  Yes, it is quite true you are busy, beleaguered with insurmountable tasks of wiping running noses, doing countless dishes, kissing boo boos, preparing food, cleaning messes created by aforementioned food prep, and occasionally cleaning toilets, though always dreaming that perhaps someone will come and do this task for you.  But, the truth is, you have in your grip the precious lives of youngsters who dote on every eccentric oddity you issue forth for their bemusement.  They are your greatest gift and sweetest occupation.

Now for the challenge of your blessed task at hand.  These darling bairns are demanding, all consuming, at times draining, but always, if you can look past the trials of the moment, adorable.

Please consider this scenario. Your neighbor offers you a shop-vac prior to moving across country and donating it. You reject it, assuming the machine rather ugly, large and unpractical.  Shortly thereafter your family are smitten with the dreaded stomach virus and the only fathomable means of cleaning the mess from the carpet is your husband's prized Dison.  Now practically ruined in that fit of cleaning, you bemoan the lack of a shop-vac.  This may or may not be a true story.

I offer you some advice for this phase of life which I consider essential and most likely not in any of those purported child-rearing manuals of lore.  Endeavor by whatever means possible to attain a shop-vac.  Yes, dear ladies.  This is a pivotal tool for the rearing of youngsters.  There will come an occasion, nay, multiple occasions, when your beloved brood (and undoubtedly yourself) will fall to the clutches of the dreaded stomach flu.  Jello-colored mess will thence issue forth onto all stainable and unscrubbable surfaces.  Your only means of cleaning the telltale traces of this malady will be via the services of the shop-vac.

Your family will thank you.  Or maybe not.  But sometimes, it is the unseen workings of the home-life that make everything more wondrous.

Now go and enjoy your bairns.

Blessings,
The Resident Mom

Gilana's Twenty Questions (4th Birthday)

Second Annual Twenty Birthday Questions

1. What is your favorite color? Fuschia
2. What is your favorite toy? Minnie Mouse and my bouncy-ride toy
3. What is your favorite fruit?  Cherries
4. What is your favorite breakfast? Mini Wheats
5. What is your favorite thing to eat for lunch? Chicken Nuggets
6. What is your favorite outfit? This One! (A cute dress for dancing with leggings)
7. What is your favorite game? Hi-Ho Cherry O
8. What is your favorite snack?  Fruit Leather
9. What is your favorite animal? Deer
10. What is your favorite song? Amazing Grace
11. What is your favorite book? The Little House
12. Who is your best friend?  Meersies and Taylor
13. What is your favorite thing to watch on TV? Curious George
14. What is your favorite thing to do outside? Play in the Playhouse.  But sometime spiders scare me when they are enormous huge ones!
15. What is your favorite drink? Cherry Juice {but, Gigi, you've never had cherry juice.}  Oh, but I would love it, you just take cherries and squeeze them and then you get cherry juice.
16. What is your favorite holiday?  Roasting Marshmellows {We've never done this}
17. What do you like to take to bed with you at night?  My white Teddy.
18. What do you want for dinner on your birthday? Oh!  Chicken Nuggets. {But if you could have something extra special for dinner what would it be?} Oh, I just don't know, maybe you should figure it out.  Oh!  Eggies, juice, maybe pumpkin juice?! We could make it!
19. What do you want to be when you grow up?  Oh, I am going to be a mommy.  A mommy with curly hair!  Is that crazy?
20. Who do you want to pray for? God.  {No, we pray to God, who do you want to pray for?}  For our friends to come over.  And Mike and Lu and Lilyan and Baby Daisy.  And Joey and Auntie Lizzie. And Mommy and Daddy, Melia and Ellie.

A Photo Shoot From Late September

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Ellie's Birthday Celebration

Ellie turned one year old a couple weeks ago,
but I never posted anything to commemorate this great event!

Food on the Counter

This is the fate of any food left on the counter.  

No, the rats are long gone... we simply have a Munchie named Camelia!

(Craft fun is in the background!)

Munchkin Funnies

Eliana will often wake up in the morning calling out for Mommy.  The other morning I heard her and tried to get her before she woke up Gilana.  I cautiously snuck into the room and discovered Ellie jumping up and down in her bed enthusiastically shouting "Gigi!  Hi! Gigi! Hi!"  Upon seeing me she became very still and with a grin put her finger to her mouth and told me to "Shish!"

Camelia: {Please note context is not necessary with this precocious girl.}
"Are we going to the future?"
"Remember, we are on earth?"
"Remember I was in your belly?"
"I pooted!"

Gilana greatly enjoys her bath time.  Byron and I were watching our little fish bathe herself when she lay on her back to "float" and relax in the water.  A moment later amidst erupting bubbles Gigi exclaimed, "I can blow bubbles with my bottom! Camelia taught me that!"

Our Trip North

So, I was looking through my archives and discovered (much to my chagrin) that this post was never published. Of course I am sure I had intended some eloquent words of the beauty of my Sister-in-Law and how proud we are of her graduation and hard work in Law School. Then there is the lovely setting of Aunt Kari's home, her donkeys, all those lovely great grandbabes of Moosie and Bobo... I probably would have said a trifle about Grandpa and his sprawling acreage where butterfly's and other insects enraptured the girls attention and Aunt Tiffy and her pup delighted them further.... but alas. Nothing was said and the photos merely sat in the "Drafts" idling away since the awakening of summer. My apologies, dear people. Now, go ahead and eat your heart out on infantile cuteness.