Just Toying With You

Here is the conversation I heard between 2 Happy Meal Toys, as facilitated by Kyra:

Toy 1: (in a bragging voice) IIII'm from McDonald's!

Toy 2: (also bragging) Well, IIII'm from Burger King!

Careful now, we don't want to incite a riot...

Celebrations

There is much to celebrate this week. For one, I just reached the milestone of my 200th blog post. Wow. It amazes me that I still have so much to blog about. My sweet girls are such a joy and I am richly blessed because of them. Second, I just turned 30 yesterday. It makes me laugh to hear that people who really don't know me well were warning Steven to make a really big deal out of the day because turning 30 is hard for a woman and causes a lot of mixed emotions. By the time we met up at the movie theater after work, he was a little nervous because he had not gone to any elaborate lengths for my birthday...we had just planned to meet at the movies and go eat dinner afterwards. I just chuckled and told him to quit worrying...who knows me better...him or the person who warned him about female birthday angst. There were no mixed emotions for me about turning 30 at all. It does not bother me one bit. It is a bit surreal at times for me to remember my mom's 30th birthday party in our backyard in Michigan with all our friends and family, and then think that I'm now at the same point in my life that she was then. But I am not sad, nervous, or upset about getting older. I'm actually kind of proud. I wouldn't go back to 20 if given the chance, not even back to 25. Not that those were bad years by any means. I had a great time at 20 and I plan to have a great time at 30. I am able to look back with fondness at the things I did then and appreciate how far I've come since. I'm thankful for the journey I've been on and am anxious to see how I will grow and change in the next decade of my life. I love my family, I love my friends, and I have nothing to complain about, who would be upset about that?

Funny Girls

Here are a couple pictures of the girls that just make me chuckle....

Siana is going to be quite the "girly girl" I think. Lately she's been walking around with Kyra's headbands, taking them on and off and on and off. She found this tiara among Kyra's dress up stuff and put it on, and here is the result:

Princess Baby Mullet:



Kyra's preschool class went to the fire station the other day to learn about fire safety and talk to some of the firefighters there. This fireman was the designated "prop" for all the pictures with the kids. He looks happy to be there taking pictures, but Kyra doesn't seem like she's as certain about the photo op.

Look it Up Online

I co-teach Kyra's Wednesday night class at church, and yesterday, she asked me what the story was going to be about that night. I told her the old quarter had ended last week and I hadn't gotten a new book yet for this quarter, so I didn't know. She then told me that maybe I could go to "www.cccwednesdaynightclass.com" and maybe I could see the new book on there. I am a firm believer that you can find just about anything you would ever need on the internet, but that's probably one of the rare exceptions. And just in case you were wondering, yes, I admit it, I did look it up to see if anything was there. And no, it's not, so save yourself the trouble. =)

Reach Out and Touch Someone

Siana has formed her first sentence/request. Her favorite thing to play with, as you know, is my cell phone, which she calls a Faaaaaa. This is said Faaaaaaaa? like a Pterodactyl calling it's mate. It's quite funny sounding. But anyway, she talks to my mom, her Nana, and sometimes her Papa too, almost every day on the phone. A couple of days ago, she pointed and said, "Faaaaa?" I gave her the phone and she started saying, "Nananananana." She then added Papa a few times to her chant. And after a minute, she looked at me, held out the phone and repeated, "Nana Papa Faaaa? Nana Papa Faaaa?" until I called Nana and Papa on the Faaa for her and let her talk to them. It was very sweet. And of course, she's a genius for forming her first semi-complete sentence at 14 months. =)

The Measure of a Woman

We had dinner with our friends Jim and Elaine Friday night and after we ate, we were sitting in the living room talking and watching the girls play. Kyra wound up with a yard stick and was measuring everything she could find. Elaine was standing up at that point, so Kyra came up behind her and announced that she was going to measure her bottom. As you can probably guess, through much laughter, she was issued a swift, but polite, um, 'rebuttal.' =)

Formalities

Siana had just fallen and clunked her head, and while I was comforting her, Kyra called from the other room, "Mommy! Your phone's ringing!" I asked her if she would bring it to me, and as she walked down the hall towards me, I heard her say, "Yeah, Mommy couldn't get the phone so she asked me to bring it to her." As she approached me, she handed me the phone and said, "Here, Mom. It's a call from your husband."

Causing a row

This year, we bought Kyra a calendar for her bedroom so she could see activities and events that are coming up and keep track of what day/date it is. We put birthdays, school activities, play dates, etc on there. Tonight at dinner, we were commenting that Steven's birthday was coming up soon. She got very excited and said, "Yeah!!! Daddy's birthday is at the end of this row!!!"

Happy Days

Here are a couple recent pictures of the girls at one of the favorite places to go in town. It's a big indoor bounce house extravaganza. It really is quite fun and Steven and I have been known to get in there with them....=) Hey, it's good exercise! Anyway, they had a great time and we got some cute snaps of them having a blast....

1-877-J-E-H-O-V-A-H

After we read our Bible story with Kyra last night, one of the questions in our book was 'How do you talk to God?' Of course, the first thing she said was prayer. Then she came out with, 'Or we can call him on the phone!" Steven and I chuckled and said, "You can call God on the phone?" Kyra responded, "Well, yeah, we could if we had his number."

Go Colts!

I'm not a huge football fan (see my previous post about who I sat by on the plane) but this makes me happy. I'm proud of our Indy boys! And though I may not be a fan of football, I am a fan of Tony Dungy and Peyton Manning. They're just good people and it makes me glad that good things are happening for them. Ok. That's all. Any more of me talking about football would be weird. =)

Coach Who?

Funny thing on the plane this weekend.... I was sitting with Siana, and Steven and Kyra were a couple rows behind us because the plane was extremely full and we couldn't get seats together. There was one seat next to me, and shortly before takeoff, a man sat next to me that seemed to garner quite a bit of attention from the other passengers nearby. I noticed an enormous ring on his finger, and I glanced at it as I leaned down to pick up something Siana dropped. I saw that it was a Dallas Cowboys Super Bowl ring, but he didn't quite look like a player to me. He said hello and we made small talk for a few minutes before some guys in the seats around us started chatting him up. One of them mentioned his ring so I asked him if he played, still trying to figure out who he was and why he was apparently big stuff. He said that no, he hadn't played and smiled at me. Then another guy asked him something else. So, stumped and not really caring all that much, I turned toward the window and Siana and I quickly fell into a nice little snooze until right before landing. The fellow and I chatted for another minute or two before everyone started de-planing and that was the end of it. After our family reunited with the other praise team people that were on our flight, one of them commented in an awestruck tone, "Did you know Coach Barry Switzer was on our flight?" I said, "Oh! So that was the guy sitting next to me. I knew he was apparently 'somebody' but hadn't a clue why." They both just stared at me, and I think one of them felt compelled to touch me, then both launched into hysterical laughter that I was the one who got to sit next to him and had absolutely no idea who he was. They found it even more hilarious when I told them I slept the whole trip. Oh well. Not big on football and not Texan...never had a clue. =)

Cool and the Gang

Kyra has been cracking us up all weekend, but here's one of the funnier quotes. We took the kids and flew to Nashville for the weekend to sing on the new Keith Lancaster Praise & Harmony CD with several members of the praise team from church. On Saturday, the rest of our group went to the Opryland Hotel while I took the girls back to the hotel for naps. As we were driving to meet back up with everybody for dinner (P.F. Changs of course), Kyra commented, "Where's the rest of our crew?" It sounded so funny that she put it that way, but then she added, "Ya know, I never met Ross and Grimace before." I was a little confused and asked her, "Ross and Who?" "Ross and Grimace," she replied. I busted out laughing when I realized she was talking about Prentiss from 'our crew.'

Not Guilty!

It appears that Kyra may have some manner of pink eye. I told her that I was going to call the doctor and that I might have to actually take her there if they want to see her. She replied, "But I'm innocent!"

Things We've Learned About Markers

1. The tips of markers can be pulled out relatively easily, should one attempt to do so.

2. Small children who have only 12 teeth can pull out the tip of a marker with said 12 teeth.

3. Old, completely dried out markers can quickly reconstitute themselves after prolonged contact with baby slobber.

4. Small children get very angry when reconstituted markers are taken from them.

Just a Hair's Difference

As we were putting Kyra to bed tonight, Steven laid his head on Kyra's tummy and said he could hear her heartbeat. Kyra laughed and said, "Daddy, you're just like a stethoscope! You're like a stethoscope...except you have hair...." Apparently, otherwise, they'd be exactly the same....?

It's all logical....

Kyra was watching a Dora show today and, as typically happens when watching Dora, Kyra yelled something at the top of her lungs at the TV. As for the moron who decided it would be a 'great idea' to have Dora ask kids to "SAY IT LOUDER" every day on her show, I want to put him in a room with 18 Kyras and no ear plugs to let them experience the fruits of their 'great idea.' But I digress. As she yelled "SWIPER!" as loud as she could, I asked her to please not yell. She responded, "But Mommy, I have to. Dora said to shout 'Swiper' when I saw Swiper." I replied, "Well, you can whisper 'Swiper' instead." She said back, "But Mommy, she won't be able to hear me!" I said, "She'll be able to hear you, just say it quietly." She then looked at me like I was goofy and said, "But Mommy, it's just a TV show."

Feelin' Groovy

Steven was playing a Led Zeppelin CD as we ate dinner tonight and as he finished up his food, he started goofing around with Kyra, saying if you listened to this music, you had to dance like this.... He then proceeded to wave peace signs with both hands and sway back and forth. Kyra responded, "HAHA! Look! Daddy's making 'twos' and waving them around!"

Don't Count On It

The other day, Kyra, without any assistance, counted from 1 to 100. I congratulated her on her accomplishment and she excitedly said, "Now I'm going to count down from 100 back to 1." She stood there a second mulling this over and then said, "Actually, I think I'll just count to 15."

Knock and the Door Won't Be Opened to You

We often keep the kids' bathroom door shut to keep Siana out of there when I'm not looking. Well, I walked in there to put away some towels the other day and Kyra happened to be in there using the facilities. As I opened the door, she exclaimed, "Mom...I'm going potty here. I need some pwivacy!" Oh sorry...my bad.