A hard day...

Today is a hard day.  I knew last night that it would be hard and tried my best to stop it from coming.  You see today, we have to say good bye to Ned, our boxer, whom we have had for the past 7 years.  For those of you who know him, you know how hard this is.  I can not tell you how many people have asked us where we got him, if he has any puppies or have offered to "take him off our hands" if there was ever need.  We have even had friends who went and began the search for their own "Ned."  His personality is wonderfully laid back and playful when he needs to be.  He is patient with the kids and Mazie (his doberman sister) and he has the softest floppy ears that lend him the cutest quizzical expressions.  When Ned greets you at the door his whole body shows his enthusiasm as his hind quarters twist from side to side!
But Sunday afternoon Ned began to vomit and was very lethargic, very.  We prayed and hoped that the morning would bring a change for him, but unfortunately there was none.  So, Monday morning I took him to the vet.  I am ever the optimist and was sure that he just had a "bug" that would pass.  The vet ran a bunch of tests and x-rays that proved fruitless and then resorted to an ultrasound of his belly, as that is where he suspected the source of the problem to be.  The doctor was right and found a mass on Ned's spleen that is cancerous.  He told us that we could pursue treatment, but in 6 to 12 months it would return as it is a blood born cancer.  Wow!  Just 24 hours earlier he was romping around the yard with Mazie and now this afternoon we have to say good-bye.
I am thankful that this has been quick for Ned's sake and mine, as I would hate to watch him hurt any more that he has to.  Even Mazie knows that something is wrong.  She normally pesters him incessantly and shoves him off their bed so she can lie down, but amazingly she has let him have the bed and did not even try to steal the eggs that I made him this morning.  I am concerned about how she will do in the long term, because she has never not been with Ned.  Thankfully, the kids do not yet understand what saying "good bye" will mean, making this easier on them.  Brandon and I, however, are heart broken.  Ned is the first pet we have ever had as a couple.   It is really an understatement to say that he has been a blessing to our family.  He has been somewhat of a constant these past 7 years, especially for me.  We have moved 3 times, brought 3 different children home, welcomed countless friends and family to our house and through it all Ned has been Ned.  I, of course, got little sleep last night because I would wake up tearful at the thought of home just not feeling the same without him. I will probably weep for the next couple of weeks whenever I see one food dish and collar, instead of two or accidentally ask the kids to let the "dogs" out.  But despite my sadness at losing a great companion and dog, I am SO thankful that God allowed us to have Ned for the 7 years that we have.  The bar is set high and I don't think any other boxer can ever come close!
In a few hours we will say good bye to Ned, knowing the he will go to sleep and will be able to rest under the shade trees in my parent's yard, free from pain.

 

Thinking Fall 2012 already!

OK, first of all I just really paid attention to the calendar for what is obviously the first time in a long time and is it REALLY March 15th already?!  I cannot believe that it has been 3weeks since my last post.  So sorry about that (because I am sure that is what each and everyone of you do every single day, check my blog for more randomness)!  Well, even though I am living in some alternate time warp, I am at least on the ball with something.
Addie is officially beginning school in the fall! We received her "invitation" letter to attend The Comenius School.  She is so very anxious to start, even though her mother has been putting this off. Surely she is not really old enough yet?!  Some of you may know that we plan to home school, which I am excited to begin and convicted is the right thing to do come fall.  However, I am equally excited that she will attend this tutorial on Mondays at The Comenius School!  This is such a relief for me because she will have access to wonderful teaching and activities such as, humanities, art, music and drama.  Which honestly are not my strong suit and would be rather tedious for me to try and include in our daily schooling with three other preschool/infant children to take care of. 
Also, being new to the area this will be a great way for me to meet other families in the community that are like-minded.  Addie has been greatly missing her friends in Texas, so I hope that she can build new friendships through the tutorial. In addition, we think this will be an excellent way for her to have a little bit of independence and individuality from Elle and vice versa.  Although they play great together and love each other to pieces, only being 9 months apart has still posed a few challenges and Addie is very adamant about maintaining her position as eldest.
I can just see her now on her first day of "school!"  Face radiant and beaming with pride, lunch box and backpack of supplies on hand.... I promise to take a picture, but cannot promise that there won't be a couple of tears (from me, of course)!

Spring break and Empty nesting....

I am sure that some of you are wondering why in the world we would be concerned with the "empty nest" syndrome while we have a house full of toddlers!  Well, Spring break is around the corner. Yes, I can still understand why you might be confused because we don't have school age children, so what in the world does that have to do with us?!  The answer is simple...It may not be Spring break for me, but it is for Grandparents who work in the schools and go to school! :-)  So the kiddos are going to go spend a night with Nana and a night with Grandmom, leaving me with an "empty nest."  Now you without children might not understand the train of thought that occurs next, but hopefully you will be humored by it nonetheless. 
The thought of a quiet house for two days is thrilling, relaxing, tiring and lonely.  The thrilling and relaxing part makes sense without any obvious explanation while the tiring part may cause some stirrings of wonder in you.  Well, it will probably be tiring because I will finally have any opportunity, without many distractions, to get done all those little things that I normally excuse getting done because of the kiddos!  For instance, refinishing the new dining table from Craigslist, painting over all the greasy little hand prints and streams of dog drool in the kitchen and hallways (appealing, huh?), sewing curtains for the loft, sorting through old baby clothes and the list goes on.  See aren't you tired already, too?
Anyways, as I was discussing all this and the timing of dropping the children off and picking them up with Brandon, it hits me that I am going to really miss them and don't know that I will like the sound of an empty house all around me.  Yes, it's only two days and I am very excited about this, but my pregnancy hormones can still get the better of me.  So I find myself laying in bed and wandering down the road of "someday" (of course I take Brandon with me by discussing this out loud).  Someday the kids will be gone in their own homes and ours will be quiet.  Hopefully, God will allow the future to play out something like this... Addie will be 22-23years old, married and grandchildren will be in the not so distance future.  That way our youngest would only be 16ish and still at home and by the time she is ready to leave we will have grand-kids to start filling the house with noise again!  Brandon was probably rolling his eyes at me in the dark, but these are the crazy paths that my mind wanders.  Thankfully, upon waking the next morning all those futuristic thoughts of "someday" are out of my mind as Ian calls from his bed "I'm POOP-EEE!"  And I start to think, maybe I will let my lazy pregnant self take over for those couple of days and sit on the couch and eat bon-bons......

Why is it when you are pregnant that everything becomes more of a chore?!  I have absolutely no desire to clean my house like I usually do, I don't really want to cook very much (except for the occasional batch of cookies, of course!), picking up the "presents" that the dogs leave us in the backyard is definitely off my to-do list, the thought of cleaning the unidentified pile of crumbs out of the van is disgusting and sadly, blogging has just fallen off my radar all together.  (Whew, even writing that much feels like an accomplishment!)  In addition to all the aforementioned tasks, I have a hard time writing when I don't feel like it is worthy of your time to read.  I am sure that some of you don't mind the rambling and the absence my blog posts lately makes me feel like I am neglecting friends.  So, today is one of those rambling kind of days.  My musings are not that entertaining right now, but I do hope to conjure up enough motivation to post some recent pics of our first trip to the Nashville Zoo soon.  Until next time, I leave you with this...

Encores Children's Consignment Sale

I survived my first consignment sale this past Friday!  This is a new experience for me, because in San Antonio they really did not have many of these sales, but here in Nashville there are two whole seasons for consigning!  Crazy.  And when I say that they are a big deal, I really mean BIG.  This sale was in an old Big Lots building and it was full to the hilt with toys, clothes, shoes, furniture and so forth.  And there are some seriously intense people there, people with clothes racks upon clothes racks of items to consign.  How on earth anyone has that many items to sell without being a wholesaler is beyond me, but then again I guess we do live in a consumer culture.   I am also consigning at this sale and am hopeful that the amount I sell will cover the cost that I spent.  If this philosophy turns out true then it really is more of a clothes swap and a great deal!

Shades of Pink.....

Well, the verdict is in.  Ian will be completely surrounded by pink tutus, princesses, ballerinas and eventually, hormones!  Addie's first reaction to the news that she would have another little sister, was a big grin that diminished within seconds and gave way to the question, "But who will Ian play with?"  (Such a sweet little girl)  And I guess the answer will be, "Daddy!"
The next question that flowed from Addie's wise little mouth was, "What is her name?"  Well, that is a great question!  We have no idea and the ideas that we do have are not exactly copacetic.  The good news is that we have a little while to figure it out and in the meantime we might even consider any serious suggestions. :-)

Well, so far I am not off to such a great start with my blogging for the year!  Sorry it has been a little slow, but that is what winter does, right?!  Draaags, on and on.  We have had a little bit of adventure, beginning with the first "snow" of the year.  I know some of you would not call it that, but from a kids perspective it was a foot deep!  Don't you just love how kids see things?  Only they can turn a dusting of snow into a blizzard. :-)

I think I should just start calling them "the twins."

When asked what he was eating he said, "Christmas."

Next I was able to travel back to San Antonio for a friends' wedding.  It was such a blessing to visit with friends ( I have missed having those!) and enjoy some unseasonably warm weather.  Only in San Antonio do you not need panty hose in January!  Sadly, I did not get one good picture of the bride and groom, but I did get a couple with good friends over the course of the weekend.

My good friend Candace (Mother of the Bride, can you believe that?!)

So good to catch up with you all and the cheesecake was a perk!

 Well, that is all for now until I come up with some great inspiring thoughts or further adventures.  Don't hold your breath, especially for the great inspiring thoughts, because those are few and far between with pregnancy brain!! :-)

A real look at 2011 and humbled going into 2012....

Wow, another year down and another already underway.  As I have been looking back over 2011, I remember so many different emotions, anticipations and changes. I began 2011 with excitement and eager anticipation of who the next child would be that God would add to our family.  Naively, although still good and right, we were so excited about helping the plight of the orphan, rescuing one of the "least of these" and providing a loving home. Compassion and passion filled our hearts and minds for the calling that God had given us.  To act and bring this child home whomever that may be.  Then we received the phone call and even before seeing a face, our hearts were swayed for this little girl dropped off at an orphanage in Africa.  From that point, we were driven to bring her home - why should she wait in an orphanage one day longer than necessary?!  Thankfully, God's timing matched with ours and we sailed through the rest of the process and left to bring her home in record time.  We boarded the airplane with many other adoptive and proud parents, all anxious to return home and really begin life.  The seat belt sign went on and that "real life" we were so anxious to start, began.  We were thrown headlong into parenting a new child as Elle threw a fit right there in the seat for the next hour until the seat belt sign went off and we could remove it.
Now I am thankful to note that we really have not had many of these experiences with her, as she is one of the most congenial children in the world!  But for some reason, this rocked MY world and solidified the fact that we really had no relationship with her, although in our minds we had already created one.  I am sure that all of the "la-la land" emotions and thoughts until this point were necessary to get us through the process, but I completely overestimated myself.  I was boasting in my own good deeds and self righteousness.  Yes, we were being faithful and doing what God had called us to, but somewhere along the line, I became arrogant and overly confident in myself.  I had forgotten that God likes to use our relationships, marriages and children to make us holy and more into his image, not necessarily happy.  Although that is a perk!  And when "real life" descended upon me in that airplane, I became faced with, perhaps, the biggest challenge I have ever had...myself and my sin.
I still firmly believe that we have done what we were called to do, that Elle is the child chosen to be in our family and that adoption is good and right and a reflection of the Father's love for us, his adopted sons. But, I failed to see that this journey was not about our actions to rescue a child, that was just the beginning.  The part where the story reads, "Happily Ever After," everyone smiles, congratulates you on finally having your child home, and they close the book on another happy family.  They walk by and flash a smile of pity and sympathy for Elle and undeserved admiration for us.  What people don't know or see, are all of the ways that I daily fail to reflect the love of the Father, not just to Elle but to Addie and Ian, as well.  Daily life has a way of causing you to lose some of your compassion and sympathy.  Without these blinders on, it is very hard to miss the glaring shortcomings of your own selfish needs and desires. At times I feel overcome and trapped by them.  Why did I begin this journey so blissfully and arrogantly unaware of my selfish expectations?  How am I to overcome them?  How will life ever feel "normal" again?  Do I really want to return to "normal," where I go throughout life without feeling the daily need of my savior and the weight of my sin that he bore? My answer is yes and no.  "Yes," I know that life will level out.  This past year has been exceptional and being pregnant in the midst of everything else definitely taints my outlook and feelings.  But above those realities, is the one that I know my God will not leave me lacking and has great plans for me and these little ones he has planted around us.  The other answer is "No," I don't want to forget the sacrifice made for me, a wretched sinner incapable of lifting myself out of the mire.  So as I move into another year, I pray that daily, "I will not boast in anything. No gifts, no power, no wisdom.  But I will boast in Jesus Christ
His death and resurrection."

How Deep the Father's Love for Us

How deep the Father's love for us,
How vast beyond all measure
That He should give His only Son
To make a wretch His treasure

How great the pain of searing loss,
The Father turns His face away
As wounds which mar the chosen One,
Bring many sons to glory

Behold the Man upon a cross,
My sin upon His shoulders
Ashamed I hear my mocking voice,
Call out among the scoffers

It was my sin that left Him there
Until it was accomplished
His dying breath has brought me life
I know that it is finished

I will not boast in anything
No gifts, no power, no wisdom
But I will boast in Jesus Christ
His death and resurrection

Why should I gain from His reward?
I cannot give an answer
But this I know with all my heart
His wounds have paid my ransom

The Nut Cracker!

I almost forgot!!! But the girls had a wonderful time on their annual fancy Daddy-Daughter date.  Addie had been assuming, since last year, that they would go again and was not disappointed! As for Elle, well I am sure that she had a good time, but we never really know which is more fun... the event or the awe of being somewhere new. :-)

More Christmas Pictures....

I will just keep it short and sweet today and leave you with mostly pictures (because let's face it, that is really all you want!).


Last week we got a little creative (very little) and made snow men.  Who knows these might be the only ones they see this year! :-)

Our next adventure was a trip to the Bass Pro Shop to play and get the obligatory picture with Santa. :-)

 

After the Pro Shop we went with cousins to see the lights at Opryland Hotel.  If you have never been before, it is a MUST see!  And if you want your kiddos to be quiet for two seconds, take them there and they won't have words to speak for first few minutes while they stand in awe of the lights and gardens.

 

And of course no family outing would be complete without a little bit of drama.  Elle was looking at the fish and thought they would look much better with a hair bow on.  I mean... they are kind of homely! Thanks to the friendly hotel staff we were able to spare the fish the embarrassment of having to wear the aforementioned bow.

 

Every year we celebrate Christmas at Great Grandma Blair's house with all the extended family. We so enjoy the time catching up and celebrating together.  This was also Elle's first time to open presents, 

needless to say it did not take long for her to catch on!

And finally, last night was cousin cookie night!  We were insane brave and had the cousins over to help decorate Christmas cookies.  Many cookies were eaten (by Ian) sprinkles were everywhere and not a drop of icing was left off of a cookie.  We had a great time and hope to do it again next year.

 

I told you that we had a lot pictures!  I hope you enjoyed them, we definitely enjoyed the memories that we created.  :-)

Random thoughts and more pics...

I love Christmas songs!!!! I love them for many reasons.  They elicit feelings of joy, memories of childhood anticipation and hopes of snowy white winter wonderlands.  But the thing that I personally love the most is that all the world, knowingly or not, is singing about the Savior, Jesus Christ!  I love turning on the radio or walking into the department store and hearing Away in A Manger, Joy to the World or Noel and whether other people are aware or not, they are hearing the message of the gospel... the true Christmas Story.  At other times of the year when songs stick in my head I get annoyed at the lyrics that just won't go away.  But when "Joy to the world, the Lord has come.  Let earth receive her King" sounds over and over in my head, I am thankful for the reminder during all of the business of what a tremendous gift we were given and what a gracious God we have.
Of course the other part of what I love about Christmas are all of the fun family activities!  This weekend we were able to enjoy one such activity in downtown Franklin, the Charles Dickens Festival (or festibal as Addie says!).  We walked around in the cold and saw Christmas decorations, people dressed up, farm animals and dead squirrels.  Yes... you read that correctly, dead squirrels.  Notice in the picture below that the kids are captivated, not with the life size manger scene, but the small fury creature laying prone on the ground.  Well, I guess we just do what we can as parents to celebrate the season and to make memories, but sometimes it's the small fury things in life that captivate our attention more! :-)  Anyways, I hope you enjoy the few pictures we were able to catch.  We most definitely enjoyed our time at the "festibal" and have other fun activities planned.  Shhhhh....don't tell the girls, but Daddy will be taking them to see the Nutcracker this weekend!!! You can count on more pictures to follow. 

Pictures!!! Plus.....

Finally, I have upload some pics to share with you all.  We had a wonderfully busy Thanksgiving and hope that you all enjoyed your first holiday of this season as much as we did!  I love being able to justify eating tons of turkey and pie. :-) 

OK, now that you have just viewed pics of our adorable children, we are please to tell you that we will have another adorable child this June!  I will admit that my head is swimming thinking about 4 kids all 5 and under, but others have survived and so I am sure that we will too. :-)  On that note... I wish you all a Merry Christmas and will surely post more pics as soon as I get them!

Addiction....

I am admitting that I have an addiction to Sweet Tea!  There I said it.  Four to five days a week I just can not resist the urge to take a long sip of the sweet, brown liquid that is the taste of the true south.  I recognize that I would be better off not consuming so much and make pledges that I will only have one glass a week, max!  But then I go and do something like take the kids to Costco or grocery shopping and my resolve flies out the window. 
If you had to take Ian with you to do your grocery shopping, you would understand why and then you would probably congratulate me for not turning to a stronger drink than sweet tea!!  You see, I have become that Mom in the store that other women have pity for and the men run away from as the huge car cart rounds the corner with the screaming blonde banshee hanging out the side.  Once I survive the ordeal and we are in the car, it not being nap time yet, I just cannot resist the $1 Sweet Tea at McDonald's.  It is a sweet sip of sanity in the midst of the chaos that is my life!  Somehow I can tune out the craziness and actually begin to believe that lady in the supermarket that tells me, "Someday you will miss all of this." 

Clutter...

Wow...was my last post really on the 1st!!  Sorry, I am a little of an over achiever and tend to get too focused on certain tasks.  For instance I am on a serious mission to get our home unpacked, painted, and somewhat decorated before the holidays.  I love decorating for Christmas, but the thought of doing that around an unfinished home unnerves me, because I detest clutter and let's face it, although Christmas decorations are pretty and festive they are mostly clutter! 
The good news is that I intend to get rid of a lot of "regular" clutter in the yard sale that we will be having this Saturday.  I don't relish the thought of people on my doorstep at 6am in the morning, but I am SO excited to be able to fit a car in our garage by the end of the week.  Yippee!  So if you live in the area and don't have anything better to do, come on over and take some of our junk. :-) 

Under the packing paper....

Hello land of the living! We are finally climbing out from under all of the boxes and mounds of packing paper.  In fact, a lot of the boxes will be making their way to the recycling bin today, YAY!!  And sadly as soon as those boxes are moved they will uncover another mountain of boxes and those are the kind that you look at and wonder, "Why do I still have this? Oh....I forgot about this?  Where in the world does this go?  And... I know I don't use this, but I just can't part with it."  Those are the boxes that I hate the mos,t for all the obvious reasons! 
For now, I am happy that when I look around I can see the beginnings of our new home.  And now that I feel like we can function in our home it is time to make a menu and start cooking again, start participating in things like MOPS and Bible Study and generally, find our new routine.  Hey, maybe that means that I will actually blog again more consistently (no guarantees!). ;-) 

Closing!!!

Well... here we are six weeks after leaving Texas and having exhausted my in-laws hospitality (I'm Sure!) and we are finally closing on our new house tomorrow!!!!  To say that our lives have been crazy lately would be an understatement.  More accurately, it has been one crazy YEAR and I am ready for a "normal" pace again, although I am no longer sure that such a thing exists.
A year ago, we were looking forward to the edition of a new child to our family and anxious to know what lay ahead with the Air Force.  We knew that it was likely we would be tackling a job change and move all around the same time that we brought home our new child.  Of course, we had no idea if the job would be in the AF or not and honestly, I think a lot of the changes would have been smoother if we were still active duty.  Although life is fluid in the service there is a good amount of predictability and sameness.  Out here in the "real world" we have a new appreciation for all of the little things we took for granted, such as partial tax free income, food allowance, medical benefits that we did not pay out of pocket, ect.  The up side is that we now have choices were we used to have none!
Everything we have done this past year has been laced with stress, but I feel so blessed to say that God has been faithful and has provided for us when timing, money and circumstances threatened to overwhelm us.  We have survived 4 of the top stressors in a marriage over the past 6 months and are still going strong!  I hope that God does not see fit to do this again anytime soon, ha ha!
Anyways... I am very excited to be closing and moving into our new home tomorrow and actually beginning our new life!  I am thankful for our time in Cookeville, but ready to be out of "holding" and back into a new normal.  YAY!!! We are ready for the boxes, paper and tape to fly! :-)

Dentists.....

This post is really more of a rant, than anything.  We knew that when we brought Elle home we had to get her into see a dentist ASAP.  Although her teeth were pretty on the exterior, we knew that did not mean much.  We saw a wonderful dentist in San Antonio and unfortunately did not have enough time to have them do the work that she needs.  So the Dentist left us with the advice to find a Pedodontist and have them do the work once we arrived in TN.
Elle was complaining enough about sensitivity with her teeth that we decided to go ahead and get her in now while we are still in Cookeville, before we get into our home in Nolensville.  So I get on the phone and find there are 3 Pedodontist's here that our insurance will cover.  I pick the one with their own private practice and can/will do sedation dentistry.  Everything seems great and I am feeling like an attentive mommy when I get the call to confirm our appointment.  The receptionist begins to explain their policies and procedures and tells me that I will not be able to go back with her for the x-rays or any other procedure, but will wait in the lobby.  I tell her that the appointment time is still good, but I will need to be able to go back with her, Elle is recently adopted and does not speak English.  The polite receptionist insists that their policy is for me to wait in the lobby.  I explain that that will not be acceptable and that if they can not confirm my appointment with me being able to sit next to Elle then we will not be coming. The next explanation is that they see children all the time who do not speak English and she should be fine, unless she has a physical or mental disorder that would necessitate me being with her.  I mean, really?!?!  This is not the same as other non-English speaking children who come in with their bio-parents for a cleaning!  I am not going to walk away from my little girl while a stranger leads her back to a sterile room and proceeds to poke around in her mouth.  She has already been left with strangers one to many times in her life and I am not about to do it again anytime soon!
In addition to all the above.... I still don't know if I would be comfortable leaving Addie, the well adjusted bio-kid, with a strange dentist by herself.  Addie is only five and Elle four!  I remember going to the dentist as a child and my Mom always stayed in the room with us until we were in Junior High.  I am responsible for these little ones God has given me and I just don't appreciate any medical practice that tries to exclude me from the care that my children would be receiving.  Does that strike anyone else as odd?!
So the long and short of it is, that I have rescheduled with another Pedodontist who is comfortable with me being in the room and now know that this is not something that I can assume in the future!

Family Injera Night....

So last night we had the opportunity to finally take Elle to an Ethiopian restaurant! It has been 3 months since Elle has been home with us and this is the first time that she has had Injera. Until now we just have not had access to any ethnic food, time to go out or even been together as a family. Thankfully Nashville has several different Ethiopian restaurants and a much larger community of people, unlike San Antonio. We were anxious to watch Elle's reaction to eating Injera and Tibbs again and she did not disappoint!
Her first look at the Injera and she did not know what to do with it, crazy! Then she took a bite and made the funniest face, but did she stop eating?! NO WAY! She ate it all while continuing to make a face that to most people would signify disgust, but to her it must mean something different because there was not a crumb left. :-)
We all enjoyed our dinner and the smells and music took us right back to Addis. And the best part is that some of our family was able to enjoy it with us! In fact, we were quite surprised at how much the kids ate. I think the next time we will try another Ethiopian restaurant that is down the road and I hope that we don't have to twist Mark and Lindsey's arm to get them to join us! ;-)

Birthday Bash!

Our other big adventure this week was attending Asher's 5th Birthday party. This was a treat for all of us as Elle had not yet met Uncle Jeff, Aunt Whitney and her cousins. In addition, over the past several years we have only been able to celebrate birthday's together a handful of times... so we hit the road and headed to Columbia, TN for Asher's big sand party! The kids had a blast and had we not known better we would have thought that they had spent the last month in the Sahara, for there was sand in places we did not think possible. In fact, Ian is still complaining that he has sand in his eyes, of course Ian likes to complain about lots of things, but that is a different story for another time. :-)
Happy Birthday, Asher! We loved getting to celebrate with you!

A day at the farm!

Last week we inaugurated Elle and took her to visit Great-Granddad for her first ride on the tractor!  All the way there Addie kept telling Elle that, "she could go first to ride the tractor and that she had to be brave, because it was lot's of fun!"  Elle figured this must be a bad a thing, because Addie was going to let her go first and insisted that she did not want to ride the tractor.  But low and behold, once we arrived and Addie was hoisted up onto the seat with Great Granddad, Elle was over eager to get on that seat!

"You say tomato, I say tornado"....

For some reason Addie has a fascination with tornado's right now and often asks MANY questions about where they come from, how fast are they, can they pick up people, ect.  We were having one of these conversations at breakfast this morning and after about 10min of hashing out the finer points of tornado theory, Elle decides that she wants to participate and blurts out, "Tomato!"  Addie and I snicker and I try to help her pronounce tornado, "TOR.....NA....DO."  She exclaims enthusiastically (as if she fully understands what we are saying), "TOMATO!"  So I try again and have her repeat, "TOR."  Elle says, "TOR." I say, "NADO."  She says, "NADO."  Then I put it all together, "TORNADO."  Elle says, "TOMATO!!" with a triumphant grin.  Addie and I can not help but laugh and as it strikes me that this might be a good little blog post, Addie begins to explain very seriously that a tomato is red and a tornado is black, one you eat and the other is scary and so forth....and I continue to try and stifle my giggles! :-)

(And just as I am getting ready to post this I hear Addie from the living room, "Mom, can tornado's see us?"  Elle responds, "TOMATO'S!")