Wind and Confusion

BSF has been blessing/ convicting my socks off recently. Something that really jumped out at me this week was in Isaiah 41:29, where it says the value and substance of idols is "but wind and confusion." Idols are so not just little Buddhas. This week's notes say idols are anything that consumes your thoughts, time, energy, and emotions.

For me, that's my family, friends, running, running my household, upcoming parties, balancing our busy schedule, HAVING a busy schedule. It's obsessing over preschool, and just this week...

Happened to get around to looking into spring swimming lessons, only to find out that sign-ups are this Saturday, that I needed to get added into the county system beforehand so that at 2:00 pm sharp I can sign into the system online and beat the crowds that sign up in person. Even then, the guy at the aquatic center said to practice registering so I would know just what to click on as fast as I can.

Really?

These are lessons with names like tadpole, minnow, etc.

Hate to say getting into these swimming lessons was an idol, but yes, I have dwelled on my game plan, made the 25 min trek after bedtime one night this week to get put into the system, and I'm a little nervous for 2:00 pm Saturday!

RIDICULOUS!!!!!!

All that hustle and bustle and pressure sounds a lot like "wind and confusion."

How much more my time should be spent RESTING CONFIDENTLY in the Lord, being at peace in His perfect plan, and not just doing the above nominally while still under the surface striving to do it all in my own abilities. I like the word "striving"- it always is a good kick in the pants... probably the sin I fall into the most often- trying to do it on my own- which then amounts to "wind."

The other thing I loved this week was the challenge to REFLECT on the power, wisdom, and goodness of God. On His provisions and faithfulness in the past. That He will continue to offer us now and in the future. And yet we still fall into the wind and confusion of striving. And yet He still loves us and is both tender Shepherd and Almighty Sovereign God simultaneously. Amazing.

15 months

It seems odd to blog about the twins on Abby Jane's birthday, but I have quite a bit of

catching up to do on them, as they haven't had a monthly update since they turned a year! That's the holidays for you. This last month was HUGE for them. In the last five weeks, Blythe has acquired three teeth, and Joy has sprouted two... bringing each to a total of five teeth and working on a couple more.

The ear tube surgery was very successful last month. Both girls showed immediate relief. However, despite Blythe's immediate improvement in her verbals, she has since plateaued off in her attempts to mimic new words. We're going in for a speech therapy evaluation in a couple of weeks just to help her catch up a bit from months of not hearing us well. I'm looking forward to getting some focused time helping her make up for lost time! Her current words are mama, dada, and mi-mi (milk). She waves bye-bye, blows kisses, and does hand signs for "more please" and "all done". She can make smacking sounds for what the fish says, and she knows how to blow on her food. At their 15 month well check, she weighed in at 22 lb (45%) and 31 inches (75%). Blythe took her first steps over Christmas, but still crawls more than walks. In the last day or so, she is walking more and more, so she may become a majority walker in the next week! She is very ticklish, and LOVES getting tickled! She laughs when she sees the tickle coming. Blythe's favorite things are her Polly horse that she sleeps with, hand puppets, books (particularly animal or flap books), the musical instrument set, the yellow front-end loader, blocks, toy kitchen food, and her favorite push toy. Our Blythe is, in a word, sugar.

This pic is significant because though Blythe loves her mama, she has a VERY special spot in her heart for her Daddy and chooses him above me sometimes! Other important points are her sippy cup that she LOVES, and the beads around her neck- we'll come back to Blythe and her bling in a moment, though.

Joy walks everywhere now and is really fast! She weighed in last week at 23 lb 11 oz (60%) and also 31 inches (75%). Her vocab is expanding all the time as she is doing a great job of mimicking and attempting new words. She says mama, dada, Abba (Abby) bye-bye, nigh-night, hi, amen, mo (more), baba (puppy), and Joy versions of "Blythe" (starts with a B and has various endings), "all done", and "please". Her animal sounds are moo, elephant sound (with motions), baba, meow, neigh, ooo-ooo for monkey, fish smacks, and blows on food as well. Joy's favorite things are her green blankie that she sleeps with, snuggly toys she can bury her face in, the toy piano, blocks, musical instruments, books (particularly flap books), and toy kitchen pots/pans/spoons. Joy laughs all the time (unless she's being shy, which is rare), and she has acquired a new laugh in the last week that Jake and I get a pretty big kick out of.. She is in a word, a ham. I let her hold a pretzel today... looks more like a Cuban in her chubby fingers!

Back to Blythe and her bling- today at Jake's office, they gave the girls some random beads to play with. Blythe right away had about four around her neck, and Joy tried to do the same, but just couldn't figure it out.

Here she is later on, still trying, with another necklace! Poor old Joy- I think Blythe may have her beat here.

Another thing that has been great in the last month or so- the girls can really handle some rough-housing with Abby Jane. She straddled Joy last night and just sat on her back... Joy belly laughed and laughed. We love that she's helping her sisters be rough and tumble- we're never nervous when they're around bigger boys because we know a) they can handle a lot and b) they're not afraid to let us know when they've had enough!

Why does taking kids clothes off give them a burst of energy? We have had some hilarious moments recently with the three of them running around "nik nik"... if this blog were not public, I would post some priceless videos we got.

I know no one is still reading, so the following falls in the "for our records" category. "Twinsie" items of note. When they are awake in their cribs, they are talking to each other and laughing. The other day when Jake and I left on a date, Mom said they dealt with their frustration as follows: Blythe was sad and cuddled up in Mom's lap, while Joy was mad and started throwing toys. They pass food and sippy cups back and forth on their trays. They are in the hitting stage, which is tricky when there are two going through it. At least I know that stage has an end point, or at least it did for their big sis... that is, until her little sisters started hitting her... Blythe and Joy aren't clingy to each other, but they are more content with going to sleep when the other one is in the room as well. I think our family is more like triplets- the three girls play together all the time- so it takes away from some of the twin magic, but it makes the three of them more BFF... most of the time! On that note, they LOVE Jane- she makes them laugh when no one else can, and she is so tender with them... it always cracks me up that she regularly calls them "sweetie"- "I'm sorry you bumped your head, Sweetie. Do you want a block, sweetie? I'm praying for your rash, sweetie..." You get the picture. It's funny. I love my girls!

A Tale of Two Houses

On Saturday morning, Abby Jane went on a date with Jake to the Waffle House. No picture of course, but you can imagine their healthy, oops! I meant hearty, breakfast... and of course the wonderful daddy/daughter time.

Yesterday, Sandy watched the little girls while Abby Jane and I had some "big girl time" meeting my sweet friend Holly, who brought Jay and Kirkley up from Auburn for the morning. We met at Ikea- look at this fabulous little shopping helpers...

THEN we headed to the Swan Coach House for a lovely ladies (and one boy) lunch! Lunch at the Swan is a big Atlanta tradition that we used to do growing up, and it was also the location of several bridesmaids luncheons of friends and family, including mine!

Needless to say, it was so special to take these young ladies to experience it for themselves. We were seated on a big porch that we mainly had to ourselves, and everyone's behavior made the entire lunch a total success!
Love this sweet family! Wish we lived closer! Holly is a super-mom and a super-lady. I have learned so much from her about being a godly wife and mom, as well as how to cook, entertain, serve others, and do it all with an organized, well-run household! It's good to have friends like her. Oh, and something super- amazing about Holly- she never ran a day in her life before last May, and now she's about to do a half-marathon in March- way to go, friend!

Look how excited they were about the traditional French silk Swan dessert (whipped cream on top, chocolate mousse inside, on top of delicious meringue!) Don't you worry, Holly and I were equally excited.

The close-up of that little bit of heaven.

Now don't you agree that the House us girls went to beats the House Jake went to? Or maybe visits to both within 48 hours will just keep our kid well balanced... and well fed! :)

Campout Party!!

We decided to do a camping theme, complete with two tents set up, for Abby Jane's 3rd birthday. When it started sleeting Thursday and rained all day Friday, we started making plans for setting up a tent in the garage... though it wouldn't be quite the same. However, Saturday dawned COLD but clear, and all the party guests were great troopers with the weather! We only invited family and a few families with Abby Jane's "big kid" friends- she's around the babies and their friends so much that we wanted her 3rd birthday to be a big kid party.

Our first arrivals were my sister's family, who made the drive from Chattanooga (we're celebrating with my brother's family when we go visit them in a few weeks!)

Katie and Ian with the little girls...

Our first activity was decorating jars...

to catch (plastic) bugs with on a bug hunt! (Any fantastic pictures on this post and the one prior are courtesy of Lindsey and that jewel in her hands below... thanks for sharing your talent, Lindsey!)

Birthday girl with a bug jar in her camping-themed birthday dress. I know an owl is a stretch for a camping theme, but I couldn't find any camp-style design that wouldn't look ridiculous on a girl.

Paul with the boys "catching bugs"...

Our first friends in Kennesaw, Kristin and Maddy...

Next activity was pin the tail on the bear, design courtesy of our Mimi with a degree in art! My performance in a New Year's Eve game of Pictionary proved that I definitely had no business attempting to create this on my own. My big 7 yo niece Katie showed the younger kids how it was done.

Here is sweet newly-turned-three Fallon giving it a shot...

I had big plans for a potato sack race next, but I think the two and three year olds had enough of structure by that time, so I'm just going to have to save that for when we do one of these shindigs again at some point. There are so many fantastic camping party ideas out there that are perfect for 6-7 year olds! Be watching in 5-6 years for a twin camping party... ;)

Aunt Betsy and Luke, bless his bundled little heart!

Precious Blythe and Joy had a funny day- for the first time EVER they chatted and told jokes to each other ALL AFTERNOON NAP LONG and didn't sleep the whole afternoon! But they still were in great spirits when party time came and put up with getting passed around until they both suddenly called it quits at 7:15, about 30 minutes later than their normal bedtime! They spent a good deal of time with Grammy pulling them in circles around "the campsite" in their wagon...

Finally the long awaited moment for Abby Jane- she's been amped for her birthday since the twins' party in October...
Blowing out THREE candles!

Look how everyone has grown since last year!!! Though Blythe and Joy look about as unimpressed with the whole affair as they did then...

Then came the s'more making. This was another good reason for the party to be big kids only- I can only imagine if all 10 or so of our baby friends were crawling around by the chimnea... there would have been nervous mamas!

I was glad to see Granny Joan making a s'more- she and Grandaddy seemed to constantly have one of their great-grandchildren on their hip or doing something else helpful- we sure love them!

Finally we moved the party indoors, and family stuck around for an after-party hot dog dinner (Trader Joe's hot dogs do not gross me out, though I know they can't be much better for you than other brands...)

Then once again, my no-presents birthday party had some present opening, though mostly from family who were "allowed"... and of course Abby Jane needed all four assistants to help her!

All our little happy campers left with some goodies!

We were so grateful for a precious day celebrating our big girl. I notice as I finish this post that I have very few pictures of our parents at the party- that's because they were behind the scenes entertaining twins, helping clean up, helping get out food, etc. THANK YOU for everything, parents!! A 3 year old post to come soon!

Disclaimer

I have decided to create blog-to-books instead of printing photos or making photo books. So the good news/bad news is that big events will be more heavily recorded! Just wanted the reason to be public so folks can be prepared for a little extra coverage here and there...

Setting up Camp

Contrary to the typo on the invitation below, we had Abby Jane's 3rd birthday party yesterday!

*Oops- had a picture of the invitation here, but then realized it had our home address- not brilliant for security purposes! It was pink, shaped like a tent, and you opened felt flaps to see the wording!

I figured if the twins had their own birthday runner, my eldest needed one, too!

I had a lot of fun doing 3 year old friendly camping treats, and here a few favorites...
Found this slice of tree- it's real!- at Hobby Lobby. I'm a little obsessed with it, so it's going to be fun finding excuses to use my coolest new serving piece.

It's here!

The day has come that we signed Abby Jane up for next fall's preschool! A dear friend in Malibu asked me which preschool I was getting on the waiting list for... when Abby Jane was only 8 months old! It blew my mind that you might need to plan so far in advance.


There were a lot of logistics this morning, but the Lord worked it all out, including letting an early morning meeting of Jake's get cancelled so I could leave the girls with him while I got Janie's name on the first come, first serve list at 7:30 a.m. My sweet friends Kristin (in black) and Lindsey (in white) grabbed my packet when it was ready before I returned with my kids, entertained them while I filled out papers, and fed snacks while I turned in my info. Not that this grainy pic is much thanks to you, but thanks anyways, girls!

In other news, I wanted to show you two options you have if you don't like your lunch. You can share with your sister on your right...

Or your sister on your left.
After lunch, Abby Jane told me she was building Samford Hall. I can definitely see the similarities.

Then Joy practiced winking.

Blythe thought that looked like a good idea. Blythe's efforts appear a little more successful.

As an addendum, I loved hearing people's responses on and off the blog to the post below and how others feel the same way about their husbands! "Husband-bashing" is a HUGE pet-peeve of mine, so feel free to comment below what you RESPECT about your man!