My dear friend Nicole gave me the Excellent award for my blog. And I’m honored. But, I’m not cool, nor am I tech savvy because I can’t figure out how to paste the picture on my blog. So, you’ll just have to take my word for it. Or go check out her blog and Here’s the Diehl to see what I mean. Thanks, Nicole! You’re the reason I’m blogging and this blog has helped me keep my sanity over the last month. I’m now officially addicted.
Archives for 2008
Yahoo! My first award…
February 6, 2008 by
Snow day
February 3, 2008 by
Sledding rules!!! Lee and I agreed that if we lived in Florida we couldn’t have good fun like this! Of course, down there we could water ski…
Tia and daddy went down first, and Tia did not have fun. She watched from the top of the hill the rest of the time.
Mommy getting a push from Sloan.
Mommy flying off the jump.
This is Sloan catching some serious air, just before he landed on his head. It’s all fun and games…
Daddy going off the jump. Graceful isn’t he?
Tia and daddy went down first, and Tia did not have fun. She watched from the top of the hill the rest of the time.
Mommy getting a push from Sloan.
Mommy flying off the jump.
This is Sloan catching some serious air, just before he landed on his head. It’s all fun and games…
Daddy going off the jump. Graceful isn’t he?Happy Birthday, Katya Rose!
February 3, 2008 by
To my precious little girl,
Happy 2nd birthday. Oh, how much I love you. You move my heart in so many different ways and I am honored and blessed to be called your mom. Two years is not very long, but somehow I feel I’ve known you my whole life. When I look back to the years when daddy and I were married before kids, I still see you and Sloan and Landon in those memories. It’s as if you’ve always been here.
My darling daughter, I love you in so many ways. I love your zest for life. I love the way that you will do anything you want out of sheer determination. Your indepence, while frightening at times, is amazing to me. Very few things frighten you. You’re so brave and free and happy. I love the way you get to laughing so hard that the laughter comes out in one long stream, with hardly any break in the sound. I love watching you smile, your chubby little cheeks drawing up and your big, blue eyes twinkling in delight. You are infectious and joyful.
Over the past few months, you have become your brother’s shadow. No matter what he does, you will follow him and you will do the exact same thing. You watch him closely, and despite the fact that you two seem to fight like cats and dogs, I know you desperately love one another. When he leaves for school in the morning, you get the most pitiful look on your face as you know you’ve lost your playmate for the next few hours.
You are a master mimic and mime. You communicate through charades as you just refuse to talk. There is no need, though, because we always know exactly what you are saying. Your eyes light up as you point and gesture until we guess what it is you are trying to tell us. “Uh-huh,” and “uh-uh,” are your words of choice. Sometimes it can be frustrating to us, but most of the time it is so adorable watching you “talk.” Even Sloan has learned your language and sometimes you two have whole conversations without saying a real word.
You’ve done so well with your new baby brother. You’ve been sweet and patient with him as he’s taken mommy away from you from time to time. You give him kisses and love to hold him. You also love to dig your nails into his head from time to time…we’re working on that.
You’ve become quite the daddy’s girl lately. You save your best snuggles and hugs for him and it melts him to his very core. You smack your lips for a kiss in his direction and no matter how late he may be walking out the door, he’ll always turn around and give you one more kiss. How precious you are to him.
My hopes and dreams for you, Tia, are that you one day grow up to know how treasured you are, not just by me and daddy, but also by God. I pray you know Jesus, baby. I pray that you grow up to be a young woman of grace and peace, of virtue and strength, of wisdom and gentleness. Those are my greatest desires for you.
My sweet Tia Rose. You were a much prayed for little girl. For nearly a year, mommy and daddy longed and prayed for a child and could not get pregnant. Then, all of the sudden, it happened. And for nine months, we prepared ourselves for another little boy, though deep in my heart, I knew you were going to be my little girl. The day you were born was shocking for us all. The Stuart family had not seen a little girl for many, many years. And now, here you are. Growing up. You’re not my baby anymore. S Dyen Razjdyenya, moya Katinka. Ya tebya tak ochen lyiublyiu.
Love, Mama
Speechless
January 30, 2008 by
I don’t know why I titled this speechless, since I’m obviously not, but I just wanted to let everyone know about a friend of mine that takes pictures and she is AMAZING!!! Her name is Tarah Craft and you can view her work at http://www.inthebeginningphoto.com/. She took Tia’s 1 year shots and she took newborn shots of Landon and our family. I just looked at the proofs and, oh my goodness, they are amazing. I’ve been sitting here with tears in my eyes for 20 minutes watching the slideshow and wondering how on earth I’m going to narrow them down to stay in my budget. If you go into her site and click on Previews, enter the password “kstuart” and you can see the shots she took of us. She even managed to get a couple of great shots of Tia who was being a total pill that day and wanted nothing to do with having her picture made. Tarah, you are amazing! Thank you so much. You captured my children perfectly!
Walking through the Park and Reminiscing
January 29, 2008 by
My dear friend Tiffany sent me reeling into flashback mode with her post on New Kids on the Block. (Check out her blog at Quiet Gardens, Raging Seas!) Anyway, I had major flashbacks to my New Kid loving days. Alas, they were short lived, but filled with passion nonetheless. Now, my parents were nazi’s…uhhh, I mean, vigilant, about what my brother and I listened to. While other children sang and danced to Madonna and Michael Jackson, I rocked out to Leslie Gore and Sandi Patty. Somehow, though, the New Kids managed to slip through. Perhaps it was because our neighbor, Kirtie, who was in high school and babysat us occasionally was a New Kid FREAK. Seriously, she was the ultimate uberfan! Or perhaps they gave in and bought me a tape for the same reasons that I caved and let Sloan watch High School Musical – it was a harmless piece of pop culture and not worth the battle.
Either way, I finally received the coveted cassette tape, which I promptly popped into my kickin’ Walkman and jammed to the tunes of Right Stuff and Please Don’t Go Girl. My childhood friend, Jenny, and I argued over who was cuter. She liked Joey, but I was partial to Jordan. He was my first celebrity crush. I’ll never forget going to Kirtie’s house the day after she went to their concert. She and her friend had tickets on the second row and she had so many cool, up close Polaroids. She also bought a concert video and I watched, jaw agape, as Jordan spun round and round on his shoulders.
Rad!
Kirtie gave me an oversize button, which I pinned on my tubular jean jacket and wore to school the next day. During recess, my friends and I stood in a semi-circle and compared buttons. I remember Alyssa Rohl had ten buttons, some small and some big. She had an awesome hat where she pinned two of her buttons. It was wicked. My other friend Kristen had a swatch watch imprinted with a picture of the boys. We talked about how sweet Joey was and how cool Donnie was with his happenin’ half mullet. And we all agreed that Danny looked a little like a monkey. There we stood, our hair crimped, french braided and teased, our conversation peppered with “like,” and “totally,” and “oh, gag me.” We were the stuff.
To illustrate this story, I thought I would include a picture from those days. Unfortunately, I don’t have many old pictures here at my house, these were all I could find. But, you’ll see I was totally fashion forward. The only fashion trend of that day that I passed up was the massive bangs. I wisely realized very young that I looked like a dork with my bangs like that. Not that I didn’t give it a good effort. While the other girls walked around looking like their forehead froze mid-projectile-vomit, I opted for simpler bangs, but rocked out the side ponytail and was a genius with a crimping iron. Now, of course, these pictures I’m showing were only from fifth grade, when my parents still exercised a good deal of control over my fashion choices. Later on, when left on my own, my choices in haristyle were far less tame. While I couldn’t get away with my bangs in full out bloom, I did try to curl and spray them in various ways. You know in the movie What About Mary when Cameron Diaz’s bangs are standing straight up, as though somehow she ran into a wall? That’s what I usually ended up looking like. If I find such a picture and have the guts to subject myself to that humiliation, I will post one. For now, enjoy the days of Units belts, Esprit over sized bags and crimped hair. Thanks, Tiffany, for the walk down memory lane. It’s been a good ride!
Did You Know?
January 29, 2008 by
The average four-year-old asks 437 questions a day. That’s according to a sign in the Magic House. Just thought you might like to know that. I think my kid is more in the 600 range, but whatever. There was also a sign that said the average 5 year old has watched more hours of television than he will spend in college classes. Depressing. Oh well, I’m off to put in a movie for the kids! 🙂
Day 2, Much better
January 29, 2008 by
A better day. Landon slept really well last night, Sloan was in school until 3:00 today and my AWESOME neighbor, Carol, kept Landon so I could go to the grocery store. Thanks again, Carol. All three kids went to bed early and I relaxed. I just watched Jon and Kate Plus 8. Do any of you watch that? It’s on TLC on Monday nights. You should watch it – it’s great. It makes my three kids look like a walk in the park. Tia climbed out of her crib twice today. I think we’re going to have to transition to big girl bed soon, which I wasn’t quite ready for but I don’t want her to hurt herself. We’ll see. Now I’m off to bed. I may actually be asleep before 10:00 tonight! Woohoo!
Daddy out of town, Day 1
January 28, 2008 by
5:00am – Lee gets up and gets ready to leave for Michigan for the week. Landon also gets up and decides that he doesn’t want to go back to sleep so instead he grunts and groans for an hour and a half.
6:00am – I am near tears as I look at my six week old son who is in desperate need of a good poop. I curse my lack of milk production which requires my kid to try and digest formula.
6:30am – Sloan and Tia both wake up and I bite my tongue not to scream a curse word. They both went to bed at 10:00 the night before because we had a party, are you freakin’ kidding me??!?!
7:00am – I reluctantly drag myself out of bed (Landon finally fell asleep…of course) and get up and make the kids breakfast, then stick a movie in and curl up by the fire. We can’t go to church because Tia has another cold…awesome.
8:30am – Tia, who has only been watching the movie for about 15 minutes, drops a carton of eggs that I carelessly left on the counter on the floor. I again bite my tongue and clean up the mess.
9:00am – Landon is screaming. Seriously, he needs to poop. I give him apple juice. It doesn’t help.
10:00am – I bundle the kids up and plop them in the car for a drive to Target to buy suppositories for my now inconsolable child. Landon screams most of the time we’re in Target. But Sloan and Tia are extremely well behaved because I bribe them with a piece of gum when we leave the store. Score one for mommy.
10:53am – I insert suppository.
10:54am – I pray to God that this works so I never have to do it again.
10:55am – I curse my lack of milk once more.
10:56am – Landon finally poops. Hallelujah!
10:57am – He’s still pooping.
10:58am – Still pooping…
10:59am – yep…
11:00am – put a fresh diaper on him and lay him down. He promptly begins screaming. I calmly close the door and turn a deaf ear. I check on the other two who are outside. They’ve got hammers and are massacreing (sp?) the tree in the back yard. I turn a blind eye and make lunch.
1:00pm – I finally have everyone down for naps. Wait…nope, Landon’s awake again. No nap for mommy.
2:30pm – I reluctantly wake Sloan up because I know if I don’t he’ll never go back to sleep tonight. We sit down to work on his russian, something he’s not happy about. Ten minutes into our lesson (we try and work on it 20 minutes a day) he says, “I don’t want to do this anymore. I want to talk in real.”
6:00pm – After a relatively mild afternoon of playing outside, we leave for the Magic House for a fundraiser for Sloan’s school. My good friend Kara helps and praise God. I would have lost one of the children without the help. The Magic House was great fun, except Landon cried most of the time. It was hot and loud. But the other two had a ball.
9:58pm – Everyone is asleep and mommy should be too. But instead she is typing a silly post on her blog. Stupid, stupid mommy…
Our son the moose
January 25, 2008 by
We took Landon to the dr. yesterday and he weighed 11 pounds! That means he’s gained 3 pounds in a month…he’s not afraid. I’m really surprised because he is not a big eater. I guess he just holds on to everything he eats. He was 21.5 inches long. Which only put him in the 50% for height and the 90% for weight. So he’s short and fat…Just to give some comparisons – Sloan weighed 12lbs 13 oz at the same age as Landon and was 23 3/4″ long – he was ginormous. Tia, on the other hand was only 9 lbs 7 oz, but was 22″. So Landon is kind of right in between him. Those facts are probably not interesting to anyone but me but thanks for reading anyway.
Recent Comments