I love to see the temple

a week ago wednesday, we went to the temple in orlando with some friends of ours. it was great. they have a 4 year old daughter who millie adores. her parents went in the temple for a couple hours while we watched the kids and then we went in for a couple hours while they watched the kids. we hung out at the temple for more than 4 hours! it was awesome. there is a peace and calm that only the temple can bring and i love having my children there walking around those sacred grounds with me. millie and her playmate had fun trying to catch lizards and when this got old (because lizards are quite fast), they found a worm! the worm was very entertaining and they played with it for over an hour. millie's friend's parents were surprised that their little girl touched the worm because she is usually a little too squirmish to do this. i've got pictures to prove it! i didn't want to show the little dear's face in any pics because i didn't ask her mama and daddy but here are some pics i felt would be okay to display to the world without permission from them. enjoy!

the proposal :)

last night millie asked me why i wanted to marry dad when we got married. i proceeded to tell her about all the things i like about the guy (his eyes, his smile, his personality, his kindness towards me and others, etc.). she seemed content to know these things. then tonight she caught me off-guard when she asked me if i wanted a different husband someday. i told her no and i wanted to be married to her daddy forever and ever. surprisingly, she look a little disappointed. so a little later, i asked her why she asked me if i wanted a new husband. she then told me that she was hoping that when she grew up and became a man someday, that she was hoping to be able to marry me. yes, i was able to keep from laughing, but it was hard! we then had a discussion about how she will become a woman someday and that she can be a wife to a husband and that boy grow into men and that girls grow into women, etc. she then said, "is that because God made us that way?" and i answered "yes, that is why." it was a fun conversation :)

savannah is so proud to be walking now and is feeling quite independent at times. it's fun to see my little ones grow.

the promised dragon fly picture!

Here is the picture of Millie with the dragonfly she caught with her own two hands.

8 years ago...

In a land far far away...

We were wed!

We made it passed the national average of 7 years! Way to go us!

Story from today... Some lovely relations sent a lovely bouquet of flowers our way today. i was reading to millie in her room when kyle brought them in to show us. millie immediately asked where the flowers came from. kyle read the card and proceeded to tell her that they were sent to mom and dad because it's our anniversary. neither one of us looked at her face when she saw the flowers or after she found out who they were for, but we were both surprised when she broke down in tears saying, "I'm so sad, I thought they were for me." She would not allow me to comfort her and got off my lap and went over to the other side of her room away from us and then proceeded to tell us "I'm so jealous, I wanted those flowers." Kyle didn't have school today, so we woke up this morning ready to celebrate our anniversary with our family. We told millie and savannah that today was going to be like a holiday and we would have fun together all day because we were celebrating our family. by the time we received the flowers, we had shown millie lots of special attention and tried to stress the importance of this special day to her, so we were a little surprised when she admitted to being jealous. She had never used this word in a real life situation before. i think the act of being "jealous" is mentioned in at least 3 books that we own (joseph's brothers being jealous of him because his father gave him a beautiful coat, and men being jealous of daniel because the king like him, and the wicked lady who was jealous of snow white's beauty). But millie has only ever used the word in her imagination play with her dolls (usually on her own time when she in her own little world playing by herself and i overhear her playing with them). Anyways, we let millie keep the flowers in her room and told her that we were also celebrating her because we would never have been blessed to have her in our lives unless we had been married first.

today millie caught a dragonfly with her bare hands and i have a picture i will not be downloading tonight because i need to go to sleep and i am just not going to make myself do that right now :)- sleep is always my excuse for getting out of anything!

by the way, savannah is officially walking now! it's so cute! she can walk across the room but still seems a little unsure about walking all the time. she still wants to hold my finger to walk about 70% of the time (she doesn't ask me whether it's convenient for me to do this whenever she wants, but i try to oblige her as much as i can because i know this phase of her wanting me to help her walk will pass sooner than i know it).

life is good. we love florida. we love our children. we still love each other after 8 years... and counting :)

millie moments

millie is awesome and that's why i'm taking a minute to talk about the girl.

millie wants to be our little helper quite often and wants to help us "choose the right" because as much as we should be perfect examples to her all the time, we truthfully are not. we are imperfect parents (what did you expect?) and she is starting to realize that we need just as much guidance and direction as she does. when i say this, i mean in terms of our emotions,etc. anyways, if anyone knows me well, they will know that i get stressed often despite my best efforts to not. millie recently gave me one of her stuffed animals and told me it was my new pet and that it would comfort me when i needed it to. so now, anytime she can see that i am starting to get stressed about something, she talks me through it by reminding me "mommy, remember you have a new pet." this means, "calm down, if you would just remember that you have a pet to comfort you, then you could avoid all these stressful feelings and settle down." i love when she tells me this because it seems so funny that a stuffed animal would be the answer to all my problems and it always makes me smile and appreciate millie's outlook on life. i am also able to calm down and get ahold of myself better when she simply remind i have a new pet.

another story: when kyle got home from school today, i was telling him that i had felt stressed because of a list of reasons. among these reasons was that my computer was not working today so i wasn't able to write an email i wanted to write. about an hour after complaining about my day to kyle (no, i don't complain every night and i'm not always stressed- sometimes i'm a pleasant person to live with), millie came up to me and asked me if daddy's computer was broken or if it was just mine. i told her that daddy's computer still worked. she then asked me if i wanted to use his computer to write an email. i told her i would probably need to since mine wasn't working. i didn't start using his computer right then because i think i was occupied with the babe or something. the next thing i know, she is asking her daddy if i can use his computer to write an email to someone. i like this story because it shows me that she was trying to make my life easier and help solve a problem she was able to recognize would make me happy.

now i am off to bed :)

feast on this!!!

So, here I am. The last post was pics of my sis Shay and her hus Shawn when they came to visit with their kiddo Ian. As you can tell from the pics, it was a super good time. They live in SC and we were happy they took the time to come. We drove up to visit them last Thanksgiving (pics from that on facebook). Anyways, I was so tired after down loading the pics that i didn't bother writing any kind of explanation with it.
So today, i'm going to start with words, and hopefully end with pics. some people are awesome enough that they put words with corresponding pics. Kudos to them but i am just proud when i complete a blog with any amount of pics or words to go with them.

Well, our family is happy and healthy. Silly goat is 4 and Banana is 10 months. Silly went to the dentist yesterday with no cavities and Bana has 8 teeth to be proud of. bana is not walking yet, although some thought from the last pics posted that she was. she can stand very well and for quite a long time, but walking is not on her lists of mastered tasks.

silly frequently yells "bridge!" when we drive in the car because there are two entrances into the condos where we live and of course she wants to go in the entrance with the bridge even though it's not closest to our place.
silly is into getting dressed these days and wants to be "fancy nancy" every day. She got a book about a girl who dresses fancy and has accessories, etc. and she wants to follow suit.
silly wants desperately to be a teenager. she thinks it's fascinating that someone can still be kind of like a kid, but big enough to do almost everything by themselves. she's had a couple of teenagers watch her in the past and she thinks that is a blast. tonight she enjoyed being a teenager older sister and taking care of bana. it was great because i was able to get a lot done cause she was entertaining her so well.
silly wants pets desperately!!! here is a list of pets she has owned in the last 6 months or so: spider, mosquito, potato bug, caterpillar, frog, and dragon fly. she caught almost all of these herself. the spider and mosquito we found inside and i put it in a container for a couple days for her. she found the caterpillar and play with it like crazy for a couple of days and felt so sad when she found it dead because she wanted it to turn into a butterfly (we told her to leave it alone and then maybe it would a cocoon,etc.). She caught the frog with her bare hands and we kept it for only a day. the dad read up on the care of frogs and realized we did not have the proper home for a frog and that it would probably die. silly was so sad to let it go. the most recent catch was the dragonfly. sill had told our neighbor that she wanted to have a pet and to catch bugs. the next thing we know, the sweet neighbor buys her a net and a cute little bug cage. so the dad caught her a dragonfly that she kept for 2 days- please take a moment to laugh while you picture said daddy hopping and sneaking around trying to catch a dragonfly with no luck for about 45 minutes (she had caught one by herself with her bare hands before she had a net, but it quickly escaped out of her grasp). we convinced her to let it go and she agreed when we told her that dragonflies eat mosquitoes. the area outside out front door many mosquitoes congregate. i shake them off before i put the kids in the stroller. this make silly worried there might be some lingering close by still. so after letting the dragonfly go this morning, she is convinced that she will be protected from mosquitoes because she said her dragonfly pet is living by our house and is protecting us from mosquitoes by eating them all. hooray!
this last sunday, we had a different neighbor over for dinner who is learning about our church from the missionaries. he wanted to show his appreciation for the meal so her brought some battery operated hamsters for silly and bana. they're the kind that have a ball you can put them in and the run around in the ball around the room. the girls LOVE them. they can also run without the ball. silly wanted to bring hers to the grocery store yesterday. we got a good laugh because silly dropped it on the floor and it started speeding away from us down the aisle. customers at publix were in for a laugh too.
some day when we are settled somewhere, we have promised silly a dog. she loves cats too but her mama is allergic to them so a dog it will be.

bana is a friendly little thing. she loves going to church because there's so many people to smile at and be silly for. she likes to wave and wave and wave. she also enjoys waving when we go on walks and runs in the mornings. silly also waves at people. it's usually about the time when people are headed to work in the mornings, and i encourage the girls to wave at people so they have something to smile about on their way to work.
behind savannah's booster seat high chair thingy, i keep a bag of flash cards with words on one side and pictures on the other side. at mealtimes, i will often get out these cards to show to the girls. we'll read the word on one side and then i'll flip it over and show them the picture. they both love doing this and sometimes silly will come and play a game where she steals the cards and hides them under the table after i read the word (after she's done with her meal, of course). bana gets super excited for all of these shananagans and will squeal and clap her hands during the excitement. the last couple days when i put her in her chair, she tries to turn around and grab the flashcard bag and it sounds like she says "caa" which sounds to me like she asking to play cards. so we get them out and the excitement begins!

me and the girls will be arriving in happy valley at the end of july to stay for a while whilst the dad looks for a job (unless he has already found one by that time, God willing). so from now until then, i am going to be busy sorting and dejunking to get ready to move out of this place. we will be getting rid of almost everything so the cost of storing our stuff will be low.

last week one some of our really good friends from ave maria school of law in michigan (which school has since moved to naples, fl), mark and pat, drove down to orlando from NC for a vacation. we drove to see them and went to disney world on tuesday and played at their hotel poo on wednesday. it was a blast. they enjoyed meeting bana and reuniting with sillykins. kins was really excited to see them. she went on the ride soarin' at epcot with them and had a blast. she also really enjoyed looking at a caterpillar at the pool with mark.

a very random pic you will view will be of a potato with a dove on it. wilst cleaning potatoes for dinner, i discovered this one with a dove growth. before removing the little beauty, i snapped a little picture of it so i would never forget to feel peace while cooking dinner (making dinner is sometimes a stressful thing for me)

another event of note late week was my birthday. it was so wonderful. i had originally planned to go to the temple in orlando and asked kyle to watch the kids while a went in but i decided the day before that i really just didn't want to go to the temple on my birthday (it's a 2 hour drive there and then it takes at least 2 hours in the temple and then 2 hours back). a friend of mine invited me to come visit her in st. petes which is a couple hours away and is close to the beach. this sounded so fun, but i didn't really feel like driving anywhere on my birthday- it just didn't sound like a relaxing day. so i came to the conclusion the i would wake up in the morning and do whatever i thought would make me happy all day. kyle likes to make plans, so he had to be patient all day because he didn't know what i was going to want to do from minute to hour. but we all had a great day: nature walk in the morning, botanical gardens after, naps for everyone (except silly who played quietly in her room), and letting the kids play at the mall playground in the evening. I also requested that no money be spent on my birthday on me or anyone else. so we ate meals at home, and i was happy to have no presents (our new camera last month was my mother's day present, birthday present, kyle's father's day present, and our anniversary present). in the end, it was a very calm and relaxing day with my family- what could be better than that? :)

alright, now i will download some pictures. if you read all the above, you have too much time on your hands- go fold some laundry or do your dishes, or clean out a closet, etc. j/k (that's what i've neglected while writing this).