so, remember how we made a new blog? well, tyemarietoatree is not being discontinued. i'm using this one for anything that i want to say about life and using the new one to update what's going on with our family. the new one will probably have more pictures than this one.

many of you expressed an interest in knowing about the new blog. i contacted hopefully all of you (except erin- are you on facebook?) to let you know the blog address. but i posted on the new one about 2 weeks ago and no one has left any comments. so i'm wondering who still needs to know about the new one? please let me know so i can get you the info! :)

thank you!

changes

hi. well, we are foster parents now! we started the whole process of getting certified back in january and now we are ready to go! what do you think 'bout that?! we don't have any permanent children in our home yet, but we could any time. however, we do have a temporary little angel sleeping upstairs in the extra bedroom next to our own 2 little angels' bedroom. we just have this beauty for the weekend and then she will be going back to her "permanent" foster home. every once in a while, the foster mother wants a break from her foster kids (this 4 year old girl and her 2 sisters) so they spend the night at other foster homes for a weekend. we were happy to have her.

this is going on my personal blog, because this is a major life change for me personally, along with my family. i am super excited at this point. but don't worry, i'm a very realistic person so my imagination allows for all the fears you can imagine, but overall, kyle and i feel good about this path. we are excited to face the challenges this new path brings and to extend our love to kids who need it. our children will also learn to love and understand others better and be thankful for the many blessings that come along with having a stable home.

announcement

hi.
we have created a new family blog. if you want to know how to find it, please leave a comment :)

This and That

We are tired. But, it's time for a blog. Tye's mom (Harriet) was here for the past two weeks. She has now left us, opting to return home in spite of our many attempts to keep her :) We really appreciated her visit, and Millie and Savannah already miss her a ton. We decided to grow a little garden this year (probably on our deck in pots). We planted tomato seeds a few weeks ago and they are doing really well, although Tye thinks the 14 tomato plants in our window seal are a little excessive. Although it pains me to say it . . . she's probably right and I'll give some of the new plants away to deserving individuals. Our girls are as cute as ever, we love to sneak into there rooms at night and see them sleeping, it's an addiction. Well, the following are some recent pictures for your viewing pleasure. Later Dudes.

Pictures . . . Pictures

i have children

the title of this post is what i say out loud to kyle when things are going wild crazy in our home, or mainly when i feel crazy because i am a mother. "i have children." it's true, i do. they are amazing. and so much fun. the crazies come with the territory that is my life. i love it and it drives me crazy. would i trade it for some other life? no, i chose this lifepath when kyle and i decided to purposely infest our home with children and it's crazyandwonderfulandinsaneandbeautifulandhappyandsatisfyingandterrificandchallengingallthetimebringiton!

millie started preschool for the very first time this past monday. she Loves!! it!!! it is an 8 week program with the senior high school students teaching it for their early childhood education class. it's m,w,f from 9-11:00. i asked millie how she liked it when i went to pick her up. and she said, "mommy, i that school, they only play!" it was really cute. i think she was expecting them to make her sit down at a table and say and write the ABC's for 2 hours. she is happy to find that school can be educational and super fun. unfortunately, school usaully increases in boringness as a person ages. but she'll figure that out with time :) for now, she is enjoying the crafts, stories, activities,and tons of attention from the eagar to please 16-17 year old girls.

savannah is a cute cute handful (meaning she requires a lot of work but thank goodness she's cute)! she has recently become interested in the potty. she has sucessfully pooped in the contraption about 3 times in the last week and peed once. she doesn't really seem to comprehend what it's all about yet though, so i'm not super pushing it. i'm just kind of letting her be the boss of it right now (she's only 18 months old).
vanny (her new nickname from me) has now entered into "nursery." this is her first class without mommy and daddy and church. it's for kids 18mo-3 years old. she loves it! big sigh, because i teach the 5 year old class and because kyle is busy with his calling and wants to be able to enjoy his classes too (classes are enjoyable with a little one but you don't learn much).

kyle is a busy boy making all our dreams come true by working hard for me and my girls. :)

i am happy.

blast to the past

i just went into my blog archive and saw some posts that i never published. so i went ahead and published them, but they can only be found on the day that i originally saved them. so, i will put some links to them so you can find them if interested.
http://tyemarietoatree.blogspot.com/2010/11/blog-post_21.html
http://tyemarietoatree.blogspot.com/2009/08/blog-post.html
http://tyemarietoatree.blogspot.com/2008/07/here-goes-nothin.html

Below are a couple of random pics that have nothing to do with what I am writing. I just wanted to mention a little something about Christmas that i think is of a funny note. millie asked for nothing for christmas but weights. you know, the kind you lift up and down to exercise with? crazy. People would ask her, "what do you wanted santa to bring you for christmas?" and she would just smile and say "weights". millie loves to exercise- don't worry, i have not encourage her to lift weights at all, she's just seen me lift them when i was doing my internship clear back when we lived in michigan and i taught and attended some exercise classes with her. so we decided santa would bring everyone weights. i haven't owned any for about 6 months and i've wanted some. so we found some little 1 pound ones for savannah, millie got 2 pound ones, i got 5 pound ones (i used to also have 8 and 10 pound weights but i thought i would start lighter and work my way up), and kyle got 20 pound ones (he wanted 25 but santa brought him 20!). so millie was absolutely thrilled. maybe once or twice a day, she will very importantly say something like, "mom i'll be back in a minute, i need to go lift my weights now." she will proceed to get her weights off the shelf and lift them about 2 or 3 times and then very importantly walk around proudly and talked about how strong she is. it's quite funny. savannah doesn't really use her because she just wants to throw hers but santa just couldn't resist getting them for everyone so they sit on a shelf where she can't reach them :)

i really can't remember what exactly the pictures are. the other day i was downloading pictures and planning to do a "highlights of 2010" blog post but then quit and just saved the few i'd downloaded because i realized it would take me all of 2011 to finish downloading all the pictures i would want to include. so maybe i will just put up a few random pics every once in a while in the future to fulfill my desire to highlight the past year.

later.