…and May got away from us too! My, oh, my! I seriously meant to blog more often and all of a sudden it is June!

Anyway, one recent event that is definitely blog worthy was our “Day Out With Thomas.” Jillian has been enjoying watching Thomas the Train and playing with her train track and Joe’s wooden track from when he was growing up. Uncle Paul arranged for us to go to see Thomas at the Cuyahoga Scenic Railroad and Uncle Mike and Aunt Anita were able to join us.

The weather was just about perfect and we went late morning, which seemed to be great timing for everyone in our group. We were able to enjoy some time with Uncle Mike and Aunt Anita in the morning and then meet up with Paul at the railroad. By the time we had ventured through the festivities and enjoyed our train ride the girls were ready to crash. It was a good day!

* Disclaimer: If you’re not a parent stop reading, because you won’t get it. I totally lost it today when Jillian started bawling uncontrollably because in the Curious George 2 movie George got separated from the Man in the Yellow Hat. She was so unbelievably sad. There we sat, crying about a dumb second-rate sequel animated film. Her because of the movie, me because of her. Parenting and such. Who knew. Sheesh.

March and April kept us on our toes for sure!

March: bridal shower planning-work-meetings-going to Melt! (yum!)-class-visiting with Uncle Mike, Aunt Anita and Paul-Lynnsey’s last helmet appointment!-baby shower for Laura-Jillian’s party (yummy pizza!)-visiting grandma in the hospital after her stroke-Melissa visiting for a few hours between flights-hanging out with numerous friends-and attending our friend’s adoption hearing and party!!!

April: finished my last class for my BCBA-work-bridal shower-wedding in North Carolina (Congrats Kathryn and Matt!)-getting together with a friend from childhood (shout out to Jessica!)-everyone in our house, except me, being sick at some point-bowling party-working on the yard-coffee with Kristine-finally getting outside-flying kites-coloring Easter eggs-Easter

All of this among the daily activities that obviously keep the days full. Now on to May- I am betting it will be just has busy and fun!

We are still around, just busy, and blogging has not been a priority. I do kind of miss blogging and hope to get back into the swing of it soon. There is so much that could be blogged about, so I will probably do an update post and hopefully blog more often after I feel caught up. I realize this is our space and I can blog as little or as much as I want to/have time for, but for now, know that we are still around and enjoying a fill life.

I have so much I could/will blog about, but for now I just had to share this:

I think a photo-shoot with these wonderful boots that belong to Allyson is in order!

Last week was chaotic, to say the least. The sunset the other day was a good reminder that God is always present. He is near and we just need to call on Him.

Psalm 145

A psalm of praise. Of David.

¹ I will exalt you, my God the King;
I will praise your name for ever and ever.
² Every day I will praise you
and extol your name for ever and ever.

³ Great is the LORD and most worthy of praise;
his greatness no one can fathom.
⁴ One generation will commend your works to another;
they will tell of your mighty acts.
⁵ They will speak of the glorious splendor of your majesty,
and I will meditate on your wonderful works.
⁶ They will tell of the power of your awesome works,
and I will proclaim your great deeds.
⁷ They will celebrate your abundant goodness
and joyfully sing of your righteousness.

⁸ The LORD is gracious and compassionate,
slow to anger and rich in love.
⁹ The LORD is good to all;
he has compassion on all he has made.
¹⁰ All you have made will praise you, O LORD ;
your saints will extol you.
¹¹ They will tell of the glory of your kingdom
and speak of your might,
¹² so that all men may know of your mighty acts
and the glorious splendor of your kingdom.
¹³ Your kingdom is an everlasting kingdom,
and your dominion endures through all generations.

The LORD is faithful to all his promises
and loving toward all he has made.

¹⁴ The LORD upholds all those who fall
and lifts up all who are bowed down.
¹⁵ The eyes of all look to you,
and you give them their food at the proper time.
¹⁶ You open your hand
and satisfy the desires of every living thing.

¹⁷ The LORD is righteous in all his ways
and loving toward all he has made.
¹⁸ The LORD is near to all who call on him,
to all who call on him in truth.
¹⁹ He fulfills the desires of those who fear him;
he hears their cry and saves them.
²⁰ The LORD watches over all who love him,
but all the wicked he will destroy.

²¹ My mouth will speak in praise of the LORD .
Let every creature praise his holy name
for ever and ever.

I meant to blog about this a week ago! Yikes! Anyway, Sunday (February 27) I babysat and took the girls with me. While I was getting things together in the morning I wrote a list of things that needed done around the house. One of those things was ‘Swiffer first floor-wet.” The floor needed to be cleaned with the wet cleaning pads. I am not all about cleaning the floor on my hands and knees. So, while the girls and I were gone, Joe gets back from church and begins working on the chores. I was so proud of him! He did this all on his own volition. The carpet for vacuumed, laundry started, but then the aforementioned first floor through him for a loop…

I get home later in the evening and notice that the floor is really slippery. I greatly appreciated Joe’s effort, but knew something wasn’t quite right. Joe didn’t let me in on his little secret at first. Much later in the evening I asked again why the floor was so slippery. It went something like this:

Sarabeth: “Joe, seriously, why is the floor so slippery? What did you clean it with?”

Joe: “Um, you don’t want to know.”

Sarabeth: “Joe, just show me what you cleaned the floor with.”

Joe: “This.” Hands me furniture polish, oh yes, FURNITURE POLISH!

We got a huge laugh out of this and the floor was slippery for days. Jillian did not understand that running wasn’t the best idea with the floors in their condition, so she tumbled a lot. In Joe’s defense, the bottle was not as clearly marked as it could have been, the “Caution: Do not spray on floor” was in small, green font. It seems to me it should be in large, red font, but maybe that is just me.

Joe was fine with me sharing this. It is rather funny and something I think we will remember for quite awhile.

Jillian’s birthday fun started on Friday evening when she went with Grandma and Pa to Toys-R-Us and dinner. She picked out a few toys and happily came home. Upon arrival home they brought Jillian in with one of her toys and were planning on saving the others for when our family got together. Jillian was NOT ok with this and wanted her “bags” from the car, tears were enough for Grandma and Pa to let her have her toys that night. You cannot really blame her, she did pick them out and did not understand why she had to wait to have them. The dollhouse she picked was a huge hit! She stayed up WAY past her bedtime playing with the little people and carefully placing the pieces in the house.

Saturday we all slept in, which was super! We got ready for the day and went to breakfast with Grandma (Great Grandma). After a brief stop at home, we met Luke, Hannah and Leah and Amazone. I had never been there, and of course we went on what must be he craziest of times, Saturday afternoon. It was a lot of fun! Jillian really enjoyed the slides and wanted to go down them by herself, they were pretty big though, so she had to sit on my lap. It was pretty adventurous to be climbing around in the big jungle gym with so many kids! After Amazone, Jillian quickly fell asleep in the car and took a nice long nap once we got home. Jillian got up close to dinner time and we gave her the chance to pick what she wanted for dinner. This was tricky, we would give her two choices and she would just say the second thing we’d say, “Do you want a burger or pizza?,” “Pizza!,” “Do you want pizza or a hotdog?,” “Hotdog!” We settled on pizza. Nana and Bob stopped by before dinner and Jillian opened some presents. After dinner, Jillian opened some more presents and we Skyped with Grammie and Pops. They had sent Jillian and birthday present and got to watch her open it thanks to the wonders of technology.

On Sunday, we continued birthday festivities after church by going over to Grandma and Pa’s house. NASCAR was on, so of course we watched that, and then we had a cake and Jillian got a few more pieces for her dollhouse. We really did have a nice weekend celebrating our little girly turning two!

We are trying to plan a little friend birthday party for Jillian in the next couple weeks. Weekends are always so tough though, everyone’s lives are so full! I must give credit to my good friend Linda, who says her “life is full” rather than saying it is “busy”, we just had a conversation about this last night. I like this wording a lot, much more positive, and I think I will adopt this saying, because my life truly is full!

Yesterday, the girls and I were finishing up dinner. I went to get a glass of water, turned around and found Jillian on top of the table and beginning to take charge of feeding Lynnsey carrots. I chose to let this play out and supervise. The girls were having fun, lots of giggling. But, THEN, Jillian put carrots in Lynnsey’s hair, and we had a BIG mess! Luckily, it was bath night anyway, so I didn’t really mind.

                                       Today our baby girl turned 2! Happy birthday girly!