Happy Birthday to my FAVORITE (and only!) Sister!

Today is my older sister Leandra's birthday!! And so I wanted to give a "shout out" to her on her special day! We spent the whole day together, starting off with pedicures at good 'ol Super Wal-Mart (they have this great, cheap nail salon in there!) Then we did some errand running for the wedding (it's tomorrow!!!) And after that we had lunch with my parents and brother at Pita Pit (yum!) and then the rehearsal for Andrea's wedding (we're both bridesmaids). It was fun and I'm glad I got to spend it with her. I love you Leandra and you are a wonderful sister to me! Thanks for always being there for me! Happy Birthday!!!

PS Tomorrow is the BIG day! I can't believe it's here! I'll be leaving for our hair appts. at 10:30 and then the wedding doesn't start till 7 pm! Hope it holds :) I'll post pictures and stuff after the weekend. I'll need some time to recuperate! Yay for weddings!

Parenting scares me!

I'm very scared. Lily isn't even 1 1/2 and already we are having disciplining issues! What's it going to be like when she enters her "tween" years of 10-12? Or even when she's a teenager?! I'm not having second thoughts about being a parent, but raising our daughter is making me nervous! I want to raise her and bring her up in the Lord. I want her to know who her Savior is and that she would do things with a right heart, mind, attitude. I want my child to be a child of God, who desires to live her life for Him. I know she's too young to understand who Jesus is and what He did for her, but I pray she would come to know Him as her Savior someday! Then when she's old enough we can talk about and hopefully she'll understand what it means to disobey us and that it doesn't make God happy, and that she needs to say she's sorry, etc. But she only says a total of 10 words! And in the meantime it means we get to be stern and consistent in the ways we discipline her. Lately she's been into this hitting thing. What?! Where does she learn this stuff? It's not like we hit her in the face or even that she watches t.v. to learn it from! I just have to remember she's a sinner like us all and her sin nature is coming out! And to not put her in situations where she would be vulnerable (like when she's tired and cranky and over stimulated, I know that she could go off like a bomb so I need to just put her in her crib!) I realize I'm making her sound like this evil, devil child, but she's not I promise. She really is a good baby. I'm just seeing less of the baby stage and more of the terrible "2's"-and she's not even 2! This whole thing just makes me realize that I need to be in God's Word daily, in prayer daily and praying for a calm, peaceful heart that knows how to deal with my child. And to pray for my patience too! I know God will give me/us strength in raising her if I let Him! I truly am thankful for my daughter and the joy she brings me everyday. That she learns new things everyday too! How she says "woof woof" when she sees our dog Charlie, how she says "mom" now when she sees me, how she follows me around the house carrying her baby and blankie, and how she lays her head on my shoulder with her arm wrapped tightly around my neck when she's sleepy. Oh it makes me melt inside! I love her and am so thankful for the gift she is to us!

An oldie but a goodie :) Isn't she adorable?! I love her despite her acting out ways! :)

In 9 days...

These 2 lovebirds are getting MARRIED!!! (I had to take a picture of a picture-meaning, I couldn't copy and paste these photos, so I used my camera and took a picture of the computer screen! These are amazing photos....so I'm sorry they don't look like a good quality photo!)
Aren't they adorable? I can't believe the big day is just next week! Andrea and Jeff have been engaged since last June and the time has come for them to get HITCHED! We can't wait to be a part of their special day. AJ is a groomsmen, I'm a bridesmaid, and Lily is a "little princess" in Andrea's words...she doesn't have a basket of flowers, but will walk down the aisle (hopefully) with me while holding this little whimsical wand! At least AJ will already be up front with the rest of the groomsmen because I'm already picturing Lily walking down with me and seeing AJ and yelling the whole way down the aisle "Daddy, daddy, daddy". Just pray she won't cry and run away! We're so looking forward to this wedding and the festivities surrounding it!

Feeling HOT

This weather is killing me! I love the summertime, but I'm a girl who likes it when it's about 78 degrees and not 100!! It's so draining, and I'm sweaty, and probably stinky, and who wants to cook in this weather? But praise the Lord we have air conditioning! I think I'd die if we didn't! We are surviving, and so is Lily-thank goodness. She loves using her kiddie pool outside and we recently let her play in the sprinkler. That's a lot of fun too! We have this great water park like 10 minutes from us. Meaning it's an actual park with a playground and then they have this area with these spray fountain thingys (like the pictures on my Eagle Crest post) and they turn the water on in the summer and the kiddos play and get wet and scream happily. We went there the other day with some friends from church, and while their boys were having fun Lily was a bit leery. She would walk around the fountains but wouldn't want to get wet-must've been scary for her. I'd hold her close to them and she'd put her arm through the water but that's about it. I'm hoping by the end of the summer she'll be one of those kids running in it! I'll need to take pictures next time.

Another thing we did this past weekend was get to meet up with an old childhood friend. When I lived in Washington back in the day (4Th grade to be exact) I had a best friend who lived down the street from us. Her name is Tiffany and I actually moved after that school year. We kept in touch probably until middle school, but basically I was lazy and unmotivated to write her letters. (I know, terrible friend I am!) Anyway, we found each other again through the wonderful world of blogging! She has family in town and they were here this past weekend and we got to meet again after so long! Her husband Chris and adorable little baby girl Norah where with her. I took Lily and AJ and we sat at the park, in the shade, and chatted away. It was so much fun to catch up and visit and see the girls interact. Lily needs to work on sharing that's for sure! She was taking toys left and right away from Norah-who is 9 months old. But the best part of this story is she has the exact same last name as me!! Her married name is Tiffany Acker! But they pronounce it like "acre" where we pronounce Acker like as in "cracker". Make sense? Small world! I think that's the craziest thing ever.

Isn't she adorable?! I love those cheeks!

Lily kept walking up to her and would smile and kind laugh-hard to tell in this photo but she's smiling at her I promise!

Norah playing with Lily's shoe. Lily wasn't so thrilled about that. Sharing needs to be learned :)

Norah has Lily's shoe and Lily has Norah's shoe! Everyone's happy now!

I was trying so hard to get her to smile! This is a face I've seen quite often lately. She's got a tough little side to her!

Tiffany and I and our girls! Can you guess who Lily got her rosy cheeks from?! Thanks for taking time out of your weekend to hang out with us Tiffany! We had a great time!

AND...

Would you take a look at this girl? She looks so OLD to me! She turned 17 months yesterday and my mom got her this outfit and she just had to wear it to church because it's so cute. It took me forever to put her hair in pigtails too. She's so quick now that she can walk! It makes me kinda sad that she's growing so fast! Where did time go?!!

Blogger's Block

You know the phrase "Writer's block"? Well, I'm having one as a blogger! There really isn't much to post about. We've just been doing life, nothing too exciting here. No new trips or things to tell. Just the same 'ol day to day stuff. And my mom has my camera with the chip in it so I can't exactly take new photos or share old ones. So, just letting you all know I'm still here and alive and Lily is still here and alive, and of course AJ too. One thing I do know is that I love dressing Lily in little tank tops and shorts and seeing her walk around with her chubby legs! The clothes are much cuter on a walking little girl than one who just is an infant-only because you get to see her cute little legs walking around in a skirt! I love having a girl and dressing her all girly like. I'll hate the day when she won't let me dress her or put cute little bows in her hair! AND less than 3 weeks until the BIG wedding of AJ's sister! Can't wait!! Until next time....

Play date Fun!

Lily had her good friend Zoe come over last week for a little play date. They always have so much fun together since they are so close in age (Zoe's 4 mon. older). And her mom, Tara, is pregnant with twin girls!! So fun! Anyway, I offered to take Zoe for a couple hours to give Tara a break or to run errands or sleep! The girls chased each other all over the house-it's so much better now that Lily can walk! And then they'd scream happily and chase each other some more. It's so fun and it makes me excited for Lily to be a big sister someday.

Chasing each other. Lily's trying hard to keep up with Zoe-she's not quite fast enough!

Zoe looking so adorable and so smiley!

She's still adorable in my eyes even if she doesn't smile!Reading books! Or destroying Lily's neatly placed books in her cubby. Oh well-I can handle it! :) They're just so cute together as little friends. And Lily's at that phase of her life when she clings to me when I take her to the nursery at church and starts to cry, but when she sees Zoe she's fine! Hope they're friends forever!

Happy 4th of July!

War Wounds

Since Lily has been walking she's encountered a few more table corners, cupboard doors and door frames than she'd like to have.

It's kinda hard to tell in this photo, but she's got a mark on her forehead from accidentally running into a file cabinet in AJ's office here at home, and then there's the mark on the lower left side of her chin from just falling into our bedroom door frame. And the slight scratch between her nose and top lip that reminds me of someone like Scar Face (not sure if that's an actual character or the name of a movie, but the picture in my head is someone with a fatty scar from their nose to their lip!) also came from a fall from who knows where. This poor girl is getting beat up! I'm happy to report this all happened yesterday and today you can't even tell! Phew! The sad thing is I'm sure we'll be seeing LOTS more war wounds too!