Konrad and Cousin Time

So far, this has been a pretty big week! Nina came home on Wednesday with Konrad, the squirrel. Konrad has one visit with each kid in Nina's preschool class, and this is our weekend with Konrad (actually, we get Konrad even longer since spring break is next week). Konrad has had an exciting visit so far, and Nina has very much enjoyed having him here. He helped us plant a bean plant... He hung out with Nina and Lyla when they were having a little dance party... He went to donuts with Poppy, Emme, and Ryleigh... He has his own bed, and Nina gave him some PJs, and for some reason he sleeps with clips on his ears...

He was there to witness Emme's first lost tooth at the family dinner on Friday evening...

And after an evening with the family at Mousey and Poppy' house, he's in attendance for a third sleepover this week.

It's been a busy week of lots of cousin time and Konrad time. The Williams famly will leave to go back to NC on Sunday, but thankfully Konrad will stay with us over Nina's spring break. It would be very sad to see them both go at the same time!

Burgundy and Gold Banquet

Last night, Mark and I were invited to attend Youth For Tomorrow's annual Burgundy and Gold banquet. I don't have a picture to accompany this post, but Mark was looking very handsome in a nice suit, and I was wearing high heels that I hadn't had the occasion to wear in over a year. Where is my camera when I need it! We took the girls over to my mom and dad's for another cousin sleepover, and we headed into the Tysons Ritz Carlton for a nice evening. While the overall purpose of the evening is to raise funds for YFT and celebrate it's successes over the past year, our purpose there was to hear the story and testimony of their first rehabilitated sex trafficking victim. This young girl, now just 15 years old, had the courage to stand up in front of a room of over 1,000 people and tell her story. She told of her entrapment into forced prostitution as a preteen, the years of fear, anger, and hurt that enveloped her at all times, and finally, her restoration as she's found hope, significance, restoration, and her savior, Jesus Christ, while at YFT. A couple months ago, I had spent the afternoon at YFT, talking with their admissions director (and the sole champion of this young girl in her early days at YFT) about the issue of domestic trafficking, and she shared the very difficult road this young girl has had to take to be restored to the young lady standing in front of the audience last night. All too many people had given up on her, thought she was too much trouble, thought that restoration was out of the question for someone who had been through what she had, yet restoration was possible. It was so impactful to see, first hand, a truely changed young person. A girl who was once angry, used, hurt, and without hope is now a survivor, filled with purpose, validated in who she is as a young woman, and bringing hope to others. It was an awesome thing to witness!

Outnumbered

On Monday night, we had Shenley, Emme, Ryleigh, and Layne over for a sleepover. Mark was sufficiently outnumbered - 7 to 1. Our girls are headed over to Mousey and Poppy's house tonight for another cousin sleepover, so my dad will be thankful that Garland gets into town today so he's got other male to attempt to balance things out. Good luck!!!

Hawk Hunt 2011

Since the Williams girls are in town for the week, we had the annual Hawk Hunt today. As always, the girls were SO excited. The Hawk Hunt is a much anticpated event every year, and all the cousins were very happy to see each other again! We had a great time today. To see the slideshow of the pictures from the Hawk Hunt, click HERE.

Sister Update

People often ask me about the relationship between Nina and Lyla - are they great playmates, do they get along really well, are they good friends? Thankfully, right now we're at the stage when the answers to those questions are, Yes - most of the time. Since Nina and Lyla are the same age difference apart that Shenley and I were, I know there will be days when they'll be best friends; I know there will be days when they'll be locking each other out of their room; I know there will be days when they'll be arguing over who gets to drive the car or who borrowed the other's clothes without asking, but I hope, through it all, they'll always be friends like they are now. I know there were days when I irritated Shen to no end, and I know there were days when I felt like Charles Schulz when he said, "Big sisters are the crab grass in the lawn of life," but we ended up great friends, and that's what I hope most for Nina and Lyla.

Buddies

Every day our girls do quiet time since neither of them nap. They have one hour of the day when they play in their room with their toys, books, etc. This is how we found Lyla after quiet time. She had enough energy to pack her egg chair with things from her room, then gave in to the tiredness. Even though she probably only slept for about 15 minutes of the quiet time, it was probably a good little recharge for the evening ahead. After quiet time, the girls were so excited for our buddies to come over - so were Mark and I. Our friends, Jill and Mark and their kids, were coming over for dinner and to play and watch the basketball games. Mark and I have a great time hanging out with Jill and Mark, and our kids have a great time with Jonathan and Kate, so it's a great match! The kids always have so much fun playing together that we hardly hear anything from them all night which makes a great night for the adults too!

Donuts with Poppy and Oliver

If there is one weakness all three Simpson girls share, it's a love of donuts. When you're pregnant, people often ask if you're craving anything. With Lyla, it was donuts. I definitely didn't eat them as often as I wanted to, but I ate them more than I do now. I've heard the wives tale that your body craves what you are lacking when you're pregnant. So, what is my excuse with donuts? Could I justify that my body just craved fried flour and sugar coated in delicious icing? No, I think pregnacy "craving" was just an excuse to warrant a donut. Anyway, since Lyla was in utero while I was eating a lot of donuts, I can see why she loves them, but the theory doesn't quite hold true for Nina. When I was pregnant with Nina, I wanted burgers all the time, and it's taken her nearly five years to eat one.

Back to our story...yesterday morning was Donuts with Poppy - a much anticipated morning when we meet my dad for a donut breakfast. The girls always get their favorite - a chocolate iced donut with sprinkles! The evening before, the girls wanted to do paintings to take to Poppy. We could tell he really enjoyed his paintings... Later that evening, the girls stayed home, and I joined my mom and brother to catch Poppy's acting debut in the play, Oliver. The school that my parents work at was putting on a community theater performance, and after months of practice, it was finally show time. My dad was in charge of all the set changes and had a role in the chorus and the role of the Governor. The play was great. Unfortunately, I didn't get to take any pictures during the play as they didn't allow flash photography, but when the lights came on between acts, I did snap a quick picture of Pops making a quick exit after changing the set.

One very exciting part of the evening for the actors was that Robert Duvall was in the audience (no lie). He has a house by the school and evidentally had been invited to come, and he actually came. Who knows, maybe that was Pops' ticket to stardom! :)

VIP

Today, Nina was the VIP (Very Important Preschooler) in her class. She was sent home with a green dinosaur to cut out and some pieces of information to include about herself. Here is the poster she created (you can click on the picture to see it bigger). In her class today, she got to stand up in front of everyone and talk about herself. She was very excited to be the VIP!

(The poster came home with the "N" for Nina and "E" for Grace missing, but they were there when she took it in.) :)

Date Night

Tonight was a date night for Nina and I. We've been talking a lot lately about being grateful for the things we have, so I was trying to think of something to do tonight that would support those conversations. We have a local homeless shelter here in Loudoun County, and I was really hoping we could do something like help serve dinner tonight, but since that wasn't available, I decided we would take some donations over instead. It was good because we got to talk about what it means to be homeless and how we're fortunate to have more than we need which enables us to give some things away. Nina really seemed to understand, and she was a good helper loading our items from the car to the shelter.

After that, we went to the library to pick out some good books, then we met Mark and Lyla out for burgers at Fuddruckers. Within just the past month, Nina started eating red meat (well, she'll eat a burger now). It's taken years of trying, but she finally eats them now and realizes she likes them. So, we all enjoyed burgers, and the girls didn't have any problem polishing off the milkshake they shared after dinner!

(Sorry the picture is a little grainy - I took it with my phone.)

Family Weekend in Hartfield

We just came back from a great family weekend at Hartfield. To see the pictures and read the captions, click HERE.

Birthday Day

Lyla's morning started off really well. When the girls came down this morning, Lyla was very happy to find her long-awaited bike there. She wanted to get right on it and try it out. She rode through the house on her bike for the first half of the day. She just did continuous laps around the middle level and had a blast!
She even liked her new helmet.

They got their favorite breakfast of chocolate donuts with sprinkles. Definitely a good birthday treat!

Lyla really liked Larry the Cucumber that Nina bought for her.

She got some nice birthday calls from family...

...and she and Nina tried on their new Veggie Tales shirts.

Lyla got lots of birthday hugs and kisses from Nina.

For dinner, we went to Chick Fil-A (a Lyla favorite) then came home for some cake and ice cream. Since we'll have her real birthday cake on Saturday, I just made her something small for tonight.

After going strong all day, Lyla was exhausted tonight. The "paci fairy" came last night and took the pacifiers away (she has still been sleeping with them at night), so I wondered if tonight would be a sad night for her, but I think she was too tired to care if the pacis were there or not. There wasn't any crying about it. One funny thing happened this morning when she woke up and saw the note from the paci fairy and the $3 the paci fairy left. We read her the note that said the paci fairy was taking her pacis to give to little boys and girls who don't have pacis, and that the paci fairy left her with $3 instead. She said, "Awww. That's nice." Not ten minutes later, she was looking at the note again and said, "I don't want the $3. I want my pacis back." We got a laugh out of that one.

Happy Birthday, Lyla Rose!

Lyla turns three today! Mark asked me last night if it feels like a long time or a short time since she was born, and I felt it was kind of both. In some ways, it's hard to believe three years has past since she was born, and in other ways, it seems like she's just always been a part of the family. She is always ready with a good hug, she loves to be silly and make us laugh, and she loves her family. We're actually doing her little family party on Saturday so we can celebrate with the Williams family at Hartfield, so today we'll just do some fun little things to make her day special.

This is a collage of some of our favorite Lyla pictures in year two. You can click on the collage to see it bigger.

Birthday Dinner

Yesterday evening we headed over to my parents' house for a little birthday dinner. There are four March birthdays in ten days in our family, so my mom made a great dinner, and we got to do a little pre-birthday celebrating.

As most of you know, Lyla and Bo were born on the same day. That was the best smile I could get out of her, but she was happy to give Uncle Bo a big hug.

We even had Mother Mouse serenade us with her guitar skills...that's all I'll say about that! :)

Mini Road Trip

On Friday, Mary and I did a mini road trip to NJ to visit P and Kristin. Even though we were only there Friday through Saturday afternoon, we had such a great time. We made the most of our girl time by talking and laughing late into the night on Friday, having fun food and wine, more talking and a long walk Saturday morning, then more good food for lunch Saturday with more talking and laughing. There seems to be a theme here... Anyway, we had such a fun little visit as always and enjoyed seeing little Abby too!!

To celebrate our birthday (Kristin, Mary, and I all have March birthdays), P got us a little cake and actually sang Happy Birthday to us!