Christmas in July

Well, Julia has been requesting a little Christmas in July. She loves to dance to music, and she knows that the #5 disc is a Christmas cd leftover from December. (I promise the other discs are not Christmas ones.) I've come home to her dancing to Christmas music with the babysitter several times now....

I think it's time for a trip to Hobby Lobby. Can you believe they are already putting their Christmas decor out? Julia and I love to go visit Santa several months in advance. We also start talking about the nativity scene and what that means to our family. (We also love to start thinking about fall. You know the fall stuff is already out if the Christmas decor is making it's debut!) I know this sickens most of you, and I'm sorry, but I can't stop loving Christmas!

Here is a video of my girls a few days before Christmas last year:

There are no humbugs in this Stewart family!!  Happy Christmas in July to all and to all, a good night! -Amber

Happy Birthday, Lydia

THREE!

My Little Lydia

Woe is me. My Lyd turns 3!

6 months old, and very smiley.

Tomorrow, our youngest little girl, the baby of our family, our little Lyddie Lou turns 3 years old!! How did this happen? How does time fly so quickly? Where has the time gone? I'm sad, I'm excited, and I'm thankful.

Baby Food firsts

 Lydia is our spunky little second born. She has a sweet heart and a very strong will. She has surprised us in so many ways!
Surprise # 1- God planned for her to come a little sooner than Dave and I had planned.
Surprise # 2- I thought second borns were compliant. I didn't know you could have two super strong willed kids right in a row.
Surprise # 3- She has an onry streak that isn't shy.
Suprise # 4- She's not afraid to jump off of any single piece of furniture that we own, but the least of villains will make her turn her head from a t.v. show, while telling us she can't watch.
Surprise # 5- She's not platinum blonde. (I thought my kids would at least start out blonde.)

Clean baby. She was fresh out of the bath in this pic.

 Lydia truly is a comedian. She is quick to laugh, and picks up quickly on what other's find funny. One of my favorite things about Lydia has always been her laugh. One of my other favorite things about her is her reaction to exciting news. Whenever something strikes her fancy, she pumps her fists straight up in the air, throws her head back and bellows, "Yeah!!!" It makes you want to join her in her victory.

This was our first Houston Halloween. Lydia was a little over one.



Lydia looks so different from when we first ventured to Houston. Look at her little bob.

Beautiful little Lydia has the best hair! Her hair is thicker than mine, and still has a curl on the end. I still haven't had to start using conditioner on her hair. After bath, it brushes easily. It's just not prone to tangles. 

This picture was taken last week. Her favorite princess was Snow White up until a few weeks ago. Now there's a tie for favorite between Snow white and Ariel.



As bittersweet as it is to watch my girlies grow up, I am super excited about celebrating them. Tomorrow is going to be so fun! First, Lydia will wake up to balloons in her room and some birthday decorations in the dining room. Dave and I are staying home a little later than normal to start the day off with Lydia's breakfast of choice: Pancakes. We'll also let her open a few presents and put on a birthday dress. For dinner, Dave, the girls and I will enjoy Lydia's favorite foods: mac n cheese and cake. After dinner we'll be headed to Toys r us so that Lydia can spend some of her "hard-earned" birthday money. This weekend, we are having a small get-together/party to celebrate her 3rd birthday. We've only invited a few friends, so I hope that some of them are available to come and help us celebrate my little Lydia. She is such a blessing to us.

Dear Lydia,

I love you to the moon and back!!

Love, Mom



Thanks for reading, Amber

Princessy Princesses

Thanks to pandora.com I'm writing this post to the much loved Lion King Song, "Hakuna Matata". This song came on in the midst of our Disney Princess songs. Sometimes, the girls and I get the desire to listen to princess songs while we do our regular afternoon activities. (Our  afternoons duties usually consist of royal obligations anyway.) For example, before dinner we painted our royal finger nails a very princess pink. Then, while I was making the royal dinner (fit for a King and Queen) I heard Julia and Lydia playing. It was very dramatic and went something like this:

Lydia: "Goodbye!"
Julia: "But, wait,  I don't even know your name!"while looking earnestly at the fleeing princess. As she walked away, Julia said, "Whoever's foot fits this shoe is the girl I'll marry...."

We also do a lot of dress-up.

Julia, the Princess Bride

Lydia as Princess Snow White

Sometimes after dinner, we have a royal ball to the royal music. But, tonight, I think that as queen of the castle, I am going to demand that everyone gets there full amount of beauty rest. That means these royals will be going to bed a little early tonight. So, I'm off to do some royal clean-up, get my two princess in their pajamas, and make sure there are no peas under their mattresses. Royally yours, Queen Amber.

Friends for the Fourth

We had a great Fourth of July! Even though we didn't see any fireworks, our weekend was full of sparkling moments.

Sunday morning. Going to church in Red, White and Blue

Fourth of July lovin' sisters

Lydia requested a picture with Daddy.

 Dave and I spent the Fourth getting ready to have friends from our small group over. Our original plan was to have burgers and dogs at our house, and then go to our neighborhood fireworks. But, our neighborhood cancelled the fireworks a few weeks before our guests came due to a burn ban we have in the area. So, we decided to go ahead and grill out, and then drive somewhere nearby for the works. But, when we got to the Stafford Center, we found out that they had cancelled the fireworks just 30 minutes before we got to the center. Stink.

Our Small Group seperated at this point because we all live so far apart, and the girls, Dave and I came back to the concert in our neighborhood. The girls loved dancing with glow sticks while eating snow cones and eating popcorn. It would have been perfect if they hadn't cancelled the fireworks. :/ Oh well, we'll see some on Labor day, I guess.

The babies in our small group lined up for some yummy food.

Friends

Friends who clean your kitchen up before they leave = Good Friends. Adam, the guy in the red, was especially helpful.

Lydia loved her "after party" treats

Dave remembered at the last second that I asked him to take a picture of me with my girls on the Fourth. Here we are at 10:30, unloading the mini. Smile. :)

Thanks for reading about our holiday here on my blog. I hope that you all had your own fireworks for the fourth. (Whether they were physical or metaphorical.) Love and Happy Belated Independence Day to all! -Amber

Wednesday

Today was nice. I have Wednesday's off to spend with my girls, do some lingering dishes and laundry (both of which I never get done), and maybe catch some afternoon down time. The last few Wednesdays, though, have been so busy with activities and duties that my days off have felt more like a day on. Today was nice though. I stayed in my pajamas and didn't shower until noon. Nice. I did dishes and laundry. I read to my girls and played with them. I laid around and snoozed during the girls' nap time. We had a great day. Then, for dinner, I asked Dave if we could eat out, and go to a few stores. He agreed to my plan, and we did just that. Since I hadn't put on any make-up today, I brought my bag of make up along, and did it in the mini van when we pulled up to the restaurant. Julia loves to watch me do my make-up, and asks me if she can wear some every single time. Since the car was parked, I let Julia get out of her seat and crawl up in the front to watch me do my make-up. She immediately started asking questions about application and which types she was allowed to wear. Then she asked me. "Mom, when you die, can I have your eyeliner?" The end. -Amber

"Housekeeping"

Praise the Lord, it's finally raining! I am so glad. After having one hot day after the other, I am thoroughly enjoying, this dark, rainy day. Thank you Lord for the rain! Our little garden was so dehydrated.
This last weekend was crazy busy for the four of us. We spent some wonderful time with our friends who are moving to Seattle (tear), had a garage sale with them, visited the fire station near our house, went to church, and went swimming on Sunday evening. Because of all of that, I miserably failed to get our Father's day cards out for Father's day. I have the cards, and still plan to send them, but they were accidently left at a friends house, and we haven't had the opportunity to run by and pick them up yet. But, to Papa, Grandpa Dan and Papa Don, Happy Belated Father's Day!!! We all love you very much. (At least I was successful in handing Dave his card.)

To Dave: Thanks for being a great Father to our girls and a wonderful husband to me. I couldn't do this crazy thing called life without you! I love you, Happy Father's day, again.

To Mom: Happy, happy, happy, happy  Birthday!! Enjoy getting your nails done and going to Lafeyette to eat with Dad. Love you!!

To add to next month's craziness, I am feverishly planning a strawberry shortcake pool party for my youngest daughter who is turning the ripe old age of 3. She's so big! I can't wait to celebrate my little shortcake.
In other news, Julia read her first two words last week!!!! Dave practiced the word exit with her, and two days later, she read it right off of an EXIT sign. She also sounded-out the word book two days later. That girl is going to be reading to us in no time!! I can't wait to catch her reading to Lydia in a moment of sweet sisterhood. How cute. I just love my crazy kids.
Well, I guess I'm going to sign off for now. Could this post be anymore random? Please have a very safe and fantastic Fourth of July!! Independently, Amber

Life is Good.

No news is good news, right? I don't have much to say today, but I don't want to lag behind on blogging. So, here goes....

We have been working hard, and staying busy lately. The girls are enjoying their summer babysitter, and I am happy to have someone coming to my home to watch my girlies. I love not having to rip them out of their peaceful dream states in the morning so that I can get them to school on time. I just let them eat their breakfasts leisurely in their pajamas or sleep in. It's like the good old days.
Dave and I are contemplating a lot right now, but have decided to lay low and see what God has in store. We have been thinking about moving into Sugar Land next year. It seems really crazy to me that we are even considering this option as we've only been in our beautiful, much loved home and neighborhood for a year and a half. But, the long haul to work and church is definitely taking a toll on us. Dave may have the opportunity to teach a Sunday School class starting in the fall, so we would love to be able to get to church, work and the girls school in less than 30 minutes. We'll see.
Changing Sunday School classes so that Dave can teach would be hard and sad, but I am totally excited to support him if he does get to teach. I know he grows so much from lesson preparation, and I love to see him fulfilled in that way. But, if he does teach, it'll be a balancing act for us all. I don't know when he'll fit the lesson preperation in. Maybe he can do it while the rest of us are sleeping. He slept WAY too much in highschool and college anyway.
I am amazed to see how the girls are growing and changing. Julia is becoming such a big girl and understanding concepts that little toddlers don't really get. It's so wonderful to see her little mind work.
Julia and Lydia fight a lot these days. They fight over toys and over invisible objects and about what the other one is saying about them. If you are riding in the car with us, you'll often hear:
"Mooommm, Lydia/Julia is saying I'm naughty, but I'm not naughty. I'm nice!"
Lydia is getting big too. She is saying new things and just as spunky as her sister. She is struggling a lot with contentment these days though. She has hit a whiney stage in the last two weeks that is about to drive me nutty. But hopefully she'll snap out of it soon. She'll be 3 years-old in a month!!! Boohoo, hoo, hoo.
We hope to make it to the beach this summer, play a lot in the pool and have tons of family time. Next weekend, I've scheduled for us to tour our local fire station. Julia hasn't let me forget about it since I mentioned the idea to her a few months ago. I am definitely looking forward to that, as well as, celebrating Independence day and Lydia's 3rd Birthday in July. I can't believe I'm saying this, but, I love Summer!!!
-Amber

Julia's First Dance Recital

Well, Folks, this blog post calls for a lot of pictures. So, that's what you're gonna get. Julia had her first recital on Saturday, and it was so, so, so fun to watch!! Her 5 minutes of fame were recorded on our ancient, video camcorder. The other 3 hours and 45 minutes of the first part of the recital were not. Those minutes were also fun to watch...but we were all exhausted at the end of them.

Julia had a beautiful little costume that had pants for tap and a tutu for ballet.

Julia before the show in tap outfit.

Lots of make-up and tons of hairspray.

Mimi and Princess Lydia

 I told Lydia that she could wear a princess costume to the Recital. I didn't want her to feel too left out. If she couldn't dance on stage, at least she could dress up like a princess. :)

Leader of the pack.

 I was so torn about whether or not to use my flash during the show. The owner of the dance studio told us not to, but I knew the pictures would turn out all blurry and hard to see if I didn't. I decided to be good and forget about using the flash. I was already rebelling by giving Lydia snacks in a "No Food Allowed!" theatre. At least we've got it all on video. So, so cute!

 This was right after Julia started bossing the rest of her dance team and right before she stopped dancing to wave at us in the crowd.

Julia and her little posse had two dance numbers. One for ballet, and one for tap. (Hence, the seperate costumes I spoke of before.) Both her ballet number and her tap number were totally adorable.

Princess Lyd got to hold her sister's trophy for a few small minutes.

Flowers for a job well done.

I was amused at this thought: Dave and I paid for dance this semester, bought Julia the practice outfit, tap shoes, ballet shoes, dance tights, and the costume for her recital. I dolled her up, and we missed out on some church plans to go to a 4 hour dress rehearsal on Friday and a 4 hour recital Saturday. I'm not saying we didn't love every minute of the whole dance experience. But, I am saying that I think it's ironic that we're the ones giving Julia flowers. Look at her sweetly brightened eyes though. I love it.

Trophy and Flowers!!!

Beautiful little Ballerina, and Beautiful little Princess

Julia in her ballet tutu.

Lyd opted out of this photo.

 My parents and brother were here for less than 24 hours. I really appreciate them coming though. I'm sure it was hard for them to go back to work today after such a weekend whirlwind. (I know I was exhausted!) Thanks so much, Mom, Dad and Alex for coming!!!!!


Woooohoooo!

 Right after both of Julia's dance numbers, Julia dropped her hands, and ran off stage before any of her fellow dance-mates were finished bowing. She was ready to be done immediately after her little show was over. It made us all laugh, it was just so cute!

Thanks for letting my share my cuties with all of you!! Love, Amber

Off The Top of my Head...

I never got my pictures of the girls in their Easter dresses uploaded here. Stink!!
School's out for summer. Sigh...
I am shocked and saddened about the wreckage happening through out the mid-west due to storms.
Dave's Grandpa has cancer in his bladder. The treatment for his cancer is unknown at this point. We should know something about his treatments next week. Dave's Grandpa and my mother-in-law are in need of a lot of prayer.
Julia had a preschool graduation today that I almost missed. I didn't even know there was one until this morning. (How Embarrassing!) I almost got "the worst mother of the year award", but I worked it out and took off work to be there! Julia is not actually graduating from preschool though. She will be in preschool one more year before starting kindergarten. She just happened to be the youngest kiddo in her class.
We missed Julia's dance class tonight because school got out early, and apparently I am extremely dependant on the regularity of our schedule. Plus, I can't seem to remember what day it is lately. I almost forgot that I have to work tomorrow because the amount of time I have been able to work has been so sporadic with the girls getting out of school and all that I am not sure whether I'm coming or going.
Hopefully we will have someone to watch the girls this summer. It'll be some long days for them if they are here by themselves all day. (Just kidding-I wouldn't leave them here alone. My house would be an even bigger wreck!)
I saw today on the Dr. Oz that show that drinking two cups of tea per day will help ward off ovarian cancer. I guess I will be obsessively drinking two cups of tea per day for awhile...(not that I'm complaining- I like tea.) After watching the show, I was worried I had ovarian cancer for about 30 minutes. (This is why I can't watch the Dr. Oz show.) I decided that I was just being a hypochondriac, and that I don't need to worry about having ovarian cancer until I have some real symptoms. But, it did cause me to go ahead and schedule my yearly. Yuck!
I really wish we had some rain in Houston. I wish we could borrow it from Arkansas.
Did I ever mention here that Lydia is completely potty trained? She has been for about a month now, and I'm so proud of her! She has started demanding that she get to wear snow white undies exclusively. Not gonna happen though.

A project from Julia's school:
My mother's hair color is light blue.
She is 13 feet tall.
Cooks me dinner, makes me lunch, and tells me not to disobey the teacher is what she does best.

(This information is extremely good to know.--I guess I should correct my driver's license hair color from dark blonde to light blue.)
It's past my bedtime. I try to get to bed early because if I don't, I start thinking I'm wildly hilarious while writing on my blog or making facebook comments. (I usually end up embarrassing myself.) Plus, I get the munchies really, really, really bad. So, Good Night!! Love, Amber

Bedtime Prayers

Beware: You may experience cuteness overload. Proceed with caution.

These are the precious little prayers the girls learned in school this year. They pray them in the morning and before lunch. Although I ask them what they did in school every single day, it wasn't until I went during school hours that I learned about these sweet prayers. I went to the school last week b/c Lydia's teachers wanted to celebrate her birthday early because she has a summer birthday. She got to wear a paper crown, go in front to be sang to at chapel, eat mini cupcakes with friends and see me during chapel and lunch. It was so much fun. I am so glad that I got the opportunity to experience what really goes on there. And, in case you were wondering, my girls will be going to the same school next year! Love to you all, Amber

Buggin'

I'm stressed. I'll probably hate myself for writing this later, but honestly, I don't want to pretend like our life equals roses and rainbows all the time. Sometimes life is hard. And sometimes I overreact and become anxious over nothing. But, I just don't like it that we had to spend $3000 (that we don't have) on maintenance on our van in the last year. I also don't like it that we are going to have to spend $750 more this weekend on yet another engine maintenance tune up. I don't like it that Dave's car heaved it's last sigh as it died two weeks ago, and that we had to buy another one. I don't like that Dave's Grandpa is bleeding internally and that Dave's mom, who is recovering from surgery herself, has so much to go through emotionally and physically as she cares for her father. I don't like that I feel like I work so hard but stay in the same place. I don't like it that I feel like a bad mom a lot of the time because I have little patience and not enough time to spend with my kids. I feel frustrated and overwhelmed. I'll make it through as I have umpteenth times in the past. But, right now I'm not going to pretend like I like any of it. This too shall pass.... Amber

Eaves dropping

A few night's ago, I woke up to some whining coming from the baby monitor. I got up, and went up stairs to  check on the girls. They were both sort of under the weather, and I wanted to make sure neither of them had any unwanted bodily fluids spread on their sheets. When I got up there, they were as quiet as mice and sleeping like babies. So, I went back downstairs, and went to the bathroom. When I came back out, I heard the crying/whining again. I thought it was really wierd when I heard a sound like a spurt come through the baby monitor. I was tempted to ask Dave to make the trip upstairs, but I decided that would be too mean since I was already up. So, I went up again. When I got there, the crying had stopped again. I stayed up there a few minutes to double check all was well, and then I came back down. When I got back downstairs, I heard the whining through the monitor again! I noticed that it sounded a little like a baby cooing instead of whining. So, I listenend a little longer. I heard more spurting, and thought "that sounds like an infant cooing". Along with the cooing, I heard more spurting and "talking"! Pretty soon I heard the babies parents coming in and talking to the baby. I switched channels on the monitor to keep from eaves dropping too much, thinking it was really wierd that our monitor had picked up on someone else's monitor. Kinda freaky, really. I wouldn't want someone listening to our personal household conversations over our monitor. Maybe I'll start turning it off unless the girls are sleeping.--I don't know. Hopefully, I won't be listening in on any more household's tonight! Mostly because I don't want to lose any sleep! Happy sleeping to all of you! -Amber

My Mother's Day

On Wednesday, the 11th, Dave and I will have been married for 9 years. It feels wierd to say. I remember when I was a teenager, I  knew some couples similar to who we are now. It felt like being married a decade was such a long way from who I was at the time. And yet, here we are. Thanks be to God.

To celebrate our anniversary, my parents took our girls for a few days. Dave and I slept in yesterday, and this morning. We had a wonderful time shopping on Saturday, and hanging out the way we did before kids came into the picture. We now know the freedoms Saturdays once held- before we had our bright and beautiful kids. Weekends were still ours to do with as we pleased. This weekend has seemed sweetly awkward because it has been wonderfully slow-paced. We enjoyed making plans for just the two of us, and not packing snacks, blankets, kiddie books, sippie cups and extra clothing with us. But, like most parents, one of our favorite things to do while we are away from our kids is to talk about them. So, we did a lot of that too.

When we planned to have the kiddos go to Mimi and Papa's this weekend, we didn't realize that this was also Mother's day weekend. So, on this mother's day, I am missing my girls, but enjoying my marriage. I suppose that in a way, this is a kind gift to my girls and to us. One of the biggest blessings we want for our girls is for them to have parent's who love each other.

However, I am afraid that Julia and I are both suffering from seperation anxiety. My mom texted me a few hours ago telling me that Julia was feverish and exhausted, and I haven't been feeling like myself since last night either. I wasn't really hungry yesterday, and I've only had one small meal  all day. My stomach has been upset and my muscles have been achey, so laying around has been very nice. Instead of going to church as we planned, Dave and I stayed home and watched the podcast of what was happening at HFBC from our couch. I missed being there in person, but I feel blessed to be able to see it here if I can't see it there.

Dave and I just got done watching The Voyage of the Dawn Treader. It was amazing, awesome, fantastic, superb and fabulous. In other words, I would reccomend it highly. It wasn't exactly like the book, but the overall story was still intact, and I loved every minute of it. We planned to go to hear some live music at a local park, and go for a jog there before or after the concert, but just like our church plans were cut out, these may be as well. We'll see.

Now we are waiting on pins and needles to here word from my parents that Julia has awaken from her nap. If she is feeling really down in the dumps, we will be making an unplanned 5 hour drive to Louisiana to pick her up and love on her. I can tell you I wouldn't be dissapointed to do just that (I miss her and Lyddie lou), except that it would cut some of Dave and my anniversary time short. Either way, I'll be a happy camper.

Word just came from the rents. Julia woke up much happier, but still says her forhead hurts. She seems much more like herself though. She talked to me a few seconds, and then went back to terrorizing my parent's dog. I could hear her in the background. "Willie, willie, willie, willie. Go potty, Willie. Willie, willie. Willie."

Maybe we are back to our original plans? We'll meet my parents half way between our house and theirs, close to the Texas border after work tomorrow. We'll have dinner with them and bring our girls back home. I guess I'll just have to keep you posted!

Thanks for reading along with what's up with us today. To all my friends who are mom's: I hope you have a wonderful, fun-filled, happy Mother's Day. And to Mom, Ruth and Christie, I wish you the happiest Mother's Day Ever!!! Many blessings to you and yours! Love, Amber

Easter Pictures

I'm so sad that I haven't had the chance to post before now. I'm becoming a bad blogger. --This is a snippet of our pre-Easter activities. We had a wonderful Easter. Praise the Lord for dieing on the cross and then rising again! Love, Amber