Here You Go

For Wally's birthday, we made a fast trip to Conway. This may seem strange, since it's my side of the family, but we thought it'd be nice to spend some one-on-one time strolling down the beach and eating at a fun Japanese steakhouse where we first ate after getting engaged. The trip down and that night had me second guessing how good of an idea it was. Traffic was horrid, I was starving to the point of tears (I made Wally stop at "anything, just, there...Walgreens, get some chips and a drink. I can't wait any longer or I'll vomit!" the people walking down the sidewalk must have thought I had just been to a funeral. I almost considered rolling down the window and saying, "Don't worry, nobody died, I'm just acting worse than my 2 year old and can't help it. Do you have something to eat?", but I didn't.), and then Wally said, "Hm, I forgot to pack the pack n play". So, Alden slept on a big boy bed for the first time at Nanny Kim's, not here. And the bed was on rollers, so it rolled right out from under him at one point in the night. Why don't they make those things with breaks? Oh well. Needless to say, I was a big grump in the morning, but after a bit of breakfast and some time talking the night over with Wally, everything started looking up.

We got to see Great Grandpa in the morning. He graced our children with some Clemson-colored leis and a small snickers bar. Then the nurse's aid brought around chips, and recruited Rhi to hand them all out to the residents. Of course, both kids were rewarded with a bag of chips. As Grandpa often says, "you only live once".

We had a fun time with some awesome water balloons that Nanny Kim bought by mistake. She thought they were normal balloons and intended to blow them up for Wally's b-day, but this was a nice mistake since we got to throw them at each other. Grandpa also got some water guns and we had a lot of silly fun together shooting each other and bubbles.

One of daddy's fun gifts, a World Cup soccer ball replica (the flatness is just how it shipped, the balls don't REALLY look concave...ha). He's been playing indoor and loving it. Forgive the evil eyes, I'm lazy and forgot to fix it too. Alden kept trying to give Wally birthday cake while he was opening presents and would say, "Here you go." and give him the plate. "Here you go" is a popular phrase for him. He often uses it when he's trying to hand you something he knows he shouldn't have like our cell phones or a vase.

That Sunday, Alden had a bad cold, so we decided to try him out in the big church (Episcopal high church mind you) at mom's and dad's. Eventually, he just cried from being contained, so Wally took him out. When it was time for communion, Alden said to Wally, "I no cry anymore. Deep breath." and inhaled/exhaled. So, in they came. I can't believe Alden could verbalize that much, and something that we've only told Rhianwen, not him! I love communion at the Episcopal church. EVERYONE who is baptized can partake, which means we have to clearly say no thanks when our kids are offered it! BUT what I absolutely find so meaningful is how the priest blesses our children during communion forming the cross on their foreheads. Now you all know, I'm not superstitious, but it's a beautiful symbol of covenantal faith given by someone called by God and not just a congregational blessing, but and individual blessing. Why don't we do this more often in the church?

Back at home, we bought a short loft for Alden off craigslist and set it up in his room for now.

He picked out car sheets, but we don't have a bedspread yet. This is the last day I let them jump on it. And we had to take the pictures off the walls around it! They've really enjoyed playing under it too. And he can get up and down the ladder all by himself.

Big boy bed but still not giving up that paci. One step at a time.

Expecting a new baby has made us consider alternative modes of transportation. Here's our latest model. I've been teaching Rhi's Sunday school class every 3rd Sunday, and it's been fun coming up with visual aids for the stories. This one was Elijah is taken to heaven. It was really easy to do. Just one of those little goldfish cartons you can get at Target, covered in sparkly foam paper, buttons for wheels, printed out horses on cardboard with pipe-cleaners, and a guy from our Playmobil nativity set. I wish I would get this creative for our own devotions. Maybe one day!

Father's day we were all feeling like crap with a horrid cold, but by the end of the day after an awesome meal of marinated steaks, corn, asparagus, ending with peach pie and ice cream, we were feeling much better.

Rhianwen said, "I think we should have Happy Big Girl Day." Incidentally, Alden thinks peach pie is "Yucky." Can this child really be born in the South?!

This week is VBS all week long and Wally's out of town. A difficult combination. Rhianwen especially does not do well when she is tired and has been quite a pill in as many ways as you can think of. I'm really feeling like all I do is call people down all day, and I want to see the light soon! To cheer me up my dad sent me some dark chocolate truffles, and as the magnet that Grandmama sent me says, "Man cannot live by chocolate alone, but woman can!". I also threw a wet washcloth in Rhianwen's face (she was insisting she would like it), which amazingly cheered both of us up. It's funny the things she likes.