100

I was going to title this post something different, like "February Wrap-Up", but when I saw it would be my 100th post...well, "100" seemed fitting. I would love to do a fun post with 100 random facts about myself, but who has time for that?

Here's the latest in my world:

-Mattie's birthday party is this week, and she and I are both so excited! She's having a "spa" party at a local shop with all the little girls from her class. They'll do fun stuff like get their hair teased and glittered, toe nails painted, and other fun stuff....she is giddy with excitement.

-I have yet to make her birthday outfit. I've made about a half dozen other birthday outfits over the past few weeks for other people, but my kids always come last...shame on me!

-I am extremely overwhelmed with orders in my shop. I can't even begin to describe the ways God has rained down blessings on my little business. Amazing.

-This weekend I met this very famous blogger. By far the most exciting thing to happen to me in a long time. Post with pics to follow!

-Mattie got her pre-Kindergarten shots about ten days ago, and she had to get FOUR...two in each arm. That deserves it's own post as well. Wow. Here's the short version: picture me with both girls on my lap, Mattie on one knee, Presley on the other, trying to restrain Mattie while not dropping Presley. Then as Mattie starts to lose her composure, trying to console and restrain her, and hold Presley up, who also started to lose her cool because sister was scaring her. My advice: leave the baby at home when you take your big kid for shots.

-I have to register Mattie for Kindergarten this week. I don't want to. That's all I have to say about that. I have a feeling I am going to be a hot mess come August. I was 8 months pregnant when she started 3yr Kindergarten and I never shed a tear. This....this is hurting my heart.

-I keep telling Mattie (teasingly) that we're not going to acknowledge her birthday this year, and that way she won't turn 5, and she'll stay 4 for another year....like if no one says anything, it won't happen. Tonight she told me "Mom, God is STILL going to make me five no matter what you do". So true, baby.

-This weekend while at my sister's we watched her wedding video from four years ago. Mattie was a flower girl, and she was the same age Presley is now. So funny and fun to watch with her and show her that she hasn't always been a big girl like she thinks. The child has no concept of herself as a baby. The other day she was making a fuss over Presley's foul smelling diaper as I was changing it, and I began to talk to Presley and say "Mattie was a baby once too, and she dirtied her diapers too, and she stank sometimes too". Mattie got SO mad at me, and told me not to ever tell Presley those things again......like they have to be our little secret. She is a NUT!

-Tomorrow is March 1st....I can hardly believe that!!!

SSMT: Verse 4

"I have been crucified with Christ, and I no longer live, but Christ lives in me. The life I live in the body, I live by faith in the Son of God who loved me and gave Himself for me."
Galations 2:20

I'm Not Ready

I so clearly remember taking Mattie to get the last set of shots she had. She was over a year old, probably close to 18 months, but still a baby. Amid her tears and my restraining her and both our heartbreak, I remember the nurse saying "now she's done with shots until it's time for her to go to Kindergarten". And I remember thinking how that was so far away that it didn't deserve space on the radar of my mind. My baby was my baby and forever my baby she'd be.

Next week we will go to get those very pre-Kindergarten shots that the nurse spoke of. And in twenty days that baby turns five. And I'm not ready yet. At this moment, five seems decades older than four to me. This fall we will send her off to "real" kindergarten. No more half-day church pre-school, and afternoons home with me. I'm not ready for that either.

And even as I write this, and with each passing birthday that I feel these...feelings, I know that it will be the blink of an eye, and I'll be lamenting her starting high school, and then going to college, and then (gasp) getting married. I think I know, better than I've ever known, but surely not as well as I will come to know, how fast it really all goes. The sting of that fact of life never dulls for me.

All I'm saying is it literally seems like yesterday that she fit in my hands.

And now she's 8' tall (or therabouts) and knows everything.

And I still haven't figured out when that happened.

Sleeping Angels

Someone once said that children are their most precious and beautiful selves when they are sleeping. Or something like that. Today, in the Nash house, that statement rings completely true. It's only Tuesday, and already I'm ready to wipe this week off the calendar. Nothing major has happened, no big tradgedy; it's just general mothering weariness.

My little homewrecker started the week off by completing some new masterpieces. I have a new bleach stain on the carpet right inside my bedroom door, and I would love to tell the story, but it would require me admitting that my house is not properly child-proofed and that my baby was allowed access to a cleaning product containing bleach long enough to do some damage with it. Did I mention the carpet is relatively new? Barely over a year old. She also broke a bowl that sits on one of my coffee tables. Matthew made it in his high-school ceramics class, which may conjure scary images, but it was actually very pretty. It's a memory now as it was shattered beyond repair.

I don't even know where to start with Mattie. We've seen an attitude trying to take root in her that we are trying to nip early, and she has tested my patience at just about every turn the past two days. Today she didn't even go to school. That story involves her misleading me into thinking she was sick, and then admitting to that and having to be punished all morning. Have you ever enforced a punishment on your child that ends up being more of a punishment for you? That would describe my morning. Fun times.

So tonight, these pictures represent my children as their best selves today. Here's hoping to a marvelous Wednesday!

"My soul finds rest in God alone; my salvation comes from Him." Psalm 62:1

Presley in Pictures

A happy girl she is.

She can usually be found with a smile upon her face.

And so as to not give the false impression that she is always smiling, here is the final pic from this photo sesssion:

SSMT: Verse 3

"He has showed you, O Man, what is good. And what does the Lord require of you? To act justly and to love mercy and to walk humbly with your God."
Micah 6:8