Discovery

I discovered something about myself today--I love to spray paint. I wasn't aware of this burning love before because I had never tried it. But there it is, a great love of taking something ugly and changing its complete appearance in a matter of a few minutes to something better. I love it! We had this nasty chandelier in our dining room. It was shiny brass--ugghh! In fact our entire house (as my friend Ashley put it) is an "ode to brass." Well one item is now no more. The once brassy, white candle, chandelier is now a deep espresso and soon will be donning lamp shades, as soon as it dries. While it was drying I picked up a basket from the kitchen and started spraying. It goes so fast. I'm not messy. It cost $3 a can. This is great! So anybody need any spray painting to be done? I'm available!

What???

So last night I was helping Emily get dressed after her bath. (I know, I know, she is old enough to dress herself, but it was late--David was at Young Men's and I wanted them in bed.) Ok, so I am helping her and she said, proudly, "I know what gay means."
Choke, splutter, cough..."What?"
"Mrs. Engle told us what gay means."
Gasp, "So, what does it mean?"
"It means really happy!"
I can't leave it at that. Did someone bring it up, did one of the kids talk about it...
"So, why did Mrs. Engle tell you about the word?"
"It's in the song," and she starts to sing. "5 Little SnowMen happy and gay, the first one said, what a nice day..."

How today's society has warped my mind. Yes, remember the good old days (even before my time) where gay meant happy and we weren't aftraid of our children learning it. There are practices in this world that I would like her protected from for a very looong time.

The Little Things

I know I still have a ton to catch up on with Christmas and New Years and I will, but something happened today I wanted to share. When you have a baby (especially your first) you notice each smile and coo and giggle and new skill for the first few months and you don't let any of them escape your memory. Then as you have more kids you begin to take the little things for granted and you just notice the milestones. Well, that has been my experience until we had Kylie. She is 21 months old and today as she woke up from her nap (screaming I might add) she did something that brought tears to my eyes. I was trying to roll her over and get her to go back to sleep and typically she is so non-caring about things that she would have complied. Well this afternoon was different. I rolled her over and tried to rub her head (which she loves) to get her to settle down. She instead pushed my hand off of her and rolled over to face me then very deliberately threw both arms up toward me and stared at me, fussing a little. Today was the first time my 21 month-old daughter reached out to me. Lessons learned once again...enjoy the little things.