Ode to a Two Year Old

On Saturday, my youngest daughter, "C" turned two.  Below is my letter to her.

Dear C,

You are now two and thank goodness!  I am so happy to say that there are no more babies in this house nor will there ever be (at least coming from me!)  You are officially a toddler and a strong willed one at that.  You hold your own against your 6 1/2 year old sister and we all respect you for that.  You are quick to give a hug and love to be held.  I can't tell you how many times a day I hear the words "hold you" from you to be picked up.  And what do we do?  We pick you up because you are the baby of the family.  The next year holds many new experiences/challenges for you that will take you even further away from being a baby.  Some of which are to start going on the potty (we hope!) and giving up your binkie (we hope!)  We know that everything will be accomplished in your own time.

I am so thankful that you are not my first born.  Your sister made me a mom for the first time but I believe you have made me an even better mom.  You have taught me patience and comfort in the knowledge that I do not know everything there is to know about motherhood.  You see, your sister had me fooled.  She was such an easy baby that I thought this parenting stuff was no big deal, easy peasy.  You have taught me otherwise.  I now know to never judge another parent's decisions or actions because they too might have a Miss C in their midst.  And that is a good thing.

So, Happy Birthday, Miss C!  May God's Blessings shine on you today and always.

Love,
Mommy

A Tollipop Girl

Do you know a Tollipop girl?  C is my Tollipop girl, especially when she wears this outfit!

Please stop on by the lovely Kirsten's site to see what I mean and perhaps win your very own Tollipop girl like this:

While you are there, peruse her writings about her three gorgeous girls and life in the desert.

You won't regret it.

Disclaimer: No compensation was given for proclaiming my love for all things Tollipop, just an extra entry for myself in the giveaway.  One can not have too many tollipops!

The Baby is Not Mine

...she belongs to my niece.  C and Baby J are 21 months apart in age.

Yep.  There is a reason my girls are 4 1/2 years apart.

It's called my sanity.

Facebook? Who needs ya?

For Lent this year, I decided to abstain from going on any social media sites (such as facebook, twitter, tumblr to name a few).  I even posted about it here.  Well, did I actually follow through?  Did I actually not go on any of the before mentioned sites not even for a little sneaky peek?  Hmm....

I did not.  I have to tell you the first day was kinda tough because it had become my habit to check these sites A LOT.  I was committed to not do it.  It helped that my husband had also decided to give up the same sites for his own reasons.  The only thing I really missed from not checking facebook was the updates from family that don't live close by.  I found that even my family that does live near me would be talking about things on facebook and I would feel totally out of the loop.  I also missed not seeing photos of new babies and of friend's children.

When I did return to facebook (Easter night), my first order of business was to scale it back.  I had started to "like" a bunch of companies, etc. in the hopes of winning giveaways, which caused my news feed to literally become clogged and overrun by junk.  The status updates I wanted to read from family and friends would quickly become lost amongst the latest sale going on at Walgreens or Old Navy or even another blog's giveaway.  So that night I started to purge and unlike.  If your company/blog, etc. were eating up my feed, you were gone or "unliked".  My reasoning being that if I didn't miss you during those past forty days, I probably won't miss you in the future.

I haven't gotten to this point with twitter yet.  Probably because I haven't been on twitter as long and don't have as many family/friends on it as well.  Also, on twitter you are able to form lists so to categorize different people you are following.  Therefore I just check my lists to see the tweets of the people I really care to read.

So if you are considering taking a break from social media, I say go for it!  It really helped me to refocus on my blog and other things that I am interested in like ... reading a book.  (What a concept!)

Most importantly through my small sacrifice, Miss M was inspired to also give up something near and dear to her heart.  Her (fake) iPod.  I didn't even know she had done this until one day she said, "When I see Mommy on Facebook, I know I can go on my iPod."  And since she didn't see me on Facebook, she kept her promise as well.   Success for all.

PS.  Happy Birthday to my dear friend, Colleen, who doesn't need a social media site to tell her that she rocks!

FREE Mother's Day Printables

Hard to believe it is Mother's Day this Sunday already!  Around here it seems like it has been non stop family gatherings starting with Easter and then my mom's birthday party this past weekend.

I have found once again some cute printables that can easily be made into cards and/or gifts.  Hopefully if you are a mom, your husband will do the right thing and get your kids to make you a nice card, etc.  If you suspect he may need a little help, you can always point him to this post...

Anders Ruff Custom Designs (cards, cupcake toppers, etc.)

Sugar Fresh (print/card)

Kiki Creates (print, tags)

Persona Designs (gift tags, seed labels)

Nellie Design (2 styles of cards)

Welcome to Linneyville (easy printable craft)

Creative Mamma (card)

Twig & Thistle (door hanger)

More Design Please (thumbprint card)

Our Best Bites (treats in a can)

(you gotta click on this one to read what the can says!)

Arboretum Fun

70 Years Ago...

this bundle of cuteness entered the world!  Today my mother celebrates seventy years of life!  I am so proud to call her my mom, my friend, my mentor, my example of a woman living her life for God.  Most of all, she is a wonderful example of God's love in her many thoughtful and caring ways. 

On her 1st birthday with her grandfather with whom she shared a birthday.

Happy Birthday, Mom!  May the good Lord bless you today and always! 

With Love,

Angie