I have the best daddy.  And my girls have the best daddy, too.  How is that possible when they’re two different men?  I don’t know, but it most certainly is.

I often see someone’s status update on facebook saying, “I have the most beautiful kid” or “my husband is the best.”

I used to think, “What are they trying to say: that my child is not cute, or that I don’t have a good husband.  Do they think that?”

Then, I realized that it’s so awesome that Emily S. and Ryan & Jess love their kids so much that they’re the cutest.  And it’s terrific that Jennifer and Audra, can say they have the best husbands.  It’s great that those men can be best friends to their wives; it’s awesome that there are enough men out there who love their wives and enough parents who love their children, just as my Dad and my Jonathan do.  Thank you God for this.

Sooo, all that to say that when I tell my daddy, “You’re the best daddy,” I in no way mean that Jonathan is not the best.  He is!  He is the best for my girls, and I love that.

To my daddy: As the church song goes, I love you because “you first loved me.”  And I mean the real agape love.  You have always displayed a Christ-like attitude.  It was very rare that you got upset.  You are known for your good humor, patience, gentle teaching, kind words, and knowledge.  I admire all these things, and I want to be a good parent as you were (and still are) to me.

To my husband, my baby daddy: Just as I am confident God matched us up perfectly, I also know that he made you to be the best daddy for Abigail and Lydia.  I adore seeing you play with Abigail’s baby doll house.  I love the look on your face when Lydia smiles at you.  Abi loves riding horsey on your back, reading books with you, giving you butterfly kisses, and going to get pizza with you.  You are the best Father for them.  Thank you!

To all the good daddies out there, like my brother Joshua and brother-in-law Travis and Father-in-law Rob: Thank you.  Thank you for raising your kids up in the Lord.  Thank you for helping out with the dishes and giving baths and kissing boo-boos.  Thank you for being good examples so that your kids know what to look for in a spouse.  I hope you all have a wonderful day and know that people appreciate your hard work.

Happy Father’s Day!

I was going to write about this prior to Vday to give y’all a free gift idea, but I didn’t want to spoil the surprise to Jonathan.  Sorry, I guess I love him more.

Anyway, here’s a gift you can do at any time, not just Vday:

I covered some canisters with paper and stickers.

Here are the rules:

His & Hers Requests

-Write 46 things (since there are 46 weeks left in the year) that we want the other spouse to do with us or with us.

-Put those sheets of paper in your canister, and then we will swap canisters.

-On Sundays, we will each pull a strip of paper out of each other’s jar, and we’ll have to do whatever the spouse asked for.
-We will have the whole week to do the request.

-We will put the papers (with the writing hidden) on our bathroom mirror as a reminder.

On Sunday, Jonathan and I each drew one strip of paper (his were blue; mine were pink).

I don’t know what he’ll be doing for me or when, but I’m pretty nervous about what I’m supposed to do for him.  I’ll update you after I do his request.

I got this idea from an article I read, and I was happy that Jonathan was super excited about this project.  Yea for a good, free gift!  This way, we can work on showing love in the ways we want to receive it.

Do you have any good, cheap ideas for gifts??

Jonathan and I were blessed to have a Babymoon weekend.  After Jonathan got home from work on Friday, we took Miss Abi to my parents’ house.  They were kind enough to watch her all day/night from Friday until Sunday church.  That was the longest time I’ve been away from her.

Instead of traveling 4 hours to my parents’ condo in the mountains, which was covered with snow, we decided to stay at our house.  Here were our rules: no cell phones (except to say goodnight to Abigail), no computer usage (except to watch hulu shows together), and we said we’d be able to spend the amount we would’ve spent on gasoline ($100) on going out to eat and doing other fun things.

So, Friday night, we ate at Carino’s.  This has been an eventful place for us.  It’s where we had our first date, where I told Jonathan we were pregnant with Baby #2, and the place from where I ended up getting really sick the last two times I’ve eaten there (my Birthday in December and Babymoon weekend).  So, I will not be partaking in their food for the next several months– if ever again.  Ugh.  I’m 31 weeks; when will the vomiting end?!  Anyway, after that, we rented a movie, and I explained the rules to our Valentine’s project for the year (instructions and pictures here).

On Saturday, Jonathan made me breakfast in bed: Butterscotch and White Chocolate chip pancakes!  Yum.  Then, we relaxed around the house until noon when we went out to eat at Taco Bueno.  After that, we looked at the Dollar Store to get Abigail some Vday gifts, then I got a pedicure and manicure while Jonathan got his hair cut next door.  Later, we ate dinner at Garcia’s and had the best waiter ever!  We came home and watched shows on Hulu.

On Sunday, we saw our sweet girl at church.  Daddy got a homemade card from Abigail, I got a red rose and sweet card from Jonathan, and Abigail got some flash cards, two books, and Reeses’ Pieces.  Later that night, we made a fruit dip and ate strawberries (recipe to come later).  Apparently, Abigail adores strawberries now.

Anyway, in case you didn’t know, I have the best husband for me.  I’m so glad we were blessed to spend our 8th V-day together.

Abigail was so fun to watch this Christmas.  This year, she was able to open presents by herself and say things like, “Merry Christmas and Happy New Year.  I like Santa Claus.  Santa Claus says, ‘Ho, ho, ho.’  Thank you for the present.”

Abi had 6 opportunities to open presents:

1. On Christmas Eve, we opened one present each.                                  



2. On Christmas Day, Jonathan, Abigail, and I opened presents at our house. 
3. Then, we went over to GramB and PapaBon’s and opened presents with my siblings, their spouses, and our nephew.                                                                                                



4. On the 26th, a package came in the mail, and she opened a present.
5. On the 27th, while Jonathan’s parents were here, she opened some more presents from them.                                                                                     



6. On the 28th, she opened some presents from my aunt and uncle.

On the 29th, she woke up and said, “May I have more presents [to] open, please.”  Umm, no, but nice try.

Other highlights:

• My parents got a toy dog that Abi named “Mr. Floppy” because his ears would flop as he sang a Christmas song.  At first, she was a little timid of him, but then, she started asking every two seconds to “Push Mr. Floppy’s paw” so she could dance, jump, and spin to his music.                                              



• It snowed about 7 inches early, early Christmas Eve.  In fact, the snow is still on the ground at our house.                                                                                          
• You can see more Christmas pictures here on the updated Photos page.

You can make a personalized video from Santa Claus to your child for FREE.

You fill out a short checklist about what your child’s name, what your child looks like, where he’s from, what he wants for Christmas, etc.

You can also upload a picture so that when Santa opens his “Naughty or Nice Book,” your child can see his photo.

To get an idea of what your video clip might look like, you can click here to see the video I made for my daughter.

And click here to make your own video.

We had two Halloween parties: one the night before and one on Halloween.  We took Abigail to the first one but decided to let her stay the night with GramB and PapaBon for the second one.  I forgot to take many pictures of the first one.

I’ve got a Bun in the Oven, and Jonathan’s the Bun Maker

You can click on the pictures to see the details of my costume.  It was simple to make, and it was super cheap!  We only had to buy the apron ($3), chef hat ($3), spray paint, and a hot glue gun.  We had all the other stuff on hand.  The oven box is made from Abi’s Huggies diaper box.

As you read here, she was a little lamb.

Halloween night we went to a party thrown by our besties, Tiffany and Justin (Tinkerbell & Peter Pan).

Nancy & Jacob came as a UPS worker and his package

The Bookers were the Swine Flu

Our team won in charades

And our pumpkin tied for first in the Pumpkin Contest

So, at the end of the night, we went home as winners of the “Date Night Package” (a Chili’s gift card, wine glasses, and roses, in a cute basket.

Better late than never, right? Here’s my post Halloween post (well, one of them; I’ll post another one of Jonathan and my costumes) . . .

Abi was too young to participate in carving a pumpkin last year, but we decided she could help this year.  We tried looking for a cookie monster design but couldn’t find one, so Abi decided she wanted to make a pumpkin face of her favorite shapes.

She liked watching Daddy drill the holes.  And she loved playing with the pumpkin seeds and helping Momma separate the seeds from the gooey stuff.

When she’d wake up in the morning and after nap time, she’d say “go see pumpkins.”

This is her cute costume that her Daddy picked out: She’s a little lamb.

We did Trunk or Treat at our church, and Abi learned at the first car that saying, “Trick or Treat” would get her a prize/candy.  So cute!

When people would ask her what she was, she’d say, “Baaaaaaaa.”

She also would tell the candy givers, “Thank you” and “Happy Halloween”

What a joy she is to us!

What were your kid(s) for Halloween this year?  Or previous years?  I’m already thinking about what she should be for next year.

By the way, Happy Halloween!

Did I get you, . . . again??  Bwah-ha-ha!

I’ll try to get pictures up of our costumes in the next few days.  Have a safe, happy, fun Halloween!

We had our Easter meal tonight at my parents house.  We were waiting ’til this evening because my Daddy was preaching in another state this morning.  But he got back around 5:00 pm, so we had Feijoada (a Brasilian dish), and GramB getto-rigged a high chair for Abigail.

On Abigail’s first Easter, she was only a few weeks old.  So, there was no searching for eggs.  But cute, right?!

But we thought we’d give it a try this year; she’s 13 months old.

Unfortunately, the weather was cold, so Abigail hunted eggs outside for only a little bit.

Then, we took it inside. She did really well.  Inside the eggs were cheerios, Gerber puffs, and Gerber veggie cheetos.  She loved ‘em!

We hope y’all had a happy Easter!