Silliness..

The other morning, I was trying to get ready for a doctors appt. Miley was aggravating adalyn downstairs and making her scream. I asked her to keep her hands to herself and to leave her baby sister alone. Two minutes layers, I hear adalyn screaming again. I call for Miley to go to her room and sit on her bed until I come in there to talk to her. She immediately obeys and I hear her climb up in her bed and make up a song while singing it at the top of her lungs, "I am in trouble.... Momma won't talk to me, I don't have no friends and I'm fixin to get a spankin'..." it was hilarious. And completely sung in an opera style. 

Today was a no tv day here at the Davis house. The kids and I played a lot of games and I cleaned up a LOT of messes! Tv is such a good "babysitter".. I can let them watch something on Netflix while I feed Levi, or fold clothes, or make beds, hop in the bath... Or have a few minutes to be alone. But one episode of fresh beat band will turn into 2, and then another and before you know it they have sat in front of the tv for 2 hours! Granted, my house will be spotless, but that only lasts for a little while:) so the tv was off all day and surprisingly we all survived! The kids played great all morning. They played restuarant where Josiah would hold a book and tell Miley, "ma'am, come with me and I'll show you to your table.":) Ella Kate was the "waitress girl" and carried a tray with one hand above her head full of cups and bowls. Next they played store where the girls took turns being the "pay girl" (cashier). Josiah dumped out our toy boxes and book baskets to find the perfect things to buy. I printed them out some fake money and they were thrilled! After that, they got in their dress up stuff and became princesses and sonic the hedgehog. The big girls both wore these pink hooded capes and dancing shoes:) adalyn didn't have a cape, so she wore a baby towel over head and ran around the house in her make shift cape.. And was pleased as punch:) the girls would run and fall down and "die" and sonic the hedgehog would come to rescue them. I wish I had taken some pictures.. It was quite funny!

After lunch, I went upstairs to help settle Levi and put him down for his nap. He was restless today.. Which is unusual for him. When I came back downstairs, I saw that the kids (or most likely Ella Kate) had cleaned off the table, put the dishes in the sink, swept the floor of its crumbs and pushed the chairs back in..completely unprompted. Ella Kate was coloring at the table, Miley was playing barbies on her floor, jos was on his bed playing and adalyn was wandering around the house with her towel still on her head:) I love these moments! Everything was so quiet and peaceful!

 I called everyone together to come sit in a circle and play a game. We had to say one thing that we loved about each person. Their answers were silly, but heartfelt and sweet. Miley loved that Josiah takes care of her and loves that Ella Kate plays ballerina with her. Josiah loved that Miley let him be Ken when they play barbies and he likes when Ella Kate tickles him:) Ella Kate said she loved it when I play with them and when I let them eat sometimes..? :) cute kids.. She also loves that Levi is the cutest baby boy in the world.. But so is Coleman:)

 One more thing about Miley.. I love that she can make a "family" out of anything. She plays so, SO good by herself. Her two favorite things to play are doll house and barbies. However, when she is somewhere where there aren't "people" to play with, she will improvise with no problem:) for instance, last night in the bath tub, she made a family out of the shampoo and soap bottles. She had a mom, dad, brother and sister. It was too cute. She has also done this at the pool with diving sticks/rings and with the silverware at the table. I love watching her imagination at work!

Can I just be honest? Sometimes life is hard. Being a mom is hard. Being a stay at home mom with small kids is hard. (I am sure a working mom is just as hard, but I wouldn't know. I've always been able to stay home.)I wouldn't change one thing about my life, but sometimes it feels good to vent. I am not sure if I will even post this entry, but writing is therapeutic for me, so here I am:)I tend to see myself in this season of life, wishing the moments away. It starts off small with thoughts of, "it's almost nap time! I can do this.." to "5:00 will be here soon, daddy is almost home to help!" then it gets bigger to, "I can't wait for fall when it is cooler, and we can play outside again.." or "I just wish you could talk and tell me what you need!" or "I wonder what life is like with no diapers and no schedule.." and I HATE that I do it. These are sweet, special years and yes, they are hard at times.. But I know that I will miss this one day! It is surreal to think that my first baby is already 5 years old!! She will be six soon and it seems like yesterday we were discharged from the hospital with our sweet, beautiful Asian looking baby girl:) the days are long, but the years are flying by!! I have a book called "loving the little years" by umm, I can't find it at the moment. One of my little rascals must have swiped it, but it's good! So good! It is like she wrote about my life! There were several chapters that tears streamed down my face as I read and felt this heart wrentching conviction. If you have small kids, or have many small kids... You need to read it and feel encouraged! It is so easy for me to feel overwhelmed and inadequate in raising my kids. "Am I doing a good job? Are we too strict? Are we too relaxed? Am I showing favoritism? Are they seeing Jesus lived out in my life? Am I taking every opportunity I have to lead them to Jesus? I should have been more patient. Did I just discipline them out of anger?" Satan wreaks havoc in my mind and I feel so defeated. But then I am reminded that these children are BLESSINGS! God gave us these kids! Of all the moms in the world, he CHOSE ME! Psalms 127:3 – “Children are a blessing from the Lord; the fruit of the womb a reward." I also love 2 Corinthians 12:9 'Each time he said, “My grace is all you need. My power works best in weakness.” So now I am glad to boast about my weaknesses, so that the power of Christ can work through me.' There are days when the laundry pile is sky high, the floors are sticky, the kids simply cannot get along, the baby who rarely cries has screamed all day long, we are out of milk and bread and don't have a car to get more, bill is working late and I feel like all I have done all day is try to keep my head above water. Can I have 5 minutes where someone isn't crying for me, pulling on me, saying my name, or needing something? Yes.. Probably in 20 years:) I'll have an empty nest and a spotless house and be begging them to come hang out with me! Ha! So if one day my kids are reading this, please know that I love you with every ounce of my being! Being your momma is the greatest privilege and your daddy and I feel like the most blessed parents in the world! But having said all of that, y'all definitely drive me bonkers at times:)

my girls LOVE princesses, barbies, dress up.. you name it! so you can imagine their delight when their friend kaitlyn let them borrow these beautiful dresses today. they were so excited all day for bill to see them. so after their bath tonight, they went downstairs to practice their twirling and dancing and were completely SHOCKED when bill came down in his tux and asked to take them to the ball:) (AKA.. the living room) the smiles never left their faces.. and the tears never left my eyes. we are so blessed! adalyn even got in a few dances with the prince, before she was whisked away to have a dirty diaper changed:) when the ball was over, bill went back upstairs to change clothes and i overheard miley tell ella kate, "that was my BEAUTIFUL ken!!!! and he did BEAUTIFUL things for us tonight!!" ella kate asked her where her ken went and miley replied, "oh.. he died!"

 look at those juicy lips!! i could kiss them all day:) sweet levi is 8 weeks old today and just a doll!

 the latest picture of all the cousins:) and let me just clarify that this picture was a complete disaster to take.. there were many tears, meltdowns, drops and closed eyes.. so i am shocked that this one was decent:)

 adalyn loves her pigtails... actually she doesn't. she just looks like she does, but the minute bill quit restraining her arms, she yanked them out! ha! oh well, we tried:)

today we were in the car talking about our friends' baby joshua. ella kate said, "hey! we read about joshua in our bible last night!!" we did read about him, so bill started asking some questions to see if they were paying attention. first he asked him what joshua did.. jos said, "he fought the battle of jericho!!" thats right! and what did the people do while marching around the city? josiah said, "they played their trumpets!" thats right! but what else did they do?? it is something that miley is really good at. she does this all the time. ella kate and josiah IN UNISON yelled out, "whine! they whined and played their trumpets!!!" bill and i start dying laughing.. bill says, no! they didn't whine... they shouted!! just like miley likes to shout! haha.. silly kids:) ella kate says, "well, miley does shout. but she whines a lot too!" i turn to look at miley and she is sitting there with the biggest smile on her face as if saying, "yep! thats me!" :)

speaking about reading.. josiah can read. seriously. he is 4 almost 5, but has been reading for a few months. and i am not talking about beginner books with small words... he can read chapter book and even the bible. smart, smart boy!! oh, and i also wanted to remember something that happened earlier this month. we had a cook out at our church on july 4 and we made arrangements for a friend to come over and play. i told the kids and they were asking questions about when she was coming and i told them "next wednesday. not today, but the wednesday of next week." josiah said the blessing for breakfast the next morning and it went, "dear God, thank you for this great day, thank you for this cereal and thank you that maemae is coming to play at our house on wednesday july the 11th. amen." i immediately got up from the table and looked for a calender and saw that the wednesday that maemae was coming over, really was the 11th. how in the world did he know that?? geez... 

still trying to catch up..

adalyn is at THE BEST age right now... everything she does is so cute! she is a tad bit friendlier to strangers and is starting to venture out a bit more. although she isn't saying much still, she loves to walk around the kitchen saying, "moh! moh!" (more) she also LOVES to go get her shoes and back up into your lap to put them on. imagine this cute hiney coming your way:)

 My kids LOVE to keep me in check:) While Miley was complaining about being too small for something, Josiah encouraged her by saying, "you're not small Miley, you're big! And I'm big, and Ella Kate's big! But mom.... Mom is the LARGEST!!!"

 Levi was taking a nap upstairs on my bed while we were eating lunch. He started to cry while I was cleaning up, but I really wanted to finish sweeping and putting the dishes away before I got him up. He was screaming his head off before long, then all of a sudden he got quiet. I went upstairs to check and found that Ella Kate (completely unprompted and without my knowing) holding him on my bed and singing to him:) melt my heart... Sweet little momma!

I found Josiah upstairs on my bed with the baby when he said, "momma, I could stare at Levi all day!" :)

 these 2 are buddies:)

 father's day!! i took the kids shopping for bill's gift and they were sooo excited:) i took them to the dollar store and let them each pick out several things that daddy would love. i wish i had a camera to show you what all they picked out... it was adorable. ella kate picked him out some new church socks, some mints, a green dish scrubber and a snickers bar. josiah picked him out a green harmonica, a red gatorade, and new chapstick. miley got him some sunflower seeds, spiderman bandaids and a water bottle:) he loved them! i also had them answer 10 questions about him and i printed them out... hilarious!! i need to post a picture of their answers... they LOVE their daddy, we are so blessed!

Ella Kate said the blessing at lunch one afternoon and her prayer was, "thank you Jesus for this food, and thank you that nana is coming to babysit, and Lord, please bless her heart for watching all of us! Amen!" :) During the same meal, Josiah (out of nowhere) lets out a HUGE sigh and says, "I sure do wish I was Mrs. Tk's kid!" where did that come from? It is no surprise that my kids are crazy about Mrs. Tk... But I thought they were crazy about me, too!