Friday, October 19, 2018
Selah June had a haircut with Miss Loan today. We decided to cut it about shoulderlength. The tangle monsters will have a harder time finding their way into our locks while we sleep.
For being so exceptionally good, we got to go to Wild Honey for ice cream treat.
September 25, 2018 – October 2, 2018
Selah June Bug turned 4 YEARS OLD!!!! I can’t believe it. We had a full week of celebration, starting with a birthday party at the library park and ending with an intense four days at Disney.
Tuesday night after work, family met out at the Tryon Branch Library for Tuscan Oven pizza and presents. The kids spent time on the playground equipment before the sun set, and then we moved them inside to check out books and color at the kids tables in the library. Selah June was super excited about her Barbie play-doh kitchen, her swimming baby, and her coloring set. We immediately had to get everything out of its box and spread it out on the kitchen table.
We then took leftover cupcakes to school for SJ’s birthday party lunch with her class. She wore the birthday cowboy hat, sat in the middle of a long table with all of her friends, picked out her mermaid cupcake first (and ate it before any of the other kids got one), and then blew out a candle after the class sang Happy Birthday.
These are some random pictures from the end of our actual birthday day. She just looked like a little bundle of attitude, and I had to capture it.
Thursday, we drove to Orlando and arrived at the Grand Floridian just in time to get some dinner and watch fireworks. It was a beautiful sunset. She was SO good in the car. I was really impressed with her. She wanted Grammy to sit with her (and that meant in the middle seat of the Pilot. They watched movies and did workbooks every single second that she was awake.
I loved playing with the filters on my phone to capture the essence of the old style of the hotel. It reminded me of the Hotel del Coronado in California.
If this picture isn’t classic Disney, I don’t know what is!!
She was really excited to get out her coloring set that she got for her birthday, so we brought it outside with us to wait for the fireworks. It was a lot to take in at one time. She kept running over to the fireworks and then running back to do some more coloring.
The first day at Disney we did Dumbo and Aladdin’s carpet ride. We did Pirates of the Caribbean and It’s a Small World. And we did Micky’s Philharmagic and Buzz Lightyear. We also saw lots of princesses. All of those were major hits. Fast Pass was the way to go! And we enjoyed lunch at Liberty Tavern. The first day was really special.
The next day we were really tired, and the whole morning just didn’t go very well. Selah June wanted the double stroller very first thing, and Grandpa had a hard time with the resulting attitude. We didn’t have anywhere reserved to eat, and that was also a problem. She thought she wanted to go on the rockets, but they were way too high and she freaked out after waiting the whole time in line. After that, it was just downhill from there. That afternoon, Jeremy spent time with her at the pool and then we went to Wilderness Lodge for dinner.
After dinner, Jeremy and SJ went back to the hotel. Mom and Dad joined me for a few more hours at Magic Kingdom to ride rollercoasters. To be more specific, Dad and I did rollercoasters. Mom tagged along and waited very patiently.
Sunday morning we went to Animal Kingdom. The safari ride was a lot of fun. She really enjoyed moving to each adult lap to see different animals on each side of the open-air vehicle. I’m always amazed at how close you get to the animals. My favorite animal this time was the rhino. Her favorite thing I think was the popcorn. And Grammy bought her a spray bottle that had a fan built into the top. She then wanted to squirt it at all of us as we walked from one ride to the next. We had a Fast Pass for Avatar, and it was absolutely amazing. I have never experienced any other thing quite like it. I really felt like I was flying. It was so cool.
After naps, we spent the evening at Disney Springs. Little Miss talked Mom and Jeremy into a little pizza kitchen. And Grammy treated her to a sleepover in her hotel room to read Rotten Ralph, play pizza kitchen, and work on a sticker mural. This is her posing for me to take a picture of her with her new Minnie Pizza Kitchen.
Though the last day at Disney wasn’t easy, it was another spectacular sunset. Jeremy went to pick up dinner at Chevy’s, and us girls stayed in the room to visit in our pjs.
It was a vacation to remember, filled with both good and bad. Disney is magical, but it is also really hard to handle — for adults and kids alike. I wouldn’t trade the memories for the world, but it might take me a while before I’m ready to face the Micky again.
This month is birthday month for Selah June and her two best friends from school. This weekend we had Evelyn’s birthday. In two weeks we take Selah June to Disney and Animal Kingdom.
SJ loves buying a sequin unicorn for Evelyn for her birthday, but she insisted on getting one for herself. She also loved the peeee-ssah and cupcakes at the party. It was crazy to see all the kids from school at the bounce house. We don’t even know half of their names yet.
Friday was our first letter of the alphabet show and tell. The letter was “F.” We took our stuffed frog. Apparently the hot item this year was the firetruck.
After the party and a good nap, Grammy and Grandpa came over to watch football. The girls snuck out to go shopping at an antique mall in Pace. SJ found her baby sister in one of the stalls. For $4 we picked up a new family member. Her name (that has evolved over the last 24 hours) is Hersha Allia America Leah Skya.
When we are looking for her, Selah June says we are looking for the baby with the eyes that go like this (as she squints at us). Hersha is a little more wrinkly than Emma. I guess some might say more realistic.
We also discovered Rotten Ralph. It’s a book series about a cat that gets into all kinds of trouble. SJ loves it. I think she sees Ralph as a jokester and mischievous and identifies with him immensely. She has asked to read her cat books over and over again and laughs out loud at his antics.
August 27 – August 31
This was our first week (officially) in Miss Christy’s Preschool 1 class. Selah June loves her new class and all of the kids returning from summer break. Justin Blalock came back, and he’s still her boyfriend. But by Wednesday she was married to Gage and pregnant with a baby. Then I realized who Zander is… Zander Vandevere… who we call Zander Banderbear because we can’t really pronounce “v”s.
In our new class, we get to put our sheriff’s badge that says our name on it on the chore we want to help Miss Christy do for the day. This week, Selah June helped with snack, helped with the mats for nap time, helped recognize acts of kindness, and was a safety officer. As a safety officer, she watched for kids playing on the playground and told them to slow down if they were running too fast.
This morning was a precious reminder of the complete blessing she is in my life. I gave her a big hug before leaving her at school. She said without prompting, “I love you, Mom.” And she walked me to the door. She likes to open it and see me out. As I was leaving she said, “Have a good day at work today, Mom.” I turned around and smiled and said, “You too! at school!” To which she replied, “I love you, Mom.” And I nearly cried.
You say things enough times, and some of it actually sticks.
Thursday, August 16-Sunday, August 18, 2018
This week marked our third trip to see all the half-sibs from across the country. The kids were old enough this year to remember each and to really begin to form close friendships across families. It’s truly amazing to watch. I am so grateful for all of these women. It takes an unbelievable amount of courage to embark on the journey of getting pregnant using a donor. And then it takes some real guts to travel across the country to meet perfect strangers who happen also to be directly related to your child. The birthday party for the kids each year really overwhelms me. I feel in waves complete joy and humility. It is wondrous to see so much life, and it is humbling to see created 10 times over something I could never create or even imagine.
Everybody loved taking walks in the evening along the beach. The sunsets were beautiful. The crabs would scurry with each step. And these big blobs of jelly would shimmer in the twilight. One of the best things about this year’s visit was the amount of time we all spent together in a naturally beautiful beach haven.
Everybody also loved the bed swing.
In the gift exchange, we gave JP an inflatable crocodile, but Owen got some time to play with it too!
The craft for the year was painting canvases. They had a blast. Lily ended up covered from head to toe.
Here’s a picture of the cute houses scattered along the beachfront.
Crab for dinner?
We clean up pretty good, don’t we?
Can’t wait for next year.
July 28, 2018
Selah June is barreling towards 4 as quickly as she can. It’s freaking me out. Honestly, I’m overwhelmed by the loss of her as a baby and the gain of her as a young girl with an overwhelmingly beautiful heart and hysterical personality.
This weekend, Jeremy went to Sonic to get good drinks and a breakfast sandwich. When he got home, SJ asked for a bite. Of course he gave his baby girl a bite. And then she snatched it from him. Needless to say, Jeremy bought two breakfast sandwiches the next day.
We spent the weekend trying to get my office in the new building set up. One of our errands was a trip to Sam’s Club for a new mini refrigerator. As soon as we walked in the door, SJ found this perfect fuzzy unicorn chair. Breakfast sandwich in hand, she camped out in it, and it was nearly impossible to get her out of it.
Later we had great family time watching the Great British Baking Show. I just happened to have little Scottie dog cookies brought to me from Scotland from Monica in the office. SJ fell in love and hogged the whole little red and black plaid bag sitting on my lap under blankets watching our show.
We had to take the bag away from her. She would have made herself totally sick.
Another development in little Selah June’s world is piano lessons with Grammy. She has a big red piano book and works through a few pages at a time each week. We’ve learned to clap once for notes and to rest once for rests. I have an adorable video of her showing Daddy how she can “play a song” in her book with her clap rests. She stops for each new mark, evaluates by pointing with her little finger at it, and then determines whether it is a clap or rest.
Can you say “Trouble is my middle name?”
Saturday July 14, 2018
We are in the dog days of summer right now. But that means Grammy’s pool is the perfect temperature for all of us to be in it! When Mom and I got back from Amsterdam, we had a pool party so that all the kids could swim. Selah June loves the swimsuit and swim vest that Grammy and Grandpa got for her. She keeps it at their house so that she can go swimming whenever she wants. She loves that the vest gives her the freedom to swim to “the midnight zone” — the deep end of the pool as she sees it through her Octonaut-colored lenses.
It’s hard to believe that so much personality can be packed into such a tiny little human being. She’s only 3 (almost 4), and every exchange is an opportunity for a joke or a trick or an experiment. She just realized she can do 48-piece puzzles by herself, so we had to order a couple more from Amazon. And she just got a HUGE ice cream truck because she was extremely brave at the dentist. They had to put her under anesthesia to pull a tooth and add a spacer and do a number of fillings. I was out of the country, and Jeremy had to take her on his own. Jessica was kind enough to stay a little while to make sure he was all right. And she kept SJ after the procedure while she shook off the heavy fog. I was really proud of SJ. And I have had a lot of fun watching her thoroughly enjoy her ice cream truck. She wanted it for a super long time, and she was totally surprised to get it when it wasn’t her birthday or Christmas. We set it up for customers. We clean it. We organize all of our treats. And we even make pretzel soup. It’s truly the most amazing ice cream truck ever… with the most conscientious truck owner in the whole wide world.
Saturday, June 16, 2018
SJ is really into dresses right now. Perusing Amazon, I found some knit A-line dresses with cute patterns — horses, dinosaurs, rainbows, etc. SJ freaked out and said she love ALL of them. So we bought some, and I told her they would arrive in a few days. The first one she wore was her dinosaur dress. Miss Praya love it! She wanted to know where SJ found it. Selah June told her that her mommy bought it on her phone. Later Miss Praya asked Jeremy where we found it. He said “on Amazon” and everybody gave a collective “ahhhh!!!!” Apparently, this had created a bit of a mystery for all the teachers.
So SJ loves her dresses, but she wants to wear all of them to Sunday school. She LOVES Sunday school. This is a bit problematic because we’re not going to East Brent anymore. So I asked SJ if she would be okay trying a few different Sunday schools. I explained that we were thinking about checking out some different churches, but that would mean that she would be in classes with kids and teachers that she didn’t know. She said, “I’m not scared of Sunday schools. I’m only scared of thunderstorms and the kids at school because they try to squeeze my face.”
Good to know….
What she’s talking about it the game that all of the kids play when SJ shows up to school first thing in the morning. When we get to her classroom, she hides behind me, and all of the other kids run toward her for hugs. It’s totally a game because she acts like she’s scared, and all the teachers yell out, “She’s not ready yet. Give her some space. Too soon… It’s too soon.”
She has them all wrapped so tightly around her little finger…
Monday, June 11, 2018
I’m taking Beginning Voice this summer with Abigail and Brandy. My first song assignment was “Goodnight, My Someone,” from The Music Man. I didn’t know it before learning it for the class. And I was exceptionally nervous. For weeks, I practiced and practiced and practiced. Selah June got really tired of it. So I finally explained that I had to practice my song because I had to sing it in my class in front of a bunch of people I didn’t know. She said, “I’ll come to your class, Mommy.”
One night just before my “performance” in class, Jeremy was putting her to bed and I found myself enjoying a rare moment of privacy upstairs. So I decided to practice while I was resting in bed. Jeremy told me the next morning that the noise led to an awesome conversation with SJ.
“Daddy, do you think Mommy is trying to sing me to sleep?” — SJ
“I don’t think she knows we can hear her, baby.” — J
“Daddy, she’s really nervous about her song…” — SJ
Sunday, April 29, 2018
I had the best day I’ve had in a really long time today.
Selah June woke me up asking me to take her outside to play on her park. I drank my new coffee with frothed almond milk. It was delicious. We colored our Elsa figurine and then we ate delicious fruit for breakfast.
We checked out our garden and decided we needed to clean it out. Selah June helped me clean all the leaves and weeds out. Then we went to Lowe’s and bought vegetables and herbs to plant our 2018 spring garden.
She rested well, and I also had a great break. And then we planted our cucumbers, tomatoes, sweet potatoes, and cilantro. It’s the perfect size, and she’s super excited to look after it.
For dinner Jeremy made me filet, and we ate it outside.
It might be the crazy end of the semester, but it is still April in Florida. That’s something to soak in.
We also watched American Idol this evening. It was Disney night. Selah June was into it. At some point I realized she was standing on a bucket propping her chin on her baton, singing “Jesus, Name above all Names…”
How adorable.
