If you like the beach

... give it two thumbs up!

Eventually someone did not appreciate the sand and rocks on their toes so much and just decided to yell and get mad about it. After we brushed off toes and put shoes back on, everything was all good. It was THE PERFECT Michigan summer day - if only it was like this all year long. Sigh... I could've sat out there all day. At least we have the whole summer still ahead of us!

The girls

She's our stinker. Our peanut. Our pickle.

Khloe Jean, 12.5 months old

She's our little sweetie. Our princess. Our Pook.

Kayla Raine, 4.5 years old

Mother's Day Weekend

I am so blessed. I feel so loved. I was treated so special this weekend! I am honored to be a mommy to Kayla and Khloe! I am thankful for my mom, and her mom and all the mothers that have touched my life and my friends that are moms that continue to support me as a mother today.

My first Mother's Day surprise came Friday morning when I got in my truck to go to work - I have NEVER seen it SO clean! Aaron "borrowed it for work" the day before but was really having it detailed for me. It was something I always wanted and he did it for me! I almost hate sitting in it for fear of messing it up. It was a fun surprise; I could get used to this once a year. (Heehee). Then Friday afternoon I got two more Mother's Day surprises - one that Kayla made at school that is a photo of her on a construction paper flower pot with a packet of seeds inside, and the second is the one that her and Miss Melissa made - a beautiful fresh flower decoration for my garden - I love it!

Mother's Day morning began with a miracle - we all slept in until 9am! That's everyone! I didn't even crack an eyelid until 9am, and at that point I realized that all children were still asleep too! I don't know how that happened -because it has not happened in over a year - other than to realize we experienced a very big miracle. On Mother's Day morning I got another present from Kayla - a flower box that she built and decorated at the Lowe's Build and Grow workshop with Daddy and planted with a little flower for me (It did have a photo of Kayla and Khloe in the center of each circle, but Khloe kept popping them out). And there is my new necklace that Kayla is wearing around her neck. Once I opened that gift, it immediately disappeared with Kayla in the playroom. 

We were so lucky to have such a BEAUTIFUL, warm, sunny day to be outside with my mom, and with all of our family! Aaron prepared a DELICIOUS meal of a Martha's Vineyard salad, grilled pork roast and mashed cauliflower (a no carb meal!). We ate up every morsel it was so good! Thank you for the Mother's Day meal!

Yum! Sugar free jello for dessert!

 Everyone enjoyed eating their dessert outdoors.

 Khloe LOVED the jello and tried to get a bite from everyone - she was pretty successful. 

Kristi even came home to surprise mom (and Dad) for Mother's Day! 

They were surprised, and we are glad to have her stay here with us.

 Seriously, are they sisters?!?!? Long lost twins?
Definitely best {goofy} buddies.

Can you spot Khloe in these photos? 

There isn't much "turning" when she pushes her toy. It's pretty much a straight shot. Finally we had to rescue her from Steve's yard. Such a little peanut!

Thank you to my family for making this the BEST Mother's Day EVER!

And, our weekend also included a little surprise when we went out to dinner as a family to celebrate our 13th wedding anniversary on Saturday night. After one evening earlier in the week when Aaron and Kayla went "out for a bit" I asked Kayla to tell me where they went, but she wouldn't. (I figured they had just gone Mother's Day shopping). I asked her to tell me what she got me, but she wouldn't. All that she said was, "We did NOT go to the jewelry store". Thank you for my anniversary earrings present, Aaron! This was a great start to our 13th year - I look forward to our best year yet!

This is what Mother's Day is all about! 

These two precious gifts.

Art by sunset

"Mom, I want to paint outside."
"Okay, let's paint outside!"

Dinner and bath, check. Paint supplies and extra large sheet of white paper, check. Getting creative in the last little bit of sun on a warm weekend night, priceless.

Monkey

I received my recurring email notification from BabyCenter.org giving me an update on my "12 month old: Week 2". It says that she should have stranger anxiety around now, but we have yet to see that. Khloe goes to anyone, anytime. What the email failed to warn about is babyproofing against a monkey. Khloe climbs onto EVERYTHING! This has already given me a few heart attacks the last couple weeks.

One day a few weeks ago, while in the kitchen, we hear Kayla yell to us at the top of her lungs "She's on the table! She's on the table!" I run into the play room and sure enough, sitting as cool and confident as can be is little Khloe Jean on top of the kid's play table gnawing on a piece of play food. Little stinker! I didn't know she could climb onto a chair, let alone a chair and then a table! Whew, I thought, injury crisis narrowly averted. Note to self: keep little chairs tucked inside the table at all times.

Last week, while we were all upstairs, Khloe mysteriously disappeared. All was quiet. We found that she had crawled behind the shower curtain and into her bathtub. There she was playing contently inside an empty bathtub. She thought it was the greatest thing ever. In and out she crawled, over and over. What a monkey. Note to self: purchase faucet cover.

The other day, again while I was in the kitchen making lunch and Khloe was playing in the living room, I look up and see her sitting ON TOP of the black leather ottomons which are ON TOP of our black entertainment cradenzas! She was balancing on a very high tower! And she was so happy and proud! I did not over-react (outwardly at least) but quickly moved to get her off this unstable ottoman-cradenza tower. Before I reached her she did a belly-flop-swan-dive onto the couch, laughing the whole time. Oh Khloe, another heart attack. I just stared at her, then at her tower, then at her again shaking my head in disbelief and amazement. "How did she do that?" Kayla and I agreed we are going to have to send Khloe to the zoo with all the other monkeys!

This does not include the fact that she has been climbing the couch and stairs for some time now. Up and down. Up and down. And she taught herself how to turn around and go backwards off the couch and stairs. All of this, of course, before she learned how to walk. She still would rather climb than walk, but I guess, that's what a monkey does after all. I don't know how to deal with a climber! I don't think Kayla climbed on a single thing EVER when she was little.

Even monkeys need to be tamed.

Even monkeys have chill time.

And even monkeys have to sleep.

This little monkey is a healthy, growing one! She weighed in at 22lbs at her 1-year check up, and I forget her length, but they were both right around 60% - perfectly sized monkey!

Butterfly Miracle

It is an exciting day around here! One of our caterpillars FINALLY turned into a butterfly!

For Easter, Kayla received a Butterfly Garden kit from Grandpa and Grandma A. So the very next day we placed our order for LIVE Painted Lady caterpillars and a few days later they arrived in the mail. The four caterpillars were no bigger than Kayla's fingernail.

For a week and a half we left them alone but watched them eat and eat and grow and grow. They grew VERY quickly and VERY large! That in itself was pretty exciting to watch. After that time passed, the very large caterpillars crawled to the top of the container, attached themselves upside down to the the lid, and began to spin their chrysalis.

After all the caterpillars were inside their chrysalis, we carefully moved them from their container they arrived in by mail and into their butterfly net home. We pinned the paper they were attached to to the side of the wall just a few inches from the bottom. And we waited. 

 And waited. For another week and a half we waited and watched. These caterpillars, who did nothing but eat and grow for the first 10 days of their life, no longer ate another morsel. They did nothing but hang motionless, and inside that chrysalis we knew a miraculous metamorphosis was happening! 

Today we witnessed the birth of a butterfly! If you have never seen this transformation take place, or thought you never wanted to, you need to! 

 Our one little Painted Lady butterfly has emerged! He is spreading his wings to dry them and will hopefully soon find our tasty sugar-water mixture on the flowers. We hope to see his friends in the next few hours too. We will share more pictures as they all emerge and begin to explore their Butterfly Garden home. What a fun experiment this has been! This is one of the MOST amazing things in God's creation - the every day miracle of a caterpillar turning into a butterfly. God programmed each and every stage of a butterfly's life cycle, not by chance but by design. How can anyone NOT believe in Him?!

Genesis 1