Ni-Night

We finally took the plunge and got a DSLR camera!!  Yay, Yay, and Yay!  Its my 35th birthday present that we got late so we could find the best deal, in true Perz style... I think Mike is more into it than I am, which I love.  So we had to try it out tonight!  Here are our first pictures... how great are they?!.... the handsome little man and pretty girl help.

 Make a silly face, Pete!

Oh, Hi, Lily!

Trying out the focusing abilities :)!

 I've been wanting to document some of my favorite parts of our bedtime routine.  

After the hygienic part ;), we gather on Pete's bed and Mike takes over.  We do prayers... Mike prays then we do 'God Bless....' and say the people we are thankful for.  

 Then Mike tells stories.  These remind me a lot of my Dad or my cousin, Matt (Hi, Bettie!)...

Oh, the stories.  He just makes them up (I am so thankful for this talent of his, I have nothing left at this point).  Most common characters are:  Jip (Pete's dog), George (Curious George), Petunia (Lily's pink dog),  Clove (our cat), plus any of the 4 of us.  Stories often involve: trash trucks (of course), trips to a creek, playing ball, a big mean dog (but Jip protects Petunia), 'kitty stuck in a tree', airplane trips to CO.  He's adapted these, added in stories that address things we are needing to work on... ie, we don't lay on the floor when its time to leave a place we like.   The current favorite is the story of the 4 of us going to drive race cars.  We each pick the color of our car.  Lily always wants purple and Mike always spins out (and they like the noise that goes along with that) and P&L tie for first place.  ;)  Then he always ends with 'The Good Shepherd'.  They love adding in all the places the shepherd has look for the lost sheep ('by the tractor') and talking about what the lost sheep's name is ('Randolph', 'Gandolph').  Then someone picks Lily up and 'carries her back to her flock'.

 Sweet times!

Spring Trip to the NRV

We spent last weekend on a getaway to B'burg.  We spent Friday with our dear friends, the Kosers.  Melissa and Andrew were my teammates when I lived in M0r0cc0 after college.  The kids got to get reacquainted too!  We picked up pizza and headed to a baseball game... so fun!  It was perfect weather!  I'm always tempted by the smaller towns and wanna get to more spacious green places!

I'm in love with C's hair (in purple).  Remember my obsession with Lily's when it was shorter (tho its much shorter there, and not a ton longer than C's now).

 And our real reason for going was this little girl's first birthday!!  

Aunt Jess threw quite the party for sweet Baby Audrey!  We had to discuss whether we can still call her 'Baby Audrey' or if it needs to become 'Little Girl Audrey' or 'Cousin Audrey'... oh, the dilemmas.

 Maw and Paw were there to get some snuggles with the birthday girl as well!

 And its always fun to get wrestled by Uncle John.

 Lily loved blowing dandelions!

Sorry, Buddy.

We had a very OT sorta day.  Peter had OT through HCPS early this morning.  Then he had an OT eval at Children's later this morning.  His OT eval at CH really encouraged me.  It was with the therapist he saw all last year.  I was able to see good progress in his skills since his previous evals.... even since his first informal eval by an OT friend at church 1.5 years ago.  Its a similar standardized test... so it really encouraged me to see his progress in skills.  I hate to sound like a worry wart but since we really don't know for sure what we are dealing with (the cause of his epilepsy and low tone) and there were some crazy things included in his work up, and still unknowns, its just so relieving to see good, normal progress.  He will still receive therapy this year, spaced out over the year to spread out our insurance benefits.  The therapist was reassuring me that many of the levels he's at are developmentally appropriate and that often nowadays schools push kids beyond what is appropriate for where their brains are at each age.  And it was good to spend the time with just him... some quality time with my littlest man that we don't often get.

I bought him a 'paint with water' Curious George recently so this afternoon he worked on it.  He LOVED doing them.  It really kept his attention (that's always encouraging!).  He did one after another!  

Yes, I know his grip isn't right in a lot of these, we did correct that.  ;)

I think he did 7 total!  The harder you've had to work at something, the sweeter the victory!

 I also bought him a book of mazes.  We worked on those together then he was doing them on his own and really into them.  He'd pretend the characters in each maze... help the boy in the bath find his duckie, help the birdie out of the chimney, etc.   He tried and tried the "turtle" maze in the pic below, then gave up and said to the turtle, "I'm sorry buddy. I just can't help ya!" Love that boy.  He keeps me laughing!

It makes me happy too that he is wearing his crown from SS yesterday...  

In Preschool Quest, they learned that Jesus is Prophet (takes a message from God to man), Priest (makes sacrifices to God on behalf of man) and King (dwells among men, rules over us, the world and satan).  His crown has this verse on it... 

And I heard a loud voice from the throne saying, “Now the dwelling of God is with men, and he will live with them. They will be his people, and God himself will be with them and be their God. He will wipe every tear from their eyes. There will be no more death or mourning or crying or pain, for the old order of things has passed away.”

Revelation 21:3-4

a morning with Goo

So a fun thing that I love is that Kathy will often write down funny things that the kids say while they are with her and then she'll share them with us.  :)  Its usually just on a piece of scrap paper but tonight it was in an email... so I get to share it on here!  Hilarious.  
Since its spring break, the kids spent the morning with her (while I straightened the house, work that's never done.  I think they had more fun.  I need to join them next time!).... 


Here is Kathy's email to me (with permission):


Thoughts from today ... 

Why buy toys if you already have old brown paper, inchworms, and peanut butter in your house.  You can see here the brown paper and inchworm, but no pictures of 20 minutes spent practicing the spreading of peanut butter and folding the bread to make a "foldover" sandwich!  So cute.

Favorite Quote ...

Me:  Lily, do you want me to go up and get your doll? 

Lily:  I'm not a mommy today.

Me:  Oh, okay.  Who are you today?

Lily:  A doctor

Me:  Oh, that's good.  Do you take care of grownups or children?

Lily:  Children

Me:  Shall I get the baby doll?

Lily:  (Thinking for a moment)  Goo, I really just want to be Lily today!!!   ;-)


And Pictures:

Easter 2012

We had a good morning at church.  I have to say that every now and then, ways of sadness over baby #3 who isn't with us hits me and for some reason, Sunday morning was a wave.  Anyone have any thoughts on this issue?  Aunt Bettie?  Will it always be so?

After church on Sunday morning, we headed down to Mike's grandparents to see his family.

The kids enjoyed the egg hunt with cousins :).  The crowd was small this year.

Aren't they cute!!  I love the way Lily is looking at the newest baby cousin.  And Peter is off to the side, looking like he wants nothing to do with all the girls.

Then sweet E took his hand!  :)

 And they are off!

(I love Mike's sweet grandma watching the kids!  I LOVE that we still have grandparents in our lives.  They are so so sweet and such a joy to be around!)

 Showing off their loot!  All with mouths full of treats!

 Lily pouring the treat in.  Mike's mom put some more healthy treats in lots of the eggs... goldfish, pretzels, and teddy grahams!   :)

 And this is our version of a family pic.

 pretty girl... 

sweet friends

We did our friends' annual Easter Egg Hunt on Saturday, which is now such a big, fun event!  I really look forward to the spring morning outside with friends.  

Here are sweet Ruby and Lily.  I love Ruby's sweet hands holding Lily.  Ruby is a hugger and so a kindred spirit of mine!  I hope and pray they grow up to be dear friends who remind each other of Jesus' love for them.  Ruby's mom has been such a sweet friend to me!  We missed Fields, the third triplet.  :(

I love Ruby's sqweenty eyes ;)

See the other years here and here!  :)