Edith Annith: 09.09.11

Today is the day before my little girl turns 3 yrs old. What's crazy is, any second now? I'll be writing... "I can't believe my baby is 16 yrs old." And then a few minutes after that, "Madeline is graduating from college today." That's how FAST this life, and these precious moments, are passing by. I know people talk about it all the time. I think I probably talk about it too much - maybe because I love my life - maybe because I recognize how precious these times really are and I'm not doing everything I want to do? Maybe both. Reality is a scary thing. The time we have with our loved ones and the time we have in this life is unknown, it is unset (to our knowledge anyway) and I think that thought can be a bit overwhelming. Right up there with, "What is my purpose?" and "Is there life after death?"

So yeah - I look at Madeline Olivia and I smile. I smile and I beam with pride at the beauty she is and that I was privileged enough to be a major contributor to her life. I am enjoying every minute with her, and weep when I am weak and I make mistakes that hurt her feelings or teach her bad things. I try to be a good example to her because, as we all know, any minute now she will be an adult doing her own thing.

I've been putting together a little folder of pictures from her life so far for display as a slide show on our TV for a little birthday playgroup I am doing for her on Sunday, and I just cannot get over how much she has changed in her first three years. I am greatful. I am greatful, and humbled, and in love with my little girls.

Abigail, by the way, is changing so much every day as well. She loves to do this short, stunted "ah!" sound over and over and we reply with the same sound and she does it again and again and this goes on and on for quite some time. She is starting to communicate already. I love it! She does it to all of us. I love when Paul comes home from work because she smiles real big, gives him a kiss (open mouth slobber suck on the nose) and begins her "ah!" talk.

So today was Friday. A good day. Paul - like always - spent some time helping me around the house. Since the walls in our main room are now painted a nice color, I now want to get some pictures up on the walls and finish decorating. So Paul put some nails in the wall and we hung the frames I got from IKEA a while back. Then, since I over cook meat and Paul wanted steak, Paul made dinner. He made his filet with pepper cream sauce and brown rice dinner... Mmm Mmm Mmm good. It was deeeeelish.

After dinner Paul helped put together one of Madeline's birthday gifts - a "jump-o-lene" as she calls it - because I wanted it to be ready for her the next morning. We ended up letting her play with it tonight because one, I am not good with waiting to give surprises, and two, she saw Paul and me putting it together. She loves it and jumps like crazy. I think she jumped the rest of the night. It's nice cause now she doesn't jump on the furniture - at least not as much.

Paul had to go pick up another new employee for his department at Aramco tonight. He thinks he will be out until at least 2 AM and this irritates the crud buckets outta me because he is supposed to go to work tomorrow. We will see.

While he was gone, I got the girls to bed and I printed out some of our favorite photos of the girls for our new groupings. It turned out AWESOME. I LOVE how it looks. This place is really starting to pull together and look great. I also spent some time preparing for Madeline's birthday - wrapped some presents - and finished putting stuff for the playgroup on Sunday. I am having the kids make pet rocks. I found some rocks, cute baskets, and some foamy green stuff that looks like moss to cut up and put into the baskets. The kids will put googly eyes, a pom pom ball for a nose, and a mouth on them and then fill out a homemade birth certificate for each rock so they have a name. I think they will enjoy it. Madeline acts like EVERYTHING is alive lately and has feelings so why should rocks be any different.