Tuesday, June 30, 2009

Adoption Wings

I've talked before about Angel Larsen and her adoption blog. She also has her own personal blog which she updates almost daily. The Larsens are a wonderful Christian family with three beautiful daughters. They are in the process of adopting two little boys from Ethiopia.

Angel makes and sells nursing shawls, hair clips and head scarves to raise money for their adoption. The price is hard to beat! And the best part is that the money supports their adoption!

If you have any little girls in your life - friends of your kids, your own daughters, nieces, granddaughters - Angel's hair clips are a perfect little gift!

You can find out how to contact her through either of the blogs I mentioned above.

Here are some pictures of Lily in one of the youth scarves. How cute is she???





Just a few of the clips I've bought lately! =)

Monday, June 29, 2009

Vacation Bible School 2009

It was a fabulous week of Vacation Bible School! I got to work with a great group of kids and I love that what we did this week impacted kids for eternity. I prayed this week that kids would be drawn to Jesus and that their memories of VBS would give them positive associations with church and with their Loving Father for the rest of their lives.

Lily had a great week as well. She switched to a different class on Wednesday taught by my friend Lorelie. She also had a few buddies in that class which helped her to feel more comfortable. It's stil hard to believe that she attended VBS! I would say her first time was a success!

I can't talk about this week without mentioning my mom. She stayed with us the entire week and took care of Taylor so that he didn't have to be in the nursery. I can scarcely come up with words to tell you what a big deal this was for me. I felt so strongly about Taylor being able to stay on his schedule and nap in his own crib. My mother was an absolute Godsend and I am so grateful! It was so freeing for me to know he was in good hands at home and I didn't have to worry about him at all.

My sweet momma's help around here has been invaluable to me. She has helped me to keep my head above water and to feel like I can breathe. We all absolutely love her and appreciate all she does for us!

So back to VBS, here are some photos. Enjoy!

Lily watching the Opening

Our little VBS attender =)


Inside of the tent in her classroom
She loved the lantern and has requested one of her own =)

Sitting in the sanctuary during the Opening on Friday morning

Some of the kids in my group

More of my kids

A few more

Program Rehearsal
Lily is in the front row, second from the left
Parker, Lily and Hailey

Lily is in the front row, third from the left
Next to her is Hailey, her friend Aubrey, and then Benjamin
Lily and her friend Benjamin (the one she has betrothed herself to) =)

Saturday, June 27, 2009

Hello out there!

A few months back I added a "counter" to the very bottom of my blog. It allows me to see how many visits there are to my blog. I don't look at it very frequently, but I took a look at it last night and was fascinated by what I saw! It allows me to see where people are visiting from and this week there were visitors from Tennessee, Minnesota, South Dakota, Kansas, Illinois, California and Missouri! WOW! I, like, totally thought that there were like seven people who read my blog! Oops.

Sooooo, I'd love to hear from you! Please leave a comment and say hello! Right under this post, click on the word COMMENTS and follow the instructions to leave your own comment. Tell me anything - where you're from, your favorite Michael Jackson song, who you think Jillian should choose on The Bachelorette, how cute you think my kids are, whatever!

Let's get acquainted! I'll go first. Hi, I'm Dawn. I have two kids, I'm from Minnesota, I was never a big MJ fan, I thought Ed was the best one on The Bachelorette but now that he's gone she should pick Reid or Michael, and I think my kids are the greatest!

Your turn!

Friday, June 26, 2009

Summer is in full swing!

It's been a HOT week! We managed to make it to the Splash Pad on Tuesday and Lily has an absolute ball there! This particular park is so nice because you can play on the playground for awhile and when you get warm you can run over to the splash pad and cool off!

If this doesn't say joy, I don't know what does!


Taylor is not so much a fan of the splash pad. He really enjoys watching others splash, but the water is too cold for him. He's perfectly content to sit in the stroller, play with a toy and munch on cheerios.

Chillin'
(Please pretend that you don't see my son wrapped in a pink towel. Thank you.)

Fun!

Chewing on Donald Duck

Climbing on the playground after sufficient splashing

Beautiful blue-eyed babe

Thursday, June 25, 2009

Lily's buddy

On Saturday we had a blast celebrating the 4th birthday of one of Lily's closest little buddies. Nathan is exactly a week younger than Lily and his momma is one of my dearest friends. She and I were so thrilled to go through our pregnancies together, and raising these bambinos together has been a treat too.

Nathan and Lily are SO different from each other, but they really love each other. They love to play together and get excited to see each other. They went through a phase awhile back where they fought A LOT and it was almost torture to try to get together because they were arguing, yelling, taking things away from each other, etc. But they seem to have grown out of that and now play together really well with only a minor argument here or there. =)

Toward the end of the party Nathan got down on one knee and asked Lily to marry him! It was absolutely adorable!!! The funniest part is that Lily turned him down and told him she is going to marry her friend Benjamin. I kid you not! They argued about that for a moment before Nathan's mom told him that he had a lot of time before he'd be ready to get married and that Lily would probably change her mind by then. Ha! It was so funny!

We love Nathan, his baby brother and his mom and dad. They are some of our most precious friends in the world. It was a delight to be at Nathan's party to celebrate his 4th birthday. Here are a few picture highlights!

They borrowed some inflatables from Nathan's daycare provider and those were a big hit!

My beautiful Lily

Enjoying pizza and friends

The birthday boy giving a thumb's up!

Aren't they cute???

Nathan's baby brother - one of the chubbiest babies I've ever known! He is SO sweet and SO cute! Look at those legs!

T was all over the place during the party and paused for a moment by this chair. He's so busy!

The baby boys playing "together"

Summer birthdays are the best!

Riding Nathan's tricycle
It took her quite awhile to give this slide a try. And then when she did she was VERY cautious!


Wednesday, June 24, 2009

Balls

T loves balls! I'm being totally serious. He loves it if you'll play catch with him by rolling balls back and forth. And he already knows how to throw pretty well! As well as an 11 month old can throw. =)

In the last few weeks he has also learned how to go from sitting to standing on his own and can throw while standing! It's so cute.

We were at a birthday party on Saturday evening and we were all playing outside. I got this video of T playing with a baseball. He always throws left handed! We're curious to see if he will indeed be a lefty.

Tuesday, June 23, 2009

VBS

It's VBS Week at our church. I'm helping with 3rd grade and Lily is attending VBS! Yes, she is a participant! I can hardly believe it. Yesterday morning the entire group was sitting in the sanctuary for the Opening, and Lily was down near the front watching the skit, and I sat there in wonder, almost tearing up, that my little girl is old enough to go to VBS! What?!?!

She's having a good time, besides the meltdown she had this morning when I dropped her off. Long story. But I checked on her a couple times without letting her see me and her teacher gave me a thumb's up. I asked that teacher to take a picture of her for me and here she is having her snack! My little VBS attender. =)




Sunday, June 21, 2009

A Crabtree to carry on the name

Yesterday my cousin Nate and his wife Annie had a baby boy! His name is Noah Nate and it sounds like he and his momma are doing great.

On this side of the family I have more than 20 cousins, four of them boys, and only 2 of them are Crabtrees. This is the first male great grandchild with the last name Crabtree!

Saturday, June 20, 2009

Lilyisms

She has been saying THE darndest things lately.

Yesterday she had a friend over to play. This friend still takes a daily afternoon nap. Lily and her friend were contendedly playing together when I told them that in about ten minutes all of us would be laying down for a nap - Lily's friend, Lily, Taylor and ME.

Oh, yes. I was very much looking forward to laying down myself. The combination of moving, Lily's birthday parties last weekend, and carting her around to her summer rec activities have worn us all out.

Lily does not nap on a regular basis any more, so when I said we'd all be napping, she protested greatly. And I told her that I was very excited to take a nap and that mommy was very tired.

She reassured me that she would have things under control while I was sleeping and said, "Don't worry mom. We'll get you down for a nap."

Why thank you, Lily. Mommy appreciates that more than you know.


Lily is a big fan of her dad. She talks about him a lot throughout the day. She asks about 492 million times when he'll be home. And says things like, "Daddy is my best daddy. I love my daddy. Daddy loves me. I'm gonna play with my daddy when he gets home. " You get the idea!

Yesterday she said again, "I love my daddy. And Mommy, I love you too."

Me: Well, thank you Lily! I love you too! Do you love Taylor? (She ALWAYS says yes.)

Lily: No, I don't love my Taylor.

Me: Yes you do!

Lily: No. I don't love Taylor.

Me: Yes you do!

Lily: Oh, yeah. I forgot that.

Friday, June 19, 2009

You scare me

I am on the American Family Association's email list. Last week I received an email from them containing a open letter written to Pr*sident Ob*ma from a man named L*u Pritchett. Pritchett is a former vice president of Pr*ctor and Gamble. He sent the letter to the NY Times but they never acknowledged it or published it.

The letter is so depressing, but I agree with much of it. If it doesn't bring you to your knees I don't know what will. Friends, we have some serious praying to do! The leader of our country is wrong about a lot of things, about the main things, and it boggles my mind that a man like him, with his lack of qualifications, was elected.

Here's the letter:

Dear President Obama: You are the thirteenth President under whom I have lived and unlike any of the others, you truly scare me.

You scare me because after months of exposure, I know nothing about you.

You scare me because I do not know how you paid for your expensive Ivy League education and your upscale lifestyle and housing with no visible signs of support.

You scare me because you did not spend the formative years of youth growing up in America and culturally you are not an American.

You scare me because you have never run a company or met a payroll.

You scare me because you have never had military experience, thus don't understand it at its core.

You scare me because you lack humility and 'class', always blaming others.

You scare me because for over half your life you have aligned yourself with radical extremists who hate America and you refuse to publicly denounce these radicals who wish to see America fail.

You scare me because you are a cheerleader for the 'blame America' crowd and deliver this message abroad.

You scare me because you want to change America to a European style country where the government sector dominates instead of the private sector.

You scare me because you want to replace our health care system with a government controlled one.

You scare me because you prefer 'wind mills' to responsibly capitalizing on our own vast oil, coal and shale reserves.

You scare me because you want to kill the American capitalist goose that lays the golden egg which provides the highest standard of living in the world.

You scare me because you have begun to use 'extortion' tactics against certain banks and corporations.

You scare me because your own political party shrinks from challenging you on your wild and irresponsible spending proposals.

You scare me because you will not openly listen to or even consider opposing points of view from intelligent people.

You scare me because you falsely believe that you are both omnipotent and omniscient.

You scare me because the media gives you a free pass on everything you do.

You scare me because you demonize and want to silence the Limbaughs, Hannitys, O'Relllys and Becks who offer opposing, conservative points of view.

You scare me because you prefer controlling over governing.

Finally, you scare me because if you serve a second term I will probably not feel safe in writing a similar letter in 8 years.

L*u Pritchett

Thursday, June 18, 2009

Bam Bam Ball

So Lily is also trying t-ball this summer. The district she's doing it through calls it Bam Bam Ball, their version of t-ball. It's two mornings a week for 8 weeks.

The first day was HILARIOUS. She was Clue.Less.

Absolutely clueless.

But I'd say that in a group of about 20 kids only 4 or 5 knew what they were doing.

At this point I wouldn't describe this as her favorite summer activity, but she likes it okay and as long as she's having fun we'll hang in there.

First day. Up to bat. HOW CUTE is she???
Playing catch with one of the coaches

She's in the middle - #4

Raising her hand. That's my girl!

Team photo. She in the middle, sitting, white bow in her hair