The Observer

Most of the time the girls take the bus to school in the mornings, and I pick them up in the afternoon. Often they will point out places as we drive by and tell me that their bus drives by it in the mornings. Sometimes, I think they must be wrong because we are in really random places when they tell me that :-) After school the other day Alyssa described a location to me and told me there were some beautiful flowers that would make the prettiest bouquet. She wondered if anyone would mind if she picked them.

The next time I drove past the place she mentioned, I took special notice of where she had described the flowers location to be. When I looked out there, I was surprised that she had noticed them from the road. They are very discreetly located right behind the tree, you can kind of see them in the tree's shadow.

Alyssa and I share a love of tulips and she was right, they were beautiful and bright. She had given me very precise directions, describing the tree, the shed I would see behind the tree, and their proximity to the nearby traffic light.

Photo 132 of 365, taken May 16th:

I felt like pulling off to take a picture was making me look suspicious (the flowers are near the entrance to a National Guard Refueling Wing, and I didn't want the intentions of my picture taking in a government protected field to be misunderstood) but at the time, I knew I had to get a picture for her since she loved them so much. It wasn't until later that I got to thinking about how much she had admired the flowers from such a distance but never got to see them as closely as I did.

Getting Mail Sure is Exciting!

Right after I threw in the towel for getting the photo I wanted in my previous post, the girls had the idea that they should check the mail. I called out to them that I had already gotten the mail that day but they insisted upon checking the empty box anyway.






Photo 131 of 365, taken May 13th:

What the girls didn't know when they were running to the mail box in great excitement was that they had already received a care package of all their favorite Hawaiian goodies from Great Grandmommy and Great Granddaddy. These are all their favorite treats packed with love. As often as we have them, the girls are asking to have them in their lunchboxes! Thank you so much to Grandmom and Granddad for giving the girls such a happy and delicious surprise!!

Just One Picture Please...Or Maybe 26

I usually try to take photos with the girls on Mother's Day and their birthdays. It seems like when we don't go out of our way to schedule getting a picture, Dave and I usually don't get into the photos with the girls. But anyway, on Mother's Day this year, I did not get any pics with the girls. It was just laziness to be perfectly honest. With having the musical in the evening of Mother's Day, I tried to get the girls to relax in the afternoon so they could be well rested, and I ended up dozing off myself :-)

After school on Monday I was determined to get a cute picture of all three girls so I could have my "Mother's Day" photo. It was one of those silly notions, because typically I take anywhere between 300 and 600 photos each month, so I certainly needed one more today. The other 400 in my May folder were not enough. It occurred to me that any photo I took on this particular day wouldn't be as nice as having them in their church clothes, but I just wanted something, anything. I momentarily debated asking them to change into their dresses from the previous morning, but that just seemed crazy. My willingness to settle should have tipped me off that this picture was not going to come easy.

I asked them to sit by the tulip bed and from the very start it was a mess of giggles, trying to make a swing out of their interlocked hands for Rebekah to pose on, not looking in the direction of the camera, closing their eyes and squinting because the sun was too bright and other acts of uncooperativeness. And I thought they were difficult to photograph when they were toddlers.

Alyssa and Rebekah sitting next to each other felt like the hugest obstacle to a successful picture {see the middle photo of the first collage, that's Rebekah pushing Alyssa's face away from her face. They are so full of love for each other, their hearts can't stand it sometimes}, so I thought a change of arrangement would solve the problem. I was wrong.

Photo 130 of 365, taken May 13th:

I never did get the picture I was hoping for that afternoon, but I can't begin to describe how thankful I am for these girls, the people they are becoming and that I get to be their mom.

I have been reading a book my mom gave to Alyssa and it's a book for teens, but I thought I would read it before Alyssa does. The prayer the author has for the book's audience resonated with me, maybe it will for you too. I often feel so caught up and cluttered with our day to day activities and responsibilities, and it's all good, worthwhile stuff we are busy doing. But how much better is this:

"I'm praying God will call you to do something great for His name and His glory. It may not make the headlines, but greatness is determined by God, not by man. Most of all, I am praying you have the courage to answer that call."
~ Living For God As Courageous Teens, by Michael Catt, with Amy Parker

It's my prayer that we always point the girls towards His target for their lives and simply enjoy the little people He has entrusted us with. Even when they won't take proper pictures for us :-)

Two Mother's Day Musicals

I began to look through photos from this year's Mother's Day musical when I realized that I had never shared any of the pictures from last year's musical. The 2012 Mother's Day musical was the very first Kid's Choir Musical that Rebekah was old enough to be in, and the very last one before Alyssa was too old to be part of Kid's Choir. So being a first and a last it was somewhat bittersweet and I knew I needed to have pictures of both here. The blue shirts are the 2013 musical, the yellow shirts are the 2012 musical...

This year's musical was called "The Star Factor" and was as cute and funny as ever.
Photo 128 of 365, taken May 12th:






I enjoy watching the musicals so much. I can so clearly see the girls' personalities in how they act on stage. Each song has a little choreography that goes with it and Emma is always very focused on their director the whole time, trying to be right on cue and doing every movement as precisely as she can. Rebekah on the other hand does her own thing sometimes, sticking with the motions and dance moves she loves the best.

The musical from 2012, Acorns to Oaks:



Alyssa had one of the leading drama roles in her last Kid's Choir musical. I am not sure if I have ever said this in other posts about the girls' involvement with choir at church, but I know it is because of her Kingdom Kid's Choir experiences and their awesome teacher, Gina, that Alyssa realized how much she loves music, singing and acting.

Music has become a part of her. There is not a moment of the day when she's not singing, humming, or tapping out the beat of a song with her pencil eraser. Music seems to help Alyssa think and it's always swirling through her mind and heart. She'd love to teach music someday, despite the current lack of job security for music teachers. I'm sure that if it's what she's meant to do, God will open the right doors, but for now, we could not be more thankful that Alyssa has been blessed by some really great teachers and found something she is very passionate about. She helps run sounds at all the practices now, since she is too old to be part of the choir itself.

Emma doing her thing ~ she had a solo.

With this being the first time Rebekah was part of the choir, I had to beg her to even stay at the first several practices. It was a tearful battle each week for the first few weeks, but I just knew if she went, she would love it! By Mother's Day she was ready for the show. I was fearful that she would do something very unpredictable, or possibly stand up there and cry, but she rocked it :-) {you should click the collage to see the photos better...we may have a future drama queen on our hands, see the bottom left photo}
It was such a fun musical and a perfect end to Alyssa's time in the Kid's Choir.


Happy Birthday to my Dad!! His birthday was May 8th and it always falls near Mother's Day so we get to celebrate both occasions on the same weekend.

Photo 129 of 365, taken May 13th:

One more choir related photo...the Monday after the church musicals a group of kids always goes to a nearby retirement community to give the residents an abbreviated presentation of the musical. Here they are being silly after their performance. It's often easier than I might imagine to make people happy.

Can We Do This The Fun Way?

I took the girls to the lakeshore to do the hike at Seven Bridges and before we started on the trail Emma looked at me and in a very serious tone asked, "Can we do this the fun way?" I kind of thought just the fact that we were there was at least a little fun, but I just told her that they could hike the path however they liked, as long as it was safe.

Photo 127 of 365, taken May 5th:

It was interfering with their "fun way" that I wanted them to stop and take a picture.

The fun way sometimes means re-enacting the story of The Three Billy Goats Gruff on each bridge we cross. 7 times on the way to the lake, 7 times on the way back...I think the story is cute, but 14 times in row makes it a little much.

Today the fun way meant scaling rocks down to the water {not on the path, by the way}.

Wading in freezing water. Ice bath, anyone?

And rock hopping through the creek that trails to the lake {still not on the path}.

Rebekah insisted on doing everything the older girls were doing, of course, and in spite of the fact that she was wearing super slippery slippers {flip flops}. I could barely stand to watch, I thought for sure she was going to fall on the rocks. But she kept answering my many requests for her to join me on the path with, "But I just want to be like Emma." Emma's friend, Hallie thought it was so cute and offered to trade Emma her little sister so she could have Rebekah.

It was an awesome day at the lake.

We definitely did it the fun way.

The season of trips to the lake and wet, sandy feet being tracked every where is here again. And I am so glad!

Rollerskating Fun!

I got so excited to post about Alyssa qualifying for Nationals that I accidentally skipped over a couple posts I had in mind to write up. So here, from the weekend before Mother's Day are some pics from when Emma invited some girls to go roller skating as a late birthday celebration...

My favorite girls!


Whoa, Em, don't fall!

Photo 125 of 365, taken May 4th:

Emma's friend Willow brought bff socks that have now become Emma's absolute favorite pair of socks. Emma has the strawberries, Willow has the apples and Dara has the peaches. Poor Emma looks like she needs some longer jeans...both she and Alyssa seem to be getting super tall, super fast. I can't seem to keep them in jeans that fit right.

The girls had so much fun! Emma got a turn in the cash cube to grab all the tickets, coupons and real cash that she could {it's harder than it looks according to Em} and just look at all the tickets the baby earned on her favorite game {I think Alyssa had something to do with Rebekah's big score}.

The sweetest card from Natalie and the coolest pink bouncy ball with a sharpie drawn pig from Ada. Emma sure does love cute pink piggies and her thoughtful friends know it!!

Photo 126 of 365, also taken May 4th:

After roller skating we went back to the house and roasted some marshmallows. From the looks of it, no one was having any fun at all. Nothing better than sugar filled, happy kids running around the yard on a beautiful Spring evening.

She Qualified!!

Today, Alyssa went to the Fine Arts Festival in Waupaca to sing with our church's youth choir in hopes of qualifying to the National Fine Arts Festival in August.

Photo 124 of 365, taken May 11th:

Both the choir, and Alyssa as an individual qualified! Alyssa is soooo excited and we are very happy for her!! This has been a big goal of hers for the last two years.

Her certificate.

Rebekah with my dad, soaking in the news that we will be packing our bags to go to Orlando this August. After having more time to think about it, Rebekah told Alyssa on our drive home that she would have been really mad if Alyssa hadn't qualified. I think someone is a little excited to go to the Happiest Place on Earth.

When it's too rainy for miniature golf...

...Go bowling with dad instead!

Photo 123 of 365, taken May 3rd:

Last night, Alyssa was supposed to go miniature golfing with the youth at church, but it was a rainy, cold afternoon and the trip was cancelled. So Dave took her out bowling instead. She wore the new pants {super cool!} he brought her home from New York. She was so excited and had a great night, even though her plans changed :-)

New York, New York

Dave is working in New York this week and he took a few pics for me to add to our year of photos:

Photo 120 of 365, taken May 1st. He went to a Yankee game.


Photo 121 of 365, taken May 2nd. He also had some training in New Jersey and took some photos of New York from across the river.


Photo 122 of 365, also taken May 2nd. Such a beautiful city. We'll sure be glad to have him home, too!

A Fruity Dessert {for most of us}

Photo 119 of 365, taken May 1st:

I thought I had planned a nice treat for the girls this evening, and for the most part, the girls were excited to make strawberry shortcakes tonight. Alyssa and Rebekah took their time being so careful to place strawberries and blueberries artistically on their whipped cream covered cakes. A third little girl, who shall remain nameless, essentially made a whipped cream boat out of her cake. And typically, she eats strawberries, which is why I left the blueberries, that she absolutely will not touch, separate.

I cannot figure her taste buds out {other than knowing full well that they like sweet}. If only she came with some kind of feeding instructions manual; "She will eat this with this, but not with that..."