I scream, you scream, we all scream for ice cream

The ice cream truck comes around here on a random schedule. The girls ALWAYS want to run outside when they hear that song from the truck coming down the street. My beef with the ice cream truck is this, it comes about 20 minutes before dinner! Seriously, dude, could you pick a worse time? If they eat this ice cream they don't want to eat for another 3 hours. My girls are not big eaters. They basically don't want "healthy" food unless they're starving, which is rare. They don't believe in eating just because it's dinnertime. I guess that's the way we should all be.
Plus, I never have any cash. Never.

Anyway, I think they were complaining to Papoo on one of his recent visits that mom never buys them ice cream from the ice cream truck. So, Papoo left them each $5 for the ice cream truck. I was instructed to keep it ready for the next time they hear that sweet sound. Below are the pictures of their purchases from the beloved ice cream truck. I get it though, it's fun, and everyone knows I LOVE ice cream. I just wish it came around 2pm. Thank you Papoo for the fun ice cream!

It was bound to happen sooner or later

The girls love to jump, flip and roll on the furniture. Yes, I know this is dangerous but luckily, Grace and Lyla are pretty coordinated. I guess Lyla's luck ran out though. As I was walking out the door to go to a preschool teacher dinner, we heard a big thud and then a very bad cry. Lyla and Grace were doing the Nestea plunge on the couch. When Lyla did it she didn't fall straight backward. She went to the side a little and fell off and hit the coffee table. She cut her chin and scraped her neck. We couldn't really tell how bad the cut was. Eric could seemingly squeeze it together and then it would open back up when he let go. The pediatrician on call said it didn't sound bad but thought it was a good idea to have it checked or at least cleaned out, especially since it was on her face. We decided to go to Williamson Medical Center hospital instead of Vanderbilt Children's Hospital because we new Vandy would be a very long ordeal. It turned out that Williamson Medical was great. The cut was that bad but they did clean it and glue it shut.

Poor Lyla was just pitiful though. She's pretty tough. She doesn't cry too much when she hurts herself. This time she really cried and then when she stopped crying she wouldn't move. She was afraid to move and wouldn't look at the boo-boo. She held ice on it the whole time. Once we got to the hospital and changed her into her pajamas (Lyla's favorite clothing) I couldn't help but laugh at her. She was just so pitiful. Once they put numbing gel on it she perked up. She let them clean it and literally dig it out with a tooth pick and she never flinched. The doctor said most kids weren't that cooperative. He also said girls always do better than boys, whether they're 2 or 82. I thought that was funny.

So, she had her chin glued shut for a couple of weeks. Once the glue finally came off it didn't look that great to us. I kind of think it was more of a gash instead of a cut that could be brought back together to heal. Oh well, scars are cool, right?

This picture is after the numbing medicine and the glue. You can tell she's feeling better in this picture.

Author's Tea

Grace's teacher had an Author's Tea for the parents the last week of school. Each child picked out one of their own writings from the year to read to the audience. They stood up one at a time, introduced themselves and read their story with a microphone. It was very cute and a great opportunity to learn to speak in front of an audience. Then the children served the adults cookies and lemonade. Grace had a great teacher this year. Her reading and writing has improved a TON this year!

Moment's with Mom

Moment's with Mom at our preschool is a special little party for the moms and the kids. Each mom recieves a nice picture of their child in a matte with a bible verse written on it. (I just happen to be the one that writes on all 100 of the mattes!) Anyway, here is the picture of my Moment's with Mom in Lyla's class. Isn't she cute? I also received another cute picture of her in a nice frame, a memory book of her from the year and her assessment information from the year. They also provided a very nice brunch. It was fun. I can't believe she's done with preschool!!!!

She's growing up...sniff, sniff

Two weeks ago was Lyla's birthday. Mom and Dad were here and they were going to spend the night with us on Friday night. Grace was invited to spend the night at a friends' house at the last minute though. She chose to spend the night at the friends' house rather than with Mimi and Papoo. That was the the first sign of the weekend that she's growing up. Then, the next morning she didn't want to come home either and stayed until lunchtime. When she did finally come home she asked me if I had ever heard of "Justice". Justice is a clothing store for preteen girls. I've never shopped there because the prices are more than I spend on clothes for the girls. I told Grace that I did know of Justice and asked her why she asked me that.

She said, "Because my friends' closet is sooooo big! You should see how big her closet is. And she has the cutest clothes and they are all from a store called Justice. Can you buy my clothes from Justice from now on because I love her clothes. I mean, I LOVE HER CLOTHES."

I immediately thought that we are entering into a new phase. I'm envisioning that the conversations we will have in the future will sound something like this...
Grace: But everyone in the 4th grade has an Ipod touch Mom. Why can't I have one?
Grace: But, everyone in the 9th grade has a Coach purse Mom. Why can't I have one?
Grace: But, everyone in the 10th grade gets a new car when they turn 16 Mom. Why can't I?

It makes me sad because I hate to see her start to go through the feelings of not feeling like she's good enough if she doesn't have what everyone else has. It's going to be an uphill battle if we continue to live in this area. The majority of the population here is wealthy and has the best of everything. We will definitely face the battle of teaching the girls that material things are not what is important in this life.

I feel her pain though. I remember being in high school and really wanting Timberline boots because everyone else had them. They were almost $100 though and that was 15 years ago! I didn't get them, of course, and I survived. But, I still struggle with wanting what everyone else around here has...a bigger house, granite countertops, new car, trendy clothes, shoes to go with each outfit, etc. That's what it's like around here.

I do try my best to continually remind myself that even if we had the extra money to buy more things, that isn't the best use of our money. Our life group just finished reading a book called "Crazy Love" by Francis Chan. I would recommend that every christian reads this book. It really makes you think about how you live your life. It talks about how American christians don't give their all to God and have a "crazy love" for God that we should. He talks about how we are lukewarm and are only christians when it's conveniant for us. We give the money we have leftover and don't make sacrifices because we love Him so much that we have to do more. He talks a lot about downsizing the way we live, giving more money to others, giving more time to help others, etc. That goes right along with fighting the thoughts that come when you see others that have more things or "nicer" things than I do. I know I have more than I need. I am blessed to be able to stay home parttime and take care of my kids while they are little. I am blessed to have a nice house to have my friends come to visit in. I am blessed to be able to buy my children clothes at Target (not Justice) each season of the year. I am blessed to have a nice minivan (even though it's used) to drive around in. I am blessed to have great family and friends and a great church to raise my children in.

I want to set a good example for Grace and Lyla. I want them to learn that the things we have don't make us who we are. I want them to learn that what's important is how we live our lives to glorify God.

So, Tuesday night Eric had a meeting and I just didn't feel like sitting at home by myself with the girls. I decided to take the girls to the mall. I had a 15% off coupon for Children's Place, another store for kids clothes with very reasonable prices. I wanted to get Lyla some summer pj's and a couple of other things. When we got there Grace said, "Is Justice in the mall?". Well, yes it is. We went into Justice. She immediately started picking out the outfits she liked. She also started picking things up and saying, "My friend has this". The outfit she picked out would have cost $60!!! For 1 shirt and 1 skirt! That is just crazy to me. I really wanted to buy them for her though. I knew it would teach her the wrong lesson though. I convinced her to go next door to Children's Place to just look and see what they have before we make a decision.

We walked in and saw a table of cute tops and skirts that were on sale for $5 each! $5 for the top and $5 for the bottom. I told her she could get 6 of these outfits for the same price as the 1 outfit at Justice. Luckily, I don't think we are to the point with her where she is looking at the name brand alone. She honestly just likes the clothes for the clothes. So, after looking and comparing different outfits she agreed that it was smarter to get more things for the same amount of money. I also talked to her about the importance of using your money for things other than clothes, like helping other people. I think it was a good lesson for her. She decided she wants to buy a teddy bear and give it to a little kid that needs a new toy. So, she picked out an outfit which was considerably less than the one at Justice. We ended up getting a whole outfit for Grace with flip flops and sunglasses. Then we got Lyla a pair of capris, a pair of shorts, flip flops, sunglasses and new pj's. The total price for everything was $53!!!! When I was paying I pointed out to Grace the difference in what we got for less money than the one outfit at Justice. Crazy!

So, I hope we are doing a good job of teaching them the right thing about money and materialism. It's going to be hard. It's hard for me.

It's sad to me though that she's growing up and beginning to face things like peer pressure too. It also shows she growing up that she is starting to choose to be with friends over family. Plus, she is beginning to want to watch older kid shows now instead of cartoons. She wants to watch the Disney teenager shows. I think most of them are bad examples for them to watch and it's hard to tell her she can't watch them when her friend comes over and says she watches them all the time. I know it's a natural progression. What makes me sad is the fact that I can't shelter her from the pressures, fears and heartaches of this world if she's out there and not home with me. I guess that's what prayer is for!

The Flood

So, here's my story about the flood. Eric left with the girls that Friday afternoon to go to Rockport to visit his family. I was trying to finish up a project for preschool and needed the time alone to get it all done before Monday. It rained ALL day Friday. It wasn't just a light rain that stopped and started. It was a heavy, downpour kind of rain ALL. DAY. LONG. It never let up. It didn't really think anything of it except that Eric's garden was being drenched and I knew he wouldn't like that. Saturday night I was upstairs working away on my project while watching a movie at the same time. I was oblivious to what was going on. Eric called me around 8:30pm and asked me if our street was flooded. Flooded? What? Why would our street be flooded? He said I better go outside and check. As soon as I walked outside I was in shock. Everyone on my street was outside on their porch. Our street was flooded! It was basically filling up the street in front of our house at that time. It was getting close to peoples houses from my viewpoint though. People were trying to move their vehicles to higher ground up the street. Two guys that work with Eric in the streets department came walking up to me and said they told Eric they'd come check on me. They suggested I move my cars. I took the truck and Eric's work vehicle over to Joni's house. Eric had the van in Indiana. He really wanted to come home but there really wasn't anything he could have done. He decided to just come in the morning. So, everyone just stood outside staring at the water and over the course of an hour or so that I was outside it had visibly risen and was coming into the driveway now. By the time I got up the next morning it was halfway up the front yard. I basically just watched the news and kept going outside all day long. There were a ton of people coming to our street and the streets around us to take pictures. No one could believe this was happening. Eric got home around 1 or 2 that afternoon. He wanted to drive around town and take pictures for work reasons. So, we left and did that. When we got back around 4 or 5 the water was closer and actually reaching the house on one side. I convinced Eric to move stuff from downstairs to upstairs in case it came in the house. He never did think it would get in the house. I wasn't so sure. Mainly because I kept hearing that the river wouldn't crest until the next day and it was already to the house by that point. We do have a couple of feet of crawlspace under the house. So, we went to dinner and when we came back it had reached the front porch and the garage door. That really made me nervous. We decided we should stay at Joni's house in case we lost electricity. Plus, emergency management teams were boating people out of their houses on our street! There was a picture in the paper and a video on The Tennessean's website of a boat rescue and the boat floats right in front of our house! Fortunately we were able to walk in front of our house in rain boots if you stayed right up next to the house. We were the last house on the street to have water reach it.

The girls thought the whole thing was a big adventure. Grace would start to get nervous if she started to notice me getting stressed or nervous. I had to reassure her everything was fine and then she would be fine. They were just excited to spend the night at Reesi's house. They were just dying to play in the water too! We couldn't let me play in it though because it wasn't clean rain, it was river water with the possibility of sewer water too. It was torture to Lyla!!! Reesi was very concerned about the flowers in my front yard.

The next morning the water had already gone down and was completely out of our front yard! I was amazed that it went down that quickly. The gas and electricity had been shut off though. A house on the next street over but right across from us had blown up during the night and burned completely down. Evidently, a gas can in the garage tipped over when the water flooded their garage and the gas in the water reached the pilot light on their water heater and exploded. That's why the gas was turned off on the streets that were flooded.

We had to have our AC/furnace serviced and an air duct under the house replaced. We did find out today though that the gas lines and "smart valve" in the furnace have water in them and need to be replaced along with the "mother board". That alone will cost $700-$1000. That's a lot to us but it's nothing compared to what tons of other people lost.

Our next door neighbors had water all in their house. They're on a slab so they sit a lot lower to the ground than we do. They had to replace all of their floors, drywall, cabinets, and appliances. Others on our street were the same way. There were piles of insulation, air ducts, drywall, cabinets, furniture, carpet, etc. all up and down the streets. It was surreal to walk around and see everyone tearing apart their houses and just throwing it out to the street. Our homeowner's association was great though. They organized cookouts every night that week on our street and fed people from about 4 streets every night. They also got dumpsters brought to our street and dump trucks to come pick up trash every day.

Franklin was bad but Nashville and Bellevue had it even worse. House were completely covered in water. People lost their lives getting stuck in the water. People lost everything in their houses as well as their house. A trailer floated down the interstate for goodness sakes! It was unreal. The crazy thing is that most of these areas were not in a flood zone that required flood insurance. So, most people and businesses did not have insurance to cover these losses! FEMA is helping but I don't really know how much help they give.

Over the next week or two, help was everywhere. I saw church groups walk down our street and go from door to door offering to help clean up. I know our church organized work groups the whole next week to do the same thing. Joni got to go help during school hours a couple of days. We took the girls the next Saturday to deliver lunches to workers. We wanted to help but with little kids that's about all we could do.

We were very blessed to not have more damage than we did. I actually felt guilty that we didn't have more damage. It was crazy and a once in a lifetime event.

Here are a lot of pictures. I'll write above the picture to tell what it is. They're out of chronological order. I'm too tired to try to rearrange them all.

This is my house on Sunday afternoon when Eric got home from Indiana around 1 or 2 pm.

This is the intersection where you turn onto my street.This is standing in front of my house looking down the street. The first mailbox you see is my neighbor.This is around 5pm Sunday evening. It had reached the front steps and garage door. The girls were leaning over looking at the flowers under the water.

This is the blue explorer of friends from our church that live down the street from us. They are across the street and two doors down. The insurance company totaled this vehicle.

This white fence runs behind our house. Our house backs up to a street. This wasn't directly behind our house but not too far.
This is looking down the same road. Notice the top of the car in the distance.The girls running to the edge of the water.
Like I said, it was just a big adventure to them!This is two doors down from us. The first mailbox in the picture that you can see the 103 on is our mailbox.

Same shot.

This was the next day.

This was taken from in front of the house on the other side of me. The first mailbox on the right side of the picture is ours.These are the softball fields Eric plays softball on. The building in the distance is the concession stand. It was halfway under water. All of the fences were completely under water and the dugout benches were too. The city is having to replace all of the fences so the softball season has been cancelled.

Just a random intersection in Franklin.

Another intersection. Notice the car top sticking up in the distance.

This is the park. You can see any park equipment!

This is taken from my front porch looking at the house across the street. It flooded their garage and crawlspace but didn't damage the floors of the house.

The girls on the front porch steps.

I took this from the front porch looking down into the water.

This is our mailbox late in the evening on Sunday. That's about as deep as it got.

This is looking from the porch to the driveway. I was trying to show that it was all the way to the garage door.

The next morning!

This picture shows the water line on this house.

This picture shows how deep it got on this house too.

This is the poor house that caught on fire. The saddest part of this to me is that they left their house that night not expected to loose it all in a fire. They were only thinking of the water that might flood the downstairs. So they just moved everything upstairs. Plus, they weren't home to try to save anything when the fire started. So, all of their special pictures and things are gone.

This is the house next to the one that exploded.

More to come...

Ok, so I'm a little behind on posting. I haven't been very motivated to blog lately for a few reasons but I've also been busy doing the Moment's with Mom's project for preschool for one thing. That work is done at night, which is when I usually do my blogging. Plus, I messed up on the project and basically had to start over when I was almost half way done! Don't ask! Anyway, that took several nights of non-blogging. So, for anyone out there actually looking at this blog....no, I haven't quit...I'm still here. I have 11 more posts to catch up! The girls are good. Lyla just graduated preschool and turned 5! Big stuff. I'm determined to catchup so please standby...

The flowers have exploded

Last year I planted Evening Primrose in our backyard. The brilliant owners of this house prior to us put a flower bed across the ENTIRE backyard! It runs the entire length of the fence! I love flowers but not the work so much. So, I did some research and found flowers that multiply rapidly, are a "ground cover" and come back year after year. I planted a few plants in each section of the back flower bed. By the end of last summer they had really multiplied! This spring they have exploded! They're sooooo tall and they completely fill the beds. These pictures below were taken before they had all even bloomed! A week after these were taken they were even more thick! I do love them! And I love it when my plans work!

Daisy Scouts Sock Hop

Eric took Grace to the Father/Daughter Daisy Scouts Sock Hop. She wore Reesi's poodle skirt even though it was too short. We had a little photo session before they left. After the sock hop Eric and some other dads took the girls to Sweet Cece's for ice cream. They had fun. The picture of Eric on the bike and Grace carrying the milkshake is the picture that was taken at the sock hop. Pretty cute!