Tuesday

Love This Poem

Once there were two women who never knew each other
One you do not remember, the other you call Mother
Two different lives shaped to make you one
One became your guiding star, the other became your sun
The first one gave you life, and the second taught you to live it
The first gave you a need for love, the second was there to give it
One gave you a nationality, the other gave you a name
One gave you a talent, the other gave you aim
One gave you emotions, the other calmed your fears
One saw your first sweet smile, the other dried you tears
One made an adoption plan, that was all that she could do
The other prayed for a child, and God led her straight to you.
Now, which of these two women, Are you the product of?
Both, my darling, Both, Just two different types of love.
—- Unknown

Saturday

Our Day

I sat down at the computer to plan my Young Women's lesson for tomorrow (what? doesn't everybody save that for 9:00 Saturday night?), but then I thought that first I should write down some fun experiences we had today, in case I forget to later. I was telling a friend about some of our day this evening and I realized that, once it was in the past, it was pretty humorous! Just not in the moment, of course! ha ha! Not that this is anything super hilarious. I don't want to get your hopes up!

Anyway, we had been planning to stain our fence for our backyard for a few weeks now. Collin has already been chipping away at it throughout the past week, man we have a lot of fence in our backyard! I will post pictures when it's finally done. That may be a while! But anyways, the plan was for both of us to just work on it pretty much all day. Thankfully one of Collin's former wrestlers also came to help for about 3 hours this morning! Even with 3 of us working it was slow going! Plus I haven't been feeling 100% the past few days and woke up the same today, boo. So I was trying to "sort of" work while also keeping my eye on who this is really all about--Ashlyn.

So I had this great idea to keep her "busy" while we painted--I got out one of my craft paintbrushes and put some water in an extra paint cup we had, and showed her how to "paint" just like we were. (I got a cute picture of this I'll post later!) It was a great project for her... for about 5 minutes until she started "painting" over some spots that were actually still wet with real paint, and therefore when she dipped her paintbrush into her water it spread the stain into the water. So what did that look like to her? Juice of course! So the next thing I know I looked over and saw her about to take a big gulp of stain-water! Ahh! So there went the "painting" activity.

Then she was just left to her own amusement devices. Of course she ended up playing "near" the dirt in the garden and I swear I looked away for like tops 2 minutes and when I looked back at her, from across the yard, I could see something wasn't right with her hair! (the hairdo I posted on facebook that took me 3 hours spread across 3 days to complete...just 2 days ago!) As I got closer, sure enough, there was dirt literally piled on top of her head. Like, not just sprinkled. Piled! I held back my scream of horror and just called for Collin to come see---to have a witness that I stayed calm, I guess! ha ha ha! Ashlyn was just happy as can be, spreading it all over her clothes and herself. I had to tell her that we don't put dirt on ourselves. (I bet she'll remember that--not!) I tried to brush the loosest out of her pretty little flat rope twists that I spent painstaking hours on....but the rest got the vacuum! That's right, we took her inside and vacuumed her head. She was not happy, but also not hysterical just so you know.  But I'm here to tell you, it worked like a charm! I had read about it in several occasions of people with kids with chocolate hair getting the dreaded sand-in-the-hair so I figured the dirt was worth a try too--and thankfully it worked! Just to tell you. We had to vacuum our child's head today.

And apparently, when Collin was continuing the staining project with her out in the backyard this evening while I was out with some friends, she somehow found some other dirt (since she was of course forbidden from the garden area for the rest of the day) and ended up with more dirt smeared in her hair..... so guess what Collin did, all on his own? Yep, more vacuuming! Oh man. I was really dying when he told me that. What a day our kid has had.

Sunday

Other Fun Things

Since I know I only pretty  much post about Ashlyn on here... these are non-Ashlyn related (well, sort of) things that we have pictures of from lately. Don't worry, another Ashlyn post is coming soon. Like always.

We went on a fun double date with our friends the Golds--these guys are great. Thai food and cosmic bowling, made me feel like a kid again! ha ha!

I have been busy getting awards ready for my spring recital. I did my own version of Keyboard Gymnastics--an Olympics-style program that I had some students participate in this year. The rest did another state-endorsed program, Certificate of Merit, and while that didn't have all the fun awards KG did, it was way more work actually getting them ready to participate in it!


One little shot of all my students.....it's ok since my blog is private, right? Anyway, for probably the first time ever,  ALL my students made it to the recital. And they all did REALLY well. Like, the best-prepared most of them have ever been for one. Score!



We had fun at the Gold's Cinco de Mustache party... lame that this is the only pic I have, but let me tell you I did more than my share of eating delicious Mexican food. I even made homemade taquitos for it! yea!



And lastly, everyone's favorite dog... as Tara said, this really brings out the color of Lucy's eyes. ha ha ha! She actually enjoyed having this on and kept sniffing it when we took it off. What good times.

Hayley's Baby Shower

We took a trip over to IF in April for a baby shower for Cory's wife, Hayley... the 3rd grand-baby (another GIRL!) will be joining the Whittier family soon!

Somehow this is the only picture I have that actually has Hayley in it?!?!
The theme was "ready to pop" and all the Whittier girls chipped in. Tara and I did the food and decor which is why that is all I have pictures of I guess!




The guys had to pose with the most "manly" things they could find in the garage..... They all went out to do GUY STUFF together during the party!

Friday

Special Invitation!


This is a special invite for my peeps (yes, all 5 of you) who actually read this blog.... If you would like one last chance to come heckle me in my clogging your chance is coming up! The Spring Show is going to be on Thursday, May 23rd. There is a potluck dinner at 5:30 if you want to bring something to share and hang out (picnic style), and the show starts at 6:30. 2840 Wildwood Street. It is outside on the lawn so bring something to sit on!

This is your last chance.... sadly I am going to be calling it quits for a while again with clogging. It didn't quite turn out to be the "fun night away" I thought it would be throughout the school year--it was just stressful to have an additional commitment and one more thing to take me away from my family when I already work 2 nights a week, and now working with young women in church that is an additional night I'm gone. I hate to leave because I really love to dance and it's so fun, and I LOVE the girls I dance with. But there's a time and a season, right? This isn't mine right now. Just thought I'd tell you!