These shoes weren't made for walking!

The little man is officially walking!!!  And in need of new shoes....

  I realize its a little (maybe a lot) strange to post a picture of my son's worn out shoes -- but I just couldn't resist.  Micah got these shoes for Christmas --as in less than 6 months ago, and he has completely worn through the toes.  It's hard to see but the orange stitching around the toes is completely gone.   Who knew crawling was so hard on shoes --who knew BABIES were so hard on shoes? 

I've carefully saved all of Makenzie baby clothes and shoes so that if someday there's another Nelsen baby girl, we have it all.  At the rate Micah is going, there really isn't any need to save his baby clothes--he has worn the knees out of at least 3 pairs of jeans, a 4th pair is getting pretty thin and even his shorts (which look more like capris on his short little legs) are thin in the knees.  And I have a feeling he isn't going to get any easier on things for a whole lot of years! 

I took the kids to the children's museum in Kearney today (SO MUCH FUN!!), and an older gal who was there with her granddaughters told me, "I have 5 children, 8 grandchildren, and 3 great grandchildren, and I've never seen a kid move as fast as your little boy."   Thank you ma'm...I'm not sure whether your statement was reassuring or terrifying!  :)  I know one thing, this mama better start spending a whole lot more time at the Y if I plan on keeping up with him! 

I'm also learning that quiet equals trouble with Micah.  A couple weeks ago I came upstairs from folding laundry to find Micah covered in crisco with the kitchen cupboard completely unloaded, and a trail of crisco spots across the wood floors where he crawled out to the living room.  Today was a reminder of why I don't leave Micah unsupervised....Makenzie and Micah were playing downstairs together and they came upstairs and disappeared (I thought) into their bedroom.  Makenzie loves to play in her room by herself so I didn't think much of it and proceeded to clean up breakfast and tidy up the house, until I heard the suspicious sound of Makenzie's plastic bead necklaces hitting the floor.  I went to investigate and discovered Micah in the bathroom unloading the entire drawer of necklaces....the only problem - when the drawer is open, you can't open the bathroom door more than about 1/2 an inch.   After only a mild freak out, I called my dad and told him he needed to come over as soon as he got to town (he was 15 minutes away) and proceeded to try to coax Micah into shutting the drawer.  Thankfully, Micah was totally content--in fact, I think maybe even enjoying the fact that Mom couldn't stop him, and eventually he closed the drawer and I was able to get into the bathroom.  And, thankfully I hadn't had to try out my plan of getting a ladder to climb up to the bathroom window and break it so I could get in and get Micah out!  :)   Life sure got a whole lot more exciting when we added Micah to our family!!

Outake

2 posts in one day....I might be getting a bit obsessed with this little blog.  But, I just can't resist sharing a picture of my wild, crazy, uncooperative sweet, adorable kiddos! :)  We were celebrating my baby brother's graduation this weekend and I had picked about adorable coordinating outfits for M & M...and of course, wanted to get a picture of them.  Not a popular idea with either kiddo --I did manage to get one fairly good picture and I could post that one and make you think that I have perfect children who always smile for pictures, listen to their mother and never fight with each other, but this one is much more fun!  (and truthfully, it's a much better depiction of real, everyday life!)

Perspective....

I've decided that age (like a lot of things in life) is all about perspective!!  I just celebrated my 29th birthday last week, and truthfully, I was feeling pretty good about it!  I had made myself a [mental] list of reasons why I was still young:

* My hubby turned 30 last year and he's not THAT old.
* I was about the youngest in my high school class, and one of my high school classmates already   turned 30.
* I'm the youngest attorney in Holdrege...my partners are 51 and 65....that makes 29 seem REALLY   young!
* Most of my friends in Holdrege are in their mid-30s and they still seem really young
......and the list goes on and on, but I'll spare you my remaining 50 reasons. 

May 12th came and went, my first day as a 29 year old was fun (minus the wrinkle releaser one of my partners gave me as a gift)....and then on Friday my little brother (the same little brother who graduated from high school this weekend) says to me, "Hey Pat, did you know I was in first grade when you graduated high school?"  And just like that, 29 felt ancient. 

One Better

Sorry friends (all 3 that might read this blog!!), I don't have much to write today --I'll do a longer post another day to update you all on my 29th birthday (I survived, and amazingly don't even feel much older!!) and some exciting house news! 

For today - here's a great post from a blog that I LOVE reading--http://www.incourage.me/2011/04/one-better.html  What a great challenge.....here's to doing ONE BETTER in all you do today!  :)

Total Opposites....

I love Tuesdays....it's my day off (along with Fridays) and I love having the day home with my kiddos.  Tuesdays are always kind of busy though - it is also laundry day, often grocery shopping day, story time at the library and for most of the spring Makenzie had Kindermusik on Tuesday afternoons.  Even though Tuesdays are busy, I love them!  Today was no exception - with the 90+ degree weather we've had this week, we broke out the sprinkler today and spent most of the afternoon outside!  Makenzie LOVES the sprinkler, the ice cold hose water doesn't even phase her and she stayed in her swimmingsuit until I made her come inside and get dressed for her Kindermusik program at 5:30 tonight. 

 She hardly had time for snacks today and when she needed a drink....here was her solution (no cup required!)

Micah LOVES the outdoors.....the sprinkler, not so much....and he's not real fond of grass on his bare feet either.

 He was pretty entertained by his sister though....here iss the closest he got to smiling while he was sitting in the grass! 

 And, he was VERY content to lounge in the chair with a snack.  He may have inherited that from his mother!  :) 

Have I Mentioned that I Love Her?

This morning Makenzie and I were snuggled on the couch reading our daily devotion book (I'd love to have you all think we do this every morning....but that's not really the case....we try but there are lots of days we miss.  Makenzie LOVES our devotion book though and memorizing the bible verses in it, so that makes reading it together all the more fun!)  We're about six weeks into this book - its called Step Into the Bible by Ruth Graham.  There's a short reading for each day, some questions to make it easy for mom's and a bible verse to memorize (the bible verse changes each week....so you have a week to get it memorized!)  I have been seriously AMAZED at how Makenzie has memorized the bible verses, and kept them in her little memory!  She can recite all the verses we've gone through and we're working on our next one!

Anyway - this morning we were reading about the fact that God sent Jesus to earth to show us how much God loves us and that Jesus had to die so that we could be forgiven for our sins.  This isn't a new concept for Makenzie, we have talked about it several times and Sunday she stayed in church with Tom (I was home with a crabby boy who I figured out sprouted a new molar...hence the crabbiness!).  It was communion Sunday and Makenzie was very curious, she had lots of questions for her daddy about what communion is and whether or not she got to take communion which provided a great opportunity for Tom to talk with her about asking Jesus into her heart.  Fast forward to today....we finish our devotion and were talking about forgiveness and Makenzie announced that she wanted to ask Jesus into her heart.  I told her I thought that was a great idea and before i could say anymore she said "I need to pray" and proceeded to bow her head and fold her hands and say, "Dear Jesus please come live in my heart.  I'm sorry for the naughty things I do, those are called sins.  Amen."   I just sat there, somewhat dumbfounded, totally amazed, crying at the miracle I had just watched firsthand, and totally in awe of how God can work in the heart of a precious three year old little girl. 

My little prayer warrior!

Makenzie has such a soft heart--I just love her!!  The other night we went to a Tiny Hands International party at a friend's house and there was another gal there in a wheelchair (a gal not much older than me with 3 little girls, if you don't know her check out her story here: http://www.charitygeorge.com/).  Anyway, that night Makenzie asked lots of questions about why Charity was in a wheel chair and whether she would ever walk again.  I tried to explain that Charity had been very sick and that even though she was better, her legs still wouldn't work, so she couldn't walk.  Tonight at dinner Makenzie was again asking questions and wanted me to tell Tom about her (I think she thought she knew something Tom didn't), then at bedtime she wanted to pray for Charity and told me to "pray that God would help her legs work so she could walk again.  She needs to walk and God could make her better."  Isn't that the faith we all need?!?! 
I hate to admit it but I think I stopped praying for healing for Charity a long time ago....when the "crisis" was over and it felt like she moved into the "coping" stage...and instead of praying for something big, like God make Charity walk again, my prayers changed to things like "God help them adjust, help her hubby learn to manage their family without the help Charity used to be able to provide."  But tonight, Makenzie challenged me to PRAY BIG...and so we prayed that Charity would walk!!  PRAY BIG this week...God can handle it!  :)