Song, Sunshine, and Stories: August 2018

Hey folks! It's been a great summer so far, and I've been living life rather than writing about it lately.

😃 It's my first Texas summer, and it's glorious! Everyone shudders in horror at the thought of a Texas summer, but up here on the mesa at 3500 feet the nights are cool and the days are pleasantly warm. All through the month of July we had almost non stop thunderstorms, with lightning and rain every other day. The girls love the storms! They run outside at the first drops and do a rain dance, yelling "It's raining! It's raining!" The first storm was such a relief after seven months of drought. We sat on the front porch and watched it come down, and when it stopped raining the street was a coursing river of muddy brown water. We waded with the girls for two blocks and it was so much fun. We had to carry Bella kicking and screaming into the house when evening fell and it was too dark to play in the street!

In other news, we replaced our cat incidentally. Katniss had kittens in the beginning of April, and we decided to keep one kitten and fix the old cat so she couldn't continue littering the continent with millions of copies of herself. (She had 3 litters in one year!!!!) Well, Katniss must have caught the rumor because the day I went to the vet to make the appointment she disappeared completely. We haven't seen hair nor hide nor whisker of her since, and I can only speculate on what happened to her. Her progeny, who is her lookalike and is named Shadow, is if possible an even better cat--and at 12 weeks we had her fixed so she couldn't follow in the promiscuous ways of her mother. The girls love her to death, and she lets them do anything with her. Even the cat haters in our family admit that she's a decent sort of feline person.

T.J. and Glayde have been pushing hard to complete the house enough to pass inspection, and it's so beautiful! We have 3 1/2 finished rooms now, and the outside is being painted a lovely shade of green, replacing the hideous light blue that nowhere near matched the green roof. There are so many freaking details to remodeling a house! I'll be almost sad when it is finished because it's such a blessing having Glayde and Debbie over 2-3 times a week. With Glayde and TJ working together the witty banter and insults never stop, and they keep us laughing continually!

We've had a number of family visitors over the past 3 months. In the beginning of May Christina spent a week with us which was great! She brought stuffed bunnies for the girls, and we were able to spend a lot of good time together. Lizzy called her "'Stina," which was adorable of course!!! Our cousin Amethyst married her fiance Jordan while she was here, and the wedding was a blast. Some friends I met on Facebook happened to be in the area and stayed at our house for three days. They had a little girl Bella's age and a toddler Lizzy's age, and we had a lot in common which made for a very pleasant visit. My mom and sister Miriam visited us on Memorial Day weekend, and we had a really good time with them. Miriam worked with TJ on the house, and Mom spent quality time with the grandbabies. Then my second cousin Jason and his new wife Lisa visited the family here recently. We all met Lisa for the first time and loved her! Glayde and TJ teased the life out of Jason, asking him how he persuaded such a nice girl to marry him, and making him turn various shades of red and pink.

It was a good thing Christina was able to visit us when she did, because a few weeks later she was diagnosed with cancer, on top of a number of other health issues she'd been dealing with. She's been heavy on my heart, thinking of her and praying for her and thinking about life in general and how frail it is, and how it's good to know and trust a God who has us safe in the hollow of His hand. She had major surgery and now we are all holding our breath waiting to find out exactly what kind of cancer it is and what chances she has. I'm going to have to do a blog post just about her--I have like sixteen million memories with that girl, she was my best friend in all the world before TJ came along!

Fourth of July was a barrel of fun! We went to the Vanderford's and ate barbecue and played games. Then people scattered to find the best place to watch fireworks from. TJ got a blanket and ladder and took me up on the roof of our garage, which is flattish and had the absolute perfect view for the fireworks display at the park. The girls were asleep in bed and it was glorious, just him and me and the amazing show going on! The fireworks have not faded in the least from our marriage, just sayin'. 😍😜 It was a good thing we didn't actually go to the show at the park, because there ended up being a fire and traffic was snarled up for hours. The smoke was pretty bad too!

Isabella and Elizabeth are growing into such fine, smart young ladies. Bella began potty training a few weeks ago, and goes in the correct place almost every time. Bella is still very interested in the alphabet and reading, and Lizzy is starting to pick up letters and numbers and can more or less count to 10. Bella is developing strong opinions about the world and life in general, and is beginning to boss her sister around quite a bit. Lizzy has an independent personality though, and she goes along with the plan because she's easygoing but then she isn't afraid to stand up to her sister. She really isn't afraid of anything at all, actually! Yesterday they found a dead dragonfly floating in the kiddie pool. They were fascinated. Bella backed away and said "I don't want to touch it!" Lizzy dived her hand in the water and picked it right up. Then Bella decided she would hold it too.

Lizzy says "Day-doo" (thank you) politely for everything. It's pretty darn cute!!!

The girls spend hours playing in their enormous backyard. Bella helped me plant an apple tree, which is the extent of the gardening I'm doing this year. We are concentrating time and resources on the house, but hopefully next year I can hook up the gray water and make some raised beds, and grow food on our shower and washing machine water! I like the idea of recycling and saving money at the same time. I also want to get a few chickens for eggs. The girls will be 2 and 3 in the spring, and can be more involved and helpful with the chicken project.

As our toddlers grow and learn to express their thoughts in English, the hilarious little exchanges make my day and must needs be recorded so I don't forget.

This was from yesterday: I kissed Bella in the morning when we first got up, as usual. She exclaimed "Mommy, don't kiss my everywhere! I don't like it, it makes me sad!" She ran to the drawer of cleaning rags, took one out and washed all my kisses off. (That was a one time thing, she is normally a very affectionate little person!!!)

Tuesday Glayde had the day off work, and was here painting the house. I closed the door of a room under construction because Bella was getting into things that she shouldn't. She became very angry with me and started yelling at me. I was calmly responding and telling her to calm down and stop being angry. Glayde comes in, "Bella I can hear you all the way outside! Don't talk to your mother like that, or you're going down for a nap!"

About ten minutes later, Lizzy did something Bella didn't like. Bella used the same firm tone of voice: "Lizzy, stop, you can't do that! Or you're going down for a nap!!!"