MI

Molly at the beach at Norton Shores

With the Kellys

Putting on Ma Mere's Lipstick!

Laying on the fairway at Warwick Hills!

New Home Part 2

Arch Entrances to the Kitchen and Hallway to Molly's Room & Guest Room

Kitchen opens to Living and Dining Room

Living Room (Gas Fireplace)

Dining Room (Entrance to the Backyard and Master Bedroom)

Backyard (Molly as you can see is ready to run, run!)

New Home

Brink Arch Entrance

Front Hallway with nice tile

Extra Room (Den, Office, or Dining Room)
Immediately to the right when entering the house

Kitchen with tile and a skylight
(Center of the home)

This will be our new home in 2 weeks!
The initial documents and inspections are complete.
The home is a single level brick with 3 bedrooms, 2 baths
in Northwest Ft. Worth. (Eagle Mountain-Saginaw) This is
a great area to live! We are closer to family!

Picture this

Happy 89th birthday Grandma!

Waiting for the train at the zoo

Roar!

With Ella

Blue eyed beauties! My friend Erica was in town

Fight! Fight! Fight!

The other day Molly started playing with a pom pom. Wanting to indoctrinate her as a little Spartan, I grabbed her Sparty doll and starting singing the MSU fight song. At one point, as Spartans well know, the singer does a little chant while pumping a fist, "Fight! Fight! Rah, Team Fight!" I continued singing, and then started the song again. While I was singing, Molly was pumping her fists and yelling, "Fight! Fight! Fight!" I just hope she never does this out of context!

Repeater

Molly's verbal skills are really advancing. She says new words all the time. She has also been putting two words together like, "Diaper Off!" and "Two Balls." She is also repeating a lot that we say. This evening I asked Ryan to take one of her toys to another room. Afraid I was being a nag, I began the following conversation:

Me: "Was that too bossy?"
Ryan: "I'm used to it."
Me: "Was that too bossy?"
Ryan: "No. It was alright."

Molly immediately picked up on the word "bossy". She started exclaiming, "Bossy! Bossy! Bossy!"

She's our little repeater!

Our Life in Tweets

• Friday was Ryan's last day of teaching for the year. Today he's cleaning, moving to a new classroom, and doing paperwork.
  
• Molly had her first nap without a binky last week at my parents'. We were going to attempt to put her to bed without binky that night.
  
• While putting Molly to bed without binky, she flung herself over the crib rail. I caught her. We then hurriedly converted the crib to a toddler bed. We let her have binky to not make too many changes to her world.
  
• Molly had her first bout of food poisoning/stomach virus this weekend. She was a real trooper.
  
• We have finalized travel plans to MI June 28 - July 6 to visit friends/family and attend my cousin Katie's wedding.
  
• We have been house shopping and have been outbid by a couple hundred dollars on one house and a couple thousand on another.
  
• We are looking for a 3 bedroom one-story and prefer flooring other than carpet/vinyl. A covered patio is also on our wish list.
  
• Our tv stopped working last week, and we are not going to replace it until after we move. Ryan had a tough time facing reality this weekend when missing a golf tournament and the Belmont Stakes.
  
• Ryan shaved his head completed bald with a razor. I think he looks hot.
  
• My mom's birthday was Saturday, but we didn't celebrate with her yet due to Molly's illness.
  
• We bought a zoo membership and are enjoying visiting the zoo while they open an hour early on Mondays in June just for members. We'll be leaving shortly for our visit.
  
• Molly is saying all kinds of words. She can identify some colors, thanks to the M&Ms we give her when she uses the potty. She can also identify a couple letters.
  
• The only number Molly knows is "two". But, she conceptually understands it. She'll hold up a couple binkies or stuffed puppies and say, "Two!"
  
• I just finished the first novel I've read in awhile, Midwives by Chris Bohjalian. I really enjoyed it.
  
• We have reserved a bunch of books at the library because Ryan reads a lot during the summer.
  
• This is Ryan's only week off (after today and besides our week in MI) because he starts meeting with his cross country runners for summer training next week.

Beach Time

Molly and I went to CA to meet Ryan's mom who was there to babysit for a friend's daughter. We got a great deal on the airfare, and it was a great opportunity for Molly to see her Ma Mere and hang out with a new little friend. Molly loved playing in the ocean and was excited when the waves splashed up on her legs.

Out and About

I was feeling ambitious this morning and put my running clothes on and put Molly in the jogging stroller. We went outside to discover that it had become drizzly. We couldn't go because Molly would have gotten cold and wet. So, we're doing inside activities this morning, like blogging!

We went to the Botanical Gardens with Xander and his mom. It was my first time there. Beautiful!

Xander really wanted to hold Molly's hand. Cute! Molly is wearing a harness that has a stuffed Elmo on the front. She doesn't mind it which is a relief because I'm traveling with her by plane tomorrow without any other adult assistance！

Running!

Aloha! This is Molly's Hawaiian outfit from Teena and Grant



Molly loves little Ella. We have the invite for Ella's first birthday party on our refrigerator. Molly will yell, "Ella! Ella!" until I get it down for her look at.

Hanging out with Papa

Swine Flu in TX

Our county has numerous cases of the swine flu. As of this afternoon, there are 14 confirmed and 46 probable cases. The weird thing is that my parents live in a neighboring county that has no cases. They don't tell us where the cases are located in the county. They could be concentrated in a few neighborhoods or spread throughout.

People don't seem to be too concerned. The mall parking lot was packed today, and I stopped into a restaurant to get a take-out meal. It was packed as well. The Movie Tavern was packed last night as well. Hopefully sick people aren't infecting the masses! Several times this week I've been in a checkout line behind someone buying several bottles of hand sanitizer or disinfecting wipes.

I've been out in public for short trips to the store. I'm hesitant to take Molly to a park to play on equipment with other kids. We are trying not to let her be around other children.

Ryan's school district is out until at least 5/11. When school was closed there was one confirmed case and three probable (all in different schools). Now there are nine probable in addition to the one confirmed. He's enjoying his long, surprise break.

New Blog

Click here to check out my new blog!
I'm going to put notes and recipes about my adventures in the kitchen. Most of the recipes will be gluten-free because that is how we eat a lot of the time!

Final Four and Easter

Some of my recent posts are somewhat out of chronological order. So are some of the books in the Bible! Ryan went to Detroit to go to the first Final Four game with his dad. He saw a great game of Michigan State beating UConn. Of course, it was typical April weather in Michigan, and there were several inches of snow. Ryan said he'd never live there again!


For Easter, Molly helped me color eggs. She was dressed just in a diaper and bib. I wore a navy running shirt and a pair of Ryan's navy boxers. I was nervous about staining our clothes! She loved to plunk the eggs into the dye.



She also had a fun Easter egg hunt at my parents'. Everytime she found an egg, she'd open it right away. She'd want to play with the contents, or eat the candy within. We needed to persuade her to keep hunting.

We are so thankful for Jesus' resurrection. We always hope that our celebration of Easter brings Him glory!

Molly at Park

Molly loved being swung on this tire swing. She seemed like such a big girl climbing onto this. She is getting really good at climbing stairs like those on the play equipment. Unfortunately she likes to try to climb at home, too. We need to push our dining room chairs in or she'll climb on top of the table. Once, I stepped around the corner for a couple seconds, and when I looked she was standing in the middle of the table. Naughty! Ryan doesn't want me to spank her, and so we give her timeouts. She complies with these and often says "Sorry!" with a smile when the timeout has ended. However, I don't think she knows that the timeout is a punishment, even though we use a stern tone of voice. She thinks "Timeout" is a game.

Working in America

I had a nice visit with my Iraqi friends on Friday. The husband recently found a job. He's doing maintainance at a retirement living community. It is a great job for someone who is just learning English. He gets along great with his boss because he works harder than the others. That's no surprise. He had fled to Syria for two years before finally being able to come to America after his life was threatened in Iraq. He was unaware that he was getting paid, and he showed me his direct deposit slip. We were a little confused about where it was deposited because they do not yet have a bank account. We realized that he had been paid on a debit card that he had not yet received. His supervisor had asked if he had a card yet. I'm so excited that he has found full-time job. The pay is not much, but it is a great start.

I knew that Muslims normally visit the mosque on Fridays. He told me that he was not able to go because of this job. However, in Iraq, people typically are off of work on Friday and Saturday. Previously, before the invasion by the US military, Iraqis only had one day off of work, just Friday.

Molly and I visited with the family for a couple hours. The wife served us dates and shanina which is a salty yogurt drink. I drank this when I lived in Turkey. I guess this combination is very popular in Iraq.

Ready for Easter Ham?

I'm not sure if Dad will be up to eating ham for Easter. He has progressed to saltine crackers. Mom went home last night and wasn't around to remind him to press his button for morphine. So, this morning he felt more pain. Otherwise, he has been doing well and taking several walks.

Molly and I didn't make it to the hospital today. She's had a fever since last evening. So, we're going to stay away and not pass around germs. Hopefully it is just a teething fever.