Real Life or The Legend of Ricky Bobby?

Breakfast conversations are usually pretty interesting around this house. This morning was no exception.

Me: Jilly, do you remember what we celebrate at Christmas?
Jilly: Baby Jesus' birthday.
Me: Exactly. Do you know what we celebrate at Easter?
Jilly: Nope.
Me: Well, Easter is a time for us to remember that when Jesus grew up and was big like daddy, he made a promise and he kept that promise.
Jilly: Oh. Well, Jesus lives in my heart.
Me: I know and that's very special, isn't it?
Jilly: Yes. But it's not big Jesus. Baby Jesus lives in my heart.
Me: Really? Well, that's fine. I'm sure that Jesus doesn't mind that he gets to stay little in your heart.
Jilly: Yes. He will grow up when I grow up. I like baby Jesus best right now.

Her desire to keep Jesus a baby reminds me of the scene from The Legend of Ricky Bobby where the fictional race car driver explains that he prefers to pray to the Christmas Jesus.

I have wondered for a while how to teach the Easter story to Jilly. The birth of a baby is an easy one, but I'm not certain that an almost three-year-old can understand death and resurrection. That is why I am focusing on the promise of new life that Christ gave us. Jilly's favorite book right now is Horton Hatches an Egg and Horton's mantra, "I meant what I said and said what I meant; an Elephant is faithful 100 percent," is one way to teach the message that God is always faithful as well.

Party Planning

Who would have thought that the start of Spring would be busier and filled with as much activity, if not more, than Christmas time? Not me. Jilly was actually born on Easter Sunday but since the holiday moves around from year to year, her birthday hasn't been all that close until now. Most of what has had me running around like a chicken with her head cut off would have been solved if I would have just told her what we would do for her birthday this year. But no. I had to get her input and now I'm paying for it. Like Beanie Daddy says, she's TWO. She shouldn't be making decisions that cause me more work than necessary. If I want to do it myself, well, that's my problem. But Jilly is the kind of child that when she makes up her mind that she wants to do something, you'd better be dang sure that you do what you can do to make it happen because she won't let you forget. I suppose we got a preview of that with the circumstances of her birth. She came 3 weeks early with no warning. I had been to the doctor a few days earlier and had made no progress toward going into labor any time soon. I was actually hoping we could hold out until May. But no. She decided she was ready and such is the life we live today....

But I digress....

JillyBean's birthday is the Thursday after Easter this year. I had the idea of hosting a party at home with her friends the Saturday before and double it as an Easter egg hunt. I had thought of getting each guest their own basket filled with treats in addition to scattering eggs about for them to collect. I was even hoping that I could convince Daddy to dress up like the Easter Bunny, but knew it was a long shot. Instead, Jilly has had it in her head for nearly a year that she wants to have a Thomas the Tank Engine party. I thought and hoped that she would change her mind as time went by, but she didn't. So, we are having a Thomas party. By the way, I don't understand her obsession with Thomas. She's never watched the show.

My planning for this event began shortly after the holidays. I began looking for Thomas and general train invitations that I thought were a little girlie. Some were too baby or were more along a circus train theme or were too heavily in the primary color scheme for my taste. Then I found these and knew they would work. I almost had the woman who made them change the color to pink and green, but thought that the red and blue were a bit more authentic and kept close to the Thomas theme.
Next came trying to figure out how to keep nearly a dozen (didn't mean for it to grow this big) preschoolers entertained without destroying our house. I won a cake pan on Ebay that makes six mini train cakes. My idea is to have the cakes ready for the kids to decorate with candy. I haven't decided if I want to frost them ahead of time. That may be a game day decision. In addition, I am trying to make up a game along the lines of pin the tail on the donkey. A friend whose son had a Thomas party last year said there was a similar Thomas game where you have to get the No. 1 in place. That game no longer exists so I am going to wing it. I haven't decided if I want to make a roundhouse and have the kids try to get their engine into the house or try to line up the train cars on a track. I have finally found some train templates that I like online and will print one out for each child. I feel as if I need one more thing to do, but am not sure. We're still kicking around ideas, but hopefully it will be pretty outside and we can shoo them out for a while then have hot dogs, turkey burgers then cake.

I am really excited for the guest favors that I made with the assistance of a good friend who has unlimited craft ideas. Each child will receive a wooden train whistle and a personalized engineer's cap. We worked on these earlier this week and I'm really happy with them:
I bought Thomas fabric and we cut out the little circles to attach the brim of each hat.Then we personalized the hats with each child's name. It was super easy and, I think, rather unique.

Next I have turned my attention to decor. I had grand ideas of turning the downstairs area into a train station, but that's not going to work since I'm busy planning two other parties that fall within a week of this one (more on that later). So we're going to keep it fairly simple. I am going to order two dozen red and blue balloons. One dozen will be tied to the front porch to greet guests and the others will be used inside. I suspect that we can tie one on to each chair that will seat a guest. I also revamped the birthday banner that I made Jilly last year. I ordered Thomas scrapbook paper and cut out letters and strung them together with red ribbon:

I still need to trace and cut out letters for her name, but am happy with this so far.

The big stuff is pretty much done. I promised Jilly that I would make a train cake for her, but I am unsure if it is something that will be served at the big party or reserved for the family party on her actual birthday. I have never done much to decorate a cake than simply slap frosting across it. The cake pan that I bought has instructions as to how to pipe it and I have the right tools, so we'll see how it goes.

Daddy is responsible for downloading train songs that will be played and he has it in his head that he is going to make a station sign that will hang on our porch to welcome guests. We'll see how that goes. I have all the confidence that he can do it, just not sure when he'll get around to doing it.

We asked our guests to consider bringing a toy that will be donated to the Charlottesville Ronald McDonald House instead of a birthday gift for JillyBean. She will get more than enough from family, and we want to continue teaching her the importance of helping others. She will make a birthday donation of her own to the organization as well. I know that birthdays are supposed to be special times when the attention is focused on birthday girl or boy, but I think the party is enough to show her how loved she is and how happy we are to have her in our lives.

Now, please pray for sunny weather so 12 kids and a couple dozen adults aren't stuck in the house.

Hello, Again

Why is that I get on a roll posting here on a regular basis then appear to fall off the face of the earth? Things have been crazy the past month and I have simply not taken the time to post here. Again, it is certainly not for a lack of things to record. I cannot decide if I am too tired or too lazy to update. And, again, this is not a real post, simply a pace for me to put a couple of thoughts in order and "see" some things that I am considering.

JillyBean's third birthday is coming up and I have been fairly busy making plans for that. I will post on that more soon. She has been promised that she will get a "big-girl" bed when she turns three and we have been batting a couple of bed sets back and forth. Naturally the set that she has her mind on is not the one that I prefer. It is cute, but I like something else. I do like the sheets that go with the set, but I am not too crazy about the quilt. Then I found a quilt from another store and think that I may be able to get the best of both worlds but am unsure if they go together well.

Here is what Jilly likes:
I don't like the "busyness" of the quit, but I do like the sheets:
So I am wondering if they will go with this:

Room to Play

I never thought that we would have a specific room for JillyBean to play with her toys. I mean, we played in our bedrooms growing up and didn't need a separate space, so she can do the same. Well, once we moved into the new house last summer, we designated the fourth bedroom as Jilly's room as well as the space for Daddy's TV and video games. Now I don't know what I would do without a playroom.

JillyBean does play in her bedroom a little. It is where her "library" is and her rocking horse and dolls. The playroom, though, is filled with her train sets, tea sets, cooking stuff, horses, plus her art stuff. She spends a lot of time in there.

This week I added some new decor to the room. This super cute fabric banner that spells out "create."

I have had my eye on these letters for a while at a local gift shop called novel. The store had a 40 percent off sale last week and I couldn't let it pass. I really love the way it looks and have it hanging over the art display that I made for Jilly several months ago using ribbon and clothes pens that I painted white.

I have a lot of ideas for decorating this room, but need to keep in mind that when it's used to its full potential, the result is this:

Love is...

Children's book author Susan Crites spoke at our MOPS meeting this week and introduced us to her wonderful little book, I Love You More Than Rainbows.

Her personal story is incredibly inspiring, including what led her to write this book. I naturally bought a copy for JillyBean and picked up another for a birthday gift. It's a sweet book that helps children grasp the concept of how much a parent can love them. As she said, saying I love you is one thing, but for a child to realize that means that you love them more than ice cream puts it on a whole other level.

It is important that we teach our children that loving someone is more than merely saying the words. If a love is true then you do all you can to make that person happy and help when they are in need without being asked. We have been teaching that lesson a bit these past few weeks. It also helps that Jilly's AWANA group is learning that God is Love. It's amazing how these themes come together. I have a hard time believing that it is coincidence.

New Friends

Our household has grown by three the past couple of months - two dogs and one little boy. No, we haven't adopted. They are all JillyBean's imaginary friends.

Air Bud was the first to enter our home, sometime in the Fall. I heard her yelling, "Air Bud! Come back!" I had no idea what she was saying or who she was saying it to, then it clicked. Snoopy arrived a month or so later. He causes trouble and is often sent to time out around nap time for keeping Jilly from sleeping. It is crazy how my "interaction" with these friends actually has an impact. Snoopy is booted from the bed and JillyBean goes to sleep.

The imaginary friend became a bit of an embarrassment one afternoon when Jilly and I were at a local Subway for lunch. We were sitting in a booth near a window that looked out at the parking lot. All of a sudden, Jilly jumped out of her seat and hollered, "SNOOPY!!!" She began moving toward the door, but stopping every so many feet, looking out the window, cupping her hands around her mouth and hollering, "SNOOPY!!!" I had no idea what was going on. I naturally followed her, stopped her and asked what was going on. She said, somewhat frantic, "That car has Snoopy!" while pointing out the window at no particular vehicle. I was unsure what to say, as the two other diners looked on, but tried to console her. I told her it was OK and that they were Snoopy's friends and they were taking him home. She didn't buy it at first, but after a couple of minutes she calmed down and went back to her lunch. The conversation continued on our way home with me assuring her that Snoopy would be home when we got there. She had her doubts.

And so it goes....Daily....

A new friend arrived at our house on Monday. I noticed Jilly walking through the hall with her hand cupped at her side, as if she were holding someone's hand, and she was whispering. I asked what she was doing and she said that she was showing the little boy around the house. Needless to say, I was happy to learn that this new friend is human and not another dog. I asked about this little boy and she told me his name is Carlos and he is from Haiti. "This is the little boy who got my box," she explained.

I cannot tell you how much this warmed my heart. We participated in Operation Christmas Child at Christmastime. We filled a shoe box with gifts for a little boy who lived somewhere between the Middle East and South America Southeast Asia and Africa. Each night during Christmas we prayed for the little boy who got our box. Once the earthquake hit Haiti last month I told Jilly that we still needed to pray for our little boy because of the disaster. For all we knew the box made its way to the hands of a Haitian child. We needed to pray that God is keeping him safe and that he is not scared. Apparently Carlos found safety in our home and we couldn't be happier to welcome him.

Slowing Down

"Be still and know that I am God..." Psalm 46:10

We experienced much slower paced days the past two weeks thanks to the snow. Jilly is not in school, but the school closings impacted our regular activities. We haven't been to Bible study the past two weeks, we didn't have MOPS and we did not have Kindermusik. We did not feel the need to head out and do things around town, either, opting instead to hang around the house. I know some parents are excited that school resumed today, ready to shoo kids back out the door so they can have a little peace and time to themselves. But I rather enjoyed being holed up these past few days. And the more we were "stuck" home the better our groove. The most frustrating part, for me, was not knowing what day of the week it was.

We did some art activities, a bit of baking and a lot of reading, but most of all we simply relaxed and took care of a little house business. I am blessed to have a child who can entertain herself for long periods of time. I cannot count the hours that JillyBean spent, mostly alone, in her toy room playing with her horses and trains, building bridges and castles, reading to her babies, and hosting tea parties. I know that I have mentioned this on several occasions, but her imagination excites me more than almost any of her other attributes and abilities. She's a thinker and is going to be a leader.

We were able to go to church yesterday and I was happy to see that she slipped right back into a "classroom" setting with ease. I was somewhat scared that we would revert to her shy self and not want us to leave her. AWANAS was another special outing last night, and again, she was happy to back with her teachers and friends.

I am thrilled that our regular activities will resume this week and that they should not be interrupted again. It is important for us to socialize and build on our relationship with others, but I am also happy to know that Jilly and I can make it just fine alone when necessary.