Catching up since November...

Wow, I feel rotten for not posting more often. I think I am going to try what a friend does and post once a week. There are so many days lately that something happens and I say “I need to post that on the blog” and about an hour later, I forget what the quote was.
What has been happening? Wow, lots! I have been practicing lots on my photography skills. That is easy to do when you have such easy subjects to work with. Cailin will smile away and jump in front of the camera. Malia has been a stinker lately and turning her head every time I am about to shoot. I have learned to be quick, or to fool her into looking.
Cailin just had her fourth birthday. I don’t know how she grows so fast, or how she gets so smart, but wow, she sure surprises me. She has a heart of gold and would do anything to make people happy. She’s got a servant’s heart as well. She wants to help all the time. She helps set the table for dinner most nights, she helps with so many things with Malia. My favorite is still when we are getting ready for bed, Cailin will pull Malia’s covers up, give her a kiss and turn the light out as I say good night to her. I’m so blessed that my girls get along as well as they do. I expected Cailin to have some sort of jealousy, or resentment, but she really hasn’t. Nothing but love from this little girl. Not too long before Christmas, we went through a phase where there were times I just wanted to scream with her. She would do things just to be mean it seamed like… Thankfully that lasted less than a month.
Christmas was so much fun this year! Around thanksgiving, she was so scared of Santa when we saw him in the mall. I just thought ‘here we go again’. I had the double stroller with me and she wouldn’t get up to say hi. She didn’t want to touch him, but she let HIM say hi to her. Malia on the other hand was trying to climb out to run to him. This girl has no fear. Just last week, we went to a tea room for lunch and on the way out, she wrapped her arms around some guy we have never seen before and gives him a hug. I am going to have to watch her so closely!!!!! Anyway, back to Christmas, The next time we were out to the mall, Cailin got out of the stroller and walked to Santa. She said hi, and that was it. She wouldn’t touch him at all. No shaking hands, no hugs, nothing. The next time, she shook his hand, the nest time she gave him a hug and a high five. Then about a week and a half, I had a huge shock from my Bright Eyes. We were driving around, and she told me “next time I see Santa, I’m going to sit on his lap. I’m going to jump right up and he isn’t going to know I am coming”. I was shocked. I wanted to believe it and be excited, however, I know my girl. She isn’t going to do something like this! The next time we were at the mall, sure enough, she asked me to please take her to see Santa again. Later that day, we passed Santa. We went to say hi and there was a family in front of us. As soon as they finished, Cailin hopped up, and RAN to Santa and jumped on his lap. He was laughing and said to him “you didn’t know I was going to do that”. This is her way of saying “I surprised you”. I was surprised that’s for sure.
Well, Cailin wanted a ladybug party for her fourth birthday, until she saw this castle kit. I agreed we could make a castle cake and she said she could have a Princess Party. Sounds good to me. She loves the Disney princesses, even though I am really getting tired of them… I feel like everywhere I look, I see Disney princess. It makes her happy though, and I love nothing more than to see that sweet girl’s face. There is a song on the radio right now that makes me think of her every time I hear it. I mean, she is always with me, but it makes me look at her and smile even more. The song is called Heaven Is, by Steven Curtis Chapman. The first line of the song says “Heaven is the face of a little girl, whose big brown eyes disappear when she smiles”… Oh the pictures that I have of this happening!!! The song is so true, just seeing her smiling and laughing so hard that her eyes close, it is as close to heaven as I can get right now.
Malia is growing so fast. And changing so much! She is a firm believer of “monkey see monkey do”. What ever Cailin does, Malia wants to do as well. Cailin likes to play dress up; Malia wants to play dress up. Cailin wants to jump on the bed; Malia wants to jump on the bed. Cailin wants us to watch and see how fast she runs Malia backs up to the cabinets in the kitchen squats down and yells “GO” for us to tell her go. While I say Malia likes to do everything Cailin does, she isn’t the same in any other way. While Cailin is quiet, reserved and a bit cautious, Malia is just the opposite. She is loud, boisterous, and afraid of nothing and not the slightest bit bashful. Malia is slow to learn when things hurt, you need to stop. There was one day she stood on the toddler rocking chair, held onto the rungs of the chair, and rocked it. She rocked it so hard that the chair tipped over. She cried for about ten to fifteen seconds, and then stood up, picked the chair up, and repeated the process… four times. It was comical. Malia is not the kind of child that likes to cuddle. The only time that she will curl up in my lap is if she is really tired, or not feeling too well. Lately, she has been on my lap and I love it in one way, but in another way, I feel so bad. I know why she is cuddling so much. She has 4 teeth that are all about to pop through at one time. One came in yesterday. It was her upper right premolar. Three more are so close. Malia loves to run, and climb, and jump, and throw things, and… wow. There are some days that I say “she is my boy”. She is full of giggles, full of energy and keeps me on my toes. I now understand why some parents like to use those back pack kid leashes. I feel I might need one for her. (Although, I think she would find a way to wiggle out of it). Malia is starting to talk and saying words that others can understand. Here’s a list of her words that I can think of so far.
Brush (hair or teeth), dress (herself, her babies, and the dogs), eat, snack (nact), thank you (na-nu… you can only tell she means thank you because she is signing it too), mom (rarely momma or mommy), dada, Cailin (na-nin), rebel, uh-oh, bird (buwd), love you, bye, bye guys, mere (come here), boots (her boots, or Dora and boots), shoes, help, where did it go? (air-go), here it is (ere is)…
And the list goes on. I am sure I will think of some more after I post this. Once she saw Cailin showing me how long her arms were getting from eating all of her dinner. Cailin stretched her arms up high in the air. Now if we ask Malia how dinner was, she says, “MMMmmmm” and puts her arms in the air.
Cailin has been so sweet and so polite lately. After she finishes eating, it makes me smile to hear her say “can I be an excuse”

Chris seems to be super busy with his work. I’m not sure what is going on there, but he is really busy with it. Around Christmas, I know Eagle Picher Technologies was bought by OMG, and there have been some changes, but I’m not sure what they were. I think that might have something to do with it.
Soccer season seems to be picking back up again. High school has started as have the tournaments. Chris was gone this weekend for a tournament. When He is gone like that, Cailin will come and sleep in my bed to keep me company. I finally felt like Malia was old enough to join us. It didn’t work. After about 20 minutes, she got her cup and her doll and headed downstairs on her own. She climbed into her own bed and says “nite nite”. See… not so much into cuddling.
As for me, I’m doing okay. I never make new years resolutions because they never seem to work. I did at Christmas though vow that I was going to be healthier. I was going to loose some of this weight that keeps creeping up on me, and I was going to be more active. Santa bought me the wii active personal trainer. I have to tell you, after the first 2 days of the 30 day challenge; I thought I was never going to be able to walk again!!! I hurt that bad. At Christmas, my weight was close to 210. I know it isn’t much, but I have gone down to 204. My % of body fat is down and % of muscle has gone up, so that is great! I also got a biggest loser cookbook. I love the show, so why not try some recipes. They were pretty good. I’ve been trying to cook healthy meals and exercise as much as possible. My goal is to eventually make it back to 150 as far as weight. I don’t have any time constraints, but that is my goal. Someone make sure I’m not slacking!!! Other than the healthiness stuff, as I mentioned earlier, I am working on photography skills as well. I love taking pictures, but I want to be able to take them and have strangers say “WOW, that’s awesome” about one of them!!
That’s about it in a nutshell. I’m going to post pictures another time. I need to sort through and pick which ones to put up there.