Tucker Talk: Safety Locks

Opened Tucker's bedroom door to find all of his freshly cleaned and folded clothes emptied from his dresser and thrown haphazardly across his room.
M: "Tuuuuccckkkeeerrr! I am going to put child locks on your dresser drawers!"
T: "No, that's not a good idea...."
M: "oh, really? Why is that not a good idea?"
T: "I couldn't open them!"

Yeah....

Tucker Talk: Apple Store

Tucker, in the car on our way home from lunch: "Go shopping at Apple store? Go Apple Store?"
Nathan: "What do you want to do bud?"
T: "Go Apple store!"
N: "What do you want to see at the Apple store?"
T: "Go see Jude at Apple store..."
N: "You want to see Jude at the Apple store?"
T: "Yeahah... That'd be fun."

Apparently the car means we are going to go shopping... At the Apple store (Hmm, wonder where he gets that from?). And if he is going to see anything/anyone, it will be Jude- a friend from small-group/MOPS. Although I am pretty sure he has never actually seen Jude at the Apple store before... And we don't go that often either...

Tucker Talk: Coffee's Ready

The chirping beep of the coffe machine in the kitchen elicits this response from Tucker:
T (shouting in excitement): "The coffee's ready, Daddy! Coffee's reeeaaaaddyyyy!!!"
D: "The coffee's ready?"
T: "Go get it, Daddy! Go get it."

Sometimes it's Bluebonnet-eers

A blast from the past: my assignment from creative writing non-fiction in spring of '09... Thought with all of the bluebonnet picture undertakings I would post this... a little bit of history, a little bit of humor, and a little bit of me :)

Warning- long post... my apologies... 

           

            The Texas Highways in the springtime are littered with drivers on the lookout for fields of

bluebonnets. Some claim the flower received its name due to the petals’ resemblance of the bonnets that were worn by pioneer women in order to shade themselves from the sun; others say that it was derived from the Scottish term “Bluebonnet,” which refers to the customary blue colored Tam o’shanter hat. Regardless of how it received the name, the title of “bluebonnet” is common to at least five different species of North American flowers. These genus, while in bloom from March through May, becomes a sought after sight; the hunters of which make driving a hazardous undertaking. And while I generally try to avoid any and all public roads of high traffic during this time, the necessity of spending Easter with my family made travel unavoidable. Three hours in the car, consisting entirely of avoiding the drivers as they found their precious fields of bonnets, slammed on their brakes, and pulled their children from the car; cameras at the ready.

            Despite the fact that it was nerve racking for the cars to stop so suddenly, I felt the most sympathy for the little toddler who was drug out of his car seat and plopped into the field of blues. The child’s arms would be completely straight as the mother or father carried him to the perfect place of foot-high flowers and lowered him into the middle. The child’s face spoke bewilderment at this treatment, and it was clear that he had never experienced anything quite like it before; little does he know that this will probably become routine in his life. For, the seeking of snapshots in the vast purpled sweetness becomes a tradition in many families across the Lone Star State.

            My family used to take yearly pictures also, but we took ours on the white sands of Blue Mountain Beach near Destin, Florida. We would all dress in white shirts and blue-jeans, and the pictures would turn out stunningly. I don’t think these results were because we were necessarily great photographers, however, but rather the pure sand and the perfect sunset lent their beauty and rendered the pictures unique and lovely to look at. Even though we never took our pictures in the fields of bluebonnets, it seemed that every time spring would come, the mention of the bonneted heads emerging would make us giddy. Something about the foot-high pioneers made us feel like summer was almost upon us. When the bluebonnets had come out in full force we would know that another school year was drawing to a close.

             In Colorado, where my family ended up moving while my brothers and I were still in elementary school, it is illegal to pick the state flower, the columbine. But that didn’t stop my little brother from picking a handful in American Basin when he was six. He didn’t realize that just because it isn’t illegal to pick the bluebonnet in Texas doesn’t mean that it is legal to pick any kind of flower anywhere. He was so proud when he came up to our mom and handed her the bouquet, his face beamed as he looked up for approval for his actions.

            “For you mommy, I picked these for you!” He declared, his little chest puffing out as he made note of being the only one so far to make such a gesture.

            “Oh Pudd, thank-you,” Mom exclaimed as she knelt down to give her youngest a hug. She hid her anxiety about being fined for the flowers well, “I love them, they’re beautiful!” But still she gave hidden admonishment as she said, “Let’s not pick anymore flowers today, these are perfect.”

            A common urban legend is that it isn’t legal to pick bluebonnets in Texas. This may have stemmed out of the fact that in most other states, like Colorado, picking the state flower is in fact illegal. But it may have become urban legend because of the illegal activities associated with bluebonnet picking, like that of parking on the side of busy highways or trespassing onto private property.

            Before a state flower of Texas was established, over a hundred years ago, the men in power wanted the flower to be something business-friendly: like the cotton boll or the cactus flower. The women, however wanted something more like the buffalo clover. “The men being gentlemen basically ceded to the wishes of the women and that is how the ‘bluebonnet’ became the state flower,” claims Flo Oxley, program coordinator at the Lady Bird Johnson Wildflower Center. So, on March 7, 1901, the bluebonnet species, Lupinus subcarnosus, also known as buffalo clover, became the only type of bluebonnet recognized as the state flower of Texas. Lupinus texensis, or the Texas bluebonnet, however, became the favored specie of most Texans. The Texas bluebonnet has dark blue blossoms, and blooms from March through May. Due to the remarkable popularity of this other genus, in 1971 the Texas Legislature made every species of bluebonnet the state flower.

            While driving down for Easter weekend I passed one setting in particular, located off of 290 between Houston and Austin, which is especially popular for those who love to take pictures in oceans of fragrance. It’s a private pasture, but the owners come out and open their gates for anyone who would like to capture memories among their thousands of capped ladies. Adding to the place is a heard of cows, which appeals to those who have never touched a cow or lived near one before. I feel especially sorry for the children who are dragged into this situation. Not only do the parents take hundreds of snapshots of the toddler sitting alone in a field of flowers taller than he is, but then they move the child so that he’s sitting in the middle of a herd of sun-bathing cows; and the parents are wondering why the kid is crying and unhappy by the end of the revelry.

            I did pause somewhere outside of the little town of Chapel Hill and take in a sight that was none other than absolutely breath taking. A pond set out in front of a red, run down, dilapidated barn, and the ruler-length representative of Texas covered every inch of ground beside it. I had to slow my car to a crawl and exit off to the side to gaze at the sight I was sure I would never see again. No family tramping through the flowers disturbed the scene, it just sat there, untouched save for a light breeze that danced barefooted across the pond’s surface. Not only did I take in sights of splendor such as this, but I saw some rather comedic sights as well.

There was a girl in a bright purple prom dress standing outside of a black Volks-Wagon Jetta. She was obviously waiting for her mother to get the camera ready before venturing out into the sea of permeating fragrance, which was already crawling with at least ten other families taking pictures of their little kids and pets. The mother stood at the trunk of the car, and it looked as though she was trying to figure out which lens to put on the camera. She was rummaging through her trunk, but by the time the light turned green I assume she found the lens she wanted because she and her daughter began to walk carefully through the revelers towards a spot in the flowers that was undisturbed by man or beast.

Seeing an older child having her picture taken in the middle of bluebonnets brought to mind the time my parents wanted to try to be like other Texas families upon our moving back to Texas from Colorado. We were unable to go to the white sands of Blue Mountain Beach that year, and my mother desperately wanted to change out the portraits that we had taken the year we moved to Colorado. So, with my mother wanting to update our portraits, my brother Austin, who was twenty years old at the time, my brother David, fourteen years old, and myself, eighteen at the time, got in the family suburban and followed my aunt, uncle, and cousins to our substitute ocean which was about a forty-five minute drive from home.

We found the perfect field, at least five acres of solid flowers, with a wooden white church at the far end, and we were the only revelers there. My cousins looked perfect sitting among the bluebonnets dressed in all white, but of course, they were closer to the age of the majority of kids who were photographed in places such as these, being ages three, seven, and nine. When it came time for my brothers and I to each be individually photographed for portraits we started to laugh. It was so ridiculous. There sat my brother, a junior in college, trying to sit up and be serious while surrounded by thousands of bonneted flowers. He couldn’t hold a serious face.

“Honey, don’t smile, look serious,” Mom would try to compose him but to no avail.

“Mom, you do realize that this is ridiculous right?” Austin made a sardonic face and tried to pose once more, but broke down in laughter. Of course, to her it seemed less ridiculous if all three of us sat together, so we all got together in a clump, sat, and smiled at the camera. The ridiculousness from Austin’s solo picture didn’t go away, however, and it ultimately ended with the three of us just goofing off. Austin and David took to “frolicking” in the field, both jumping up and down trying to imitate ballerinas with their hands bouncing and their heads tilted back. The boys looked absolutely absurd as they danced through the flora.

After this experience in the bluebonnets, I do believe I was grateful to Lady Bird Johnson for her involvement in convincing the government to spread bluebonnet and other wildflower seeds along the sides of the highways throughout the state of Texas. Whether Lady Bird, the First Lady to President Lyndon Baines Johnson, intended for the bluebonnets to be a tribute to her or not, they serve as her legacy with their return every spring. While this tribute is seemingly small, the bluebonnet in its five different species, is present all over Texas, and therefore isn’t such a small tribute after all.

The bluebonnet, while typically deep blue in color, can sometimes undergo natural genetic mutations which results in an albino, or white, bluebonnet. And, with some breeding experiments performed by a few Texas A&M researchers, they were able to create red and white strains of the bluebonnet flower. The researchers used their red and white strains, as well as the natural blue, to create a Texas flag out of bluebonnets for the 1986 Texas Sesquicentennial. The tampering with the flower breeding didn’t end there, however, and the researchers soon produced a deep maroon strain, which is the university’s official color.

While the maroon, red, and white strains of the bluebonnet are rarely seen, the natural deep blue of the Texas state flower is found all over the Lone Star State. Despite the fact that the flower only blooms for a quarter of the year on the sides of highways or in fields, the bluebonnet can be found blooming in countless paintings, photographs, and even songs across the state. And while maybe not every child will grow up returning to the same field with his or her family and taking portraits among the blue-bonneted flowers every year, most children will grow up with some overall feeling of tolerance towards the bluebonnet.  And those children who do grow up taking portraits every year among the flowers will just have a few more stories to tell about crazy drives, mothers searching for lens caps, and brothers frolicking in flower-covered oceans. 

Bluebonnet Pictures... 

Sometimes Curiosity is Not a Good Thing

The past two weeks our house has been invaded. Our cute, sweet, generally polite toddler has turned into a performer few have witnessed outside of the theatrical realm... He has perfected the art of hiding while being disobedient- namely so mommy and daddy don't discover the act until it is well underway. Crayon drawings on the walls, done while hiding behind the chairs; toothpicks scattered all over the floor in the kitchen- done in complete silence until the sound of a tiny wooden sticks alerted parents to the disaster; changing pads being dismantled; hangers snapped in half; hiding in the layers of sheets in bed while disassembling one thing or another of mommy's or daddy's; and most of these performed during "naptime." 


To all of these efforts of creating mayhem, my toddler laughs, semi-defiantly... And, after being disciplined, laughs again. The second time I'm pretty sure it's pure defiance. To this I have no weapon. I can't discipline him again, because that wouldn't be a correction- that would just be me retaliating. So, I have stood by and watched, completely dumbstruck, while every effort put forth by both Nathan and myself goes by with little to no avail. 


This has got to be more than normal two year old behavior... r i g h t?!?!


I make a birthday smoothie, and, as I am racking my brain to figure out the mystery behind the elusive mindset of my child, we sit together on the couch and share our simple sweet drink. Then he points to the TV and whines/asks for "George?" Two minutes into the show and I have it- the answer! I watch as the monkey colors on the walls, dumps containers out of kitchen cabinets, piles clothes out of closets, and basically ransacks the entire house. Now, of course the monkey is told that that behavior is "Not OK," but to my toddler who is watching the show in complete fascination all he cares about is doing the same things the monkey did. A w e s o m e. Needless to say, "Curious George" will no longer be a permitted television show in our house. Hopefully that means that "Curious" Tucker will soon be leaving us as well. I want my happy, generally obedient, cuddly toddler back... Please! 


Oh, I am not naive enough to think things will go back to the way they were- he is two after all... But here's hoping something changes... at least a little... 


In the meantime, here's some Instagram fun - there is actually a good pic of Tucker, one in which he is not being a monkey... 
...apologies to anyone who has already seen these on two other sites, I am a little addicted, and a little short on pics :) 

Our Tribute to ACL

Maddie and St. Patty's Day

St. Patty's Day giggles

You play, I'll drool... and eyes

Our Sprinkle of a Sweet Pea

Sometimes it Makes Sense

It's the first day of Spring! It's the first day of Spring! And it just so happens to also be my mom's birthday! Sad to not be celebrating with her today, but thought that I would post the "The Top 10 Things I Understand about My Mom Now that I Have Kids"


so, here we go... 
It suddenly makes sense....


10. ...to be in bed by 9 p.m. and wake up at 5 a.m.- it seems to be the only way to make sure everything most things get done...


9. ... to work out every morning- endorphins, peace, and quiet before the rest of the house turns to chaos...


8. ... why we had weekly and daily chores- the mom works hard, the kids need to pitch in so she has some relief, and also it's good to get in the habit of cleaning- there will be a lot more messes that are a lot more gross before all is said and done in this life...


7. ... to learn how to cook more than three different dinners- after a while the husband and kids are going to start wanting a little diversity...


6. ...  to find a drink, or two, that help brighten the day a bit (chai, coffee, etc)...


5. ... to seriously invest in a close circle of friends- they truly will be your support system through the good times and the bad...


4. ... to find things you and your spouse can do together- whether it's sailing, snowboarding, or shooting - invest in your marriage


3. ... to seek wisdom from godly women- some things can be taught- how great is that?!


2. ... why mom's love the way they do- sometimes to a fault- always with the greatest heart


1. ... why a regular set time for devotionals and prayer is so desperately important- choosing joy, choosing selflessness, choosing Him is daily, is constantly- and it is the most important choice of the day




I guess, at the end of the day, mother might just actually know what's best <3
And I am seriously blessed that I have a mom who is an example, an encouragement, and a blessing day in and day out!

a pic from the past :) 




Happy Birthday Mom! We love you so much!

St. Patty's Day pic

Sometimes it's Just Another Manic Weekday

​I have been craving sleep with a slightly serious desperation... And my children have been too, but they just haven't come to that realization... yet. I pray they come to that realization soon! Maddie may actually have a semi-understandable excuse because she might possibly be teething. Tucker, well, he's two- which isn't an excuse- it's the CAUSE. Oh defiance, you are not a mother's friend, but for some reason you enter into our lives when our children enter their toddler years and I am beginning to think we may not see the end of you...

​Last night Tucker had a nightmare- so I brought him into our room to calm him down. The kids don't get to sleep with us, but so far when Tuck has a bad dream it helps him to be held for ten minutes and then he will go back to bed no problem... Y e a h, being in bed immediately commenced in making tents out of the sheets, kicking me in the ribs, and digging elbows into my chest... Send him back to bed. Enter morning. While trying to keep Maddie happy and pleasant until it was time for her morning nap (she has been a little off today) I suddenly realize that Tucker is no longer using his crayons to color his coloring book... He's expanded his definition of "coloring book" to anything immobile, namely walls. Maddie down for nap, screaming. Tucker prepped for lunch, and commence disassembling almond butter and jelly sandwich. End lunch. Begin clean up of jelly-butter covered toddler. Get covered with the splashes of water my loving child bestows on me. Put the two-year old down, commence running around, accompanied with pleadings by mommy to not wake sissy. Enter daddy (I swear that entrance needs a super-hero theme song). Tucker melts down in tears when daddy goes upstairs- cue nap time!

​Four hours later? Tucker has successfully torn a part his room from top to bottom- no nap has been taken, but disciplines have been administered. Maddie has awoken, eaten, played, screamed, and gone down for afternoon nap. Mommy has attempted to eat lunch, played "Manic Monday" chorus in head on repeat, and discovered the relaxing power of instagram. All while praying for the grace of God and His hand to go before me this day- befriend patience, choose joy, and sometimes let the schedule get sent through the disposal. After all, what would life be without a little bit of crazy now and again? And again. And again. And again...

An illustrated survival guide to manic weekdays:

1. start the day with a caramel chai latte... in a glass mug...

2. stay in pajamas and don't change

3. play, sing, and dance along to "Friday Night" by Lady Antebellum 

4. find something simple to smile about... 

Sometimes it's Five Month Photos

Our little Maddie Emma is five months old! And I was desperate to get pictures of her as soon as possible- namely because I have the most adorable pictures of Tucker when he was a little older than four months, and they were taken by our dear friend Caryn Werner. Since Maddie had a newborn photo-shoot that was professionally done (whereas Tucker had one done by me, haha) I decided that because of that Maddie's four five month photo-shoot should be done by me... Kind of a reverse, if you will... thirty seven pictures (fifteen minutes) later, my memory card was full. My future as a photographer looks, well, nonexistent.


The fact that I didn't really get a variety of photos, among other lovely first-timer fails, I was still not deterred from pursuing the "editing" feature on my husband's computer...


Maddie is wearing a dress given to us by my Aunt Marsha. Aunt Marsha's daughter, Claudia, is one of the cutest little red-headed girls you will ever set eyes on, and Maddie is beginning to look like a little red-head herself, which I think is the funnest thing ever! I do hope, however, that Aunt Marsha will forgive my lack of photographing abilities (she is an amazing photographer, and I'm not just saying that!)...

With all of that said, here's Maddie's five month "photo-shoot" (of sorts):

Sometimes it's a Potty Training... F A I L

Potty training. At this stage in life I am pretty convinced that toilet training a puppy is easier than toilet training a toddler.... For that reason alone I am seriously considering beginning to have Maddie go on the toilet as soon as she can sit up on her own. Not that I am expecting it to work whatsoever, but there's always hoping.

Entering the world of potty training with Tucker we began with a S L O W introduction to going "potty" on the potty. And, despite our expansive efforts and vast pleadings (I swear I have come close to begging on the verge of tears)- accompanied with bribes of M&Ms or "silly bands," Tucker displayed amazing willpower. He could sit for up to half an hour on the toilet (probably longer actually, but we have an infant who also demands attention) and he would NOT go to the bathroom. Two minutes after putting a diaper on him, however, and we have... POOP.

Desperate times call for drastic measures- a complete switch from diapers to big boy underwear! If he was going to prefer to go to the bathroom in his pants, we were going to make that as uncomfortable for him as possible. Fail. All we ended up doing was going through eight different "big boy underpants" in a five hour time-span. His intense resolve to not go to the bathroom anywhere but in his pants is, admittedly, quite deterring for me on this venture of potty training my toddler. Attempt number two will involve a "big boy potty" instead of a toilet seat on the potty... Updates on that attempt to come in the near future.

Tucker- in big boy camo "boxer-briefs" while playing a round of indoor croquet (belated birthday present from his mommy and daddy- yeah...)