Prayers and Texting

When I was driving the girls to a friend's house this morning, there was crazy flooding all over the place. I told the girls to say a prayer that we'd make it there safely. Then I voice texted my friend, "We're having a hard time getting to you because of flooding. Be there soon." Sally matter-of-factly said, "Mom, you're texting Jesus."

Mariah finished kindergarten . . .

. . . and loved it!! We had zero incidents at school; I hope this year sets the trend for her next several years in school.

Her teacher was INCREDIBLE, and I credit Mariah's success largely to her (and Mariah, of course). We've had a tough year at home, but little M has held things together remarkably at school. She came home yesterday with an award for being a terrific kid. She didn't even tell me about it until evening time; apparently one kid in each class got the award, and she was chosen. "It was for being extra nice and stuff,"she said. She acted all non-chalant about it.

May 20, 2013

A day that will go down in Oklahoma and US history. Also the day my little Sal turned THREE!! Because we're busy packing to move (We were joking the day before that a tornado had hit our living room, with all the boxes, etc. Not something we're joking about today.), I was glad we had a little birthday party for her while Mike's family was here for graduation. (More on that later.)

The storm developed basically on top of us, but was well east of us before it produced the monster that hit Moore. We know a few people affected because the damage is all in our stake boundaries, and one of our good friends' (from dental school) home sustained some damage. (We still haven't talked to them directly so don't know how much damage. Glass in every room. Mud on the beds. That's about all we know.)

We pray for the people affected by this and will do what we can over the next weeks and months to help.

Here are some photos I took of the developing storm.

Looking straight up and west, standing on our driveway. The western edge of the storm.

Looking southeast. Somewhere beyond my view, in that blackness was a monster.

Southwest

Southwest from our backyard.

Northeast from our back porch.

Packing up all of our belongings while watching live coverage of so many losing ALL of their belongings is a weird feeling. All of our STUFF is very in our face. We have a lot of it. We are so blessed.

It's very late, and I'll do a birthday post about my little Sarah Sally Sue some other time. Hopefully soon. But here are some pictures taken on her birthday, opening the girls' gifts to her and eating homemade banana-mango ice-cream. It's a really good thing a 3-year-old is easy to please!

Mariah's Art

Mariah is quite the little artist. She LOVES to draw, and her drawings have a lot of character. I don't think I've ever seen another child who draws quite like she. My favorite are her people; I think they're a hoot! Here's a collection of random drawings from over the past year, by month:

April 2012

Her cousin, Elsa, gave her the top picture. The bottom is her re-production.

She went through a major cupcake phase.

Belle

Belle, The Beast, and triplets 

Prince and princess Dancing

May 2012

Don't know why Mike's in a speedo? Hasn't ever happened that I know of . . . .

I love her fairies flying off the page.

Mariah went through a long mermaid stage. We talked a lot about drawing modest mermaids. She wasn't very keen on the idea at first, but pretty quickly most of her mermaids were modest. I could tell when she was struggling with something (anxiety, etc.) because her mermaids would be in bikinis.

Love this - copied from Angelina's Birthday 

Volcano

June 2012

A little modesty quiz.

July 2012

Lots of scary stuff going on . . . .

Some modest mermaids.

An animal phase. 

These 2 were drawn the same day. I was wearing a shirt that day with a slightly lower neckline (still modest) than I usually wear. Mariah didn't say anything to me, but presented me with a picture of "Mom" in a bikini. She also felt she needed to educate Elaine.

August 2012

One of my all-time favorites!

September 2012

She drew this at school. The counselor was talking to her class about feelings.

Self portrait - done in art at school.

October 2012

Halloween monsters.

November 2012

More emotion talks at school.

Love this!

February 2013

First still life.