Girls and Drama...

The drama just keeps growing at the Balzer house. How quickly we go from this....

...and these sweet smiling faces....

...to this....and then in just seconds...
this! Something tells me we will have no shortage of drama and emotions over the next 18 years.

Sadie Beth is on a huge dress up kick. We need to increase our dress up clothes because she would play dress up all day long.

My sweet Ainsley. She likes to feel big.

One big difference between my girls is how they play. Ainsley entertains herself SO well. She plays and plays, explores, and just finds all sorts of ways to have fun. Sadie Beth really would just prefer to sit and talk with you. I'm constantly telling her, "Please go PLAY!" God made them each so different and special. I can't wait to see what He does through them.

She's working pretty seriously on some teeth, and Ainsley's favorite thing to chew on is spoons of all sort. Give her a spoon and she is as happy as a clam.

Sadie Beth likes to dress Ainsley up too!

Ainsley's classic sleepy pose - two left fingers in the mouth and right hand in the hair...even if she's eating. This makes for a messy girl. And don't try to pull the fingers out; she will just be one mad girl. So, we eat with fingers. Food goes down easier that way maybe?

Noah's Ark playdate! These kiddos LOVE being together. Sadie Beth loves playing with her friends Henry, Lilly, and Callie, and they play sooo well together. We've done all sorts of things this summer - Noah's Ark, the zoo, splash park, parks all over, library story times, and more. I'm so thankful to have such great friends. It's such a blessing to be able to hang out with them - it makes outings so much easier when there are 2 adults...even if that means 5+ kids rather than my two! Here they are eating their lunch at the "big kid" seats. We eat lunch together all the time, and the kids are all so sweet about sharing their food (most of the time). It's really funny to watch them eat and pass their food around.

Ainsley let me put headbands in her hair for about a month. Then she figured out they were removable. So much for headbands....

I love watching my girls' relationship grow. Ainsley wants to do everything Sadie Beth does already. Sadie Beth loves "helping" and sometimes gets a little carried away - which usually results in Ainsley getting exasperated about being squeezed too tightly, knocked over, or having a toy taken away from her.

Happy Fourth of July from my all American baby!

Love the activity table - this has been a fun, new, much enjoyed activity lately....

A Little Substance...

Every day after naptime, Sadie Beth asks me if we can go downstairs and snuggle in the "brown chair." She usually wakes up a little...um...we'll call it emotionally fragile (some might call it cranky), even if she's taken a great nap. While I don't love that she wakes up like a basket case (it's not really that bad), I do treasure our chair cuddles every afternoon. It only takes a few minutes and in no time she is her back to her sweet self. I understand. Her need for post-nap Mommy lap time isn't all that different from my need for Diet Mt. Dew.
Saturday proved to be a typical afternoon for after nap chair snuggles. As we cuddled and chatted, I thought about how precious that time is to me and how she is growing up so quickly. Jokingly I asked her, "Sadie Beth, when you are 15 years old, will you still snuggle Mommy like this?" I fully expected her to either answer yes enthusiastically or to just giggle at my silly question. You just never know what to expect with girls though, do you? She suddenly burst into tears and cried in the most pitiful sad voice I think I've ever heard, "Noooooooo!!!"

(Me) "Sweetheart, what's wrong? Why not?"

(SB) "Because....(sob, gulp for air)....I'll be too big...(another sob, gulp for air)."

(Me) "Oh, Sweet Pea, you'll never be too big to snuggle with Mommy."

(SB) "But we won't fit in the chair! (More tears, sniffling, and gasping for her breath)

(Me) "Don't worry about that, Honey. I think we'll fit, but if not, we'll get a bigger chair."

(SB) (Still sniffling, snuggling and pitiful) "Let's go do it now...."

My sweet girl. She certainly has a flare for drama, doesn't she? I love her heart. She just loves people and loves being loved back. All she wanted was to be safe in her Mommy's arms, to be close to me. The idea of not being able to have that closeness made her genuinely sad. It is amazing how interacting with my children so often teaches and convicts me in my walk with the Lord!!! Shouldn't that be how we feel about God? How long has it been since I've longed so desperately to be close to Him, to spend time with Him that the idea of being unable to do so makes me feel as Sadie Beth did when she thought about not being able to snuggle with me? She didn't respond half-heartedly, but with eagerness and urgency. When she realized a solution to her dilemma, she didn't want to wait. She wanted to take care of whatever was going to get in the way of her time to be close to me. I can only hope and pray that as they grow, my children will see in me the same sense of urgency to walk closely to the Lord.

Tomatoes, Cucumbers, and Messy Faces!

Such fun we've been having in the Balzer house these days!!! Summertime has been a blast and we enjoy the sunshine and outdoors every chance we get. Our girls are growing so fast. Sadie Beth acts like she is almost 3 going on 17 and Ainsley just loves life....unless you are taking to long to feed her, or walk away from the table when she thinks you should be giving her food, and then she just growls at you to let you know what she thinks. Ainsley adores Sadie Beth and nothing gives me more of a warm fuzzy feeling than watching there relationship blossom. Now that Ainsley acts more like a person all the time, Sadie Beth delights in her....giving her toys, reading her stories, and lots of hugs. This afternoon while playing with one of their musical toys, Sadie Beth called me from the kitch and told me, "Me and Boobear are singing and dancing Mommy."

Unfortunately, we left this swimsuit at the splash park at the beginning of the summer. Every few days, Sadie Beth pretends to call the zoo. Her phone calls usually go a little like this: "Hello, zoo? Have you seen my blue butterfly swimsuit with the pink straps and the bow? No, that's a BUMMER." Then she puts her phone down and tells me, "Nope, the zoo says I can't have my swimsuit back."

This little girl gets sillier every day. She is easy going most of the time, but can get quite opinionated at meals. Often, in one meal she will dance, whine, growl, laugh, grunt, cry and inevitably end up with food all over her face. Honeybee graduation!!! My little happy honeybee is now an Awana Cubby. I was so proud of her this year. She always participated with such a happy, cooperative spirit and learned all of her Honeybee verses. Wednesday nights were pretty much the highlight of her week this year. I'm sure some of that was thanks to my good friend Anna (pregnant belly above), who taught Sadie Beth's class. Sadie Beth thinks Anna is pretty much the coolest person in the world.

Roomtime with both girls together. Boy I need to get Sadie Beth a bedskirt. That mattress is less than becoming First time for Puffs! She wasn't sure what to think, but that lasted for about 2 minutes. Then, if she could talk I think she would have asked why we'd been holding out on her.

This was back in May - she's FINALLY able to get them in her mouth by herself. Took awhile for that pincher grasp to kick into gear.

Oh goodness....

There we go, that's better.

Meet my 2-finger sucker....all the time. This is why when you see my kid she ALWAYS has food dried somewhere on her face. She eats with the fingers in her mouth and then rubs her face. Makes me kindof nutty, but there is no stopping her. If you try to hold them down, she might be pleasant for a bite or two and then she will SCREAM until she gets them back. She is polite enough at least to take them out of her mouth for bites. It's ridiculous.

But this is fun too. My girls are both definitely "mouth kids." Everything goes in there.

It's about time to retire the bouncy seat.

I love Sunday morning photo shoots. David, however, not such a big fan, as it usually ends means we end up being even later for church.

Sadie Beth is in such a fun stage right now - singing, dancing, dressing up, and talking ALL THE TIME. I bet I answer a record number of questions each day.

We were blessed to enjoy a beautiful afternoon at my friend Jenn's in-law's house awhile ago, which was amazing. A lovely day in every way...

The kids had such fun splashing and then a picnic lunch. No comment, however, about my run into with law enforcement on the way home. Thankfully, I was shown incredible grace by the officer who pulled me over for speeding (a lot). He asked me if there was a good reason why he shouldn't give me a ticket. I answered truthfully, that there wasn't one. He told me that was the best answer he's heard all day and then let me go. Sadie Beth was very fascinated by the entire event and asked numerous questions. I explained that Mommy had disobeyed and that it was the police officer's job to help me to obey the rules just like I help her to obey, but also how he showed Mommy grace and though I deserved to have a consequence for making a bad choice he let me go. I think she got it.

Example of why eating with 2 fingers in your mouth is messy business:

We finally got the sitting thing under control.

And now Ainsley is really on the move - not crawling yet, but trying REALLY hard. She's chunked up quite a bit since this picture. Ainsley has gained 2 lbs in the last 2 months!

We had a wonderful visit with Aunt Darla over Memorial Day weekend....we've been so blessed to see Darla in December, January, May, and soon again in September! Getting to see her so often has made the distance seem not so far.

I just want to kiss those cheeks.

Memorial Day weekend not only included a visit from Aunt Darla, but also from Aunt Bridget, Danny, and Aunt Sarah! I think Sadie Beth really believed they all came to see and play with her. She told people that her friends had come to visit and cried that she wanted her friends to come back after they left.

Sadie Beth loves this book ($0.10 from a yard sale) because it has animals you count and stick into pockets on each page. Some of them are squirrels, it occurred to her that she should share the book with the squirrels in the yard.

She was very serious, and tried incredibly hard.

Boy I love these girls. I NEED them in my life. Sarah and Bridget were my roommates in college, and over those four years we became like sisters. We keep moving farther away from each other so our visits are fewer and far between with husbands, kids, and busy jobs in the picture, but I'm so thankful for them.

Sarah brought down some tomato and cucumber plants and we had fun planting. This is becoming a yearly ritual with Sarah and Sadie Beth loves it.

I will have to post updated pictures because the cucumber plant has grown up and over the fence and we have one cucumber growing - it's kindof yellow though, so I hope it's alright. We are getting tons of tomatoes.

Sadie Beth takes watering the flowers very seriously. She uses her little hedgehog watering can and makes sure each plant gets some. Our daisies we planted as seeds in the front by the mailbox look nice too!

Sarah's a natural at this gardening stuff - all of the plants she brought us started as seeds from her garden. Quite a few of them are taller than Sadie Beth now.

I think next year we might turn this entire little square of our yard into a garden. I don't know though - that might be a little overly ambitious.

My little stinker. I heard laughter from the kitchen and came to see what Ainsley thought was so funny. She'd rolled over to my can, knocked it on the floor and was tapping her hand in the water with one hand and rolling the can around and around with the other. She was so proud of herself. It was quite an accomplishment.

She's a rock start....or at least will be one day. She wears her sunglasses everywhere. Even when she is sick she wears them to the doctor. Her pediatrician asked awhile back if he could take a picture of her because he thought she was a riot.

So long Sentra! One of the biggest developments in our family is that I am officially a minivan mom. And can I just say that I love it?!? We purchased a van I found on Craigslist from a man who actually worked for Humana who was moving back to India with his family. We got it for a great price and it has been such a blessing already. I posted the Sentra on Craigslist for about $500 more than we were hoping to get for it (but still a fair price). Within 24 hours it sold for the full asking price!!! I bet I got 15 emails in the first couple of hours. It is awesome to see God's provision for our family in so many ways.