ONE-derful!

Last year on this very day I looked a little something like this. My water broke at 5:00 a.m. and Kelly Anne Foster was in my arms at 10:53 a.m. Can any mom write something like that without tears? Not this mom, especially not today. My world was forever changed in the best possible way. No longer a mom of one, now I had a perfect baby girl to add to the mix. What did I know about raising a girl or raising two kids? Nothing. I remember feeling nervous about that. Oh, my baby girl! I love you more than you can know right now. Thanks for peeing out of your diaper at almost exactly 5:00 a.m. so that I could rock you back to sleep and think about all of the joy of the past year with you in my life. That was a perfect gift to your momma on this very happy day!

All I could think while I was holding you this morning, was
"How in the world did this beautiful tiny lady.......turn into this much bigger *but still little* beautiful lady so quickly?!"Oh, Bo-Belly, I love you more than you know!
I am excited to keep watching & loving you as you grow. Happy, Happy Birthday!

A few things I know fo' sho'

Max is a little piece of heaven *most of the time*. The other night he picked me to be the one to read him stories and sing songs before bed. He likes to prolong the routine by asking to snuggle or to hug. Smart boy. It always works. "I want to give you a hug, Mom." He wrapped his arms tightly around my neck and said, "I love you, Mom" to which I replied, "I love you too, Max, sooo much." He said, "I love you too so much. *deep, adorable sigh* We love each other, Mom." We sure do, buddy, but I don't think you know how intensely and completely I love you. You will, though, when you're tucking your oldest child into bed one night and they wrap their little arms around your neck and tell you that they love you. Actually, you'll know the minute that they are born and you see their little face and body for the first time. You'll know then, Maxwell, Kelly, and all future children of mine, just how deeply I love you.

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I was born to goodly parents. Today my momma turns 50...finally! :) The woman has twelve grandchildren (ages 6 and under) and two on the way. I think she should be at least 50. She doesn't think so. My mom has always been young at heart. I consider myself incredibly blessed to have been born to such a woman. She has great faith, a great sense of humor (and laugh), loves her family, landed herself an awesome man, and has always been one of my best friends. I love having babies for many reasons, but one of those reasons is because of the visit I get from my mom right after. She takes care of everything. If she's not hanging with me and the rest of my little fam or holding the baby then she is cleaning or cooking or crocheting the babe's blessing blanket. It is such a sweet, tender time and is filled with treasured memories. I love you, lady! Happy, Happy Day to you! Have fun on your romantic getaway with Dad.

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I should not let Max play with the camera while I'm exercising....

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I have a couple of adorable kids who want to wish you a Happy Valentine's Day!

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An eleven-month old little girl should NOT have to deal with a yeast infection. However, if she does, then she should at least have a mom who doesn't think it's just a diaper rash and try to treat it as such in several different ways for three weeks before she prays and gets a very clear voice from heaven while she's walking through Target telling her matter-of-factly that, "It's a yeast infection!" Do I ever feel like a horrible mom! My poor little woman. She was SO not herself those three weeks and I thought that we had entered a new stage and my sweet, all-smiles baby was no more. She would shriek often and cry more than usual. Even people who see her every week at church were asking if she was getting a tooth or something. Which, she actually did, but that wasn't what she was trying to communicate with those shrieks. The girl was in serious pain - I know because I've had a yeast infection before. A few days is misery - three weeks would be awful. However, we got her into the doctor the day that I heard heaven in Target and she is on the mend. My happy babe has returned. I'm sorry, Bo Belly!

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My friend, Janet, rocks. She rocks for many, many reasons. One of those reasons is that she

passed on the outline for the BEST Valentine's Party several years ago. We threw it in New

York as NEWLY newlyweds and it was super fun. It's seriously the coolest party and if you want to throw your very own next year, please contact me and I'll e-mail the details on how-to. We invited 12 couples and 9 came. Perfect. Our house is small-ish and so we were semi-hoping that a few wouldn't be able to make it. :) We had to move out some furniture as it was. We put up red heart-shaped mylar balloons everywhere, turned down the lights, lit tons of candles and got the party started. Our Love Tree - where all of the couples got to "carve" their initials - was constructed by the ever-talented Mr. Foster. Have I ever mentioned how amazing I think he is? We had a perfect mix of younger and older couples. I think it's best with both. My cheeks hurt from smiling/laughing just 1/2 hour into the shindig. Then there were a few tears as the

husbands read their surprise love poems to their wives. One of the hubbies even broke out the guitar that he just started taking lessons on in January. Oh, so sweet. And, of course, my husby wrote me a rockin' poem to get it all started. I feel lucky to be wed to a poem-writin' fool. I've received many-a-poem from this wonderful man in our four years of bliss.

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Kelly is a total dancing queen with a sweet side-to-side move she started about 2 months ago. Her dance reflex seems quite involuntary. No matter where she is or what she's doing, that little body HAS to groove when it hears music. Oh, and she has a really cute older brother.

A little bit of this...

Let's see...not many exciting happenings around here. We are revisiting potty training with the Maxster. I guess I never reported, but we went back to pull-ups on our long trip in November. It was too much for the little man to remember to go to the bathroom when he was having so much fun with his cousins and we were forgetful in asking him if he needed to go. Way too much going on. When we got back from the trip he had ZERO interest in starting again so I had ZERO interest in forcing the issue. So here we are again...he's doing really well thus far. Man, I love that kid! He's been giving me some stress lately - acting out and doing things he knows will get a response, albeit negative. SO not like my Max. Sure, the kid has his moments, but he is a pretty great little boy. It's thrown me for a bit of a loop because it's out of character for him. The past few days I've been making sure to spend some really good time just the two of us and he's been much better. I think that maybe it's because Kelly is learning so many new things these days and so there is a lot of attention going her way and he wants a piece of it? That's what I've come up with. We're making sure to include him in helping us to teach Kelly new things as well as doing big boy activities with him when she's down for a nap. But at the same time I want him to understand that he doesn't get center stage all of the time and that he needs to share it a bit. I want to raise a really good, decent, kind kid and I hope that I am doing okay. *sigh*

Yesterday, during Kelly's nap, Max and I did some fun crafts. I got this idea off of a friend's blog. Meet Priscilla the Puppet and Rufus:This was Max's first time using scissors - I'd just never thought of letting him before. He LOVED cutting. Then we made valentine's for all of his cousins and he got to do a lot more cutting and drawing. I love creating stuff with him like that.

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Kelly's two top teeth FINALLY broke through. Man, that girl must have some thick gums or something. Poor little woman. The teeth seem to sit just under the surface for about a month, making her gums look swollen and painful. Then the actual cutting takes about a week. Max's came in much easier and faster than that. She's had some frustrated squealing moments where you can tell she's in pain, but mostly she's been herself. She has more defined likes and dislikes than Max did...well, maybe she just has a louder way of telling us about them. :) Oh, she found her first joke. She learned a few weeks ago where her nose was and so she would point to it every time we asked her. We're also working on ears and eyes and mouth. The other day I asked where her nose was and she pointed to her ear. I thought she was just confused and I said, "What? That's not your nose!". She laughed and then pointed to her forehead so I repeated what I'd said. She laughed again and we kept doing it as she got closer and closer and then finally pointed to her nose. So now she loves when I ask where her nose is and we have to do it just like that every time. What a kidder! Check out her long 'lashes and all of that hair:

What a babe!
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Do I have any fellow Dr. Suess lovers? The man's books crack me up. Here's my favorite line right now: "And oh! Just suppose you were poor Harry Haddow. Try as he will he can't make any shadow! He thinks that, perhaps, something's wrong with his Gizz. And I think that, by golly, there probably is." That's from Did I Ever Tell You How Lucky You Are? What is your favorite Dr. Suess book? I've been amazed since becoming a mom and going to the library at just HOW many books he's written and while many of them are the same style, he's got some real thought-provoking themes to many of them. Ever read The Butter Battle Book? Kind of dark, actually.

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Like I said, not much going on. Just a few thoughts for the day!