pizza, doritos, and a cake with purple frosting

for weeks before her birthday beatrix would talk about her party. "mama, my bif-day soon? i wan buder-fy bif-day cake. al-mo my bif-day? al-mo? AL-MO? mama! do u hear me?" haha, it was hilarious. every time we rode in the car, every bath, every meal, i'm serious...this day was anticipated with a capital A!

i waited to plan the details of her birthday party until a week or so before the actual day because she kept changing her mind. it went from a rainbow cake, to a flower cake, and finally it landed on a cake with purple frosting. she also wanted a butterfly birthday party. 

the night before the big day i started to decorate her cake. it wasn't going the way i wanted it to and i was feeling frustrated and very very tired. bea came into the dinning room and asked me if she could help. normally i would say no. i'm gonna be honest. it's easier to do a "pretty" cake on your own. but i looked at her hopeful face and i could hear the longing to help and so i said, "sure". she excitedly climbed up to the table and we got to work. i covered the whole think in purple fondant and then she said she wanted orange and blue too. so we mixed them together and she cut out butterflies, put frosting on the backs of them and glued them to her cake. bea wanted sprinkles on top, but the sprinkles wouldn't stick to the fondant. so we slopped some icing on top and some blue sugar and multicolored sprinkles  then we added fake flowers and "grass" all around the edge.   she was IN LOVE with this cake. 

she kept going into the kitchen all night and the next morning. i would hear the fridge door open and close and i thought she was going in there too look at it.  but later on the morning of her birthday i opened the fridge door and looked at the "grass".  there were little beebee finger marks all around the cake. i just laughed and thanked God that we have good friends who won't care about a germ-y cake. 

i decided to make pizza's. and so this picture below is 6 pizza crusts worth of dough rising. 

letting beatrix open one of her presents. 

she had a mountain of presents this year which has never happened before. 

reading the thomas book together.

bea's teacher, mrs. mineo, gave her a super soft thomas blanket and a thomas puzzle. 

incredibly kind.

lights for her party. 

we had another "front yard" party for her birthday. 

letting a friend from school try her bike out. 

bea was loved on sufficiently and at the end of her special day she felt extremely happy.

i can't believe my little bea is 4...she has grown so much in the past year. the best thing is that her confidence has grown. and that makes her parents especially thank-full!

bea's birthday morning

 bea woke up bright and early the saturday of her forth birthday. she was more than excited! she put her purple birthday crown on and waited patiently for daddy to change penelope's diaper so she could open her presents from us. 

  these pictures are horrible quality, it was still dark out and she was moving so quickly, but i love her expressions in them. she looks so happy... a copy of RIO was give, again, for the second time. somehow we lost our first copy and she was asking for it all of the time. so matt and i decided it would make a great birthday gift. 

 we also got her a wooden birthday thomas the tank engine, the birthday thomas no less.  

the morning started off great with cereal and then we headed to micah's last baseball game. 

treats to school

 the thursday before bea's birthday she got to bring treats to her class. she talked about it for days leading up to the event.

last game

an old friend and a new friend

 my college roommate and her friend came from ohio for a long weekend in the middle of october. it was wonderful... we ate great food, stayed up late, went thrifting, went to the beach and the farmers market, enjoyed the sun and laughed, alot! it was wonderful to have them both in the house and the help. sigh...don't even get me started on how helpful they were. it was glorious seeing amy again and catching up, and it was equally so getting to know andrea. 

 one of the perks of having amy around was the fact that i never had to ask her to take pictures of the kids and me. she just did it. she captured some really beautiful moments. i treasure them.

  

baseball fan

my brain

ahhhhh, i'm so tired and yet something matt just said to me as he was drifting off to sleep has triggered a thought. maybe one of the few cohesive thoughts i have had recently. and so i feel like it's important to write it down. even though there is nothing i would like more than to be asleep right now.

our florida room is full! ever since we moved into our new home people have been giving us furniture. most of which is amazing, thus causing our "old" stuff to look unappealing. so when we get something new and more loved than what we previously had, the old stuff gets moved to the florida room. and there it sits causing our back room to be bursting with furniture, and too small baby clothes, entertainment centers, and neglected toys. it is starting to feel like it's falling in on me. like i am going to be overtaken with clutter. and so a few weeks ago i got fed up with it all and started taking pictures of our discarded crap/treasures and posting it all on craigslist. i have sold a few things, but the majority of it is still back there. mocking me. laughing merrily. seriously, it's like it talks to me every time i do our laundry.
i just want to sort it and be done with it once and for all.

tonight as matt was drifting off to sleep he whispered to me, "thanks for sharing with me what's on your mind".  to which i replied (to an already sleeping husband), "thanks for listening. but sometimes i really feel like my brain is like our florida room. it's such a hodgepodge of thoughts right now and it feels like there is no rhyme or reason."  and that's why i had to get up and write this, because i did say that to a sleeping matt. i do think that my brain has so much in it right now. i do feel like the rooms of my brain sometimes threaten to cave in on me. deep breath--- there is so much piling up. so many things to sort. old ideas moving to the back of my brain and new ideas making their way to the front.

such as, penelope turning one = no more babies for us. ever. even to type that sentence creates space in my mind. it takes what was clutter and it organizes it.
i will never have a baby again. i'm finished having babies. wow.

another pile of clutter....jobs. work. money. career. what's next for me? sometimes i feel like i have talents...i can sew, cook, you know things like that. does that mean i want to do any of those things for my career? do i want to own my own business? do i want to take a hobby and turn it in to something that makes our family money? i really don't know. i need something in the meantime. i keep praying about it.

another pile of clutter...and another and another. sometimes i have time to receive information and send it out at pretty much the same speed it enters my brain. but lately. well, it seems like i am receiving information and thoughts in overdrive and nothing is really going out.  i wish there was a craigslist for the piles in my mind.
this is a stupid thing to write about. but it makes sense to me. right now. right here.
it makes total sense to me. the florida room and my brain. they are the same.

a blue door

 it's so amazing what a little paint will do. 

our front door was looking so drab and dirty.

now it looks shiny and happy and oh so blue. 

one of the first changes to the outside of our home that says, "the harrisons live here."

one came out

 micah had been working on these top two teeth for what felt like weeks. one night he came out of his room after i had put him to bed and he whispered, "i think my tooth is ready to come out."  i asked him if he needed any help. he shook his head and disappeared into the bathroom. he reappeared a minute later with a tooth in his hand. excited. happy. so proud. 

the tooth fairy, thankfully, remembered to come to the house minutes before matt and i's bedtime. *wink*  the next few days micah worked and worked on the remaining front tooth. 

a couple nights after that while i was giving the girls a bath, he came in and started working on his tooth again. 

aw the frustration. 

 

 he'll keep working at it. 

(spoiler---he did loose it the next night. we were sitting at the table eating dinner. i looked over at micah and he had a shocked look on his face. on the tip of his tongue was his tooth. just sitting there.)