July 27 = Challenging Day

Remember that quote about peacefully parenting a strong willed child?  I've reminded myself of it multiple times today.  I tell you- Liam has been a challenge today- here's just a little taste.

Also- I want to share the lyrics of two songs I listened to today that really spoke to me.

The first is "Greater" by MercyMe:

Bring your tired (got it)

and bring your shame

Bring your guilt

and bring your pain

Don't you know that's not your name?

You will always be much more to me

Everyday I wrestle with the voices that keep telling me I'm not right but that's alright.

'Cause I hear a voice and He calls me redeemed when others (myself) say I'll never be enough.  And greater is the One living inside of me than he (me) who is living in the world.

Bring your doubt

Bring your fears

Bring your hurt

Bring your tears

There'll be no condemnation here

You are holy, righteous and redeemed 

Every time I fall there'll be those who will call me a mistake.  Well that's okay.

'Cause I hear a voice and He calls me redeemed when others say I'll never be enough.  And greater is the One living inside of me than he who is living in the world.

There'll be days I lose the battle.

Grace says that it doesn't matter.

'Cause the cross already won the war.

I am learning to run freely

Understanding just how He sees

and it makes me love Him more and more.

'Cause I hear a voice and He calls me redeemed when others say I'll never be enough.  And greater is the One living inside of me than he who is living in the world.

And the other song is "Nothing More" by Alternate Routes.  One of my yoga teachers played this during class a few months back and I thought it was so great.

To be humble, to be kind

It is the giving of the peace in your mind.

To a stranger, to a friend,

To give in such a way that has no end.

We are love.  We are one.  We are how we treat each other when the day is done.

When we are peace.  We are war.  We are how we treat each other, nothing more.

To be bold, to be brave

It is the thinking that the heart can still be saved.

And the darkness can come quick,

The dangers in the anger and the hanging on to it.

We are love.  We are one.  We are how we treat each other when the day is done.

When we are peace.  We are war.  We are how we treat each other, nothing more.

Tell me what it is that you see.

A world that's filled with endless possibilities.

Heroes don't look like they used to, 

They look like you do.

 

We are love.  We are one.  We are how we treat each other when the day is done.

When we are peace.  We are war.  We are how we treat each other, nothing more.

That's something I really hope to teach my kids by example- one of the things that matters most in this life is treating other people well.  I believe that because as a Christian, I am called to strive to be like Jesus who taught us to love our neighbors as ourselves.  I look forward to one day having conversations with my kids about how to treat and others and why we make the decisions we do but until then, the only strategy I have to teach them is to do it myself- good motivation!

July 26 = New Recipe Day

We have been recording episodes of "Pioneer Woman," "Giada at Home" and "Barefoot Contessa" from the Food Network and I'll look at the description and see if what they're cooking interests me- sometimes I delete it because there's no way I'm eating anything on the menu but I'd say half intrigue me.  Well, Barefoot Contessa made an oven fried chicken recipe and we had to try it.  It was delicious.

I also tried a new recipe for the mashed potatoes- I read in a light cooking magazine (I recently discovered you can borrow magazines from the library and it has transformed my life) that you can add roasted cauliflower to mashed potatoes to cut the calories in half.  We tried it.  I hated it.

The kids loved the chicken and mac 'n' cheese- neither is a big potato fan without the cauliflower so they really didn't like my new creation.

I have no real reason for including this picture except he's cute.

July 25 = Sweetest Brother Day

First of all I would just like to share how blessed I am to see this beautiful face every morning and the handsome face of my son- his is not always as cheery as Malia's but he's still handsome.

And second I would like to share how blessed I am that my children love each other and that they, at their core, are so very loving and sweet.  It's hard to hear, but Liam is blowing kisses and after every kiss says "Lala" which is his name for Malia.  It was so very precious and warmed my heart to no end.

After he finished blowing his kisses, he did something he's been doing a lot lately- he walked away and said "Bye guys."  He's been doing that a lot lately and it's so funny.

Also, we had leftover lasagna for lunch.  Malia enjoyed it.

July 24 = Tricky Boy Day

Parenting is a humbling job.  When we moved in, I was so excited that we had this playroom- we designed it as a safe space for the kids to play while I make dinner or get some cleaning done.  Well, I don't know what happened but one day the door stopped latching.  We have a door knob cover on the inside so Liam can't sneak out but now that the door won't latch, he can just pull the door knob, he doesn't have to turn it, and he can get right out.  So I got Zachary to put our baby gate in the doorway so I could still have a "baby prison" to aid me in getting stuff done.  Well.  Here's what Liam thought of that:

Later, he made me laugh again- he was walking up the stairs and looked back at me and Malia and said, "Bye Guys."  And kept on walking.  I don't know where he got that from but it's a hoot.

July 23 = Fun at Therapy Day

Zachary's working nights this week so one advantage of that is he gets to go to Liam's appointments with us.  I took some pictures of Zachary playing with Malia during the appointment- I got to read a little of my paper during the appointment- score for me!

July 22 = Visit Daddy Day

Today we traveled to a school in Glen Burnie to have an evaluation for Liam entering the three year old program through the school system.  Right before I left, I opened my phone to start my music in the car and the facebook app was up from the last time I was on my phone- this quote was at the top.

I have a pretty good attitude about Liam's strong will- I've always been aware that it is something that will be beneficial for him in the future as my strong will has done a lot of good for me too.  But this quote helped reiterate that for me and added another level to my understanding of parenting a (very) strong willed child. 

After his appointment, I laid the kids down for naps and I made a lasagna.  I haven't made lasagna in years but when my mom was here, she wanted to make one so I got all the ingredients but we never got around to it.  So instead of eating it at home with the kids and bringing Zachary leftovers, I just brought the whole thing with plates and utensils and we ate together outside on the water.

July 21 = Hop on Pop Day

This first picture is of the roses Zachary brought home for Malia the day of her party- I love that he's so sweet to her and they are just gorgeous!

I love that I got this picture!  We have been asking Malia for kisses for a while now but she just recently started actually doing it.  This is her version of a kiss:

Another new thing in the Holliday house: Liam gets on Daddy's back and rides around the living room and Malia pushes him- she really thinks she's the motor behind this operation- it's so cute but it's also helping her develop those leg muscles and practice walking!

July 20 = Joey's Anniversary Day

We got Joey 5 years ago today!  I love this timehop app that shows me pictures and statuses I've posted in the past- I can't believe he was so small!

Also, Liam has developed a new habit.  Malia got a picnic basket with plates and cups and little foods for her birthday and Liam decided she needed to share it with him- he loves playing with the cups and has started bringing them to the refrigerator and getting water out of the door.  I've been working hard to teach him that the picnic basket cups have holes in the bottom so the water doesn't stay but now he'll find anything he can that will hold water and regularly helps himself to water.

July 18 = Party Day!

Malia's birthday celebration continues!  Grandma and Pops got to Maryland late last night so we went to an early breakfast with them this morning- Liam was still asleep but Malia was ready for some good breakfast.  Here she is chomping down on some bacon. 

Everyone was asleep when we left but everyone was awake when we got back and Liam even had a new diaper and a new outfit- woo hoo!  Liam was excited to see his Grandma & Pops and Malia was still in her pajamas:

And then it was time for our ladybug party!  My dad and brother made the chicken, my mom made the baked beans, we had fruit and rice and cupcakes and punch- I must say, it was pretty good!

And then it was time for the cake.  Here, again, is my sad excuse for a cake.

And Malia destroyed it!  We are two for two with our babies doing great first birthday cake demolitions.

So Zachary and I ran her upstairs and got her a quick bath and then she was ready for presents!

Opening so many gifts is hard work!

Birthday love for Miss Malia:

And finally, after the party was over, Zachary headed to the gym and my family and I headed to the mall with the kids and we got Malia her first pair of shoes!

Later that night, I went to get a bag of milk from the freezer to thaw out and saw my cute ladybug pops that I completely forgot to put out for the party.  Oops!  At least they turned out well.

My dad and I took the kids out for our last nightly walk and we stopped by the playground so Liam could get out some energy since it wasn't too hot- he had fun showing Gramps how well he does on the slide!

July 17 = Go to the Doctor Day

Poor Malia- a day after her birthday and a day before her party, she has to go to the doctor for a well baby visit.  She's been feeling kind of bad for a while now- she had a fever for a few days and just sounds really congested so it's not really a well baby visit but she'll go and get checked out and get her one year old shots.  I went ahead and opened one of her presents so she could have new toys to distract her- here's a soft unicorn from the Malinskis.

She weighed 19.6 pounds and is 28 inches tall- here she is playing with her other toy from the Malinskis!

Dr. Modi said she has bronchiolitis and gave us an inhaler that will make her feel better.  Then she got FIVE shots- poor girl.  Then we went to the pharmacy to pick up the medicine that she'll be inhaling and it took soooooooooooooooooooooo long.  But she was content with me bouncing her up and won the pharmacy halls so it was all good. 

My dad has been walking at home- two miles a day- so I wanted to help him keep it up so we walked every day he was here and had two of the cutest walking buddies around!

Oh my goodness- how could I forget the most time consuming part of my day- if I thought the pharmacy was something- whew.  Making a cake.  I wanted to make a ladybug cake.  So I bought a ball pan and thought half of a ball would make a great ladybug body.  And then I thought I'd cut out a circle from the the other half of the ball for the head.  So baking a cake using the ball pan was step one.   I put one prepared boxful in each half of the ball pan.  Cake boxes prepared: 2.  Mistakes: 1.  So I put the cake pans in the oven and worked on the cupcakes.  Cake boxes prepared: 3.  I checked on the ball pan... it was a disaster.  Strawberry cake was oozing everywhere.  So I took that out and let the cupcakes bake while I cleaned up that mess and started on Cake boxes prepared: 4.  I split the fourth cake box among the two ball pans.  That worked much better.  Then came the icing.  I had bought a couple containers of white icing and had some red food coloring.  Mistakes: 2.  If you need red icing, find red icing.  Making white icing turn red requires a lot of red food coloring.  So much so that the icing is basically liquid when you're done.  So... the liquid icing on my cake ran everywhere and made my ladybug spots slide down the cake and this was the end result.

To those who can successfully decorate cakes: I admire you.  If I had a dayjob, I wouldn't quit it.  I write this to show Malia one day how much I love her and that a lot of that love went in to making this sad, sad ladybug cake.

July 16 = Malia's First Birthday!

My beautiful girl is one today!  I got Liam up first so he could help me wish Malia a happy birthday but instead, he marched in and started yelling something.  But I sang to her and we came down and had yummy funfetti birthday pancakes!

While she was still eating, I had to get some pictures of the birthday girl in front of her birthday banner!

At one point, she grabbed Zachary's hand and they started playing a game that only she knew the rules to.

Then we headed out to Liam's therapy appointments- it was so fun to have Zachary with us- Malia got to play with all sorts of toys and had so much fun!

Then we headed to Chick-fil-a of course.

When we got home it was nap time and Zachary had to head to work but my dad got to our house right after he left!  We did some (more) last minute shopping for the party and picked up some donuts on the way home- Grammy and Gramps got classic cake donuts, I got a strawberry frosted glazed donut with sprinkles and we got munchkins for the kids!  We all sang happy birthday with Matt and Grace on FaceTime...

.... and then it was time for baths and bed.  This was a very exciting day but I think it'll hit me more that she's one when everyone celebrates together at her birthday party Saturday!

June 15 = Decorate the Office Day

Well we had a pretty busy day today!  Zachary was off this morning so he watched Liam while Malia and I went to a playdate with our friends Amy and Evie and a lot of their friends!  When we got home, Zachary had to go in to work and soon after that Miss Shaina came to visit with Liam.  Soon after that we went out to do some last minute birthday party shopping and when I went to Michael's to get lollipop sticks for these adorable ladybug pops I'm going to make, I remembered Zachary had asked me to look into some frames for these neat nautical charts he bought for his office. I ran over to the frame section and found these gorgeous gray frames that I thought would be perfect.  They're pretty big and therefore pretty heavy so I took one up to the counter and told her I needed four- then I went back to get the others- originally planning to bring them up one at a time but I got brave on the way back and carried the remaining three up- balanced them on a tiny Michael's cart (why are their carts so much smaller than normal carts) and headed out the door.  They're doing construction to all the stores in this little shopping center so the sidewalks are blocked off everywhere but the entrance so there was no descending ramp I could casually push the cart down- I had to maneuver the cart off a pretty high curb while praying the four frames would stay put.  I did it!  So we headed home, made dinner and ate quickly.  Then I made a plate for Zachary and loaded back up with his charts and some tools for him and we brought everything to him at the Academy.  He was so excited he got to work almost immediately.  Here's the final result:

He put them in chronological order of when he lived there so the first one is of the Outer Banks and then Charleston, Mayport and now Annapolis!

When we got home it was time to relax and prepare for bed.  Liam said goodnight to his sister on her last night of being a baby- she'll wake up as a one year old!

 Well... not really.  She decided she was too excited to sleep so I ended up getting her out of her room a few minutes later and she stayed up until Daddy got home.