Praying through stubbornness

Good grief, God is so cool. It's just the little things, ya know?
I made a healthy scrumptious meal for Vienne - things she loves, hidden w/vegetables in the tomato sauce. I was so excited to successfully hide these veggies, until V stared at it and refused to eat. She sat there through our entire dinner w/that typical stubborn child's scowl. Finally, after many failed persuasions, the light turned on.

I asked her if she would like to pray to Jesus for help to eat. She said yes. We held hands and we prayed. And then, she took her first bite. Just like that...with FULL confidence that God was now going to help her. After that, she devoured the entire place, telling us how much she loved it...and telling Dadda to stop sneaking bites!! WOW.

The tenderness of a child's heart toward the Lord is speaking to me louder than most messages. I sat with tears in my eyes, realizing that we triumphed over her stubbornness w/prayer. (...and that her faith is so much stronger than my own!)

Praying through stubbornness has actually worked for us in the past (which is a RARE thing...so it was a few months ago!). Took me a while to remember to call on the Lord..but I'm still learning too! :)

being wooed

at play group every friday, vienne has a little man that she follows after, named michael. he is a year older and full of spunk and clever mischief. they are absolutely darling together.

while us moms were congregated with our coffees in the living room, i noticed vienne and michael sneaking into the garage (his house). i let them play privately for a few minutes before checking in on them. finally, i decided to take a peak. i opened the door to a tiny little garage w/one car squeezed in and did not see our two little ones. looking around the car, under the car, i called out "where are you?!". "here, mama!" what?! oh my good grief, i finally looked INside the car to discover the two of them sitting in there like little adults - michael in the driver's seat, v in the passenger. michael has found the keys and only turned them far enough in the ignition to unroll the windows and turn the music on. they were quietly sitting in there together, enjoying slow romantic tunes. i nearly keeled over in laughter! it was the cutest most hilarious (and potentially scary!) sight! i said he is cleverly mischievous, no?!

gotta keep an eye on that one cuz this little girl will follow him wherever he will go!

haha.

don't be angry

"Don't be angry Mama. It's ok. God will make you happy."

Love.

things she said

We were at the beach. Mark took her for a morning walk and she wanted to be carried.

Mark: "oh geez, I should've brought the stroller."

Vienne: "oh, Jesus brought the stroller?!!"

We've got her so well trained with her manners (most of the time) that sometimes I wonder if she sounds like she's abused in order to behave so well! This morning as I sat down with my breakfast, she looked over at it and said:

"May I share your bagel, please?"

"May have I little bites, please?"

good grief. it even shocks me sometimes.

right now, everything she says is prefaced with "maybe".

"maybe we can eat dinner on the couch and watch cars?? yeah??"

"maybe i can get a treat?!"

"maybe we can go to scarbucks?"

and finally...

we've officially got a make believe friend in our home. her name is Ty. she is 3 and two minutes old. she has brown hair and green eyes and "pretty just like me", vienne says. oh, and she's nice "just like mommy and daddy". she's been talked about for a few weeks now, but not made an actual "appearance" until this evening. mark says they were in the garage and she engaged in a full conversation with her friend ty about goldfish crackers. enlightening! the entire "ty thing" began one day in a goodwill dressing room when vienne suddenly said "mama, do you remember my friend ty?!" hahahah oh how i love it!!

here is a picture of our darling girl bravely wielding her sword. i think it gives her confidence in new situations. she cracks us up!

bear feet

on our way upstairs to put vienne to bed,

she says: "i want to wear my feet to bed"

I said: "you mean, you want to go to bed with bare feet"

she says: "no, i don't have bear feet i have vienne feet!"

OH how literal children are! I love it!

what she said...

earlier this week, there was a day that i found vienne to be full of extraordinary cuteness. simple things, really. nothing hilarious. it's just that i've noticed her conversational abilities have amplified in the last week or so and it is sooooo entertaining. i'm astounded just by the way she is forming sentences and expressing her ideas and feelings. too darn adorable. she's also recently been filled with extra uber amounts of joy. pure abandonment and joy. it is such a lovely thing. her name literally means: "full of life". and that she truly is.

so, some little excerpts from the day, that i remember, were this:

-we were sitting on the barstools at the counter and eating lunch together. she suddenly looked up and said "uh oh, i better get down and go close the flidgilator". i guess i had accidentally left it open (pregnancy brain!). but it was so out of the blue and so observant and responsible. she didn't tell me to do it, but just decided that it must get taken care of. :)

-later that afternoon she refused to nap. a current dilemma, especially for this newly pregnant mama who desperately needs some afternoon snoozes, herself! so after checking in on her several times and instructing her to lay down and try to rest she finally emerged from her room, just not into it. i was exasperated. she could tell and said:

"i'm sorry, mama".

me: "what are you sorry for, vienne?"

v: "i make you angry"

me: "oh honey, you don't make me angry. i love you. i'm happy."

v: "i'm just not sleepy today."

and that's that. she's just not sleepy these days. ugh for me. but at least she's not a pill when she doesn't nap. and at least, on most days, she will stay quietly in her room and play and read books. i am blessed.

suddenly, we had a dog

a while back (winter of 2011), we discovered that our daughter had transformed into a puppy. i think most kids go through this stage. it is quite comical...and then gets progressively annoying! good thing it didn't thoroughly last for too long. we still get puppy every couple of days, but definitely not as intense as it was. when puppy arrived, she licked toes, licked faces, requested to wear a leash and be pulled around, played fetch, drank water from a bowl, nuzzled with her nose, crawled on all fours of course, and barked and barked and barked....a shrill high-pitched "shut that dog up" yip. it was fun. ;)

but she sure did make a darn cute puppy. and again, i love the imagination and would never stomp on that!