Questions, Questions, Questions

Anson is full of questions! All day, every day, 365 days a year! From the time he wakes up until I close his door at night, he does not stop talking! I am very thankful for this (most of the time :o) because I never have to wonder what he is thinking about. But other times, I am shameful to admit, I tire of the questions! Don't worry, I try my best to answer each one and when I don't know, I use my stock answer of "Because that's how God made it!"

Here is a sample of recent questions:

Why are Brachiosaurus' so tall?

Why does that man have a hat on?

Why do Moose's like to live in Canada?

Can we go to Antarctica? (Well, Uncle Jared, you have at least ONE taker on that trip! :o)

When can we go to Heaven?

Why can't I hear God talk?

Are they calling for rain today?

How did the baby get into your tummy? (Go ask Daddy!)

Other recent musings, not necessarily questions:

Look, Mommy! I'm so excited! That lady must be having a new baby too! Look at her big tummy! (said in a loud whisper in reference to a rather large woman behind us in line!)

I think you just went through a red light!

That car broke God's rules and now they have to pay a ticket! (someone pulled over by the police)

When I am 16 years old I am going to go to work with Daddy everyday!

Mommy! I just ran all the way to the fence and back in 2 days! Do I get a trophy?

We are thankful for our inquisitive little guy! :o)

Puddle Jumper

Wouldn't it be nice to take time to jump in puddles? If there is water anywhere, Ella will find it! First she stomped in the puddle... then she splashed in it with her hands... then she sat right in it... finally she took off her shoes to experience it fully! What a funny girl! Then, of course, came the bath!

The Great Strawberry Caper!

We went to the farmers market yesterday and bought a bunch of goodies. I was tired from the outing, so when we got home I layed down on the couch for a few minutes while my two little angels played quietly in the living room. :o) I heard a noise in the kitchen and realized Ella was MIA. I asked Anson to go see what she was doing... I assumed she was playing in her favorite drawer or cabinet. He called out, "She's OK Mommy! She's just eating strawberries!" I jumped up to find her with her turtle stool pulled from the bathroom and placed right in front of the stove where I had put all the bags from the market! She had helped herself to a single bite out of 11 huge strawberries! She had strawberry juice all down the front of her, in her hair, on the stove and on the floor below her! I guess they were good and juicy! I just had to laugh!

Anson and Ella

I keep this blog because I am horrible at keeping a journal! So this post is an update on all things Anson and Ella...

Anson: 4 years old, 39 pounds, 41 1/2 inches tall

Anson still loves his blue elephant and makes up elaborate stories about him. (I just performed minor surgery on Elephant and re-stuffed him! He was completely flat!) It is amazing how much Elephant and Anson have in common! :o) Elephant just had a baby that Anson "takes care of" and makes sure he's tucked into bed with them at night. Tonight at dinner, elephant's mom baked us a berry pie for dessert! He is really into making forts now and his favorite place is under the dining room table. He brings tons of toys under there and will play in there for hours!

He had his four year check-up last week and had to get 4 shots. He was so brave and didn't even cry! He told the nurse, "Ouch! That really hurt!" As if to say, "How dare you?"

He loves to pretend he's a lion or a cat or a mean dinosaur. He would like a baby bird as a pet. When we told him the baby bird would grow up, he said we could let him fly home to his family and get another baby bird! He always has an answer for everything! He can write his name now! The letters are not always in the right order but they are all there! - semantics. He can count to 20 and usually leaves out 14 and 17. He can say and recognize the ABC's. He would like to name his new baby brother or sister "Rudolph" - which is his all-time favorite song! To Anson, anything in the past happened "yesterday" and anything in the future is "tomorrow". He loves going to the park and zoo and pool. At his four year old check-up he told his doctor that he can even swim backwards! (He can't :o) He loves playing with "fake food". His friend Sagan has pretend food and little dishes and that is what he plays with everytime we go there. And in Maine, he played with his cousins' miniature Barbie-sized food and carried them around in a little tiny suitcase. At Gramma and Papa's house he loves playing with our old miniature dishes sets. He also loves his trains and cars and animals. When asked what he wants to be, he says "the ice cream" man everytime. He knows 42 of his catechism questions and can tell you that sin is "any lack of conformity to, or transgression of the law of God" and the scary part is I think he really knows what that means! :o) He could technically start Pre-K in a month but I am going to "teach" him at home. He will shout from the back seat of the car at random times "Mommy, you just went through a red light!" and scare me half to death! Usually he's looking out the side window and sees the other light... He can be pretty moody when he wakes from his nap - which now is about every other day. He stays in his room for the whole 2 hours but sometimes he plays instead of sleeps. He is learning how to tattle on Ella - and unfortuantely there is a lot to tattle about.

So on to Ella! (22 Months, about 28 pounds, 34 inches tall.) She is really coming into her own! She has a very sweet spirit and loves caring for her baby dolls. She learned to wrap them up in blankets and will carry them around like that, usually with a bag over her sholder. She now has quite a vocabulary, too! Some of her favorites are "I do!" and "Hold me", followed by baby, Mommy, Daddy, EE, (She calls Anson EE now which is what he used to call himself!) mine, pool, book, hi, bye, uh-oh, happy, ti ti, more, and bowl. She loves to tackle Anson and sit on top of him, which makes him squeal at a barely audible pitch! She will sneak in and turn off the TV right in the middle of his favorite show. She wants to do anything and everything Anson does...And when I tell her no, she puts her head down and runs to her room! Sometimes she cries, sometimes it's just a silent rebellion. :o) She LOVES shoes. Who ever has left their shoes in her reach, she puts them on! She can actually put her own shoes on the correct feet more often than Anson! She also loves the potty. She will come take my hand and say "Ti Ti" and wants to go sit on the potty. She hasn't actually done anything in the potty yet but at least she's practicing! I have hope that maybe she'll be potty trained before baby #3 comes! She loves to smile and uses it as a tactic with her father! It's hard to discipline a "smiling little cutie"! She now successfully wears pig-tails! - another favorite of Dusty's. And now for the "dark side" of Ella... she will stick out her tongue and spit at Anson when she's mad. A couple weeks ago she went through a biting spree - she would only bite Anson and it was usually on his back or sholder. Ouch! It seems to have gone away(after much prayer!) and now she just sticks her tongue out at him! Progress. That pretty much sums up my little princess in a nutshell. But then again they change everyday so stay tuned! :o)

Independence Day

We had a great time celebrating America's birthday today! Anson and Ella loved eating dinner outside and shooting off a few fireworks in the broad daylight - it didn't matter to them! But as we were wrapping up our outside activities, I got a call from my sister Aly. I had been expecting this call for a couple days now and it finally came. My Aunt Becky, who we just visited in Maine, has gone home to be with the Lord. Today was HER Independence Day. A little over a year ago she had major surgery for colon cancer that the doctors were reluctant to do because of the failing condition of her liver. Amazingly, she came throught the surgery and God gave her one more year with us. When we were in Maine, she received the news from her doctors that she was now experiencing kidney failure. Dialysis was not an option. We were blessed to have a nice visit with her in some of her last "good" days. She was able to see Anson and Ella and we discovered that our baby #3 is due on her birthday, January 3oth! But tonight at 6:15 she left this world, surrounded by her family, and is now surrounded by the angels rejoicing in Heaven!
When I told Anson the news (and he remembers just meeting her) he said, "But It's OK because she's with Jesus now, right?" What a kid.
Becky was married to my Mom's brother David. Together they served the Lord in Ecuador for the better part of the 70's and 80's with Wycliffe Bible Translators. And for the past year my Uncle Dave has been her sole caretaker. I know he is exhausted but God has given him strength - he would do anything for her. Please keep the family in your prayers.

Baby Rollins #3!

Here he or she is! The heartbeat was very strong and he/she was wiggling all over the place!! It was so nice to see our baby! If you can tell from little peanut's picture, the leg buds are on the left, then the tummy, then arm buds, and then the head! This is at 9 weeks and 2 days. The doctor confirmed my due date of January 30th and will schedule the c section 1 week early. I still do not wish to take the risks of a VBAC after 2 c-sections and they concurred. So we're all set! We are very thankful to God for another smooth pregnancy so far! He is really blessing our entire family with new life!

Our Maine Trip

Excited to see the plane come! They did great on the plane! Ella had her moments but over all it was good.
Our gang on top of Cadillac Mountain (overlooking Bar Harbor)

Anson - King of Cadillac!

The kids in Bar Harbor

Ella and Emily! They were so cute together. They would run around holding hands and squealing!

The adorable little town of Somesville

Maine Lupine in bloom- these wild purple flowers were everywhere!

The footbridge in Somesville

Aly's pond - she lives on 5 acres in Bass Harbor and this pond is just down her driveway a bit.

Ella with a mouthful of wild strawberries! She loved them!

Anson and Joshua playing with Joshua's trains... they would disappear for an hour and we would find them here!

Bass Harbor- it rained all but the first day of our trip! But we had a great time anyway!

Southwest Harbor - at the lobster wharf.

Anson eating some of Gramma's lobster roll! He loved it!

The marsh near Aly's town

Ella, enjoying the Oceanarium through her eyelids :o)

Anson holding a horseshoe crab at the Oceanarium- he touched and held everything!

Aly is 5 weeks "more pregnant" than me... we were comparing baby bumps! :o)

Me, Mom and Aly on Aly's porch.

Happy 4th Birthday Anson!

3 rd Birthday
Second Birthday

First Birthday

His real birthday!

This is one of my favorite poems and I couldn't wait until Anson was four to use it!


Time is of the Essence
(Irene Foster)

Now is the time to get things done...

Wade in the water,

Sit in the sun,

Squish my toes in the mud by the door

Explore the world with a boy just four.

Now is the time to study books,

Flowers, Snails, How a cloud looks.

To ponder "up," Where God sleeps nights,

Why mosquitoes take such big bites.

Later there'll be time to sew and clean

Paint the hall that soft new green,

To make new drapes, refinish the floor,

Later on...When he's not just four.

Happy Birthday little buddy! We love you!

Off to Maine via Florida!

I can't believe that two weeks have flown by and we are going on our trip! We are going to DeLand tomorrow morning and flying out from Sanford airport on Wednesday morning. We will get to Bangor, ME around lunch time on Wednesday! Anson is so excited! He keeps asking me "Do we leave TODAY?" I will miss doing a post on Anson's birthday, which is Wednesday so I'll try to sneak one in soon for his special fourth Birthday! I can't believe that he is 4 already! It seems just like yesterday I brought that little pink-faced bundle home from the hospital and wondered, "OK, what do I do now!" ;o) I guess we're doing pretty well four years later. He is such a great kid... full of energy and wonder and questions and even his own answers! We gave him his birthday present last night and it is a miniature horse stable with three horses, a race track, and some fencing. The stable has sky lights over where the horses sleep. At bed time, Anson shared this concern with me...
"Mommy, are they calling for rain tonight? Because I'm worried that the horses will get wet in their beds with those holes in their ceilings!"
I assured him that it would not rain and the horses would be fine.
"Well are they calling for just sunshine then?"
Again I said yes and that satisfied his mind. :o) The horses slept fine and so did Anson.

Week Update

We went to the zoo today with a Sarah, a friend of mine from church, and her son Chandler. The kids enjoyed eating their bananas in front of the gorillas!

Anson and Ella as baby birds - in the giant life-size nest.

Ella crawled up into our bed and covered herself up like this... all by herself! :o)

Cooling off with ice pops and a dip in the baby pool!

Just playing around outside...

My first week officially pregnant went well! No signs of morning sickness yet! I think with Anson and Ella it showed up around 6 or 7 weeks and I'm just 5 weeks now. I'm keeping my fingers crossed!

On Friday we went to the Farmer's Market and bought some of the first peaches of summer. They were really small but very sweet and juicy! Ella helped herself to an apple and the nice man just gave it to her. He said he always wanted a little girl to spoil but he only had sons. :o)Anson loves watching the airplanes fly overhead while we are at the market. It is very near the airport and on Friday it was particularly busy.

Speaking of airplanes, on Friday we also booked air tickets to go to Maine to see Aly! Dusty couldn't go because of his busy summer schedule but Anson and Ella and I will drive down to FL and fly up with my Mom and Dad. Amy found us round trip tickets from Sanford direct to Bangor for $88!!!!!!! Can you believe it? It was too good to pass up and worth the drive to FL! Now I just pray that Ella does well on the plane! Anson will be entertained/entertaining but Ella... well I just hope we have nice people sitting around us! :o) She is definitely going into her "two's" and has found her will. If she wants something and you tell her no, she protests... and not silently! Yikes! We are just so excited to see Aly and her family that it will all be worth it! Keep us in your prayers on June 17th! Yes, we are flying out on Anson's 4th birthday! I can't believe that he is already going to be 4! He acts so grown up one minute and so silly the next. He keeps it fresh! :o) His vocabulary is growing daily... last week he told me that he couldn't wait for the baby to "arrive"!

And speaking of babies, I'm not the only one pregnant in our family! Aly is pregnant with baby #6!!!! It was a surprise for them but they are very excited! And she and I are due a month apart! She is due on December 28th (Jared's Birthday!) and I am due on January 30th! And Brittany is due the second week of December (I can't remember the exact date)! Lots of babies this winter! How fun!

And lastly, don't forget to check my sewing blog for the free give-away this week! It's a cute summer tote bag!