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The Nutcracker 2010- you just never know what will happen

Well, these seem to be two of Claire's favorite people as of late. The two questions I get asked a lot these days are when are we going to go see Chesney (make note that Maggie calls her "my Chesney") and when am I going to spend the night with aunt Lee. This past weekend we went to the Nutcracker and both of these people were there. We decided a couple of years ago that this would be our little tradition (me, Leanne, Claire). Bobbie had gotten some free tickets and so we were able to go with a group of people this year.Next year Maggie will join us.  I bought a Nutcracker book for Claire last week and started reading it to her so that she would better understand the story. I think this was the first year the story line really clicked and she understood the ballet. Her and Leanne giggled and talked through the entire thing. It was so funny. I did get a little side tracked when  a little boy came running up the aisle. He passed by us and I did not think anything else of it until I heard this noise. I looked behind me and well lets just say that sometimes you hear those stories of kids projectile vomiting and you think to yourself that they have to be exaggerating... well, I now believe different.  I will now listen to those stories with full belief. The lights were dimmed but there were little lights along the side of the wall. Sometimes there are spot lights on people to point them out in plays or on the stage. Well, this was more of a spotlight for the vomit. As I turned my head this poor boy was holding his stomach and throwing up everywhere. I froze for a moment knowing if I pointed this out to anyone sitting next to me that it might cause a scene. Luckily, Leanne and Claire were chatting it up so they did not pay a lick of attention to what was going on around them. Brook and Chesney were sitting next to me. I finally could not hold it in any longer and I looked at Brook and told her to look behind her. She did just in time for round 2. We looked at each other for a moment and then I think it sunk in that what was actually going on was this kid was throwing up literally 3 feet away from us and he probably has some kind of virus.  Thankfully the intermission was just a few minutes away so we tried to stay strong until then. I told her that whatever she did not to let Leanne know what had happened because she is a germaphobe and I could see her freaking out. Just as this was getting out of my mouth Chesney hopped down out of Brook's lap and came over holding her stomach and moaning. Leanne looked at me and asked what was wrong with her and I just blew it off. The moans got louder and Chesney got closer and closer. I finally realized that I was going to have to tell Leanne what had happened. At this point the smell had drifted our way. Britta, Bobbie, and Bobbie's mom were all now breathing that fresh fragrance and so we all pointed out very quickly that we were so sorry for that poor little boy BUT we had to get away fast. Sometimes as a mom you become a little like a crazy, freakishly out of control person when you find out someone is sick around you. Its like you envision the next week of your life in slow motion with sick kids. Sometimes I think Claire would like to be sick everyday. Her motto- when your sick you get to lay on the couch and watch movies all day and eat. Okay, so back to the crazy person inside of you, we decided to change our seats during the intermission.  The rest of the ballet was pretty peaceful. I watched Claire's eyes get really big and watched her smile at all of the pretty pink outfits. I watched Leanne as her eyes lit up whenever she would look at Claire. I looked to the left of me and saw Brook and Chesney having this beautiful mommy daughter moment and I thought to myself that if Connie were here she would be so proud of Brook and the mommy she is. For about 4 hours my lap was empty and I got to sit and watch this beautiful ballet with some of the most amazing people on the earth. I do remember at one point looking at Brook and asking what the odds were that this little boy would throw up 3 feet away from us. She just smiled. We made memories that day. I never thought I would take that memory away but after all, I am a Dickinson and whats even funnier than that is that the more Brook spends time with me, the more she totally GETS that :).

Claire's Christmas Dance

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Innocent Maggie Rie

Yep, she is the one who will sneak out of the house... :)

This year Eric, Susanna, and the kids came down the Sunday before Thanksgiving. We spent Sunday through Tuesday with them and then we spent Thanksgiving day with my family. This Thanksgiving was very special to me.  My mom brought out all of the Christmas decorations and let the girls help put them up. She also went above and beyond with the food. My sister loves to cook and so she always wears the cook's hat when we get together. We laughed a lot as SHE cooked the food.  My Aunt Rie was able to be with us this year. She has been such a huge part of my life. I remember going to her apartment when I was little and helping her decorate for Christmas. I have a lot of wonderful memories with Aunt Rie and pray for many more in my life and in the girl's lives. I think the thing that was most special to me this year was having my dad there with us the entire day. He usually plays tennis and he comes in as we are putting food out to eat. Yes, it was awkward and none of us knew what to do with him being with us all day. He did not even know what to do. I think he even sat down and painted one of Claire's princess pictures while she was outside. It did not matter to me what he was doing.... he was doing it with us. I don't think I could have asked for anything else this Thanksgiving. To my family, I love each of you and I thank God for you.  Happy Thanksgiving!

Thanksgiving 2010 at Mimi's house

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Freedom in Christ

Galatians 5 

Christ Has Set Us Free

¹For freedom Christ has set us free; stand firm therefore, and do not submit again to a yoke of slavery.

We have been a part of an amazing group of people that we have called "home" for the past 10 years-our church family.   This past year the Lord brought us to a "new" place as we transitioned from meeting in a warehouse to meeting in an actual house (thank you Denards). Our history is hard but what the Lord allowed to happen because of it is breathtaking.  We began to study what the church was and how that applies to us now. We began to see healing through relationships and not only with others but with our God. We began to see people finding and using their spiritual giftings. We began to wrestle with those "grey" areas in scripture and how that applied to us personally. We began to see the Gospel. We decided that our time together as a church was coming to an end. This has probably been one of the most difficult  decisions that we have ever had to make. We met with our church family and we shared our hearts. We cried. We cried hard.  We still cry but even in the smallest things  the Lord still confirms that He has different plans for all of us.

To my beautiful church family, thank you.Thank you first for loving our Lord! Thank you for serving Him! Thank you for all of the moments that we shared together as a body. Thank you for the smiles, the food, the tears. Thank you for loving our family and praying with us as we prayed for our two little miracles. Thank you for celebrating with us as God answered those prayers and brought Claire and Maggie into this world. Thank you for listening to God and supporting our family in so many ways. Our family will forever hold a place in our heart for all of you. To those in our past  who did not walk with us through this last year please know that we love you. Please know that the Lord loves you and He wants to set you free. Please know that we pray for you.

There is a song that Claire has on one of her cds. It is very simple. The words are-God has not forgot, God has not forgot. If He said that He would do it, it will come to pass. God has not forgot, God has not forgot.  There are so many moments over the past several months that I have had to sing this to myself. I know having freedom can be a scary. It can be overwhelming and you just want to go back. I know, I have those same feelings. He is with us. He hears our cries. He is our hope and our strength. Please forgive this very elementary picture but when we planted our garden this year I had all of these hopes that it would produce an abundance amount of food (even if they were all potted plants and we had never attempted this before :). Claire, Maggie, and I would go out and water them and the zucchini plants were doing great. The leaves grew so big and pretty. There were tiny yellow flowers and my heart jumped for joy because I knew we would have food really soon.... or would we.  Many of those buds closed up and never produced zucchini. I could not understand why. They seemed all really healthy. The next set of buds came and my heart got excited once again. That season we maybe had a total of 3 zucchini. As I was thinking about the season we are at in our lives I began to think back to those plants. Some of the buds were ready and produced what they were suppose to and some of those bud seemed ready and healthy but they did not produce. Does this mean that we throw those buds out or cut them off? Absolutely not!! There are moments when it seems dry and lonely and that nothing will ever pull us out of the slump we are in. It seems we have no "fruit" in our lives but we have to have faith and trust that the Lord is still preparing us for something great.  (As I am writing this I am telling myself this) I will tell you that those 3 zucchinis were pretty big. They were few but they were big.  The timing was not right for those buds to produce zucchinis but the timing was right for the others.  Humor me for a moment. When you plant a seed it takes a long time for the plant to grow and then it takes even longer for the flower to blossom or for the food to ripen. 

My sweet church family, the Lord is going to use you for His mighty plan. He has amazing things ahead for you and your family and at this moment you may not see one bud but its coming. I have held this verse in my heart for a long time.  Phil 4:13 I can do all things through Christ who gives me strength. As of the last several years I have held the verses before this close and prayed that I would be content in all circumstances just as Paul.  Phil 4:10-12 I rejoiced greatly in the Lord that at last you renewed your concern for me. Indeed, you were concerned, but you had no opportunity to show it. ¹¹¹² I know what it is to be in need, and I know what it is to have plenty. I have learned the secret of being content in any and every situation, whether well fed or hungry, whether living in plenty or in want. 

 I want to end with this scripture. I think it is quite neat that this comes right before the scriptures above.      

 ⁴ Rejoice in the Lord always; again I will say, Rejoice. ⁵Let your reasonableness be known to everyone. The Lord is at hand; ⁶ do not be anxious about anything, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God. ⁷And the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.
 ⁸Finally, brothers, whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is just, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is commendable, if there is any excellence, if there is anything worthy of praise, think about these things. ⁹What you have learned and received and heard and seen in me—practice these things, and the God of peace will be with you.

We are free in Christ!

                                                                  

 

Moody Man is no longer :(

Chesney brought a moody man for her presentation at school this past Monday. A moody man is a little head that you can squeeze and parts of it will pop out between your fingers. Maggie loved this toy.  Maggie was playing with it in her class. Leslie, who helps keep their class, came in and got me from Claire's class. She had Maggie in her arms facing the other direction. I assumed she had a dirty diaper and it was time for a change but that was not the case. She told me to look at Maggie's face and as she turned her around I looked at my child and it looked as if she had put her face in a pan of elmer's glue. She had this creamy white liquid in her eyes and every nook and cranny on her face. You would think this child would be screaming but she wasn't. She was laughing. I grabbed her up and took her into the bathroom to wash her face off. I was getting no where so I called for Brook to come in there. Brook and I laughed because well, things like this just happen to people like us.  It was really fun and interesting cleaning this substance off of her face because what seemed to be liquid suddenly turned to powder. Maggie must have put the moody man in her mouth and bit into it. It exploded! We got her all cleaned up and scrubbed the floor and we were on our way home. We  called poison control and all was well. Claire asked Maggie a million questions on the way home. My curious little Claire-bear... Maggie finally looked over at her and said, "Claire, it just expwoded and got it my eye". Claire said, "oh, ok". That was the end of the discussion. I laughed the whole way home and praised God for several things. 1. My little girl did not ingest any of this and that this did not truly hurt her.  2. I got to laugh at my child as she was covered in "inert polymer".  3. I got to laugh with a dear friend who helped me clean my baby off and we needed it. It's the small things in life that God can use to soften us isn't it. Thank you God that you gave me a Maggie Rie and a Claire-bear. Your timing is perfect and your blessings are truly amazing! To our sweet Chesney, we are sorry that your moody man "expwoded".  We love you!

Are these not the cutest little princesses you have ever seen?

My little girl is growing up!

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The Princess Doll

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Each week the kids at school do presentations. A couple of weeks ago Claire chose her princess doll to do hers on. The sound is not great in this video so I will write some of what is being said. Here is what you should notice in the order as they happen:
1. Notice that the doll is wearing a pink dress and Claire is wearing a pink dress. Shocker I know, but it was a very serious conversation that morning (as if any morning is easy discussing what to wear) as to what she was going to wear.
2. Claire: My aunt Lee gave me this doll. teacher: Oh, your aunt gave you that doll. Claire (quickly interrupting): No, my aunt LEE
3. The teacher asks if anyone has any questions. Claire starts calling on people. Notice that Chesney is minding her own business and really does not have a question for Claire but Claire asks her anyway :)
4. The final thing I would like to point out in this video is the last boy asking his question. Boy: When you play with your dolls do you play like this... I hate you, I hate you. Claire: well, the look says it all. This was probably the cutest part of the whole thing. Proves that little boys are a bit different than little girls.... especially the ones that are as girly as mine.

Fall 2010

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Claire and Maggie School

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This is what we have been learning in our school. I am blown away by how much these kids remember! We are loving this!!

September 2010 Beach Trip

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A friend of ours is down at the beach helping with the clean up from the oil spill. She has so graciously offered for us to come and stay with her as long as she is down there. We took our second trip last week. It was so relaxing and it is probably one of the best vacations we have been on. There are several videos towards the end of the slide show so make sure that you click play to watch them. We are officially spoiled beach snobs :) The house we stayed in is amazing. So is it ok for me to be thankful for the oil spill? If it was not for that then Ms. Merri would not have gone down to work and we would not have had a vacation place like this... I know the oil spill was a terrible thing that happened. I realize it will take a long time for the coast to be normal again.. I am just so thankful that we were able to see some good in it personally.

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Well, it is official. We have started our school. We bought these desks this summer at a yard sale. We painted them and then let the girls paint the tops. They turned out really cute. It is really hard to believe that Claire is old enough to be reading and that Maggie is old enough to just be a stinker. These are my precious baby girls and they melt my heart. We have started a program called Classical Conversations. Claire will go to school every Monday and then we build off of her school for the rest of the week at home. We have a couple of more weeks until we start that but one really exciting thing about it is that we get to do this with the Bests. Claire gets to be with her best friend and well, Tweetle Dee and Tweetle Dumb (Brook and Mel) get to figure out this little thing we call "school". I am beginning to think that we are the ones who are going back to school and that this is all really for us (Lord, please help our children :) I am so excited about having such an amazing friend to share this with. We have walked along side of each other in ministry for many years now. We have been through a lot together... let me know when you have a few days, weeks, months and maybe we can catch you up... Thank you Lord for the opportunity to be doing school together. We may live 30 miles away from each other but that does not seem to stop us. I love you Brook Best!! I can't wait to see where the Lord takes us in this adventure!

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The "that's my girl" smile

Last night we went to Claire's last dance class for the summer. Granna came to see her dance. Claire was bouncing off the walls. When the class was over, she went and gave each of her teachers a hug and told them thank you. While Claire was putting her shoes on, I walked over to where her teachers were. They were all standing around a desk looking at a roll book. I said to them, "Thank you so much for teaching her this summer. She absolutely loves to dance." Her teacher looked up at me and said, "We were just looking for her name on the roll sheet in hopes that she would continue taking dance this fall." I said, "Oh yes, I just signed her up tonight for the 5A class and was told it was the last spot." Her teacher, "Oh good, she is in my class (with a huge smile on her face)." I know, I know, they probably do this to all the girls... or do they? Last night, I walked away with a huge smile on my face. You better believe you want my daughter in your dance class. :) I probably should not encourage this type of behavior but I just can't help it. I guess our soccer days have now come to an end, unless, Maggie decides she wants to play. I remember the cute little girl with braids running down the field holding hands with her cousin and her friend. We are in the background yelling, "kick that ball in the goal." My little soccer player has turned out to be one of the most beautiful ballerinas...but I am a little biased :)

Hula Ballerina

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Aunt Lee

She is the apple in the girl's eyes and she is my sweet sister. She is waiting on her State Farm agency to open and she is going to make a wonderful agent. She recently moved here from Montgomery. She has traveled a lot with her job over the years but I am so happy that she is now back in Birmingham awaiting her next adventure. Leanne and I are seven years apart. I was always the bratty little sister and she was always the cool big sister. She had to walk me home from school and take me to the bathroom all the time but now that we are older our relationship has changed so much. I find that I love her more and more everyday. This past month we have had the opportunity to talk more and spend a good bit of time together. The girls spent the night with her last night and her and mom came out here and we all went swimming. Claire has been learning to swim this summer and there was something about today that clicked. Leanne taught her how to swim with her head under water and now she swims all over that pool. Maggie was so excited for Claire and since she mimics Claire in everything, she felt it was her turn. She jumped in and went underwater over and over. It was the cutest! We had so much fun today and when we were headed home Claire said, "Mommy, I just love Aunt Lee." Maggie repeated and said, "I love Lee."
I admire my sister so much. She is one of the hardest workers you will ever find. She is a wonderful aunt to my babies and she is one of the coolest people I know. The best part about her is that she is MY sister. I love her dearly and no matter what lies ahead for our future, I know that we will be right there together. Thank you Lord for my big sister!! I love you Leanne :)

Claire's 4th dance class

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Claire's 5th Birthday Party

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Thank you guys for coming and helping us celebrate Claire! We are VERY blessed to have so many friends and family. We love you!!

Claire-my little ballerina

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Claire has played soccer for two seasons. She enjoyed moments of it but I sensed she was ready for something different. I decided I would sign her up for a dance camp this summer. She is all girl. She loves pink and she loves to dress up. It looks like you might see my Claire-bear dancing in the Nutcracker one day. When I watched this little princess dance last night the world seemed perfect and all the day's worries melted away. I am one of those sappy moms (thanks to my mama)so I teared up. I cannot believe she is 5. I cannot believe how beautiful she is. I cannot believe she is mine. Thank you Lord for such an amazing miracle and for allowing me to experience a love I never knew existed. I love you Claire!

Easter 2010

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Snow 2010

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What are we going to do with this hair?

All I want for Christmas is a Hello Kitty bike!

Claire had been telling us for weeks that she wanted three things for Christmas. She wanted a cake baking set, a dress up dress (here is a surprise), and a Hello Kitty bike. Every time we were at Walmart she would walk us over to the bikes and show us which one she wanted. She got that Hello Kitty bike and of course we had to get one that was in a box and not already put together. So like every other parent we stayed up Christmas Eve and put it together. She was so excited when she saw it Christmas morning. We went to storage and got the little tricycle for Maggie that Aunt Lee had bought Claire at her age. They would both have their riding toys! We tried to take the girls riding outside but it has been so cold so they have done some riding in the house. I know, I know, bad idea right :). The other night Claire decided she did not want to ride her brand new Hello Kitty bike but she wanted to ride the tricycle. Maggie, of course, wanted to ride it too. A few slappings in the face and pulling of the hair and it looks like we have come to an agreement... and the poor Hello Kitty bike sits alone... and yes she did get those other two things she asked for!