It's been one of those weeks...

...At least at work. We're in the middle of a big push for documentation since we just had a new software release come out, and one of my writers, who just so happens to be in charge of the product's documentation, was in the hospital because her dog attacked her, bit her arm, and fractured a bone. On top of that, the company was hit with a computer virus that made all of our computers run slow, and we had to install updates almost every night so we couldn't work from home really since our computers were shut down.

Thankfully it was quieter at home.

Monday, June 22

Mara played in her sandbox tonight, and the kitties stood watch over her the whole time she was outside.

Tuesday, June 23

I crashed this evening while John took care of putting Mara to bed. Some of Mara's favorite books right now are the Skippyjon Jones series. It's about a Siamese cat with large ears that thinks he's a chihuahua (or "chi-wow-wow" as Mara says it sometimes). We own one book and have been borrowing the others from the library. What's neat is that all of them have audio versions read by the author herself.

Wednesday, June 24

We decided to go to McDonald's for dinner tonight because it had been a while since we had been there, and we thought we would treat Mara. She loved being able to spend time on the playground. When we came home, Mara wanted to play with her Barbies in the bathtub. The neat thing about these Barbies is that they came with dolphins and all pieces change color depending on if they are hot or cold.

Thursday, June 25

Mara has recently rediscovered her love of puzzles and has been wanting to do one before bed the last few nights.

Friday, June 26

Mara, Lani, and Joy played with Lani's baby doll all evening. They did a good job taking turns with taking care of the baby.

Saturday, June 27

After Mara's ballet lesson, we spent the day with John's family today, and Mara had a lot of fun playing with her cousins Hannah and Josh.

Sunday, June 28

We stayed at home today to work on cleaning and rearranging areas in the house. Mara wore the dress her Grandma and Grandpa Haley brought back from Mexico for her. The kitties really enjoyed where we moved the blanket chest that John's Grandpa Gwin made for me for our wedding.

Reflections

Today was the estimated due date for my second pregnancy last year.

This time isn't as hard as last October. I think it's because I never really got a chance to bond with the baby. We never even got to see the bean on an ultrasound since I miscarried before that was even possible (5 weeks, 5 days). With my other pregnancy, we got to see the baby multiple times, and even once after it had passed.

I never imagined that Mara would still be an only child right now, but I guess that was God's plan for now. I pray that we will have another baby this time next year. We'll just have to wait and see if that is what God wants.

Happy Father's Day! (and birthdays)

We celebrated Father's Day today along with Lori's birthday, which is Tuesday. And since today is Ben's actual birthday, he got to blow out the candles too.

But first, here are a couple of pictures I got of Mara and Lani in their matching dresses. We also got a picture of John and I for once. :)

Ballet Lessons

Mara started ballet lessons today. She was really excited to finally be learning. Her teacher's name is Miss Marika. She has seven more lessons, and depending on how well she likes them, we might enroll her in lessons for the fall as well. She wants to learn how to play soccer too, so we'll have to wait and see. We don't want to overload her with too many activities.

Happy anniversary, John!

Today, John and I are celebrating 11 years of marriage.

We're starting off the day with Mara's first ballet lesson, and then we're going to take her up so she can spend the day and night with Lani. I'm not sure exactly what else we're going to do today – probably try out the Melting Pot finally.

The important thing is that we're going to be spending some time together. With all that has been going on in our lives and watching other marriages around us struggle, I think this is a very needed vacation of sorts for both of us to help keep our marriage fresh and alive.

VBS

We enrolled Mara in her first Vacation Bible School (VBS) this year since the church where she goes to school allowed kids as young as four to attend.

We asked Mara earlier this week if any of her friends were in her class, and she told us no. When we dropped her off today, we saw that only one of her friends from school was in her VBS class. When we went to the performance today, we discovered why she wasn't in a class with many of her friends – she was placed in a Kindergarten class and not a 4-year-old one. The teachers said she did well. She was a little quiet but didn't seem to have any problems.

Here are some pictures from the celebration this morning.

Things to do, people to see...

Monday, June 15

The kids get a sticker at the end of each swimming lesson, and today Mara got a green smiley face sticker.

Tuesday, June 16

Last week, we made salsa chicken. (Chicken, taco seasoning and salsa cooked in a crock pot then add cream cheese before serving.) Tonight, we put the chicken on nachos. It was yummy. :) Then, Mara insisted on sleeping with her big dog that my parents gave her for her first Christmas. (They had given one to all of the othe r grandkids the Christmas before.)

Wednesday, June 17

Like most days after swimming, Mara played in the splash area. I was able to snap this really cute picture of Mara.

Thursday, June 18

After Mara's final swimming lesson tonight, we went to dinner with Shari, David, and Allie at T.G.I.Friday's.

Last Day of Swimming

Today was Mara's last day of swimming lessons with Miss Sandeep. She came a long way from just last week. She will now mostly float on her own (on her back) as well as go under water. She's also learning several different strokes, including the freestyle, backstroke, and sidestroke.

Since she enjoyed them so much, we're going to try to get her in more lessons this summer. The only problem is that they're all full, so we've put her name on the waiting list and now just need to wait. :)