Beauty and GROSSness of Motherhood

Quick post since screaming baby in the background.....

The beauty of motherhood is hearing your 2 yr old pray for "Baby RJ" every night, asking God to "help his little body." And watch your son's face light-up every time he talks about Kindergarten (which is now only 13 days away!!) And feeling like you can hear heaven every time your sweet, baby girl laughs.

Then the completely disgusting (and somewhat disturbing) side of motherhood is... being so tired at night that you conciously choose to sleep on the sheets that have dried, baby spit-up ALL over them, and you just strategically place your pillow in a spot to cover up the sour milk smell! And the embarrassing truth of motherhood is getting ready to nurse your baby in the morning, and discovering dried boogies on your boob from nursing your snotty baby in the middle of the night before!!! Yuck!

But, what are you gonna do?!? :)

Changing so fast....

That's what I feel like right now. I feel like our kids-our babies-are changing and growing up so fast. We are now 20 days and counting until Kindergarten starts! Wow--I might need to start taking small doses of valium now. :) The other big development in Caleb's life is that he started riding his bike without his training wheels this past weekend. It was actually a small, biking miracle. Picture the scene from Forest Gump, where he starts running and the braces just fall off of his legs. It was kinda like that. Caleb was riding around our cul-de-sac, and one of his training wheels fell off. ....but he didn't fall over. Then he just took the other one off, and away he went. He was so proud of himself, and we were too. He immediately then started to try to do tricks, and "pop wheelies." :)

Ellie is also now officially a "Big Girl". She has gone 8 days now in panties, and has only had one little accident. Pretty impressive, I'd say. The first couple of days were a struggle...I think I shared some of my frustrations about having to take her to the potty 562 times a day, but she has gotten to where she goes by herself now. However, half the time, she still needs an audience to come in after she does her business and celebrate whatever surprise the potty holds. :)

Our new "potty world" has brought many new experiences lately. And the other day, all 5 of us were going somewhere, and Ellie announces she has to go "BAD". So, we immediately pull over the side of the road (which was the frontage road of Hwy 6). We've always called road-side bathroom trips, "going like an indian." I know--not politically correct, but I have quite a bit of American Indian heritage, and I'm not offended. Anyway, I squatted down in the 110 degree heat, holding my sweet daughter up as she squatted to go tee-tee in the grass, and she says "My like going potty like an Aggie!" :) Close enough.

And my sweet Adelyn just graduated into her big girl car seat! It's a bittersweet promotion. I was just about getting a hernia every time I had to haul that carrier around with her in it, but she's also not as portable now. I hate having to wake her up every time I have to get her out of the carseat! But she's growing up! :)

So...I know these things are not super exciting, as far as the real world goes. But they are all major milestones in our world. Here are some pictures of our growing babies...

I HATE POTTY TRAINING!!

So, just a few rantings...and a prayer request.

1-I REALLY HATE potty training. I think I put Ellie on the potty 562 times yesterday. The praise is that she peed on the potty 5 of those times, and had no accidents in her panties. So, I consider it a successful day. However, she still has not pooped...so I'm thinking there is troubled waters ahead (if you know what I mean). But I now feel like my life and ALL my life's activities revolve around the 562 times I'm taking Ellie to the potty, and the 132 times a day I'm nursing the baby. (and sometimes these activities are going on simultaneously!!)

2-I hope I'm not the only one who uses my older children as indentured servants. I am always asking Caleb, and now sometimes Ellie, to "get mommy a diaper", "get mommy the wipes", "hand mommy her phone", etc. Well, yesterday, I asked Ellie to go grab me a diaper for Adelyn, and she responded to me with her head cocked to the side, "What da maggic wood, Mommy?" At first, i didn't realize what she was saying, but then I realized she was busting me on my manners, and I had to say the magic word! :)

3-The next person who checks our blog is the 1,000th viewer! That's exciting!!

4-On a more important note, there is a sweet couple at our church who just had their little baby boy, two and a half months early. He is not doing well, and has fluid on his little brain. The precious little thing is fighting for his life. Please, if you will, pray for him and his family. His name is RJ and his parents are Rebekah and Robert. Thank you.

My little Super Heroes!


Our spontaneous adventure to Lake Conroe...super cool dinner (my husband is so cute!)

The toliet, a flyswatter and the big trashcan!

"What?!?" That's probably what you are thinking as you read the title to this entry. Well, if you are wondering what these three things have in common--other than being some of the nastiest, dirtiest, grossest things around your house--it just so happens that these are also three things that I have found my daughter putting her MOUTH on in the last few days!!! Yes, that's what I said! Ellie had the flyswatter IN HER MOUTH yesterday evening. Why?? God only knows! Then earlier that day, she had been touching the toilet seat (while sitting and NOT peeing again) and proceeded to put her contaminated thumb IN HER MOUTH. And the day earlier, as Caleb was chunking some trash into our disgusting, big trash can outside, Ellie decided to see what it would taste like, and put HER MOUTH on the rim of it!! Yuck, yuck, yuck!! I'm surprised the girl is not in the hospital with a terrible case of the runs by today. But, what are you gonna do?!?

In other news, Adelyn started cereal yesterday and she did GREAT! Caleb was the photographer of the event, and he got some cute shots.





Last week, our big event was "Salon Night" with Aunt Tracy. She made one of Caleb's dreams come true....and gave him a MOHAWK! He thought it was so cool!


Aunt Tracy, the stylist and hero!


And we also enjoyed being with our family in Ft. Worth this past weekend for my nephew's birthday party! Guess what the theme was??



Finally, today I just took some pictures of my big, beautiful girl....almost 5 months!

Forts, vacation and other random thoughts....

First, I would like to thank God for the miracle He gave me today at the grocery store. Who in their right mind goes to HEB on a Monday at 5:00pm, with THREE crazy kids?!? Well, we did! And it was only because after being gone for a week on vacation, we literally only had ketchup, sour cream and salsa in our refrigerator. But God was so gracious to us! As I pushed one cart with Ellie and Adelyn in it, Caleb pushed the other cart with all of our groceries...and and hour and a half later, we emerged VICTORIOUS! So, props to you God!

In other news, we had an amazing time in New Mexico. We traveled there with my sisters and parents to see my extended family in Las Cruces. They are awesome, godly people, that are so loving and gracious to us. It was such a blessing to see them. And such a blessing to carry on some of our traditions that we had growing up, like going to the mountains in Cloudcroft (where I REALLY want to live some day!) and to White Sands--every kid's dream! Some of my favorite pictures from the trip...


We were all so happy to be together and enjoying God's beautiful creation!


Aunt Lisa and the kids enjoying the cool mountain spring!


He is so freakin' cute!


Such a pretty girl!


My beautiful, silly sisters, finding themselves a hairy, mountain man! :)


All of us enjoying White Sands....well, not ALL of us! :)


Caleb and I riding down the dunes together....so much fun!

And I must dedicate a small part of this post to our pre-vacation fort! It was one of the best forts we've ever had here at the Skow Hacienda...and we've had many! It was complete with two rooms, air conditioning, and much laughter.




And finally, Ellie has begun the long journey of womanhood....well, not really. But she did get her toes painted for the first time last week, and fortunately and unfortunately, she LOVED it! Now the lifetime of 'primping' begins!

My little angel...

Summer Fun

The last couple weeks have been filled with all sorts of fun. We've been playing with friends, going to the $1 movies, doing swimming lessons, visiting the library and hanging out with Lisa and Tracy (my sweet sisters). One of the main events was Caleb's "Junior Book Club meeting." I started doing a book club back in February, and ever since then, Caleb has been asking us when he can have a book club. I thought it was a cute request, but since we've dealing with a crazy newborn baby for the last several months, I hadn't had the courage/time to put much thought or planning into that request. Finally, we decided to let him host one. We let him pretty much run the whole show, which he LOVED. He decided which scholarly friends he wanted to invite, and then set the agenda. He wanted everyone to bring their bibles, and "read them together." (even though he, and most of the attendees can't even read yet!) But I will say it was one of the cutest things I've ever seen. Most of his friends were able to come, and they all dutifully showed up with a bible. We made some little cookies, and then they went back to have their 'meeting'. We eavesdropped on them a little bit, and it seemed like it went well. It lasted for about 5 minutes or so, but they had some pretty deep spiritual conversation. :) The most important thing was that they all had fun, and I was glad that Caleb wanted to share part of his faith with his friends. It was a great start to what will hopefully be a life full of biblestudies, small groups and gatherings of Christian friends.


Here are a few pictures of our other fun activities....


One of our evening walks, with "just the girls". Ellie loves being a 'big sisser' :)


Getting ready to run some errands...yes, in a princess dress and upside-down sunglasses! :)


Caleb has loved his swimming lessons...even though he didn't really learn anything
from his 12 yr old teacher, he still had fun in the water!

Why, God?

I don't really know how to rate myself on the scale of spiritual maturity. I used to think I was, comparatively, pretty 'mature' in my faith...at least for my age. But it seems like the older I get, the more and more I realize how 'immature' in my faith I really am. I grew up with an incredible pastor, and several really great spiritual mentors. They taught me so much, and guided me through a lot of the tough issues of Christianity. I have then been able to use some of this knowledge to explain to others and even help answer some of those harder questions, like "why do bad things happen to good people?" But the bottom line is, this world sucks sometimes. There are tragedies happening everyday, everywhere. And people are suffering--in the Congo, and in Bryan/College Station. And so many times my response, is "Why God?!" I know He is a perfect God, and His Grace and Love are perfect too. It's not that I doubt Him, I just don't understand His permissible will. And my heart just breaks when I see and hear about people having to live through their real-life nightmares. Anwyway, my mind and soul have been a little heavy lately, I just needed to get that out.....

Now I would just like to ask this: Do you see a pattern here?






This is my life!! HELP!! Speaking of issues with God, why did He give me the easy, quiet baby first, and save the crazy, high maintenance one for last?!? (I do blame some of this on my best friend, who I think prayed for me to have higher maintenance children the 2nd and 3rd time around....jealousy issues :) It feels like crying is just a hobby for Adelyn--because she seems to do it ALL the time, just for fun! Wow.

To be fair, every once in awhile, she does look like this..


Either way, she is so stinkin' cute and I love her. (and for those who have known me for a long time...notice how this chic is wearing hair bows/flowers in 4 out of 5 pictures!!! Who knew I would turn out like this? :)