Her Moves

Marin is a Square Dancer

Alabama Right

Make a star, and walk to the right... often Marin would incorporate her made up ballet moves, making it quite the interesting series of square dancing moves.

Dancer!

Marin is officially in love with weddings. Thanks to a wonderful and beautiful wedding we just took her to in Atlanta. Congrats Dan and Amy!

Marin and her daddy and longtime friend Todd

I really wanted to make sure we got a few shots of our family... this is the only one we got and of all the backgrounds we could have picked! Once again the family picture is a lost cause.

Marin learning to Square Dance with Mike.

A long ride home

This weekend we made the trip to Atlanta for a wedding. Todd was one of the groomsmen. I'll get pictures of that up sometime. But I captured these two little shots on our way home. Marin found her two play phones in a bag of car toys and made a few personal calls to McGleet, but then she decided she needed to call her daddy in the front seat.

Whale

I love, love, love this stage of development! This is the beginning of drawings actually representing what kids claim they are. The other day she drew this whale in the car. I personally think this picture could compete with many of Shel Sliverstein's drawings, now she just needs a poem to go with it.

With just a ball of string

Morning Stretching!

Each morning Todd does some stretching for his back. Marin loves to join him. She gets the room all set up for them by pulling out the pillows and finding her strap. This is one of the only one's she really does, about the time they are done with this one she starts to get silly and make up her own moves.

Preschool Adventures

A fire squad came to visit Marin's school.

This is her little class, listening to the firefighters teach them all about fire safety.

And this is what you get when you line up a class of 2 and 3 year olds for a group picture. Who's the kid with the purple fringe boots?

Imaginary Friends

Many of you, by now, have heard about our daughters imaginary friends, McGleet and McGloot. They are often accompanied by other imaginary girls, Ma-lisa, Maleeesa, Lucia, and any other name that happens to hang around that day. There have been "friends" who have been around for a few minutes and left, and then there is also Churna who introduced McGleet to our family and never came back. But McGleet has been around ever since that day in July when Churna brought her over to play. As a parent who's college degree is in child development and family studies, I always worry about the reasons behind a child's reasons for each behavior. Some of you may remember how I freaked out when Marin was about 14 months old and started pulling her hair when she was mad. I was convinced this was a result of so many people, strangers and friends, always talking about her red hair. "Its just too much attention for a small child to handle" I would say overly concerned to Todd. This phase lasted for about 2 weeks and probably had nothing to do with her flaming hair drawing so much attention.

With the onset of her imaginary friends I was convinced they arrived as a result of loneliness. I was a firm believer in having siblings be less than 3 years apart. There is a lot of research data out there that says kids farther apart than that are not "playmates" for each other. Let me be clear, the data says "playmates" this is different than an older child playing with a younger child, or helping the younger child, or loving the younger child. Once children breach 3.5/4 years their developmental stages do not overlap until young adulthood. Many siblings have reported the discovery of new friendships when they all reach adulthood and are figuring out adult life together. Many said it was becoming parents together that brought about their friendships with each other. My life plan was to have kids about 2.5 years apart so that they would be life long buddies. Because my life plans always work out... right. Well this plan was not God's plan for us, and as a result of a miscarriage, unemployment, living in a guest house for 8 months (which Todd likes to call our year of homelessness because we did not have our own address) we put off baby making or for the sake of this story, sibling making, until things in our life had some sort of a direction. (I would like to insert here, and this is whole different post topic, that "direction" in our life did not mean calmness or having anything really figured out. And after our last year we keep thinking, "surly we are crazy for adding another person to this family when we are just now getting our feet under ourselves. Are we crazy?)

OK back to McGleet. I was sure Marin brought about these friends because she was lonely, in need of a partner, a friend who was with her at all time, a sibling. She was mad at us for not giving her a playmate that lived with us. All of you who chose college training that has nothing to do with children are very thankful you don't have to stress out about such things you have read about in text books. Now that her "friends" have been around for almost 9 months I have given these additional people much thought. I am not convinced these friends appeared out of loneliness, Marin has more good friends than I can count, and the month McGleet arrived was mid summer and we were in the swing of daily swimming dates with friends. Marin also had her daddy at her side one hundred percent of her day. They were inseparable playmates as he was unemployed and I was working lots of extra hours. After 9 months of these characters being a part of our lives I am very sure these friends are a result of a child having the TIME to invent such things, and creativity. And maybe a little bit of not having a sibling playmate yet. However these friends have arrived they are here for a while and I am going to put a few conversations on here that result from these characters being in our lives.

M: "Mommy McGleet just got out of her car seat, she's not buckled!"
Me: Marin tell McGleet to get back into her seat, I cannot pull over right now and do it myself
M: McGleet get back in your seat!
M: She's not listening and she's trying to get in the front
Me: McGleet if I have to throw you out the window I will
M: Mommy she's sitting in the front seat on her bottom now

Dinner last night
M: Mommy McGleet is throwing food!
Me: McGleet stop throwing food
M: She's not stopping
Me: Marin if your friends cannot obey our house rules they need to go home. Do I need to call McGleets mommy and tell her to come and get her?
Todd: Some day when our child is committed for still talking to imaginary friends they are going to blame you for talking to them too

 Dinner a few weeks ago:
 M: McGleet and McGloot's mommy had a baby last night at home, in a birf tub with midwifes. The midwifes came over to the house and the babies were born in the water.
Me: Oh I didn't know their mommy was even pregnant
M: yeah and the mommy had a boy and a girl

many times Marin's friends get what she wishes she had. Marin has said several times she wants "one of each" a boy and a girl.

 Surly her parents are normal enough to handle most all situations... right.

OK more to come. Must clean my home!   

MARIN

As you know Marin is officially a preschooler! This is her second week and she brought this home from school, she wrote her own NAME!!!!

*** Please excuse the Ketchup on her face. 

Baby Chicks

We picked these little chicks up for some friends on Saturday and got to have them overnight. It was very fun for Marin. She just loved these little chicks. She did a great job being careful and not handling them too much. Although I know she was just dying to touch them the whole time. She seemed to really understand that because they are so little they need to stay warm and safe. And too much holding is not in their best interest.

First Day

Today was Marin's first day of preschool. She is going to a little school at a church down the street. Its a wonderful program, and fits our little pixie perfectly! She was so excited she didn't even say "goodbye" to me, it was more of a "OK you can go now mom, I got this under control."

New Year's Hike

Don't even ask, its not like we teach her to pose like this! She's just a ham around a camera... OK so she's a ham all the time.

Jumping over the water!

Hiking down the trail with daddy.

Four-year olds can jump over the water without much help. Go Nathanael! He actually made the leap several times. I'm always surprised what a year-and-half can do for a kids physical development. Marin's cousin is just old enough to encourage new moves, but big enough to also be cautious. And say "When I am four, I will jump like Nathanael! But I'm 3 and daddy can help me today."

Winter Ocean

I love visiting the ocean in the Winter. There is something more quiet about it.

And another non-normal smile. She really does have a great smile, she just never shares it on film.

I just love this little picture of her. She's running back to us to show off her shells and tell us stories about the little Sand Pipers that she chased around.

St. Augustine

We took Marin to one of the best playgrounds we have ever visited. Everytime we visit St. Augustine we spend a good deal of time here. This particular day, Marin insisted on getting her picture take looking out this little window.

Here she is pretending to be a hostage. She makes this stuff up I swear.

Almost a great family picture.

The Family Picture

Why can't my child ever just smile for a picture?











I mean seriously just try for once to look a little normal.







At least we are all together here.

Christmas finally

I know its almost February but my camera ran out of battery juice and we got busy and so I never got around to putting our Christmas pictures up. SO this one is Christmas Eve. I'm not sure what the deal is with Marin's gang sign with her hand. But she thinks that if you take pictures you are supposed to look weird.

This is our tree. We chose to get a Holly bush that can be planted in our yard. I hate the idea of spending money on something that is going to die because its been cut down. It just doesn't make sense to me. I love the nostalgia of a tree and want one every year. And when we actually get to the place to buy a tree I just can't bring myself to spend money, no matter what the cost, on a dying tree. I want a live plant. So this year I really wanted Marin to get to decorate a tree, we came across this fun little bush in the pot and will eventually get around to putting it in the yard.

We brought the tree in in the night after Marin went to sleep, we did not tell her we were going to do that, and we didn't really talk a lot about Santa, but for some reason she thought that S.C. brought the tree into the house. Her Grandma Cheri and Grandpa Tim got her the kitchen.

My grandma, Marin's Great Grandma sent her this shirt. How does my grandma know so much about 3 year old girls? Well I guess she has had some experience in her life, but seriously this is Marin's personal slogan right now. "I can do it!"