Thursday, April 30, 2009

Loving their Daddy's music

Sometimes when we are watching TV, Loran plugs the guitar in and uses headphones to hear what he is playing. The girls have started taking turns listening too :-)



Atmospheres by Loran Montgomery




Some of Loran's "fiddlings"...

(There is no video, just sound...)

And the answer is...


A stepping stone from our front yard!

We found it partially buried next to our front steps and Loran and Julia excavated it and pieced it back together.

We are going to mount it somehow and take it with us as a memento of our first house :-)

Wednesday, April 29, 2009

For my peace of mind...my confession


We don't know what sort of situation we will be in when we arrive in Wisconsin. Will Loran have a job earning what he is now? Will we have sold the house here? Can we afford to buy a house there? Will we move in June or July or in the middle of August?

Will there be any time to find someone who will take care of my children? How will I know to trust them? What if something goes wrong and I can't get there in time? What if...what if...what if?

I always said that I would NEVER put my children in daycare. For anyone that I have ever offended by saying that, please accept my deepest and sincerest apologies. I suppose that I am now trying to weasel my way out of my "never" by claiming that what I had in mind is different than where I am actually going to put them.

In reality, it is somewhat different. When I thought about daycare, I pictured the kind of situation where the babies were fed and diapered and handled occasionally when they were a mere six weeks old. Thankfully I was blessed with the opportunity to stay home with them through the first two and three years of their lives.

Now, however, my girls will be in daycare starting this fall. The above picture is from the Children's Center at the University of Wisconsin-Platteville. I took the advice of a friend and looked into whether the school had a daycare and they do. They only accept children from 2 to 5 years of age and each age is separate and they have a bit of a curriculum and alot of flexibility.

So now I know...I know where my girls will be when I start work on August 24th of this year. They will be on campus with me. They will ride to work with me every day and ride home with me every night. I can even have lunch with them once a week. If I get off early one day, they will come home with me. They will have the same schedule as the university and the same days off. The price is right and the people seem devoted. I don't mind students learning on my kids...they will be learning too.

Overall, it is the best deal for our current situation.

God has so blessed me...and I am humbled by His Grace. I want my girls to see me as a strong woman, but I don't want to be prideful. I am grateful for times like these when I am taught humility.

Taking turns

As I write this my little girls are on my bed taking turns jumping from the cedar chest onto the bed. I yelled at Ankica to stay away from Lillian so they wouldn't fall off the bed (notice I didn't tell them to get off the bed altogether) so they devised this game:

One of them stands on the cedar chest while the other sits on the pillows. After a count of three (or eight nine ten, depending on Ankica's mood), the one of the cedar chest jumps/falls/trips over the railing at the foot of the bed while the other claps. Then the one who jumped/fell/tripped gets up and says "Your turn!".

I honestly can't believe it. They are playing together, using the right words, giving each other a turn, counting, and not screaming. (Oh, and not getting hurt...yet...)

I finished going through one of my magazines while they entertained each other that way. I am starting to love this age :-)

"What is it?" Wednesday

Tuesday, April 28, 2009

I need help deciding...

on a theme for Ankica's birthday, in particular her cake.

These are what her first two cakes looked like. She has no real specific interests right now so that doesn't give me any obvious ideas.




Any thoughts would be SO welcome :-)

Monday, April 27, 2009

Never say never...the curse of the proud

I am learning the hard truth that I am a proud person. Too proud.

I have said I will never do this and never do that. Circumstances arise that rapidly change my ability to resist the "this and thats".

I believe that, as moms, many of us had lots of nevers stored up for when we had our OWN kids. I have dealt with some of that, although I was pretty open to the process after adjusting to being a stepmom for a year or so before I had Ankica.

But now, with so much up in the air with starting my new job and moving to Wisconsin and selling our house, well, I have to reevaluate lots of things.

First thing was the job itself. A hard decision to leave Georgia and our great family of friends and start my career a few years earlier than I originally intended too, but I believe it will turn out to be a good decision in the end.

Second thing...well, I have to work up to admitting it to the world. Stay tuned to find out what "NEVER" that I will compromise on next...

Friday, April 24, 2009

Three Little Ladies

All dressed up on Easter Sunday...Julia is becoming a lady whereas Ankica and Lillian are hams that try to be cute (and succeed often).





This was the before picture after finding their Easter baskets that morning :-) No gifts, just some candy and chocolatey goodness.

Polo ponies...just gone

I love horses...I was totally sad to read this article.

Even though I am a lactation physiologist by training and have worked with goats, dairy cows, and beef cattle during my professional life, I got my B.S. in Equine Science (horses).

Someday I will have a few horses to ride around on and maybe do a few shows, but I would love to see a polo match and see the extravagance. Some people are sick at the sight of all of that money spent on horses and whatnot, and I certainly know that there are people around the world that could use just a little of what the HORSES are getting, but I still would love to see a match.

So if anyone knows someone that is insanely wealthy that can get me in to see a really high end match with polo ponies extraordinaire, please let me know :-)

Thursday, April 23, 2009

And the answer is...

Oh you guys are too good!

It is indeed, a droplet of water in our new sink. I thought it looked kind of like an angel.

I am going to have to try harder to stump you all :-)

Easter Egg Fun






Nature + Nurture = Rock Star in the Making

Tuesday, April 21, 2009

Stargazer Lillies and Little Girls

Loran bought me my favorite flowers on a whim when I sent him to the store a few weeks ago. They were beautiful and the whole house smelled wonderful because of their fragrance. They looked good right up through Easter and I trimmed the dying ones back so that the unopened ones could open nicely.

Then one day I left the girls to eat their lunch by themselves for a bit while I checked on Loran. Suddenly I heard Ankica telling Lillian to get down, which meant Lillian had likely climbed on the table. What I found was a very strange looking little girl... (Braveheart anyone?)



Ankica had stuck her head into the big and polleny (is that a word?) blooms to smell them and she came out with globs of orange pollen all over her face. She is smiling hear because I had to laugh at the silliness of it all but she was NOT laughing by the time she was clean. After wiping the pollen, Ankica became YELLOW everywhere.

Luckily, soap and water and scrubbing got it off and she didn't have an allergic reaction to all of the pollen. A lesson was learned that day by at least one of us :-)

My free spirit


I love this little girl. We have been through alot together. Although she has been alot healthier than many babies I know, we still have plenty to be grateful for when it comes to getting Lillian to this point in her life.

She is so much like her Daddy it is almost scary :-)


She loves to sing and strums on his guitars whenever she can. She has a bit of a temper that will be an issue as she grows up I think. She has amazing control over her emotions (when told by Loran to stop crying, she just does it!). She has a red cast to her hair like Loran does and she even sneezes three times in a row just like he does! And she has my heart in a way that is just different than the way I love Ankica. I really believe in the whole "I love you all the same, just in different ways" thing that moms tell their kids. It is so true.


My Lillian has my blue eyes and my not so straight hair. And she loves her dogs and her kitty.



She is a beautiful and fun combination of Loran and I. And she is learning from 'Buddy' and 'A-ya' all the time. Sometimes she wants to be left alone but mostly she loves her big sisters so completely that it makes my heart sing.

Thursday, April 16, 2009

And the answer is...

Expansion foam that is filling in a space on our deck. (I have some smart friends!)

The guy that helped us repair some water damage has yet to come back and fix up the little things like this but I would rather have this yellow stuff than the rotting wood :-)

Thursday, April 9, 2009

And the answer is...


Little snowmen peaking in a window, on a Christmas decoration that I painted for Loran's parents when I first met them.

I wonder why no one guessed exactly that? :-)

Wednesday, April 8, 2009

"What is it?" Wednesday

No show

Unfortunately, the potential buyers didn't want to see the house on Monday. Don't know why but I am sure there is a good reason.

So we wait...in a mostly clean house, most of the time :-)

Sunday, April 5, 2009

Our house

Our house is on the MARKET!

And someone wants to see it tomorrow already...yeah!

Friday, April 3, 2009

Our dogwood


When we were in the process of wanting to buy our house last year, we drove by almost daily. At one point we discovered that the property had a dogwood tree, Loran's favorite. He loves to tell the dogwood story :-)

In one of the rare instances of sunlight in the last few days, I captured this image from our backdoor.

I do love our house and our pool and our yard (and our friends) here in Columbus. I hope we have at least one view that rivals this one.

Thursday, April 2, 2009

My mud pig...whom I love dearly

It was raining...I know, so unusual around here lately...so Loran decided to see if there was water standing in the crawl space area under the house. If there was, he would rectify the situation.

This is what came to my front door an hour or so later...

And so it has begun...

There are no books left on our shelves, there are no pictures left on the mantel (although I do have the nifty photoframe that Loran got me so I can keep some of my pictures close by)...boxes were everywhere until today when I got the house prepared for the pictures that will go up on Realtor.com and SOON our house will officially have an MLS number and be on the market!


Look at my poor vacant-looking house :-( I will admit that the space is nice but I miss some of my STUFF already!

Wednesday, April 1, 2009

And the answer is...

As some of you guessed, being April Fool's Day, Loran dared me to post Ankica's ultrasound picture, so I did, removing the date from the picture :-)

(Even though it wasn't exactly an April Fool's joke, just a picture for the usual Wednesday post...I never can come up with good jokes... I apologize if anyone is/was offended by this post...)

I can guarantee that when we finally do get to the expecting stage again, we will let you all know sooner than the 10 week ultrasound :-)

"What is it?" Wednesday