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 :-)

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

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 :-)