Why You're Likely a Better Parent Than Me

Gather 'round boys and girls, and I'll tell you a story about how I may have set my children up for a lifetime of social ostracization for the low, low price of $3.00. And moms & dads reading this - congrats - you are officially a better parent than me. Frank is also relishing in the fact that he is too - or at least a quicker thinking one.

I pride myself in being one of the few and awesome that actually DO the things they pin on Pinterest. For the most part, it's gone okay. Charlotte had a fun lemonade & sunshine birthday party, Sam had a pretty exceptional glow-in-the-dark Easter egg hunt this past spring.....and a hit in our home has been the shaving cream painting. We did this earlier this year - see how cute? Right-brained preschooler heaven!

So today, we were having A DAY. And if you have little ones at home with cabin fever, you know exactly what I'm talking about. So I busted out the muffin tin, and started to spray shaving cream into the different holes, with my trusty food coloring supply by my side.

Official instructions: dye shaving cream with liquid food coloring, stir, and let kids go to town. It washes off and it's brilliantly fun.

What happened today: turns out I only had enough shaving cream left for one compartment. It's summer now, and I'm wearing shorts and dresses a lot - its all about supply and demand, people.

Oh, no biggie, I thought to myself - we are always getting lotions as gifts from people - that will work just like shaving cream!

This is when Frank first walked by my set up in the kitchen and gave me that concerned look he gives when I pick up stray dogs or start a craft at midnight for a baby shower the following day.

"Isn't lotion toxic? What if Charlotte eats it?"

I brushed off his concern -  "Oh, even if she does, one taste and she wont do it anymore!"

At that, he left me to my carefree lotion & food coloring bliss.

Here's the problem with Frank. He has this one HUGE flaw - he expects me to be able to make smart decisions all on my own. I really wish he'd stop that.

ANYWAY - lotion mixed into food coloring - brilliant, vibrant colors and two elated kiddos in the bathtub.

If you are a member of Frank's intellect pool (or really that of a goldfish..) you can see where this is going, and why you may not see my kids in public for awhile.

It started out adorable and just fine:

                                                    Aw she looks like a cute little bathtub warrior :)

                                         I let them paint me too! Fun fun!

Then while they were painting away, I went to wash my face off, because really, I am 31 years old.

That's when the panic set in:

 Because, hello, shaving cream has soap in it. Lotion has idunnowhat designed to ABSORB into the skin.

                     It's not coming off. Like, at all.

                     It was like pink, purple, and blue self-tanner.....

                    And I just dyed this precious being into a rainbow.

                         Live it up kid, your hand is gonna be hot pink and indigo for awhile.

                               After much frantic scrubbing, this is what C's leg looked like.

                             She kept trying long after I gave up. Poor purple kid. Her brother didn't look much better. She just got more picture cred because I'm too tired to censor out his manhood from the photos after all of that futile rainbow obliterating exfoliation.

So, my kids have colorful skin to match their colorful personalities. Sorry, Warta Minis. Mommy was wrong. From now on she promises to follow directions.

Update: Kids went swimming. The chlorine just ripped the rainbow right off of them. Which is awesome - never been so thrilled to see my kids natural paleness - but what is IN chlorine exactly? Sort of a different kind of alarming....

 

And He's Four.

"The days are long but the years are short" - how true is that as we recover from Sam's birthday? He had a fantastic day - went swimming with preschool friends and ate watermelon and mac & cheese. We brought miniature cupcakes for them and they sang happy birthday to him and got green frosting all over their faces. It's the little things that are just so perfect and fun.

The afternoon got exciting when we found a little dog dodging in and out of traffic. We thought it belonged to a farm house up the road, but we couldn't find the owners after all and got an unexpected house guest for the night. The kids LOVED the dog, but we love having dogs not live with us :) It was super fun to have her overnight though, and on Sam's birthday too!

Then my parents came up and the day flew by with presents, yet MORE cake (thanks, mom!) and homemade ziti which both kids devoured. That Italian blood may be thinner in them, but it still runs deep :)

Traditional decorating the heck out of the dining room.

Presents on the table.

Doggy for the day!

A new Curious George book

From her :)

Lincoln Logs! I love throwback presents!

He gets this reaction for every gift. You could give him a bag of cotton balls and he would exclaim "Just what I always wanted!" Love this kid and his sweet heart.

Wished-on candles go to Nonna.

To Age 4 and beyond!

                                          

They both LOVE Nonna's homemade Italian ziti. 

Now the balloons are down, there is another pencil mark on the kids' doorway (he grew three inches this year!) and it's back to the mundane life of mid-summer. But birthdays sure are fun <3

On the Brink of Four

We celebrated S's birthday a few days early today with a jaunt to Chuck E. Cheese's, which is currently his favorite place in the world. One just opened near Nana & Grandpa's house, and it has CHANGED. HIS. LIFE. He can literally route any conversation topic back to Chuck E. Cheese right now, so after a couple weeks of torturous anticipation (for him, definitely not us!), off we went to eat overpriced pizza and lose money to the skiball machine.

The spinning cup of hot chocolate

My boys :)

We like Cars!

We really like Cars!

Remember a time when cards didn't sing? He won't.

"Mommy, Joe needs a fancy hat, too."

Yeah, yeah I know - don't quit my day job.

An old lady across from us stopped me to say how C is so pretty and to forgive her for staring. C stared back :)

World's greatest grandparents = living 2 miles away from Chuck E. Cheese's ;)

She actually loved this, but I enjoy how it looks like she got motion sickness :) She's actually our brave one!

Fancy hat Joe

We love Uncle U, Auntie Karen and Cousin La-La!

Blessed.

Well, careful what you pray for! And thank you thank you God!!!

Some of us specifically prayed for God to open up doors for us to minister at churches so we could build relationship - the best way to grow a ministry is to recruit workers and to do that you need to make friends! :)

Sometimes that awful icky day when a pastor once told me I would never succeed without him and that churches would never embrace royal stage still resonates so deeply within me.....but Jesus LOVES the church and His people and all we can do is be brave enough to keep positive and love like it counts for everything. 

So all of a sudden here is royal stages summer lineup:

Sacramento dream center  - check!

Vacaville art gallery - tomorrow!

Westside church - next week!

Rock of roseville - week after that!

East valley - first Sunday in August!

I am really going to miss going to the same church for awhile, but at the same time - I am loving this!!!

Thanks God! :) you're the best. 

On Being Charlotte June Warta

At 13 months we learn.....

It's really funny when big brother is on timeout.

And mommy is slowly learning to control pretty brown curls.

And that big brothers ARE great, but sometimes it's okay to not want your picture taken.

No matter how bossy he is!

And what's yours is yours, and what's mommy's is yours....

and 4th of July is an awesome time to rock new hair bows and cheer on your family during a run.

Charlotte continues to be the sweetest, most loving little baby, who is quickly becoming a little girl.  You are so so loved, little Charlie - but stop getting so big!

Blogging Spree

I've decided to start blogging every day again. I haven't done it in years, and I'm not sure why I stopped. I think partially it was the fact I started to not see the benefit of blogging over a personal handwritten journal. I was risking turning into a social media abuser, needing that next "fix" of encouragement from people instead of God or my own heart in order to feel good about what I wrote.

I've started my book, and as I like pretty things, it should come as no surprise that I decided the cover art, prologue and dedication should be completed first. Which is dumb. Because who needs a prologue when there isn't a manuscript to follow? Oh, typical me. I could make a pile of poop so prettily packaged, no one would ever be the wiser.

Anyway, so I wrote the prologue (which again was stupid because someone totally awesome and famous will actually do that, right?) and the dedication, and found myself writing that while I decided to make my first piece fiction, non-fiction is my heart. But I can't bring myself to write non-fiction, because as it turns out - I am just enough of a narcissist to pull it off, but not nearly interesting enough to really expect anyone to read it. Sadness.

SO I am blogging in hopes of reaching the complete opposite of that narcissistic fix I feel I need for life validation. Are ya with me, all of you who check your facebook 20xs per day hoping someone has reassured you that you're an awesome, lovely being worthy of screen time on their computer?

Meh. Over it.

So there's my plan, and feel free to comment or follow. Or don't - I really don't care. Perhaps we will be encouraged together as I work toward affirming the positive, the nice and the Lord-blessed in the world.

Or maybe I'll just get carpal tunnel.