No! Do not get in mommy's makeup! No! Ma'am! Not for bethie! No! Now hold still while I take your picture...

Maggie's Hero Project Report:

My hero is Susannah Martin. I chose her because she is my great great great great great great great great great (that’s nine greats) grandmother. She was baptized at Olney, Buckinghamshire, England on September 30, 1621 when she was a baby. Her parents’ names were Richard and Joan North. Her mother died when she was a child and she had a step-mother named Ursula.  She was about 18 when she moved to America.

On August 11, 1646 in Salisbury, Massachusetts Susannah married George Martin. They had a lot of kids: eight. Five boys and three girls. Three times, she was arrested for witchcraft but she was always let go because they couldn’t prove it.
Susannah became famous because in 1692, when she was 70, she got arrested for witchcraft again. Some girls in Salem, Massachusetts, started acting crazy. They would scream and throw fits. They said that witches were casting bad spells on them. One of the people they said was a witch was Susannah Martin. Some people who were arrested lied and said other people were witches.  But Susannah told the truth so nobody else got hanged. This is why she is a hero, because she told the truth even though she would get hanged. She said bible verses and laughed at the girls when they threw fits. She was found guilty and she was hanged on July 19, 1692. She makes me want to tell the truth so other people won’t get hurt. Her hero characteristics are Susannah Martin was kind, smart, honest, and reliable.

Penny upon returning from a late night trip to the store: 'I only got the necessities: bacon and wine. So we should be able to make it till tomorrow.'

Walker on Eva:

My nine year-old daughter is so complex. I don't think I have the "tool box" to manage her. I am really scared when hormones start kicking in too. She is a force of nature already. She is like the Best (and Scariest) of my grandmother Ruth and wife, Missy Hooks Dollahon. Formidable!

She's smarter than me too. Can I "send in the marines" now? Can someone else take over? Can she take over?? Imagine a lethal combination of the Dowager Countess in Downton Abbey mixed with Maggie Thatcher and Genghis Khan but in a pint-sized body. The mental and emotional backflips I had to do this morning to get her ready for school has exhausted me. I will be sucking my thumb in the corner if you need me...

Precious.

Maggie: Mom, which animals have gone extinct since you were born?

Walker:

Missy is an extreme extrovert. I am also an extrovert (but not as much as my wife). My oldest two kids are also extroverts. Maggie, however, is definitely introverted. Last night I noticed I hadn't seen her in a long time. She wasn't among the bustle of our usual, early evening chaos of dinner, clean up, prepping for the fist day, taking showers, etc. I called up to her and said, "Hey Mags, come downstairs!" She reluctantly walks over to the top of the stairs and whines, "Please, dad. I don't want to be around any people right now." I let her be. She went back to doodling unicorns and princesses by herself on the coach upstairs I think.

Bethie just said her first definite 3 word sentence. 'I wanna eat.' (It's always about food, isn't it?) confirms my suspicion the other day that she said 'I need soup'. SO EXCITED. This little girl is gonna be so hysterical once she starts talking!!

Maggie: mommy, when you have a baby, do they give you like a medicine so that you don't feel the baby come out?

Me: yes, praise God

Maggie: (Leaps for joy around the living room) Yea! Yes! Then I DO want to get married!!!

Ike just asked what would happen if he licked a scrape on his knee. I said nothing. He said, "Oh. Yesterday in the car Shep made me lick it. Then after I did, he told me tomorrow I would die."

Watching a Nativity show with the kids and fielding all sorts of really challenging theological questions. 
"Did they comb their hair?"
"Do they wear pants?"
"They walked back them?"
"Is that Santa?"

 Watching a Nativity show with the kids and fielding all sorts of really challenging theological questions. 

"Did they comb their hair?"

"Do they wear pants?"

"They walked back them?"

"Is that Santa?"

Mags

Why do they want us to marry Christmas?

Shep (on writing) have you ever done suppository text?

Ike just called 911, for kicks. But seriously, y'all, I went 10 years of parenting before a kid of mine called 911. That's pretty special, huh?

I take mommy props wherever I can get them.

Farts are a result of the Fall, cause as soon as Adam & Eva farted, people smelled it & fell down. 

Mary had a little fart, little fart, little fart, Mary had a little fart, she held it in all day....

Maggie. Of course.

After eating four bowls of Chicken and Lime soup:

 "Mom, I just barfed the soup from dinner up in my mouth a little bit just now. And when I swallowed it back down, it still tasted so good."

Maggie and Ike have this tendency to say, "I love you more than Satan!" and I'm like, um, thanks, I guess - ??

I wish when Eva Rose was the HARDEST TWO YEAR OLD I HAD EVER ENCOUNTERED EVER that someone would have told me seven years later she would be in my kitchen making mac and cheese and salad for the family while I sat on my butt looking at facebook. That would have made it sting a little less.

Me: It's true, you have not been managing your emotions well lately.
Shep: WHAT?! YES I HAVE!! {stomps off to room}

 Told Shep to take a bath. He takes one. Puts his dirty (filthy) clothes back

 on. Did you put your dirty underwear back on too?? Yes. {eye roll}

Eva Rose was giving me an inventory of nail polish colors we need to do Halloween nails. She said 'we need a non-see through green' but as soon as she said 'we need a non-see...' Shep interrupts with this evil monster voice 'You need a NAZI???'

Ok maybe you had to be there but it was pretty hysterical.

Ike asked where he came from. I said my tummy. No, like where did you go to get me. The hospital. I mean WHERE mom?!?
I guess this is what happens when your baby sister arrives via airplane.

Chestnut brown cascade.
Emerald pools pull me in.
Lost.  Found.  Lost again.

-Walker 

For Eva's (early) 9thbirthday she requested Italian - which means she tried escargot, crreme brûlée and tiramisu all in one night.,

Amen.

Have you ever been in a store and seen a woman with children that were so incredibly loud, badly behaved and out of control you couldn't help but give her dual glances of pity and scorn? That would be us, tonight at Lowe's.

Ike, in the pool, sobbing, wailing, "I DON'T WANT TO BE HUMAN!!!!!!"

"Fine, you're a shark, be a shark."

The rest of y'all, I can't help you.

Her first apple pie

Maggie: can we please get a pet? I am so tired of all the humans in this family.

Tonight I was reading "I Love You Forever" to Ike. Shep was looking on and kept teasing me, "you're gonna cry...you're gonna cry." I got thru the whole book without crying - HA - but when it got to the part where he goes to his mom's house and picks her up and begins to rock her, guess which 9 year old tough guy BURST INTO AN UGLY CRY?? HA!!

At swim. Bethie really loved her teacher, then had a sub for 2 weeks. First week, we just had to leave. Skipped last week. Now we are here and teacher is back and she is freaking out. Sobbing. The move has messed her up so much. Change has always meant loss to her. Hurting my heart. :(

Shep: Mom, was I circosated when I was a baby?
Me: {Blank look}
Shep: You know, my nuts cut and stuff.
Me: {awkward pause, wondering how on earth this would have come into conversation among third graders} {me, breathing a sigh of relief}
Me: Oh, you've been reading your Bible, huh?
Shep: Yes! Moses was circosated when he was NINETY!
Me: Yeah. You were one day old. Better.
Shep: Way better.

As I rolled on top of Walker Dollahon and he groaned:
Me: Just think how hard it would be to move my body if you killed me.
Walker: Yeah, the ego alone.

Email from Mimi:

I enjoyed myself, too! Bethie is really easy to bond with - she has such an open personality! Heaps of praise for you and Walker ~ in a different home and with a different set of parents, I am certain she would not have adapted so well so rapidly! Having those little fingers touch my face lightly each morning after Eva Rose lifted her from the crib was the sweetest thing. I would always ask, "Did you have a good sleep?" and she would nod and beam at me.

Walker's mom has been staying with us a couple of days, helping to watch Bethie while I pack. The concensus: "She seems better adjusted than, you know, most of the other grandkids" and "I think she is upping the Dollahon IQ pool." #Bethieforthewin

Walker: Shep, you may not say "Don't be a homo". That is rude and disrespectful and unacceptable.
Shep and Eva Rose: He said "Don't be a hobo."
Walker: Oh. Well. Um. Don't say that either.
Shep and Eva Rose: What's a homo?
Walker: Just...don't say either one of them.

Every day this little girl blossoms before my eyes. Every single day she's funnier, sweeter, smarter, sillier than the day before. I knew she would change but - wow. It's simply overwhelming.

Merry Lynn Guy How do you feel you have blossomed and changed in the same amount of time Missy?

May 3, 2013 at 8:27pm · Like

Missy Hooks Dollahon Merry Lynn Guy Hm. I dunno. I'll have to think on that one. I think the most amazing thing to me is what a privilege it is to witness how powerful love is. All we're doing is LOVING her. That's all. There is zero magic to it. It's just awe-inspiring how much it has enabled her to become her full, brilliant self. It makes me understand how much we change and grow and blossom and transform thru the love of Christ. And how much more I am enabled to continue to transform, because the love and power of Christ is so much more than the love that we have for Bethie.

I want to glow like Bethie is glowing. I want that love to shine through me like it is shining through her.

May 3, 2013 at 8:44pm · Like · 5

Joy Primm Love this pic! First time I've seen her face lit up like that. So beautiful and wonderful to hear.

May 3, 2013 at 8:52pm · Unlike · 1

Missy Hooks Dollahon She just giggled all day long today. One twelve hour long giggle.

20 year old checkout girl at HEB: "When I get older, I don't even want to have kids, I just want to adopt a baby girl from Africa...and name her Beyonce. And she will be fierce."

Bethie riding the Zilker Park choo choo. She is an official Austinite now!

Me: (talking about how irresitable I was to Walker) "Guys like girls who are funny." Eva Rose: "Something tells me I'm gonna have a LOT of guys like me."

I remember when ike was born thinking 'It must be nice to have 5 people dote on you and tell you how adorable you are from the moment you wake up until the moment you go to bed.' 

Now Bethie has SIX people giving her the same treatment. 

Well, okay, 5 and a half. Ike's still not 100% smitten.

Getting Maggie's hair cut and the hairdresser asked (nicely) if Bethie was adopted. Maggie answered, 'Of course she's adopted! Do you think a brown baby came out of my mommy's tummy? What are you, kwazy?'

A friend came over today when Bethie's hair was VERY NAPPY and she only had a diaper on. I am resolved to have the first white trash black baby.

Maggie, reading out the car window: Mommy, what does a body shop sell?

new house

gameroom upstairs



girls rooms on left, boys on right

boys room on the left, guest room on the right

boys' room - it's HUGE



 

one of the girls' rooms -

Jack-n-jill girls' bathroom

other girls' room - little window in closet

 Grandma room :)

 

 

 Family room

kitchen - huge breakfast bar

white appliances :(

 

pantry is almost as big as old house





study, to right as you enter

(they had the mother in law in here)

 

dining room (on left as you enter)

 laundry room

guest bath

 

 my closet