So, many of you have asked how we've settled in to our new house. Let me tell you a story to help you better understand when my answer comes after a brief hesitation.
This morning Jonathan left for work earlier than normal...before either of the girls (or me for that matter) were awake. Emma woke up at about 7 and I got Kate out of bed at about 7:30. While I was feeding her, Emma was playing in her room. I kept hearing something and I couldn't figure out what toy she could possibly be playing with. Well, it turns out that it wasn't a toy. It was someone in the street yelling. He or possibly she (it was hard to tell) was pointing and yelling and was very animated. I couldn't see anyone that she could possibly be yelling at so I thought, "Great, there's some wacko yelling in the street. I could call the police, but what are they going to do to someone who clearly isn't breaking the law...just yelling?" Not long after this thought, this person started taking their clothes off. "Good," I thought, "The police will come now!" So I quickly dialed 911 and told the dispatcher that there was a person in the middle of the street taking his clothes off. The dispatcher asked if it was a man, because they had some other calls about a woman. I looked closer and realized it was a woman...STARK naked right in front of my yard! Yes, she's totally naked. My neighbor Chris was outside the whole time...here's his email...
"So, ***(name concealed to save the innocent ;-) ) came to pick me up at about 7: and had his first Belmont prostitute experience. Apparently coming down off of crack is a pretty miserable thing. I was watering my front yard and this junky walks down the street mumbling to herself. She was soliciting every car that drove by and the mumbling got louder and progressively louder. *** pulls up and her voice gets louder still. She tells us that not only is she going to kill us, after we strip off all our clothes, but she was going to get into ***'s truck and take off. Well. She didn't get into his truck, but she did keep insisting that both *** and I take off all our clothes. Luckily, she let us off the hook - we were not depantsed during the affair, but we did catch this bit of hilarity. She decided to strip to nothing in the middle of my street while yelling something unintelligible and doing a little jig...What a way to start the morning! ***'s all growed up now."
This was Jonathan's reply...
"Ah, yes, I recognize her from my own ‘first Belmont prostitute incident’. At 6:45 this morning, I grabbed the Wall Street Journal from the front yard and drove to the corner of Harrill and Parkwood (50 yards from the incident [above]). It was then that the individual pictured stepped nearly in front of my car to stop me. She came up to the window and I foolishly rolled down the window about 3 inches. She put her face up to the window and just laughed and kinda snorted. I asked ‘Can I help you?’ She never said anything!!! She was CLEARLY higher than a kite!!!!
Picture for a moment a white guy in a suit with his Wall Street Journal stopping at 6:45 to talk w/the neighborhood hooker. Dude….when I think of hooker, I’m thinking of Pretty Woman."
Jonathan didn't even realize she was soliciting him! HA!
So, the police did come. By the time they got here, she was dressed. They did handcuff her and eventaully took her away. I'm not sure what happens to a person for taking off their clothes in the middle of the street. Anyone know?
Welcome to Belmont!
We love you more than you can know. Your hard work for our family does not go unnoticed. We often take you for granted and we rarely tell you how much we appreciate you, but today we want you to know how special you are to us. Thank you for all you do for us. Thank you for all your hard work so that I can stay home with the girls. Thank you for loving us like you do. Thank you for your committment to being the spiritual head of our home. Thank you that you love God more than anything else. Thank you for being my husband and the girls' Daddy. We love you!
Paintings done by Kate and Emma for Daddy...
Trimmer from Mommy...
Our neighbor across the street, Ms. Sophease, is in her 80's (she's as sharp as a tack, I tell ya!!). She has some flowerbeds in her front yard that were empty and I mentioned to my other neighbor, Gina, that we should fill them for Ms. Sophease. Gina had already been thinking about doing that, so last weekend we bought flowers and planted them for Ms. Sophease. It was so much fun and she was thrilled!!
Here are two videos of Kate. One is of her playing, but of course as soon as I got the camera out, she stopped playing. The second is of her doing raspberries. :-)
Yeah for Kate! She rolled over from her back to her tummy yesterday. Of course, I missed it! One minute she's 90% there and the next she's on her tummy. I think I turned to get something for Emma. :-) It didn't scare her, but I think she was trying to figure out how she ended up on her tummy! :-P Once she actually realized she was on her tummy, she immediately wanted to be back on her back. (Mommy obviously hasn't been as diligent about tummy time as she should be!) She didn't do it again today, but we were on the move this morning and she slept all afternoon...maybe tomorrow!
Jonathan was out helping Brad finish up our fence and of course Emma had to be right there with them. She came in the house after about 15 minutes and told me she needed her "purple shovel". :-)
I am reminded today how very short life can be. Last night Steven Curtis Chapman and his wife lost their 5 year old daughter to a tragic accident. Today I've been so frustrated with my life curcumstances and have failed to see the beauty of my children. Thank you Father for the gifts you've given me in these 2 beautiful little girls. Forgive me for the lack of patience I have with them most days. My selfish heart often gets in the way of letting a 2 year old be a little girl. Who cares that she wants to wear two pair of socks during nap time? Does it really matter that she takes her shoes off EVERY time we get in the car? What's the real harm in mixing all the Play Dough colors? Does one little wipe cost so much that she can't have one to "help clean"? Is there really a scientific amount of ranch dressing that is too much? And the list goes on...I have to learn to lighten up and let my children be kids and ENJOY them.
...gosh, has it really been 4 weeks??? We are still traveling up the roller coaster, but hope to go down and enjoy the ride soon! Things certainly have not progressed as quickly as I had hoped. As I've told some people, my expectations for being unpacked were way up here (imagine me holding my hand over my head) and they should have been way down here (picture me holding my hand close to my feet). Reality then may have been somewhere in the middle. Instead, I'm left with being incredibly disappointed that we have been here in the new house for almost 4 weeks and we aren't even close to being settled. BUT some really great things are happening despite not being unpacked. We have a security system, motion lights out back, the new fence is going up and should be finished by Friday or Saturday, the master closets have GREAT shelving, and the kitchen is completely unpacked and I have an empty cabinet!!!! Oh...and we have cable in one room and internet service!! (Kate just almost rolled over as I'm typing this :-) ) I suppose I shouldn't be so hard on myself...the first weekend we were in the house, Jonathan was gone with his dad to the Wachovia Championship (they do this every year and already had their tickets before we even put the old house up for sale), the next weekend we were in VA for Mother's Day and this past weekend was spent putting in the shelves in the master closets. And Jonathan's nights have been jam packed with work and other obligations. We'll get there...eventually!! :-P
Some things I'll miss about the old house...
Emma and Kate playing together despite all the boxes and chaos.
Emma "helping" water Grammie's flowers...
This is the life...
Grammie reading to Kate...
Family photos on Mother's Day...
The girls with Grandma...
Four generations...
All the women...
The Kelly's 4 with Grandma...
The Kelly's 4...
The women...
Celebrating Grandma's 80th birthday (which isn't until June, but we wanted to celebrate with her while she was in VA)...
Our friends from Lubbcok, Marc and AMy Corbett just moved to Lynchburg to start RUF at Liberty University. We are SO EXCITED that we will be able to see them often!!!!! This is their new daughter, Caroline. I blogged about the Corbett's not too long ago.
The other morning Jonathan asked me if I had put Emma's shoes beside his in his closet. I didn't...Emma did. Cute!!
We're back in the world of internet!! FINALLY!! I still don't have a lot of time to blog...there are boxes all around me filled with things that need new homes in our new house. People keep asking how we're settling in...the simple answer is "slowly". We've had to deal with some minor issues, but I think today is the first day of the rest of our house! ;-) I love our house and I love how we've met so many neighbors. I hate that on the 5th day in our new house, someone tried to break into and/or possibly steal Jonathan's car. Our fence should be going up this week or next, so hopefully this will help the temptation to break into our cars or steal things off our deck. :-)
(why does my internet and cable keep coming and going???)
Anyway, I'll try to post pictures in the next day or two...
