A Little Girl's Prayer

Here is the prayer JRD prays every night before she goes to sleep...

Jesus,
Thank you for Momma, Daddy, JRD and ACD.
I pray I won't have monsters or any scary dreams.
(Breaking into song...) And I praaaaaaay that I will be a mermaaaaaaaid in the morning.
Amen.

The "song" portion of her prayer will vary from that short to almost like she is having a musical quiet time (about being a mermaid, of course). Once she actually prayed that God would make her a mermaid "right now" and then she got down on the floor and laid on her belly. She looked back in real disappointment that she still had legs. We told her it was a great thing to pray for as long as she is content with God wanting her to remain a little girl.

GO HOGS!

And while you are enjoying the victory, go vote for Darren McFadden for the Heisman.

End of an Era

Our little ACD has turned a huge corner with her talking recently. She is so aggressive that she has always talked whether or not she could ever say the words -- this has meant really good names for things around our house. So it is not without some sadness that we see her correcting herself as she speaks. It is not only the end of some great little words, our little girl is simply growing up. Here are some words that we will miss...

Cry-Cream = ice cream
Foe-Funt = elephant
Kie-King = lion (i.e. Lion King)
Foe-Feet = penguin (i.e. Happy Feet)
Bar-Me = "bothering me"
Kim-Me = "are you kidding me?"
O-my-geese = "oh my goodness!"

Minivan Theology

JRD: I know God is amazing and all, but how did he talk when he made everything?

Daddy: ...thinking...

JRD: Did he quit talking?

Daddy: ...thinking even harder...

JRD: Why don't I hear him talking now?

In the blur, I don't exactly remember how I handled these questions. I think I said something about God not really even having a mouth - effectively undermining the trust my 4-year-old has in Scripture already! Next I tried to draw an analogy of how we say things so they are easy to understand; like when we say the sun is going to sleep at night... and then I remembered that JRD still thinks the sun does go to sleep at night. Yikes! Explaining the anthropomorphic qualities of Scripture may need to wait a year or so. In the meantime I pretty much have to say things like, "I don't know honey, but I know that God loves you a whole bunch."

Which, actually, that answer was pretty satisfying to her.

Go Hogs!

JRD and I got a chance to go see the Razorbacks play basketball last week. This was her second time to see the Hogs play basketball. It is nice to get to share with her our love for things like Arkansas sports. As you can see below, she was geared up for the experience. Oh, and just for the record, John Pelphrey is great! We flat killed our opponent and yet I don't think I ever saw Pelphrey sit down. We needed that kind intensity in a coach. I am glad he is here. Now back to family stuff...

Though JRD talked about Big Red the whole time, she didn't really like the idea of being this close to him. I would have been doing the same thing at her age! JRD continues to be exactly like me and ACD is just like Lee Ann. She would also want you to see the "tattoo" on the side of her face.

Happy Halloween!

Here are some of the Halloween pics from our house...

Last year we made the mistake of doing a great job carving pumpkins and got a reputation around the neighborhood - and with that came the expectation that we would produce again this year. This is nothing less than Tinker Bell carved into an 80 pound pumpkin. YIKES!

Both the girls were fairy princesses, which means they really didn't dress up at all! ACD was supposed to be a dragon but after seeing her big sister she decided she wanted to be "pretty."

Here is JRD hitting the streets.