our journey: Livie

Where do I start with this little girl? It seems like everyday I have some good story about her, or something funny she said, or something cute she did. She is just a really funny little kid!!

Can you tell she's into to princesses?? And babies?? And PINK?? Oh my. Seriously, if anything is pink...she notices RIGHT away.

One night we were out at the lake and Chad kept trying to get her to watch the sunset...but she, of course, was busy playing with her cousins ;). After awhile she moseyed over and suddenly yelled, "It's PINK! It's PINK! Look Dad!!". Haha. It actually was a cool moment - great to show her that God likes pink too :).

Here's a little video of her reciting her first verse. Sorry about the "toot" in the beginning...I'm telling ya, she's just goofy!

That was Genesis 1:1, "In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth"...just in case you didn't get it ;).

She's grown up so much just in the past month. I think some of that has to do with giving up her paci. I honestly was dreading the day we would take it away because she was so attached to it and throwing tantrums whenever she wanted it :(. It was getting pretty bad.

So, I thought if I could come up with something to get her mind off of giving up her paci, maybe it would ease the pain?? Haha, so we bought a fish! Or Livie did. With her paci.

We took her to the pet store on a Sunday evening. She picked out a "pink" betta fish with pink rocks to go on the bottom of the tank...surprise, right? And when we went to the check out, I told the cashier before hand that Livie was going to be giving her the paci to help "pay" for the fish. At first, Liv did so good...she handed it right over. But as soon as she realized she wasn't getting it back...the crying started. The poor cashier quickly handed the paci back to me, saying..."She can have it back!". I was like "No, no, no! She'll be just fine." The lady was probably thinking, "Yeah right!", as I carried my screaming daughter to the car.

But she was fine. After a lot of talking up the fish and talking up the fact that she was a BIG girl and that paci's are for babies...she was fine. "My gave my paci to the fishy lady," she said over and over. That night she did cry for about a half hour...but I just sang her to sleep and she slept all night. And really since then, she's done great. She did SO much better than I ever thought she would. Praise God.

So...where are the pictures of this blessed event?? Well, I thought I would have plenty of time to take a picture of Livie and her fish. BUT...alas, the fish lasted only 3 days :(. I am NOT the best with taking care of any pet...even fish I guess. Now Livie says, "My fishy died...went back to Jesus".

We've promised to get her a new fish SOON...I just hope the next one lasts!!

So getting rid of the paci was kind of the start of having some good heart to hearts with her. And although she's only 2, she is starting to grasp some stuff. She does have her toddler tirades...daily. But we just keep talking a lot about sharing, obeying, disobeying, consequences...trying to get to the heart of stuff. I'm just praying it's sinking in! I know we have a long road ahead of us. But here's my cheat sheet for now (from the parenting conference) in making her see her need for a savior during our daily struggles...