Summer is Sweet!

Summer doesn't really start for a couple of weeks, but hey, we love it so much we decided to get a head start.


As far as we are concerned, summer has officially begun! So what if I have to go back to work for a couple of days, it's all formality as far as I am concerned. I just might even wear my flip flops tomorrow! Memorial Day Weekend has been really exciting. We got to hang out with my mom, we went to an awesome pool party with the most gracious of hosts, and today we bummed around the house and did family stuff - just the four of us. The boys loved swimming in the big pool (well James hung on near the steps) at our friends' house but they were just as happy to play in their $10 pool from Wal-Mart. That is the great thing about kids. They get excited about everything! And really, what is better than skinny dipping in a plastic pool with your brother after eating an ice pop? All this fun got me to thinking about all the more fun we can have in the next couple of months. So, in honor of summer, here are some things we'd like to accomplish before school starts back in the fall (you will notice we can mark a couple of them off the list already!):

Eat ice pops

Draw on the driveway with 3D sidewalk chalk

Make s'mores

Catch fireflies, or make a darn good attempt

Make homemade lemonade

Show the boys the beach and make sand castles and buy cheap souviniers on the Strand

Take James to his first movie in the theater

Fry an egg on the sidewalk

Swim lessons

Take pictures of the boys in water as the sun sets

Watch a sunset with the boys

Wash the car as a family

Brew sun tea

Go on a picnic

Take the boys to the pool a lot

Throw one heck of a first birthday party for Brendan

Get the boys their first snocones

Buy ice cream from the ice cream truck

Teach James to ride a tricycle

Run through the sprinklers

Get silhouette pictures of the boys

Catch some story times at the library

Take family walks in the evenings

Make homemade ice cream

Go on 2 family vacations

Plan lots of fun play dates with friends

Here are some pictures from pool time this evening. It was hard to narrow them down, so I am posting a lot! After we tucked the boys in tonight, we enjoyed a Momma and Daddy BBQ....brats, beans, chips, dip and drumroll please.......Strawberry Shortcake! YUM! Summer, I love you!









Love this one.....obviously there were different levels on attentiveness during this photograph!

And this last one to show what a difference a year makes. This was last Memorial Day Weekend:

I want awfuls!

Every weekend we wake to a chorus of "I want awfuls!". Of course, James is talking about waffles but making "awfuls" is extra fun. We used to just pop a frozen waffle into the toaster and call it breakfast. But a couple of weeks ago we came home to find a large box on our doorstep. Because we were so darn excited, and because let's face it, it wasn't a bill, we opened the box with a pair of garden shears right in the garage and found a...........Waring Pro Professional Double Waffle Maker! Well, who would send such a thoughtful gift? Who would know how much James loves his "awfuls"? Who would know that I love new kitchen gadgets? My dad of course! The card read simply, "Surprise! Love, Daddy". That's how we roll in this family! :-)



Well, every weekend since the Most Awesome Waffle Maker Ever Sold arrived on our front porch we have been living it up with homemade waffles. James is even more excited about these and it is easy to see why. The waffles come out one inch thick! My dad also ordered us some waffle mix and it is delish! Today I added blueberries to mine, but all three of my boys are purists so I went with the regular belgian waffle for them. James can polish off an entire waffle and Brendan is not far behind. He can manage to eat half, which is the same amount that I have been able to eat. These things are huge!


This morning, in the great spirit of blogging, I decided to chronicle the Adventure of the Awful. I can tell Daniel just totally gets me when I ask for my camera amidst breaking eggs and beating batter. He's a good man. So now, before I clear the table and while I can hear the three most important people in my life laughing down the hall, I say thanks to my dad for such a great gift and for the memories I am now making with my own family! You are wonderful and mean so much to us! And I promise you, my sons will leave this house knowing how to cook! LOVE YOU DADDY!

One of the perks of having a big brother......

When he somehow makes it out of the kitchen with a snack and shares it with you on the living room floor.

PS - Bonus points for me for grabbing the camera before the dustbuster! :-)

Fresh Face

With summer right around the corner, so close I can TASTE it, I am looking forward to doing so many fun things! One of the things I am looking forward to the most is the time to concentrate on some things I have been neglecting lately......namely, me! I am going to get the rest of this baby weight off by Brendan's first birthday and get back in shape. Can't wait!!! In anticipation of this big make-over I decided my blog could use a face-lift as well. I love the change and hope you do too!

I'm Baaaaaack!

Long time no blog. As some of you know I have had a rough past couple of weeks. More on that later, but for now, just want to say that I am feeling so much better and I appreciate all the prayers and support of everyone! One thing this yucky time has reminded me of is that you better get out there and just enjoy life and stop putting things off. There are so many things in this life to enjoy and so many blessings. Don't take them for granted! You never know what can happen. So, this morning, when James was still asleep and Brendan was cracking me up with all of these different facial expressions, I took him out in the front yard and took his picture. Once we got out there he was fascinated by the grass. Still, he was very cooperative! Ah, the joys of a 9 month old.



As far as my personal hobbies go, there is nothing more fun than grabbing my camera and a cute kid and just getting caught up in the moment while you hear the shutter snap, snap, snap. Lucky for me, I have a camera I love and a couple of cute kids on hand at all times. I love the feel of the camera in my hand and looking through to capture what you can, so I decided to go for it. Not to put it off, but to just go and get some photographs right then. Also, on the list of things I love the most in this whole world, baby cheeks and baby eyelashes top out the list. I am going to get them while the getting is good. I think this was a pretty good start to my day. What do you think?


Ready to go back to work on Monday and wrap things up for summer. Looking forward to a great time with my family and all kinds of fun things! Hope you and yours have a great weekend! :-)

Just So My Children Know What Being Their Mother Has Done For Me

To all mothers, and especially for my sons, the people to whom I am eternally grateful.

Before I had children, what I knew about being a mother could be summarized here: Most remarkable event in life. Period. What I didn’t know about being a mother cannot be wrapped up in one neat sentence or perfunctory paragraph. Instead, it must be told like it feels, like the weaving together of so many beautiful and so many rare threads, forming somehow, inexplicably, a piece of comfort both so strong and so soft it takes my breath away. Motherhood is one thing I knew it would be. It is a million times a million things I never imagined. It is joy and love and anguish and pride and hope and forgiveness and throaty laughs and bear hugs. It is tiny cool fingers on your arm and sticky peanut butter cheeks against your leg and little heart shaped mouths puckering up to kiss you goodnight. It is crying on a regular basis, primarily because you cannot believe God blessed you enough to send these tiny little people for you to take care of. Mostly it is marveling when you rock a baby or bathe a toddler that God formed this perfect child and knew his name since the beginning. That thought really rocks my world. And how about this one? That He knows every hair on their head. That HIS love for them is even stronger than your love for them. Now, that is some love! Overall, the whole mothering thing is mind-blowing and the realization that no matter what, there is still a whole lot of beauty in the world. Most of it I argue is sitting in your lap, or riding in the backseat of your car, or sleeping with sweet baby snores right down the hall.


After having both of my children, I wandered around in a daze thinking about the ties that bind me to every other mother that ever was and ever will be. I think the realizations I came to have were one of the most rewarding parts of parenting. I became a card-holding member of The Club of Motherhood. Dues paid in full. What makes you a member? Ownership of the emotions and the primal feelings of love and protection that are stronger than any other love between two people on this planet. What becoming a mother did for me was open my mind to insights I had never thought of before. At the heart of it is this: Every time a baby is born the amazing thing it that it is like the VERY first time a mother loved a child. No matter how many times it happens on this Earth or to you, it just never gets old or becomes routine. What a tremendous gift from God!

When my children were born and were busy becoming bonafide “people”, I was a person busy becoming a bonafide mother. And it wasn’t just happening to me. It was happening all over this big planet. I could not get it out of my mind! I would be hit in the gut with this realization over and over. In every city and every little out of the way town with one stop light someone was feeling the same overwhelming love as me. In every country, in every culture. In castles and huts and houses very much like mine, women were not just women anymore, they were something greater and more encompassing. It was happening pretty much every moment. Every time a child is born, so is a mother as the old adage goes. And it really got to me. This fact became almost a mantra as I fed my babies, or changed them, or stared at them for hours, getting a crick in my neck. I realized this: Right now , yes, this instant, someone is reaching down and feeling that hot slippery baby placed on their stomach and splayed across their skin with tight little fists like tiny curled starfish. Again, right now! Again, right now! Magnificent! Whether being birthed in a home or a hospital or any other single place women have the courage and the knowledge to bear down and bring forth a breathing, living human being, it is happening all the time. Someone who never has is putting a babe to the breast. Someone is hearing the first cry, the most beautiful and out-of-this-world noise known to womankind. It is happening to rich people and poor people and people of all colors, to people in positions of freedom and people in positions of powerlessness, to people who live in jungles or in high rises. To people who speak French or Cantonese. To Eskimos. To me. It was the one fact, the one solitary and gorgeous fact of life, that at every moment a mommy was being born and her love was uniting us all. It put in me a deep and bone-warming comfort that the world would be all right. That my children would grow to see it. That any bad could be overcome because mothers would find a way to make it right. At any given time, I imagine it is pretty safe to say that a woman is becoming a mommy. And because of this, at every moment in time, the world is becoming a little brighter and a little better. At every moment a woman is learning her heart will spend the rest of her life walking around outside of her body. This is what my children have done for me. They have opened my mind to these ideas, these securities about what unites us all. This crazy world isn’t such a big scary place after all. I learned that from my children.


Every morning while rocking my tiny fragile newborn babies with their sweet smelling heads and paper thin fingernails, I prayed for other mommies about to begin the most worthwhile journey of their lives. With my jaw and heart hanging wide open, I stared star-struck at these specimens of God’s love in my arms, willing myself to believe the unimaginable that had become truth– I was a mother. I would be a mother until my last breath and I knew that I would love and fight for them with every ounce of my being until I left this life. Never had such a purpose consumed me. It made me want to be a better person. To seek out pain and heal it. To seek out trouble and mend it. To do more, be more. To leave a legacy in my children and for my children. It took my heart and shaped it. Molded it into something it had been working hard on becoming all along, but something it never knew exactly how to be. Until now.


Thank you Brendan and James for showing me who I am and what all I can be. You have brought me full circle and clothed me in the fine robes of motherhood. God gave us to each other and I lift His name in praise over and over for the sheer gift of giving birth to you and helping to raise you. Lord, through these children, You have showered on me rays of hope and happiness. You have filled my cup when it was empty. You have lifted me up when I was drowning. These children, through Your Grace, have done each and every thing one soul can do for another. And boys, you have done it in simply being. This Mother’s Day and each day, you are my very best present, my biggest surprise. My biggest blessing was becoming your mother and taking my place in the membership spanning all times and all places – the membership of Motherhood. I love you boys, for who you are and for who I am when I am with you.
Love,
Momma

Spring Time Deep in the Heart of Texas

Getting the traditional wildflower pictures of my cuties. Waited a bit too long for many bluebonnets, but still enjoyed finding this location on our way home from church last weekend. Where is your favorite wild flower spot?