A Week of Firsts

I can't believe how much can physically happen in one week! (Actually less than a week.) I am sitting here at my computer realizeing Jacob is at his third day of kindergarten and it still feels so sureal. I wish I could be a fly on the wall and watch him experience so many first with him. It almost reminds me of when he first smiled, first looked to the right or left, first time he opened his mouth . . . there was no way to take it all in. So I will just absorb as much with him as I can and the rest will come out later in his own time . . . hopefully not therapy! :) Sydney was so disappointed she couldn't go to her own school. We had plenty to do that day though! We had a MOPS meeting, then playing and lunch at the mall with her friends Aspen and Lily, and lastly playing at the Gymnastics Sports Center with more MOPS friends Keeli, Ruby, Cameron . . .too many to remember. On Tuesday I helped out at Sydney and Savannah's school and then we went swimming with our friends before soccer practice. You can see Sydeny chasing Lily at the pool. They are so funny to watch together. We started this tradition of laying on a pool chair to dry off before we leave. I had to include the one of Natalie and Jacob. Too cute are those big five year olds who sometimes think they had a attitude of one who is much older! :)

Jacob had a great first day. In fact he struggled with finding time to go to the restroom on his first day. Daddy gets to take him to school. Pat even took some photos for me, how sweet. He loves all the centers and the fact that they get to go to centers with friends and choose where he goes. I was telling him that he would have so much fun at school today and he said "Yes, because I don't have to take as long of nap at school." Have I warped him or what? :) He actullay has a friend on his soccer team that also is in his class.

The other first for him this week was his first soccer practice. It starts really late for what we are used to . . . not until seven. So Savannah eats around eight and that is bed time for the older kids we were going to have some conflict with time management. Pat said he would take Jacob to practice and I could take care of the girls. I just wanted to go for a minute to watch and take some pictures and then leave. Well, I had so much fun watching that I stayed the whole time. I love seeing him have a good time! It was so fun to watch Patrick working with him and helping him learn how to play soccerr. Mainly he had to keep telling Jacob to stop talking and pay attention to the coach. (Did he get that from me?) Syndey did not have as much fun and was ready to go before it was time. She managed to entertain herself pretty creatively! See the photo of her in the basket of the stroller! :) She loves to pick grass and leaves up while she waits. She also loved to be held by her daddy. She was so disappointed that she didn't have soccer shoes and told me she did not want to do ballet instead. I am glad I didn't know this before I signed her up for ballet! I am sure it was more of a comment made our of want she wanted to do at that moment. Of course she did not mind riding home with daddy and Jacob from practice. Now you know I had to include and action shot of Jake and his team running in for a water break . . . do you see the tounge?

Lastly to me sweet Savannah. She is such a dear. She has learned to roll over onto her tummy and gets mad when she can't roll back. She loves to laugh at her big brother when he blows raspeberries on her tummy and she just leaned back and started to show signs of holding her hands up to be held. I love being a mommy to all three of my kids! I am just amazed at how I get to be a part of their lives each and everyday. Especially how God saw fit for this to be a part of my life. I know I am not the best mom and may never win an award, but I try each and everyday to make sure my kids know I love them. They seem to know, but it never hurts to say it too much!

Now to the least mentioned one on this blog, my husband. He is just amazing and I am in awe of how talented he is. He just started playing again in worship band at church for the children's service and I am just tickled. He has done so great managing his private practice and our family that I know he must love us something terrible to do so much for us each and everyday he goes to work. He is constantly working on ways to show me how much he loves me that I look forward to the next time I get to see him and just be with him. I am looking forward to our Tuesday lunch dates once the girls start back to school next week. I am one blessed woman!

I'm a Suvivor, Not gonna give up . . .

Okay, I really don't listen to Beyonce' (is that how you spell her name?) But I love that song that Destiny's Child sings and it is quit fitting for this post. I just completed a three day journey with three of my friends, in three different vehicles, with eight kids under the age of 5, and two teenage girls to help out.

Man that makes me tired just thinking about it. We decided on a spur of the moment to go to the river for a "fun" trip with our kids during the work week. Boy, fun can't describe it. I have gotten to know these gals over the last few months really well. I have know two for longer, but we have just recently had the opportunity to figure out we really like each other :) Seriously, they have become some really special people to me. Therefore what is the next phase on a journey of friendship? Road trip!

We got to just hang out, point out the funny things about our personality and feed our children lots of sugar. I think my favorite part of the trip was just all the talking we did. We stayed up too late, and share lots of fun memories, laughs, and even some frustrations about different things. It is amazing how much you can share after the kids go to bed. I look forward to many more fun memories with these gals.

Now to the true story that didn't make even the slightest difference in our view of the trip overall. We leave Abilene a little behind schedule, because I was running late. We barely get out of the Abilene area when my vehicle has to stop because Syndey needs to go to the bathroom. We make it about another fifteen mintues or so and I literally have to pull over to the side of the two-laned highway to untangle my daughter's hair from her blue finger. That's my Syd! The rest of the trip up to Junction is uneventful and even almost to San Antonio, but then there is 5 o'clock traffic to contend with. I think that was when the four adults, I mean eight kids really got rambunctous. Chick-fil-a saved the day with face painting and good food. After running themselves ragged, the last of the kids went to sleep around 11:00 p.m.

Wednesday. On the way to Schlitterbaun, a vehicle loses battery power and we are stuck in the middle of the driveway entrance to Taco Bell with a dead Excurions, a suburban, Taurus, and one crazy looking lady (that's me . . .my cover-up was for the pool not the side of the highway)in a blue cover up with most of her post-partum body exposed to all who were driving down the major loop in New Braunfels. Thanks to a nice guy helping us get a jump, we decide to press on to the water park. We came out to find a window out (only down thank goodness and nothing missiong) on one of the vehicles. But my brother called to check on us and ask if we needed any help, how sweet!

Okay, so for the most part we really were doing well. Nothing had thwarted our joyful vacation. I decided to make one last bathroom break before I left and as I was departing the toilet area my brand new Mogul phone dropped. . . you guessed it in the potty. No phone for our long journey home. Then one of my friends accidently locked her keys in the trunk and we had to wait for a lock smith to come. No problem. Two blocks from the house, we remember we left a baby gate at the house. No spirits dampened yet! We decided to take a more well traveled route in case the car had any more problems on our journey. Well, that turned out to be another memory in the making. By the way did I mention a hurricane had landed in the area dropping an enormous amount of rain in the area? Any way :) an accident had closed this highway down. While we were trying to decide what to do I decided to begin to catch all the rain water that was entering my vehicle because we still hadn't remembered to fix the leak in the windsheild that we only notice when it rains. I had three drips going pretty steady and filled up about a 1/4 inch of my cup. What fun entertainment!

We turn around go back the way we came and really did pretty well until in Boerne I asked my children if they needed to go to the bathroom and of course no one did until about 30 minutes later when there was absolutely no bathroom, no bridge, nothing but the hurricane rain! Fortunatley I was able to use my friend's umbrella to keep us dry while I hoisted my daughter over the grass to go potty. Fortunately she only peed down one leg of mine! :) So . . . we make it home after 8 hours on a four hour trip and I get everyone dropped off just in time for the bottom to let out in Abilene. Pat thankfully gets us all in fairly dry . . . . and then there is a boil water notice due to low levels of chlorine in the water supply.

No problem. I'll just go to the store in the morning in the pouring rain with my three kids. I came out of the store to get back to the car for my battery not to start. Oh, wait no phone because of the toliet water. But wait! I now know how to jump a car from Wednesdays fun and the man sitting in his car next to me was waiting on his sister and said he would help. God was smiling at me as I learned to take these unexpected events, however I wish I always responded this way! By the way, when I got home I forgot to put the car in park and almost opened a new way through our french doors! Jacob asked me why he almost crashed into the house . . . what will people think! :)

One thing I mentioned to the precious, sweet teenage girls that rode in my car on this trip was that to only focus on the destination means you miss so much along the way. We really soaked in all that we experienced and found, that it made us laugh more than anything else, how much we really can put up with along our journey.

Now that I have barely scratched the surface of what those precious three days meant to four MOPS (mother of preschoolers) and their kids. We are already looking forward to our next trip. I hope to have more memories with people who know me for who I am and still want to be around me, even when they literally have a hard time understanding what words come out of my mouth . . . oh, wait I think that might be most people! :)

God Smiled Tonight!!

Sydney is almost three and I am not sure which way we are going from day to day. The crazy thing is how much she can change so much in a day. We pretty much started the day off in a typical fashion. She came in to greet us with a sleepy eyes and no panties or pajamas. Patrick asked if she wet the bed, as if we couldn't tell, and she said she had an accident. So I told her to get dressed before she joined us in bed. I love mornings with my kids. Since I don't drink coffee, they are my morning wake me up (sometimes mentally AND physically).

After Pat left for work, the fun began. She got curious and destructive. She had time out. She got the chair as her ladder and discovered some hidden stickers. Later she was warned about using the chair as a ladder and then used it again to get some food(she didn't like the consquences for using the chair again). After getting to stick with me, literaly, she fell asleep in my bed while I worked on some projects on my computer.

Most of the afternoon went smoothly from what I thought, she watched the Nutcracker in her tutu and ballerina shoes. Daddy came home we ate dinner, more about that in a minute, and she went to bed early because she wouldn't eat her dinner. I found out later why. So, with not too much noise in her bed, I decided to pick up and get ready for bed.

I am glad at dinner tonight told her it was her turn to pray before we ate. This is when God smiled. She said the most wonderful, sweet soft sopken words that just melt my heart when she prayed. I don't understand anything but "food" and "morning", but the Lord did and if he had one ounce of the joy I did hearing her earnest prayer, he was pretty stoked (as my friend Gwen would say).

SO, when I went to get ready for bed I found out why she smelled so clean tonight. She helped herself to put on some of my laundry detergent. Sydney also wasn't eating at dinner tonight because since she has learned to open the refridgerator, she helped herself to several cheese slices and who know what else when all was going "smoothly". Then to top it off, what I thought was peacful sleep in her bed ended up being peacefully asleep on the couch.

I didn't mean for this to be so long. But it is crazy how hard it seems she works to drive me to a looney bin at an eary age :), I still love her more and more everyday! I love how she is such an affectionate child . . . even when she kisses Savannah a little too long. She loves to know what is wrong when you are upset and loves to have you "Hold You". I know God has great plans for this princess of His and I am praying dearly that I will be a positve encourager even when her surface behavior gives me a few extra gray hairs.

Where's the maid? Why can't I remember?

I was just about to head to my room for a little blogging, when I realized that the dishes from dinner were still out. Not just out, but I tend to cook, destroy, and leave it ALL over the place. One of the problems with trying a new recipe.

Anyway, it got me thinking. Why is it when I work hard at something I want some one to come clean it up for me at 32? I started to go into a poor me, my husband has worked hard all day and won't come home to clean up after me conversation with myself. As I tried to not let the petty annoyance of having to clean up my mess, I realized how silly I can be sometimes. I really had fun cooking with my kids and trying out this new recipe. By the way, I threw out the last chicken burger and I think I ate more than all three of the other eaters in my family combined. We don't particularly care for Cumin, but the guacamole was good though.


I almost went to bed looking at what didn't happen for me instead of what great things did. That is why I am blogging. In Joshua, God told the Israelites to build a place of remembrance so that when the kids asked about it at a later time, they could tell them about God's faithfulness in bringing them across the Jordan River (you'll have to verify the exact facts . . . my memory is foggy). I read somewhere that the most used command in the Bible is to remember. I want to remember what God has done instead of what I didn't get. I hope and pray that it will affect my children's attitude as well.

I have been trying to do better at mealtimes, introducing healthier choices and making the dinner table the main place to eat rather than the car (I know I am bad . . . but working on it). I asked Sydney to pray for our meal (Pat was still at work) rather than ask if she wanted to and she told me her mouth was broken. So I asked Jacob to and he did. So sweet. In fact tonight they both prayed simultaneously at mealtime. Jacob about protecting us while we slept and I couldn't understand Sydney's.

I digress. I am truly blessed. Even though my husband doesn't wait on me hand and foot, although my family might disagree, and my children don't always mind my life is good. God and I will still have the persistent conversation about a particular subject changing, but I know when it comes to what matters I need to remember more often.

P.S. The pictures were just for fun and had nothing to do with this post! Jake loves holdin Savannah's hand, Sydney loves to dress up especially like a ballerina (all the time no joke, even to bed) and the kids absolutely love to love on their little sister who looks just like her daddy!