Four Eyes

My sweet Grace has been complaining about her eyesight at school for awhile.  I am very blessed that I still have 20/20 vision.  Jason, however, began to have vision problems at a young age so I asked the school nurse to give her a basic eye exam.  The nurse wrote us a recommendation to go see an optometrist, which we did.  And sure enough, she needs glasses.  A few kids have teased her but mostly she seems to feel fine and confident about her new look.

Miles Turns THREE!!!

Miles turned 3 years old on the 15th.  He really seemed to have a pretty good grasp that something very special was coming up just for him on that day and had been talking about it for several months.  The one gift he kept insisting that he wanted was a skateboard and we did not disappoint.  We kept things pretty small.  The kids were out of school for Spring Break. They had each spent some of their own money at Dollar Tree to choose some things for him.  Jason and I bought him the skateboard and a light saber.  We went to the park, bought french fries and chicken nuggets.  I did my best to make the cake he requested, "a football cake".  He was quite pleased with the outcome.  He would get very concerned when anybody asked him if he was "turning 3" or had "turned 3".  He knows that "to turn" means to "revolve" and he would angrily shout, "I not TURNING!"  But he seemed to understand if we'd just say, "You are 3 now!"  Here are several photos from his special day.

Tonight when I was giving Grace a kiss goodnight she told me that she loved me and we had a good snuggle time.  I told her I loved her more than anything in the world.   She asked, "More than Addie and Andre?"  I said, "I can't compare the love of one my children with another.  I love each of my children more than anything else I can possibly imagine."  And its true.  But its also true that the emotions evoked for each child are different and also change at different times.  I never love one MORE or LESS.  But with this little Miles...Oh boy.  I don't know how to describe it but when I think much about him the back of my eyes sting and my heart starts to hurt.  I am so happy but I am almost afraid at how much I adore this child.  I don't know if it has something to do with his extremely vulnerable start.  Maybe it was because for a time I thought that maybe we weren't going to have any more children after my illness.  I just get this sense sometimes that he almost wasn't and I can hardly bear the thought of it.

Mary

I'm sure I've blogged before about my very dear friend, Mary Amelia. I am very excited right now because she is a traveling nurse and recently accepted a job in Dallas!  She arrives tonight and will stay with us until she finds a place suitable for her stay here.  This post is for her.

We were just now munching on some bread, rondele cheese spread and Spanish chorizo (Jason comes up with the best snacks!) when the Grace asked, "Why does Mary only stay some place for a short time?"
Me:  She's a traveling Nurse.
Addie:  She's a NURSE? A NURSE???
Me:  Yes, she's a nurse.
Addie:  That is NOT the right job for her.
Me:  Oh really?  What is the right job for her then?
Andre comes from behind the couch, takes aim with his invisible gun and says, "A POLICE OFFICER!"
Me, nodding my head:  Yes, I can actually see that.
Grace:  Yeah!  Yeah!  She should definitely be a police officer.
Addie:  No.  She'd make a better ballerina.  I think a ballerina.
The three of them argue back and forth briefly before I say, "Let it rest.  You can take it up with Mary when she gets here."

Can't wait to see you!!!!!!!!  And don't forget to bring our other best friend, Matt Damon.

Little Preciousness

Lila turned 10 months old.  She is the sweetest baby one could ever ask for.  She's beautiful and happy.  She says Mama and now Daddy instead of just "Da-da".  She is eating lots of finger food, which is very handy for me!  Its a nice break from time to time to just sit her happily in her high chair to munch on kix cereal or banana chunks.

The children all love her.  Miles is mostly good with her.  I love when he hears her wake up from a nap and says, "Don't worry, Mom.  I'll go get her!"  I'll hear him on the monitor talking to her in a high pitched voice.  He calls her, "Baby girl" and "Ly-ly".  Sometimes he likes to push her over or sit on her just to see what might happen.  But most of the time he is gentle and sweet and loves his baby sister very much.

Andre will always come to her rescue when she needs him but other than that, he's not super interested.

Grace and Addie are good little mothers to her.  They both know how to make her a bottle and will help me get her dressed after a bath or entertain her when I'm making dinner.

Lila has been army crawling for awhile but just got up onto her knees this week.  It is so cute to see her trying to figure out how to move herself around.  Her favorite mode of transportation is still her walker, but she spends lots of time crawling around and is now pulling herself up onto everything.  She'll often pull herself up in her crib when she should be sleeping.  She might be exhausted but doesn't dare let go so she'll just stand there and cry until I come and lie her back down.

Lila got RSV over Christmas vacation in Utah and had to use a nebulizer for awhile when we got home. She got ear infections along with the RSC due to all of the sinus congestion.  But that is the only sickness of note.  I am so grateful!  Her teeth seem to bother her when coming in (she now has 4 on top  and 2 on the bottom), but otherwise she is just so healthy and happy.  I can't imagine our family with out her!

This Boy

I was planning to start this post with an explanation of why I'm giving up on the code names. But I don't feel like it. I just am.

Andre. My beloved boy. Oh how I adore him. One thing I, as many mothers before me have discovered is that raising a very active 7 year old can be kind of expensive. He does not go a day with out a grass stain on his pants, brand new jeans last maybe a week at best before the knees are torn, and shoes? Good heavens. I bought him a new pair of cross trainer type shoes for his birthday in October. They lasted 3 weeks until the sole was completely falling off. After research, it was determined that skate-boarding shoes are my best bet for taking a lot of motion with out falling apart.

These have lasted 8 weeks. None of the stitching or bonding has come apart but he wore straight through thick leather. What?

Oh, and he eats about twice as much as I do in a day. No joke.

He is the wisest, old soul one can imagine. I don't know how it was decided that I would get to be the older one here on Earth and act as his guide through his youth. He probably volunteered due to his sweet, patient, and kind nature. Sweet, patient and kind that is...UNLESS he is hungry or tired. I suppose that is for most of us, but if he hasn't had enough sleep or if he is hungry and there is no food to be immediately had, he shuts down and becomes very angry. Even then, he does not do anything horrible, but he if I ask him to put something in his room during one of these times, he will wail and gnash his teeth and stomp and twist and throw himself about. Luckily it still only takes him 15 seconds to fall asleep when he's really tired. I just have to get him to stop moving and its lights out.

With a new year, our children switch classes in their Sunday School at church. Andre's new teacher came up to Jason after church the first week and with tears in her eyes told him about how much love she felt for this child, how amazed she was at his insightful answers to questions she'd ask, and how at the end of the lesson, on his way out the door he stopped and softly said to her, "Thanks for teaching me." This woman, in her late 50s, also found me last week and, with a horrified look on her face asked if it was true that we are moving. I confirmed her fear and she again welled up with tears regarding Andre and how much she thought of him.

At a basketball game the other day, Andre's team (whom Jason coaches) was playing against a team with a coach named Pindegrass. His wife, apparently, teaches in the 1st grade. She is not Andre's teacher, but she noticed him on the basketball floor and began telling all the people around her what an amazing kid he is (she had no idea who I was).

He's an amazing boy and I'm lucky to be his Mom.

Back to Blogging/Big News

I have been a terrible blogger. For awhile I didn't care. Nobody reads my blog. I always feel bad for not reading other blogs. I play catch up on them and think I might post something. But I don't. I pretty much gave up for awhile but then on Sunday afternoon the 3 older kids were snuggled up together on the our love seat reading something and laughing

and giggling like crazy. It was my first blog book that had been publish

ed. I suddenly realized how many things I have been missing! So, maybe I cannot fully participate in the blog world as I used to do. And even more sadly, maybe I still don't have the time to learn how to take photos like I want to do. But I must record more often for my children.

Some big news for us is that we are buying a house! One time last summer I drove through a neighborhood that I thought was so lovely that I just had to learn more about it. It is called Spring Park. It was developed in different phases. Mostly the late 70s and early 80s and a couple of streets developed in the 90s. It has tons of green belts and wide grassy areas, a little lake for canoeing or fishing, a large community pool, and many other things. The huge trees lining the streets are what drew me to it most. I started falling in love with the area and was keeping an eye on houses there. I started researching the school and ward. I started testing my spirit-radar. I would be driving and not feel anything, I would enter Spring Park and feel all happy, I would cross the street out of Spring Park and feel nothing again. I started to feel like maybe that was the place we were meant to be.

All the while, I kept my mind and heart open. Jason drove through with me and liked it

very much as well. But we thought, who wouldn't? Its lovely? We considered maybe we could move out further from Dallas where we could have some land and maybe some animals and feel so dreamy. But that would take us farther from Jason's work and less time together. I thought maybe we could buy a house that would be in my brother Aaron's ward. How awesome would that be? My dear Catherine just moved about 30 minutes west of us into a great neighborhood that would be about 5 minutes from Jason's work! I thought maybe we would find a house there.

Just before Christmas I decided that I'd have our realtor (a friend I made through Allison and Catherine named Alice) take me through a couple of the homes in Spring Park that I'd had my eye on. Incidentally, another house in the subdivision had just come on the market. It was one of the houses built in the 90s and I didn't have as much interest in it because it didn't have lots of trees in the backyard and just didn't feel quite as charming (from the photos) as the other homes did. The house was vacant so I decided to ask Alice to run me through it as well as the others.

Come to find out, the houses I had kind of been drooling over were not appealing to me at all once we went inside. But we tried the new one and I almost started to cry I loved it so much. I kept my cool, knowing that Jason and I had promised each other to have open minds...and because I knew we really weren't ready to place an offer on a house yet. Our lease is not up until the end of May.

I told Jason about it but, again, just kind of kept quiet and was praying over Christmas. When we got back we arranged for Alice to take us both through it. We spent about 2 hours there. I think I knew then that it was going to be our home but of course there was much to work through.

Well, within a very short time we made an offer with a note that we couldn't close until after March, got permission to get out of our lease a month early from our landlords (so we'd be out end of April), got preapproved for the loan, made an offer and now...here we are! We had the inspection last week and sent an addendum asking them to make some minor repairs, they agreed and...well...at this point I can't really imagine anything happening to keep us away. So, with no further ado...meet our new home:

Although I am not thrilled about moving again, I am SO SO SO excited to have a place of our own and to feel like we are putting down some roots. At least for awhile. :) I feel very excited and very blessed!

Nine Months Old

Lila hit 9 months old while we were on our holiday vacation in Utah. Of course I must journal more about that shortly. But for now just this beautiful picture of my beautiful baby who is growing so quickly!

Lila has been my most healthy baby, by far. As I feared, the kids all got colds in Utah. RSV is the most common cold and not to rough for big kids but it hit Finn and Lila pretty hard. Lila needed to start using a nebulizer. She cried each time she coughed. She also got double ear infections and had to be put on an antibiotic. Just as she was feeling better from the infections, she took a face plant on the pavement and now has a huge bruise and road rash on her forehead. I was in the garage getting some things. Finn said he wanted to go out front and push the stroller. I told him not to go out front with out me. But he decided to anyway...and he left the front door open. Lila was in her walker and went cruising after him full speed, hit the door jam and flipped right over onto her head. Very sad. So, its been a bit of a rough couple of weeks for this little one, but she is truly such an angel and is dealing with everything very patiently.

Lila weighs 19 pounds, which puts her in the 55% for her age on weight. Her head circumference is 18"/90% so she may be following in Finn's footsteps. Her head actually doesn't look large at all, though, because she is so tall! She is just under 30 inches. There is no % for that because she is off the charts.

Lila has the cutest little army crawl, which is really not an army crawl, but an interesting kind of scoot. She will push herself up on her knees and even up onto her toes. We have caught her doing the perfect yoga pose of the downward facing dog.

We all love this little girl and feel so blessed to have her in our lives. Sometimes Finn misses her too much. The other night I thought all of the kids were asleep. I came up the dark stairs towards the bedrooms and saw that Finn's door as well as our door was open. I then heard the sweetest little voice in my room whispering, "Lila. Lila. Wake up. Wake up. Its me, Lila (Wy-wa)." Finn was standing by her crib, reaching his chubby, little arm through the rails and softly calling for her. I hope they will be best friends.