My Babies

There is a saying that I found that says, "Enjoy the little things in life, for some day, you will look back and realize that they were the big things." (quote by Robert Brault)

I totally believe it.

Each day I'm surrounded by little things that I want to remember for an eternity.  Our days may be routine and we may be exhausted and unable to deliver on the increasing level of competing household priorities most days, but honestly, I have never felt more complete, more privileged, or more grateful and utterly happy as when I step foot in our home each evening and hug my sweet little babies.  At this moment of each day, I say a silent prayer thanking God for this life and for the luxury of having one more day to live in it.  

When I am eighty years old and want to recall the little things that were really the big things, I intend to pull out my lap top of the future (from my fancy hover wheelchair), blow a kiss over to Dan's wheelchair (hovering next me), and pull up my blog and breathe in these moments with my sweet little babies that are documented right here.  

We had a good weekend.  In exchange for playing a round of golf on Sunday, we got to have a photo session at Forest Park on Saturday (Dan and I barter with each other all the time: he gets an afternoon of golf, I get his assistance with a photo session with the boys; he gets to relax and doesn't have to give the boys their baths in the evenings, I get to sleep in on Saturday mornings).  System works pretty well for us. 

With having three boys, I have come to learn that posing for pictures is not their top priority (much to their mother's dismay).  I have to follow chase these littles one around to get any good poses out of them; and they are smart little dudes.  Once they know what I'm after, they know that they hold all of the cards and will make it a game to try avoiding posing for me.  Like trying to ruin a perfectly good photo opportunity by pulling your shorts way up.    

Since December, I have been challenged to get good shots of Drew and Evan to memorialize their birthdays (Drew was 5 on 12/26 and Evan was 2 on 12/30).  So my mission this spring was clear.  While  shooting Harper's one-year pictures, I was going to capture Drew's 5-year, Owen's 4-year (birthday 4/9) and Evan's 2-year pictures.  I am pleased with the results.  Please see my gallery of growing boys below.  

The picture below represents an expression from Drew definitely worth capturing.  The anxiety on his face when he realized that he should have used the restroom before we left and there isn't one close by . .

And hello, Mr. Evan.  Hello Mr. can you please sit still for just one second for Mommy to snap your picture?  Nope, this little toddler is a busy guy!

My Evan-bear is part monkey, you know.  That is why he does so well at hanging from stuff.

And enter my Owie-bear.  About to be a birthday boy.

I love these next two pictures below.  Dan and I are blessed with such wonderful siblings that have given our kiddos such excellent aunts and uncles.  Owen adores his Uncle TJ and you can just see it in his sweet little dimples in his cheeks.  

Goodnight my sweet little angels! 

A Family Saturday

Saturday was a fun day.  We had zero plans and enjoyed the day together.  Since the calendar did not require us to be anywhere,  we let the day take us where it wanted to.  Turns out, the day wanted us to be lazy in the morning, paint in the afternoon and then go bowling and eat mini-tacos in the evening.

For Christmas, Santa brought Drew a canvas paint set complete with 4 individual canvases, 8 tubes of paint and an easel for the artist to perform his work.  It is nice when the Christmas gifts last longer than the week following Christmas.  I generally try to put several gifts away to be opened in the summer, but Drew has had his eye on this one for weeks and it felt like a good family activity for a Saturday.  Although I should clarify . . . this a good family activity to do while Daddy was running errands (Daddy is not such a huge fan of giving our 3 little boys unlimited access to paint and would much prefer to see the final product than the process required to create such a masterpiece:)

Although it was Drew's Christmas gift, he was thoughtful and shared with his younger brothers.  Owen patiently waited for Drew to finish so that he could have a turn working at the easel.  And Evan . . . well (even I am not that crazy to trust that little man with paint), we just gave him some clean paintbrushes and let him dip them in water and pretend to paint on the canvases that were still protected with cellophane wrapping.   

Drew began painting Lightening's car red . . .

And viola! - 30 minutes later we have a finished masterpiece!  

Now, it was finally Owen's turn.  He set about his creation in a much less precise way than Drew did.  I think that Owen recognized that there were in fact, lines on the canvas to direct his paint strokes; but Owen was way more concerned about making sure that he covered up as much of the white part of the canvas as possible.  He also took care to make sure that every color was well-represented in his masterpiece so as to not make any color feel left-out.  My Owen is such a sensitive and considerate little guy.

Quite a beautiful job, if you ask me.   Now only if we knew where to hang this artwork!  

Evan eventually realized that the role he was playing in this painting process was not equal to that of his brothers; as a result, he was not happy.  Since he was so sad, I should not have been smiling at him and snapping away with my camera in his moment of distress; however, Evan is so stinking cute when he is upset that I have to ensure that even his unhappy moments of childhood are well represented:)  

The day later called us to the local bowling alley.  Not really sure why, but Drew had been talking about bowling earlier in the week (along with the list of the things that he would like to sign up for such as another session of indoor soccer, T-ball sign-ups, swimming lessons and karate) and I thought that it would be fun for us to go bowling together this weekend.  And it was was fun!  Although I am embarrassed to say that at the end of the game, Drew and I both had a score of 107; I tied with my 5-year old (and I'd be lying if said that I wasn't trying hard)!  Oh well - I just prefer to think of Drew as an excellent bowler well beyond his years.    

Evan loved bowling!  He got so excited watching the ball approach the pins.  Even the smallest ball was too heavy for him to carry, so he invented his own approach to bowling - he kicked the ball.  Whatever.  It worked.  

Owen had recently been to a birthday party at the bowling alley so he was our expert.  My Owie is such a cute-pie!    

 And that is a wrap on our wonderful Saturday.  Enter Sunday.

I'm not really sure why, but I have always had a bad case of "Sunday-itus."  It is the moment of realization that the the blissful hours of Saturday have now receded into Sunday which means that we are just moments away from the work week commencing again and interrupting the peaceful flow of life that we established over the weekend.  The re-entry has always been the hardest part for me.  It is almost as though I'm hesitant to allow myself to enjoy extended breaks for fear of having them come to an end.  I've never figured out why I have this emotion, but it rears it's ugly head every weekend right about this time.  The strange part is that I enjoy my job, am grateful for my job and believe that it is important to work; so who knows why I am plagued with this "Sunday-itus."  My only hypothesis is that during college, I procrastinated my studying way too much and now even as an adult, I am forever feeling the guilt and "pressure" of the looming Monday morning alarm clock.

But here's to a happy Monday and to counting our infinite blessings!

Love is in the Air

Happy Valentine's Day!  The boys and I have been busy working on our Valentines for our friends at pre-school and I'm happy to report that with only minutes left to spare, we have completed our mission.

 Our pre-school encourages the Valentines to be handmade so it is a good thing that I love working on crafty projects; this isn't exactly Dan's cup of tea:)

I struggled with a good idea for a "boy" Valentine - something crafty and thoughtful; yet masculine and sweet.  I found this idea on another mommy blog that I follow and viola! - we have it!  What better way for a little boy to show he cares about his friends than to say, "I dig you!" with a shovel?  

 

Since the boys are so close in age, we have gotten to the point where I feel like we have twins.   We have double duty.  For everything.  Since Drew and Owen are both in pre-school, we had a whopping 45 Valentines to make.  I ordered a combination of red, white and pink shovels and set about making these creations a few weeks ago.  Little by little this project finally materialized.  

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Here is a completely random photo of Owen and his sweet cousin Greta.  It was taken at Owen's third birthday party last April (almost a year ago), but I came across the photo in my files and realized that I never put this one on my blog.  And I love it.  They are so unbelievably cute and Owie loves her.  We have to remind Owen that Greta is his cousin and no matter how much he loves her, he is not allowed to marry her:)

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We are at the end of a great indoor soccer season.  Both Drew and Owen played soccer through the winter and we're all sad that the season is over.  Indoor soccer was super-fun and was great exercise for the boys during the winter.  It was great exercise for Evan too, who constantly ran up and down the aisles in front of the bleachers at each game (and great exercise for me and Dan who had to chase him:).  We are looking forward to tee-ball and swimming lessons which are right the corner.

 Dan's soccer skills are so amazing that he can hold a baby and still play soccer.  What a Dad!

 And sometimes, rather than take the game seriously, Drew likes to be silly with his buddy Tate and run around with a soccer ball under his shirt!

 For our last game of the season, the boys had quite a fan club.  We had a lot of visitors come to watch!  The boys LOVED this!

 Evan baby Maddy came to watch the soccer game!

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And I will close this post with a message about my first born baby boy - my Drew bear.  Tonight I took Drew to kindergarten screening at what will be our new school come this fall.  My baby is going to kindergarten.

My Drew bear is a smart kid and I'm so unbelievably proud of him.  Drew can be short-tempered, rough with this brothers and sometimes he has the attention span of a nat, but tonight, the magical power of motherhood enthralled me as I watched my baby boy get called on by the kingergarten teacher and respond without hesitation to this stranger calling him to take his first steps towards 'big boy school.'  My love and pride for Drew swelled so great at this moment it nearly made my heart jump out of my chest.  I thought to myself, "I'm so happy to be here."  

And "here" is this privileged world of little ones that need our help reading "The Hungry Caterpillar," lacing up their shoes before soccer games and require assurances as they step out of our space and into their own.  

Drew is very ready for kindergarten.  I recall hearing other moms say this of their children in the past and now I know exactly what they mean.  He is perceptive, inquisitive and interested in all things and is busting at the seams to learn to read and write independently.  For these reasons, I am so excited for him.

I'm excited for us too.  I dreamt of being a mom when I was little.  I played "house" with my friends and pretended to drive kids to soccer practice and to school because, surely, that was the epitome of a dreamy future.  And being here - in this magical world of loving them - it is much more awesome than I could have ever imagined.  This little baby boy is mine.  

And I thank God again and again for picking me to be his mommy.