3 years, gone girl

We are laying here, all sleeping..well I'm awake now. It's so overcast and rainy outside. Very very quiet and calm and peaceful. Frederick will be 3 on Thursday. Hattie, 9 months on Friday. They are growing up before my eyes. I'm growing up too. I still feel young though. I feel like I'm a kid in a 30 year old's body and they are my little buddies. I feel confident about the future. I feel loved by my husband. Sometimes my mind and insecurities play tricks but he loves and needs me. He even likes me, thinks I'm funny, says he needs me. I'm trying to never be critical because I'm so in love with him. He is so smart and funny. This morning he was doing a funny silly bit for the kids and I went outside my body, observing my life and I went weak at the knees looking at him. When he tells me everything is alright, it is alright. I don't feel scared or sad. Our bond has real power.

Frederick will be 3. My role as mother to him has challenged and shaped me. It teaches me and humbles me. These angels are the future.

He mostly get that it is or is going to be or was his bday. 3. I told him we were going to have a party and he gasped. He loves people. He is just so friendly!!! He says, "Hi, what's your name?" And, "my name is Frederick." If someone doesn't hear him or doesn't answer, he comes to me, a little disappointed. I smile and tell him it's ok and it's just good to be friendly and kind to everyone. This boy will change the world. He is special. He is a child of God. He love to sing and dance in the aisles of the grocery store. He loves to tell me, "mommy I gotta show you!" And shows me something he has found that is just gorgeous and special and unique to him.

He loves spending time and adventures with me. He adores his father and protects his sister. He cheers her on in every accomplishment she makes and confidently announces, "yay, I DID it!!" When he has done something he's proud of...even something like catching a ball. His enthusiasm and optimism and forgiveness inspire me every day. He is compassionate. When something goes wrong he says, "aw, that's too bad." Or when I cry he says we should say a prayer (and then spends the whole time without arms folded and usually yelling or singing something!! Haha, we are working on that one!) but I know he knows prayer is important and that it works. He lives and loves 100% and I'm so so deeply grateful to call him mine. Heavenly Father has a plan for him and loves him very much.

He's growing up but he's still little. I still have lots of time.

My FIRST born, at 4-6 months!


cheering Joe Joe on at his football game

Holy Batman story time, Batman!!!!

Today we went to Barnes and Nobel batman day! I'm sort of horrible at planning but usually want to go all out or at least semi-out with these things...also into homemade costumes...so my poor child had a bat mask made by me in three minutes. He wore a red cape...half robin, half batman??...and he took off my lovely mask before we got into the store and refused to wear it. Oh well!!! The store was decked out, the employees too...whom we have gotten to know well since going to almost all of their events this summer. They are some quirky quirks, I'll tell ya. Everyone was asking Fred who he was (red cape) and he would just shout out random super heroes. Ha! We made bat signal mustaches, colored/cut up into a billion pieces some batman pictures, Fred got his face painted with a bat on one cheek and a superman (that he calls Spider-Man) on the other. (Split super hero personality disorder????)

Anyway....then was story time. It was a book about batman and all the villains getting together to thwart him after the joker busted them all out of jail. It was a full house (tiny table) of kids today. Lots of dads really into batman. ALL the kids were constantly stopping the reader to ask all sorts of hilarious random questions and telling random stories about batman or their dads etc. 

Then I was wondering...are there any batman cartoons/movies out there that these kids can even watch that aren't super dark/violent? The Cartoon Network cartoon a decade or so back was awesome but def not for kids. Apparently there was something back in the 70s that was pretty kid friendly. We will have to check it out. 

Hattie spent the whole time crawling around in every direction, trying to pull all the books off shelves and just being generally adorable. Freddie was super into the story and particularly concerned about this Scarecrow fellow (oh boy..) and made friends with every human in the store practically. 

It was great fun. Plus we got goody bags with REAL batman masks. It took us forever to get out of the store because Fred loves books and was asking me about almost every one on the way out, I swear trying to stall me. And it was 115 today. Agggg! 

Everyone took good long naps at home afterward and I watched the season 3 finale of call the midwife. So emotional! Love that show. Then we woke up, ate, watched peg+cat (so cute...girl and her cat drawn on graph paper and it's all about solving math word problems!!!), and went outside for an adventure...(blanket down on grass and somersaults, scooter, crawling and eating dirt, dot sprawling out on warm sidewalk, talking w neighbors, me loving my kids and thinking I can do this and waiting patiently for daddy to get home.) 

Night!! This Sunday I get my pp award with two of my laurel young women. We three are so excited to stand up together and I love them so much.