the simple life

so it's a good thing we has "Western Fun Days" (or something or other) recently, or i'd have absolutely nothing to put on the blog! no six flags around, so this was our outing for saturday. nearly free, it only cost $2 for the whole family to ride the train :-). the kids are so easily entertained right now, so they had fun. yes, even just riding stick horses!


i love that little lip thing he does. he's such a goober!


of course we had to do the provided photo shoots.

charlie's first train ride

for some reason i think charlie actually resembles me in this picture!

my 2 boys. . .

but, he does have a sister! hannah got a princess outfit for her birthday, which surprisingly we don't have a picture of yet. she loves putting the tiara on charlie, and he'll leave it on for quite a while. she is in love with princesses. for some reason, specifically Snow White, Tinkerbell, and Ariel. (she has not seen any of these movies, especially little mermaid, i have no idea where she got these names or why she is so attached to them.) she is set on calling charlie "Tink", as a nickname. How she even got the idea to shorten it, i'm not sure. but it's kind of cute, maybe it'll stick :-)

Charlie turned one last week, without much fanfare. (we're waiting for his party) But he needs at least a shout out, i think. my sweet boy, getting so big. he only takes one nap a day, and we only nurse at bedtime. he is so affectionate, if i'm ever on the floor, he crawls right over and gets on my lap or climbs on my back. we've started to read books before his nap, and he pays attention really well. he loves playing in the fridge and the dishwasher, the toilet, the cellphone, the recycling bin, climbing up stairs (he is so fast all the way up to the top), and many other things. i realize most of those are hazardous to his health. in the morning, when we're eating breakfast and he hears the stairs creak, he gets so excited because he knows patrick will be coming around the corner. he just loves to dance, all with his arms. whenever he hears any kind of music, he gets going. he knows how to wave, say bye, and we're working on blowing kisses. he also claps and gives high fives. he eats like a pro football player. especially fruit, the boy loves fruit. he loves his family, if hannah's not around and i say her name, he'll start looking around for her. at the playground, even though he can't walk he crawls all over the place in the sand, and climbs up on whatever he can. loves the slide, and the swings. i am so in love with him, and i kiss him every chance i get because i know in not too long i won't be able to be physically close to him, not like hannah. he's making me completely re evaluate how i feel about boys. i can't wait to be his mommy as he grows, becoming more boy every day.

hannah is getting so big too. she built this lego castle all by herself. she's also really into puzzles, and books. we are taking a less structured approach to preschool than i planned originally. she is, after all, only 3. we do have workbooks and such, but we don't do them every day. instead, i just make sure i spend a good chunk of time (as long as her attention span is!) reading, doing puzzles, doing crafts, legos, or something else and we learn as we go. I just want to expose her to all kinds of avenues for learning, and being with her all the time, it's easy to reinforce things in different situations. reading recipes, for example: she can pick out nearly all her numbers.

we are starting a new phase in our lives, called "getting out of debt". (creative, i know :-) obviously it's something we've always been working towards, but we've recently simply had enough with credit card payments. so, we're taking some drastic measures to accomplish this. I am selling my violin, which has been really difiicult for me, even though i rarely play it. my dad gave it to me when i graduated high school, and i never imagined i'd sell it. i know it's just a thing, but it represented so much more to me, it used to be such a huge part of who i was. whenever i get too sad and want to change my mind, i remember patrick leaving aviation for us, and i'm encouraged. not by him being sad as well, but that even though we make sacrifices, even ones we really struggle with, like sometimes giving up our dreams, God knows how we're feeling and I know He can replace them with other dreams or bring them back in some way, eventually filling that emptiness with peace and excitement for the future, even if it looks different than what we thought. This would be a good time to sign off, as i usually try to leave the personal reflections to other bloggers! anyways, three cheers for dave ramsey! wish us luck :-)