word pictures

drive up the mountain...everyone asleep!













beaver creek rodeo - my happy cowboy!














smiley lyle!
















ben's coloring box (aka the time out box! he couldn't get out!)












big boy bike. he LOVED it and rode for hours each day! thanks gramma and grandpa!












the game of golf. enough said.


















no fear!














sweet view with my sweet boy on the back porch












the gondola at vail mountain












view from the top



















so proud of my little engineer












great grammy and grandpy


















walking the river, just like i did 25 years ago with grampy

in a year....

My how things change in a year. I am sitting in my grandparents guest room in Golden, CO, with Ben's white noise machine cranked so loud it sounds like we're in a thunderstorm in here...to drown out the sound of little lyle grunting and me typing. And it feels like I was just here. But it was a year ago and I was reflecting on my trip, my desire for a second child, my readiness to be back home. And now, I look down at little lyle sleeping soundly. God is good.

Can't help but wonder what life will look like next year.

in 5 days we have....

had lyle's first plane flight
reunited with sweet ben after not seeing him for four days
smiled (me)
drove up the mountain to my parents house
rode bikes (ben)
chased the cat mercilessly (ben)
smiled (lyle)
went to the beaver creek rodeo (all of us)
went to the pool (all of us)
rode bikes (ben)
fell off a bike going REAL fast down my parents very steep driveway (ben)
colored all over multiple moving boxes with markers (hours of entertainment)
had a beer, while taking in the beauty of the view from my parents porch (not ben)
took a nap (lyle)
took another nap (lyle)
slept all day (lyle)
stayed up all night (lyle and lindsay....so tired)
let lyle sleep in my bed and got lots of cuddles
went to the pool again
had another beer (me)
fell down the stairs (ben)
took a walk, broke a sweat (finally!)
watched 1/2 a movie before falling asleep (me)
went to the farmers' market
took the gondola up vail mountain and had lunch
loved the view
breathed fresh air

two days to go. headed to denver tomorrow to see some friends and my grandparents. excited. and tired. and nervous about both boys and i sleeping in the same room the next two nights. and missing greg.

i'm going to see my boy!!!!

lyle and i are headed to the airport shortly. with auntie karin. we LOVE auntie karin. she is coming with us for a vacation / to help with the kidos. yea! i can't wait to get my arms around ben. miss him like crazy.

love to you all in case i am too busy hiking, biking, swimming, yoga-ing, and relaxing to post this next week.

who am i kidding? i am going to be nursing, changing diapers, rocking, sleeping, nursing, changing diapers, rocking, sleeping, and chasing ben around! ....and hopefully breathing in the fresh air. and spending some time praying and planning for the new book / bible study / craft morning we're going to do at GFC starting September 24th!

what do you do when your baby goes on vacation!?!?

ok, i know ben is not my baby. he's 2-1/2. but he'll always be my baby, and he left this morning to go to Colorado with my mom. to the airport. on an airplane. then a two hour drive up the mountain. with out me. just my mom, dad, their cat and ben. for four days. we had a photo shoot in the driveway before he left. thankfully before i really started crying. i miss him already, but know he will have so much fun. and lyle and i are going to meet them in four days. just four days.



















so far i have....
gone for a long walk with lyle
called to see if the plane landed
picked up all the toddler toys floating around the house
called to see if they made it to the car
bought paint to repaint ben's room while he is gone
called to see if they made it up the mountain
painted my toe nails (but not ben's room yet!)
called to see how night time went
had dinner at a friends house
called to see how ben was doing this morning...you get the point.

in all the ground rules i set with my mom, we never talked about how often i was allowed to call!

Don't panic

I have a feeling these words will enter my head many times in the next 18....errr....50 so years with these boys.

Yesterday, was all my fault. I had just packed everyone (sometimes two kids feels like a heard of cats) up to leave Balboa Island and go meet a friend to talk about a new book study we are going to do at church. I put Lyle in his seat. Ben in his. He threw a fit. Didn't want to get in. Or wanted to get in ALL BY HIMSELF. I think I threatened him...with something. He obliged. I threw my keys in the front seat. Shut his door. And ....couldn't open mine. The doors were locked. Somewhere between car seat one, car seat two, "YOU BETTER SIT IN THAT SEAT RIGHT NOW OR ELSE....THE CAR SEAT POLICE WILL COME HERE AND ARREST YOU" I must have hit the lock button.

My heart sank. There were my boys. All buckled in. And locked in the car. "Don't panic," I think.

I yelled for my mom, who had just gone back in the house. She came running. I was already crying. Afraid to make eye contact with Ben. Who incidentally was happily playing with his music player that he had grabbed for the car ride. I immediately think of the second set of keys at home. At least 30 minutes for someone to get them and get back to us. I think to call 911. Because that's what you do in an emergency. And this sure felt like an emergency. I was parked in the shade. But it was hot that day. And my car had been in the sun all day. But before I could call 911, my mom reminded me of the fire station...100 yards away. She ran. I stood behind the car, still afraid to look at Ben. B/c I was crying. And I was praying that he wasn't.

Less than a minute later, up drives the fire ENGINE! The HUGE FIRE ENGINE. 5 firemen and 2 minutes later, the doors were unlocked. Ben had sweat dripping down his face and Lyle was uncomfortably hot. We got them both out and they cooled down quickly.

And I was still crying. And Ben was smiling....getting a plastic fire hat and sticker from the firemen.

No harm done. Lesson learned: don't throw your keys in the car....keep them in your hand at all times.

trampoline time outs?

this might be our solution for time outs. it doesn't appear that "quiet time reflecting on his disobedience" works for sweet ben. so, this might be our solution: click here

a minute of jumping for each year old he is? you've heard the phrases "hug it out" or "dance it out?" at our house we are going to jump it out!

if you think this is a good idea and would like to financially contribute to this BREAK-THROUGH DISCIPLINE EXPERIMENT, or would like your children to participate in the experiment, please do so via paypal.

tweet?

tweet tweet? i have a twitter account. i don't really know what that means. i have not yet tweeted. is that a verb? i started it so i could follow someone on twitter. but i don't really know how to do that either.

i just thought i would let you know.

i don't recomend...

taking your newly potty trained toddler to a bathroom showroom. he didn't understand that the potties didn't work and kept saying, "I go poop here?" which obviously warrented a comment from the sales guy wanting to make sure he didn't find any surprises later. Ben also pretend washed his hands in a bidet. Kind of the perfect height for little guys.

Liquid courage

10 years ago....it was a gin and tonic. with two limes. or a long island ice tea for really big nights. that's all i needed (really I just needed Jesus) to rally for life some nights. this sounds like i had a drinking problem, which i didn't. i was just an introvert trying to be an extrovert and constantly putting myself in anxiety causing situations. and the only coping mechanism i had was a little cocktail to take the edge off. you know....so i could "be myself." obviously ridiculous. anyway. that's not the point.

the point is that this morning...i needed coffee. and the phrase liquid courage popped into my head. that's all i need now to get through my days. coffee. and Jesus.

We did it!

So....I've had a rough couple of days. Stranded on the breastfeeding / toddler entertaining island. And needing a little extra love, encouragement and motivational talks from...someone. Greg gave it his best and offered me this bit of....don't know quite what to call it....thought when saying goodbye for work this morning, "This isn't Nam....we're going to make it." As in, this isn't the Vietnam war. Thank you honey. I feel much better now. And with the perspective, and an entire day with no plans, we rallied. Let's just say I picked myself up by my boot straps. That's what we do in Texas.

First mission. Target. Me. And both boys. I had avoided it long enough. Lyle is 6 weeks old and I have not ventured to any sort of grocery store / market with both of them. And there are some things that you just can't buy (or really shouldn't) at the drive thru liquor...I mean dairy in our neighborhood. So off to Target we went. After a brief anxiety attack in the parking lot, we got out of the car. I carried Lyle in the baby bjorn and Ben in the cart. Ben was an absolute delight and Lyle slept the entire time. We quickly got everything on our list and had I been able to bend over with out Lyle falling out I might have gotten a pair of shoes. And Lyle did get a new "outfit." Oh....the land of impulse buying.

Next, in an effort to get a work out in (desperate to move the numbers on the scale...I think I lost 15 pounds the first two weeks after Lyle was born and not a pound since....frustrating!!!), I borrowed a double jogging stroller from a friend and headed to Corona del Mar. Now please note that Ben has not been stroller bound in over a year, with the exception of riding the 100 yards to the park in our neighborhood. He just doesn't sit still and BEGS to get down the entire time. So I gave up walking with him long ago. And joined a fancy gym with child care...but can't take Lyle until he's three months old. But I was determined. And sold the whole outing to Ben as a great adventure with Mommy and Lyle and we would get to see the ocean and play at the park, and what ever else he wanted to do for the rest of his life if he granted me this one request.

So.....with a month's supply of snacks, juice, at least 10 books, and a video iPod in case of emergency, we walked. Or rather I walked. An honest to goodness exercise walk. Pushing about 100 pounds of boys and toys in a stroller along the Pacific Coast Trail. It was heaven. A georgous day. Ben happily in his seat with the sun shade all the way down (at his request) so he was almost in a fort. And Lyle...asleep of course. And I was sweating.

We finished our walk and RALLIED AGAIN! On to Gallo's to pick up lunch and back to a park near where we'd started our walk. I fed Lyle in the park, over looking the ocean. Ben played. We ate lunch. SUPER MOM! How many points for that morning I ask?!?!

And none of this is the real reason for my post. Ben's in love with Dora the Explorer. And has been watching a lot of Dora. Like everytime I feed Lyle, Ben gets to watch Dora. Everyone is happy, and bi-lingual. So the song she and Boots sing at the end of each episode run through my head over and over and over all day. And it's quite encouraging! This is how I felt this morning. We did it!

GFC

Our family (rarely b/c someone is ALWAYS FREAKING SICK) attends a small, Christian church in our neighborhood. I don't want to tell you the name because well, it's out little secret church. Let's just call if GFC. And as much as I try to force "sharing" on Ben, I don't share well myself. Especially the really good stuff in my life. And frankly, there's not really room for you. We're out of chairs. And if you did come, you might try to sit in "my seat." And that would not be good. And we welcome visitors. But just visit once. We don't really want to grow our family too big. Because what if you don't agree with everything we believe in? Or you want to challenge something? That will just cause trouble.* And don't even mention "two services." So wrong.

So...we have gone there for years. And love it. I mean really love it. As in when we were thinking of moving to Texas, GFC was at the very top of my list of reasons NEVER TO LEAVE CALIFORNIA. And in the past few weeks, I have loved it even more.

1. The dinner fairy (as Ben called them) visited us three nights a week for 4 weeks after Lyle was born. As in, the sweetest women in the world from GFC cooked up the tastiest meals in the world (think steak, and fresh roasted chicken and biscuits, and salad and fruit salad and organic veggies) and delivered them to my house in the most creative to go packaging in the world, and saved my world because I didn't have to cook for a month. Meals. And left overs. And dessert. Lots of dessert!
2. We attended a baby dedication for a GFC friend last weekend and it was outside, and there was a bounce house. Need I say more? I don't think so. But I will. There was all sorts of tasty food and dessert!
3. I have been taking Ben to GFC one morning a week and utilizing the women's bible study child care, and not doing the bible study. I think this is illegal. But they have not kicked Ben to the curb yet. He's happy and full on fishy crackers when I come pick him up.
4. My husband came home from the men's retreat with a 1/2 empty bottle of triple sec. I don't ask questions. But margaritas are always on the "pro" list for me.
5. Snow cone machine outside church last Sunday. Ben commandeered the flavor bottles. Rainbow madness. All over himself.

Not to mention (but I will)
The best biblical, life application, (with humor!) teaching ever.
Amazing friends and fellowship.
Loving child care.

* Please note these views are mine alone and do not represent the views of unnamed "church."

Super mom

Greg likes to throw this term around. "Super mom." Mostly when referring to my friends. So I thought there should be some scale. Or Survey we could all take to see how we measure up. Good luck. And good luck keeping score. I don't think I can count above 5 anymore. Brain. Is missing. Have you seen it?

One kid + 1 point
Two kids +2 points
Three kids +3 points
4 kids +4 points
5 or more kids + 1,000 points
Bathe most of your kids daily + 1 point
Bathe all of your kids daily +2 points
Remember to wash kids hands at the park before lunch +2 points
Remember all your kids when you leave the park +5 points
Offer only organic foods to your children (fruits and veggies) +2 points
Your kids eat aforementioned organic fruits and veggies +5 points
You remember the last time you brushed your child's teeth +1 point
Use cloth diapers + 2 points
Own cloth diapers but don't use them + 0 points
Don't utilize child care....ever + 5 points
Don't utilize child care more than 5 times a week + 1 point
"Wear your baby" (instead of letting your baby exist in his car seat for hours and days on end + 2 points


Your kids are dirty, occasionally defiant and unruly but know they are loved...+1,000,000 points

hanging on by a thread today....

some might say that i'm in the "throws of motherhood."

today that means that i've been peed on, pooped on and spit up on right between my giant breastfeeding boobs.

and i'm going on 4 hours of sleep. total. last night.

i know i shouldn't complain. if any of you have seen me in the last 6 weeks and asked how things were going i probably responded with, "great! lyle sleeps 24 hours a day and ben loves him." which is or was mostly true. but lyle is waking up more and more. and ben is loving in different ways that make this reality a little more challenging. and as noted here i no longer have a brain. sad.

boys feed babies too....

how could i NOT post this picture?!?! that's ben...in his fort...nursing his baby monkey.