Jewell Trusts

I have to share this story about our sweet Jewell. Today we had to make a Target run. On our way to Target Jewell and I had the sweetest conversation.

Jewell: "Mommy, I have question."

Me: "What's your question Jewell?"

Jewell: "Do you trust Jesus?"

Me: currently melting..."Yes Jewell, I trust Jesus."

Jewell: "I trust Jesus Mommy, I scared of trucks."

Me: "Your scared of trucks?"

Jewell: "Trust Jesus Mommy, scared of trucks."

Let me tell you, there is just nothing sweeter than hearing your child speak the truth of God. We have been really working with Jewell and trusting Jesus when she's scared. She's really freaked out by big trucks. We were driving by one when she said this. It seriously melted my heart. I'm so thankful for God's love of His children.

Baking and Walking

Jefferson is so close to walking. I keep catching him standing up just because. He's starting to take a few steps without our coaxing too. It's hard to believe I'll soon have 2 toddlers!

For some reason, the kids took a much shorter nap yesterday. I had some bananas that needed to be used up or at least frozen. Shelly had just sent me a good recipe for chocolate chip banana cookies :). So we made those together since we had plenty of time to spare yesterday afternoon. It was so cute watching the kids get excited about mixing the ingredients together. They especially loved it when they realized they could eat the batter off of the beater.

You're probably wondering why Jewell has no pants on. Well, 2 year olds can't pull down their pants all the time when they are potty trained. I finally just gave up with yesterday's pants. Oh well. She's cute anyways :).

I'm learning to really enjoy each phase that my kids are in. I'm realizing just how much I tried to rush things with Jewell and with Jefferson as a baby. It seriously melts my heart to see them get so excited about new things. Jefferson will be 14 months old on Sunday. I wish he could stay a baby forever! And Jewell is starting to act like me all the time. It reminds me how quickly they grow up. Sometimes I take pictures and blog just because it makes me feel like time can stand still just for a few seconds. I just love these sweet kids!

Rain Season = Kid Time

Well, it's that time again here in Oregon. Rain. That's all I can say really. It just sort of spits all day. If you look at the 10 day forecast all it says is rain. If there is a day that says no rain, just check back a few hours later and it will be changed to rain drops :). It's funny though. I'm starting to really like it! We have learned to sneak out of the house as much as possible when the sun decides to peak through the clouds. And it makes me really look forward to a beautiful summer.

Last year, my good friend Cindy introduced us to Kid Time. This place is amazing. They have tons of stuff for kids to do. Since it's Spring Break Cindy decided it was time to go again. We joined them of course and I'm so glad we did. If you know me, you know that's been a real challenge to get my kids to play without my constant helping them. It's not that I mind playing all day, but there are times when I really do need to do other things. Well, today, as soon as we got into Kid Time, that all changed. They took off! They had so much fun. All I did was take pictures :). It's so neat to watch them be creative in a fun environment that was made just for them.

Here are the kids checking out the giant checkerboard.

Water fun!

The slide. This place has a ton of slides. It was hard to get her to leave them!

More water... :)

This is in the baby section. Jefferson hung out here for quite a while. He just loved it!

Jewell made a friend with a little boy that just LOVED dinosaurs. I tried not to take his picture though.

I think this was Jefferson's favorite spot. The dirt is actually a soft rubber. He really liked filling the dump trucks up and then dumping them.

My camera didn't get the best picture of this. But let me tell you... I NEVER thought I'd see the day this happened :). I'm so proud of my girl!

And then Jefferson crawled back to the construction pit.

Jewell really enjoyed the craft section.

Kid Time had a special music time for the little ones. The kids really enjoyed this. I am going to make a bunch of fun musical things for them now. It looks pretty simple :).

The kids seemed to really enjoy themselves today. I think once Jefferson drops his first nap, I'll become a member. We'll definitely be going every week next winter :).

Eyes, Sickness, and Pigtails

This last week was truly fully of blessing, but I must say, it was a week that really tested me. Things went great with the kids, but this Mommy got sick. And folks, Mommy just isn't supposed to get sick! So before I explain that, I'll talk about the fun part :).

I took Jefferson to his eye appointment this week to see if he had a lazy eye. By the time we got to the appointment, I was pretty sure it was just the fold of his eye (that he so willingly inherited from me). Dr. Johnson was so sweet. Jefferson really responded to her well which is always a good thing. The first thing they tested was to see if his left eye turned in at all. It didn't so she said it looked like it was the fold, but she wanted to do a refraction test just to make sure it wasn't a farsighted problem. They put 2 drops in each eye and then waited about 45 minutes before the test. By the time the second test started, he was really confused. He didn't really like how bright the office was because his eyes were so dilated. In fact, he didn't like this test at all. She had a hard time keeping his eye open to look into it. Poor fella. But we did complete the test and she was amazed at how great of vision he has. She said he had better vision than most babies at his age :). SCORE! I was very pleased. Dr. Johnson did ask me to bring him back in 1 year just to make sure everything was still okay. I have no problem with that.

After the appointment, we went to pick up Jewell from our good friend Shelly's. I'm so blessed. The women in my Home Group from church are amazing. It really wouldn't have worked well to take Jewell to that appointment. They actually ask you to not bring other children with you. Shelly offered to watch Jewell for me that morning and it was so much easier. Jewell just loves her kids and was dying for a day to play with them. We hung out with her for a while and then we headed home. It was that afternoon that I started to not feel well. I couldn't tell what it was so I decided to just sit on the couch during nap time (if you know me well...you know it takes a lot for me to give up my cleaning routine during nap time). I finally gave up and decided I was just being lazy so I continued with my regular cleaning schedule. I did decide not to run that afternoon though.

That evening after dinner we decided to go for a quick drive. It was really nice out (we've had a ton of rain lately) so we thought it would be nice to get out for a bit. It was on the way home that it finally hit me. I was sick. I told Matt he better get home fast! I had a horrible stomach bug from about 7:30 PM to 4 AM. I'm pretty sure I got a bit dehydrated with it too. I'm so fortunate to have a husband that helped me so much. He helped me most of the night actually! The next morning I was so worn out all I wanted to do was sleep. But you just can't do that with a 2 year old and a 1 year old. Matt decided to go in late to work and he ran to the store to buy me soup and gatorade. We then decided it was going to be a TV day. Well, at least for Jewell. Jefferson played on the floor and got into mischief. I'm so glad he takes 2 naps right now :). I don't know how I would have survived. Then Matt came home at lunch, made the kids food, fed them, made me food, and put the kids down for a nap for me. How blessed am I! So I rested on the couch for 2 hours and then Jefferson woke up. This time he was much more active too. But seeing that I still had macaroni on the floor from lunch, he was pretty occupied eating for a while (oops...).

It took me about 2 days to recover, but I can honestly say, I could NOT have survived without my husband. I'm so glad the Lord blessed me with him :). Jewell watched Dora for 2 days straight, but hey, I'm better! And now she knows how to say her numbers and colors in Spanish :). I can't complain!

As for Jewell, well, I've been debating on whether or not to cut her hair. Her hair is pretty much just like mine, yet finer. I can't put her in bangs because they won't really lay right so I've been playing with it to see what I should do. I put her in pigtails this weekend for the first time. She LOVED them. I think they make her look so grown up. I'm so happy I decided not to cut her hair now :).

A Day Outside