Wednesday, August 15, 2012

Ju{ne}ly

As a follow up to my last post..."never thought" I'd get to blog twice in one week again! Maybe this preschool thing has it's perks. :) No seriously - the time between dropping little dude off and picking him up again has gone quickly, and I'm thankful for that. I kinda miss my little partner.





Especially after a fun-filled summer! I hadn't looked forward to summer like this in a long time. Being so busy this past fall and then again in the spring with my new photography business,  I was feeling pretty tired and overwhelmed. By March I had already booked a few sessions for the months of June-July and decided that was enough. I chose to take the rest of summer off and enjoy some family-time.
Best decision I ever made.



From waking up as a family of 3 almost every morning and introducing Jet to "snuggle time" in mommy and daddy's bed so we could get a few extra minutes to sleep, to helping daddy mow the lawn...



...to playing in the pool every chance we got...









...June and July  (or Ju{ne}ly as I've titled those precious weeks flew by so fast they couldn't possibly have been two whole months) was every bit as renewing and rejuvenating as I hoped.  Sure we stayed pretty busy - but it was a different kind of busy.  

It was a first-time-at-Disney-World kind of busy...



David's family planned the perfect trip to Disney World this summer for us their grandsons. ;) 
And it was so much fun!






Our happiest place on earth.

 The rainy weather couldn't wash the sunshine off the boys faces and we enjoyed every minute of it! There were pancakes for breakfast, all the goldfish and cereal a picky-eater could want, and parents and grandparents waiting to spoil you with souvenirs - what more could a boy ask for??

Disney-gram anyone? Gotta love the powers of  the iphone.


Jet was AH--MAZED by the giant characters at our hotel...



...and I'm pretty sure he and little Daniel would have been perfectly content to set up camp at Cars Land and never leave.









It was an awesome trip. 


(sorry...a little hydro-humor. Rocco had a nice time too... ;) )

Ten Tips from Jet to Make Your Next Disney Trip a Success : 
1. RIDE THE BUS. 
2. Snow White is a sweetheart. You should definitely find her...and tell her I said "hey."
3. RIDE THE BUS AGAIN.
4. Make sure you take your own cars toys.
5. RIDE THE BUS SOME MORE.
6. "Peter Pan's Flight" and "Small World" are the only safe rides.
7. RIDE THE BUS EVERY DAY.
8. Don't stay for the fireworks.
9. Every now and then, cry and plug your ears and act scared ... you'll get more presents.
10. DON'T FORGET TO RIDE THE BUS.

   


It was a visiting-family-up-north kind of busy...



Just a week after our fabulous Disney World trip we took a trip to  PA to visit family whose exact relations to us are probably a mystery to most people. Mostly because we have invented terms to better describe our closeness such as "sister-cousin" and "cousin-niece" and consistently use terms like "cousin" and "aunt" in cases that legally do not apply. But we get it. And that's all that matters.



And in Jet's mind, "cousin Jane" is as much a sister/celebrity/disney-princess as anything. 
And he is c-r-a-z-y about her. And it's not hard to see why.







And I am crazy about her braids.



(the first step is admitting you have a problem...phew...I feel better.)



And in turn he makes her c-r-a-z-y as any brother/mischievous-elf/monkey-man should.



(a glimpse into Jane's mind: "does this kid do anything besides run around, mess up my stuff and play with cars?")



But together they had a movie-watching-pool-splashing-donut-eating-toy-sharing good time.


Oh - and don't forget what an "Amish-touring" good time can be had up in PA.













I'm not one to take pictures of food - certainly never a half-eaten plate food (why do people do that?) and I never think it looks as good as it does in person - but if I were an avid food-photographer, I'd put a whole lot of pictures right HERE of all the amazingly delicious food to be had. 



In the highly annoying words of Rachel Ray (bless her heart)  Yum...O.







And in between - it was a fourth-of-july kind of busy. 



Which with a little boy who's terrified of fireworks is now one of my least favorite days of the year...along with New Years Eve...and pretty much the whole first week of January...comin down off the Christmas rush...it's hard on us holiday-junkies.
But I still put for the effort to make my house patriot-friendly.




Maybe someday Jet will come around and actually let us take him to one of the 10+ fireworks shows in our area. I look forward to that. ;) Until then, we'll  turn up the two rain-maker boxes in his bedroom and cross our fingers and toes that he stays asleep through the obscene amounts of fireworks our neighbors set off into the wee hours of the morning.



 All together this summer was a blast. And though we stayed busy, and I didn't get to half the items on my" summer-to-do" list (which are obviously now part of the "fall-to-do" list) I don't mind the busy. Because this summer was an oh-so-happy-together, soul-fulfilling, sleep-good-at-night kind of busy.



The very best kind of busy there is.

Monday, August 13, 2012

Never thought...

I never thought when I started this blog that I'd go from writing twice a week....to twice a month....to twice a season...but as with so many things...there is just so much in my life I "never thought" that is "oh so reality" that I've learned to embrace it. Or at least, I'm learning to embrace it. For example...

Never thought I'd be happy again after my first pregnancy ended quickly in a miscarriage that shook me so deeply I cried every day for so long I thought I'd never stop. 
But the joy I felt when I heard my 2nd baby's heartbeat for the first time was overwhelming.
Never thought my heart would heal when we were told that the beautiful boy I was carrying would mostly likely die at birth.
But then God granted us a miracle and gave our baby a second chance at life.
And though I dearly loved the angel I carried, I never thought he would be able to enjoy certain gifts that most children experience. I never thought he would run with the other kids at the park, or kick a soccer ball, or climb a hill....all of which he has now done
But amazingly enough, his first steps would be more beautiful than any of those things I thought we'd miss.
I never thought that Plan B would be even more beautiful than I could imagine.
I feared my baby would feel different, left-out, cheated somehow...
I never thought at 3 years old he'd be so happy just to be him.

Never thought I'd experience my greatest joy...through my greatest heartbreak.
But here he is. All curly-locked-lovey-lashed-29llbs of him. 


And he's pretty much the coolest...person...ever.


Never thought I'd plan spontaneous picnics just because it's summer....and I found a picnic basket in the garage that we'd never used...


....picnics consisting solely of chicken nuggets...



...and m&m cookies.


Never thought I'd let my kid eat  goldfish crackers for breakfast, toast for lunch, chocolate chip pancakes for dinner and run barefoot through the park barefoot...




Never thought I wouldn't mind being incredibly silly in front of complete strangers just to get my little boy to laugh...


Or learn to set the self-timer on my camera so I can run back and forth from the camera so many times I am sweating and out of breath - just to  get some photos to remember the outing.


Never thought I would feel so content just being outside, on a weeknight, with a noisy, barefoot little boy.



Never thought I'd take this little boy to preschool TODAY for the first time at a BIG not-for-babies legit elementary school. I don't know what I pictured. Maybe a one-room schoolhouse with 1-1 teacher-to-kid ratio, a pet rabbit, homemade cookies every day and a rainbow slide. But certainly not a big brick school building with a crossing guard, bus port, hallway upon hallway of classrooms and a cafeteria the size of our house. Nope. I never thought I'd drop my 3 year old off where I went to elementary school not too long ago. But I did. And he ran into his classroom with a smile on his face and never looked back.

 Never thought I'd take my kid to school and want to bawl my eyes out either. 


Even today...I'm 0 for 2.


But that's ok with me. Because as usual...


...he rocked it. 

And through the ups and downs and twists and turns of this journey called life...I never thought I could be so blessed... and so happy...and so at peace...


...when I apparently "never thought" things out very well at all.


And thank goodness I didn't.

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