Zion

In less than a weeks time Zion will be 21 months. He has grown up incredibly fast and already I am mourning the loss of my last baby. We are really loving getting to know this precocious, fierce, strong, and loving soul. Everywhere we go, people seem to fall over in the street over his captivating personality and charm. Jon and I find ourselves making exceptions to his cuteness by telling strangers "Ya but if you had to live with him..."or "if you only knew..." I am horrified that I have made these remarks and plan to make a concerted effort in the future to never say such things again. He is a delightful and engaging boy and I feel so blessed that I get to be with him every day. All of his antics and all of his young baby whit is on display for me always. What an incredible joy you are Zion. Don't ever let your parents downplay you. We appreciate you and all of your charm we really do, and we are so sorry in advance if we get a little overwhelmed at times. We love you always and deeply.

And how cute are those freckles?!

Santa Ana Zoo

We visited the Santa Ana Zoo yesterday with Mimmi and the Walla cousins. The kids were thrilled - mostly to be spending time with Mimmi and their cousins, but they enjoyed seeing the animals too. Toward the end Tara snuck away with Tracy. Eden began to pout about Tara leaving and said "I wish Tara would have never come at all." When I asked her why she said: "Because then I wouldn't miss her right now." When I told this story to Jon he said: "Who does that remind you of?" Well, I'll give you one guess, and it isn't Jon...

Protege

Since it is early diving season, and Jon's set-up is in a bit of a disarray, Jon will often spend time working on his spear gun the night before he goes diving. Eden, loving any excuse to stay up late, convinces him that she has to work on hers too. Jon happens to have a small frame of a spear gun that they enjoy calling "hers". She has it in her head that once it is all fixed up she is gonna go out there with him and shoot her very own sea bass. Every time she goes swimming she practices diving down to "get the sea bass". She sat on the front of the board while I paddled the harbor the other day and every time we passed some kelp she would say "oohh mom - do you see the sea bass in there?" Perhaps years from now she will read this and laugh that she had any interest in it at all, or she will be laughing because she is the best free diving teenager around, only time will tell...

On the other hand, in the kitchen...

Eden has always enjoyed helping me in the kitchen. And now she is at an age where she is actually pretty helpful. Lately it has been a bit harder to include her in the process because (naturally) Zion does not like to be left out. But we sneak it in while he is sleeping and have a blast!

Midway Island

A while back I saw this video on Facebook. It really impacted me for several reasons. One of which was simply that the environment depicted in it is so clearly not the way God created it to be. The morning prior to watching it, I sat through a church service that spoke of God's beauty and how some things are so perfectly in alignment with God's intention for them that they are just beautiful. Well this video is basically the opposite of that notion.

I'm not sure about my judgement at the time, because it's a pretty graphic video, but for some reason I showed it to Eden. And it just occurred to me this morning, as she was asking to watch "that video with the birds and the trash in their stomachs" that this video was the impetus for her picking up trash on the beach a while back. Remember how I couldn't figure out where that was coming from? Well I asked her today if this video was the reason and she confirmed that it was. "Cause we don't want the birds to die from the trash do we mommy?"

MIDWAY : trailer : a film by Chris Jordan from Midway on Vimeo.

Mom's Day

I was lucky growing up...my mom was always this super-hero in my mind. She did everything and gave everything for us; now that I have my own kids I hope that I can be half the mom she is to me. This was the first year that I was really showered by my child with love on mother's day and words can not describe how wonderful it felt to be loved and appreciated by this little soul that I adore beyond measure. Eden made this for me yesterday (with the help of her cousin Tara - thank you Tara), I will cherish it for the rest of my life.

She also made me a flower at the beach (without an ounce of prompting, just out of nowhere)....

And dressed her brother up super fancy (but these were their Dr outfits)...

Me and my superhero, hands down one of my favorite people on the planet. Thank you, thank you, thank you for all that you have given and done for us, and most of all thank you for all of your constant love...

Reflection

I am very aware that most of the things I put on this blog about parenting and my children are extremely positive. I have done that intentionally, as my purpose for this blog is a celebration...of these two souls that God has so generously blessed me with. That being said I will admit that some days being a parent is painfully hard. And more times than not I am painfully hard on my children bringing me to my knees before God and them. But that is not why I am writing this today. Today I want to celebrate them once again.

I had a really hard morning today. Long story short, I signed up to bring donuts to church this month. Today was the first day so I got their a few minutes early and ended up bringing them into an AA meeting instead which resulted in me getting incredibly blasted by one of the attendees. I left in tears. Hysterical, sobbing, completely unnecessary tears {which I partially blame my hormones for} (: . As I am driving around, trying to kill time and regain my composure, my incredibly amazing 3.5 year old says to me: "Weeelax mommy, just weeelax...it's ok, your ok." Meanwhile my 1.5 year old son is laughing hysterically. (I don't think he has ever really seen mommy cry.) And Eden continues: "That's enough...I don't want to hear you complain, you are fine." And Zion: "Hahahahaheeheehee." I love them and never ever want to forget these moments. Who am I to be so blessed....

Family Days

For the most part, every day that I get to spend with my two kids is just about the best day of my life (for the most part). But I must say that nothing is as fun as having Daddy with us too. He is our missing piece and we all celebrate the time we get to spend with him. It doesn't matter what we are doing...it always ends up being magical. 

Sneaking around the docks looking at this boat that we all want Jonny to buy us (: 

Jon says he remembers playing on this statue when he was a kid...I thought that was pretty special.

Hunting for squirrels... 

Eden was so funny riding her bike. Racing in front of us then randomly sitting down to wait for us, 

One of the reasons kids always seem to prefer their dads for play...

Little Hands

 I have nothing profound to say for this post. Just that I love her little hands and I love these quiet moments with her while Zion is sleeping and we get to do whatever we want to do. (:

"Look Mom - I made and 'M' for mom!"

School Crew

Last Monday Eden had a school field trip so we got to bring Zion instead of hiring the babysitter. Eden is always so proud to have Zion with her at school. Afterward, Eden's friend Ellie (who lives in HB) came over to play with her baby brother that is very close in age to Zion. I've never seen Eden play with another girl her age so well. Those two made my heart so happy. Sometimes I don't understand why it always seems like our favorite friends and playmates always seem to live so far away. /:

The girls were so cute riding down to yogurt downtown. They were both just on the same page all day. So so cute...