Bella, Gabe and Josiah

This was one of those weeks where nothing went like planned... We started out Monday morning by completely forgetting Bella’s dentist appointment. I dropped her off at school and was a few minutes down the road when the dentist called. Opps. I turned around, picked her up and got back to the dentist only a half hour late. I sent Bella in and then tried to get Gabe out of the car, but I couldn’t find his shoe anywhere. I searched the car and it was nowhere. I finally just took the other one off and carried him in to the dentist.  After Bella was done, I drove her back to school...where I saw Gabe’s shoe on the side of the road. When Bella had opened the door to give Gabe a goodbye kiss the first time I took her to school, the shoe had fallen out. Luckily it was a croc, so other than being a little dirty from being on the side of the road, it was fine. Apparently it was a good thing I’d forgotten the dentist appointment or we never would have found the shoe... On Tuesday nigh

Last Friday morning, Gabe asked if we could go play at the park. I told him that we couldn’t go before school, but we could go after school. It really was part of my plan for the evening, however, life happened and we didn’t make it. Luckily he didn’t remember or I would have felt really bad... So Saturday, I was determined to make it happen. But with helping Dad with projects, naptime, and the pastor’s farewell at church, the plan quickly turned into he and I taking the stroller to the park and Dad picking us up on the way to the way to the church. They’re doing some construction a few blocks away from our house and we happened to pass by just as the excavator was filling a dump truck, which is pretty much as exciting as it can get in Gabe’s world. We watched for awhile and then continued to the park, where we had it to ourselves. Gabe does not like to swing like a regular person. (Unless he crawls in by himself and no one touches him, like this picture...) But he loves

Gabe got a tool box for Christmas last year. It was kindof an afterthought present. It was a few days before Christmas and we realized that Bella had one more present than Gabe, so I bought him this toolbox. I’m so glad we did! He loves his toolbox and he loves working! Daddy has spent a lot of time in the last two weeks working on the floor and Gabe thinks it’s wonderful. He follows Dad all over the house carrying his toolbox because “I working with Daddy!” Dad gives him fun jobs like “hammer this board flat” and he attacks it with gusto. One night Pat was pulling out nails. He’s give them to Gabe, who would put them in the red bucket. Gabe was so proud of himself for helping Daddy that he even told the daycare ladies about it. On Saturday, Pat pulled up more carpet and Gabe got out his tools to help. Daddy told him to hammer down all the nails in the subfloor and he took his job seriously! The rest of us will be happy when the floor is finished, but I think Gabe wil

Since we haven’t had anyone offering to buy our house, we decided to rip out the carpet and put in a new floor. Luckily I married a pretty handy guy and Pat is going to be able to do all of the work. Unfortunately he has a job and can’t spend all of his time working on the floor... He spent most of Saturday ripping out the carpet. Bella stayed home in case he needed help and my job was to get Gabe out of the way. It was a beautiful day, so I promised him we could throw rocks in the water. Unfortunately, the tide was super low, so most of the rocks were also covered in barnacles and seaweed. This didn’t bother him too much though. He also found a little creek and ended up basically sitting in it. It too bad that I didn’t think to pack dry pants... After a while, we decided to go get lunch. There was a lady sitting a few tables away wearing a strapless dress. She was far enough away that she had some things (chairs, napkins, etc) blocking our view of her top e

Last week was Bryson’s birthday. We talked about this a lot, as birthdays are very important to Gabe. I’m definitely not going to get away with the family birthday party we had when he was two. I’m sure I’d hear about it all year... Anyway, since he’s back in Arizona, Gabe and I went to the store to buy Bryson a present. I figured that we’d get something small, like a helicopter just like Gabe’s purple helicopter. Um, no. Gabe was convinced that he needed the giant firetruck that makes noise and shoots water. I’m pretty sure that my sister is going to complain, but I decided that all little boys needs a giant firetruck, so that’s what we got. Bella wanted to get him a stuffed turtle, but I couldn’t find one. I asked Gabe what Bella would like to get for Bryson and he picked the fishie. So we ended up with a firetruck and a fishie. Then we had to put it in the mail, which required some interesting conversations about the fact that the mailman was going to put the firetruck on th

All those hours I spent this summer running up hills have paid off! I’ve spent most of the summer running straight up a nasty hill at least once a week an while it has been painful, it’s also been totally worth it! Last weekend was the big relay race! I got to run leg one, which was three miles of flat followed by 5.8 miles of straight up a mountain. (Thus why I was running all of those hills...) I was pretty excited to run the first leg to get it over with! Then, instead of being nervous about running, I got to relax! The only problem with that plan was that I was cold for the rest the of the race. It was really cold anyway, but then I was running-chilled. Oh well. It helped keep me awake? Look at us, all happy and warm before we got started! I may not be the fastest runner, but all the hills I ran paid off and I was able to run the whole thing without stopping. I got passed by lots of people who were running faster than me, only to watch them stop and walk up the hi

My little boy is the absolute sweetest.  Last night we were out playing basketball on the back deck when his basketball fell off and went into the rocks.  He went down to get it and noticed the "yucky grass" (weeds) and suddenly decided that we needed to pull it all out.  He even yelled at me when I tried to pull a weed, saying "No, no Mommy.  I do it." I was allowed to get him a bucket to put his weeds into, but that was about it. Then he proceeded to pick all of the weed flowers (buttercups) in the grass and hand me a bouquet "Here you go Mommy!" And then I spent the rest of the night singing Five Iron Frenzy's Dandelions. In a field of yellow flowers underneath the sun Bluest eyes that spark with lightning, boy with shoes undone He is young, so full of hope reveling in tiny dreams Filling up his arms with flowers right for giving any queen Running to her beaming bright while cradling his prize A flickering of yellow light wit

Sometimes you just need to start the day making silly faces with Mom.