Papa's Birthday

We were so excited to celebrate Papa's birthday today with play time at the Discovery Museum in Sausalito. You can't get a better view of the bridge and the activities are pretty age appropriate for the kids. We were loving the "tot zone" which is a slower pace with the littlest kids. Any other 3 year old is probably too tall to enter, but Jack made it in with inches to spare. Very fun day!

Cosette aggressively loves her "Dia" which is her 4 month old cousin Lydia

Hanging in the kiddie zone 

After we got home. The aftermath of a fun day. 

What A Difference

What a difference a year makes. I was all excited to share our latest portraits of the kids. When I was naming the picture file "Portraits July 2013" I noticed that the file next to it was called "Portraits July 2012" and laughed at myself that one year ago, I was doing the exact same thing I was doing this morning: rounding up the kids after breakfast, getting them as clean and booger-free as possible, keeping the outfits in a wrinkle free bag to wrestle on at the last minute, printing my coupons, and driving up to the get their portraits taken for $4 a sheet. The kids look like complete babies 1 year ago, and not just Cosette. Jackson looks like a tiny baby to me at 2 years old. At 3 he feels like he's all grown up. So much has changed in their development, it's like I have a different life than I did last summer: what we do, when we do it, what I expect out of them, what needs they can now meet for themselves. All of it seems different.

But then I noticed that Jack is wearing the exact same shirt both years! That testifies to the fact that I don't buy him many picture-worth clothes, and he really doesn't grow (no wonder all the little girls are 3 inches taller than him!). And when I looked closer I realized that I had almost put Cosette in the exact same tutu as the previous year. Seriously, my kids never grow at all. I'm floored that such sameness and novelty can coexist. And I am the same women, just adapting to the newest stressers and routines the best way I can.

The most amazing thing about it is that I know there will be July 2014 pictures and I will say, "look at Jack and Coco, they were babies last year! Now they are all grown up." I will say "I can hardly remember when Jackson was 3!" But that is now. Today is a day that I will barely remember. Today feels like it lasts a whole week. I just read that time feels like it slows down when you are having new experiences and your brain is working hard to process new information. But I don't agree. Time slows down when you are at home more than you want to be, when you do the same things every day, when there are no minutes when you can just shut yourself in the bathroom and say "Everyone just leave me alone for 5 seconds!" That is when time feels very very slow. But things are slowly creeping towards change at a snail's pace so that one day I look up from the sameness and absolutely everything is different.

Summer 2012

 Summer 2013 - 

look, they're all grown up and posing for their prom picture

Baby face

 

 What a handsome young man!

 

 

A little tiny lady

 My Big Girl

 Big giggling personality

 

 She's got to dance

 

These 2 are ridiculous!

Inspired

Feeling inspired by this quote today in how to love my kids when loving them seems to make them miserable (read: lack of positive emotional response to my "loving actions"):

"For most people, to be loved is to be made much of. Almost everything in our Western culture serves this distortion of love. We are taught in a thousand ways that love means increasing someone's self-esteem. Love is helping someone feel good about themselves. Love is giving someone a mirror and helping him like what he sees.
This is not what the Bible means by the love of God. Love is doing what's best for someone. But making self the object of our highest affections is not best for us. It is, in fact, a lethal distraction. We were made to see and savor God - and savoring him, to be supremely satisfied."
John Piper, Don't Waste Your Life

My Little Preschooler

Jackson it not in official preschool until August, but he is clearly getting more bored and wanting more structured play at home. Luckily my amazing friend Jen has written this curriculum for doing preschool and home and we are following along. Here's the blog if you're interested: http://orchardhomeschool.org/

We did our first week at home and Jack took all of one day to love our morning circle time. It is nice to start the day together with time to talk and listen to the kids. This week was all about patience and we learned about a lot of bible characters who had to be patient. Here's our Noah's Arc banana boat snack

 And making our fruit loop rainbows. It's fun that he is actually mature enough for crafts. He understands the directions and will work hard on it. In the past he's not been interested at all.

 Learning about caterpillars waiting to become butterflies!

 Before he burst out.

 Cosette participates in circle time too, but she tends to run around and be crazy. I do the snacks and crafts with Jack when she naps. She got cacooned too, but the video cut out before she got her butterfly wings. But you can see she's very interested.

 We made our own Very Hungry Caterpillar. Jack had to pair up the foods to feed him. A big hit.

 We had to go off script and add butterfly wings.

So proud of him for learning his memory verse! "Be Patient, bearing with one another in love." I think this is the sweetest video ever. Melts my heart.

Saying his morning prayers

Puzzles

Can't believe how big this kid is getting. He's doing his bigger kid puzzles 90% himself with almost no help. It's so cool to see him work on it again and again until he masters it. The 3+ toys are perfect now!