HELLO?

Anyone there?

I have to say these unplanned blog breaks are SO hard to...break.  The longer I go without blogging, the harder it is to jump back in it.  I haven't even been READING them recently, which is even more of a stretch for me.

Summer is here and I am l.o.v.i.n.g. it.
Loving the lazy mornings, lack of schedule, fresh produce, not-to-terrible heat {yet}, beach trips, and children who are just now sneaking in to what seems like an overall age of do-ability.  Meaning I can actually leave the house with two or more in tow and not feel like a total failure of a parent while apologizing and disciplining and leaving places mid-task, just to get the heck out of dodge and not deafen the ears of all the innocent bystanders surrounding us.  Dramatic, but seriously we've had some phases recently.

Emory is not only naturally my more headstrong child, but she is two and a half.

 Speaking in full drawn out sentences but choosing most of the time just to say "NO!!!!."

And if discipline is given, half the time Jacob thinks it's a free for all on Emory and runs over to hit her on the head a few times.  We've spent much of the past few months breaking up hair pulling/screaming/pushing fights between the two babies and the hardest part has been being able to reason with only one of them {Emory} but not being able to enforce much because her little brother doesn't really yet comprehend the discipline and it's just not fair that when she pushes and snatches she gets in trouble and he just gets a gentle but firm "no."

All of that to say a corner has recently been turned.  I am happy to report that while pushing and snatching is still alive and well, there is an equal share of holding hands, laughing with each other, and big sister helping the baby get up vs. being the one who pushed him down.

And while it would be easy to wish this phase in their lives away right now {the fighting/being too young to really discipline}... I find myself LOVING these babies and their current stage of baby-ness.  This blog started as a family journal of sorts and eventually branched into a general place of creative release.  But the part that pains me the most about my blogging absence is the loss of journaling about my babies.  They are growing so so fast and I could write so much about them every single day, and wish that I did.

So humor me for a little bit of "catching up" :)

Bennett is obsessed with all things Lego, Star Wars, and Star Wars Legos.  We are on the fifth movie of the Star Wars ...sixology?...and it has been so fun to sit down and watch {parts of} all of them again with him.  {Daddy doesn't do Star Wars}.  He is one of my best friends and now spends most of his "quiet time" during the baby's naps in the room with me wherever I am.  He's my not-so-little-anymore shadow.  I don't know how I am going to make it every day in the fall...all day...while he is at Kindergarten.  I just know those week day afternoons from 3pm until bedtime are going to turn into full on soak-it-up time...getting as much as I can out of my growing little man.

He is just so so good.  He has an enormously inspiring heart for Jesus and a hunger for the Word that both baffles and impresses me.  His child-like yet grown-up mind sees and understand things so simply and clearly that I find myself learning more from him than he could ever learn from me.  I am so proud of this one, and pray for a heart like his when I grow up :)

And after all the Emory talk earlier...well what can I say.  She is a sassy spitfire teddy bear of a "big girl momma".  She keeps me on my toes and can melt my heart {and resolve} with one little blink of her dark eyelashed eyes.

She tests every parenting theory and has become quite the professional finger wrapper. {ask her Pop}.  She does everything with every bit of her tiny self...I can see this being one of the things about her that I love the most but that also causes a few head butts on the parenting front!

Growing up with two sisters {aka built in best friends} I really wish she could experience the same thing...but since that is not written in our stars I will continue to naively think that she and I will just always be BFF and I will always be the first number on her speed dial.

Jacob.
Chunkapotamus.
Roly Poly muffin man.
Butter beannnnnnnnnn.

My heart literally breaks a little bit with each new thing Jacob learns.  I am bursting with pride but also bursting a bit at the thought that it makes him less and less baby.
And he's my BABY.  I just can't get enough of him.  It's a problem.

He laughs easily and at everything and he laughs LOUD.  He loves shoes and Steele and his big brother and drinking water out of a sippy cup and peekabo and the song "Locked Out Of Heaven"by Bruno Mars {seriously...he sings the "eh eh eh eh UH" part all day}.  He just recently started making a bashful face that makes you fall out on the floor.  He is such a round little baby faced baby and he needs to know that he will always be that to me.  Curse of the baby of the family!! :)

Thanks for sticking with me through my blinded-by-love mommy journaling.  I hope to do some more frequent blogging about all the other things I like to write about: food, gardening, interior design, and my new-but-not-yet-finished kitchen.  

For now, though, I will leave you with THE ONLY picture I have, EVER, of all three of my babies looking at the camera, smiling!

My sweet little {biggest} blessings

~be still my heart~