My Sweet Ones...

My dear sweet babies:

I am so thankful for you.  I am so beyond words in love with you.  You have blessed my life.  You have made me better. You have taught me to love and to love hard.  This fall has been amazing with you, and I always want to remember you both at this sweet innocent stage of life.  You are both so wonderful, so loving, so cuddly, and so wild.  You are my greatest gift, achievement, and the purpose for which I live.

Caleb, you have grown so much so fast.  This fall I really began to realize how big you actually are.  As we participated in all the activities of fall I could not help but reflect back on the past two years of life.  I could not help but remember you as the sweet, tiny, sleeping baby you were the first time we brought you to a pumpkin patch.I could not help but reflect on the love, excitement, and happiness that daddy and I had in our hearts for you at that time.

  I then remembered you last year.  You were a toddling, falling, teeny toddler.  You LOVED to sit with the pumpkins, and you were so cute waddling through the patch trying to lift them.  Those memories will forever be within my heart.  This year I will remember you as the grown up, opinionated 2 year old that you are.  Gone are the days when you would sit and pose for pictures, pumpkins are no longer as exciting as pretending to drive a tractor, and you now run through the patches instead of toddle.  However, you are more breath taking, and more love able than ever before.  You are the greatest son I could have ever asked for, and I want you to know that I love you beyond words.  I love you when you are upset, I love you when we "talk" to each other, I love playing cars with you, I love cuddling with you, I love reading stories with you, and I especially love dancing with you.  You are perfect, you are created in God's image, and you are meant to do GREAT things.  I want you to always remember that you have a family that loves you unconditionally, who will always be here to carry you through the hard times, and to celebrate with you through the good times.  I am so thankful for this fall with you, my little "ME" (your name for Caleb). 

My sweet Mckinlee, you bring me so much joy.  You have a constant smile on your face 24/7, and you have brought a magical new love to my life.  You are so attached to me, and I am so thankful for that. I look forward to the years to come, and our mother-daughter relationship that we will form.  However, right not in this moment I cling to your sweet, innocent infancy.  You are so beautiful.  I see the world in a whole new light when I see it through your eyes.  You remind me to sit and take in God's beauty.  You love playing with grass, simple, green grass.  You remind me to take the time to marvel in the simplicity of life. Your smile, your excitement for sitting on hay, the way you would bounce and squeal while posing for pictures, and your beauty are some of the memories from this fall that I will always hold in my heart.  I will never forget our closeness when I carried you in my sling.  I will always treasure riding the hayrides, walking through the patches, and cuddling you close in that sling. I know within the blink of an eye you will be a bouncing toddler next year, and gone will be the days of cuddling with mama.  I am so in love with you.  I am so in love with the tiny person that God has trusted me with. I am so in love with the fact that you look like me, that you love to hold me tight, and that you are my daughter.  I too want you to know that daddy and I will ALWAYS be there for you.  I never want you to feel as though you can not come to me. I will always listen first, help you through what your struggling with, and then try to find ways to make your heart happy again.

Caleb and Mckinlee, I so wish I could bottle you up forever at this sweet, innocent age. I wish that I could hold you tight, and keep you away from all the hurt in this world.  I know that just as falls will come and go, so will you change and grow. I hope you both love each other, and forever support each other.  I hope you always know how much you are loved. I love you both forever and always, and you will always be my babies. 

Playing Catch-Up

So, I have been a blog slacker this past week, and I feel as though I have so much to post about.  My "teaching" activity posts have taken a back burner because we have taken a few weeks off. Once we get back on track I will start posting again regarding fun activities. I am just going to ramble in this post. Feel free to read if you want, but you may get a little bored :).

• Last week I thought I was going to die. Kidney stones attacked me for the first time, and I spent 2 days in the ER, and was on hardcore pain reliever for 4 days.  I literally thought I was going to die. Nick had to rush home Monday to take me to the ER because I was curled up in the fetal position on my bathroom floor, and I could not move. Thank God the babies were napping.  They flared up again on Wednesday, and I spent most of the day in the ER hooked up to an IV.  It was seriously the worst pain I have ever felt. It was far worse than the 5 hours of contractions I felt with Mckinlee.  The only way I can describe it is a continuous contraction that NEVER STOPS!!! I would not wish them on my worst enemy, and I pray that I never have to experience them again. 
• My grandmother came in town this past weekend, and we met up with Nick's family at a local pumpkin patch.  Caleb wanted nothing to do with taking pictures, but it was a lot of fun.

• My Bible Study group started back this past week.  A bunch of us mamas get together on Tuesday nights to eat, have a Bible study, and talk. It is such a special time and I am so glad God has blessed me with such amazing friends. 
• Caleb is POTTY TRAINED!!! He is doing so great.  He is wearing loose fitting pants with no undies at home, and he does a great job pulling them up and down himself.  When we go out of the house he is wearing a pull up, but he has yet to wet it while out in pubic. He still wears a pull up for nap and a diaper for bed. Sometimes he wakes up dry, other times he is a little wet. 
• I started nannying again as of today. I am sitting for a little boy within my home. It is going great so far.  Caleb is playing well with him, we have had no issues with nap, and he is a sweetie.  Thank you God for answered prayers. 

This picture is from our previous pumpkin patch trip, but I just discovered it. I have very few pics of me and her. I could just squeeze her to death she is so cute :).

Smile :)

Mckinlee loved her mashed potatoes!

A First for 2011

This past Sunday we headed to our very first pumpkin patch of the season. This was Mckinlee's very first pumpkin patch, and it was also a first for our family of FOUR.  We met a few friends there as well and it was a great time. 

To start the experience off I of course had to have my children pose for pictures.  Of course in reference to children I mean Mckinlee because Caleb is so past posing. I have to trick him to get him to look at the camera and hope that I get a few good ones.  Little miss enjoyed sitting with the pumpkins just as much as her brother has in the past years. 

After the photo shoot we went to see the petting zoo. Caleb was not into this at all. He did not want the animals to come near him, and he was not into feeding them. The only animals he was fond of was the ducks and chickens.  He did proceed to bend down and quack at them. 

We then headed on a hayride out to the pumpkin farm. Caleb loved this, and kept calling the wagon a choo choo.  Everything is a choo choo in his little mind.  We were very excited to discover that they had a kiddie choo choo set up at the pumpkin farm. We of course took Caleb on a ride through the corn field in it. He was in heaven!

We also allowed Caleb to lead us once again through the corn maze this year. It did not take us quite as long to find our way out this time.  Pumpkin picking time was next, and Caleb had a great time picking pumpkins for every member of our family.

It was such a great experience, and I am looking forward to many more pumpkin patches this fall.