Can I freeze my kids to be 4, 6, 8 and 10 forever???

Admittedly it's been a while.  When I stopped writing on this blog, I was having so many health problems and seeing so many doctors (and counselors - found out I have ADD - that explained boatloads of things)...then miraculously, Dr. Charles Hamel did a lymes test and it was positive. I cured it with homeopathic drops and low-dose-naltrexone.  It took over a year to heal, but when I could make it a whole day without naps, I was a new person :)  So a year ago, we decided to sell our beloved Church Road home and move to something (hopefully) bigger and on a more ideal street (cul de sac preferably) with more neighbors and people and here we are at our new house that is about a block from our old one! I love it here.  If only you knew the stress, distress and crazy road God had us on to get here - I really don't even want to think about it - it is still too fresh...and it was hard on our marriage!  But it had to do with Jon looking for a different job while building this house while we lived in an apartment for 8 months with bikes parked in the living room and all along having no idea what was going to happen and thinking this house probably wouldn't work out. But I prayed it would :)  We moved in right before Christmas - kind of feels like we "missed" Christmas this year (moving is TERRIBLE by the way)....but I can't believe it is already February and I am finalizing projects and settling in...adding lots of color :)...I hope to be completely done with that soon! And I love Jon now more than ever - and not just because of this great house and him having a job he loves - just because Jon is awesome. Ok, I'm crying time to move on.

But I am just in love with my kids ages and I just need to reflect on that. I mean FINALLY I am not secretly wishing my kids would grow up. It felt like they were going to be toddlers FOREVER...it REALLY did...and that wasn't a happy thing for me. Those baby and toddler years are HARD HARD HARD for me. Not being able to communicate with them. The constant messes. They get sick all the time. They melt-down in public and the isolation due to the rest of the world having no desire to see a baby or toddler headed in their direction (and a woman crazy enough to have one even more so). The baby/toddler's desperate need for structure in the sleep and eating schedules (and my complete inability to provide structure no matter how much advice I am given from other moms who do it easily - giving advice to moms should be seen as cruel and inhumane BTW, I mean it is just so sensitive when you are already doing the very dang best you can and you are so exhausted...I hope I remember that as an older woman). It makes me want to cry to think about how terrible all that is...I mean I feel GUILTY that I feel that way about those baby/toddler years...but now I feel little panic bubbles gurgling inside of me that that are GROWING UP...and that is a new feeling for me. (And moving out one day - are you kidding me? I will just die).  I LOVE these kids. I cannot even describe the love I have for each one of them. They are perfect and I would not change ONE thing about Anna Kate, J.R., Caroline or Peter. I just feel really speechless - just kidding - I can always talk more (you are thinking "Phew! I was worried she wasn't going to say anything else."). But seriously, I enjoy every minute I have with them. Now if I could just FOCUS on them more that would be awesome b/c I feel constantly distracted by my to-do-list (cooking and cleaning - Lord help me), computer and the 2 million ideas that pop into my head each day. But it's a DEEP DEEP DEEP thankfulness in my heart for these 4 treasures and the way God shows me that is how He feels about us...I just didn't feel that when they were little - if God loved me the way I loved them then He was definitely feeling overtired and overwhelmed by me 24/7 and that's how I really felt He must have felt about me....but now that they are older I am sooooooooooooooo happy.  And I am so happy to see parent/child relationships this beautiful indescribable way. Thank you Lord.   

Spring 2013

Caroline's FOUR!!!

Mariano's style!

A fun father/daughter retreat at Pine Cove...

Love that place (Pine Cove).

J.R. started playing t-ball!  He LOVES it! He goes out and practices hitting balls in our backyard of his own accord...so cute. 

We went to the circus!!

Peter tried to escape and join it :)

First time swimming this year!  At the indoor pool at the Y...kids LOVED it :)

Running a half-marathon...I had so much fun training for it with Sarah!!! I finished it REALLY fast...b/c I was so done after 6 miles - ha!

Ok, so there are literally hundreds more where this picture came from...Caroline sits there with the iphone facing her and just snaps away making all kinds of faces. Funny girl :)

I rediscovered this little gem from my childhood in Ft. Worth!!  Love going back and visiting places from the past.

Grandparent's Day! Time-line song!!  Every kindergartener was a character from history...J.R. was pharoah!!

Anna Kate had a speaking part in the train play on Grandparent's Day!

Anna Kate gets pretty excited about her new bathrobe...she's been wanting one for years.  She's the queen of comfort!

This is hilarious b/c Caroline is sooo girly and she decided to wear J.R.'s clothes and be a boy one day. 

Check out the piano in the background before (and Peter about to spill my Nalgene bottle everywhere)...

And after!!!  Used a little Pinterest tip to refinish it and it looks brand new!

This is so cute because every week in the nursery at church Peter goes and gets in this chair and takes a nap.  Funny guy.

At the library!!  We get lots of sssshhhhhh!!!! from the librarian there...

These letters are outside the theater where our church meets.

At the Farmer's Market.

You'll never guess what these are!!!

Roller skates.

We have a new friend named Nancy Drew. Admittedly, J.R. is a little bitter that his playmate is consumed with her.  

Before

After!  I love Bobby sooo much!!! He is the best hairstylist ever!!!

And then we got a to go out for a little date to the IJM Banquet.  SO FUN!!!!!!!  Ok so next thing on my bucket list is getting and learning Photoshop so I can fix little eye things like this that the red eye button doesn't work to fix!!!!

Easter 2013

It was Thao and Tu's first Easter Sunday in a church! 

I just loved J.R.'s seersucker suit from Target.  He loves it too :)

And after church, we went to Aunt Missy's for some really fun family time and Gabby and Papa had a fabulous Easter egg hunt for the kids. Special Day!!!

Christmas 2012

 There was a daddy/daughter dance with the girls in Anna Kate's grade.

 It was a White Christmas this year! Check out the snowman. And the ninja costumes were the biggest hit present-wise :)

 At Casa Manana.

 At the Dallas Historical Village Christmas event with the Meyers!

 Christmas shopping with Miss Caroline!

 At Six Flags Holiday in the Park getting a little CRAZY with the blue cotton candy.

 We went to see the Nutcracker...the kids loved it. 

Peter likes to eat markers.  No one knows why. 

San Francisco December 2012!!!

 I won't bore you with the details about how long over-due a get-away was for the just the 2 of us since having kids, but we were so blessed to get to have this one together and even more blessed to have our parents watch the kids and sweet friends host us while we were there!!  Thanks a million Bryson and Anne and Barry and Cheryl!!!  It was fabulously memorable!  This was when we just walked along the waterfront...loved it. 

 This was on our way to Carmel.

 This was at a great vegan farm-to-table restaurant called, "Greens."

 Still at Greens...San Francisco is like a foodie mecca!!! This was my favorite restaurant.

 We did a little bike ride up a mountain and over the Golden Gate Bridge.  The funniest part is that my "we are very similar" friend that used to live in San Francisco, Sarah Beth, sent me an email warning me that whatever we did, do NOT bike ride across the Golden Gate Bridge and we didn't get that until I got back home.  Try it out -- if you are crazy adventuresome, you will love it -- it you are more like Sarah Beth and me...it's traumatic riding on the shoulder of mountain roads, terrifying navigating the bridge itself and too cold.  Poor Jon and Brian (he is Sarah Beth's husband).

In the wine country!!!  Check it out (Nicki Minaj is stuck in my head right now). Other fond memories were Anne's birthday party, my runs with Anne and Cheryl (who were WAY faster than me), a UT football game party at Barry and Cheryl's and seeing friends we hadn't seen in forever, a little B&B called The Union Street Inn we stayed at and Jon having gotten a vasectomy the week before.... 

The Rest of Fall 2012...

 Anna Kate got her tonsils and adnoids taken out.  It was TOUGH.  Here is a picture of her with Teddy right before and then after there is no pic but...oh man....I couldn't even handle it and had to leave.  First of all, she is overly dramatic when pain is involved (to put it VERY mildly). Secondly, it took us about a week to figure out that the codeine was making her CRAZY. Thankful for sweet friends like Kelly that brought her a milkshake and she did enjoy getting to read non-stop for days on end.  Glad it's OVER. 

 Anna Kate played soccer all fall, winter in-door soccer and in the spring...her coach was so amazing.  Now she is done with soccer and hoping guitar lessons can be next gig.

 This is the pile I swept together from the playroom floor and I threw it ALL away.  #weproducemountainsoftrash

 Trying to get Petey to smile and be silly at the Ft. Worth Museum of Science and History...

 More of that.

 Anna Kate on a "bed of nails" there. 

 My dad came and "rescued" us one week after Anna Kate's tonsils were removed and I was just at the end of my rope. Thankful for him to say the least.

 Halloween Party at the SMU Tridelt house...a UT cheerleader.

 A pirate.

 Cinderella.

 Fellow cheerleaders :)

 A toucan (he's supposed to be a parrot and go with the pirate in an ideal-Halloween-costume world).

 "Living History Day" for school was the Civil War era this year.  It was a very over-the-top event!

 Special guests at Thanksgiving ;)

 And a little birthday celebration with some fruit tart. Happy 1st Petey! AKA

Petey, Peeps, Chuggie Chug, Happy Pete (he always kicks his feet when he's happy so this one is particularly clever), Petey McFretey, Petey McFuss...

And he had ANOTHER ear infection...