more than satisfied

You guys, I obviously have a fascination with my plants. Like, I loooveee them. I don't know what it is, but they bring me joy every. time. I take care of them like my actual babies {humans and felines! I only birthed two humans, but you get the point, right?}

Anyway, I didn't actually want to bore you to death with more flower pictures this time around, I had other bloggy plans. But I felt to totally put these on {paper}. 

Uhh, it's going to sound weird, but plants are teaching me a virtue: patience. Like the kind I wasn't blessed with.You don't know how many times I've waited for these flowers to bloom only to have to wait another day. 

Like my Dahlia down there... {the peach orange colored one}. My most expensive plant and it only blooms once every two months {I think}. Talk about the wait! But when it does bloom? Those colors make me want to go to the nearest Lowe's and get that same exact hues to paint my entire living room. 

And then there are these....

My calla lilies. I've never actually planted them, I was gifted them already blooming. So when they "died", I was quite upset. I re-potted the bulbs, waited, waited, and waited some more. And holy peanut butter balls, I shrieked one morning when I saw the elongated white blooms starting to develop. And now, every time I walk past them, I feel pride. I don't know whether to cut them off and put them inside my house or just leave them be. They went from tiny & little to long & gorgeous. 

And it only took patience, water, and sun. Some way, somehow, I can think of the relevance it has to parenthood or how God see us as His children, but I don't feel quite adequate enough to venture into that spiel...so...I'll just leave you with this: GOSHDARNIT they're so beautiful and that's all that matters!!!

what you used to be like

Jonah. Jojo bear. You're two right now. You will be three on July 4th. Our Independence Day baby.

You are our youngest, for now. 

You still suck your thumb. And even though your blue blanket has been put away for months now, you've taken up a plush Spider-man blanket as a replacement. 

But you only use it for bedtime now, instead of all the time. Your daddy says he doesn't mind you sucking your thumb because he did it as a little boy. I am the one who slaps that thumb away, just like Moomie taught me to do. You hate me for it. But I do admit, you look incredibly cute when you do it. 

You'll thank me later. I promise. 

You are the funniest two year old on earth. I am biased of course. But the way your little devil eyes light up when I caught you doing something you're not supposed to be doing is such a hard thing to discipline. Why are you so darn cute? It makes the Mom-job hard on me, son. 

Oh, and the things you say. I keep a notebook by our computer to write down all the silly & inappropriate things you boys say. Here are just a few you have said this year:

That last one, you said to your Awana leader. Needless to say, I was a bit embarrassed but she loved it and was still cracking up about it when it was time to come pick you up. 

You are scared to jump off of things, but love to hop around like a bunny. It takes you a little while to warm up. You love the water, whether it's in the bathtub, the pool or even the sink, you would stay there forever if you could. 

Our little fish. I don't know how many times I have had to tell you to not drink the bathtub water. 

You are such a little shadow. Ever since your older brother started drawing his monos you decided it was time for you to draw too. And you create the most amazing monsters!! Just the other day you drew a Mr. Potato head with a rainbow. It was nothing but a masterpiece. I am keeping it forever.

Little dude, you are not afraid to get dirty. You have that Witty gene that doesn't care if your fingers are messy. You are such a frickin' ball of dirt and sticky, it drives me nuts. There is no keeping you clean, son. 

This picture below is such an appropriate example of what I am talking about.

Jonah: face painted in a Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle way, smeared all over face. Plus blue icing from a cupcake with a stuffed face. I didn't even want to look at your dirty fingers to see how bad it was.

Andrew: No face paint and a grimace on his face because he had icing on his fingers. 

This picture just about sums it up.

You know it's bad when even your daddy cleans your face off because it bothers him. Jonah, son, you are gross. And you don't care. You love it. You are happy. And that's all that matters to us. 

You would think that in the picture below you would be so pumped that you would say something like, "Yes!" but no, you said, "You want a knuckle sandwich?" And this has been you, we dare not confront you anymore because we have black eyes from where you have punched us. You are a mean little dude. So fierce. And so strong, you've been known to show off your strong muscles to strangers. Dude, you are a block. And who can resists your big buns in the tightest little Hanes. I love when your undies eat your chunkiness right out of your sides!

You turn everything into a competition. 

You love to race and don't dare lose because your whole world crashes. Your shoulders slump. You turn around in defeat. And you give the saddest little face that is near to tears. How do we teach you to do your best and not be discouraged by defeat? To get up, try again and try harder?

Oh, Jonah baby. I love your independence. I love that you speak up for what you want to do and for what you want. You are easily satisfied and you ask for so little.

I love the way you laugh and you make us laugh. You are so goofy and silly. The word pancake cracks you up. The way you can't say your "S" makes it hard to sometimes understand you, but it doesn't stop my heart from melting. I am completely in love with you. ALL of you. 

Right now, you love:

Smores PopTarts

Pancakes {it's what you ask for every meal}

Spider-Man blanket

Thomas the Train

Chance & Bryce {cousins}

Mickey Mouse

Going outside

Dirt & water

Getting regular clothes to wear as your pajamas

and our cat, Rue. Because Prim is mean {your words}

letters and sunburns

one of Andrew's projects this week for school was to send out letters. 

We sent four out and he loved writing his name, drawing swords, putting postage and addressing them. 

However, we need to work on our portrait skills a little bit son. 

He is also working on getting the last of his sunburn off. 

happy tuesday!

it's been so long since I last saw you, beach.

When my Ma and siblings came down to visit, one of their requests was to visit the beach.

It takes a little longer than an hour to get there but it depends with all this awful Houston traffic.

When the husband and I lived in Florida, we were about one hour away from Cocoa Beach. We miss it.

I had heard horror stories of Galveston. But what I saw when we arrived, was beautiful-ness. 

The sand, clean. The weather, perfect. The sun, shining. The water, cold but tolerable. It was game on!

We made a little trek and onto the beach we plopped. 

Our place was set up, then we knocked off our flip-flops and...

...into the water we went!!!

I would like to introduce you to my little fish. His name is Jonah. We call him JoJo. 

He wears whale swim shorts. He loves the water. 

...and sand. 

I started off with a sand castle of course, I am not a fan of the salty water or sand, but I shrugged it off and decided to get dirty and sticky with salty humidity. Once every 5 years is not that terrible =D

This was the first time to visit a beach for my boys. They have experienced 'fake' waves at Great Wolf Lodge and sand in playgrounds, but never the two together. I was extremely curious to what their reaction would be, and to my delight and theirs, they loved it!
Andrew asked me a couple of times to clean his feet because they were 'dirty'  but I quickly told him at the beach, everything gets dirty so you just have to put up with it, son.

And Moomie sunbathed and played in the sand. She loved it as much as the boys did. 

The boys wanted so badly to stomp on my castle. I told them they would get to, at the end of the day. Once or twice, I caught them out of the corner of my eye, roundin' about the castle, knocking off a little sand here and there. The urge to destroy it was hilarious! 

My beautiful beach  baby sister, gosh I love her. 

and her beautiful pink toes.

At lunch time, we had Lunchables, cheetos, chicken pitas, and watermelon! Yum! 

And soon we got air raided with poop from the locals. I was the only one hit--twice.

And James, this hunk of a redhead, had such a blast. He was Fish #1. Spending most of his time in the ocean while we others played on the shore. He almost got tailed by a jumping fish and kept creeping up on these crabs! And since he started baseball this year, we had a fun game of catch. He's got quite an arm!

A beautiful rainbow.

I loved the beach! With family, it made it so much more fun! Thank you beach for not disappointing me!!!
Have a happy Friday, guys!