Writing to Remember

It's safe to say the kids had a blast on their first day on the beach.

The checked out the waves.

The waves surprised Julie at times.

And Jax's dream came true when he was buried in the sand!

After spending most of the afternoon at the beach, we went out for dinner and explored around.

We stopped a snow cone shack for the kids.  They loved this treat.

However, I did not think this through when they ordered red snow cones!

(All the stains did come out though!)

We ended up at the Hang Out which is a really fun place to you know, hang out.  It has fun activities for the kids, live bands, and a fun restaurant atmosphere.

We were so excited to go to the beach last week.  But we had a long road trip ahead of us....we went through three states in one day!

To entertain myself on long road trips, I love to take pictures of the state signs.  Nothing like marking a milestone of getting that much closer to our destination!

Jaxson was watching Duck Dynasty on the iPod (while wearing his camo hat) driving through Louisiana.  Oh the irony!  We had a good laugh at that.

We were so happy to arrive at the beach!  It is absolutely beautiful there.  This was the view from our condo.  Not too shabby....

After checking out the condo, we all walked over to the beach to check it out.  We had told the kids about it, but they really didn't understand it would really be just a huge sandbox and fun crashing waves!  Jax loved it and would run into the ocean (in his clothes!) and then would run out so the waves were chasing him.

Oh to be a kid!  We were pretty excited that we arrived at the beach and were very ready for the next day to get out and play on the beach.

Jax has had a really loose tooth for a couple of days.  It was so loose that it would swing out in front of his other teeth and make him look like a country bumpkin.  In fact, before I would take a picture of him I would have to tell him to put his tooth back in place.  It was gross.

Finally today at school, he was in art class and he wiggled it and it came out.  He was pretty excited that he lost another tooth at school.  I guess it gives him a lot of attention.  Come to think of it, that is probably why he didn't work too hard getting it out when he was home.

When I picked him up at carpool he told me how he didn't lose it.  I didn't see him because I was driving so I answered the usual "uh huh." and drove on.  But he was really playing a joke on me and told me all about his tooth falling out.  Everyone starting laughing with him and he had to go to the school nurse.  He loves to go to the school nurse.  Unfortunately, she wasn't there but he ended up getting a baggie for his little tooth.

He told me that his friend Ally said he looks really funny when he smiles.  He's pretty proud of that huge gap in his mouth now.  He thinks it is so cool that he can stick his tongue through the gap now!

Jax wrote the tooth fairy again so he could keep his tooth.  The tooth fairy knows that he wants to keep his tooth, but I guess he wanted to be sure.  She brought him some money and a new tooth brush.  It's a Batman tooth brush that lights up AND makes sounds.  He was pretty happy with that and couldn't wait to use it this morning.

When I think of Mother's Day, I think of flowers, homemade cards, and I love you's.  There are pictures of moms and kids on all the social networking sites.  For one day, motherhood seems picture perfect.

But then real life happens.  Not even a week later, Julie wakes up at 1am projectile vomiting.  I have to do not one, but two loads of laundry in the middle of the night.  My pants were soaked. Julie's hair was covered in it.  (How?!)  And so I have to give her a bath.  With her crying (and let's face it-maybe me too!) it's a wonder that Jax and Justin sleep soundly with all the commotion.  After that is all done and she is cleaned up, she asks me in a pitiful voice to sleep on her bedroom floor in case she needs me.  And I do because I want to keep my eye on her.  Bonus:  her room is closer to the washer and dryer....

And then when I do wake up in the morning and hop in the shower, I see that I had throw up all on my pajama shirt that I didn't notice at 1am.  Nice.  I SLEPT IN my kids throw up all night long.  Gross.

Or say you are working on a Pinterest inspired project outside and Jax and Julie find the paint that you were using.  And the paintbrush that had gone missing all day long.  I knew Julie has swiped it earlier in the day, but of course she had no recollection of that.  Anywho-those kids thought it would be great to paint the driveway and my landscaping rocks.  And I do think they were a little surprised to see that I was NOT HAPPY that there was paint everywhere.  Including their nice clothes.  I thought Jax's jeans were a goner.  They were brand new and he had only worn them a couple of times.  But thanks to Pinterest I found that a lot of rubbing alcohol and light scrubbing with a toothbrush got it all out.  Whew.  The paint on the driveway came off as well.  The paint on the rocks?  Not so much.  I like to think they are "unique" now.

And that's motherhood.  It's messy, fun, exhausting, frustrating, and joyful.  I get slobbery kisses from Julie as she wraps her arms around me and tells me, "I never let you go."  Jax gives me spontaneous hugs (when no one is looking!) and when I give him a kiss goodnight he always says, "Ew!" and wipes it off.  Which makes me give him more kisses.  He may act like it's gross, but he secretly enjoys it.  I think.

It's many dinners of spaghetti, chicken nougats or mac and cheese.  Watching Frozen for the umpteenth time or singing along to "Let it go" in the car.  And then realizing Julie is NOT in the car and I've just enjoyed all the Frozen songs by myself.

But mostly, motherhood teaches me that I don't have it all together and that daily I need to rely on Jesus.  A verse that gives me a great illustration of this...

As apostles of Christ we could have been a burden to you, but we were gentle among you, LIKE A MOTHER CARING FOR HER LITTLE CHILDREN.  1 Thessalonians 2:7

I love the funny things that Jax and Julie say:

One day we went to McDonalds that Justin used to work as a teen.  As he was reminiscing, Jaxson asked why we weren't going inside.  I told Jax that Daddy was having a trip down "memory lane."  Jax asked, "Can I go to?"

During Holy Week, I was telling Jaxson about Good Friday and what it meant.  He ended up calling it Happy Friday instead.

Julie said I couldn't give her kisses.  So I said I would just lick her instead.  She laughed and said, "I'm not a Popsicle!  I'm just Julianne!"

Jax likes to pretend to be a wrestler.  His current wrestler name is The Finisher.  He weighs 255lbs and his signature move is somersaults to knock his opponent out!

We watched The Middle and in the episode Axl didn't have any money on his food card at college.  He ended up having to put the food back in the buffet.  A couple of days later Jax asked if I could send money to college so he can eat.  He was very worried that he would have to put the food back.  I then realized that he was talking about the episode we just watched!  I assured him that WHEN he goes to college we will make sure he has food!

Jaxson and his friends at school always seem to have girlfriends.  But last Friday after the field trip Jax told me that his girlfriend "broke up" with him.  I asked him if that made him sad.  He said it didn't and that he has a new girlfriend now.  (Hello-rebound!)  I asked when he got this new girlfriend.  He said, "Thursday."  Ok.  So he got his new girlfriend Thursday.  His old girlfriend broke up with him on Friday.  I asked him if he thought maybe she broke up with him because he got a new girlfriend while he had the old girlfriend.....he didn't seem to catch my sarcasm. 

On Saturday we let the kids have their Easter baskets and hunt for eggs.  Two reasons for this really:

1.  With Justin working at a church on Easter, it makes it hard to squeeze this in when we need to be somewhere early.  We are not morning people.

2.  Then I'm done with it.  And the kids can munch on candy and play with whatever they got for Easter the whole day on Saturday.

(I love how Jaxson is wearing his wrestling belt here!)

And then it was time to hunt for eggs!

I realized I didn't get much pictures of the kids getting eggs.  I think it is because they are so fast now.  Julie still needs a little help, but Jax was off and running to collect as many eggs and he could.

Which is the main reason why we made the rule that Julie gets the pink and purple eggs and Jax gets the blue and green eggs.  Then every body gets the same amount of eggs.  Unless you can't find them all.  Which in our case, we are missing about three that were filled with chocolate.  And it's been 80 degrees out.  Oops!

After all that running around, we had the kids play outside all day with their new sidewalk chalk and bubble toys. 

On Sunday, we got up and got ready for church!  Today we planned on being at both campus'-the church plant and inner city campus.  Both were great services-it was great to see people getting baptized!  Funny story at at the inner city campus.  In the middle of the service the pastor went up to baptistry to get ready for the baptisms.  He changed into a white robe.  After church Jax asked us why the pastor was trying to look like Jesus.  I had a good laugh at that.  Jesus does wear a white robe in a lot of children's Bibles.

(Here's proof that the kids do actually like each other!)

After church, we headed to Justin's parents house to eat lunch with family and do another egg hunt.  All the cousins were prepping for this event by using rocks and water cans to practicing hunting down eggs!  It's amazing what their imaginations come up with!  It must of paid off because they all found lots of eggs when it came time to find them!

We had a great Easter weekend. 

Christ has risen!  He has risen indeed!

Wrestlemania is upon us.  The boys are pretty excited to sit down and watch.  And wouldn't you know that we now have the WWE Network so we can tune into it?  Yeah-Justin signed up for the free trial week.  And then allegedly he "accidentally" forgot to cancel it.  Um, I'm not quite sure I believe that story. 

Anyways, Jaxson is prepping for Wrestlmania tonight.

Like the stacked pillows behind him?  He would run and tackle them.  (Oh to be a kid again with that much energy!)

Ok.  I don't know where he got the growling-in-the-camera bit.  I was sure laughing hard!

And now you will know where we will be tonight-cheering on Jax as he pretend-wrestles while watching Wrestlemania!

Today was our anniversary...9 years, in fact.

Yesterday I explained to Jax what an anniversary was.  He then went to school and told his teacher that his mom and dad were getting married today.  Hmmm-I guess that is close enough!

I think we can all agree that Spring Break just wasn't long enough.  We had a busy couple of weeks leading up to Spring Break, so Justin and I made the executive decision to rest!

And it was glorious.  I slept in everyday.  We went to the lake.  Jax and I watched Scooby Doo Mystery Inc. which is the 2010 series.  Can we just say...hilarious!  I forgot how much I used to love this show and try to figure out who the bad guy was!  Towards the end of the week, we made it to the River Market to eat at Gus' Fried Chicken.  My goodness.  That is some of the best fried chicken and greens I have ever had.  (Says the girl from the Pacific Northwest!)

After that yummy (and probably unhealthy) lunch, we went out the park so the kids could run off some energy.  We knew a storm would be coming in and we were glad that it hadn't started to dump rain on us yet.

The tulips were everywhere!  I absolutely love tulips...

The kids and me.  Surprising how we actually all took a decent picture.

I tried to get a picture with Justin and the kids but it didn't happen.  And it actually wasn't the kids, it was Justin.  He was having some sort of allergy issue by the tulips and would not look at the camera.  But both kids were looking at the camera the whole time....who knew that the 34 year old would not say "cheese" while the kids smiled on?!

I think the icing on the cake for Spring Break is when Jax picked up this DVD...

Jax loves wrestling.  And Jax loves Scooby Doo.  So when he saw this DVD he HAD to have it!  And it actually was pretty good.  Poor Daphne didn't want to go to Wrestle-mania so Justin was laughing and saying that was me.  Yup, sounds about right.  And I even solved the mystery of who-dunnit.  Maybe I should become a cartoon detective?

Anyways, Jax is back at school now.  And Spring Break gave me a tiny taste of how much I am really going to enjoy Summer Vacation.

We went over to the lake on Friday.  Jax didn't have school and Justin's family was over there camping. 

The kids immediately went and threw rocks in the lake.

Julie took it pretty seriously and sat down for a while as she collected rocks in her bowl.

The tree balance bar was fun to walk from and jump.

Jax couldn't wait to go fishing.  He had several bites but didn't real any fish in.

We went to a Minute to Win it show at the amphitheater in the afternoon.  Jax had to use toilet paper to make a hummingbirds next.  This was right up his alley-just the other week he unrolled a whole toilet paper roll between his room, Julie's room, and the hallway.  After he unrolled the toilet paper on stage, the ranger asked Jax to scrunch it in a ball.  Jax misunderstood and thought he had to roll the toilet paper on the tube.  Hilarious.  He finally got it and scrunched it on a ball.  He made the nest in time and won the grand prize!

We had a great time and didn't get back until late that night.  I'm sure we will be headed back soon.  Julie's favorite part was throwing rocks in the lake and Jax like walking up the tree balance bar and jumping from it and fishing.