My how time flies

So it's been eight months since my last post.  I can't believe how fast that time has flown.  Lila is now three and a half.  Ben just turned six.  We had an awesome summer, and the first six weeks of school has been great.  I'm going to try to give a brief recap of the fun.


The summer started out with Hector and I celebrating our 10 year wedding anniversary in Galveston.  We had a wonderful time!  We stayed at the Hilton and tried a different Galveston restaurant for pretty much every meal.   We spent most of our time by the pool, which is my favorite place to be.  It was really nice to get away just the two of us and spend some time together.

Next was Lila's third birthday.  We had it at Chuck E. Cheese.  Her birthday theme was Little Mermaid.  She loves Ariel!  All of her friends came, and she had a ball.  She wasn't even scared of Chuck E. anymore.  She's really into princess stuff now, so that's most of what she got for her birthday, that and Strawberry Shortcake stuff.

A few weeks later we headed back to Galveston as a family and stayed at Moody Gardens.  The kids LOVED it.  And we did too. We will definitely be back.  It's like the Disney Land of Texas.  It had a huge aquarium pyramid and an indoor rainforest pyramid, along with a mini waterpark called Palm Beach.  Now Lila always asks when we get to go back to Palm Beach.  We went to the actual beach a couple of times, but the seaweed was ridiculous this year.  The smell was awful, so we had fun on the white sandy beaches of Palm Beach most of the time instead.  The kids got to do their first ropes course, and Ben loved getting to see Rio 2 in 3D.  We stayed up late every night and Hector let the kids eat a late night snack and watch a show every night before bed.  They were in heaven!   Sweet memories were definitely created.  My favorite memory was Ben seeing the Blue Macaws in the rainforest.  He just knew they were Blue and Jewel from Rio.  He was star struck.  It was so sweet.

The rest of the summer was filled with swimming, fishing, camping out in the backyard, and friends coming over to cookout.   It was probably one of our best summers yet.

Then it came time for Ben to start Kindergarten!  I was definitely anxious about it up front.  Ben is a home body.  He loves just chillin at home.  But he has done fabulous.  He seems to love it, and all of the teachers love him.  They talk about what a sweet heart he has, and how well behaved it is.  I can't tell you how many times they've told me what a good kid he is.  I tell them I know! :)  It's amazing how much he's already learned in the first six weeks.  He's already begining to read.  He's memorized about 20 sight words, and he spends about 20 minutes a day reading small books that he's put together at school.  Then we'll read him bigger books before bedtime.  It's so fun to see his mind work, and to see how proud he is of himself when he learns something new.

Lila started her three's class a couple of weeks later.  She is in Ellie's class and it has worked out really well.  She loves it, and Ellie keeps me in the loop with how she's doing.  She has a different teacher, Ms. Natalie, on Fridays.  She seems to love her too.  Right now, she and Gray Cambron are pretty much inseparable at school.  They play mom and dad all the time.  It's pretty sweet.  They play alot with Elliott Avaritt too.  Lila is at an age where she'll be playing house one minute and then power rangers the next.  It's great.  Just in the past couple of months, I've really seen her imagination take flight.  She loves playing make believe, just like her brother.  But most of the time, its house or restaurant unless it's with the boys.   Yesterday, we were in Hector's classroom and she was playing with an ax he had that had a furry handle.  She turned it over and said it was a duster.  She definitely doesn't get that from me!  We are still working with Lila on using kind words and not being quite so bossy.  She's a woman who knows what she wants, and she's not very happy when she doesn't get it.  We call her passionate!  That will serve her very well one day.  Today, Mom and Dad get to help her learn to manage it... one melt down at a time.  She likes to say things like "Well if you do that, I'm not gonna be your daughter anymore".. or sister, or friend, or granddaughter, depending on who she's talking to.  She also has a tendency to just hit when she doesn't get her way.  I have no idea where she got that!  We're teaching her to use her words, but to choose kind words.  She does well expressing herself, but she tends to do it very intensely, and not all that nicely.  So, we're really working on kindness.

We celebrated Ben's birthday a couple of weeks ago.  It was a Power Ranger party.  He is definitely in a Power Ranger phase right now.  We had it up at the church like we do every year, with a big bouncehouse and slide.  Tons of kids came, and he had a ball.  We also had lazer tag guns for them to play with.  Ben got lots of Power Ranger and other super hero toys.  He had me make him a chart three months ahead of time leading up to his birthday.  He likes to count down to big events!    We had to rearrange his room because he now has enough dress up clothes to take up a whole corner of his room.  It's a bit out of control, but he loves it, and I love seeing his imagination in action.  That imagination got him the lead role in his Thanksgiving program at school this year!  We're so proud!  He's the chief!

Tomorrow is halloweeen.  We've already taken our annual pumpkin patch pictures and done trunk or treat at church.  Benjamin was a tiger at Trunk or Treat and he's going to be Captain America tomorrow.  Lila originally wanted to be a spatula... yes, a spatula, and yes, she knows exactly what it is.  Fortunately, we talked her into being Ariel instead.  She's way cuter, and you can buy the costume!  This mama isn't a costume maker.  Now she's saying she wants to be a spatula for Christmas.  That child keeps us laughing.

Some things I want to remember about the kids at this stage:
Lila - LOVES sweet tea. Her favorite foods are spaghetti, broccoli and watermelon.  She loves to sing.  Right now her favorite songs are from Annie, especially "Dumb Dog" and "It's a hard knock like" as she calls it.  She has really started pretending.  No matter what she's playing "Aleah" is always the main person she's interacting with, and then all other characters follow that name form... "Azeah", "Aceah", etc.  She doesn't do dress up like Ben, but her imagination is definitely showing.  Her favorite shows are Strawberry Shortcake and Care Bears.  She loves Barbie and Littlest Pet Shop but I limit those because they are about teenagers. She doesn't need any help in the attitude department!  She really has grown into a fun little girl.  She's not a baby anymore!  She's gotten tall and really slimmed up.  We taught her the song "All about the Base", and she loves to sing it.  If she's anything like her mama, she'll have plenty of base!

Ben - still doesn't like to each much, other than pizza and bread.  He's a little more willing than he used to be but not much.  He's not playing Judo or Baseball right now, but he wants to get back into both.  We told him he'll have to choose in the spring, and he thinks it's going to be baseball.  He still misses Sugar tremendously, and prays for God to bring him back alot.  His first book he wrote at school was titled "My dog sugar", and explained how his dog died.  The teacher told us we need to buy him another dog!  Ben got Star Student of the Week this week.  He was beaming.  He got to bring a bag filled with things that he likes... he brought a pic of Sugar :( along with many other things.  He's still having trouble with bad dreams.  At night when he prays, he asks God to have the angels block his bad dreams and send them back to the devil so he'll have bad dreams.  He's such a deep thinker.  Heaven is on his mind alot.  He doesn't want to go to heaven because he doesn't want to leave his room.  He's really learning a lot about the Bible at school, and then we talk about it when he gets home.  He told me that God changed Abram's name to Abraham and then to Abraham Lincoln and then to Father Abraham Lincoln.  LOL.  I'm not sure where he got the last two, but he's learning!

As always, I'm so thankful for God's goodness and His grace.  Spending a few minutes to reflect on the last several months makes me even more aware of just how good He is!  That's all for now.  Hopefully I'll post again before 2016.  Lol.

First update of 2014

2014 has been a great, all be it, very cold year so far!  First an update on 2013 Christmas.  It was a great Christmas!  The kids LOVED the trampoline.  It's been so cold the past couple of months, we haven't used it much, but they love it.  We had a great time with Mere's crew in town.  Bowie and Lila were attached at the hip.  They had so much fun together!  Bowie's hug was more like a headlock, but Lila got used to it and felt the love!  Lila's favorite gifts were her dog and kitties that look/act real, and most of all... her gumball machine!  I saw that one coming!  She also really liked her Karaoke machine, but that one doesn't get used as much.  She loved her Barney and Lamby stuffed animals.  She hasn't played with the Barney and Daniel Tiger figures as much as I thought she would.  She's not quite into that kind of play yet.  She loves playing house and school.  So, her babies and stuffed animals work well for that.  Benjamin loved all of his Skylanders.  He also loved his Tummy Stuffer, and his guitar.  I've got a great picture of him playing guitar with dad.  Made me want to cry.  It was really a sweet family time.  And praise God, no illness!!! Other than Bowie having a little cold.  Before the school year started, I began using Essential Oils, and I really believe it's helped keep the kids healthy.  I hesitate writing that, because it seems like everytime I do, they attempt to come down with something... I truly believe it's Spiritual warefare.  It may sound silly, but I don't think Satan wants people to know about the oils, and so every time I say or write something about them, he takes a little jab!  But I'm gonna keep talking.  I love that something God created directly can help my kids stay healthy.

So I mentioned in the last post that we bought Ben and Lila new beds.  They have really worked out great.   The transition however, did not.  About that time, Lila started having nightmares about a blasted mouse that was crawling in her bed.  She says she saw it on Charlie and Lola!  Go figure.  I won't let my kids watch Super Hero shows so they won't be scared of the bad guys, and so now she's scared of a mouse!  Anyway, for a while, we let her sleep in Ben's room.  Then we realized we needed to stop that before we couldn't get her back in her own room.  Then, for a week two, I basically slept with her because she truly was scared.  Then I realized we had to phase out of that or I would create a monster.  So, now we're in the phase where I lay down by her to go to sleep, but if she get's up in the night, I will stay right outside her door until she falls back to sleep.  So... there's been a cot set up outside her room for the past couple of weeks.  Now i've got to move to the next phase of staying in my bed!  Oh for a full night's sleep!  But that's ok.  Lila has alway been my sleeper.  I can't complain about this!

So, for the last several months, we've known that we had to make a decision about school for Ben.  So Hector took off a couple of weeks ago to go tour Duff and Hill and to talk to the Kindergarten teacher at Park Row.  We had really been praying that God would make our decision clear.  And He certainly did, although it wasn't the decision we thought it would be!  Ben is staying at Park Row for Kindergarten at least.  Hector and I both felt strongly that they had the better curriculum, but more importantly Ben would be loved and shown Christ daily.  We feel really good about the decision and know that God will provide the funds.  We'll continue to make the school decision on a year by year basis, although I would love to keep both of them in private through at least 3rd grade.  Ideally, they could both stay at Park Row through 6th and then go to Bailey where Hector would be.  But I know that's a long way out, and who knows what God has planned for us between now and then.

As always I feel incredibly blessed and thankful.  Hector is growing more and more every year as a father, a husband, and a spiritual leader.  He went to a men's conference at Richland Hills with Dad a couple of weeks ago, and I've even seen a change in him since then.  I am so grateful to have a husband that continually humbles himself to become better.  We went to a marriage conference that same week, and my main take away was kindness.  I'm really working on being kind to him, and I know he is to me.  Seems so simple, but makes such a difference.  God is good, and he continues to guide our steps and fill us with His awesome Spirit.