Catch Up: LEGOS

Peter has gotten SO good at Legos.

Mike has been posting all of the things he's built here.  

This sweet face sums up his excitement over Legos!

Checking out the instructions.

Catch Up: FLUFFERNUTTERS!!

Aunt Joy told me that we should try this recipe.  

So we did. 

(Baking is a rare occasion for us).  

What's not to LOVE.

 Is he the sweetest big brother in the world?!

Then we packed up our mega-cookies in little bags and delivered them to thank and share love with our therapists.  

TCI: Day One

{I wrote these while we were on vacation.  I wanted to remember each day and it not just become a clump of days away.  It was all so wonderful.  I'm adding in pictures now.}

My 36th Birthday.  I'm not sure they come any better.

Woke up early, just before sunrise ~5:50am.  

Made coffee.  

Read Lent devotion.  Thanks, Kevin.  

Read Bible.  Prayed Begged for God's blessings on our week.  

Woke Mike up.  Coffee with him.  

Breakfast... scrambled eggs with cheese.  

Out to beach in 7 o'clock hour (!!!). 

Mike at the end of our walkway to the beach.  I couldn't stop saying WOW.  A breathy wow.  :)
It was like being in a magazine.  What a perfect picture... 
my favorite man b/t  palms, sand, and blue waters!

Are you coming?! (the story of his life.)

This is our building at the hotel.  

We are staying on the northwest tip of the island of Providenciales.  So we just started walking towards northwest most point.  Walked and walked.  

We didn't see another soul.  Stopped for Mike to get in water, picked up conch shells and looked for coral pieces to spell the kids' names.  

Turquoise green and blue waters.  Blue sky.  

 Advertising for CapTech in T&C.  :)

 Wow, look at these babies!

Well, now I'm finding so many I can't decide.  (I love Mike's expressions!)

 Woah, check it out, a whole beach full of conchs and shells....

 And an old boat with a whole collection of conchs!!

 So pretty!

Seriously.  Someone pinch me.  Are we really here?

 Then we got out snorkel gear and we both went in.  I'm always glad to be able to hold on to Mike's hand.  It takes some warming up for me to get used to sea weed and coral and then the drop offs near coral.  I can't even believe I am including this picture!  Ha. 

We'd left towels at beach in front of our hotel so we air dried by walking rest of the way to the point.  Windy with sun at our backs.  The shoreline changes to rocky there and the crashing waves begin there.  An osprey had a nest there so the sounds reminded us of river house.  We climbed up and over the rocks, thinking of Alvin and Robert.  :)  It was awesome.  Mike said what had been on my mind... that it seemed like we were walking on the moon.  Or on the dried lava of an ancient volcano.  We finally made our way back.  Picked up the backpack and began the journey back on the beach.  

We just kept talking about the new shades of blue and green we'd see out in the water.

We watched kite surfers on the way home and Mike dreamed.  ;). 

Made it back to our resort around 11 and headed up for lunch.  

I mean, seriously, all of that before lunch.  This is good.

PB sandwiches and these HUGE avocados we found at store here.

(Here is a shot of the avocados at the store.  You can see how big they are in comparison to Mike's large hand.  They sell them in the US too!  We've now been eating them since we came back instead of the usual kind.  They said Dominican Republic on the sticker and the ones I've found are called "King Avocados".  They are delicious!)

Another of the view from our balcony.

  Back to beach chairs well before noon to just SIT.  Ahhhh.  We sat til we got hot then went snorkeling again.  For longer this time... saw pretty bright colored fish.  Another good workout.... esp for the legs.  :)  We got to re-use for the snorkel gear we'd gotten for our honeymoon.  

Back on beach to dry out but OH, we should go to the hot tub first!  So we did.  WOW.  I'm sure I've said WOW, a breathy WOW sooooo many times today.  We sat by the pool after that.  Then back to beach for a few and finally back in ~3.

Nothing like the sand under your back and the sun to warm you after a cold winter.

 Nearly the only other people we'd seen all day offered to take our pic.  :)

  Showers and into town ~4.  Shopping.  T&C shirt for Mike, a few other shops.  Then birthday dinner out at this Mediterranean restaurant.  The food was delicious!  Wow.  What a day.  

Thank you, God. 

Rewind: Valentines Day

We did lots of conversation heart activities. 

I think the sequencing was our favorite.  It was really fun for me to see the kids figure it out on their own.  

Pink, Green, Yellow, Pink, Green, Yellow, I don't know...

Say it again.  

Pink, Green, Yellow, Pink, Green, Yellow, PINK!

 The kids worked really hard on their Valentines.

Lily and I did hers one morning while Peter was at "work".

The teachers at his school told us to use the heart cutter in the teacher work room where we wait so Lily got fancy heart cut outs.  :)

Peter cut all of his hearts (I think I cut Lily's).

 It took us several days but we cut, glued (and flipped our hearts, which is tricky and helped him with crossing midline), flipped stickers, and wrote names (practice runs and the real thing).  I liked it b/c it made me work on a big project with him.  There were so many skills involved.  And we did the same thing over and over so I saw so much progress and improvement   Way to go, Pete!  

Lily doing a dance for us!

Peter sitting nearby and working on his book.  The boy loves some books.  
We got them this one for Christmas (its super cheap for so many stories!) and he LOVES it. 
Seriously, I love these CUTE kids. 

10 Year Anniversary Get Away to Paradise

Wow.  So Mike and I slipped away in early March.  We went to celebrate our tenth wedding anniversary.  It's not until September but Peter will be starting Kindergarten then (and we wouldn't want to leave).  Neither of us love winter so we decided that we'd escape in February.   Then we pushed it back to early March.  

We just knew that we wanted to go to the Carribean.  I researched and researched it to find the perfect location (and best price).  We finally settled on 4 whole days in Turks and Caicos.  It is one of the closest islands so minimal travel time to get there.  We didn't want to stay in a place that was packed with tourists so we settled on Northwest Point Resort.  It was away from the main hub bub of the island and just perfect. 

Our parents kindly split the week to watch our kids.  They stayed with Mike's parents the first half and my parents the second half.

We left early one Sunday morning.  Side note:  It was the morning of our due date with the second baby we haven't yet gotten to meet.  Its not lost on me that God blessed us both times with being at the beach on each of our due dates.  

 YEEEE!!!  Boarding the shuttle to the airport for seven straight days with just my husband.  I don't think we've had that much time together since our days in Morocco six and a half years ago.

 I was a little nervous b/c the forecast showed some rain.  And surely, I'm not escaping a long cold wet winter to go to more rain.  It was raining upon our arrival which dampened our spirits.  

We knew that the drive to our hotel involved an unpaved road.  But that evening in the rain, it seemed extra long.  It definitely had me second guessing my choice of hotel. 

We finally turned onto this little paved strip of road leading to our hotel.

That night we sat on the beach under a tiki umbrella with rain dripping on us.  

I hardly slept worrying that our week in the tropics would involved cloudy, rainy days.

 But the next morning, we woke up to this!!

More to come!!... 

My Boy

I was just putting Peter down for his nap.  We'd had a slightly rough morning.  I'm just feeling the weight of being a mom and doing the same thing over and over, over and over (totally my issues).  And wondering when there will be more progress.  And anxiety over the unknowns of entering a new season of life, kindergarten.  Will they love my child and be patient with him?  Will he be able to sit still?  Will he pay attention?  Will he get lost (figuratively or literally) in the shuffle of a big elementary school?  Will they work with him and help him learn in a way that works for him, even if that is different than how they teach the majority of the kids?
I had someone (not associated with school) flat out ask me this week if Peter had a learning disability.  That's another story.  I was able by God's grace to see it in light of God's mercy that this person may really help us.  He is VERY smart and made perfectly by God.  I need to remind myself of that too.  And although, I was able to see how I let it roll so much quicker than I would have been able to in the past, I think its still weighing on me a few days later.  Or maybe its just the voice of the Liar bringing me down.  
Back to today, I'm reading the book Baby Dear to Peter.  We all know Peter has a soft spot for babies.  So he's studying the book: the "real" baby and the doll.  I ask him if he remembers Lily being a baby.  He says something about Lily being around when he was a baby and I tell him that she wasn't with us yet.  That God hadn't given us Lily yet.  He starts thinking about heaven, I can just tell.  
Then he says, "I can't wait to go to heaven.  When am I going to get to go to heaven?"  I tell him that I want him to stay on earth with me b/c I'd miss him toooo much (and cry all.the.time, seriously).  
I say, "Why do you want to go to heaven so much?"
"Because I miss God.  I want to see His face."
Oh, my boy.  
We have these conversations somewhat regularly.  God has put something in Peter that is special in yearning for heaven.  Call me crazy, but I often wonder if it has to do with how hard he has to work for things.  There is the sense that things are just harder for Peter and so he knows there's got to be more.  He's been through a whole bunch of tough things (all of his hospital stays and tests and anesthesias and therapies).  And daily, he works harder.  Although he doesn't say it, I know he is aware.  
It just hit me this week the buckets of money we will have poured out to work hard for this boy (not that every parent doesn't do the same in their way!).  We just added swim class to the list.  And don't hear that as complaining.  As I talked this over with Mike, my very next sentence was GOD HAS PROVIDED.  If you'd ever told me the $$$ we'd spend, I would have said it was impossible.  God has provided abundantly more than I could have imagined.  
And after these conversations and my frustrations and impatience in waiting, in learning to parent a child with extra needs (who is so wonderful and we are so blessed), I just think that this is the bonus.  This is the extra gift that really matters for eternity- that God has set eternity in the heart of our child.  

~~

We are doing well over here.  Can't wait to update more.  God has been good to us in our break.  Just thought I'd jump in to post this song.  Thinking on this today.  Claiming these truths today.