Outside fun

My boys love to be outside. We have been so lucky to have some really nice weather in December, although to be honest we will be outside this winter no matter how cold it is as long as it is dry. We'll just bundle up because they love it so much. Emmory had to wear his pretend work goggles outside as he pushed his dump truck all around the cul-de-sac and Evan went back and forth between pushing the mower and running all over the place into our neighbors yards.

Evan

I really wish I could keep up with this blog. It just doesn't always seem possible...how can I sit down and blog when my house is a mess? But I got a new blogger app for my phone which is going to make it a whole lot easier to blog so maybe I'll do it more often now. I just wanted to do a quick post on Evan. I never did a post for his first birthday and I always intended to. He turned one over a month ago, on November 2nd. His first year was by far the fastest year of my life, it just flew by. I barely even remember him being a baby. I have a lot of regrets about his first year, especially the first several months. I've never really blogged about this before, for different reasons, but I will just say when I got pregnant with Evan, Emmory was only 9 months old and I definitely wasn't ready to have another. I was not excited about the pregnancy and it really took several months for me to start enjoying him. I'm just being completely honest here. It's not that I didn't love him, I would have given my life for him in a heartbeat, but I was just too focused on how hard things were and how they didn't happen how I wanted them too. Just completely selfish thoughts. But God is so good. He has used Evan in my life to show me my weakness, my sin, and bring me to the end of myself. I am constantly shown my complete inability to do anything right. And that drives me to the cross. It makes me thankful for my Savior and his righteousness that is mine. Because that is the only righteousness I possess. God has brought me to the point where I am thankful for my weakness. I am so thankful for evan in my life right now. Not just because of those things. There are lots of lovable things about him. His big blue eyes, his adoration of his brother and how he tries to do everything he does, his big smile, when he comes up to me and throws his arms up at me and says "mama", how excited he gets when his daddy comes through the front door home from work, how he tries to shove everything on his high chair in his mouth, the way he says doggie (Daaaaaaaaaaaaaaw-geeee), the way he runs all over our house always having to carry something around in his hands, the way he takes your hand and moves it to whatever it is he wants (he is a great non-verbal communicator), the way he sucks his two fingers backwards, the way he snuggles with you right after his nap, and there are so many more. He is very into feeding himself right now. It's good and bad. It's messy but I know it will make things easier in the long run, and already it is kind of nice that I can put a bowl of food and a spoon in front of him and he can get about 3/4ths if it in his mouth by himself while I do a few other things in the kitchen. He has had a bit of a rough patch recently with sickness which has lead to him being more cranky, but I know it will pass. Having two toddlers is challenging especially two loud, messy, busy boys (which I'm sure will never change) but I am thankful for my boys and for what God is teaching me through being a parent. And I am especially thankful that I am able to stay home with them every day and be the one who gets to train them.