Four

My sweet Lila Lou,

Wow, four. You have been four for almost a month now and it still doesn't seem possible. I swear you were just born, yet here you are, full of sass and spunk and pure adorable-ness.

You are wrapping up your last year of preschool before you head off to pre-k, at school with Finn. You are so excited to be in the same school as your Finny, your favorite person in the world, the one who you have fun with, who you fight with, who you adore. I, on the other hand, am not ready for you to be there, to be gone 5 days a week. My heart will feel a little emptier every morning to not be sharing it with you, but I am also excited for you, for you to learn and explore and grow. You are so ready my Lila Cat, so ready.

There are so many things to say about you, about the person you are, about the love you give us, about the joy you fill us with. You are funny and clever and loving, you are sweet and temperamental and our little diva. It is always too hot or too cold or too sunny or too rainy, which always makes us laugh. You are like the goldilocks of weather!

We are in that stage of no longer a toddler, and growing quickly out of preschooler, but still holding on to vestiges of those days. You say things like grasscopper, goodest, rodeo for radio, loop di loo for hula hoop, cup folder for cup holder. We say them now too, to keep you from losing those last few sayings.

People tell you every day how cute you are, how beautiful your hair is, how adorable you are. It is all true, all of it, but you are so much more sweet girl, so very much more. Always remember that.

Happy (belated) birthday our moonie girl. May you forever know how loved you are, by so many people, and how empty our lives would be without you in them.

We love you more and more and mostest,
Mama

Seven

My sweet Finlay,

7 years ago you took my world and you changed it forever. You created a life for me that I didn't expect, filled with love and laughter and tears and excitement. You made me a mom. That is a title I wanted forever, but never knew the true meaning of until I met you.

You are, without a doubt, a joy. You are smart, and funny, and inquisitive, and creative. You love science and dirt and creatures, you love comics and video games and top trumps. You love reading and math and facts and knock knock jokes. Your laughter fills our house, fills our hearts, and your smile brightens the world around you.

Every morning when I wake you for school I know that the best part of your day is going to be spent with teachers and friends, that they get to watch you learn and see you discover things and as your world gets bigger I watch from the sidelines, being torn between wanting to jump in the middle and knowing, as you get older, that my place is increasingly becoming one of a bystander. But my voice will always be the loudest, cheering you on.

You love your sister, you protect her and lead her and tease her and annoy her, in the span of minutes. She worships you, her 'brudder', and the moments when you two play, when you create obstacle courses or animal habitats, when we sit back and observe, they are some of my favorite moments of my days.

You are a soccer player, a swimmer, a tiger scout. You want to take up karate and you are learning to play chess with your papi. Minecraft is your favorite thing in the world, you love to rockpool and your reading is beyond words. The way you read books, for fun, makes my heart sore. You create elaborate worlds on paper, with pens and markers and imagination. You bring to life the stories in your mind, and they are amazing.

Don't get me wrong, you aren't perfect. No one is perfect. Handwriting is not your strong suit, at all, and your manners are, well, lacking - but we're working on it! Hearing you ask me, every day when you see me after school, how my day was is the best part of my day with you. You need to use your fork more, complain less, do your homework without prompting. We argue, and both raise our voices too much, but we are both getting better at not doing that as often, and I love that when we realize it we talk about it and vow to make that day a better day going forward. No one is perfect my boy, and that is okay. Completely okay. You are learning to be 7 and I am learning how to have a 7 year old.

Seven. My mind is blown by a simple number. You are more than halfway to being a teenager. A teenager! My heart shatters into a million pieces when I think of the day when you don't want to be with me, holding my hand, asking for one more story, telling me you will love me forever and stay in my house forever and never leave us. Because you will leave us, someday. But I can only hope we have loved you enough that you know you can always come back.

But until that day? Until that day we will tell silly jokes and read crazy stories and cheer you on every second of every day with every adventure you conquer, full of innocence and amazement and wonder.

Happy birthday my sweet boy, there has never been a boy more loved than you.

We love you to Mars and back,
Mommy and Daddy
(ps...give us a little more time before we become mom and dad, ok? I don't think my heart can take it!)

And...scene. This year has flown by, with few posts and fewer words. I would like to say I will make an effort next year, but I am not sure what tomorrow will bring, much less 2015. It's in the plans, but the best laid plans and all of that.

So, for now, we celebrate the holidays in the UK, after a trip to Prague on the way here for their Christmas market. Santa comes tomorrow, presents will be unwrapped (after we wrap them in the first place), toys will be played with, laughter will be heard, and love will be all around, which I am pretty sure I stole from a song.

Happy holidays, from me to you, whoever is still out there.

3.5

My sweet Lulu girl,

3.5. Three and a half. Somehow, somewhere along the last 3.5 years, you stopped being a baby, stopped being a toddler, and started being you. You, full of sass and spunk and sometimes spite, but always full of love and cuddles and laughter.

You cry every time we drop you off to school, clinging to my leg, telling me you don't want to go. And then I pick you up, 3 hours later, and your eyes are twinkling and your voice is filled with laughter and you tell me about the things you did that morning, the music class and the gardening and the playground antics. Friends surround you, teachers hug you, you light up every room you enter and every room you leave. Except when you pout, which you are getting good at now that you are 3.

Gymnastics, and ballet, fill our afternoons, before I drag you along to carpool to pick up your brother, followed by his swim team and soccer practice and tiger scouts and Sunday school. You are always just along for the ride, so on the days when we get to do something just for you I relish in the excitement in your face, and you will never know how much I appreciate your go with the flow attitude, although that may be a second child thing by nature.

We love you, so much, more than we could ever express to you. I can't wait to see you in the morning, your smile, your witty words, your adoration for your big brother. People stop me, daily, to tell me how adorable you are, but the truth is that your beauty lies well beyond your red hair and your big smile, it runs deep to the core of you, where your love of life, your love of your family and friends, your sweetness, where that all lives. Never forget to show it all sweet girl.

I love you to the moon and back, I love you a bushel and a peck, I love you eskimo kisses for days.

Love,
Mommy

The Key

Back in June, after we returned from the UK and before we headed out West to Jackson Hole, I lost my car key.

I didn't just lose it, I placed it on top of my car to buckle Lila in, forgot it was there, drove 16 miles to her swim lessons, and discovered once I turned off the car that not only will my car drive without a key in the vicinity but that it won't turn back on once you turn it off and the key is probably 15.5 miles back the way I came.

Duh.

Fortunately for me Lee very rarely gets mad at my stupid actions and drove, oh, 30 plus miles to bring me a spare key. I won't mention how much it cost to replace the key, but it was definitely quite a few fancy meals out. And a few cheap ones as well.

Fast forward to a few weeks ago, and I lost the new key. Only this time I lost it inside my car. Seems illogical, but true. Again, since Lee very rarely gets mad at my stupidity, he spent an hour searching for it, as we tore my car inside out to find it. I can't even describe how we found it, but it was in a place that would have been impossible to intentionally put it in and even more impossible to look into but somehow, amazing man that he is, he found it.

As I walked into Lila's class this morning someone walked in after me, tapped me on my shoulder and handed me my key, that I had dropped while juggling a rain coat, a water bottle, and a clingy 3 year old.

That damn key. I keep losing it and, eventually, it is found. It is always found.

The truth is that while these stories are all about a key the subject could easily be replaced by my will to write. I lost it, somewhere along the way this Summer, this past year, and am working hard at finding it again. I miss writing, I miss blogging, I miss telling stories and taking pictures and creating stories for us to read, for my kids to read, to visually document the memories that our lives are full of.

I can't lie, I chose, this Summer, to focus on what was important, and that is these two. I needed a break, to live, in the moment, to laugh and play and swim and travel and puzzle and read and, well, just be. And we did, every day.

I don't know if I will get back to where I once was with blogging, or if I need to, or if anyone would even care, but for now? For now I have a hold of the key, and I am going to try really hard not to let go this time.

And We Return

Life is busy when you are gone for 17 days. Ireland? Check. Scotland? Check. England? Check.

Friends. Family. Castles. Beaches. Chocolate. Airplanes. Jet Lag. We've done it all.

Adventure number 1 of the summer is done, adventure number two awaits.

Oh How They've Grown

In doing our traditional end of the year photos it struck me how much they have grown and changed over the last 9 months. You can't see it when it is in front of your face, every day, but my how you can see it when you put pictures side by side. I have lost the little boy we once had, replaced by such a big kid. And Lila? No longer toddler, all preschooler.

Their last days are today. Tomorrow we leave for Ireland and England, starting a Summer of adventure and travel and bucket lists and pool time and enjoying every moment.

If I don't lose my sanity first!