Only 14 or so weeks left until there are three of them…watch out world!

These two have become so close lately. As Joshie gets older it is easier for Isaac to play with him. There are moments where they come to blows as boys are known to do. But the glorious moments of them chasing each other around the house laughing and screaming in pure joy make up for the physical scuffles. When they laugh together, my heart is so filled with joy it could burst into a million little mommy pieces.

Every once in a while I get a picture of Joshua that accurately captures the gleam in his eye. Whatever this little boy is destined for in life, he’s going to do with gusto.

The last picture was taken a  month ago as Kevin and I were getting ready to leave for our anniversary dinner. It was a glorious evening, thanks to the babysitting prowess of one Auntie Kenna. Kevin surprised me a with a new coach purse and a beautiful dinner at Pacific’s Edge in Carmel Highlands. The meal was ridiculously expensive but completely worth it for our 10 year anniversary.

Ten years later, I lay in bed sleepily scratching a boys’ back. He isn’t you, but he has your eyes. He’s one third your size and he calls me Mama. He’s just one of almost three. I’ve never loved you more.

Ten years ago today, we said “I do.” We were children. Children with high hopes and love glowing in our hearts like a fire. A decade later, the love is immensley more precious, deep. You convinced me to marry you, asking not once but three times before the ring “stuck” as we like to say. People thought we were foolish. I think we knew what we had all the way back then, even if words couldn’t define it. They still can’t.

You know you make me laugh. Always have. That is the way you tunneled into my serious and awkwardly beating heart. I didn’t know what unconditional love was, we both know this is something with which I still struggle. But you know, you had it presented to you like a shiny object to a two year old and you held on tight. Thank you for sharing that with me. Sometimes I fumble with it but know that I am always trying. Love flows easy from your soul Kevin, God made you gentle and caring. Sometimes this makes me crazy. Sometimes I want you to be as jaded as I am, yet you refuse. Don’t ever stop refusing, your joy is a lifejacket for my serious and contemplative soul.

We fight. Oh boy how we fight. Often about things inconsequential, sometimes about things larger than life. Yet, there is a line we silently do not cross, we are married and we will be until forever. I knew this from our second kiss. Sounds strange, but it wasn’t the first one that got me. Apparently I am not easily convinced of anything. As I drove away, hands trembling and heart flying, I knew that something significant had just changed, part of me was still in your arms. Ten years later, I’m still there.

You are never on time. You try to please everyone around you, often infuriating me. That is the reality of you. But I will take it because it comes with so much more. Your heart is wide open, your grace for those around you abundant, your desire to be my only, evident. All those years ago, I couldn’t have imagined the man you would become. Standing on that stage, staring into your blue eyes, the future was a question mark. A blank page yet to be written with our story. Now, I see how God has blessed me beyond measure with not just my Kevie, but a son of God whose possibility for growth and change is infinite in His hands. You are a work of art that I hope to always have within my reach, as each year I see a new aspect of your beautiful mystery.

You are so good with showing me that you love me. You tell me, you touch me, you pay attention to me. I am busy. Ridiculously busy and often inattentive. I know I put  a snotty nose that needs to be wiped or a story that needs to be read before you. It is the “mom” in me. However, I hope that you see my love and respect for who you are and how lucky I am, is best expressed in words written. Sometimes I need the keyboard and some quiet time to tell you how I really feel. How much, I really love you.

Happy Anniversary my love. Here’s to two kids who fell in love and never looked back. May our story be long and our house continue to be filled with laughter. You are my sunshine Kevin Thomas.

I was thinking about you today. The way you looked at me, the way you positioned yourself to be near me.

I was thinking about us today. The way we knew it was meant to be, the way we created a life together.

Out of nothing, good has come. Life has bloomed.

Out of naivete, lessons have been learned. Bonds have been forged like molten steel, intertwined and later  hardened.

You smelled good, you listened. You still do.

Our love was awkward, young and confused. Our time together brilliant flashes of light in a dull landscape.

Here’s to never forgetting where we started my love, and always praying for where we’re going.

I was thinking about you today.

This weekend I made 100 sugar cookies. I am broken and tired but they are finished. Every year I make the same cookies and every year I swear I won’t do it again because they are so much work. However, sometime around the 20th of December I find myself knee deep in flour and sugar and home made icing.

The recipe I use is from Mrs. Fields cookie cook book, and it is very simple. I just quadruple the ingredients and then add some powdered sugar frosting. This year I used powdered sugar to roll the dough out, which was a GREAT new trick because the dough doesn’t get hard with added flour and the cookies are a little sweeter! Below is what they look like before frosting:

And here is the final product:

I bought Christmas themed Chinese food boxes and put about 6-8 cookies in each box and attached a bow. I then delivered my little goodies to my fellow employees. Yeah me!

Tomorrow I will post pictures of the boys Christmas pageant, whereby about 35 toddlers re-enact the nativity scene, complete with a fake baby Jesus. It was more hilarious than words can describe but the pictures will give you some idea of the fun had by all.

On the way to school the morning of the pageant, as Isaac was preparing for his role as one of the 3 Kings, he was more pensive than usual. I could tell he was really thinking about something so I asked him what was going on in his little noggin that had him so serious. He said he was thinking about babies. It took me a while but I realized that the whole nativity scene thing had him rather focused on baby Jesus, thus he was “thinking about babies.”

The following conversation ensued:

Me: What babies are you thinking about?
Isaac: I was thinking about where babies come from.
Me:Hmmm. (in my head, HOLY CRAP COME UP WITH SOMETHING CLEVER NOW!!!)
Isaac: Where do Mommies come from?
Me: Girls become mommies when they have babies.
Isaac: But how do they get the babies?
Me: They are in their bellies and then they come out.
Isaac: Oh I know what happens!
Me: (oh crap, here we go)
Isaac: The babies are in space and God catches them up and then throws them to earth and into the mommies bellies. Yeah! That’s it, that is how it happens.
Me: Wow Isaac, you are so smart because that is EXACTLY WHAT HAPPENS!

Clearly this kid is going to outwit me very soon…actually who am I kidding? I think he is smarter than me now. I’ve decided he should have been delivered with an instruction manual and education requirements. His brother however, just needed a helmet and some boxing gloves.

Well, as my last post indicated, we got our tree last night. It wasn’t without a bit of stress and the usual family calamity that I’ve grown so accustomed to. You see, when we moved last June, a good portion of our stuff went in to storage. Well the Christmas stuff, the stuff I spent years collecting and hundreds of dollars amassing, is at the very back of the storage unit. Basically it is unreachable.

So, I had to head to Target to pick up a few decorations and some lights so that we may have some semblance of Christmas this year. By the time I got to Target and saw all of the people, I was much more “Bah Humbug” than I was “Jingle Bells!” In fact, I really just wanted to cancel Christmas this year.

Luckily, by the time we got to the tree lot, my mood had changed and we managed to have some fun. Isaac was so excited to pick a tree and Joshua was just excited to be on an adventure so their collective merriment made up for my utter lack of holiday cheer. We managed to snap a few cute pictures of the event for your viewing.

In the end, the tree was decorated, the lights were hung and Mariah Carey’s Christmas album was ringing throughout the halls. Happy Holidays!

Sweet

I was wearing a really great dress. My hair turned out perfect and I had on my best shoes, the ones so dainty and sparkly that my feet look like little presents. We walked in and I scanned the crowd, no one familiar. I had my incredibly handsome husband by my side, his new tuxedo fitted to perfection. I had already decided we were the best dressed couple there. However, with all the money in this room, it was unlikely that we were really the best dressed, just the most current. In this county, money seems hopelessly lost on the old and tasteless. Deep inside, even though I felt like I looked good, I was insecure that I didn’t know anyone and thinking maybe someone could see in my eyes that I felt out of place in this opulent ballroom, tucked in one of the most beautiful resorts in the country. I honestly felt more aligned with the wait staff than our dinner guests, mostly because in the fiscal pyramid, I am.

Small talk with a stranger visiting our table led to a realization that a person sitting as his table was someone I had gone to school with years before. Someone who had been the most popular boy – wealthy, good looking and mostly cruel. Growing up in this area, I was different. We didn’t have the money or the privilege of our fellow residents, just good fortune. It didn’t help that I had a HORRIBLE maiden name – one that would always cause a snicker or a jeer. This last name was the bane of my junior high existence. 

This boy, the one I have just been told is only a few tables away, was the king of taunting. He alone could reduce me to tears and make me feel like I was a total nerd and outcast. As I took this strangers hand, by his insistence this lovely reunion occur, I was mortified. I couldn’t believe that after 15 years I would see him again, would I be reduced the 12 year old with a ugly perm and no sense of self?

As he turned around, time stopped. It was a moment I will never forget. It wasn’t that he looked bad, he doesn’t. It is just that time has been friendlier to the girl with the bad hair and silly last name, than the privileged boy with the sharp tongue. In a flash, his eyes registered who I was and time, all those years, condensed into minutes as I stood in front of him. He was pleasant, he had a lovely pregnant wife and she quickly made the moment less awkward. I told him my new last name and we both laughed a little about my old one.

A few moments later as I walked away with my head held high, thinking if the whole night was for that tiny moment, it was worth it. There is nothing quite as satisfying as shocking someone by being more than they expected.

 *UPDATE* Follow this link, and at about 1min in, you will see a dark haired girl and a tall boy walk past the cameras….guess who?

Sucked In

I am a reader. In high school, I could put away about 50 books a year. I read everything from John Grisham to Danielle Steele. I would read to escape, not from a horrible life but from the reality of being a teenager in a small town.  I plowed through books, sometimes never really reading the fine print, just absorbing the basic story and then moving on to the next title. However, there was one author I savored, Ann Rice. I love me some vampire drama. Which makes no sense because I am a total chicken who can’t stand scary movies and avoid dark places like I avoid decaf coffee (seriously what is the point?). I just loved the intricacy and totality of Ann’s storytelling. She pulled me into a world I couldn’t comprehend and for the duration of the novel, I called it home.

As I got to college, I had less time for pleasure reading, plus I realized most of my reading had turned to that of the romance nature. It wasn’t that I thought romance novels were bad for me but I realized they were skewing my expectations on dating. I probably was not going to have my clothes torn off in a fit of passion, whilst riding a gondola in turn of the century Venice. Nor was I likely to find myself sold into marriage in the 1800′s to a man that seemed gruff but turned out to be the most sensitive lover for which a woman could ask. So, I mainly put aside fiction reading and turned to humor and biographies.

In conversation a few months back with a friend (Hi Zoe!) I was told about the Twighlight series.  I put off the purchase until today. I knew that I would love the books and my social life would suffer because of it, as I called off girls’ night for night with the “undead”. So, as I begin this new series, I apologize ahead of time if my writing slacks off but just blame it on me being sucked in.