Watch Them Grow

No matter how many times I hear this song, it always makes me cry those bittersweet tears that come from love and loss.

I cry not only because of the beauty and challenge of my children, but also for my own childhood.

Children just aren't children long enough.

Maybe God makes parenting such an involved process because He wants to make sure we will never forget that childhood.

Enjoy your children today.

If you don't have any or can't be with them...enjoy someone else's.

Every single life is precious and a miraculous gift from God.

(Turn your speakers on and push the play button so that you can fully enjoy this song!)

"Watch Them Grow" by Zach Gill

She's close to God, I'm sure of that
She sits him down, and they have a chat
She asks for sunshine, and he agrees
You see, for her, He'd do anything

You watch them grow, then you let 'em go

She is a monkey, and I'm her tree
And now she's climbing all over me
Swinging on my vines dancing on my limbs
Her monkey sounds sound like angel's hymns

You watch them grow, then you let 'em go
You watch them grow, then you let 'em go

She is an angel, she is an imp
She's got my big toe, and her mother's lips
She gives fishy kisses, and great big bear hugs
42 pounds of pure love
Then one day she'll be 17, feelin' too big for her home
Seems she was just only 3, oh how our children they grow

You watch them grow, then you let 'em go
You watch them grow, then you let 'em go
You watch them grow, then you let 'em go
You watch them grow, then you let 'em go

Then one day she'll be 33, maybe with a child of her own
Seems she was just 17, oh how our children they grow
He'll ask for sunshine, and she'll agree
You see for him, she'd do anything
He is her child, the center of her world
She is his mother... my little girl

You watch them grow, then you let 'em go
You watch them grow, then you let 'em go

She's 11 years old now....

Time goes by so quickly as you get older.

I remember time dragging by so slowly when I was a kid. Those birthdays took FOREVER to arrive. And I was never "old enough". It always seemed like the next birthday would be the best one for whatever reason, because as most of you know, a child can never (in their mind) grow up too fast.

Fast forward to adulthood....

Now you catch yourself saying "Woah! Where has the past year gone??" or "It seems like only yesterday that I was _____!".

But the thing that will make time fly the fastest is having a child of your own.

Those baby/toddler/pre-school years pass in the blink of an eye. And a school year?...like a nano-second.

So here I go with my "It seems like only yesterday" phrase...

It seems like only yesterday that I took this picture of my mom holding Cecilia the day after she came home from the hospital. My mom was the one there with me during the delivery (hence the shirt), but we never got a pic of her and the baby at the hospital.

So as soon as we got a chance, she put on the shirt and we took this shot.

Then something agonizing and amazing at the same time happened...

...she started growing up...

...VERY QUICKLY.

Here she is at 3 months (still a little angel) ;-)

And then what happened?? We turn around and she's 13 months already!

Then 2 1/2?!

And oh my gosh...Pre-K...


And here is when time started to get away from me...
...Kindergarten.


Next thing I know she's in the 2nd grade and playing soccer

And this...this is one of those pictures that your kid brings home and all of a sudden you go "What happened to my baby??"

~3rd grade~

But today...today she turns 11 years old.

Today she is no longer a baby, she is almost a teenager.

Today she sang at the Veteran's day celebration as a 5th grader.

She is in her last year of elementary school.

She is at the brink of a whole new era in her life.

But to her....I'm sure this has been the longest 11 years EVER.

For me...not nearly long enough.

No matter what I do, I cannot slow down time.

Can't turn back the hands of that clock.

A growing child causes a parent so much excitement yet at the same time, so much heartache.

Because you've been there.

You know the wonderful and horrible things that will arrive so unexpectantly in her life.

All that can be done is to prepare that child for what is to come so that when the wonderful and horrible things strike, she will afterwards be stronger, wiser and all the more beautiful.

I sat with her at lunch today and for the first time in years actually sang "happy birthday" to her at 12:44 pm...the exact minute of her birth. Those are the moments that seem to help stop time for just a bit...those are the moments that make it all worthwhile.

Happy Birthday Cecilia!

Wow...What happened to October? (or...Gosh I'm late with the Halloween pics!)

Yes, the past week slipped by me quite quickly and I just wasn't able to sit down long enough at the computer and write up a post about our Halloween festivities.

But better late than never, right?

We had a great night and all of the grandparents got to see the kids this year in their costumes.
We stopped by Terry's dad's house on the way to my parents' house(we always do our trick-or-treating in their neighborhood).

Terry's dad really enjoyed seeing the kids.

Here's our little "Spiderman" with daddy. Definitely a rare shot of him actually wearing the mask.

And lovely "Batarina"(AKA Cecilia) looking quite the aloof pre-teen in this shot.

We struggled to get a good shot of the 3 of them together since Jude is quite the wiggle worm these days, but we finally got it to work...kind of. =)


From there it was off to Nana & Paw-Paw's for some candy mooching!

But first we had to get the mask on to complete the costume...


Uhhh...no.

Instantly trying to take it off!

So we gave up and got on to the good stuff...CANDY!!
(My dad holding Jude and though hard to see, my mom is in the back wearing the green boa witch's hat)

"Too-cool-for-you" Cecilia getting the goodies... (but isn't she cute?!)

Here, finally, is a nice shot of her....beautiful smile and all. =)

(not sure where her wings are hiding though!)

Being the first Halloween where Jude could somewhat interact in the trick-or-treating, I made sure to get some of the "door" shots.

And a priceless Terry smile...rare to see one this big on his face, for sure!!

And though the boys (Terry & Jude) cut out a little early because of the chilly air and persistant mosquitos, all in all, it was a good night.

We managed to finally get a good shot of the two kids together just before heading home. Of course it took a couple of boxes of Nerds in hand to prod the little one into sitting still for 2 secs.

I do have to add my reason for being so far behind on posting these pics.

I have been extremely busy these past few weeks making "potato bags" for my first craft fair!

For anyone who doesn't know, I make these amazing bags that allow you to make perfect baked potatoes in the microwave! How awesome is it that you don't have to heat up your oven (AND kitchen) and wait an hour or more for a delicious potato?? What's even cooler is that the bag is just the right size for warming up tortillas and keeping them hot on the table! It actually reheats any kind of bread nicely that a microwave would typically dry out. Things come out so moist with this bag.

ANYWAY, didn't mean to go on like a commercial, but I'm super excited about these bags that I am making and I did really well yesterday at the craft fair. My friend Astrid and I shared the booth (she makes precious bows, tutus, and diaper cakes) and we both really enjoyed the time to be our own people for the day. Both of our husbands did beautiful (and much appreciated) jobs of caring for the kiddos so that we could jump feet first into our first craft fair event. Things went so well that we are already signed up for another fair in December!

So I have a day or two to breathe for now, but I will VERY soon be having to get a jump on making more bags.

Oh...one last thing...in little more than a day's time my little girl will be 11 years old...

....where does time go?

Have a beautiful and blessed week!

Zoo Boo!

Saturday was absolutely the most gorgeous day ever. Anyone who has lived in Houston for much time at all knows that days like these don't come very often and what makes it worse is that they don't last very long. It truly was a remarkably beautiful day. Highs in the low to mid 70's, relatively low humidity and a nice cool breeze.

But what made this day even better was that we had already planned a trip to the Houston Zoo. And if you have ever spent a day at the zoo, you definitely will be wanting a good weather day for it. Well everything was aligned just perfectly and we had a fabulous day.

This was the first weekend of the Houston Zoo's halloween celebration called "Zoo Boo". There were lots of little kids wearing their costumes, but our kiddos just wore their halloween t-shirts. They were handing out candy to the kids and had little pumpkins that they could pick out and decorate. So much fun!

This was also Jude's FIRST visit to the zoo amazingly enough. See, my mom has been a volunteer at the zoo for almost 25 years. I spent a good chunk of my childhood there...went to "zoo school" and everything. Cecilia went to the zoo for the first time when she was just a few months old. So for Jude to have been alive for 16 months and never have visited the zoo is very odd. But it couldn't have worked out any better!

So here are LOTS of pictures from our day (fair warning). I so can't wait to take Jude again when he's a little older and can enjoy it even more.

We started our day with a ride on the train that circles Hermann Park.

Jude was already looking tired! (guess he shouldn't have woken up at 6:45 am!)

But Cecilia was looking bright and ready to go as usual!

My dad took this photo of us with my mom


My parents with Cecilia



Took this shot of the Sam Houston statue during the train ride


Crossing the pond. You can see the entrance (flat silver thing) to the zoo in the distance.



After the train ride, Jude took a pic by the engine.
He loved the train whistle. He was choo choo-ing the whole time

Once inside the zoo we checked out the aquarium.

This was Jude's favorite part. Some of the fish made him laugh.

He really liked these jellyfish too

This was a neat tunnel that the kids could crawl through.

The surrounding tank is full of piranhas!

Another scary zoo creature....a vampire bat!!

Here is Jude showing us his giraffe impersonation

(you can kind of see the baby giraffes laying down in the background)

I thought it was so amazing how tall this giraffe was.

You can see my mom's reflection in the glass and compare their heights.

This baby elephant was swaying back and forth.

Here are the kids picking out their pumpkins.

Jude was very particular about which one he wanted.

Great pic of the kids with some pumpkins

Cecilia decorating her pumpkin

Jude was not wanting to let go of his pumpkin at all!

I finally got it long enough to draw a face on it

The kids then got to ride on the huge carousel.

This was also Jude's first time on one.

We saw a beautiful bald eagle...

...and then pretended to be birds while sitting in a mock eagle's nest. =)

This is the only time that Cecilia will ever be turtle-like...that girl is always on the go.

Even though Jude wasn't nearly as impressed by the goats as I thought he would be, he did take a moment to brush this one with Sissy.

So afterwards, everyone was completely worn out, but it was so worth it! Such a happy and satisfying day!

I found it quite funny that even though I had come down with a fever Friday, for the most part I felt fine all day Saturday (with the help of some acetaminophen).

Of course, I paid for it on Sunday as I was completely drained and back to fighting the fever.

I am feeling a bit better today though and hope to be back to normal soon enough!

Have a wonderful week!

5 years ago today...

Terry's Birthday

My sweet husband celebrated his 38th birthday yesterday.

When I asked him if he felt like he was only 2 years away from 40, his answer was a definite NO.

Although I am 4 years younger than him, I have never "felt" the distance in our ages...even when we first dated and I was 19 and he was 23. And neither one of us feel like we're hiking up that hill of our 30's now. But like I always say, age is just a number.

But it is always good to do something fun for your birthday and though we didn't have any major festivities planned for his birthday, he did take a few days off of work, so we took a little trip to the park yesterday morning.

Terry has been into all things skateboarding since forever. He wears skateboard shirts any time he's not working and only owns Vans skateboard shoes (he has 13 different pairs...more shoes than I own!!). He hasn't skated much at all in the past few years since he is now a "grown-up" and has to worry about more important things like work and such. There is little time left each day for him to do the things he loves like skateboarding.

Fortunately for us, there is a nice little park not too far away that has a great skatepark. It has 2 large concrete bowls and some ramps and rails. We went by there once, but it was still under construction. So yesterday was his chance since most of the "kids" that would crowd the place normally were all in school.

But first things first...we had to take little Jude to the playground there at the park.

He got a few pushes from daddy on the swing...

Walked across the squeaky bridge...

Slid down the slide...

Rode the rocking seahorse...

and drove the train.

Then it was daddy's turn to play!

So Jude took a break from the stifling humidity to watch daddy.

Terry had to get all geared up for his first time in a concrete bowl. This was definitely something he had looked forward to for a long time.

And off he went!!

We had a little intermission when his shoelace broke...

But then he was back at it!

Jude liked when Terry would ride up and wave at him.

Jude would laugh so hard.

I was so proud of him. It's not easy to be out of practice with your skateboarding and then just hop into something challenging like a concrete bowl. Terry had a few little spills, but overall did so great. He really enjoyed himself. And he really deserves the time he got to do something he loves.

To my sweet "old" man...may you always be young at heart.

Happy Birthday Terry!!!

Love you!

This is how it works...

This is how it works
You're young until you're not
You love until you don't
You try until you can't

You laugh until you cry
You cry until you laugh
And everyone must breathe
Until their dying breath

No, this is how it works
You peer inside yourself
You take the things you like
And try to love the things you took

And then you take that love you made
And stick it into some
Someone else's heart
Pumping someone else's blood

And walking arm in arm
You hope it don't get harmed
But even if it does
You'll just do it all again

(Excerpt from "On the Radio" by Regina Spektor)