Wake Up. Explore. Repeat.

The weather has been absolutely agreeing with summer this whole week, and have been keeping our days low key lately. The past two days has consisted of somewhat doing the same routine which in all honesty is okay! Sure it's nice to be able to get away and venture to unknown territory, but sometimes cruising along highway130, and finding various parks you can venture out to can be quite the adventure. Which is why I am happy to have found Noah a t-shirt that reads "wake up. explore. repeat." Every time he wears it I am reminded that it's okay for us to repeat the same things especially during the summertime. 

selflessness is the key to my happiness.

Didn't I warn ya about being prepared to see more posts like this? This weather has been too good to be true, and because of the things that I posted about motherhood the other day with time passing by us way too quickly, I want to take the time to enjoy the small and simple things...especially with this little guy.

Going on walks, taking Noah to the park, visiting my sisters from the church to share a spiritual message really puts my mind at ease. It reminds me to be selfless, and it helps make me look at our life at this very moment in a different perspective. I am thankful. I feel fulfilled. I feel loved. I have hope, and I am blessed no matter what. My decision in putting other peoples needs before my own has always been a key to my happiness...especially in times of stress.  I want to thrive on happiness. I want to seek the happiness in every direction whether it's good or bad. I want to be a good example to every person I meet, because first impressions are always important. I find that when I see life's beautiful things such as blue skies, birds humming, seeing my neighbors daffodils pop up renews the spirit in which abides with me, and is a sign from above telling me that all will be well. 

Being a trio at the park the other day without a worry in the world helped us forget about life's stresses for that moment. Instead of having Jon doing all the 'rough' running around with Noah I wanted to have a piece of that action. I decided to cross the monkey bars with Noah on my back. Noah was a bit hesitant to get on. I don't think he trusted me to hold him the way daddy does. I was patient, and waited for Noah to carefully get on my back, but to no avail. Two words...epic fail. My hands felt so weak as he tried to get on. He ended up trying to save me from letting go & falling. Here I am hanging on to these monkey bars for dear life as if it was the last thing on earth to do! All along I was saying to  myself, "I can do this, I'm not out of shape!" I eventually let go. Afterwards Noah kept asking me if I was okay. He was so serious, and caring about the whole thing that he kept asking me that for ten minutes! Laughing and putting all my energy on this family of mine is what keeps me going. 

^^^ Mandatory caption: The look on Noah's face is priceless. ^^^

I observe at the way Jon looks at our life, and he is at peace. He looks at the kids with love, and his heart is filled with gratitude. I am reminded of this quote from President Uchtdor from general conference recently, "Gratitude is a disposition, a way of life that stands independent of our current situation." That quote is so fitting for our life right now. So grateful that Jon has a great attitude towards negativity, and has a unique built for strength when it comes to trials. He's not perfect, but he sure knows his limits of frustration. He doesn't take it out on us. He cooks & will read instead.

One thing for sure life is always better when affection is given. These two are the only men in my mortal life, and once again we are taking advantage of our afternoons enjoying this lovely spring weather...just the three of us.  

Yup...no matter what life throws at us, life is pretty darn good! 

Hope your life is too! Have a great weekend! 

a good brisk walk.

Be prepared because you might be seeing a lot of outdoor posts with this little guy. Life Lately with Noah has been too much fun. He's so petite for his age, innocent, and although I wish he would stay at this age forever...it's inevitable. He has to grow up. If only I can bottle up his sweet voice forever. Luckily I have voice mail recordings of his voice that I've saved on my computer. The things he has been saying lately have been corny, funny, and sometimes unbelievable. I call them Noah's euphemisms. He's so sweet, and never has anything bad to say about anyone. If he does he'll say it in a pleasant form. The other day I woke woke up with my hair looking like Tina Turner, and he said, "Mommy, your hair looks backwards." I couldn't help but to laugh. There are days when Chelsea will be playing with my hair, and he'll say to her, "Stop playing with mommy's hair...it's not a toy." 

Sometimes I wonder where he picks up these things, but then again those sayings are his words. Having two older sisters in the home who are too smart for their own good does help him mature faster, and then there's a thing called television. 

I have been very careful as to which PG movies he should watch. Sometimes they may be a little to mature for him. Exposing him to Polar Express, and Lion King at age two wasn't too bad, but now that he's four he seems to be getting the meaning behind the plot of certain Disney movies. It makes me happy that he does because we can both watch them together, and have a discussion afterwards. Sometimes we'll even sing along, and dance to them. Besides Frozen, & Dispicable Me 2 his favorite as of late has been Mary Poppins. He loves dancing like Dick Van Dyke especially when he starts singing "Let's go fly a Kite." The first time Noah watched that he said, "I can't...I don't have a kite." Made me feel a bit guilty because we don't own any kites. He's so animated when he sings along with it, and I'm so glad that he watches that more than Frozen. Frozen is such a girl movie (although he does like Olaf.) 

Luckily we don't watch too much television, and on sunny days like this he prefers to go to the park instead. Oh my gosh...we could have been there for hours and hours yesterday. He doesn't care how nippy this spring weather may be. I know being cooped up in the house during a long winter accumulated a ton of wiggles, and now that the weather is better it was time to get them all out...and he did just that.

Being that we went after school Chelsea came along too. Sometimes I wonder if the five year gap helped these two in age, but i know in the end it will. It sure does when they're outdoors. They may bicker, tease, provoke, and push each other around, but at the end of the day they love each other. Hugs are reciprocated, and apologies are taken place in hopes that it will never happen again. Yeah right. I just hope that the older they get the better their patience gets. I love them both, and lucky for me I get to play the referee for these two.

Memories of the girls being toddler age are pretty vivid, but there are moments when I feel I have "forgotten" certain events that have taken place in their life. Luckily I have their moments scrapbooked and journaled, but the fact that I have ONE boy especially at my age (not that I'm old) makes me appreciate every single second of his life. I never want to take any of our days for granted, and am treasuring every moment, every euphemism that comes out of his mouth, and every thing that happens in between. 

Life is wonderful! 

a playground mom

I have never really experienced having a backyard, and neither have our kids, and you know what...we don't mind.

For the past 18 years of our married life we have always lived in apartments except for the past five years. The house we've been living in New Jersey has been no different from apartment living because our backyard is literally like the size of a patio. There are some areas in Jersey where the houses are almost touching each other. You can look outside your kitchen window, and say hi to your neighbor without shouting. That is how close my neighbor and I are.