a beautiful week

Oh so frustrating when you write a whole post, and it gets deleted accidently! Grr…so here goes round #2!

So yesterday was Sunday, and Sundays are always a day of great reflection from the week past and the week ahead for me. But this past week seemed to be particularly packed with sweet things that were coming my way making me overflow with thankfulness!  Its not always that I view things with a thankful heart, many times my heart can be full of discontentment…but I think a gift of this week was to have eyes that saw beauty and good around me. 

One day this past week I was in awe of the simplicity of watching my two boys sitting in the playroom playing, I was overcome by tear after tear as I watched each of their personalities in their play. And the beauty that it is to watch your children develop into the little personalities they will one day have….Knowing that it is such a privilege to have these two boys! Knowing that some people don’t even get the opportunity to observe these simple things in life because there is no child in their lives, but I am blessed with two beautiful boys.

Another time I opened my fridge and just stood and stared and appreciated that it was full, and there were so many times when I didn’t even think twice about having a full fridge! But since our eyes have been opened after going through financial peace with Dave Ramsey, and being diligent with our budget wheew, it sure opens our eyes to think about what we have, and what we have to wait for!!

This week was somewhat low key as in we didn’t have a whole lot going on, but it left me feeling thankful for the little things that make such a difference in our lives….

Here are a few examples:

Thankful for “Gram” and Aunt Grace, who take time to be with my boys, and are in our same neighborhood which is a big help in my life. Levi loves drawing, coloring and painting at my moms house which is so perfect for him because they are such patient things and I know that will go with him for a long time. He loves playing the piano, and is so amazing how he keeps a rhythm with his singing and only plays one finger at a time. He also likes to identify a piano when he hears it in a song =) And for the record, we are extremely blessed with amazing family on both sides of our family who care about us and support us so much! We are really lucky, and I hate to think what life would be like if we were doing this journey alone!!!

This week we also tested out the Splash Pad at the YMCA, which for one is pretty fun that we have access to that! But also this was something I was a little nervous to test out due to the idea of concrete and Levi’s knees not being a good mix…But I figured it out, and got him all padded up.               

         When we go somewhere with both boys I feel like it looks like this:

I’vegot the walker, and the stroller and a baby strapped to me, and a big tote with towels…quite something!! But I make it work! =)  So the splash pad was a hit! Levi could walk through the sprinklers in his walker and we had lots of fun just sitting and splashing too! But it was one of the funniest things to me, because one little girl kept being very fascinated with Levi, and was asking about his braces and walker, she was following us everywhere! If we didn’t bring the walker with us, she brought it to us! So then she was like “um, can it be my turn to use the walker? I haven’t ever gotten to try it before!!” and I said, “oh honey he needs it to walk right now!” and she says “but he needs to share it because I have never gotten a turn yet!” . Hahaha, so I thought, well what the heck, I mean she really wants to, and its probably good for her not to be afraid of it, and its good for Levi to see someone else BEG for his walker..So she took it around for a bit hahaha!  My friend was getting a kick out of how much I attracted all the kids around me while I was there helping Levi. Most of the moms are relaxing, which sounds fantastic…but we brought quite a crowd around us haha! 2 little boys were like “OH! Whats wrong with him?” so I explained he needs his braces to help his legs be stronger, and the walker helps him to walk faster  isn’t that cool? They were like “oh, yeah! AND YOU SHOULD PROBABLY PRAY TO GOD TO HELP HIM GET BETTER TOO!” and I said, oh yes we sure do, and you can pray for him to get better too, that really does help! He was like “ OH. You already know about God? Well, you don’t want to pray to the Devil, only God” .  And we had other cute conversations for a long time haha.

Then I have been just looking at both boys and noticing how both boys are just getting so big!!! Lennox never seemed tiny; he just got big right away! And now he is already 8 months old, and as I looked over into the playroom he was proudly standing up =) He is such an active little boy, I am thankful for how easy it is for him to do things. Although its bittersweet when I watch him just easily do things like get himself into crawling position when we had to work at that simple transitional move over, and over with Levi.  One of the amazing things that Lennox brings to our home is constant motivation for Levi, and we are going to keep praying that is the case! We are working with Levi on cheering on Lennox top as he continues to impress us every day with his abilities, and we hope to teach both boys how to be thankful for that gift!

New freedoms come in our house when one of the boys can do new things….So this week Lennox no longer needs help sitting in the bath tub, although you better believe he is all over the bath tub but on purpose…We always are “wrestling and alligator” with that one =)  Also Lennox can sit in a highchair and eat finger food next to Levi, so that is like “HALLELUJIA!”  I am pretty sure that as soon as this little one gets moving, our house is gonna get a little crazier hahah!

I’m also thankful for sharing my journey with this handsome man. We never knew what life would be like for us as parent, but he has been an amazing husband and daddy to his two boys. He strives to be a good example for them, and always cares about teaching a Godly character to his young boys who will someday be men! Levi calls Mike “big giant”, and when Levi wakes up in the morning he says “HI BIG GIANT! I LOVE YOU BIG GIANT!” hahah, and Lennox only calms down for Mike, and when he comes near him he about leaps out of my arms to be with him or catch his eye =)

We are also lucky to have a daddy in our home that is an engineer! This weekend, Mike made a few  new things for Levi! He got a set of parallel bars and a new flotation device like the one Levi uses at the therapy pool! So mike was able to figure them out and make them right away =) Levi has trouble with regular flotation devices, even on life jackets because of his low muscle tone in his legs, they just float right up causing him to always have his face in the water in a floatie…So that is always our mission to find the best way to help him swim…we may look in to leg weights too to weigh him down a little.

So the new things were quite a hit…the parallel bars gave a new motivation for walking, and he tried them out right away, and since then has really mastered them and knows how to turn around and walk back. This also helped us to be able to set the walker on a more challenging position as well which will ultimately help him walk on his own better!

We also made an adjustment to Levi’s bed this weekend helping him to get up and down out of bed. I had no idea this was such a great idea, but let me tell you this has caused hours of fun lately! He hadn’t been able to pull up to stand very well yet, or turn to sit, and this caused him to MASTER it!  So he is very proud of climbing up his “wall” as he calls it..and he says “mom, I’m humpty dumpty, can I sit on my wall?” hhaha um??? I don’t know where that came from, but very cute!  So he gets all silly with his new trick, and becomes very brave while he is goofing off!  But this helped him be able to walk in his walker to the bathroom stool, and pull himself up onto the stool to brush his teeth! So that is really cool!! 

The other day he also wanted to get in the tub so bad he pulled to stand without his braces on (EEEEK) and actually stood for a while!! But he is learning he needs those braces, and starts to cry when we have to take them off for the day! I am so glad this has become such a source of fun for him!

Well thank you all for your prayers lately, this is the longest post EVER, but I have been just overwhelmed by the beauty of little milestones at our house! It gives me chills to think what will be a month from now!!

We have so much to be thankful for every single day…Its so easy to get caught up in seeing sadness and all the trouble around us, but when we take a minute and look around at how blessed we really are, I find myself overwhelmed by the goodness of the Lord in our lives, who has given to us abundantly!