Blessed

Do you ever feel like you are just too blessed? Does that sound silly? Lately I have been feeling extremely blessed. It is not always easy to care for one very emotional boy, one very strong willed boy and one crazy little monkey/toddler but I still feel so blessed that I get to be there for them. That I am the one raising them day in and day out. That this is my sole job. I have the privilege of molding these little ones. I finally have time to not only work on their behavior but I get to educate them too. I get to spend time daily teaching Benny his ABC's and he's progressing- at last he can recognize 4 letters! Baby steps, but progress none the less.

Every night I have Steven choose a book to read to me and it is amazing to see his growth as a reader:

I'm getting to teach Lucy her body parts and animal sounds. She does well with head, eyes and nose. Animal sounds, pretty much every animal roars but every once in awhile she will say "baaa" for a sheep.So though her progress is slow, the beautiful thing is I have all the time in the world to teach her:

In addition to the blessing of being home with kids, I also have the blessing of having a husband in the evenings. After 8 years of hardly every seeing him, I get him all the time now and it makes my job so much easier. The other night I got to sit on the porch and watch him chase the kids around with a Nerf sword.  In the evenings it used to be me having to reluctantly chase them around or I wouldn't and then they would be grumpy. But now I have a husband who is home, now I get to sit back and watch them giggle. It's really a rather a beautiful thing. 

And then there is the blessing of living in this beautiful place. Do I miss my family? Absolutely. But at the same time I am loving the beauty of here. I know the trees are still leafless and the ground is still muddy and brown but coming from a place that lacks water and trees, I can see the beauty that will come and I am so excited for the weather to improve so that we can enjoy this beauty more frequently. Literally just down the street here's a river:

Then there's the park just an extremely short drive away (that of course I didn't take pictures of) that is surrounded by trees, has a river with a bridge behind it and to the side of it a huge lake with lots of ducks. AND in addition to all that nearby greatness, about 10 minutes away we have a farm that we can visit anytime for free:

And as though those aren't enough blessings, I am having a girl! I will have a perfectly even family just like I wanted. Here is my baby girl at 19 weeks (I took this a week ago):     

So yes, I am blessed. I think, even a little bit too much so right now. And I am feeling so grateful. I think when you experience the bad, it truly does help you appreciate the good SO much more. I have experienced being a working mom, I have experienced hardly seeing my husband and maybe not bad, but I have experienced living in a desert. And with those experiences, I feel like I appreciate so much more my life that I have now.

And to end things on a non reflective, totally light hearted note, Steven lost another tooth this week. It was getting really wobbly and would you believe that he actually asked his daddy to pull it out!? Yes he still cried but there was a lot less emotionalness this time: