Catch Up.

By far the most awesome news I have is that Hayes sleeps through the night. I almost don't want to type it for fear of jinxing it, but it's such an answer to prayer that I wouldn't feel right not telling people. I prayed daily through my pregnancy for this baby to SLEEP. And he has!! Hayes is such an easygoing little guy. The only time we run into trouble is if we're out and about and he can't fall asleep but other than that he is just as chill as he can be. He is such a little joy. I'm just so thankful for that sweet little person.

I was trying to get some pictures of  he and Tom together but for some reason we got the giggles and just couldn't function. It's a credit to Hayes that he slept through all of the noise.

Mother's Day happened. We went to church and I got a nap and a run. Score. Also, Tom found a very appropriate card for me that I'll pull it out if I ever get baby fever again. Or I'll just read my blog entries about morning sickness.

Ha! I really wanted a picture of me with my three little guys and it turned into a fiasco. I should know better but I continually expect my people to happily stand still for a second.

It is just SO fitting that Walker is a blur, Harris has a spiderman mask, and I'm jamming Hayes' pacifier in so he can't spit it across the room. That is Mother's Day 2012 in all its glory.

We're getting braver about going places, though. The last two Sundays we've gone out to eat after church and it's gone fairly well. Being on the go for 3+ hours with 3 kids 4 and under is an accomplishment for us. We also went to Morgan's Wonderland and it is fabulous! San Antonio people, you should go. It's clean, it's fun, and it's easy to let your kids roam without fear of losing them. It's just the right size. And an added bonus is they give you little wristbands with tracking devices in them if you did get separated from your wandering two year old. They thought of everything!

Walker is such an adventuresome person. He mastered this pretty quickly.

Harris the engineer was all over this. I think he could have messed with the water thing all day.

The train ride was a hit. Again, just the right size. This park is really made for special needs children and their families but it's great for young kids. And it's good for my kids to be around kids that aren't just like them.

We were in Target the other day and Harris asked me for an Angry Birds shirt. There is absolutely no way I'm buying him that, so I told him if he wanted it he would have to earn the money himself. He's pretty motivated and is asking daily for chores to do. I'm really surprised that he's sticking with it but he knows exactly how many more chores he has to do to get to his goal. All I can think of for him to do, that he can do well, is hang up the cloth diapers, unload the kid dishes from the dishwasher, and put away his and Walker's laundry that I fold. Suggestions for anything else? I want to give him things to do that I don't have to follow behind and fix.

And people that didn't know I was using cloth diapers, don't get grossed out. They're awesome and pretty easy. They go on just like a disposable and we put a liner in there so you just dump the whole mess in the toilet if it's dirty. There are no diaper pins or rinsing them in the toilet. I'm addicted. It's more laundry but in some ways it helps because I was pretty bad about forgetting to check the laundry. I would have to re-wash things fairly regulalry because I would forget a load was in there. This helps me stay on top of it because we have to have diapers. It's even better that I have a motivated little helper now.

San Antonio people, someone needs to explain to me exactly what Fiesta is. There are lots of parties, events, and parades, but I really don't understand what it's about. I know it's a school holiday but beyond that it gets hazy. I think every school has some event to commemorate it, though. Harris' school did a cute little carnival. I realized midway through that we haven't exposed our kids to much South Texas culture because he had no idea what to do with a cascarone and wouldn't listen to what I was telling him. If you don't know, it's an egg shell filled with confetti and you're supposed to bust it on someone's head. Yes, you read that right. I kept telling him that and he refused to do it and got upset when someone tried to do it to him. He just threw them on the ground and stomped on them. Whatever.

Here we are at our first Fiesta event. Six years in SA and the first Fiesta party is a pre-school carnival. My early 20's self would be very disappointed in my 32 year old self.

One thing I've been trying to do is get 1:1 time with each little guy. Walker and I went to La Cantera to the playground and Marble Slab the other day. I was so proud of how he listened and did what I asked of him. I repeated myself probably 10 times, "You're going to HOLD MY HAND while we walk, we're going to a store FIRST, then the park. Store FIRST, holding my hand, then the park." Literally, I said it 10 times if I said it once.  But he did it all without complaint. For him, that is huge. Huuuuuuge. We had to swing by Stride Rite to exchange some shoes Harris had. The stitching came undone, leaving a gap in the top part, even though the shoes weren't at all worn out so I thought they might exchange them. Sweet, they did! Their customer service is really great. They didn't question it at all, just apologized and gave me a new pair. I'm a fan of that store.

With that being said about Walker, I was listening to a sermon the other day on leadership. I would like to think I'm a leader at our house (during the day) but often I don't feel that way at all. The point the speaker was making is that our leadership should be modeled after Christ and he gave up his position of power and authority to come down to our level. What that means for my day to day life is that I can't hold so tightly to my adulthood and all the privileges that come with it. If I want to lead toddlers, I'm going to have to get in the toddler trenches and show them exactly how to progress. It is so much more effective when I reiterate with Walker 900 times what I want him to do. The problem I run into is that I'm a nursing mother of 3 young boys and I often don't have the capacity to put everything down, look in his eyes, and repeat myself.  But that's what he needs and what he responds to, so that's what needs to be done. Just recognizing that this has been modeled for me successfully and shown for a purpose helps me focus my energy in this direction. It's easy to be exasperated when he doesn't obey when I bark an order from across the room but seeing what Christ's leadership looks like shows me the error is mine. Jesus didn't sternly issue directives from the throne. That wouldn't have done any good. When I'm beating my head against the wall, I really need to remember this.

If you're interested, here's the scripture that was referenced. Phil 2:6-8

In your relationships with one another, have the same mindset as Christ Jesus:

 

⁶ Who, being in very nature^[a] God,
did not consider equality with God something to be used to his own advantage;
⁷ rather, he made himself nothing
by taking the very nature^[b] of a servant,
being made in human likeness.
⁸ And being found in appearance as a man,
he humbled himself
by becoming obedient to death —
even death on a cross! 

Since Hayes has been born, I haven't consistently been reading my Bible. And it's taking a toll. My temper has been so short and I've been quick to find fault in others, which is ALWAYS a sign that I'm not in the Word enough. I pray every day but for me, my attitude is greatly affected by time reading the Bible. So my goal this summer is to re-establish a routine of daily devotionals. I miss it and my family probably misses me doing it too.  

Looking forward to a summer of getting back into old habits and figuring out exactly how things work with a 3rd little Goolsby around. We're taking this whole crew camping this week so nothing like trial by fire!

I appeal to you therefore, brothers, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, which is your spiritual worship. 2 Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewal of your mind, that by testing you may discern what is the will of God, what is good and acceptable and perfect.   

Romans 12:1-2

Roadtrip!

We took our circus on the road a couple of weeks ago and went to visit family and friends in Houston. I think this was the first time we'd ever stayed in a hotel with two kids, much less three. It was........an experience. They loved it and made themselves right at home.

However, at bedtime, we set poor Walker up for failure. He was overtired, slightly delirious, and has never slept out of his crib. We tossed him in bed with Harris and hoped for the best. It was, predictably, a disaster.
This was taken about 10:30. Their bedtime is 8 pm, sharp.

After bravely fighting the fight, Tom finally moved Walker to a crib. He normally goes to sleep just fine but since he'd tasted freedom, he didn't want to give it up. The poor thing finally dozed off sometime after midnight. They woke up at the crack of dawn and raided the breakfast buffet at our hotel NUMEROUS times. Then we took them to a park and lunch, where we stayed about an hour past their nap time. All 3 were screaming by the time we loaded up to head home. Not 5 minutes into the drive this is what we saw.

It was glorious.

We all had a fun trip. We spent time with Tom's side of the family and got to introduce Hayes around. Tom's great-aunt spent the morning at the park with us and VERY reluctantly allowed me to take a picture of her. I wanted one with all 3 kids but it was full-on meltdown mode by the time I tried to do it so only Hayes is in the picture. There's something nice about the immobile stage.

Doesn't she look beautiful?!?!?!?? So good to see "our Houston fam" as we call them. We also spent time with Tom's cousins but I didn't get a pic. They were nice enough to give up their Saturdays and go to Chik-fil-la to let our people run off some energy. We stayed till Walker started spinning in circles and looking extra loopy. One of Tom's cousins had a friend that lived in San Antonio for awhile and we met them on a "blind date." We ended up becoming great friends and have made lots of trips back and forth since they moved back to Houston a couple of years ago. We spent time with them, too. The kids ran around like crazy people.

Harris LOVES going to their house and has always been buddies with "Miss Aimee." She convinved him to walk into the ocean for the first time and talked him into the kiddie pool at Schlitterbahn. She also talked him into sleeping at their house even though there was a deer head mounted on the wall. Under pressure, she told him, "That's just Deerie, if you wake up in the middle of the night, just say, Hi Deerie!" He giggled and went to sleep, no big deal. Nicely done, Aimee.

Our two year olds get along well, thankfully.

Check out the dog in this pic. I think she likes bubbles even more than the kids do.

We tried to line the kiddos up on the swing to take a pic but only one was cooperating. Thanks, girlfriend!

Hayes did pretty well. He just goes wherever and rolls with it. He's getting so big! His favorite thing right now is what we call his "disco ball."

The thing in the middle lights up and plays music and he is mesmerized by it. He just lays under there wiggling around and never taking his eyes off of it. He's such a cute little guy!!

Even when he's upset, he is so darn cute!

I could just EAT. HIM. UP. That's a non-biased opinion, obviously.

So something scary but great happened to us a couple of weeks ago. It's too awesome of a story not to share. Tom was taking Harris to school and got in a car accident at a notoriously bad intersection. It totaled Tom's car but he and Harris were completely fine. The thing that made this so awesome is Harris' reaction. He's a somewhat timid, cautious, kid. He makes comments like, "That looks dangerous" and "I could get hurt doing that." The power went out a couple of nights ago and he's still talking about how he didn't like it and saying it was scary. So I fully expected him to be traumatized  by the accident and scared to get in the car. He wasn't one little bit. I went to pick them up and was asking him questions about it and asked if he was scared. He told me Jesus was in his heart and protected him. Every time I would come back to anything surrounding how he felt about the accident that's what he would tell me. Also, Tom got a text that same morning from a friend saying that Tom was on his heart that day and he'd been praying for him and were we ok. That has literally NEVER happened. I have no doubt that they were divinely protected. Every single thing surrounding this accident has been nothing short of incredible, really. Even the tow truck driver that came to get the car was a strong Christian and went beyond the call of duty to help us out. It was a very scary thing but it's been a good reminder to drive extra carefully and make sure kids are always buckled in car seats properly. And an even better reminder that the Lord is so faithful in all things. I'm so, so thankful.

Be strong and of good courage, do not fear nor be afraid of them; for the LORD your God, He is the One who goes with you. He will not leave you nor forsake you.
Deut: 31:6