Gavin

Gavin came down from his "nap" while I was writing the post below. He mentioned about how there "sure are a lot of pictures of Justin." I explained to him that was because he doesn't let me take pictures of him. He always looks away and runs from the camera. Justin is easier to catch, but not by much. Soooo, just now I asked him if he wanted me to take a couple of pictures and he was excited, but only if I posted them here. It took a few before I could get him to smile, but I posted all of them, just for him...

P.S. After I loaded the pictures I saw that they posted exactly backwards from how I took them, and he is too ansty to let me fix it.

Look Mom, It's Sunny Outside!

Yup, it was sunny today. It was only 45 degrees, but it was still sunny. What a welcome change! We headed out and the boys naturally wanted to play in a puddle in front of the house. I got both of them in their rain boots and let them go. Justin was in the boots for the first time so he took a few minutes to get used to them. They are a size too big, but he did fine (they're a hand-me-down from Gavin). Gavin wanted his pants outside of his boots, so they got pretty wet and muddy. Oh well, they had fun. When we came in Justin was wet all the way to his diaper and he was pretty dern cold. After I cleaned him up, I put some jammies one since he was going to bed soon after. Gavin thought that looked good, so he too put some jammies on. I think he's still wearing them.

The men in my life

Last night there were 3 jackets sitting on the couch after an evening out and about. I set them all together. Carhart, Spider Man and a Lego vest...

Funny thought

Okay, okay, I know. It's been a long time. I figure no one is even reading this because they've given up on me. Anyway, I just had this thought and it made me chuckle.

I was up in our room putting some laundry away and thought that I wanted to do some extra picking up. I didn't want to do it just then because Justin was sleeping (right next to our room) and Gavin would be coming out of his room in 20 min. When he comes out, he is loud and excited so if he found me in my room, it would probably wake up Justin. Soooo, I thought to myself, "I'd love to come up here and pick up. Maybe when Cole gets home I'll be able to do it for free."

For free? That must be my subconscious way of viewing a chore (or anything really) that I can do without the kids around. Funny.

And since it's been so long, I thought I'd include a couple of pictures. Justin had my rain boots on yesterday and did a great job walking in them. The other 2 are from in the truck while we were waiting for the ferry to go home from visiting my brother.

God is in control

I'm sitting here watching Grey's Anatomy and a mother is facing letting her child die. Of course I'm crying because I think of my own precious boys and can't even imagine how it would feel to face their death. I was quickly reminded that my step-dad had to see his son die very tragically 14 1/2 years ago, and a friend of mine delivered a baby that had already died just a year ago. There have been so many deaths since then, but those two stood out to me just now. I am so blessed by my beautiful boys that I am afraid to even think about what could ever happen to them. I have to continue to enjoy them each day because God has a plan and loves them even more than I do.
Anyway, I just had to try and express my love for my boys, but that seems impossible. It is overwhelming how I feel when I think about them.
By the way, my friend who lost her baby last year... I just brought her dinner because she has a very new little boy. God has a plan. We don't always understand it or like it, but He is in control.

By Your Side

One of my friends from high school posted this video of a song on her facebook page that I currently like. It's called "By Your Side" by Tenth Aveenue North. Whenever I hear the song I stop what I'm doing, close my eyes (no, not when I'm driving), and picture myself with God. In the chorus it says "I'll be by your side... In the dead of night whenever you call". I think of literally the middle of the night when I'm at work and how God is there with me. It also says "Please don't fight these hands that are holding you. My hands are holding you." I picture myself in the embrace of 2 big strong arms struggling against them, and then I surrender to the love and am forever protected. I really enjoy the words of the song and find that it speaks to me, right where I am.

Madness

For those of you that read my blog from time to time, you know that I like to give you background info to help round out the story. For those that are new, hang with me...

First, a quick rundown of our neighborhood. There are 7 houses, and 6 are occupied. We've become really close as a neighborhood. Part of it is that we have similar professions. I'm a nurse. We have a neighbor who is a police officer with a drug dog, one who is a detective, one who is in immigration, and one who works for the department of corrections. In the 6th house lives a convicted felon/drug dealer. Hmmmm, interesting combo. The drug dealer is named Sean and he doesn't cause too much trouble overall. He knows he is being watched. He doesn't do the dealing himself technically. The word is that he drives, and his girlfriend does the rest. A minor technicality. Overall, it is his friends and acquaintances that we worry about, not really him. The lady who works for the dept of corrections just happens to work in the same office as Sean's parole officer. Funny.

I worked last night. I left at 7:30pm as usual and noted that there was a sheriff driving by our road slowly with his spotlight. When I got home this morning at 8am, there was an unmarked police car sitting in the driveway across from our street, like he was clocking people. He was still there when I left to take Gavin to preschool at 9. I waved like any innocent person should :-) He was gone at 12:15 when we got home. I got the kids to bed by 1:15 and headed for a nap myself at 1:45. I had to get up and encourage Gavin to get in to bed so he would fall asleep and I would get more than 2 hours of sleep (I had been up for 30 after all). He is allowed to come out when there is a "3 in the front" on his clock, but I try really hard to get him to sleep on the days following my night shifts. At 2:05 I heard something loud and obnoxious through the window. I realized what it was and tore downstairs to look. Sure enough, it was what looked like the SWAT team at Sean's house. Great. There goes my sleep. They kept calling towards Sean's house to have anyone come out. Everyone did, but they were very cautious still. They apparently didn't believe that the 4 people on their knees with their hands on their heads were the only ones in the house. They headed in to the house with their (huge) rifles drawn and big shield in front of them. Oh geeze, this can't be good.

By this time my mom had come over from sleeping in her trailer (she had also worked last night) and Gavin had come downstairs. Before coming downstairs he stopped at the top and said that there were police with guns outside. Nice. He was worried that Sean was hurt. I explained that no one was hurt and that they were there to make sure everyone was safe. Seriously, how do you explain the SWAT team in your neighborhood to your sweet innocent 3 1/2 year old. I am still enforcing with him that police are there to help us, not catch us when we do wrong. Thankfully Gavin really likes our police officer neighbor and his drug dog Hunter. In fact, we routinely watch Hunter when his owner is out of town, so I think Gavin has a good positive exposure to police officers.

That reminds me of something. One of the girls who came out of the house was holding a baby. This whole police invasion was very exciting, but there are very sad points too.

Overall there was a bunch of hullabaloo and no one was arrested. They did their thing and searched the house top to bottom. They even got a ladder from the top of the police truck to (I'm assuming) search the attic. I wish they had found something to get Sean, but they were looking for his brother and he must have gotten away. It seems that the house was clean, but I'm sure this won't be the last time.

We live in a great neighborhood. We are all professionals. We respect others. We take care of our yards. We work hard to provide good lives for the ones we love. We watch out for each other. I guess things can't always be perfect. It is Granite Falls after all.

(About the pictures, they are in reverse order and I'm too tired to fix it now. The one with the black and white police car in it was an officer posted in our neighbor's driveway. That car was not involved. It lives there-not at Sean's)