A Faceplant Into Florida!

Sunday Night Hymns

If You're Bored Come to the Lester House

At any given moment, there may be:

                                          potty sessions going on:

Parties happening (Happy Birthday Melanie!! Glad we could finally celebrate with you!)

Walking lessons taking place (Brielle took her first steps last week)

Endless snuggle opportunities

Not just spunky

I tend to write and talk quite a bit about the semi-borderline stuff that Rhya does. It's entertaining and slightly funny and amazing what she can come up with. However,

this post is to talk about how much this mama loves her kiddos.

For some disturbing reason I had a dream last night that Brielle died. It kept replaying over and over...my heart goes out to every single parent who's lost a child. I cannot imagine. I know one thing- it sure helps me to not fret over the petty matters and soak up all of the precious moments.

All day today I kept thinking of that awful dream and then looking at my girls, realizing the power between our relationship. I kept noticing the little sweet things that they do without me hardly realizing:

- When Brielle was fussing I looked over to see Rhya trying to cheer her up by smiling as huge as she could!

- Brielle still thinks hair is an awesome pull toy and Rhya does SO WELL to put up with it. She'll just sit in pain and wait for me to untangle the mess.

- Rhya loves to give and receive goodbye hugs and kisses and will usually plant a huge kiss on the receiving one's cheek without being asked:

- Both girls are huge snugglebugs, much to our pleasure! Rhya usually offers up her bedside body pillow at tuck in time and says in a hopeful voice, "You can lay on my big pillow if you want!" (hoping for all she's worth that we'll lay next to her and sing soft songs). She loves to fall asleep next to Daddy in the 'big bed' and then have me move her when I crawl in.
Brielle usually starts out in her pack 'n play (umm who needs the crib in the next room? ha) and then joins us whenever she happens to wake up in the night. Sometimes it's midnight, other times it's later. She burrows in right between us and feels for us every now and then. It's so heartwarming and I do not care one bit that she sleeps with us. I just think of everything we'd be missing out on if we didn't have that snuggle time!

- The girls were playing on my lap tonight. Rhya was trying to make Brielle laugh so she kept lifting up her shirt so Brielle could poke her tummy. One time their heads bonked and Rhya's tooth smacked into Brielle's head. Brielle screamed for a minute and Rhya looked horrified as well as slightly guilty like she might get in trouble for being too rough. However, a minute later, after Brielle had calmed down, I looked over to see Rhya's lip bleeding. I asked if her lip hurt and she got this watery look in her eyes, like she was trying to hold back her own pain because she felt bad that she hurt Brielle, when, in fact Rhya was probably hurt worse. It was SO sweet. I wanted to cry for her.

SO. Moments come. Moments go. My goal this week is to APPRECIATE the sweet, small, passing moments. Stop and smell the flowers of childhood. It's a beautiful thing.