Time with the Little Ones

Those nine months that you are pregnant are the quickest & slowest of your whole life.  From that moment where you realize you are bringing new life into this world to the moment where you see that little face for the first time seem like an eternity apart. Those little butterflies that you get when you feel your baby move for the first time feel like they are never going to come. You just dream about the day when you will finally get to hold your baby in your arms and hear their little cries and see every nook and cranny on their perfect little bodies. However, those months come and go so fast. If you blink, I swear, you'll miss it.

Once you have kids you try to think about the things that you did before they came along but you just can't. You can't remember a time when they weren't around, weren't a part of your life. (which is perfectly fine with this mom)  Here is the first time that Hayley met her little brother Holden "Bubba"

A little piece of my heart breaks every time I have to drop Hayley and Holden off at my moms house. Don't get me wrong, I am SOO thankful that it is my mom who keeps them everyday (Chases mom too sometimes), but it drives me crazy that someone else gets to hang out with my kids all day! :) (I have visions of Holden taking his first step during the day over there all the time!) One of the BEST parts of being a teacher is having 3 months off during the year that I get to hang out with my babies. Those weeks over the summer are not worth trading for anything else. Plus all those holidays we get throughout the year as well. And of course the weekends, they take forever to arrive and go by far too quickly (just as kids do).
We have made a new routine of going to the gym on Saturday and Sunday mornings and it is a routine that Hayley has come to love. It's the first thing she asks about when she wakes up in the morning. But my favorite part of every day besides getting to wake them up, is putting them to bed. Hayley has her routine bath, book, song, bed. Holden likes to be part of this routine too (add a bottle in there though). Here is Holden holding himself up watching sissy get her nighttime bath.

He is crawling everywhere and getting into everything! He was crawling around Hayley's room the other night and tried to pull himself up on the wall and hit his nose, got a good little scratch. If you hold his hands, he will try to take steps. I can't believe how fast he is doing everything. I want time to freeze and keep him my baby boy. Until that becomes possible, I will continue to cherish all the little moments I get to spend with the two of them.

"Yes little one, I love you as the stars love you, constant and bright above you, giving you joy and peace and wonder. I love you as the stars love you, forever, and ever, and always"

xoxo