Goodnight Treebark Lane

Goodnight Treebark Lane
Goodnight cul-de-sac street
Goodnight my home of three years
And where I brought Andrew home for the first time
Goodnight 1960's bathroom and closets
Goodnight living room where we played crashtacular
Goodnight fun-filled backyard
And goodnight tree swing
Goodnight big island where Parker has run circles
And goodnight red rocking chairs on the front porch
Goodnight new, sweat equity front door
And goodnight creaky old floor
Goodnight big old deck for entertaining
And goodnight outdooor lights which were such a pain to get hanging
Goodnight to the house that experienced my first lesson at potty-training
And goodnight to the room where I rocked my kids to sleep
Goodnight neighbors
Goodnight replaced & upgraded underslab plumbing that was a big pain
And goodnight to all of the memories we had at Treebark Lane.

Today we said good-bye to a really great home.  We have so many fun-filled memories here, so much laughter, wrestling and love.  I know we're sending her off to a great couple, but it's still hard to say good-bye.  It was such a treasure we found in Oak Forest-- I'll always remember you house on Treebark Lane.

With Love,

Jessica

Andrew's 18-Month Update!

Oh, Andrew.  You’re a pistol.  You keep us on our toes!  It’s hard to believe you’re on the downhill to two.  How can it be?!  You have really grown these past six months—really turned into a toddler with a capital T.  Your personality is really starting to come out and you’re becoming a lot more vocal.  Watching and doing whatever Parker is doing is your jam.  You follow him around most everywhere.  If he’s on a scooter, you want to be on a scooter.  If he’s jumping on the trampoline, you want to be on a trampoline.  If he’s playing trucks, you’re right there with them.

You definitely seem to be more fearless—we play pretty rough and do lots of tackling and you’re not afraid to just dive off the furniture and tackle someone.  You trust that someone is always going to catch you.  That being said, you crash A LOT.  You are always tripping on something because our house is never clean and when you run, your head gets in front of you and you end up going down.  You’ve had a full on black eye and too many bruises and scrapes to count.  Most of them on your head and/or face it seems.  You go down hard.

Also, your temper.  We have to talk about that.  When you don’t get your way, you just will flat-line yourself out on the ground and slam your head down over and over.  It doesn’t matter if it’s concrete, wood floors, carpet, tile, etc.  You just slam yourself down and go to town with your head.  Mom’s a bit frightful of you becoming concussed, but we try to ignore it because I think you do it b/c we immediately pick you up and cuddle you.  So, basically, it works.  But, it looks like it hurts!  You also aren’t afraid to hit your brother back or take a swipe at him if he gets in your space (you go kid!).  That being said, throwing things is a problem for you.  You think its hilarious to throw anything and you’ll sit in the car and just throw goldfish around with a giant smile on your face.  I’ve had a few hit me while driving, no lie.  Future baseball player perhaps??

You give the best hugs—you run and launch yourself into the person.  I love this stage of the hugs.  You mean every bit of it.  You can also make kissing sounds with your lips, but don’t understand to kiss someone.  You also say mama, dada, vroom vroom (truck), woof woof (dog), wa wa (drink), and yeah.  So far, “no,” hasn’t entered into your vocabulary and it’s so cute because you nod your head yes and say “yeah” like everything is so exciting!  However, if you don’t like something, you’ll push it away, spit it out or flat out flail your arms around.  We get it.

You can wave “bye bye,” too.  Every night, we play in Parker’s room for a while after bath.  I will say, “Andrew, it’s time to go read and go night, night.”  And you’ll nod your head, say “yeah,” and then wave bye bye.  I’ll say, “give hugs Andrew” and you launch yourself into my arms for the best hug.  Then you grab hold of your dad’s hand and walk with him to your room where he reads you one to two books before dropping you off in your crib.  You cuddle up with about 6 animals like brother does and sleep soundly until about 8:30 on weekends (have I mentioned how lucky I am?!).

Brother keeps asking when you can sleep with him, so I know he’s excited to sleep with you one day.  Overall, you and brother have really started developing a relationship these past few months.  He loves you so much and you two can get into lots of trouble together.  But, I can tell the way he looks at you and says, “Come on, Andrew” that he loves you something fierce.  You guys coexist a lot better and play together more these days.  Pushing trucks around and playing chase are some of your favorites.  You have figured out how to do ready, set, go and you and brother will line up and race.  You also love the playground at the park and you guys race down the slide.  Fearless you are.

January and February were rough months around here—you were sick ALL THE TIME.  And you are a GRUMP when you are sick.  We have gotten you well and you’ve been such a joy these fast few months.  Your nose isn’t as runny and you’re a lot happier.  I’m hoping this summer season will be a healthy one! January/February almost killed me!

You also love to read books.  The “My First 100 Words” is probably your favorite.  You like to point to each picture and have one of us tell you what it is.  You also make animal sounds at the animals.  You will just grab a book and come plop yourself down in our lap for us to read to you.  It’s super cute.  You are also super into mom right now.  You want me to hold you a lot and I think some of it stems from that this is my busy season at work right now and sometimes I have to work late.  That seems to really bother you and make you cling to me more when I’m at home.  We try to make our weekends super fun and all about spending quality time together to help with this. 

We did a beach trip to Galveston a few weeks ago in March and it was just what we needed.  It really was the best weekend.  At first, you weren’t so impressed with the beach—wouldn’t take off your shoes and just wanted to be held.  But, you eventually got the hang of it and slowly started inching your way towards the waves.  And then, once you realized the water was a fun place to be, we couldn’t keep you out of it.  You and brother would run up and down the beach hopping in and out of the waves.  You also loved to push trucks around the sand.  Parker taught you to fill up a bucket with water and then climb into it which you thought was hilarious.  So, we did that a lot at the beach.  It was a great weekend, I hope I can remember it for a long, long time.  There was a lot of yes time and both you kids really, really enjoyed it. 

Easter also came and went and you did so great!  You were old enough to understand how to hunt Easter eggs and put them in your basket.  It was a great story of slow and steady win the race.  You also realized the yumminess of jelly beans.  You were obsessed with tracking down the jelly beans.  You also almost choked on a jelly bean.  You loved the cascarones (confetti eggs) and enjoyed smashing them with your feet (monkey see, monkey do with brother)

So, let’s see… At 18 months you:

•          You weigh just over 26lbs
•          Almost have all of your teeth—your four incisors have all broken the gums, but are not full size just yet.  They are taking their sweet time.  Then we have the two year molars which will come later.
•          Wear a size 6.5 to 7 shoe (W)
•          Wearing 12-18 month clothes, with 12-18 month pants becoming high waters on you.
•          Wear size 4 diapers (P.S.  You also think it’s hilarious to watch brother pee on trees outside.)
•          Love riding in your toy car from Christmas (thanks DD Nana!) and you press the button for the “radio” which cycles through 3 different tunes and you move side to side as though you’re dancing.
•          Sleep 8-8:30 on the weekends (6:45 on the weekdays) with a 2 to 2.5 hour nap in the afternoon.
•          Drink 2-3 cups of milk a day with water in between.
•          Favorite foods are definitely rice and beans, but you also really like oranges, spaghetti, chick-fil-a (who doesn’t?!) and yogurt.
•          Have the best smile, but absolutely hate taking your picture.  If I put the camera in your face, you will not look at it.  There is very little bribery that will convince you otherwise.
•          Very good at pushing trucks around and saying “vroom, vroom.”
•          Are very sweet to cousin Beckett and are itching for him to be bigger so you can be a “big brother” to him.
•          Have blonde, curly-ish hair.  It’s very curly in the humidity and pretty crazy.  I’m not sure how to ‘style’ it honestly.  You also were not good at the last haircutting session—cried the whole time.  Eek!
•          Still suck your thumb--- no idea how to kill this habit.

Mom and dad love you baby boy, always and forever.

I love you.

So handsome.

This is what you did when you saw the camera in my hands. haha!

Boys and their trucks!

Parker's 3.5 Year Update!

Dear Parker,

My, oh my, how is it that you are 3.5 years old?  I look at you and all I see is boy.  You aren’t a baby anymore and seem to be growing like a weed.  You’re tall enough to look over counters and table tops and 3T pants are almost too short (though I have no idea how we’d get anything bigger to stay up on your waist).  My first born… I love watching you grow up.

You are so stinkin’ cute and logical.  It cracks me up.  “Mom—it’s not cold out!  That means, when it’s not cold out, we can wear shorts!”  Yep- buddy, we can wear shorts (Hello Houston!).  You can spell P-A-R-K-E-R and know all of your ABCs.  You can write PAR ER.  The K is still giving you some trouble which I’m told is totally normal (A, K, V, etc are hard letters b/c you have to make your line go diagonal).  You can count to twenty and are starting to recognize some words by sight.  Watching you write your letters is so fun.  You’ll say “long line down, circle at top” for P.  What’s also funny is that you don’t know when to stop drawing your lines so your letters are always the full page of the paper b/c you stop your line when you reach the end of the paper.  It’s so cute. 

Each night we look up at a canvas mom made before you were born that has various vehicle sounds (Beep Beep, Choo Choo, etc) painted on it.  We’ll lay on your bed and you’ll show me all the letters and then ask me to tell you things that start with the letters.  Of course your favorite letter is P.  You like it when I pretend I don’t know what words starts with P.  You also know your numbers and can do them on your hands, too.  You can count at least to 20 and when we were doing our Advent calendar you always knew where to put the star.  Mom was very impressed.

You still do gymnastics once a night and you crack me up.  You’ll walk out there all on your own and give be a big smile and wave.  You crinkle your eyes and just smile real big.  You are super cautious still and like to observe before you do anything.  You’re not the first one to volunteer to go first and you really need someone to show you what to do before you do it.  I totally get it baby boy.  It’s so cute when you salute, too.  You don’t quite hold your arm up high and instead just bend it over your head (drives your coaches crazy—who am I kidding—it drives me a little bit crazy, too.  Not that I love you any less).  I’m hoping you’ll get the hang of doing a cartwheel.

You have mastered your balance bike and then also this really cool scooter that requires balance.  You have definitely become comfortable on a bike or a scooter and are starting to get a little fearless.  You’ll go up to people’s driveway with bigger hills and go full speed down.  You like playing at the park and just generally being outside.  You, daddy and Andrew will play “crash-tacular” in the living room where most anything goes and you guys jump, wrestle and just, in general, act like wild boys.  You all have so much fun wresting around and being wild.

You absolutely, hands down, love the trampoline best.  Still want to jump with daddy all the time.  You have recently realized that Andrew also likes the trampoline and we can put you two in there by yourselves and you guys will just run around and Andrew thinks its hilarious.  You still prefer to jump just with daddy b/c Andrew can’t do “big” jumps, tho.  You are also very good at soccer.  You follow directions well and love to run.  I’m excited to see where soccer will take you—I think you’re pretty swell at it for the age of 3.

Puzzles are your jam and I’m pretty sure you’re better at them then me.  You also like k’nex and legos and just building things in general.  I heard you saying the world “propulsion” the other day and I knew that you were just like your daddy.  You like playing with trains and building tracks.  You’ve started having the attention span to watch a TV show and we’re definitely still into the Twenty Trucks YouTube channel.  You sing along to the songs and correct all of your friends when they don’t use the proper names for a truck.  You’ll watch a Mickey Mouse Clubhouse and then also rocket ship videos we find on YouTube (thank you NASA for recording all of your rocket launches).

You’re still a great sleeper—go to bed at 8:15 and will sleep to around 8 or 8:30.  You still take about a 1.5 to 2 hour nap each day as well.  You like to sleep without pajamas and with all of your stuffed animals.  Sometimes when I go to wake you up in the morning I can’t find you amongst all of your animals!  Little E is still a thing around here as well as Big E.  Though, what’s really taken off in the past six months has been Mickey Mouse. 

You aren’t as big into Thomas the Train anymore—you’re love is Mickey Mouse.  And I have no idea where it came from.  But, you love him nonetheless.  We have 4 little Mickey Mouse stuffed animals and then 2 GIANT (3.5 ft tall) Mickey and Minnie.  You love ALL OF THEM.  They all sleep with you and come downstairs every morning.  It’s so sweet.  When I got you big Mickey and Minnie I had them sitting downstairs one morning before work/school and you came down the stairs and saw them.  So, with a look of pure joy you said “Mom!  Mickey is looking at me!!!!”  You slowly walked up to them and gave them a hug and were just so excited.  You give them a hug and kiss each morning before we leave for school.  You were also Mickey for Halloween and you sometimes where your Mickey costume just for fun at home.

When we go for walks in the evening you call me Minnie and insist on being called Mickey.  You’ll yell down the road, “Come on Minnie!!” and I’ll say “I’m coming Mickey!!”  Parker, I will always be your Minnie.  I know one day that you’ll find a whole new Minnie to love.  I know you will dazzle a future Minnie with your big cheese face and sweet heart.  But, for now, I’m going to cherish being your Minnie. 

You have some good friends at school and I like hearing you talk about your friends.  You’re learning that you have to share with Andrew more and more as well as with your friends at school.  It’s sweet to hear you talk to your friends and Andrew.  We’ve had friends over so you can play with them and, well, what it boils down to, is you’re just growing up!  You will play with Andrew more and more each day and you love following him around mimicking everything he does and Andrew thinks it’s really fun.

You still eat yogurt every morning as well as some pancakes or a waffle.  You also love yellow bars (nature valley soft baked peanut butter bars), goldfish, oatmeal bars, and applesauce for snacks.  Otherwise, your eating habits are about the same--- sometimes you eat great and other times you don’t.  You love spaghetti, steak, chicken, oranges, blueberries, raspberries, strawberries.  Fajitas with rice and beans is your jam.

You talk about the beach a lot—could be because we went to the beach 3x last year.  I’m already planning our next trip in late March (hopefully!).  You really, really love the beach.  You can just be free and we don’t have to tell you “no” a lot which is why I think you like it so much.  You are always talking about, “When we go to the beach….”  You also experienced two snows since turning 3!  You were fascinated by it and thought it was so cool.  Can you believe it snowed in Houston (and I didn’t even get to experience it b/c I was in NY!). Then, it also snowed when were back in Arkansas where you got to more legit play in the snow.

Me and you had one of the best days the morning we put up the kids' Christmas tree.  You helped me every step of the way and were such a good helper.  I had bought you some special Mickey ornaments and glass displays and you were just floored.  We wore light up Mickey mouse ears just for fun and I hope its something I can remember for forever.  True mommy/son time.  You also really helped me put lights on the columns when we were doing the outdoor lights at Christmas.  I believe your words were "You can just call me the helper!" And boy did we.  You were all over the place helping us with lights (Andrew preferred to just put the lights in his mouth).

Our evenings are filled with reading books, pushing trucks around, and just overall being silly with brother.  We still refer to it as “giggle time.”  You and brother play best while in the bathtub each evening.  I’ll be honest in that the bathroom is a wet mess every evening but I try not to get onto you guys too much so that you’ll play together.  You both love splashing and just being silly in the bathtub.  Bubbles are a hit in the bath as well. 

You also went to the dentist for the first time!  (I know, I’m late in doing this, but I didn’t think you’d handle it very well until recently).  And boy oh boy you did so awesome.  We checked in at the front and were surprised to find your classmate Zeeland there, too!  I think this helped immensely.  But, they called your name back and you grabbed the nice lady’s hand and walked back without me!  I felt like I was watching you go off to college.  SO BIG.  I stayed in the waiting room while they cleaned your teeth.  I came back to find you playing quietly with toys while the dentist explained everything to me.  Then, she asked you to hop in the chair for her to do one more quick exam.  You shimmied up into the chair laid back and followed her directions to a T.  It was awesome.  I was so proud.

Parker, these last few months have been so much fun.  There have been moments for sure where I’m convinced that you can’t be my child, but every evening when you give me a hug and wave to me from your bed, I know that all is right in the world.  Mom and dad love you sweet boy, always and forever.

First time fishing

The beach!

Bath time giggles

My own little Mickey!

*Mickey and Minnie*

Silly boys on Christmas Eve!

Playing in leaves!

Snow day in Arkansas!

Mickey helping me add ornaments to the kids' tree!

We all love everything Mickey around here!