Jace and his Terrible Twos

Jace. Jace at this time is a contradiction. What do I mean by this statement? Well Jace is either super cute and sweet, or he is throwing some sort of tantrum and acting on impulse as 2 year olds do.

We have found that Jace, like Sage, is Very Very smart. He has almost memorized all his ABCs and speaks very well for his age. His vocabulary is getting larger and larger and he says the cutest things using his newly learned language. He always says "please" and "thank you" and I even heard a "bless you" from the other room when I sneezed the other day. I am very thankful for the fact that Jace can speak well because during the period where he was still learning to talk he would get so frustrated at us when we did not understand him.

           Not only does Jace speak well, he also loves to make a sound effect for everything! Cars, motorcycles, walking, moving his arms... it does not matter. Everything has an animated sound. And as he voices out these sounds they are usually paired with some sort of super hero pose. He even runs while puffing out his chest in the most manly way possible while declaring to the world, "I have the power!"

Jace really can be a lot of fun. But he comes with a fair amount of challenges. Firstly, he has turned out to be even more stubborn than Curtis if that is at all possible. If you ask him to do something he does not want to do, he will challenge you every time. "Jace eat your food." in which he responded today, "No I will not eat my food. I will spit it out. I want cake." Of course in the end, Mom will win and Jace WILL eat his food, but the constant battle is tiring at times. Jace is also still figuring out how to get along with a one year old brother. Little Ryker will want to take a toy away from Jace and Jace being a two year old will react in a negative way by either pushing Ryker or yelling at him. I have however been seeing progress as Jace is actually trying to be patient. But patience comes slowly. Especially to a little boy like Jace.

Jace is growing up fast. He wants to play with the "big" kids and is trying to be more and more independent (not that he was dependent before ha ha). He is also quite the ladies man somehow managing to recruit all the teenage girls on the street to play with him.  And they will follow him around when he says, "come on guys." Why? I am not sure. Maybe its his smile, or maybe its his strong personality. Either way I'm going to have to watch that kid closely as he grows up.

Time for Individual Updates! Yay!

So in the summer I actually started writing up a bunch of updates and never finished them due to my crazy life with 4 small children. That and I was trying to get some videos to add to them but getting my older kids to sit down for 3 minutes is nearly impossible. Now these so called updates are all old news and outdated. So i figured I would do one at a time to fit my schedule better.

We will do this randomly and start with Ashton.

Ashton is in 1st grade this year. He has his good and bad days. Sometimes he likes school, other times he finds it to be boring and the kids to be mean. Having said that, Ashton can be overly sensitive.  I have to remind him on a daily basis not to take things too seriously and to look for the positive in all situations. Even though he may not always love school, Ashton does well and seems not to struggle in any way. He easily memorizes his spelling words and math seems to come easy to him. He is working on increasing his speed of getting assignments done. He likes to take his time on nearly everything. Not because he does not know how to do it, but because he likes to do it carefully and neatly.

Ashton is the tease of the family. He is ALWAYS teasing his sister and younger brothers. Mom does not like the fact he teases them because she has to hear about it all the time. But Ashton likes to giggle and laugh and loves to get a good reaction especially from Sage.

Friends are important to Ashton. He loves to play with the neighborhood kids and looks for every opportunity to head over to the neighbors houses.

Recently we got a Clavinova so we could start piano lessons for Sage. Surprisingly enough Ashton has actually taken interest in piano himself and has more of a knack for it at 6 than Sage does at 9. Although I guess I am not too surprised. When Ashton was a baby he would kick in his bouncer to the beat of the music.

I have been encouraging Ashton to continue to figure out who he is. He still heavily depends on his sister to define himself. I will continue to find things I can enroll Ashton in so that he can find a hobby that fits him well and that he likes. I have noticed as of late that Ashton is very good building intricate structures out of blocks. So maybe he will be an architect! Who knows. It should be interesting to watch Ashton grow up and mature into a young man with goals and dreams.

A Need to Love

"I love you because of how you love me" are the words that I hear from my husband when ever I ask him why he loves me.  I think the need for a person to be loved is typical. Everyone should have the God given right to be loved. I know that I enjoy being truly loved. But the more I thought about it, I realized that being loved is important to me, but actively loving someone and having that person let me love them openly and passionately is even more important. Within me I have this intense drive to love someone, and have that love accepted and not rejected.

So what does it mean to me to actively love someone? Let me explain.

Thoughts
Someone I truly love will be more than a passing thought. When I actively love someone I think of them almost at every opportunity I get. Basically, when my mind is able to relax it will always land on the people that I love. My subconsciousness will also have me dream often of those I love. Some might call it a bit obsessed but I think that it is natural. Think about it. When you first meet and start to date someone you are always thinking of them. Why does that have to stop once your relationship matures? I don't think it should. And thinking of the person that I love gives me a lot of joy and makes me smile.

Service
I love to serve and do things for those I love. My husband is practically spoiled. You would think I would get tired of getting him a glass of water with ice every night, but I don't. I know every night that he thinks, "She loves me." When I mow the lawn every 5 days so that he does not have to deal with allergies, I know that he appreciates it. And when he is sick, I baby him as I would one of my children.  That's not all I do but I will not go into details for fear that people will know how spoiled he really is:). Lets just say this wife would do about anything for Curtis because he lets me love him without holding me back.

Verbal
 I love you... those words are not rare coming out of my mouth. Poor Curtis gets random I love you's through out the day via phone calls, texts, and face to face conversations. Not only do I have a great need to express my love through those simple words, but i also have a great need to tell those I love how great I think they are. I don't do it for them, I do it for me because bottling up  my love and thoughts for someone takes much more energy than simply expressing them.

Physical
I am a very physical person. I blame it on my Dad who was always so kissy and touchy with my mom. And like verbally expressing love, I am driven to express it by touch. I get a lot out of a sweet kiss, a gentle squeeze, and simple hand hold. Physically loving someone weather by a simple hug or something much more lets me feel close to them. And I believe that most people need to feel close to someone in order to feel whole themselves.

Thoughts, Service, Verbal love, and Physical love are all the ways that I like to actively love someone. If I have ever loved someone in the past and feel like I can't do all those things, I feel as though I am suffocating. If I feel like all those things are not being received positively It saddens me. When I am actively loving someone I feel amazing. It is one of the things that I was born to do and I am very good at it when allowed and able to express myself fully.

Taking Responsibility

I have had plenty happen to me in my short life.

There were times in my life where my heart would beat so fast and so hard for so long due to anxiety that I could hardly breath.

There were times where I literally cried all night long several nights in a row waking with a very swollen face and a even more pitiful broken heart.

There were times where I was hopeful because I believed in someone and their word, but was sadly dissapointed when I realized that person's word was not as strong as I thought it was.

There have been times where I have let others make me feel miniscule and worthless.

There have been times where I literally did not want to get out of bed and face the world.

There have been many times where I have felt alone... longing for someone to understand me and lift me up holding me close and simply loving me for who I am.

Yes there have been times. An no matter how many times someone or something lets me down, I find that I am my greatest enemy. I KNOW what it takes to be happy. I KNOW what I need. I KNOW what things I do to myself that makes my life harder to live. I know what I need to let go of in order to live without any turmoil churning in my head. And you know what? I think you know too. I think we all know. But we hang onto these things that complicate our lives. We have a hard time letting go and following out hearts and our conscience. In turn we subject ourselves to this emotional torture that is not necessary. Such simplicity yet so infernally complicated. If only I could take better control of ME and MY thoughts and actions. Because you have no forbearance on me. No matter what you do or say it will NOT change who I am or what I will do. Those are MY decisions and mine alone. And if you blame others on your actions, you hide behind a lie. And if I blame others for my actions I would be living a lie. And living a lie would be even more torture to me than taking responsibility for my own self. And who in tarnation would want to live like that!