How Can I Remember When I Am Up This Late?

So it is crazy late and I should be in bed, but I fell asleep on the couch watching old favorites with Josh and eating tasty desserts to be woken up by Ellie. Then while reading blogs and such online I began to think of how I haven't updated in a while. I think of updating and then the moment is not right or something and suddenly so many moments have happened that I don't know where to begin. So I am not going to try to figure out which story or photo is right and just say, oh how I wish I had a way to remember the magic that happens around me daily as Mason and Ellie become their little selves. They are amazing and I know I won't remember it all because our brain just can't work that way. I learned recently that for our brain to move things from working memory to long term memory we need to sleep at least 9 hours to get to our 3rd REM cycle. No wonder I don't remember things I can't remember the last time I slept 9 consecutive hours. I wish I had time to blog more, but then when would I have time for the fun we are having?

This week I remember why we live in this little plastic castle on our big brown lawn. Mason ran around singing a song today about how we never have to go to work and we just stay home and play forever. Forever...a difficult concept to grasp. Just the other day he asked me why are we going to keep Ellie forever? I said, "Because she is our baby Ellie, your baby sister. Do you want to keep her?" "Yes," he answered. Tonight at the grocery store he laughed as she played with him hanging over the cart seat backwards and "talking" to him. "Ahhhhhhhhh." "Look at Ellie's new teeth, they're coming in!" he shouted all smiley and proud.

Wait, that wasn't about why we live here, but I guess it is a bit. I love that we have this amazing space amidst the craziness of life. This place where you can go outside and lose yourself in the outdoors. Today we dug in the dirt, planted seeds, flowers, found ladybugs and Mason let them crawl all over his hand and up his arm talking to them like they were the best of buds, we imagined we were sailing on a ship and much more.

In the photos at the top of this post they both look so grown up to me. Ellie with her very first "Rebloon" as Mason calls them these days. A couple of weeks ago he discovered the prefix Re and is attaching it to many words such as Rebloon, Remana (banana), Resposed (supposed), and so on. I love Rebloon, it sounds so pirate like. Anyway, she adored this balloon I should try to upload a video of her playing with it, but not right now it's late.

The other is of Mason on our hike with MaryEllen by the river. He officially looks like a boy or as he would say, "bay". "That bay at my preschoo-ool..." Yes there is an extra syllable there. He is holding her thermos, carried it the whole way taking coffee breaks (like the dog on Shaun the Sheep we later discovered) along the way. Tonight he brought it to bed (Thank you MaryEllen for the gift, he loves it!) Loves it so much he brought it in while we read Wacky Wednesday and Wocket in my Pocket and he took a couple of "coffee breaks" before falling asleep snuggling it.

When people ask me if I want to move to get a bigger house, I always feel funny. I never really think of that and wonder why they are wanting me to think that. I am happy here and love my family. I have what I need.

So if you have made it to the end of this post with any sense of what I have written about I applaud you. You appreciate the joy in living and taking note of the small stuff that makes you smile. I hope to return with more stories, photos and videos so that I may look back and remember what my brain has forgotten. Why can't it erase silly things I don't want and keep the good stuff? I guess that's what photos and journals and blogs are for. As I watch our new shuffling screen saver and see photos of our tiny Mason, I hardly recognize him when he was so new. He is ever changing and so is Ellie. I guess that is how things work, you can't capture it all, so there is always something new to create.