Dear Summer

Dear Summer, (but really to the One who created summer)

I love you.  I love the fresh fruit you bring me.  I love the way it excuses my obsession with fruit dip because at least I'm getting all those yummy antioxidants.  I love making iced tea to drink during your warm days.

I love that thanks to you I have time to sit around eating yummy snacks and making silly faces with this guy.  I love that I have the time to also do things like scrub my bathroom in its entirety.  I love how good it feels to work with my muscles, and not just my brain and emotions.

I love that I can enjoy my house and the spaces I've created- not feel like it is just there for me to flop into exhausted at night.

 I love that I get to listen to this sweet boy's creativity as it flows all. day. long.  I miss so much of his personality the other 3 seasons of the year.  Thank you that you exist to help me 'catch up' on who he is.  Thank you that I get to be the one who gets to put him in his bed for naptime (and even sometimes nap with him.)  Thank you that he shares his thinking with me- like how he arranged his Texas Tech hats on his bed just so, because he loves 'Texas'.

Thank you for the time to stop and sit while Jude shows me his 'cool trick' of running around the benches of the table and hopping over the spaces.  Thank you that there are no rules to you and it's ok if I let him stay in his jammies all day and go to Sonic at 3:00 in the afternoon in his slippers.

Thank you for your heat which makes milkshakes reasonable.  Thank you for the best milkshake partner in the world.  Thanks to him, I never waste my cherries anymore :)

Thank you for the time to go through my closet and get rid of 2 boxes full of stuff that I don't need.  It is so nice to see all the extra space in my house and in my closet.  I promise not to use too many of my free days filling it up with new clothes :)

But more than anything, thank you for the thousands of hugs and I love you's I've gotten from this guy the past 4 days.  Thank you that I was there when he wanted to play a game where he ran all the way from the back door into my arms to give me a hug.  Over and over and over again.  Thank you for the way that while he's playing in the pool sometimes he comes over to tell me he loves me.  Thank you that he is so readily able to express his emotions.  Thank you for the way he looks at me from where he is playing with friends just to wave at me with a huge smile.  Thank you for the incredible ways this child loves others.  1000 gifts and so much grace.

Love, 

Ashley

Who Ya Gonna Call? Ghost Jude

Jude has also learned to walk around the house as a ghost.  He uses these Aiden and Anais blankets all the time which are super thin- and awesome for hot natured babies like Jude.  Anyway, I'm guessing they are thin enough to see clearly through because he walks around the house like this with no problem.  He likes to follow me around and listen to me say, "Where's Jude".  He laughs as I call for him and act like I can't figure out where in the world he has happened to.  It's a fun little game right now.

From the dungeon he emergeth

Oh look who learned a cool trick the other night- Sir Jude.  In his valiant efforts to dodge me as I approacheth with pajamas, Jude realized he could in fact crawl underneath his bed.  There has been no end to the excitement of this realization since that fateful evening.

And how cute is he as he emergeth from his hidden dungeon I ask you?  Too cute is the correct response.

Discoveries!!!

Look who discovered the door stopper.  He played with this shortly after destroying the bathroom towels for the millionth time.  Such a cool sound!