Dear Bently,

Today we were just sitting at the dinner table talking after eating dinner. You randomly run your fingers through my hair and in your sweet 3 year old voice you say, "Mom your hair is beautiful!" (I wish you could hear how you said beautiful because it was stinking cute!) I laugh and tell you thank you. You, without missing a beat, say "Dad your hair is puffy!" Which of course it was. We laughed so hard. You are pretty hilarious my Bently boy! :)

Also today you kept telling me you didn't love mom you loved dad. Fed up I started to tickle you every time you say it! (You have been such a mommy's boy recently I know you say it to get a reaction out of me!) You laughed and laughed. In that moment I caught a glimpse of you smiling at me, laughing your head off, and I couldn't help but think, this is the life. Boy, you are my happiness and I am so incredibly grateful to have you!

Love,
Mom

Dear Bently and Olivia,

Real Life. That is what I am living. Well I guess that's what we're all living. :) When I imagined growing up, getting married, having children, I expected the fairy tale. Adoring husband, perfectly behaved children, white picket fence, of course I would be a stay at home mom, and the house would be spotless and smell of chocolate chip cookies. This is not my reality. My reality right now, today, is as follows. Husband is sick, throwing up every hour or so. Livvy is teething and is crying and wanting to be held almost constantly. Also not napping. Bently is adorable and is such a trooper for taking the back seat. The house is a mess. Seriously. Dishes are stacked everywhere, the family room floor needs to be vaccumed, badly. The bathroom is starting to look like a public bathroom (eww), and the list could go on and on. The kia needs an oil change, but we're out of money for this pay period. I am trying to clean and cook and take care of 2 crying kids (yes one of those is daddy! ;) Plus working full time. I am currently living off of 4 hours of broken sleep and it's making me extra emotional! I sat here at work thinking of all the things I had to do and feeling very overwhelmed. I suffer with comparing my life to others. I want that picture perfect life I dreamed about as a child. I want to be home all the time with my babies, I want to buy a house and fill it to the brim with memories. As I sat, wallowing in self pity, I realized, this is real life. No one, NO ONE, has the perfect life. All lives are filled with trials and sorrows. I guess what I am trying to say, is when you grow up, get married, have babies, don't be surprised if it's not exactly how you pictured it. If you don't have the nicest furniture, or a full set of matching dishes, or a house. Don't feel overwhelmed when the dishes pile up in the sink and the children are screaming and you make waffles for dinner because frankly, you barley had time to do that. Because I learned today, I need to enjoy these moments. The moments when my kids are little, where I am a 911 dispatcher and have the opportunity, every single day to help someone. The time where your Dad gets to be home, to share in special memories with you. There is so much beauty in my life. Bently and Olivia, you guys are a big majority of that beauty. You and your Dad. You guys are my happiness, my happily ever after. You make every single day amazing. I have so much to be grateful for and I truly feel like I am living my fairy tale. Sure it has it's downs and twist and turns, but how boring would your story be if it was perfect? I guess this long rambling letter is just to tell you, life isn't always perfect. It hardly ever turns out how you plan, and that is ok. Because you can do hard things. You can overcome and move on, and become a better person because of what you've been through. Trust in the Lord and his plan and his timing and all will be okay in the end. I promise.


I love you both so much. Thank you for your smiles and endless hugs and kisses. I can't get enough of my adorable babies!


Love,
Your very tired and rambling Mom.

Dear Bently,

Today we went swimming with Aunt Shawna and her family and Aunt Janaye. The weird part is it was just you and me. Your Dad stayed home with Olivia. We had so much fun and I enjoyed the opportunity to spend a little one on one time with you! :) It was so neat to cuddle you and hold you close and listen to what you had to say! I love every second of our little Mommy son date together! :)

Oh and earlier today while watching "Frozen", again, you cuddled with me on the couch! I loved laying there holding you close and of course randomly tickling you! It was a pretty perfect day! I love you so much son!

Love,
Mom

P.s. Icing on the cake, you started calling me Mommy today! Cutest thing ever! :)

Dear Bently,

We celebrated Easter today! You had a blast, at least as far as I could tell! We had a strange Easter because I worked till 5 am. So we didn't actually hunt for eggs till after 12! Ops! We loved hunting for the eggs though you were really REALLY bad at finding the eggs. You are just not a good looker. You just stand there staring. We're like, "Bently look right there!" and some how you still don't see it. Haha! You had a blast doing it though! You would exclaim, "Oh an egg!" every time! :) We also did a little hunt outside with plastic eggs. You didn't improve much even with the earlier practice! We came inside and you started to open some eggs. Your Dad had put money in a couple of them because that's what Grandma Hodson had done when he was little. There was one with some change and one with a dollar bill. I filmed you opening the change one but you didn't have much reaction. Then as you opened the egg with the dollar bill (when I wasn't filming of course! :( ) You exclaimed "Oh my gosh!! Money!" I guess you already know a dollar is more impressive than some change! ;)


Later I was feeling guilty because we didn't make it to church due to my working so late. I really wanted you to know the real meaning of Easter. So I tried to explain the resurrection to you as best I could in terms you would understand. In the middle of the story you stop to tell me, "Jesus gave me my Spiderman puzzle." I didn't quite know how to react to that one! ;) So maybe you didn't quite understand the story, but at least you know Jesus gives you things! ;)


I love you my big boy. You seriously look so old to me now. I can't believe that you are a kid now and not a little toddler. It makes me a  little sad! :( I love you more than words could possibly describe. I hope you always know I have a testimony of the resurrection. That I know our family can be together forever, even after this life, because of Jesus Christ and his sacrifice for us.


I love you Bently!


Love,
Mom

Dear Bently,

You have started to do this thing which is pretty hilarious. Any time we ask you to do something you don't want to do you say "No, I'm too tired" or "No I'm too sick!". It's hilarious and slightly annoying! I'll say "Bently eat your dinner!" and you'll say "No eat dinner, I'm too tired!" But strangely you never want to nap. I love you funny kid!

Love,
Mom

Dear Bently,

Today we went outside and played bubbles. Your Dad, you, and me. Livvy was sleeping so you got some great individual time with both parents. We had a blast together! We blew so many bubbles! You laughed and giggled and pointed at the bubbles. It was a seriously perfect moment! I love the every day moments that make life magical. And this was one for me! :) I love you my handsome 3 year old!

Love,
Mom

Dear Bently,

Yesterday and the day before we celebrated your 3rd birthday. Boy did we celebrate. I feel bad actually because this party convinced me no more big parties. Lol. We had like 25 people crammed into our tiny apartment to celebrate you! We had your party on Thursday the 3rd so your Grandpa Paul could be there! We had pizza and presents and cake! To be honest it was pretty worth it! You had SO much fun! This was the first party where you had friends to invite. We had 5-6 little kids all under the age of 3 there. It was crazy but like I said, you had a blast! :) You were adorable opening presents, albeit not super grateful! I didn't think to coach you to say thank you before the party and while it was going on it was just too crazy! To be honest I didn't even feel like I saw you at your party! I was so busy talking to people and trying to keep things running smoothly. Another reason I want to stick to small parties in the future! Oh highlight of the party. You came up to me and told me you needed to go pee. You do this quite often even if you don't have to go. So I asked you "Did you say you need to go pee?" But you ignored me and walked away. Assuming that meant no I turned back to talking to who I was talking to. Suddenly I heart raised voices and I look over and you had pulled your pants and underpants down to your ankles and you were headed to the bathroom. I quickly picked you up and took you there myself. So pretty much you flashed multiple people at your third birthday party! :)

The day of your birthday was 100% perfect! We got up and went to the store and bought treats for our zoo day! You LOVE the zoo so we decided to go there for your birthday! We also decided to invite Grandma Kay Lynn to come with us. We got some yummy treats went home and packed up. We were off! We had so much fun. It was seriously the most perfect day. I couldn't help but just randomly stop during the day and just watch you and your Dad and sister and think "I am the luckiest person in the world!" We were all happy, we took our time, and just enjoyed the most perfect day at the zoo! You had so much fun! We all did! We had lunch in the zoo and  you thought that was pretty cool!

After the zoo we went home and had ravioli and watched Spiderman of course! :) We had bought you a wiggle car and gave it to you at your birthday party. For your actual birthday we wrapped a couple dollar presents to give to you! We gave you a bath and dressed you in your new Spiderman jamies and then you saw them! You pointed at the presents and exclaimed, "Those are for me!" It was adorable! Obviously you now had experience with presents due to the previous day! This present opening was so much more enjoyable for me. You found joy in each present and you were so excited. It was just you, me, your Dad, and Grandma Kay Lynn. I loved watching your face light up at each gift. I couldn't get over how old you looked in your Spiderman pjs! (Which are 4t and fit you almost perfectly! Stop growing!) 

Then we brought in a cupcake with the candle and we all sang! You had to take multiple tries to get that candle out but you did it! :)

I love you Bently. I couldn't imagine a better birthday celebration! It was perfect! The best part is you had fun! As