Swimming in October

Greetings friends and family,

I'm not a big fan of labels or titles, but I discovered the term to describe Easton's primary area of interest: Earth Science.  The broad category contains an all-inclusive look into his idea of awesome.  The close second area of interest is aerospace. Those two cover 95% of his choice in books, toys, imagination, and movies.  Our friend Jacob spent an evening hanging out with the 4 Webbs and he joined the fun by piloting our remote control helicopter as Easton sat amazed.

When I ask Easton, "what do you want to play together?" he sometimes answer, "cars and trucks!" He plays with the Mac diesel truck, but since the grocery store had a super sale on the Cars 2 movie toys I picked up a second truck so we can each drive around. I'm working hard to develop his leadership skills because Layla tends to railroad him into submission if given the chance. I help by being a good follower and encouraging him to lead us through trucking adventures on the car mat.

For the first time in the history of our twins Layla is taller than Easton. OK, so maybe it is a little cheating since she's wearing Kendra's high heels. Easton has maintained an official one inch height advantage since the day they were born. People still easily identity them as twins because their height and features are very close. I see other sets of twins were one is completely different in skin tone or hair color or size. Those are harder to spot, but Easton and Layla get smiles and comments every time we take them out because of their happy demeanor and twin allure.

Kendra dressed the twins for church and I couldn't help but grab the photo opportunity. They both look so perfect dressed like little angels.

I know they aren't really perfect because I'm reminded every single day. Even so I can't help but see them as whole, complete, healthy, and perfect for me. Layla gives me multiple chances per day to speak truth into her life. With each question presented I know the real question I'm answering is, "Am I lovely?" That's always, always in the front of my mind.

Today she took some markers and a coloring book to her bed for quiet time. Why Kendra agreed to such an obvious setup to go wrong is beyond me, but it doesn't do any good to cry over spilled milk or marker covered children. Layla used the pink marker on her hands, face, sheets, pillow case, bed rail netting, and several other places I have yet to discover.

I walked in and responded calmly and appropriately.  My standard response is, "I love you no matter what, all the time."  She immediately started sniffling because she knew it was wrong and bad consequences would follow.  I laid down on the bed next to her and held her close.  We talked for a few minutes about the mishap and then she said, "Does God still love me?"

Finally!  the opening I've been waiting for...  I started with a simple, "yes, God still loves you no matter what, all the time." Then we dove into a deep conversation about how God loves her even more than I do and how there is nothing she could ever do to change how much God loves her nor I.  She's a smart cookie and her accepting this as truth was the first time I ever experienced what is "child like faith".  As a kid I'm sure I had that because it is the nature of all kids.  However, as an adult it is tough to grasp the concept until I experienced Layla's acceptance of the truth regarding how much her father loves her.

How could I ever be mad at my beautiful princess?

On a different day the same sweet girl wearing her ballerina tutu rode through the kitchen on her horse named Lucky.  She took my heart and gave me joy then rode off into the sunset.  Seems like a fair trade.

The silver lining to abhorrent, unrelenting heat in Phoenix is the excellent swimming conditions which last for months on end. I can tell this is the last hoo-rah for swimming this year.   The idea of and afternoon swim elicited shrieks of cheering, but when it came time to actually do it, the shrieks were accompanied with whining about how cold it is.  84 degrees in the water is COLD for these two Phoenix-acclimated weenies 

The twins were much more excited to lay on the warm pavement and pose for my unrelenting picture taking than to continue dog paddling through the chilly waters diving for rings.

Kendra and Aunt Susie experienced the West Side Story play with floor level seats.  I'm really glad Susie agreed to accompany Kendra.  Not because I disliked the idea of seeing the play, but because the two of them enjoyed and appreciated it much more than I ever could.

I had the privilege of hanging with the twins for an evening at home.  We played our hearts out and the only productive thing we accomplished was painting Layla's finger nails.  She sat in my lap and held very still so I could double-coat her nails with pretty pink polish.

I did a horrendous job.  Layla would have done better by herself, but I loved sharing that experience with her anyway. It looks like I strapped a paint brush to a dogs tail and scratched his belly while the tail wagging produced the brush strokes across her finger nails.  It's that bad...  The beauty of dealing with three year olds is that they don't even notice or care!  She is happy, I'm happy, Mommy probably won't be so happy, but it's my first try so I'm sure Kendra will extend me some grace as I learn a new skill!

My work week begins shortly and the extra curricular activities going on will ensure no moss grows under our feet.

See you soon!