Four

Dear Tommy, 

                      Today was your fourth birthday. I must say it was not what I had pictured. You were all partied out from yesterday's festivities.... that is a nice way of saying you were a little more than a little emotional all day today. And what should I do? It was your birthday so I let you get away with a lot. By my standard's that is. I am sure you didn't much notice the difference.

                     

                      I had planned to take you shopping all by yourself but you opted to stay at Nana's house. I even tried to bribe you with the dollar store and playing angry birds on my phone. Nothing doing. Even at barely four you know that Nana spoils better than Mommy ever could. 

                    

                      Oh well, I got some Christmas gifts exchanged and thought about you as I shopped... I caught myself humming "Happy Birthday to You" in the produce section. I got you a mini cake for after dinner. I was going to get cupcakes but there was one little spideman cake sitting on the shelf that was just screaming Tommy at me... I thought it would be fun to blow out the candles one more time together after dinner with Daddy. Guess what? One more hitch in my plan. Daddy didn't get home till a half hour past bedtime. So we put Daniel and Vivian to bed early and waited up for him. It was well worth it and you are, as I type this, tucked in you bed with the little magnetic super hero cake topper. 

                      As I sit and go over the day in my head I do remember a beautiful silver lining and as usual it was nothing I planned or orchestrated. I was letting you be  a little selfish with your new toys today giving you first dibs on what you wanted just for today. You had been playing with your remote controlled car for awhile and you knew Bella and Daniel wanted it. You came to me and asked me if you could get more cars for your Christmas gifts. I was confused and asked why and you said so you would have some more to share with Bella and Daniel. You weren't ready to share yet, but you wanted to somehow make everyone happy... it's such a wonderful feeling to see you loving your brother and sisters.... even if the concept of self sacrifice wasn't there just yet.

                    

     I feel like you grew up so much this year. 

You became a big brother again.

You learned to write your name.

 

You became an ipad addict. You love tofu best I think.

You proved to be the best babysitter in the house. The only one patient enough to hold her through a whole bottle. I should have known, you have always been my cuddler. 

You are still to shy to pray at dinner time.

You finally decided you like to color and paint. 

Your favorite color switched from blue to black this year.

Black reminds you of your Dad. He always wears a black shirt.

You love your "workin boots", just like his also.

You are the pickiest eater ever... payback from my Mother I am sure.

You are so very handsome. I am afraid for your teenage years.

There are already two girls your age who are in love with you.

One even has declared she will marry you.

As much as you love your brother and sister I am sure you could play alone for hours.

I've just never really had the chance to test the theory.

You went fishing with your Dad and little brother for the first time, 

and certainly not the last. You are kind of a natural... you had to show me how to cast.

You fell in love with the ocean this summer. It's an expensive love affair little boy.

But I will do my best to fill your summers and your memories with sun and sand.

More than any of the other kids you love to ride your bike in circles on the patio for hours. 

You go so fast you sometimes end up on one wheel around the bends.

Your doing that in life too. Growing so fast its scares me.

Last night you had a nightmare and I laid in your bed with you for awhile trying to imagine that four short years ago I had yet to even see your little face. The one I now know better than my own. 

I held your hand in mine and remembered doing that in our hospital bed.

I tried to tell myself that it wasn't so much bigger.

I cried a little and I remember now thinking my Mom was weird when she cried over us growing up.

Now here I am. 

I am sad to see you get bigger, but so excited to see what the years ahead hold.

If so much joy and laughter could be ours in just these four short years I can't imagine how our hearts will be able to hold all that we will have in this life together.

Happiest of happy Birthday's baby, 

Love, Mom.

Daydream Believer

This holiday weekend seemed a bit more like a work week. 

Our back yard went from this...

To this with the help of our Dad's and all six of his brothers... more pictures of that coming soon.

Tom is finally getting his garage. Which means more than I can explain.

More time together, more work done faster, more dreams that can be realized on the back of this one.

Every time we pass a milestone like this I think back to that cold day in the winter of 2006 just months before our wedding when we stood with our realtor in this snow covered yard and talked about maybe's and some day's. We couldn't see the ground then for all the snow. We were guessing as to what might be there just as we were guessing about what our future together might hold.

Sometimes your future is choice and sometimes it's chance.

We are still guessing, seven years and four babies later.

For example this was our smiling brood on Thanksgiving morning...

And by the time we got home the three oldest had spiked fevers and Daniel was barking like a seal.

We have the croup.

We had planned to relax a bit in between projects... 

but we got a lot more couch time than we had planned

Just when I thought we were soon to be leaving the ocean of tissues and humidifiers the littlest one had to go and start barking at us tonight... poor baby. 

(as a side note she has started with this strange squinty smile lately... 

I think she knows it will get a laugh.)

So we made the best of it and started our Christmas decorating and crafting a bit early.

No money to waste right now on decoration's so I used up some Christmas scrapbook paper I have had for awhile.

(That would be Daniel's with the scribbles... please note mine and Bella's are super symmetrical :)

I love this season so why not drag it out a bit?

This is out Christmas count down with a Bible verse about the celebration on each link.
You can go here to make one.

And last but not least I saw this on Pintrest (I am addicted like the rest of the world) and I couldn't believe how simple it was to make. Then I couldn't believe how HUGE it was... 

not sure where to put it just yet.

Getting back to standing in the yard with the realtor dreaming of what might be.

There were worries, uncertainties, fears,

and when the house was finally to be ours there was signing our life away....

But a few months later we would see that under all that snow in this modest little yard where you would least expect it were some beautiful gardens. Somebody's dreams left behind for us to watch bloom in some new and surprising way each month of that first summer and every one since. I am by no means a gardener, but I have come to love seeing the tulips in the spring, the roses in the summer, the clematis and tiger lily right around my birthday... 

and those big blue ones whose names I don't know!

Sometimes the unknown can lead to heartache and trouble,
but sometimes... usually if you can push through the hard times just long enough...

it can lead to a lovely surprise.... 

In our case this weekend a busy Sunday turned into a quiet day at home.

Not without stress and frustration... 

but we added a little glitter and glue, 

some coffee and much needed facetime.. and made it beautiful.

Mental Vacation

It is dreary rainy and cold.... I just spent thirty minutes hiding under the covers with the kids and still I can't get warm.

My to do list is a mile long, I am sleepy, and I crave chocolate.

Tomorrow is weigh in day so I had better behave.

I decided I would distract myself with writing and I found these pictures from Septembers camping trip that I had never posted....

this is where I wish I was today.

This is the "bridge walk" we take every year. 

The kids favorite and I think mine too. Its all flat and we all go every time. 

Perfect for little ones and their weary parents.

There are at least three.... four? bridges. And in the middle there is a little lagoon to catch crayfish.

Lots of fun. Lots of pictures.

Water... rocks... mud.... little boy heaven.

We are about due for some family time. 

I am looking forward to Thursday. 

Food, football, family and gratitude to God for giving us another trip around the sun together. 

Catching Up...

We are still alive.... 

Busy busy busy. And the first thing I let slip is the blog.

Homeschool, Children's Church, dance class, chores, working out, holiday preparations.

And of course little miss sunshine decided to start army crawling all over the house in the last few weeks. When big sister was her age she would barely roll over!

Of course Bella had no one to follow so where did she need to go?

She is keeping me on my toes, and forcing me to vacuum a lot more often.

Speaking of big sister... Bella bravely asked Daddy to pull her first loose tooth on November first.

She was ready... she was excited... she was sure....

and then she felt that weird empty space and burst into tears.

Luckily Daddy hugs fix most anything and she was soon smiling again...

just minus one tooth.

We had our first snow too. In early October... I love the first snow.

Luckily it was a Saturday so everybody went out with Dad for a bit while I made hot chocolate and listened to Christmas music.... which is what I'm doing right now actually! 

I will hold off on decorating until the day after Thanksgiving but I can't resist the music!

Or the movies....

and somehow movies are just better in bed.

We also did Halloween... sort of.

Growing up I went every year but Tom did not.

It seems many Christians have strong feelings about this holiday.

I heard somewhere this year that if one third of the population can take God out of Christmas then we can certainly find a God honoring way of having fun on Halloween.

So we head out to our church party/outreach called "Light the Night" ... in full costume of course.

This year we had two spiderman's... 

Daniel doesn't have many opinion's yet that do not match Tommy's.

The fairy princess was going to be a butterfly but changed her mind at the last minute due to the discomfort of her antenna's.

They loved the bounce house even though it was cold and rainy... hopefully better weather next year!

 

  

Vivi's new addiction.... puffs. Baby finger food. 

She loves to feed herself. And the older kids love to "help".

We are still doing our school work everyday.

Things that surprised me:

1. How the boys are involving themselves.

2. How much Tommy is learning just by being around, he started writing his name on his own.

3. How much Bella is learning. She can already read short books and three and four letter words.

4. How much Bella is loving the art portion's of her work.

5. How much more they do at this age than we did.

6. The satisfaction I get from teaching them.

Our house is also changing as we go along with this school year.

It's becoming all about the kids.

It's the kids that are making this house a home anyway right?

So it should be all about them.

I'm hoping I can get back to writing more regularly now that we are in a rhythm with our new normal, 

but you just never know what's next here. 

So until next time... whenever that is...