Happy Birthday, Logan!

Wow...its hard to believe that it was four years ago that I sat in a hospital bed utterly exhausted, on some levels "traumatized" and on every level, completely and totally in love--a love that no one could have ever explained to me and that I never had known before. What a gift--God blessed us beyond our wildest dreams with an amazing, sweet, precious baby boy. Its hard to believe that the "baby" years are over--that the little, little boy years too have passed so quickly. All to fast our little boy is growing up--being shaped and molded. It is our prayer daily that he is molded in God's image and not ours, nor our cultures, nor his peer's.

Logan, we love you more than life itself. You are truly one of the greatest blessings of our lives. These are a few of the things that we don't ever want to forget about you at "4."

-You love life--your excitement for everything around you is infectuous.
-You are a minimalist--I ask if you want two of anything--candy, cookies, toys and generally you answer "no, just one is fine"
-You love school and learning and drawing and letters and numbers and reading for hours
-You are still so painfully shy
-You have to have socks on to sleep and no socks on to play
-You get excited by anything new-new socks, new shoes, new clothes, new toothbrushes, new toothpaste, your very own bar of soap I gave you last week, truly...
-You ask to talk every night before you go to bed
-You love your baby sister and always want her with you or watching you
-You wipe off your Annie's kisses, but always keep your Auntie's
-You refuse to give kisses to your Gammie and Gumpy
-You never forget to kiss your mommy goodnight
-You always run to mommy to give me a kiss and a hug if you see me at school
-After a day at school, I ask "How was your day?" You say "Good. How were your kids, mommy?"
-You get angry when you get scared
-You try so hard to please Mommy and Daddy and praise is such an effective reward
-You really like blue Airheads, but you call them "bumper heads"
-You are so particular--you HATE crooked socks, your routine is very rigid and "orderly"
-You have such a servant heart--you love to help vacuum, to change the laundry, to help me cook, to help Daddy with any project, to get sister's binkie or burp rag or anything
-You are the most tender hearted little boy--you cry when your sister is hurt or when she is crying for "too long" in your opinion because it makes you sad
-You are an amazing athlete--you can score a goal in basketball, you can hit a homerun over the fence or house, you can throw a perfect spiral, you can throw a hard ball, you can hit your golf balls over the back fence, you can hit a perfect backhand with a tennis raquet. Any sport that you try, you excel at. We love to watch you.
-You love watching movies and then asking every question you can think of about it
-You think that cartoon animals are real and can really talk
-Your imagination has completely taken off--you love to roll play with your animals and dinosaurs.
-You love to say, "What would (so and so) say if..." ie: What would my friends say if I wasn't at school?
-You have such a special, one of a kind bond with your "Auntie"
-You love to play "look our below" on our bed
-You love to play in our closet
-You are becoming braver every day, although we still have a ways to go
-You LOVE Saturday morning donut dates with your daddy
-You love going to the deer lease and sleeping in the trailer
-You love Maddie and go outside to "love on Maddie" often
-You take your water gun outside to "shoot" the neighbor's dog "Harry" when he comes for a visit
-You named our neighbor's dog "Harry" even though his name is Cedric
-You feed Maddie every morning
-You obey amazingly well for a 4 year old
-You love to be with friends
-You love to eat at a restaurant, but get so sad if a friend isn't going to be there
-You still look for airplane's in the sky, long horns in the field, the baby foal at the paint horse stable, colts at the horse farm and any other animals that you can see along a drive
-You shop wonderfully, as long as there are some animals for you to look at at the store
-Your favorite place is the zoo
-Playing on your top bunk is a wonderful "treat"
-You cry when we leave friends houses if you haven't had warning time, but you are getting much better
-You don't like "Finding Nemo" because Nemo gets lost from his Daddy
-You keep telling me, "I want to watch that part because I like it" if you are scared of part of a movie
-You play so well by yourself
-You always tell others to "Be Careful" and you are constantly concerned when others are not following the "rules" or are doing something that could hurt them--it totally stresses you out

There are SOOOO many other things about you that we love. We cannot thank God enough for the amazing gift of you. Mommy and Daddy love you so much!

Happy Birthday!

Happy Birthday to my sweet, amazing husband! I'm so grateful that you were born 31 years ago and that you have allowed me to be a part of the past thirteen. You are an amazing huband and such a great, devoted daddy and leader of our family! Thank you for allowing us to celebrate Logan's birthday on your special day--you are so very selfless! I'm so thankful for you and for all that you do for our family! I love you!

Our First Giggle

I will post updates and pictures of all of our October adventures soon. But I wanted to note a few personal "baby book" things before I forget the date on them:

1. Today was Elly's first intentional "giggle." We were in Bible class and my friend Stephanie was holding her, talking to her and she just busted out with a precious sweet giggle. It was fabulous!

2. Elly HATES riding in the truck at night. She starts screaming when we get away from street lights and only stops if we get to a stop light where she can see something OR if we turn on the dome light so that she can see. This started on Friday night (Nov. 7.)

3. We moved Elly into her room for the first time last Sunday night (November 2)--she did beautifully and slept all night.

4. Elly's first day of school was on Tuesday, November 4. She did wonderfully and Honey took great care of her. I had a fabulous, if not exhausting first day back. I have the sweetest group of kids--thank you, Lord!

5. She went to bed at 9:00 last night and slept until I woke her up at 7:15a.m. WAHOO!!

6. She wore her first pair of tights to church today! So cute!

7. She went to her first baby shower today for Madison Rea. She again loved it and was able to see her friends Kate and Mia.

Prayer Request

My youngest sister, Emily has been having some issues with her eye swelling and her vision being blurry over the past few days. Several years ago, both of her retina's detached and she had surgeries on both eyes. Today, she saw a specialist and he informed her that the buckle in her right eye that is attaching her retina is hemorrhaging. They are pretty sure that they will need to remove the buckle and they are hopeful that there is enough scar tissue to keep the retina attached. If there is not, there is a risk of blindness in this eye. She will go back to the specialist on November 12. Forgive me for not knowing a whole lot about the details on this--there are a lot of intricacies with the eyes that I just don't understand. Our prayers are for the hemorrhaging to stop and that if surgery is necessary that the retina will stay attached.

Two Months Old

Our sweet baby girl is two months old today. We are blessed beyond measure--Ellyse brings so much joy and happiness to our family--so much that we didn't even realize that we were missing. Here are some highlights from the past two months in no particular order:
1. Her coos and giggles
2. The precious smile that we get to wake up to--she LOVES the mornings
3. Watching her discover the world around her
4. The way she looks for Logan when she hears his voice
5. Watching her reaction when she's startled--arms and feet immediately out and in the air
6. She reaches and grabs until she finally gets ahold of a little piece of her hair
7. She grabs my hair and will not letting go
8. She grabs my hand with her long toes
9. She cannot sleep without some sort of noise--a fan, the radio, us being in the room talking and playing
10. The way being outside immediately soothes her--its like her whole body relaxes the minute she feels the fresh air.
11. We especially love that she is sleeping 7 hours at night most nights now!!!

Pumpkin Patch

This weekend we met the McClure's and the Klein's at the Big Orange Pumpkin Patch. The kids had a wonderful time feeding the animals, going on a hayride and playing. It was the perfect fall day!

Elly 7 Weeks