Its’ true.  As of yesterday, we have a seven-year-old.  And I’m not quite sure how it happened.  In some ways the grey hairs I’m starting to get and the memory bank that seems to diminish daily, are great indicators that I’ve lived a lot of life- plenty enough to fill seven years.  But in other ways, it seems that I blinked and he went from being tucked safely in my arms to waving goodbye to me in front of his “big school”.
HOW.DID.THAT.HAPPEN?
I dunno, but so far, I LOVE seven.  KJ is at an age where he’s big.  But not too big.  Just Perfect. 

You’ve changed and learned so much this year, I’m not sure I can even sum it up.  Academically, you are brilliant – I’m your mom, I get to say that :).  You read way above your grade level, you are mastering math and you have retained so many facts about science and social studies.  I love that when you get in the car with me you love to do the car trivia question cards that I got a garage sale.  Together we are learning facts about different states and famous U.S. people.  You love to teach others, too, and I often find you sharing your knowledge with your brothers and sister.  We continue to work on how to share in an encouraging way, and I’ve seen you come so far in that area this year.

Don’t get me wrong, you LOVE to have fun.   You and Cbug would chase each other and scream and laugh at high volumes all day if you could and wrestling privaleges are pretty much your favorite thing EVER.  You love to zoom around on two wheel with your new bike riding skills AND on your new birthday-present-scooter.  I love that in these areas you are more fearless than cautious.  And that it seems to have brought great confidence to you.  We take every opportunity we can to head over to “the cul-de-sac” to ride.  Even there, when you are having a blast, you take time to encourage your brother (who is just learning to ride) and check on your sister and baby brother.  Seriously, what would I do without you.

May you lead others on a narrow path. 
May you continue to look for ways to teach others and encourage many. 
To bring the LORD great glory.
And in all things, may you be one who, like your name means, is fully devoted to God. 

I love you so much.  My heart could just explode thinking about the blessing you are to our family.  You are, indeed, my VERY favorite seven-year-old!

Happy 7th Birthday!
Love,
Momma

ABL

We are wearing Red, White and Blue today!

Today was KJ’s birthday and birthdays are a big deal around these parts.  I have a few thing to say to him/about him.  And I can’t wait to share about his paper airplane bash in the park.

But I really feel like I would be remiss to gloss over the real significance of today.
KJ, of course was thrilled that school was canceled on his birthday.  But even on a day filled with celebration, we definitely made sure our kiddos knew the significance of today.

We’ve had the great privalege of welcoming back from deployments some we love deeply.  I remember the first time my brother came home from overseas.  Even knowing that he was on his way, and even knowing the minimal risk he was facing for his return flight, I was on pins and needles until I knew he had safely landed on American soil.  And oh the tears when the texts starting rolling in that he was home.  My baby brother, my hero brother, was home.

With those homecomings in mind, our family is especially grateful to the families who did not celebrate a homecoming. The sacrifice you made while you waited at home, and the ultimate sacrifice you continue to make as you grieve, is one we can’t even fathom. Thank you for what your loved one has done for our country. And thank you for the way you supported them then and honor them now.

Thank you just doesn’t seem like enough to say.
But we mean it so very sincerely.

ABL

I don’t know if anyone is following along with me on the “read through the Gospels plan” anymore.  I haven’t spent much time talking about it here.  I’m still in there, but a few weeks behind.  My sweet, honest, mentor Suzy J told me early on in the process…”you know, the Gospels will still be there in 2014″.  It was super freeing.  And ya’ll know that I must value her input IMMENSELY if it gave me freedom from my spreadsheet. Just what I needed to press on.

Regardless of where you are (or aren’t) on the “plan” to study through the Gospels, find a way to start the journey of learning more about the Lord through His word.  In this life, there are so many heart-aches.  There is so much pain, so much uncertaintly, so much disapointment.  Everyday. 

Yet in the Gospels I find rest. 

Notice I didn’t say I find answers.  I’ll be real with ya- I don’t.  Not for my human questions.  In fact, sometimes I find more questions.  But I do find a place to dwell, a place to put my hope, a place to REST.  I find truth, I find certainty, I find hope. 

Hope in stories like this one.
One of the only miracles I can think of that Jesus completely sought out.  No one approached him.  No one asked him.  No one pleaded.  He just saw.

Luke Chapter 7
11-15 Not long after that, Jesus went to the village Nain. His disciples were with him, along with quite a large crowd. As they approached the village gate, they met a funeral procession—a woman’s only son was being carried out for burial. And the mother was a widow. When Jesus saw her, his heart broke. He said to her, “Don’t cry.” Then he went over and touched the coffin. The pallbearers stopped. He said, “Young man, I tell you: Get up.” The dead son sat up and began talking. Jesus presented him to his mother.

This doesn’t answer why difficult things happen.  It doesn’t tell me why everything was taken from her.  It doesn’t tell me whether she even knew who He was.

It just tells me that at the height of his ministry, when his work breathlessly moved in a long series of phrases like “and then He…” and “Not long after that…”,
He stopped. 
When he was moving from miracle to miracle, message to sermon to anguished prayer-
He saw her, a woman who had lost everyone.
His heart broke.  He had great compassion. 

And he gave her back her son.

Before she could even ask.
And in that, friends, there is hope.
In that, there is rest.

This story, a very true story, floods me with a million questions about its current-day application, but also leaves me with this certainty:

He sees.
He has compassion.
He will redeem.

ABL

Yesterday, KJ went to school looking mighty smashing in his pink button down shirt and tie.  He insisted that he wanted to wear them because pink was his teacher’s favorite color.  I proudly clutched his hand, walked him to the door of the school, and just knew that every teacher/parent/staff-member that saw him was swooning at his adorableness.  What a great mom he has!

Today, I was humbled.

Today, to show his appreciation, he took her this beauty.

When they learn something new, and a new door opens to them, it may be something a million children before them have learned.  But you see their joy.  And you know.

If I could make a button, which would repeat a key phrase to prevent me from uttering it ONE.MORE.TIME
the button would either say
“Please use your walking feet”
or
“Please tell Mommy if you need to go potty.”

I really can’t decide which one I say more often, but each are somewhere in the neighborhood of 1295766252 times a day.

Shortly followed by:
Please don’t throw/bounce/kick that in the house.
Please use your big boy/girl voice.
Please wash your hands.
Please go get a Kleenex
Please do not put that in your mouth.
and
Please give the baby some room to breathe.

I would like to eliminate some of this repetition.  I know some of you agree because we’ve given each other that knowing look on more than one occasion.  And not just because I’m tired of hearing my own voice.  At least partly because I bet THEY are tired of hearing my own voice, too.  Especially if that voice is in an octave usually reserved for phrases that I’ve already repeated 10395863 times that day. 

Nearly.

I feel like you are going to want to write this down.  I did when someone suggested it to me. 

I’m all for consistency.  Really, I have a whole soap-box about that.  But sometimes my consistency of the lessons gets confused with my consistency of the methods.  And when the method isn’t working, I’ve gotta learn to PULL THAT PLUG ASAP and regroup on the strategy.  Most of the things I repeat 23098575625 times a day can be linked back to a lesson I’m trying to be consistent about.

  The key is to figure out what the original lesson was.  With washing their hands/not putting them in their mouths it is really about taking care of their health.  With not throwing/kicking/bouncing in the house it may be about taking care of the blessings we have in our toys and our home.  With wrestling, the real lesson is teaching the boys that there is a time and place for having fun together.  The method (which was not working) was constantly reminding them of all the places that were NOT appropriate to wrestle.  So instead of abandoning the LESSON,  I abandoned the METHOD.  And it worked (for now).

So now I’m on a quest. 
Which broken-record-phrase can I conquer, um I mean redirect, next?
Watch out, team,. this coach has a new strategy.

ABL

and just in case any of you other “coaches” are tempted to believe that I am exaggerating our wrestling problems…in none of the pictures in this post, dating back as much as FOUR YEARS AGO, are the boys “hugging”.

My sweet Baby C-

I’m so thankful for this first year of getting to know you, our newest team member.  You haven’t started really talking or walking yet and we are only beginning to see the first glimpses of your very own personality.  So there is still so much for us to learn about you. 

We know that you like to eat early.  Really early.  Our first baby to be a super early rise.
We know that you love to GO places.  One of your favorite phrases (maybe your only phrase) is “Go.Go.Go.” and you rush toward any door that you think might be opening for you.
One of the only other things you say is something that resembles “Hey”.  You use it to get attention.  Not that attention is something you ever have to work very hard to find.
We know you look AH-MAZING in blue.  Your eyes.  Oh, your eyes.
We know you give the BEST hugs, snuggling your head against us and wrapping your little hands around our shoulders.
We know you LOVE to “pat”, you love to pull hair, and you love to try to steal glasses.
We know you LOVE having a big brother that sits by you in the van and takes such sweet care of you.
We know you LOVE have another big brother that can always make you laugh.
We know you LOVE having a sister that plays with you and lets us know when you need something.
We know you LOVE when your Daddy gets home or when he lets you take a nap with him.
But what we really know, is that you love Mommy the very best.
Even though we also know that you won’t say my name unless you are M-A-D.  Usually you just say “ha” when I try to get you to say it.
We know you have one of the very best courtesy laughs.
We know you also have the most contagious REAL laugh.  Really, it is the BEST.LAUGH.EVER.
And we know that your “real” laugh is triggered by the most unexpected things.
We know that you might eat baby food FOREVER you love it so much.
WE know that every single member of our family loves to spoil you.
AND we know we all love you.  Every single bit of you.

You are still so small.  At your party we celebrated you with “mini”, “pint-sized”, “small”, and “little” desserts.  So fitting for our littlest man.  But as I was preparing banner with your name on it, I couldn’t help but think about your BIG name- all ELEVEN letters of it.  Your sister stumbling over all of the syllables and multiple “r’s” sums it up well- it is a mouth full.  And it will be a doozy to teach you to spell.  But for all of the letters, and all the syllables, it is a million times more full of meaning. 

As we begin your second year,

ecause of one single thing you can do alone, sweet one, but because of the Jesus whose name you’ll likely speak for the very first time this year. 

I love you more than words can say.

We have a tradition.
If you’ve been around DRRF for very long, I know the thought of ME having a TRADITION completely SHOCKS you (wink).
My general mantra is- If it was fun once, it will surely be more fun to do it every.single.year.  ALWAYS.

We ALWAYS go to Chick Fil A on “Dress Like A Cow Day”.  I ALWAYS go to Abilene alone in the fall.  We ALWAYS watch our wedding video on our anniversary.  We ALWAYS have our pumpkin patch pictures taken by the same sweet friends.

AND we ALWAYS go to Ennis (the official bluebonnet capital) for the Annual Bluebonnet Festival.

Unless we don’t. Because when you have many small children, sometimes you won’t.  And sometimes even the most-tradition-loving-type-A-accountant-mom has to let go a little.  Which is why last year we went to Ennis, but not on festival weekend (which would have been a few days before C’s due date). And why we didn’t go the year before when our house was full of extra little ones. Which means, we’ve technically only been to the festival once before.  The year we started the tradition.

But this year.  We resumed this ALWAYS tradition.
It didn’t make a whole lot of sense because we’ve just been so stinkin busy.  It seemed silly to pack everyone up and head-out for a getaway that would be sandwiched between events.  I seriously debated the merit of it the night before.  But my sweet husband.  My sweet patient, hair-brained-idea-supporting husband.  He knows me so well.  He loves me.  He cares that I’m happy.   And he knows that this ALWAYS tradition is important to me.  He knows that there is an NPR-listening-piece-of-me, that fits in best with those that are about twice my own age.  Of which there is a PLETHORA in Ennis this time of year.  So maybe the sum of all of that is why he encouraged us to go.

I’m so glad we did.
Our adventure ALWAYS start with a quick stop to visit my precious friends at the garden club tent (who sweetly mark out the best routes to take for bluebonnet sightings while calling you “sugar” and “dear” to your heart’s content).

And then we were off.  We had the very best time just being together,

Or maybe I actually DID lose my patience, checked at the door with my sanity.

I can’t be quite sure.  I’m already a little fuzzy on the details.  Denial has begun in preparation for doing exactly the same thing next year.  When the tradition, whose sweetness far outweighed its sweatiness, will surely continue.  And when I’ll once again declare
The Annual Bluebonnet Festival is my very favorite tradition of spring.

Unless we don’t.
Because sometimes when you have many small children, you won’t.
But we’ll call it an Always Tradition.  Anyway.

These days, our lives seem to be made up of a whole lot of random miscellaneous.  None of it, in and of itself, seems all that significant.  But then I think about the loss in our country this week.  Think about the family memories destroyed.  Pray for children that are living in horror after what they experienced.  And then, I cling to this miscellaneous, this ordinary.  My adorable munchkins, the funny things they say, the innocence of their childhood.  It becomes precious.  Suddenly I have just a smidge of insight into what is behind those eyes that watch us in the grocery store, or sit near us in a restaurant.  Faces filled with wrinkles, hair turned grey, and eyes that remember their own ordinary days from years ago.  Its no wonder they beg me to remember, treasure, enjoy these days of miscellaneous.

So, here is some of ours….

Madness update
I hoped if maybe I buried this deep in a sappy blog post, I wouldn’t have to face it. 
But facts are facts.  And I feel it only fair to provide an update to our March Madness.
My child, who can barely read, who has no idea what NCAA stands for, who did bracket selection based on colors…beat me.  beat all of us.  Worst of all- he beat me by 1/2 a point.  One.half.of.one.single.point.  Ouch.  If you would like to take notes on how to win Cbug style- just know that he accurately selected the first round upsets of Harvard, La Salle and Florida Gulf Coast.  And had Michigan going deep.  How he knew?…colors.  So yeah, I’ve got nothing for you.

Speaking of Cbug.  The kid is crazy about numbers.  Anyone watch the show TOUCH? If not, this will mean nothing to you.  But just in case.  This is what Cbug carried out of free-draw-time at preschool this week. 

Case in point:  On Sunday we walked into church and Cbug got all excited.
C: “Mom, mom, did you see that lady?  Did you see who that was” 
A: “No, buddy, who was it?”
C: “Do you remember number 23 from the Lonestars (the team we played against in Saturday’s soccer game)?  That was his mom!”
A: Um, no.  Actually, I do not remember who was number 23 on the Lonestars.

Not all of their Smarts are Safe

KJ’s Smarts

“Mom, you did a good job choosing the soap for the bathroom.  It kills 99% more germs than other soaps.  That was a healthy choice.”

And finally, after getting hurt on the playground “Mom, if we have my birthday party at that park, I’m not sure where I’ll stand.  But it’ll be somewhere that I can remind kids to ask an adult for help if they can’t reach.”

Mom is not so smart
And its a good thing that a few members of our house are learning and getting smarter.  Because I’m pretty sure I’m getting dumber by the minute.
I tried to “spell check” Ricky- I was 100% convinced that he had misspelled hassle.  I corrected it hastle.  Because that’s a word.  no.  no it isn’t.

AND.  upon finding that some little friend left a nice wad of green gum stuck to a stone pillar on my back porch (note- my kids don’t chew gum).  I decided to try to get it off…with peanut butter.  Hey, it works on hair.  Why wouldn’t it work on stone?  Let me save you the trouble (or should I say hastle)– go straight for the Goo-Gone.  (Which is what my brilliant husband recommended when he saw me trying to lather our porch with pb.)

Little Bear = Baby C.  Who had an adventure.
You may remember that I committed to a blog name for baby brother- Little Bear.  But