Tooth Fairy Alert

A very sleepy Jackson greeted me with this announcement this morning: "Mommy, the tooth fairy took my sock in the night. I can't find it anywhere."

I told him the tooth fairy really only takes teeth, but I don't think he believed me. And we haven't found the sock.

Two Posts! In One Day!

I am waiting for Daniel to return from Kroger with a movie for tonight, so I have time to get a video on as well. Here is Jackson, who is at his present age the cutest boy who has ever lived. What is it about an almost four year-old? I love this age for some reason. Maybe it's the moments where they break out into being a kid but they still have the adorable expressions and gestures from their last moments of being a toddler. They're trying so hard to be big, but they're just not quite there yet. Whatever it is, I could just eat him up right now. :)

Visit with Friends

The S family took Daniel in at West Point, and then took me in by extension. They were one of the mentor couples through Officer's Christian Fellowship, and they were wonderful to Daniel and to me. They fed us real food and sympathized when we had huge problems like a *gasp!* paper that was due in a few days!! :)

We've kept in touch through the years, and two years ago we met up with Mr. S and their eldest son at a conference at Greenville Presbyterian Theological Seminary. We said at the time, "We really should get together again!" Well, they took us up on our offer of coming to visit, and although Mr. S couldn't come on this trip, Mrs. S came through on their way to Nashville with their seven children. We had such a good time catching up, realizing how gracious the Lord has been to both of our families, and laughing at our kids' antics. I also got MUCH encouragement from how they are living out their convictions and what their family life looks like now that they have teenage sons (yeah - sons that we HELD while at West Point - we are OLD!). We took a walk to our neighborhood ice cream shop (have you picked up on the fact that we very much enjoy having it so close? :) and we got a few stares on the way. Picture two mamas in skirts, thirteen children and Daniel bringing up the rear. I wanted to wave and say, "Well, hi! We just arrived here from Waco! How are you?" :) I just loved to see how their older sons in particular interacted with our little ones. They're so used to having little ones around that they step right in when they're needed/wanted. Abigail took a fancy to their second oldest, and she ran around trying to capture him with the jump rope. By the way, we compared notes on naming children Abigail (their youngest is Abigail) and our opinion is that you don't want to use it unless you're specifically aiming for a spunky child. One of my favorite pictures didn't turn out - Abigail got a shoulder ride from the oldest son all the way home from the ice cream shop and Daniel thought he got a picture of it. Bummer. Abigail told me later that he asked if she wanted to get down and she replied, "No, thank you. I would rather ride to settle my tummy." Uh-huh.

Jackson also enjoyed hanging out with Jonathan and Joshua. Yep, three J's. I wouldn't call it hanging out so much as running around the outside of the house over and over, brandishing swords and yelling. Those three were LOUD. Nathaniel tried to keep up, but he got lapped with his little legs. He contributed to the noise, though. Adah summed it up best as we waved goodbye when she said, "I wish they could stay for one hundred days!" :)

A Self-Realization and a Metaphor

And both of the above came from Abigail. :) Abigail is very blog-worthy these days, I must say. Here's the story:
I took Adah out on a "date" last Saturday. After eating lunch, we ended up - where else? - at Walmart. I had to run some errands, and she had $4 of her very own money burning a whole in her very cute purse. She considered her options carefully, asked me about fifteen times, "Can I get this thing AND this thing?" and finally decided on a purple camera and a Princess Bride coloring book. (Not THE "Princess Bride," just a princess getting married, and in Adah's book, that's perfection indeed.) p.s. Am I getting a little wordy here? :)

Anyhoo, I told her that because she bought these things with her own money, she did not have to share them. However, I encouraged her to do so. Later I heard Abigail ask if she could color in the coloring book, and Adah quickly offered the camera to her. Abigail was content with that. Adah did offer the coloring book to Shiloh, however.

Here was Abigail's observation to me after bathtime that evening:
"You know, Mommy, how those pesky raccoons come into cornfields and peel the corn and take a little bite out of EVERY piece of corn and then all the corns are ruined? You know about that? Well, I think I'm like that with Adah's coloring book. If she lets me color, I will just color a little bit of every page, and then the whole coloring book will just have little bits of coloring, and I don't think Adah would like that. So I decided I would play with the camera. That's okay, right, Mommy? You know what I'm talking about with those raccoons, huh?" And I nodded and said yes, I knew about those raccoons and that I was happy she was content with the camera. I also suggested that we would get her her own coloring book where she could color little bits of pages to her heart's content. :) Sometimes (very often!) you just don't see these conversations coming, do you?

Love,
Casey
p.s. I have a big photo post coming from our visit with mentors from West Point. We had 13 children under our roof last Monday. FUN! :)

Independent Ladies

Yesterday, Adah and Abigail were playing at some length with their dolls. They set up an elaborate feast for them complete with candles and music. All at once, they decided to go on an extended train trip. They packed their bags and announced their intentions to me. I asked if they wanted me to watch their babies for them while they were gone.

Abigail: "No, thank you. They're both six years old, and they're perfectly able to take care of themselves. You might have to drive them to Kroger, though."

May I just say for the record that I have never left a six year-old alone to go on an extended train trip? Poor babies. :)

Glorious Day

We promised the kids some sort of end-of-the-school-year blow-out and with the exhaustion of the move into the new house, we still hadn't done anything. So then we went overboard and told them we would go to the Massanutten Water Park. Then we came to our senses when we looked at the price for four hours of fun plus two hours of driving and looked for an alternative plan. With some trepidation, we decided to try out our local lake, Chris Greene Park. We discussed the plan with the kids, who looked fearful at the thought of swimming among little fishes. We decided to go ahead. BEST DECISION EVER, Mommy and Daddy. "Thank you, Mommy and Daddy!" "We had the best time today, Daddy!" "We liked those little fishes, Mommy!" "It had sand, Daddy! Like at the beach!" "We played all day, didn't we, Mommy?" (We were there from 10:30-4:45!) "When can we go again?" Oh, yeah. We were heroes. For only twelve dollars' entry fee and 10 minutes (literally) from our house. Life is good.
Love, Casey

Abigail is relaxing in a pool of sand and warm lake water.

Nathaniel's and Jackson's drawers were so full of sand that they were both sporting "plumber" looks by the end of the day. :)And this is what happens to one little boy who's had a lot of sand, sun, and water. He crashed in the sun shelter for an hour and a half! (I crashed in there with him for a little bit!)This is the fountain on the "kid's side" of the lake. There was a beach in the middle with a deeper part on one side and a shallow side on the other.Chris Greene Lake as we were leaving. The beach is way out in the distance.

And more videos

I was on a video kick, apparently. Here are two more for you to enjoy. I just had to capture the sound of Adah's braids click-clacking because I love that sound. She certainly can't sneak up on anyone! The second video is of Abigail and Adah singing a song from their Latin curriculum (Song School Latin, Heather - from Veritas Press - highly recommend it so far). They are singing "Quid est tuum praenomen?" and then "Meum praenomen est..." which mean, respectively, "What is your name?" and "My name is..." You can see Nathaniel's little hand sneaking over to Abigail because he was trying to look into the camera. I'm surprised he didn't chime in with "Cheese!"

Love,

Casey

Homeschooling Begins for Nathaniel

Hey, all! We have successfully completed our first FULL week of school, and I am pleasantly surprised at how well it has gone. We actually got everything done! That's crazy, especially when we had piano lessons, a baby shower, and a meal to take to a new mama. My two big girls are so diligent to move from task to task, and the bickering problem that cropped up during our break has been minimized as they realize that they now have limited time to play with one another. That makes mama VERY happy. :)

Nathaniel was being so cute yesterday morning as I worked with Jackson and he worked on his puzzles. I decided to take a video to show you how well he's doing with words. One of his favorite sentences right now is "Gah-gay did it." (Jackson did it!) I seem to recall that that was one of Adah's first sentences: "Abbygail did it." Huh. Nathaniel does know the word tractor, but he started getting confused when I took the video and kept saying it was a train. Notice the word he uses for train. Cute.

Love,
Casey