She's 4!

Journey's four! (sob, sob) How can she be four already? Four is getting close to five, and five is when they leave and go to school!!! (more sobbing)

Ok, ok, I'll pull myself together. It's just that I love my sweet girl. We all do.

A week before her 4th birthday, she got to go to Nana and Papa's house with Ava and Zoe for 4 days. Wow, for being the quietest of the three kids, the house sure seemed extra quiet. Aspen missed her SO much. Every day he asked when she was going to come home, and talked about how much he missed her. She's his playmate, and although he did have fun playing with Willow while she was gone, it just wasn't the same.

At four, Journey is now really into stickers, coloring and crafty things like that. She naturally likes to play independently in her room, so we have recently set up a table for her to keep her crayons, markers, stamps, coloring books, beading supplies, Lego Duplos, etc. on out of Willow's reach.

Her current favorite book is the Bible. I've never written about this before, but I've seen a really beautiful transformation in her over the past 6 months. A real answer to prayer.

About 6 months ago, Journey began to really struggle with fear. I remember Aspen struggling with fear (monsters and stuff at night) around this age, and I talked to her the same as I talked to him about fear.

"What does God say about fear?" (then we would say our verses we memorized about fear). I would generally talk to her a little more (God is always with you, you can always talk to God and ask Him to give you peace, etc) and then leave. I didn't want to make a big deal about it and reinforce the fear as being real, but I also didn't want to dismiss her fears and make her feel insecure. It's a tough line to walk.

Anyways, each year I try to ask God for insight for things to pray about for each member of our family, and then write them down so that I can remember to pray regularly over them. This last year, a few of the things on the list were that "God would capture her heart", "draw her to Him", and "give her a heart that follows hard after God". I also prayed that He would take away the fear that she is struggling with, and turn to Him for her peace, security and comfort.

A month or two later, I started finding Journey's Bible under her pillow. I thought it was kind of odd, but didn't say anything about it right away. Finally I asked her about it, and she said that she "reads" the Bible to herself at night, and keeps it under her pillow at night because that gives her peace and she isn't afraid any more.

I have no idea what gave her the idea to sleep on her Bible, but it is incredible how much peace it has brought her. It went from every night saying she was scared (many times crying in bed) to saying she's scared maybe once every 3 weeks. God, you are so good.

Journey - You are a beautiful, sweet girl with a tender heart. You are an absolute gift to me, and I love that God gave me you as my daughter. I love you!

Pics to come of her birthday weekend :)

He's got games

Aspen, can be SO manipulative! He is incredibly witty and smart, maybe too smart. Here's an example...

Lately, Aspen's new thing has been to try to make us feel guilty when we get frustrated with him. Mark came home after a long day of work, we were all sitting down to eat (translate - it was a bit chaotic around here), and I asked Aspen to bring some forks to the table. He came and sat down without the forks. Slightly irritated, Mark asked Aspen to go get the forks.

Aspen responded with, "Dad! Why are you so mean to me? You've been gone ALL day, and then you come home and are SO mean to me!"

Argh! See? So manipulative! That boy keeps us on our toes, I tell ya.

Mark doesn't remember much from his childhood, but he does remember being manipulative. Aspen isn't able to get anything past his Dad. He wrote the book on manipulation, after all! I'm so thankful, because I'll admit, I have a harder time recognizing when he is being manipulative and when he is being genuine.