It's a.......

BOY!!!!

A little bit of random...

Willow is our ever-present kitchen helper.  She was very curious about the salmon Mark was cutting up, and had no problem checking out its slimy skin.

The girls playing TOGETHER, nicely.  As I've said before, this is a work in progress, and I must document the times when they actually do!  :)

This Spring has also been the year of fires for Aspen.  He's always loved making fires, but this year he is old enough to be trusted with making his own in the backyard.  He has spent hours after school and on the weekends taking all our burnable recycling to the backyard and cleaning the forest behind the house of the brush.  He's also rediscovered his love of his tree house/fort Mark built for him in the woods AND of spray paint.  So far he hasn't ruined many clothes and there's just something about the freedom of fire and spray paint for a 7 year old boy  :)

I recently got my hair done and was ready for some change.  I think hair stylists always like it when you walk in and say you want something new, totally different, and don't care what they come up with  :)

Ballet

Spring 2011 was a busy one for me. On top of being in my first trimester (and really sick!) with baby #4, Aspen started soccer and we signed Journey up for a ballet class.

These new additions to our already busy family schedule definitely took some work for both Mark and I to coordinate. The ballet class was on Mondays at 12:45pm, right in the middle of nap time. Aspen's soccer practice was Monday nights (in the middle of our normal bedtime), and soccer games were on Thursday nights. We worked it out by having Mark come home while Willow napped for the ballet classes, Mark took Aspen to his practices, and we all went to his games. It sure made for some busy Monday's (also my normal cleaning day)!

Anyways, back to the ballet classes.... Journey LOVED it. It was so much fun to see her doing something she really loved and enjoyed. I'm not sure how much she learned in the 8 weeks as far as dance moves go, but she did jump right in and dance without any shyness or hint of self-consciousness.

I see a quiet confidence in her, not the kind of outward, obvious confidence you see in some, but I think it's a beautiful quality. I so hope it isn't squashed as she gets older and is faced with society and peer pressure.

Love Them

I am incredibly blessed to be "mom" to each of these kids. I love each of them so much. Lately there have been a lot of questions from them of who is my favorite. I tell them Aspen's my favorite big brother, Journey's my favorite big sister and Willow's my favorite baby girl. They're all my favorite!

There are many times when I feel overwhelmed with the day to day tasks of keeping the house cleaned, laundry done, and all the running around I have to do, along with loving on them and spending time on what I feel is most important. It seems like every quarter or so I need a self check up to realign priorities. How quickly they get off and sidetracked!

Aspen is 7. Seven now! Weird to say that I've been a mom for 7 years. It's gone so fast. Aspen is at a great age and stage right now. He's a great help and such a quick learner.

Right now, his responsibilities around the house are to unload the dishwasher, make his lunch every morning, do his homework (he looks through what he has for the week and decides how much he needs to do each day to get it done on time), clean his room, put his clean laundry away, and various vacuuming around the house. He is learning to sweep the garage (for extra money), and is currently working on cleaning out the pond. This is a BIG job, and one that will earn him $20 once he finally finishes! When we are at the beach house, he earns extra money by clearing out the brush in front of the house.

He has an incredibly soft heart when it comes to his sisters. Both Journey and Willow cry for him, "Bubba!....Bubba!!!..." when they get in trouble. He always comes to their rescue and pleads for me to not punish them. It's so sweet. Man, I remember as a firstborn, I was happy when I saw my sister and brothers get in trouble, and certainly didn't come to their rescue!

One other story about him, because it brought tears to my eyes, and I want to remember it....  The other night I was out and Mark was holding the fort down.  He called me saying Willow was refusing to eat, what should he do?  Put her to bed hungry?  I just told him to try to find something she would eat, and that she would eventually eat if she was hungry. 

Later that night, when I got home, he was telling me how much he loved our kids, and how helpful Aspen had been while I was gone.  Apparently, when Willow refused to eat, Aspen took Willow in his lap and hand fed her.  As long as she was on his lap, she would eat!  Not only that, after dinner the kids went downstairs to watch a movie.  When Mark went down to check on them, he found Aspen and Willow cuddled up in a sleeping bag together watching the movie. 
OMGosh.  I could just melt.  Or cry.  I love my boy.  I never imagined how awesome it would be to have an older brother.

Journey is 4, and has arrived at the age of transitioning out of naps. She listens to Bible tapes most days, unless we have something extra going on where we are out late or she is fighting sickness and needs extra sleep. She is very close with Aspen, but the relationship between her and Willow is rough most of the time.

It's something I've been praying a lot about. While Willow can be pretty tough to get along with right now, and always seems to be destroying her creations or trying to take what she's playing with, Journey could definitely react with more love and less screaming :)

Ah, Willow. At 22 months, she is our sunshine and our thunder cloud, depending on the day and moment you catch her. She is extremely stubborn and ornery and often screams and throws fits to try to get her way. She is a challenge!

But as challenging as she is, she is also so much fun and so dang cute (why do you think we were ready to have another one?). She has the sweetest smile, and is so charming when she wants to be. She says "hi" to everyone we come across, and is talking so much.

A few things she is saying right now:

"I want to help!" - she's my kitchen helper every night

"I want to go!" - she HATES to be left behind or left out of anything the older kids are doing
"Look! A cow (bird, etc.)" - she points out things she sees as we are driving

"I want more"
"Why?" - she started the why's a couple months ago.  Isn't that supposed to be a 2 year old thing???

She can now say Journey's name, and it is the cutest thing. She "talks" a ton, but mostly those sentences are started with something we can understand, then lapsed into her own language spoken at a mile a minute. Aspen and Journey have especially loved teaching her "potty talk". Nothing funnier than hearing a baby say "poop, pee, butt" or any other kind of potty talk words :)

One other thing I have to say about her is her connection with her Papa's. None of the kids have had such a special connection to their Papa's as she does. Both of them are her favorite, and she loves "talking" to them and basking in their attention.