3 Years

How can it already be 3 years ago that God grew our family by blessing us with Hope?  3 years ago today, Daryl and I flew to Pennsylvania in the morning to pick her up and turned around and flew back home later that same day with a precious girl - our first daughter! - in our arms.  Our 18 month old son waited (unknowingly and clueless as to how his life was about to turn upside down) at home and our unborn baby (I was 4 1/2 months pregnant with Aliyah) moving and wiggling around inside of me, not knowing that when he/she would be born, he/she would have a 22 month old older brother and a 15 month old older sister!  

Hope Atlanta, we are so thankful that you are our daughter!  You are full of joy and you love life!  You are patient and kind with your siblings and you are always willing to share with them.  You love to dance and sing and make up stories.  Cinderella is your favorite princess and you often quote lines from the movie and/or book while you are dancing around in your Cinderella dress.  You usually only want your snap beads during your quiet time and you spend your whole quiet time making beautiful necklaces and bracelets for your brother and sister and mom and dad.  You thrive on our praise and our touch.  You are determined to please others but you can have quite the attitude at times!  Your favorite things to do with Aliyah is play in your kitchen and your favorite thing to do with Samuel is jump on the trampoline.  You also love to have books read to you.

You are a precious girl, loved deeply and unconditionally by your Daddy and myself and loved even more than that by your Heavenly Father.  You are a gift, your life is a gift.  You are a miracle and we know that God has awesome plans for you, sweet girl!!  

We had a little party tonight celebrating Hope!

Aliyah enjoyed her cake and ice cream!

I trusted Daryl to put the frosting in my mouth.  Apparently, I should not have trusted him!! The kids weren't sure what to think of their Mom with frosting all over her face!

Samuel has been excited about this day for a long time . . . but for a different reason! Today is his 1/2 birthday and he is thrilled to be 4 1/2!!!

Worn out!

Samuel and Aliyah were watching Curious George downstairs one afternoon when Samuel came up and said, "Mommy! I looked over at Aliyah and she was sleeping on the futon!"  Little stinker!  She hasn't been taking very many naps lately even though we still do a quiet time every afternoon.  She must have been extra worn out today!

A Trip to Chicago: Shedd Aquarium

A New (but actually old!) Toy

After having the trampoline down for more than 6 months, we decided to put it back up.  The kids had been asking for it and I thought it would be a fun thing for them to do while Daryl was gone in Haiti.  It's always fun getting an old "toy" out that they haven't seen in awhile because all of a sudden it is new again!  They are loving the trampoline and rediscovering all of the fun tricks that they can do on it.

My Little Engineer

Samuel has been into creating and building things lately.  I love to see his brain and imagination at work!  He comes up with some pretty unique things!

Samuel and his "train".  He cut out all of these pieces of paper and then taped them to the table to make a long train.  He was very proud of it and I am very proud of him!

Samuel came up with this marble track contraption on his own.  He sent the marbles down the jump and then put a bunch of the tube connector pieces on the end of it so the marbles would get to the end of the jump and then shoot through the tube and out the other end.  Not bad!!

Daryl's Week in Haiti

While Daryl was doing this . . . .

We were doing this . . . 

Daryl had a great week in Haiti and was able to get a lot accomplished.  We also had a great week here at home.  My parents were a huge help.  They were either over here or we were over there every night for supper.  My Mom often helped with putting them all to bed and they watched all of the kids (and took them to Church!) this morning while I went to Detroit to pick Daryl up at the airport.  We had a lot of people praying over us for good health and we did all stay healthy!  Praise God!  We apparently forgot to pray for our house though because we suffered through a few house "mishaps": a broken water softener (water kept running through it constantly because the timer got jammed - my Dad had to come over late one night to shut off the valve so the water would bypass the softener), a garage door that wouldn't shut (again, my Dad had to come over around 9pm to figure it out for me!), and then the worst of the three - a miniature flood in our storage area in the basement.  I was getting Hope ready for dance on Friday morning when Samuel went downstairs into the storage room to get his little basketball hoop.  He came upstairs and said, "Mommy, I think my basketball hoop is leaking because there is water on the floor downstairs!"  Heart sinking, I ran downstairs to find water all over the storage room floor.  It could have been so much worse but as it was, I called my Dad again and he came over and cleaned it up with the wet vac.  The water was under heavy filing cabinets that I couldn't move and there was no way I could spend the time needed on the clean-up while taking care of my kids.  So thankful that my parents live close and that they are both willing to pitch in and help when I need it!  I'm also glad that Samuel went down to the storage room early on Friday morning because who knows when I would have noticed it!  Probably not until hours later - especially because we were getting ready to bring Hope to dance class.  My major lower back pain has also disappeared this week which has made it a lot easier for me to keep up with the kids.  So thankful for the prayer warriors that prayed us through this week!

Prince Charming

Hope loves anything and everything about Cinderella right now.  She likes to put on her Cinderella dress and quote lines directly from the movie or from the book.  It's pretty cute!

The other day, she asked Daryl and me, "Will I still be 3 1/2 when I marry Prince Charming?"  We both assured her that she will most definitely not be 3 1/2 anymore when she gets married!!

On Sunday we were sitting in Church and she whispers in my ear, "When I marry Prince Charming will I have a baby?"  I nodded my head and said she could have a baby after she gets married.  Then she said, "And childrens too?"

She also told my Mom that she can't wait to have a baby.  She is a little obsessed with having a baby!!  She loves to put her lovey or a baby under her shirt and pretend like she has a baby in her tummy.  She even tries to move her tummy in such a way that it makes it look like she has a baby in her tummy that is kicking.

I was getting dressed the other day when Hope walked into my bedroom and said "Wow! Cool belly button!"

I put a hair tie with a lot of ribbons tied to it in her hair the other day and she excitedly said, "My hair looks like a carnival!!"