New Do

Mary decided she wanted short hair again.  I love this cute little girl. She really does look so cute with short hair.  Mary has been making rapid progress in 1st grade.  Her reading is soaring and she loves to tell me all about her day.  She is quickly becoming a bookworm as well.  She also loves to play with her friends at school and she has been having so much fun having friends in the neighborhood to play with after school.

"You want to hear about my dream, Mom?"

This is an often heard request from Joshie.  He has very vivid dreams and tells me about them at least 4 or 5 days a week.  This sweet boy of our's has very tender and special dreams and the detail in which he remembers them baffles me at times.  Probably about 90% of the time his dreams are about Jesus or Heavenly Father.  He will tell me dreams of Them coming to talk to him or to play a game with him.  Sometimes his dreams are about Jesus teaching him things or sometimes Heavenly Father is in his dreams telling him he is safe and reminding him to be happy all the time.  I treasure these tender moments with Josh and I hope he will always share these sweet moments with me.

 

This morning he came to me while we were getting ready to run some errands.  He said his usual, "Mom, you want to hear about my dream?"  I told him I would love to hear about it.  Then he got kinda quiet and shyly said, "Well, maybe not.  It's not like my normal dreams, Mom.  Heavenly Father and Jesus were not in my dream last night."  I told him I would still love to hear his dream but he decided not to share with me.  We got into the car and headed out for our errands.  While driving he asked me again if I wanted to hear his dream.  I told him I did and he then said, "Well, you have to pinky promise me that you won't tell anyone!  Especially you can't tell Sammy about my dream."  I agreed to that to which he replied, "And you have to swear you won't laugh, Mom!"  I again agreed and he really had my curiosity piqued now.  Reluctantly he began to tell me about his dream.  It went something like this...

 

I was in a forest last night in my dream Mom.  And Sammy found me.  But Mom, I was dressed like a princess!

 

It took every ounce of fortitude to keep my promise and not laugh out loud when he told me.  Thankfully we were driving so he couldn't see the smile that spread across my face.  This just made me smile so big.  This sweet boy of our's was so concerned that he was dressed like a princess in his dream and that Sammy found him like that.  I promised not to tell anyone but I had to record it so years from now we can share this sweet memory with him.  So, don't tell him you know about his dream last night!

New Pics

Joshie's 5 year old pictures (a few weeks early) and Sara's 9 month old pictures.

Look What We Found

Today was a busy Saturday for our family with a library activity for Spring, Orchestra fundraiser for Thomas, Joel fixing our kitchenaid, cleaning out our pantry, playing with the kids, Joel and Thomas helping with a move, and a bunch of other things that I can't remember any more.  Looking back on the day I keep trying to figure out what really kept us busy all day and can't seem to figure it out, but we were busy all day.

 

This afternoon Thomas was playing the piano which isn't anything unusual in our home.  We walked into the room to find him entertaining Sara at the same time.  He didn't realize we were there watching him so Joel was able to capture a video and we were able to get some pictures.  When he finished and turned around he was surprised to see we were taking video of him.  I love how comfortable he is with Sara and how he just involves her with whatever he is doing.

Joshie's Invention

This morning Joshie came to me asking if we could make a long tunnel that he could send marbles down.  I was in the process of getting Sara down for a nap and then wanting to jump in the shower so I told him, "let's start saving some toilet paper rolls so we can make it that in a few days."  I am kinda embarrassed to admit I was trying to appease him at the moment so I could actually get in the shower and not have Sara get woken up in the process.  Silly me....I thought that would be the end of the request for at least a day or so.  You can imagine my surprise when I came downstairs after a shower to find that Joshie had taken it upon himself to create this tunnel he dreamed of.  He used paper and rolled it up and used a glue stick to hold the roll together.  Then he used tape to attach all the rolls to each other and taped them to some totes so they wouldn't move when he put marbles down them.  He and Gideon have played all day with this invention.  I am amazed by his ingenuity and his perseverance.  He didn't like the idea of waiting so he came up with a way to make it himself.

Day Trip

With yesterday being Labor Day and all of us home Joel and I wanted to do something with the family.  Thomas had flags in the morning and needed to retrieve them in the evening so we knew it had to be a day trip.  We decided to head to Pittsburgh for the day.  Sammy is a Steelers fan...I never in my wildest dreams thought we would have a child that was a Steelers fan...but such is life living out here.  He has wanted to see where the Steelers play for some time so we decided to make his dream come true. It really is a beautiful drive to Pittsburgh.  We made it to the stadium and were able to walk around it and look in through the gates.  Sammy thought that was really cool.  The stadium is right on the river and it is very picturesque.  After walking around the stadium we walked along the riverwalk.  The kids were enthralled with all the houseboats and some of them just couldn't comprehend why we couldn't just go look inside them.  We found a really cool fountain type thing that kids were wading in.  We hadn't planned for this but we had the kids take off their shoes and enjoy the cool water.  It wasn't long until they were all really wet but having a fantastic time.  After a couple hours we headed to IKEA for a short while and then headed home.  We even got home in time for them to ride their bikes for a while before coming in for bed.  I am so grateful for the fun time we shared and for the joy our children find in simple pleasures.  It was a great day.