My Girl is Four

She is hilarious...so full of creativity and spunk, with an amazing sharing heart and strong will.  She gets much of that strong will and tendency to love and fight hard from her mama.   So the 2s and 3s were sometimes really hard!  We've spent much time disciplining and praying and loving.  And finally, over the last few months, we've seen maturity and tendency more towards self-control.  It has been so fun to enjoy her without the battling!

So, this month Greer turned 4.  What a big, grownup number for our Babygirl.  She makes us laugh so hard, loves to dressup and dance, wants everything to be beautiful and loves playing with barbies and princesses.  She changes her clothes multiple times a day and is hilarious reviewing her choices in the "may-er."  She is reading already, remembers everything and is so cute when she says words or phrases slightly incorrectly.  ("Pail nolish," "sca-betti," "eyebrowshes," etc.)  

She is so good at thanking us for letting her do fun things and is quick to tell us how much fun she had.  We love to hear her talk about the Lord and what she is learning at church and in her daily Bible time.  Her favorite verse is still Zeph 3:17.  :)  I truly cannot wait to see what the Lord's plan is for her life...so thankful I get to be part of this fun journey!

Instead of having a traditional birthday party, we celebrated in small groups...at her co-op class and with the Ruckers and Pierces one Friday before then having her best 2 buds, Madi and Darcey, come into town for a sleepover.  It was perfect.  :)

Singing happy birthday and having a treat at co-op...

Friday, we celebrated with the Pierces and Ruckers.  Maymay made some cupcakes and we played in the park after our service project there.  Love our time with them and am so thankful for our families' friendships.  Love these pics that Jen took :)

And then, the day before her birthday, the Lord brought beautiful weather and the Links, Dormans and B's fam arrived to play, eat dinner and then let the girls sleepover.  (A quick disclaimer...we just let Greer wear what she wanted to :).)

With Madi and Ansley in the playhouse...a perfect pic of Greer with a giant pumpkin flower she just picked and a sparkly dressup :)

Girls everywhere :)

Fun in the yard

A fam shot :)

Sweet, sweet girls

Ariel cupcakes

Mads, Greer and Darcey :)

Some gifts...

(Finally the "skating barbie" she has asked for for months...not sure where she got the idea, but so thankful we could find one!)

Sleepover fun in the closet...a favorite pasttime

And all in a row...Madi, Greer, Chaney, Darcey and Ansley

And the traditional night before pics...last night being 3!

So so thankful to be your mama, Greer....Happy Birthday and we love you!

Football Art Class

Our sweet friend, Jennifer, held one of her SMOCKS art classes with a football being the subject of the paintings.  Gehr loves football, art and being with his buddies, Luke and Gentry...so it was a no-brainer.  :)

Perfect for his room...it's already up :)

Pumpkin Patch 2011

Greer was excited to "show us around" the pumpkin patch this year since she had already been with her school class.  So cute and proud :)

We had the place all to ourselves :)

Cute freckled snaggle-tooth :)

Impossible to get a shot of all 5 looking and smiling!

Riding the wagon out with the pumpkins.  Love.

FCA+

I love those "small world" realizations when you meet someone who knows someone else that you're really close to and you all just know that you will enjoy each other if you ever get in the same place at the same time.  :)  As we've gotten to know the Bolemons the last few years at FCA camp, we've realized that they knew the Watsons' really good (and super sweet) friends, Chad and Catherine (who we have met here through the Watsons as well).  Whew.

Anyway, we have meant to get together for over a year now and finally made it happen this month in Madison.  As expected, it was a great time and we look forward to making it a more regular event!

My sweet friend, Angie.  So nice to have an evening out together in the fall...showered and dressed instead of in play clothes at FCA camp.  :)

1 Thessalonians 5:11 Therefore encourage one another and build each other up, just as in fact you are doing.  So thankful for godly, encouraging and fun believing friends who relate so well to B's job and our family life.  Love you guys!

Pulling Teeth

It's been months in the making.  A first tooth getting more and more loose and a mommy dreading more and more the pulling.  (Don't know why but it's like fingernails on a chalkboard for me!)  Finally it got to the point that Gehrig was having to be careful not to eat things like apples because it hurt him.  And seriously, it was barely hanging on...  

Thankfully! I have two great friends who love to pull teeth.  After Gehr's football game one night, Jen gave it a try.  Unfortunately we didn't have floss or much to work with, so after a few tugs, we called it an evening.  Sweet Jen was worried about hurting him too and he was getting more nervous the more we tried.

So the next morning, this is out it looked...I mean, it HAS to come out!  

(But I'm not doing it!)

Enter friend #2...and some dental floss.  She also didn't want to hurt him, but I urged her to PLEASE get it.  And Gehr was motivated to get it out too before his sleepover party that night at a friend's house.  (I couldn't let him go to a football party with a tooth hanging out of his mouth!  He could've choked on it or lost it without me being there to see the first one!  Either way, telling him that gave him an extra dose of bravery.)

Almost!

YAY!!!  He was so happy and proud once it was out.  :)

Fin was awesome, encouraging him and reminding him that he should expect a treat from losing his tooth.  :)

Since then, he has carried it around with him everywhere in a little pouch that MayMay gave him.  He got a little money under his pillow, but though excited, still asked, "How are fairies real?  Do parents put the money under there?  Did you?"  I'm not good at all the pretend stuff and feeling like I may be lying so I was glad to be able to answer his last question honestly when I said, "no."  After all, his daddy did.  :)