no more pronouns

I have the most wonderful mother ever, she comes over regularly to help out. Most of the time she helps me keep my sanity by doing dishes, changing diapers, and providing me with some much needed adult conversation. She came to the rescue on Davis' birthday party day by helping clean the house and cooking almost all the food for his party (Kevin grilled the chicken). Kevin came home early to help pull the whole thing together too. I was looking for him, and was walking through the house saying, "Where did he go?" My mom answered, but she assumed I meant Davis when I meant Kevin, and that's when she had a grand realization:

there are five he's in our house. Which was a huge lesson for me: I will have to stop using pronouns in our house.

8 months

Because I know you are all concerned with how big they are getting. Here they are at eight months old (Evan on the left, Eli on the right). Also, their shirts say "smiley" and "happy" which aptly describes them these days.

i am four

Anyone remember what happened on May 24th? Yes, yes, several tornadoes swept across the heartland (again), but it was also Ronin's fourth birthday.

Here he is on the morning of his birthday. Pretty darn excited that he is four. Ronin has been a blessing from the day he was born. He has been laid back from day one, and never in a hurry for anything. He loves nature, playing in sand and dirt, dump-trucks, and he really loves his family.

He planned out his entire birth-day: for breakfast: a blueberry cake and twist donut, for lunch: sammies from Quizno's, for dinner: pancakes, cheesy scrambled eggs, strawberries, apples, grapes, and bananas, for dessert: vanilla cake with vanilla frosting. Ronin declared it would be a vanilla party with the family, and he wanted to go to the park (we didn't make it to the park, but we did go to a friend's house and play outside). To end the day well, he wanted to spend the night with my parents.

No tornado could get him down, as we hunkered down in the bathroom, helmets and all; he asked what we were doing. I explained, and he said, "Oh, cool." We waited out the storm, and my brother and his family came over after to celebrate.

God is so good to us, and in case we doubted, He showed us His mighty power in the tornado, and His immense blessing in the smile of our four-year-old all in one night.

shut the door

Since learning the meaning of the word "privacy," Davis has also found a need for it.

He always spends a notoriously long amount of time in the bathroom for, umm, let's just say #2, and has never felt a need to close the door, he usually tries to have a conversation with you or sings. But now he shuts the door for "privacy."

We had several conversations about the word to clarify the definition, yet for a few weeks each time Kevin hugged me Davis would say to Ronin, "Umm, Ronin, c'mon, let's go to our room, Mommy and Daddy need some privacy."

"No, we don't," we told him.

I explained to him there are things we need privacy for, but hugs are definitely not one of them.