Spring Rain

We had our first spring thunder storm last night. Imagine Hampton's delight when he got out of the car at BSF to see lots of worms in the parking lot. Now imagine his teachers surprise when he arrived at the door (before me) and proudly displayed his parking lot catch. He didn't want the worm to die, so we stored it in a cup of water in the stroller and then washed his hands before he entered the classroom. After BSF, we found a "home" for his worm (an empty wipe box) and some friends to keep him company from our own backyard. It was a battle to get him to eat lunch b/c he wanted to play w/ his worms so much. I'm sure we will add to our collection and have a worm box for quite a while.

This is the face he made when I asked him how excited he was about his worms.

Intrigued!

This is a terrible picture, but you can still see the saddness in his face...after some of his worms accidently went down the drain when he was "giving them a bath" in the bathroom sink.

I am so thankful that he loves nature and finds so much joy in the tiny things. I am excited to teach him how about the vast creativity and imagination of our Creator. This is going to be a fun spring!

I love this boy!!!

As a parent, sometimes you feel like what you do isn't working...like you're beating your head against a wall when you're teaching, training and loving your kids. Once in a blue moon, you catch a glimpse of hope. Today was one of those days. When I dropped Hampton off a school today, his teacher said she wanted tell me something sweet that Hampton said. The other day they were learning the nursery rhyme, "Humpty Dumpty." They were putting sequencing cards in order to tell the story. When they came to the end Mrs. Nash asked the class what the last card represented. They all replied, "All the king's horses and all the king's men, couldn't put Humpty together again." Hampton looked up at his teacher and matter of factly said, "You know, God is really the best at fixing these kind of things." I was so proud and so thankful for the Lord's faithfulness! It's glimpses like these that keep a mommy going.

I have been meaning to blog this story for a long time, but keep forgetting. Hampton is really into pretending he is Bibleman, a superhero in the "Lord's army." He has learned all the peices of the Armor of God and often suits up in full armor to fight the "evil doers." Several weeks ago, Ben and Hampton were playing in the bounce house. Ben was tripping Hampton and Hampton was using his sword (of the Spirit of course) to try and chop Ben's legs. Mid-game Hampton ran to the corner, bowed his head and prayed, "Dear God, please help me beat him."

Hampton, you are such a blessing to our family. Our prayer is that you will always turn to the Lord no matter what the circumstance. You are precious. I love you SO MUCH and I am so proud of you just the way God made you!

Really???

Not even the gate will keep him off the stairs!

We are waiting on Lucy to work up enough nerve to learn to climb down the stairs and then we are going to put the gates away. Reid has mastered up and down, but Lucy gets to the top and yells, "Momma" until someone carries her down.

Can you believe this kid?

I love him! I love him! I love him!

Too Big, Too Fast

I have so, so much blogging to catch up on, but I couldn't wait to post this until I actually find the time to "back blog." The babies had their 9 month doctors appointment yesterday. Apparently one of the things they look for at this age is the disappearance of the reflex to always stand on their toes. Our doctor said that once a baby starts to stand flat footed all the time, they are about ready to walk. When he stood Reid up to check the reflex, he looked at me with that I-hate-to-tell-you-this look on his face and said, "He could walk if he wanted to." Not that I am in any way ready for my sweet babies (who I can hardly believe are nearly 10 months old) to walk, but we were still excited at the news. Lucy's reflex is fading fast, but isn't completely gone yet. She is still typically a week or 2 behind in physical development, while Reid is a week or 2 behind Lucy's social development. Lucy is, however holding her own bottle while Reid is not interested in exerting any energy while drinking his bottle. Both of them are thoroughly enjoying finger foods, and often strongly resist being spoon fed. So far they are devouring Cheerios, peas, sweet potatoes, avocado, bananas and carrots...all by themselves :).
At dinner tonight, I told Ben that I thought Reid could walk behind the push toy and Lucy would love to play w/ the gadgets on the front. We pulled it out and this is what happened:

8 Months Old

I am so embarassed that I am just now posting pictures of the babies at 8 months. While the date on this post will tell you that I wrote it on 9/30, I didn't in fact complete it until 10/28. What a terrible record keeper/mommy/blogger I am :). Due to the fact that Lucy and Reid are over 9 months as I write, I don't remember exactly what they were doing at 8 months. I know Reid was very mobile and pulling up on things and Lucy had just started inch-worming around. I did take pictures on or around their 8-month-day, so I'll just post those. ENJOY my precious little ones!

REID

LUCY

LUCY and REID

Ready for a bike ride!

All Three

Picnic at the park after a long jeep ride

Jeep Fun!!!

Oooops!

Hampton came in this morning from driving his jeep in the backyard and announced, "I don't have a surprise for you, Mom." My immediate response was, "Oh no, Hampton did you have an accident?" He quickly replied, "No!" Then asked with complete surprise and disappointment, "Do I have poop in my pants?" Thankfully when I checked, the coast was clear, so he changed his announcement to, "I don't have a surprise for you outside." Ben and I quickly looked out the kitchen window to see this...

Aparently, the fence was in the middle of Hampton's road. Ben spent a good chunk of our Saturday morning mending the fence. Truthfully, it is much better off now! We're learning what it means to be a safe driver :). Later this afternoon, he had his jeep privileges taken away for being a reckless driver. Like I said, he is learning...

PooPoo Party!

Hampton has been working very hard to poop in the big potty (and not his pants) in order to fill his sticker chart to earn this super cool, rough, tough Arctic Cat Jeep. We have looked online at this jeep many, many times. We have made up stories about the adventures we will take in our jeep. We have talked about what we're going to load in the cargo bed with the shovel on the hood. We look at the picture on the fridge and count how many stickers we have and how many more stickers we need before we can go to "the jeep store" to get our jeep. He is very, very excited and really quite motivated :). Well, yesterday was the big day. He earned his final sticker! We were all so, so excited and we celebrated with a PooPoo Party. After Hampton accomplished his goal, we called Daddy who was super encouraging and proud. I called the local ToysRUs to make sure they had the jeep. Thankfully they had one in stock (that would have been tough to explain why we had to wait for one to be shipped), but it was red. I was a little worried my detail oriented child would be disappointed it wasn't exactly like the one we had picked out, but thankfully his favorite color is red. As soon as Daddy got home from work, we went to Chick-fil-a for family night (free kids meals, kid's crafts and Hampton's favorite, helium balloons). We enjoyed our meal and Hampton made the choice to trade his toy for an ice cream cone. He liked about 4 bites of the ice cream and like usual asked one of us to eat it down to the cone. That's his favorite part. After dinner we drove to "the jeep store." He was giddy! And a apparently a little clumsy:)

We had to "put the jeep together" (a 10 minute job that they wanted to charge us $25 to do) when we got home and then charge the battery for EIGHTEEN HOURS. Thankfully it was dark outside, so we were able to convince H that he needed to wait anyway. After school today he was more than excited to get home and drive his jeep. It is so much fun as a parent to see such excitement in your child...even if it was rediculously expensive (we will be having a small Christmas this year:)). He drove the jeep from the time we got home until we made him come in for dinner and then until it was dark. I am so thankful Ben works so hard and the Lord has provided in such a way that we were able to do this for Hampton.

As a side note, the jeep is major currency in our house. If Hampton has an accident, he has to take a sticker off of his chart. If his chart isn't full, he can't use his jeep...this means until he goes again in the potty, he's out of luck :(. He is doing remarkably well so far!!! We are all so proud.