Getting Older

This coming Friday our oldest is turning seven. In a month our youngest will be one. It's making me wonder where all the time has gone! Just in the past month, all three kids are changing.

Louie is entering that weird-looking stage. It seems that he is constantly growing (I have the receipts from all the shoes & pants he's gone through this year to prove that!), but not in any type of proportionate way. One week his nose seems to big for his face. The next week his feet and hands seem to big for his body. Everything fits for a few days and then his ears go up a couple of sizes! Add the missing and wiggly teeth and it's not always a pretty picture. But he's so grown up and he's so smart. And he's always handsome with is bright blond hair and his sky blue eyes. He can be so serious at times with his worrying about every possible outcome of his actions and prayers for people who need God's help. Yet he can be so totally carefree with writing his own jokes and dancing around like a goof to make us all laugh.

J stopped looking like a toddler and looks like a pre-schooler. I think getting his mop of hair buzzed helped with that. He is our moody little man. He really works the expression, "poor middle child". But he makes my heart smile when he comes out of nowhere with a hug and a kiss and an, "I love you!" He puts as much passion into being loving as he does into being angry.

Last we have Lil' Miss. She was our great surprise, but she fits our family so well that I have a hard time remembering that she wasn't in our original plan. She's crawling now and so much more determined that the boys ever were. Maybe those of you who have girls are nodding your heads right now? Kat knows what she wants and does not take no for an answer. She keeps trying and trying with a calm determination. It almost seems like she is laughing at herself and saying, "Keep going Kat. You'll get it!" She is so dainty from the way she talks to the way she moves yet when her boys are wrestling she wants to be right in the middle of it.

So I better finish up. We've got Louie sneaking cookies for breakfast. We've got J crying in time-out. And Kat has disappeared somewhere into the living room. What I was trying to say is thank you, God, for our beautiful & quirky children. And if Louie could say in size 8 for awhile, that'd be great. Amen.