Friday Morning

I get so bummed when blogs I follow take looonnggg breaks from blogging. I completely understand the need to and the things that bring this about and I in no way condemn those bloggers. It just bums me out because I want to read about their lives and something new! That being said, I'm pretty much the worst blogger ever and blog so infrequently. I look back at my last post and somethings are written from a highly emotional state, some things I completely forgot that I wrote and sometimes I'm like, hello Debbie Downer! My life is sweet and easy compared to real suffering felt by so many. But here's an update on the kids, since they're the most interesting part of my life anyway and the reason I blog at all!

Chloe is dancing, still, and loves it. She's in her studio's production of Pinocchio and loves getting to rehearse with the big girls, who are so completely sweet and amazing to her. They greet her by name every time they see her and give her a hug and ask how she's doing. It's the sweetest thing.

Ava is playing softball and it's the cutest thing I've ever seen, these six year olds learning the game. She loves it and is proving to be our very athletic child. Her games are fun and short, which makes it easy on our boys not to be stuck at the softball field all day (hello soccer season where we lived at the soccer fields allll the time!). She's finally really reading on her own which has been a huge relief for me!

Silas turns four next month and he is such a delight. I never thought I'd love having sons as much as I do!! He's totally a mama's boy. He's thoughtful and gentle and mischievous and spunky. He loves dinosaurs and has three stuffed dino buddies. One of them, a triceratops, has been deemed the mean one and he refuses to play with him. Yesterday for his nap he couldn't find his beloved t-rex to sleep with so I made brown dino make puppy whimpering sounds and crawl up into his lap and he decided to be friends with that little guy after all. His third dino, a brontosaurus, doesn't seem to have much personality yet. I just love his imagination.

Shep is still the sweetest baby ever. Poor thing has been cutting teeth constantly since January. Every tooth in his mouth will be grown in very soon. He's been having such a tough time with this. He's also had these weird contact rashes that we thing were caused by new laundry detergent. So we switched, it cleared up, then was back again this week. He's still not walking (14.5 mo) or saying much at all. I watched a video of 10 month old Silas saying Mama, Dada, and Sisters a couple of days ago. It made me so stressed out that Shep is just not there yet. Kids develop at different paces...but I'd be lying if I said I wasn't concerned. Working with special needs kids has given me too much knowledge that's freaking me out right now. Patching him is still miserable. But he loves his family, plays with his siblings, snuggles his mama, nurses 5-7 times a day and loves playing with the dogs. He is a sweet sweet blessing.