You Capture: Youth

Youth [yooth] -noun. The time of being young.

The time of playing with bubbles until you run out...

Grace (5) and Josiah (8)

The time of playing with your best friend all day long...


and loving every minute of it.


The time of looking forward to tomorrow, because there's even more playtime ahead...

Grace (5)

Brothers

Isn't this a great shot? Talk about capturing someone's personality...

Robert (13) and Josiah (8)

Visit 5 Minutes for Mom, Shibley Smiles, and Baba's Farm Life for more Wordless Wednesday fun.

Giveaway winner

Congratulations to the winner of my postcard giveaway...

A Joyful Chaos!

You Capture: Emotion in black and white

Although I asked Josiah to make a sad face for this shot

he does just fine on his own, thankyouverymuch. He frequently shows his melodramatic side (especially this week...) and often reminds me how great life would be if we only had a dog.

Fortunately, until that happens, we have several loaner dogs in our lives, including the music store mascot, Katie.


Josiah would probably make an argument about how much more attentive he would be with his schoolwork...if only we had a dog!

I know better.

~~~~~

This week we had birthday girl excitement



...lots and lots of birthday girl excitement, since my birthday is a day before Grace's, and Jason's is earlier in the month. Grace is now 5! You would have thought she turned into a queen with all the "It's my birthday, so I get to choose" comments that came out of that sweet, spunky little girl.

Make that a sweet, spunky, and gorgeous little girl.

Wordless Wednesday: Pine trees

Visit 5 Minutes for Mom, Shibley Smiles, and Baba's Farm Life for more Wordless Wednesday fun.

Overheard: Being Four

I cannot believe that my baby girl will be five soon! How can this possibly be? It was nearly a year ago when we were grocery shopping and Grace spied a box of "pink" cake mix at the store. She very excitedly told me that she wanted me to fix her that pink cake for her when she turned five.

Five?! How could she say that so casually? I am standing in the middle of the aisle, hardly able to breathe with this thought, and she's casually talking about being five within a month of her fourth birthday!

Then again, she is also the same child whose first thought after potty training was "Now I can become a mommy." I guess she thinks that the faster she gets through these years, the sooner she can be a mommy.


Still...I love what a sweet, quirky, clever little girl she is. I'm not in any hurry for her to grow up, so I am relieved that she's promised me she will stay little for me for a long time. And since she so freely shares what is going on in her four year old mind, I have plenty of blog material (if I can just remember to write it down).

~~~~~

Grace: I said what I said, and I meant what I meant. A four year old is faithful 100%!

~~~~~

Grace: Lots-O [the strawberry-scented bear on Toy Story 3] wasn't nice, 'cause he didn't want to treat her [Big Baby] the usual way. You know, "Treat others the way you want them to treat you."

~~~~~

Grace: Mommys are the specialist thing in the whole wide world.

The adoration is mutual. :)

Overheard: The "Is it too late to talk about Valentine's Day?" Edition

No doubt about it--it's pretty fun having a four year old in the house. Who else would insist that I encourage me to take a picture of the chocolate goodies my Secret Sister gave me for Valentine's Day just so I could put it on the blog?

Thank you to my Secret Sister!

And who else would volunteer every day to help me eat those chocolatey goodies?

Oh, yeah. My boys would do that. ;)

But I have to tell you, it was so much easier getting Grace to write her name on the Valentines for the homeschool play group party than it ever has been with the boys.


And she not only made Valentines for Dad and Mom


but also for Puppy (a.k.a. Josiah)!



But my favorite part has been watching her excitement over every event, no matter how small. And, of course, playing with her a bit...

Me: Grace, it's time for bed. You need to get to bed quickly so the Valentine Creature can come and bring goodies!

Grace [wide-eyed with wonder]: Really?!?!

Me: No...but you do need to get to bed.

She giggled! Then, later, as I was tucking her in...

Grace: Mommy, now the Valentine Creature can come! [more giggles]

Before she went to sleep, she had some questions...

Grace: Um, what's tomorrow, Mommy?

Me: Tomorrow is Tuesday.

Grace: No, I mean, is it Easter? Or my birthday?

I guess you can't blame her for wanting it to be another holiday. After all, the stores already had St. Patrick's Day items out by this time!