HAPPY BIRTHDAY, PAISLEY

Paisley is two years old!!! How is it that my baby is two????

We celebrated with gifts and cake and ice cream. Paisley LOVES Barbie. She plays with them, sleeps with them, sings all the Barbie songs.

Paisley also LOVES sports. She will pickup any ball and want to play catch or hit the ball with a bat. She is such a tomboy, but at the same time, a girlie-girl.

Our Darling Paisley,

Oh, how we love you! You love to play jokes (even though you can't talk yet) and make all of us laugh. You get the funniest expressions on your face. Even though you can only say a few words, you understand EVERYTHING and you are very smart and clever. I'll catch you walking around the house with your eyes closed and then giggling because you think it's so funny. You love your brother and sister so much. You can't say the "g" sound, so you call Gage "babe". Bella is "Bewa". Ever since you could say her name, you are always thinking of her. If you are given a glass of milk, you'll say, "Bella?" wondering if she wants some. You do this for everything you are ever given or are doing. I hope you will always think of others. You are very independent and strong-willed. You know EXACTLY what you want and HOW. You can hold your own with Gage and you definitely can take Bella (who is a complete softy and never fights back). You LOVE to sing, especially "Twinkle, Twinkle" and "Itsy Bitsy Spider" and "Lullaby". This is particulary cute since you can't really pronounce many of the words, but you definitely sing on tune. You've been giving us quite a run for our money during Sacrament Meeting, but we can see the light at the end of this very dark tunnel. We love you completely for everything you are. May you always want to laugh and love your family.

PRAY ALWAYS

I looked high and low, behind every door, in every drawer, every hamper dumped upside down....yet I still could not find Gage's cleats, shinguards, and socks for his soccer game. I enlisted the help of Rob and the kids. We frantically searched the house, garage, cars....nothing. I finally said, "I guess we can say a prayer to ask for help in finding them." I felt silly even suggesting it. Surely, He has much better things to be concerned about than a 5-year-old's soccer stuff. It's just not important. So we all kneeled down and I humbly and quickly asked for help. Within two minutes, it came to me. After soccer the previous week, we had gone to the park to play with the Thibaudeaus, with Gage still in his full uniform. I remembered that I brought the girls over in the wagon, and while at the park, Gage asked me to help him take off his shin guards, socks, and cleats, which I then put under the seats of the wagon. Uereka!! I lifted up the seats and there they were!



I learned my lesson in thinking I know what we are supposed to pray about. The answer to that is.....EVERYTHING!

DADDY'S SWEET NOTES

Rob went on a long business trip for the first time in a while and left these notes for each of us:

There are some inside jokes in there. We all loved it!

EXCITING DAY FOR GAGE

Today was a particulary exciting day for Gage. Rob and I have continued to be frustrated (as I'm sure Gage's soccer coach is) about Gage's overall soccer performance. We don't need or expect him to be the best or to score all kinds of goals. More than anything we just want him to try his best. I just don't even think I can accurately describe Gage during a soccer game. He just stands there, even when the ball is right at his feet, he freezes. It's so bizarre. I decided that he just must not be interested in soccer and doesn't like it, but I have continually asked him if he likes it and wants to keep playing and he excitedly says how he loves soccer. It just doesn't make sense.









Last night, Rob asked him if he wanted to play in his soccer game the next day or if he just wanted to do something else and he again insisted that he loves soccer. Rob asked him again and Gage said, "Dad, it seems like you don't want me to play soccer anymore." He is so insightful. He has no idea how it's pure torture for us to watch his games.









Well, I sat him on my lap in the rocking chair and started talking to him about it and asking questions. I discovered what should have been so obvious. He was afraid of the ball smacking him in the face and afraid of being hurt by one of the other kids. I talked to him about the courage and what that means. I reminded him that he is a boy of steel and even though he's afraid, he can be brave and push through it. I told him one of the best ways of doing that was to pray for courage and strength. We continued to remind him of this on the way to the game the next day and he was fired up.









It paid off. He played a whole different game that day. He still wasn't the best on the field, and that's really ok. More important, he was doing his very best. He was facing his fears and playing the best game of his life. The last play of the game, he broke away from the pack with the ball and scored a GOAL!!!!! We were so excited!! But my pride was not about the goal, it was that he had faced it and overcome it and had done his absolute best. That was a great feeling for all of us.









Gage, you really are a boy of steel. Remember that feeling always, facing down your fears and overcoming them.










Later that afternoon, he lost his first tooth!!!!!! He was so excited and I actually got a little emotional secretly.









So, in one night the tooth fairy AND the Easter Bunny visited. The tooth fairy brought him one dollar and the Easter Bunny brough a basket full of goodies.

THE GREAT OUTDOORS

Gage and Bella led Paisley and me on a jungle safari tour this morning. They had put a shark in the pool, crocodiles in the grass, along with a snake and a turtle. Last but not least, Gage was a tiger, but a friendly one. The following pretty much sums up the kids' personalities right now:

Gage: Pretending to be a tiger, licking all of us and growling just enough to scare

Bella. (She actually believes that he's a tiger and screams and cries in the middle of laughing).

Bella: "Oh, tiger, let me put some makeup on you. Here's some lip gloss."

Paisley: "Swing!! Swing!!! SWING!!!!!!" (can you guess what she wanted to do?)

Today's journal question is: What do you enjoy doing today that you enjoyed as a child?

Today was a good example of the answer to this. I always LOVED to be outside playing. Whether it was imagining I lived in a foreign place, digging a hole to get to China, climbing trees while pretending it was a pirate ship and sitting on the crow's nest at the top, catching bugs, lizards, snakes, and frogs, using chalk to draw a city on the sidewalk around the cul-de-sace and rollerskating my way through town, playing cupball in the street, using the large crack in the asphalt as a net to play tennis, riding my bike down to Stop and Go to get a drink. Come to think of it, my kids are more like me in this regard. I loved playing sports, pretty much any sport, but I favored softball, volleyball, and kickball. And I LOVED swimming. We would swim until our hair was green from the chlorine and our toes were rubbed raw from the pool plaster, and we didn't care. I still LOVE being outside and doing all of these things. I am definitely happiest when I am outside doing something....anything.

Only now, I get to do them with my kids.