Julia's six....

And Now We are Six
By. A.A. Milne

When I was One,
I had just begun.
When I was Two,
I was nearly new.
When I was Three
I was hardly me.
When I was Four,
I was not much more.
When I was Five,
I was just alive.
But now I am Six,
I'm as clever as clever,
So I think I'll be six now
For ever and ever.

What can I say? My sweet Little Bit is six now. What a year this has been for Sissybug. She has really turned from baby to little girl. All her little funny "Juliaisms" are about gone now. She speaks perfectly clearly and is very articulate, although we did love her Julia-speak.

Sissy, you are sweet as sweet can be. You are totally unaware that there are mean people in the world. You don't care at all what you are wearing, you don't have any clue who Justin Beiber or Taylor Swift are, you've never played an iphone, you've never said you hated anyone or anything. You have lived in this little sweet bubble and we love how innocent and even a bit naive you are. It's so precious to me.

You love everybody you meet and will walk up to any little girl and start to play. You adore Tucker especially and he is your security blanket. You take him with you anytime you are nervous. You hold his hand all the time, and I think you are the one who taught him a lot of his tricks and songs. He talks just like you now, which is fine by me. You are a good role model.

You are still an excellent reader and read all the time. You are doing first grade math now and we are so proud of your progress. You have an incredible eye for detail and can tell me every detail about anything we may have seen just in passing. "That other yellow boat had blue trim around the bottom windows, this one had light green..." We have discovered that you can memorize things very easily. I think sometimes we have thought you were "too little" or didn't understand things, when really you are very aware and capable.

You are such a big help with Charlie and adore him. You adore dogs and cats and all critters and spend most afternoons chasing down people who walk their dogs by our house or digging for worms. :) You dance, dance, dance all through the house all day every day. And you fall asleep every night with a book on your lap. You love to pray the St. Michael the Archangel prayer and always remember to pray for anyone who we have ever mentioned needs prayers. Such a young prayer warrior! One of my favorite things about you is your laugh- it's a loud belly laugh. You laugh all the time and when you get the giggles it's hard for you to stop. Your laugh is contagious. We love you sweet angel- Happy Birthday to you! And please stay six, "now and forever." Love, Mommy

Happy Charlieman

Here are pics from Charlie's day-to-day. When you are the baby in the family everyone fights over who gets to make you laugh and hold you. You eat lunch playing fireman with your brother-



And your big Sissy tries to make you giggle-



And your biggest brother does magic tricks for you at dinner to make you laugh-





The trick- "this wand sticks to me- I don't stick to it- I can't get rid of it if I try...."



Then after supper you have your first bath in the kitchen sink where Mommy makes over you and tells you how you are just the "sweetest wittle thing she ever saw". :)





Yep, being da baby is fun!

Kids' Family Birthday party

Memaw and Pawpaw stayed one extra night and we were able to celebrate the kids' upcoming birthdays- this week Julia turns 6 and Marc turns 8. We had a little birthday dinner with the family complete with cookie cake!



Oh how I LOVE a house full of family! We had smoked brisket, mashed potatoes, beans, salad and sister schubert rolls. :)



We were able to sit outside and let the kids have an Easter egg hunt and blow bubbles-







And they're off-













To make sure he got some eggs we said the green ones were just for Tucker-



Then the kids did foot races- we had to explain that you don't hold hands when you are racing....



Even Poppy got in on the racing-







And what's a birthday party without some presents? Julia got a new razor scooter from BB and Poppy-





Marky got a Powerwing scooter-



Tucker got them each a bouncy ball-



They both got outfits and a jumprope too. Marky got a magic kit from Aunt Judy-



And Sissy got a cheerleader doll-



And her big gift from us was a new bicycle- a UNICORN bicycle! Talk about a happy girl!



And on the table in front of the bicycle you see Marky's big gift- a Wii! Yes, we finally caved and got a Wii. We've been the anti-video game family all these years- he started asking for one when he was five. I was afraid it would be one more thing we had to battle over and would stop him from reading. But we've learned with the computer that as long as we have really defined times and days for these things there are no arguments or begging. So we are ready to play some fun Wii sports- we did fencing tonight and Julia beat us all!

Family Farm Day

Do you have great-grandparents? My kids do! I know it's kind of rare and I'm so happy that they really know and love their great-grandparents. They drove down from Virginia to see us-



After having a beautiful Palm Sunday mass, we drove out to spend the day on BB and Poppy's farm. We (I mean the kids) swam....





I'm seeing that pool boy-



We rode the four-wheeler-



Taken in action-



Even Momma tried out the new John Deere- if there is a radio and air conditioning I guess I can be a farmer too!





After the busy morning we went and relaxed by the pond-



And the kids did a little cane pole fishing-







What about poor Charlie? Why didn't he get to fish? Don't you worry about Charlie- he was getting PLENTY of attention from his grandparents and great-grandparents-





Pawpaw counted his piggies-







They only get to come about once a year, but it is such a treat to have Memaw and Pawpaw in town!