Another Successful Ballet Camp

This was Anna Grace's 3rd year to do ballet camp and it renewed her fire for ballet.  She loved it.  This year's theme was Sleeping Beauty.  Her first dance was her Fairy dance and her second was her Sleeping Beauty dance.  Neal and I were most excited that she smiled the whole time...first performance in her life that she was not so serious.

Here is the video of her performance...

Dean turned 5!

(I feel as though I have almost caught up since I am now in the current month!)

Dean had a blast having an all things water party...a water gun fight, a water balloon fight, the sprinkler to run around in and Hudson had a pool to stay cool in while chaos insued in every direction.  Our only two rules were...No spraying in the face and no spraying parents UNLESS they have a gun and sprayed you first.  We are so thankful that, being summer, our cousins could come join in the fun as well as a few friends.

Dean Freeman, I don't even know where to begin.  You are such a little heart throb; you don't know it yet and the girls your age don't either but you are.  You're shivarous and charming; you pay attention to detail remembering people's names and noticing if something has changed about them; you offer compliments (your sister and other girls eat that up by the way); you go out of your way to help others especially with little things; and your smile with those dimples is a show stopper!  Yet you are such a boy too.  You love building things (and knocking them down), playing with cars, fighting bad guys, playing baseball, etc.  One of your favorite hobbies is building guns...and naming them.  My personal favorite is "The Bully" and "The Little Bully" (a pistol size version you built for Hudson).  I love that you call a spade a spade - you will admit when you are wrong and not afraid to let someone else know that they are wrong (however we do need to work on your tact a little).  You can run with the crew and blend in seemlessly yet you are not afraid to be your own man and do your own thing.  You have a sensitive affectionate side toward others that melts my heart continually.  I am confident that I have said this before but I most often describe you as steadfast.  Let me keep this letter well-rounded lest you walk away prideful...


You must be a genius because everytime we try and tell/teach you something new or impress you with knowlege you respond, "I know."  Either I am putting you on Jeapordy or we are going to have to work on having a teachable heart.  And like the rest of this family you are head strong, yet in a sly way that often goes under the radar of most but I am on to you, and to top that you have a temper.  You go through life typically calm but when you have reached your limit...Wow!  


Your daddy and I love that you always have some sort of collection (pronounced "c-O-llection") and that you look for opportunites to say the word "tornado" and you will admit that you enjoy saying that word.  I also think it is pretty funny that you like rap music (current personal favorite Don't Waste Your Life) and the more bass present the more you like.  But probably my most favorite apsect of all right now is how you cheerfully walk through life stating the obvious whether it is good or bad.  It often adds such comic relief to my day.


You and I have talked about Proverbs 25:28, "A man without self-control is like a city broken into and left without walls."  I pray that you will be a tempered man with steadfast self-control.  But there is much more to it than that.  I want you to grow into a Titus 2 man being filled with self-control, a model of good works, showing integrity, dignity and sound speech, not argumentative, showing good faith and adorning doctrine of God our Savior.  To sum it up, one whose opponent has nothing evil to say. 


I love you!

Water Guns Galore

Water Balloon Throw Down

Time for Cake and Gifts  

3 Year Old Monster Party

There are many ways to interpret the title and some days I would suggest that all ways have merit.  For Caleb's 3rd birthday we ended up having a small party and he chose monster cupcakes.  So for the first time in my career as a mother I agreed to call in the bakery.  (Really my mom called the bakery because she was afraid she would be up all night helping me make monsters...I don't have a clue where she ever got that idea!)

Caleb, you may wonder why I chose this picture from your party to put front and center.  It is for good reason I assure you.  I think this picture capsulizes just about every part of you. You are mouth open, dirty-faced, smiling, sweating, a little tattered.  I look at this picture and can hear you squealing over excitement for life.  Tonight I began to think of adjectives that you personify and the first one that came to mind was tenacious.  Immediately I thought that is it; Caleb is tenacious.  But then I second guessed myself so I looked it up...
     1) holding fast; characterized by keeping a firm hold
     2) highly retentive
     3) persistent, stubborn or obstinate
     4) adhesive or sticky
     5) holding together; cohesive; not easily pulled asunder; tough
I should have never second guessed myself.  Even at the age of three here is what I see...
     1) You are loyal to your self, of what you want and you go after it, and those you love, willing to fight for
         your family if you think necessary.
     2) While some would argue that you are highly retentive I would not.  You are insanely retentive of that
         which you want to be.  Lets be honest you can beat me at any Wii game out there; that may not be
         saying much but the fact that you continually beat your siblings and other older children and adults with
         more skill than me does.
     3) No arguments here.  And just like your sister was and sometimes still is you are blatant about it.
     4) In a matter of speaking you are "adhesive and sticky" too mainly because you are my little sweater.
     5) Tough.  Very tough.  I think you could beat the stew out of any of your siblings or friends if you
         thought we would tolerate such behavior.  You seem to have a plethora of testosterone running through
         you.  You tackle people for no apparent reason for fun...thankfully though we have learned to spot the
         look in your eye beforehand.  You don't cry when you get shots and you didn't when you were two!
        Ottie calls you fearless and I think he is right.
So are you tenacious?  Absolutely!  However, now that I have made you sound like a big brute let me say that you have an extremely gentle side.  Daddy thinks you have the gift of mercy and I think he is right.  At the site of an upset child or baby whether you know them or not you begin to look for ways to make them laugh or comfort them.  You ask me to get babies a pacifier or a lovie or you start making goofy faces or touch their toes.  You also love to sing (and cut up); this past Sunday at church you did not know the words but that did not stop you from singing with all your heart as best you could along with me.  And you love, love, love your family.

It is because of this strong, winsome personality that I pray often that you will walk with the Lord all the days of your life. That you will be like a tree planted by streams of living water and an oak of righteousness.  There is no doubt in my mind that you, like the Caleb of the Old Testament, possess the fire within you to go after that which is before you but oh how I pray that you will have the wisdom to wholly pursue God and his desire for you as well as the patience to wait for the fulfillment of God's blessing.  He waited 45 years before confidently inheriting the land that God promised him and when Joshua blessed him and actually gave him the land he said, "because he wholly followed the Lord, the God of Israel" (Joshua 14).

I love you, my tenacious little man!

Party Pictures

pre-party...from the ball park (Dean's last game) to party

Lesson here...Don't ever trust Ottie to babysit!

 

party time

So proud to be three!

No monster party is complete without a monster appearance

Hudson could have done without the appearance

 post-party...bath time and then the real fun begins

First time playing Mario Kart

They all wanted in on the action

Noah's Ark Takes the Stage

A year of ballet culminated on stage this spring with an accurate and outstanding rendition of Noah's Ark...complete with animals, rain, waves, sun, dove and rainbow.  Our family was there to support the bee population...never stopped to consider whether or not there were bees on the ark.  It has been brought to my attention that she dances just like me...with a serious face.  Apparently I never smiled when I was dancing and from the looks of the video Anna Grace doesn't either.

Dress Rehearsal Video

Pictures Galore

 getting silly with daddy...

    with mama...

and finally with best friend, amy catherine

  

 this year's fan club

Caleb's 1st Haircut

 

Sweet Ms. Dana is now in charge of Caleb's hair.  He loved getting his hair cut for the first time (the Thursday before Easter I believe).  And yes I was that mom who brought the camera into Vestavia Barber to capture the moment.  It started a stir among the barbers trying to recall how old Neal was when he started going there to get cuts and who all had cut his hair.  (Apparently he has retired several barbers.)

The Finished Product...

A happy boy and the sweet reward of a sucker from the famous sucker drawer. 

VBS

(Interrupting the sequence to discuss our exciting week of Vacation Bible School.  I actually wrote this on the Friday evening of VBS but forgot to publish it.)

What an exciting week...VBS...ah, just saying VBS makes me tired.  The 1st week of June comes around with great anticipation around here and ends in utter exhaustion and bliss.  This year Anna Grace decided she would like to sell cookies to raise money for the missions project.  In the past three days we have baked 312 cookies and 144 brownies!  And praise the Lord she sold them all!  It made for some late nights but watching her grow in her faith as she prayed they would all sell, that she would have lots of customers and that she would raise enough to send a child to camp ($250), followed by her amazement and joy of realizing that God graciously fulfilling her requests make it totally worth it.  Wednesday afternoon was the sale in our yard.  After a few minutes with no customers she started getting bored and restless.  I suggested that she pray and ask God to send customers.  She thought that was a grand idea.  Within seconds of her saying amen an SUV pulled up and bought 6 bags of cookies and at the same time a mini-van pulled up from the other direction and bought 5 bags!  As if that wasn't enough, I looked and saw a car pulled over on the other side of the road waiting their turn to buy something.  When her basket was empty and she stopped to look at all her "dollars" she was beside herself.  What a great encouragement to me personally to see God at work and to be apart of a cookie sale that could help send a child to camp.  We have had many wonderful discussions this week with Anna Grace, Dean and Caleb - since it was a family sale that Anna Grace organized - about being thankful and the amazing things that can be done when we ask God to be in charge and we work on his team.  When we turned in our final money count she squealed with excitement to learn that they did indeed raise enough money to send a boy or girl to summer camp!  


Only 359 days until we do it all over again...but who's counting!

Spring T-Ball

We have officially completed our first real season of ball.  What a giant amount of crazy!  I told someone today that I fear what baseball season will be like in about 4 years.  Dean had basically the same team from fall ball which was nice for us.  Neal helped on the field again.  Thank you, Jesus, for putting people in our lives - grandparents - that want to watch Dean play and help me not lose a child in the park at the same time. 

  

Here is what the siblings thought about Dean's bi-weekly games!

 Two baseball loving boys!