To ..... January Birthdays & the Christmas Card that Wasn't -

I like dryers that dry 15 pairs of jeans at a time.

I put Max to bed early tonight .... what that really means is I didn't sit and hold him for an hour + after he ate & fell asleep.

I scooped ice cream & folded laundry & am actually going to post birthday pictures.

This song is one of my favorites right now.

We're going to lump January into one - the 3rd, the 20th & the 28th. Molly, Jack & Chad each have a birthday.

Molly's comes so fresh off of Christmas that it's like another holiday :)
She's historically gotten the short end of the party stick .... as in she hasn't eVer had one ... with friends.

She wanted to go to Funworks - the problem with that was she's not an arcade player, she's not tall enough to drive the race cars & it was too cold for bumper boats.

So the indoor trampoline place was the next best option.

She really wanted a cat calendar :)
19 seconds after unwrapping it, she started filling in birthdays of brothers & cousins & friends & grandma.

- - -

9.
She's a beautiful study.
She loves order & a plan & knowing what time it is.
She's plowing through 3rd grade.
She loves animals & lollipops & trying to keep her fingernails as long as Sailor's.
She mothers Max like a natural and says he's so cute to his face daily.

She likes her own tube of toothpaste and prefers sandwiches meatless.
She has a wicked stink eye and slams doors when she's mad.
She likes to bake and sew.
She's tried to run away & has been spelling her name Molley.

She's officially the middle kid with an older sister & 2 older brother plus 2 little brothers & a little sister.
She belongs and has a place and is perfectly beautiful .... it slays me.
And the message on her shirt .... gah, Dolls ... you have no idea.

- - -

His birthday this year came & went surrounded by sick.
All of us, except Max knocked out & shaking with fevers & chills.

We rallied the morning of the 20th for french toast & the inauguration.
He got that red plaid shirt & concert tickets - he loved both.
The video of him taking f o r e v e r  to figure out what that piece of paper said was hilarious.

I was too sick on the 20th to take him to dinner .... he wanted a date at the Olive Garden.
So we went the next week.
He loves breadsticks :)

12 years with this kid.
He loves not making his bed & putting too much sour cream on anything.
He has successfully trained his hair to fall to one side.
He flip flops his affections for whichever football team is winning.
He is a beast to argue with.
He likes to be right.
He helps Regan with her math homework.
He's made friends with all the high school & college guys at church.

He chews gum ad nauseam.
He remembers things that are important to him like the buttons on the xBox controller & lyrics to Lecrae songs.

His heart is big & tender & bleeds with justice & affection.
He can't wait for all things jr high.
He can hit the fan faster than I can blink or breathe.

Gosh, I love him.
Let Jesus be your righteousness, Jack.

- - -

Chad Calvin is 5.
I remember thinking last year when he turned 4 .... 'gosh, next year he'll be five & we've never had the baby turn 5 before ....'
lol :)
we now have 5 years before that happens.

This kid is all delight.
He loves snuggles and our bed and his cow blankie.
He still sucks his thumb and fills the tub with bath toys.
He's always hungry & is always changing his clothes.

He either says I'm gonna miss you mom or I missed you mom depending on if he's coming or going ...
outside to play or to preschool or when the babysitter stays or when he's going to bed.

He called this 'my 5 birfday' for weeks before.

He wanted to go to McDonalds for his birthday.
I know ..... ugh :)

Legos, hot wheels & McDonalds - he was tickled.

Chad-Chad, you're a treasure & we're so rich to know you.

- - -

So it was really cold & windy when we took these pictures ... the day before Chad's actually birthday.
No one was really dressed up. It was over a month after Christmas, but ta-da & drum roll ....
These are our twenty16 Christmas pictures :)
The kids are aghast that we never mailed anything to anyone - not even Grandma ... horrors.

We took like 17 zillion. Merry Christmas.
And in the spirit of Christmas .... in our next post we'll go back in time even further & tell you about ours.
Jolly :)

- - -