The Last Night as a 3 Year-Old and First Day as a Four Year-Old

It really happened! My baby boy turned 4. I was in denial about it, he seems so young (not to mention little), but it really happened. As is our family ritual, he held up his three fingers before he went to bed on the night before his birthday...

...and then held up four fingers when he woke up, or sort of woke up on his birthday.

Sometime during the night, he'd snuck into my bed.

After we woke him up, despite still being half-asleep, he was anxious for his first year experiencing another family birthday tradition...breakfast in bed (or my bed). He requested Lucky Charms (because he doesn't normally get to eat sugar-cereal), bananas, and apple juice.

After that, he got to open the traditional single present. He chose the one Baby Amber had sent from Seattle.

Since his birthday party was going to be pirate themed, Amber got him the coolest pirate ship!


It was an exciting morning, but the party later in the day was REALLY fun!!! More posts coming soon...

The First Letters from Camp

Victoria left for Rawhide Ranch horseback riding camp on Sunday. She and her cousins Avianna and Jonathon were all ridiculously excited, giddy really, to go. Victoria and Avi went last year, but this was a first for Jon-Jon.

Today I received my first letters from Victoria. Let me give you some background. Last year, I only received one letter from my daughter. She was just too busy to write. In an effort to encourage more this year, I decided to help her with a plan. I didn't want her to feel too overwhelmed to write, so I used a ritual from home to help her organize super quick notes. Each night our family shares their best and worst parts of the day. I stole it from the Furnish family years ago, and now even Justice looks forward to it. I suggested to Victoria that she might just write a quick best part/worst part note and drop it in the mail. I have been using the same format in my letters to her. It must have helped because today I got not one, but two letters from my baby girl!

I really love both of my notes! I really really love that my little trick to get her to write worked! I really really really hope there is another in the mail tomorrow. I really really really really miss her!

The First River Trip of 2009

Only Day 3 of our vacation and we were already taking off on our first river trip of the year. This trip was special because Victoria's BFF (and Jennifer's daughter) Mara was joining us. Avianna has always been a built in river buddy, but Victoria was really excited to get to bring her friend along. We left at 6:30 in our jammies. When we arrived the weather was strange, which should have warned us about the surprise thunder storm we'd get later in the day.

Can I just tell you, with three 10 year-old girls there is no shortage of silliness!

We got out on the water early for swimming and fun...

I drove the boat (for a minute,man it freaks me out) !!!

Tubing was a blast...

Victoria was WILD!

Mara was CRAZY!

Avianna was TERRIFIED!!!

But they ALL had a great time!

Have I mentioned I love this kid. He was kind of a pain on this trip. He has no regard for his own personal safety and thus jumped into the moving current repeatedly so I would have to chase him...he was so much fun!

And after all that fun, they were exhausted and ready for bed, right? WRONG!!!

Can't wait for the next trip. Thanks for coming, Mar-Mar!