abby's sixth

our first daughter turned six years old over spring break.

i can remember her birth like it was yesterday.

the instant overwhelming love. 

how excited we were to have a daughter with two big brothers.

how, as much as i didn't think it would be different, it's different with a girl.

abby has grown into a very sweet little girl.

she loves art, and crafty things. 

she loves to help me in the kitchen. matching aprons and all.

she loves animals...namely dogs. the live and stuffed varieties.

she is an amazing reader and loves school.

she is very motherly to her little sis.

she has the best laugh, and often can't stop giggling. sometimes we call her gigglepants.

she isn't a total girly girl, which i love about her. 

she enjoys being outside exploring nature and getting dirty.

for her birthday celebration, she insisted we go out for dinner (everyone gets to choose their birthday dinners) solely because she wanted to have dessert at a restaurant. none of this 'come back home and have cake and ice-cream thing'. i thought that was funny. but we never get dessert when we go out for dinner, so i suppose it really was a treat.

it's been such a joy to have abby in our lives. 

she is such a blessing to our family.

we love you so much abby!

happy birthday.

some serious posting

I've been absent for far too long! I have had such good intentions on more than one occasion, but just never got it done. We are just coming off of spring break week, so certainly haven't had a lack of things going on, but that's just what kept me from doing what I'd like to be doing most.... ;)

(sitting around in my lounge clothes; casually cleaning house, throwing in a load of laundry every so often, sipping a delicious St@rbucks, surfing the web).... ah... I wish. 

Instead, we were visiting friends, packing, cleaning, celebrating abby's 6th birthday, showing the house, and outta town to a ginormous indoor waterpark. My kids heaven on earth. As we were walking in to the resort, one of them muttered, "this is paradise." And there ya have it, 'our' spring break!

I will be posting ALOT these next few days to catch up!

Here's one of my favorite moments captured from our break: let me set the stage a bit: our oldest son just moved his room to the basement of our house; he's 10 and wanted his 'own' space instead of sharing with his brother, like he had been for the last 2 years. We already had a queen bed in what was the spare bedroom, which we let him takeover. He's LOVING the bed, and each weekend, either Matthew or Abby has wanted to sleep down there with him. Over break, they convinced us to let them all 3 sleep together. We went down for Emily to tell them goodnight and she freaked out.....couldn't stand it that the big 3 were there without her! So, we put her in with them for about 20 minutes and let them all giggle and goof around. I love seeing all of them laughing together and enjoying one another so much!