Sing to Life: Today

Last night, we met up with some new friends (and met some brand-new friends) at the festival of the Hills fireworks show in Rochester Hills. We parked at Heidi's parents house and walked with Heidi, Mike, and their boys, as well as two other families, about 2 miles to the park. We got there around 6 PM, just in the nick of time to set up our blankets for the 10 PM show. ;) Despite a tiny bit of drizzle throughout the evening, the weather was very nice and it was really enjoyable getting to know some new faces. The only bummer was that there was a very loud music show which made it impossible to talk unless you were right next to somebody. The boys walked around with Brian and enjoyed some of the bounce houses. Today William piped up out of the blue, "Mom, we just had a blast in the bounce houses."

I know the evening was not exactly Brian's cup of tea, which made me all the more grateful that we went. The highlight of the night was when the fireworks finally started- and I spent more time watching Will than the fireworks themselves. William was very concerned that he be wearing his hearing protection, and Brian made sure he had it on in time. When the fireworks began, Will stood in rapt attention, clapping spontaneously after certain fireworks made an impression on him. I never want to forget the sight of him, standing with a green glow stick around his little polo shirt collar, his red hearing protection cupped tightly over his ears, standing straight as an arrow for the whole show, even while the rest of us sat, clapping. It was tangibly precious, and I kept reaching out to touch his little back- is this my boy? A couple other fun things were seeing Neva dance to the music (not something I necessarily encourage but it's still so innocent and sweet), a stranger stopping to pick up Neva's dropped tennis shoe as we were walking out (among thousands of people), talking about homeschooling with some new acquaintances, and dodging two bullets: once when I unwittingly unclipped Brian's car keys and nearly left them in the grass in the dark to be trampled and lost in the mob, and when Brian didn't apply the stroller brake on the walk home and sent William and Barrett hurtling backwards into foot traffic- thankfully we caught it in time! Two mistakes that could have been bad, but God was merciful.

It was past midnight when we got to bed, so this morning we were all quite tired. I thought it would be a hard day but it was actually a really nice day with the kids. We spent breakfast listening to Adventures in Odyssey, courtesy of Aunt Katie and Uncle John who are sharing their membership with us. And lately, the weather has been just lovely. We took a walk and picked black raspberries and dug holes in the driveway and ate carrots on the porch and yogurt for lunch together. During Neva's naptime the boys and I must've read seven new library books. And I made a good start on the laundry and generally survived the day despite being very tired.

My girl. She says, "Bush you!" when you sneeze, and hates to go down to bed without kissing her brothers first. She LOVES baby dolls (and all babies in general), shoes ("Oosh!"), Grandma, and JoJo. The highlight of her day is when daddy comes home.

I was looking at these pictures and I found myself thinking, do I really and truly have a daughter??

I was very nice and picked lots of black raspberries for my little baby birds. Neva made hers last a little bit longer than the boys did and Barrett looked on in envy as she savored the last berries ("bees").