Our Miracle Babies

Oh my! How time flies!!! June has come and gone - July too for that matter - and I haven't even managed to get our June birthdays documented. So, here we go...

Andrew is 11! Somehow that seems a lot older than 10... As usual, Andrew presented me with a detailed list of what he wanted to eat for his birthday dinner and week or so ahead of time (at least he gives me notice...). I've said it before and I'll say it again - Andrew is my gourmet boy. We had pulled pork sandwiches and peas for dinner. For dessert he chose Tuxedo Cheesecake and Raspberry Sour Cream Ice Cream (homemade, of course). Katherine thought it would be fun to put trick candles on the cake which accounts for the smoke - with all his hot air, he still didn't manage to blow them out with one breath.

Somehow we missed the annual telling of "What happened the day you were born" by Tyler. I'm not sure how we managed that...You would think the story would get old after a while, but the kids never seem to tire of hearing their story. Andrew was our miracle baby - there were a lot of things that went wrong (and a lot more that could have gone wrong) not the least of which was his being two months early. But the Lord truly blessed us and things went much better than they might have. I was too sick at the time to really comprehend what was going on - which was just as well - but it wasn't long after Andrew was born that I realized just how close to dying I was when they took him. No, I didn't almost die (as Katherine so beautifully put it) but had he been born fifty years earlier I probably would have. Thank goodness for modern medicine.

Three things I love about Andrew:
1. He loves to learn new things. He is always brimming with questiongs.
2. He is (usually) willing to help me around the house. And he doesn't gripe too much about it either.
3. He has a very happy laugh.

Lida is our second June birthday. She'll tell anyone that asks that she is 3 years old. And boy is she ever!! People talk a lot about the terrible twos. I'm here to tell you that they have NOTHING on three. I don't know what happened to my sweet, generally happy, little girl. Maybe it's the unsettled summer we've had where Katherine was gone for three weeks and Tyler has worked late a lot. Maybe it's just having the older kids home during the day, or that I have been exercising at home instead of at the church where she gets to play with friends every day. But whatever the reason, she seems to be possessed by an evil demon! Well, a whiny demon, anyway. Lida informed me two days before that she wanted a Barbie Doll Cake with a purple dress. I think it turned out rather well considering I had to "reinvent the wheel" so to speak. Lida is another miracle baby in our family. There are six-and-a-half years between her and Katherine and we (or at least, I) had nearly given up hope that we would have any more. In fact, I had begun to get used to the idea of "only two children" when I became pregnant. From the very first day, Lida has been adored and doted on by her family. She has brought us great joy and she loves having and being a "big sister."

Three things I love about Lida:
1. She is a Big Sister. In her mind that is the most important thing about her. She adores her baby brother and has never shown any jealousy of the attention he gets.
2. She has a doozy of an imagination. She keeps me laughing with the things she comes up with.
3. She loves to be "pretty." She sits so nicely while I do her hair on Sundays and she loves to look in the mirror when I'm done and "see how pretty" she is. I love that she is comfortable with herself.