Happy Birthday Ethan!!

A special little man, my second-born, turned 6 today. My, my how time flies. It seems like we just brought him home from the hospital yesterday.

Six things I love about Ethan:

1. an imagination that is boundless.
   
2. energy that is equally boundless.
3. he loves animals, especially things small, furry and vulnerable.
4. in treating his allergies naturally, he's had to take some pretty nasty tasting stuff. He doesn't give us a hard time about it nor does he even complain.
5. he's soft hearted: quick to forgive and apologize
6. he is enthusiastic to learn the Bible.

Happy birthday little man. May the Lord bless us with many more years with you.

Early Birthday Present

We are not pet people. Some people say I don't need children; I have pets. The opposite is true for us. Who has time for a pet with so many little ones running around? We didn't have many pets when I was little. Jeremy had many. Ethan is a lover of all things soft and cuddly. Unfortunately he is badly allergic to cats and mildly allergic to dogs, ruling out the most common choices for pets. Our neighbor offered a large cage and we accepted it. It really is big. It entirely fills up the bed of Jeremy's Silverado. It also has 2 compartments. The larger side is used for sleeping, filled with lots of hay for them to burrow under. The smaller side is where their water and food is kept.

Anyway, we decided giving rabbits a try. We knew Ethan would love to have one since rabbits are both soft and cuddly. Finding rabbits was the first hurdle. Spending Pet Land price was out of the question. We wanted lop ear rabbits, which made them even harder to find. We finally found a guy selling them for $7 a piece and he was only a 30 minute drive away. We (hopefully) got 2 females.


Trying to pet the rabbits through the cage.


Jeremy's dad made this really impressive stand thing to put the rabbit cage on.


Getting to know the bunnies while dad and Paw-paw set the cage up. Ethan picked out this bunny for himself and named him Fluffy.


We didn't pet the rabbits too much the first day. They were very shaken up from the truck ride home. Before dawn the next day the kids were ready to go and get them. The rabbits were still pretty shaky, but the kids did well with them.


We asked Lydia and John to work together to name the other rabbit. Lydia suggested the name Rabbit. (What did I expect from a 3 year old who's never had a pet?) John insisted on a Bible name and settled on Mary.


Ethan holding his Fluffy.


Lydia finally got brave enough to try to hold a rabbit. Then he jumped away and barely scratched her, sending her into a flood of tears.


It was a bit cool (for Florida...about 60 LOL) so I left Josiah's warm pajamas on him. He wasn't feeling to sociable.


Lydia's also gotten quite good at swinging. She is still 3...but such a big girl for 3. She's not fat or anything. She's just super tall. She has some dresses that are a girl's size 8 that actually fit like a glove.

We now have the former chicken coop cleaned out. The kids get to pet them in the chicken coop. It serves 2 purposes: the kids can pet them without worrying about dropping them and the rabbits running away forever and two, it gives the bunnies adequate room to run around. They are so cute when they run that the kids would almost rather they play than pet them! They get a good running start and run into a series of binkies!

So what's a bunny binky? I found this video on YouTube. Not our house, not our rabbit, but a great example of how completely CUTE binkies are! These binkies are sort of small, too. Our bunnies go NUTS!!

To Brighten Your Day

The letters are:
The Lord wil tak kar uv as

Being translated:
The Lord will take care of us...just in case you're not used to translating 5 year old writing.

~~~†~~~

In all the busyness of life, I failed to mention that Josiah has started walking. He has walked the earliest out of my boys, at 12 months. He didn't start walking the earliest overall though; Lydia holds that title, having walked first at 6 months. He's still fairly shaky. It's really just a confidence thing. He's climbing up on everything. He can stand without holding on to the furniture or anything...and he's even starting to try to jump on the trampoline. He should have no trouble with a little thing like walking!


A mouth crammed full of Cheerios!

He's got to get a haircut soon. It will be his first. I usually get the boys' haircut the first time just as soon as it's long enough, typically well before their first birthday. I've waited on Josiah just because his hair is so curly!! Curly hair is so difficult to cut. Some days it's not as curly as other days. I don't mind it being cut, I just want it to be cut well and not chopped up. Hope that makes sense.

Have a happy day everyone!