We have arrived at this day! Emerson is 4. I had many doubts this past year (or even ever since he started walking) that this active little boy of mine would survive to be four. His energy combined with some clumsiness, plus the height he is at, put him at a minimum of one head trauma per day. Minimum! This kid always has a bruise somewhere on his head. Heavenly Father is sure watching over him, he is not only alive and well, but he is smart, clever, curious, adventurous, and funny. I love being this boy's Mama! He makes me laugh every day. He easily gets upset or frustrated, but he just as easily snaps out of it and becomes my snuggly sweetheart. Emerson randomly tells me throughout the day: "Mama!" "What?" "I love you!" On occasional moments I sit down on the coach, he is sure to come and snuggle for a brief moment. He is so generous with his hugs and kisses. When I get down to his level, he often grabs my face in his little hands to say: "You are just so CUTE!", followed by a kiss. I love it!
The other night he woke up around midnight for some reason. PJ went in to lay him back down. A few minutes later we heard yells from his room, but when we got closer we realized he was belting out the lyrics to Adele's Hello: "Hello from the over SIIIIIDE!!! I musav called a fausand TIIIMES!! To tell you I'm soooorry, for evryfing that I've done....."
An update on hid thumbsucking...I think he is finally over it, cross my fingers. I suspect he still does it at night when he sleeps, unconsciously. But during the day, even for comfort, or boredom, or TV watching, or riding in the car, or even when hugging and cuddling, he has been really good at not doing it! Hope I will not jinx it, because we have done this before, where for two weeks he was so good at not sucking and then all of the sudden he reverted back to it.. We used the gross Mavala stuff to put on his nails. It lasts for about 4 days and slowly washed away. At this point he knows his thumb is not yucky any more, but consciously chooses not to suck it.
Emerson's bday was a blast this year! We rented a room at the HopnHappy bouncy house place, brought our decoration and food, and the place provided set up and clean up, and entertainment for the kids. I especially loved coming back home to our house with no cleaning to do! It was perfect! All the kids loved it.
This is Tori, our future daughter-in-law :) Emerson said that he is going to marry Tori. So, now that's settled, we don't have to worry about that any more :) She sure is a cutie:
Emerson invited many people to his party. I kind of had to trim down his list a bit. He says his BFF is Garrett, who is 9, who is Emerson's role model in everything. Garrett was like the guest of honor. It was sweet of Garrett to play with Emerson a lot on all the bouncy things.
The party he wanted was Teenage Ninja turtles, so we had to have cheese pizza, of course. A big hit with the kids!
Besides the bounce things, the place has a huge foam pit. The kids spent the majority of their time swimming in these blocks:
Hailey and Emerson going doing the slide together:
Emerson thinks that the exact moment when your age actually changes is when you get "Happy Birthday" sung to you. So, when on my birthday, Ophelia kept trying to sing Happy Birthday to me, Emerson kept stopping her and getting mad, saying: "Mama is gonna turn if you sing!" So this is the "magical" moment when Emerson turned 4:
For homework this week, Ophelia had to write a paragraph about an important person. It could be someone famous, like Rosa Parks, or somebody she knows. Guess who she chose to write about? I glanced over and the was already on her third sentence writing about Emerson. So sweet! She loves her brother so much. Those two together can be so annoying to each other, but they are the best of friends. They play together all the time, make each other laugh, are silly together. Ophelia is Emerson's biggest protector (from other kids or even when we try to discipline him) or his gentle soother when he gets hurt.
