This photo shoot was weirdly easy and good and took less than 15 minutes. Every child smiled willingly and enthusiastically - there's another thing that I want to remember.
Let's start with Violet. I never want to forget about the current play-list that she would like to play all day every day if we let her. It starts with Fight Song, continues on to the Chick-fil-A song and rounds out with Itsy Bitsy Spider and Twinkle Twinkle Little Star. No one said her tastes were stagnant. Violet also regularly proclaims her love for Mr. Adam (this goes all the way back to our Rwanda trip). It is amazing how many ways he can be mentioned, and he comes up multiple times daily.
Violet also literally somersaults around the house anytime she is getting from point A to point B. I think we have a tumbler in the making. She is enthusiastic about cleaning, though this usually does not have a net clean effect which is not for lack of trying. When she is excited, she will bow her head and shake her arms to show it, which we regularly have to explain to people, and you can often find her belting out the Moana theme song.
William really is all boy, and we do all we can to encourage that, since he is the lone boy in our pack. He likes to say, "Mommy, Mommy, Guacamole" or "Francie, Francie, Guacamole" sort of randomly - though he will follow that up with declaring his love - he is so very affectionate. His affection can be pretty tightly regulated, because if you go in for a kiss, he will often say, "I want a kiss tomorrow, not today. Only a hug today."
Currently, William is obsessed with the sword that John made him to go with his Captain Donut costume, and he will usually have some collection of Duplo Lego superheroes in tow. In recent days, William has declared shirts with buttons to be "bad" and shirts without buttons to be "good." I'm not a huge fan of the way this nets out during wardrobe choice, but we are working through it together and learning to compromise.
Bella is killing it in 1st grade. Red Ribbon week was last month, and it provided a few excellent quotes in our house. For example, Bella said that they would be "celebrating drugs" at school that week. 😂 That meant they got to dress up each day, and she went as Batgirl from last year's Halloween costumes, except that she added a sign that said "NO DRUGS" to her cape. Basically - she's winning at life and certainly catching the messages at school.
Bella loves to be with people and is forever saying hi and also being recognized by others when we are out and about. She's also beginning to pray in such sincere and earnest ways - I find myself so grateful as she prays "for God to be glorified in everything." She also prays for us all to have fun all the time, so we're definitely still grounded over here.
Lily is my little book worm with a loud voice and lots of enthusiasm. Many nights around the dinner table we do an "IF" question - these often lead us to thinking and sometimes yield hysterical results. When asked, "If you could be the current world champion in any one sport, which sport would it be?" Bella quickly chimed in with "soccer!" Lily said, "Piano," and when we asked for a sport, not a musical instrument, she said, "Flute!" 😳🤣 We might need to do a little more explanation about sports and maybe re-enroll her in piano lessons.
She really does read voraciously, and I make almost weekly trips to the library to keep her well-stocked on books. It's so fun to start to introduce kids to literary worlds that I love, and I'm hoping to spend more time in the next year all reading together. Lily is also highly responsible, and I've been so impressed to see her work on projects and take care of the computer that she uses at school which she must charge every night on her own. She has only forgotten once all year - I can't say that my record on stuff is usually that good.
I love these four - far more than I ever even realized that I would or could. It feels like my heart beats in and with and for them, and I hope and pray that John and I can continue to steward their hearts and minds in ways that are helpful to them and pleasing to the Lord.
Thank you, Luke, for these cherished pictures!
For more of Main Street Studios pictures of our family, click here!
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