The opening song for the "Fresh Prince of Bel-Aire" starts out like this, Now this is the story all about how, my life got flipped, turned upside down, and I'd like to take a minute just sit right there...you're welcome :) Because now, you're singing it in your mind.
The past couple weeks have literally felt like our life being flipped, turned upside down. Below is a picture of the water we had from a pipe the sprung a leak 3 1/2 weeks ago. Seriously, I really hope I don't have to deal with something like this again in my basement. All of our belongings that resided in the basement are now jam packed into our bedroom, living room, entry way, laundry room and garage. I don't feel like we have a lot of "stuff", especially because of the amount of "stuff" that we have purged over the last several years. We don't have a lot of storage in our house...we used our basement for that and now...well...sigh.
The good news is that demolition has taken place (I think) and now we wait for materials to come in. Today the carpet man came...he was all about to let us have his samples for days...we were all about making a decision and getting stuff ordered. He was here for 45 minutes, pretty good I'd say. I just hope the stuff we picked is in our the insurance budget - because our budget is a big fat zero! We'll find out tomorrow. In all seriousness though, through the junk of dealing with this disaster, we have felt the presence of God. Once the shock wore off and we got the appropriate people here, we felt God put specific people in our path. We have felt blown away by the helpfulness of several companies and pure disbelief that there are 'good' people in the world who are looking out for their customers, working for them and getting them the best deals possible.
Enough about all of that...
A few days before our disaster we had our last (I hope) snowstorm of the year. Our last little snow pile melted away today, as it was unseasonably WARM! I'm not sure what the high was, 70ish, fabulous! I'm sure Jacob will miss playing in the snow, having snowball fights and riding his scooter in the snow. I can only imagine how much he'll grow between now and next winter!
3 1/2 years old. Kind of. Jacob doesn't have a half birthday, but we celebrated it anyway. During January there were several kids in his class at school who celebrated their half birthday. He was so excited for his half birthday and had such great expectations...we didn't do anything really, other than blow out a candle and sing happy half birthday to him! :) Oh, and we celebrated it on leap day.
And then the next day, he was sick. Seriously! Actually, the night before was bad. He was coughing and crying and out of control, the poor child couldn't relax. It was quite scary to hear the sound of him. We did a lot of cuddling and reading stories and wiping noses. Oh, the nose. I will keep the gross details to myself! We are thankful he is back to his normal self. Unfortunately, mom and dad caught a bit of something too shortly after that. Tis the season, right?
Go fly a kite. Actually, Jacob asked to fly his kite today. It was a perfect day for it. In fact, it was so perfect that even Nate got excited...you may have to reference a past blog about this...but he got so excited about flying the kite really high that the string broke!!! It was hilarious, but Jacob did not like it! He was so concentrated on watching the kite soar higher, he didn't realized how much string he didn't have left. I was down wind though and as the string was floating past, I was able to step on the string. Phew! Good thing the string was long! After some retying we were back in business.
We spent hours outside today, it was so great! Nate worked different hours today, so we were able to enjoy a beautiful afternoon together. Jacob wanted to eat a snack outside under his umbrella. He was so concerned about the sun and getting a sunburn, so he needed shade and also mosquitoes. He continues to tell me that in the summer, he's not going outside because of the mosquitoes and bees. We did however see a butterfly (moth?) and a regular ole fly. He was intrigued by those. I'm excited for the grass to turn green. I noticed today tulips poking out of the ground and the irises are coming out further as well. Makes me wonder if the OC will have a stem fest this year. Maybe the OC tulips aren't coming out yet like mine.
A few quick stats at 3 1/2:
Jacob is 39 inches tall and he weighs roughly 32 lbs. He hardly wore 3T clothes. I am now into buying basically 4T for jeans, tops can vary on brand 3/4 T.
He still loves cheese, chocolate milk and eats most things - not broccoli (even with cheese!)
Has memorized a few bible verses that we are working with him on - Joshua 24:15 - As for me and my house, we will serve the Lord and Be kind to one another and build each other up 1 Thessalonians 5:11. Knows most of Create in my a pure heart, O God. And renew a steadfast spirit within me. Psalm 51:10. I have a collection of verses called ABC scriptures to memorize with your children that I have put together on a ring. Jacob has an incredible memory, so we're trying to hide the Word of God in his precious heart. :)
This was also heard in our house just today:
Nate reads: "This poor man lying on the ground was going on a trip, and all the sudden some men came and took away his money and some of his clothes and hurt him and ran away."
Jacob says: "Hey, this is the story of the Good Samaritan!" We sat amazed...no where were those words in our conversation today!
He talks a lot about adoption lately as well. That he is adopted, his brother is going to be adopted (that mommy and daddy are adopting him, but so is HE!), and about how we adopted our cats.
He is very interested in letters and letter sounds. While reading, we'll say the sounds of letters/words and he can blend them together to get the word. We have been making an effort to buy/borrow very simple beginning reading texts that he reads part of with us. So cool to see him learning and reading in this way.
Interests are cars, lions, sharks, trains. He makes up his own stories while playing...one day, on the island of Sodor, Bill was looking for his freight cars...and goes on and on.
