Matthew turns 4!

My baby is 4 now!! I can't even believe it. Where did the time go? I remember when he was born. The nurses in the hospital actually remembered us from the previous 3 kids we'd had there. Ok that and the fact that we brought a deck of cards and played gin rummy while we were waiting for my c-section to start. He was so little and adorable and helpless. Now he is full of energy, curious about everything and still wearing diapers. ACK! Yep it's true. I may have the only child in history who will goto kindergarten in diapers. Oh don't get me wrong-he knows what to do. He just WON'T. But next week after Bible Day Camp is over he is going to be quitting diapers cold turkey - he just doesn't know it yet.

Seriously though Matthew is a great kid even though he wears me out. He is always on the go, exploring things, curious about everything. "What will happen if I. . . " seems to be his motto. He loves to read books and will climb on my lap with stories for me to read to him. And if I read it wrong, he'll correct me. He has his favorite stories and loves to hear them over and over. Another favorite pastime is playing pretend. He'll grab a couple of the many action figures, Happy Meal toys or even toy cars and have them talk. And of course he gets me in on the action. He'll hand me a couple of random "people" and tell me what to say. And he's very serious about his games. He loves to help me out with whatever I'm doing - he loves to be wherever I am and gets upset if I leave the room (heaven forbid I leave the house without him!). He is very attached to his woolie scrap (a lamb's wool blanket that he drags everywhere!!) and a small red plastic figure that he calls "toy" (creative name eh?). Poor toy looks like he has been through a war - there's tape everywhere holding him together but Matt is very loyal to him. At night he can't goto sleep without his Blue's Clues blanket, his curvey pillow, the woolie scrap, toy and the most recent addition to his collection -- Marty the marty. Marty is a Webkinz zebra that Matt got for his birthday. Not only has Matt named him Marty after the zebra in "Madagascar" but he has started calling all animals by their movie or tv names. For example, a zebra is a "marty," giraffes are "melmans," hippos are "glorias," and starfish are "patricks" (from SpongeBob SquarePants). *sigh* It certainly makes like more interesting!

As I mentioned earlier, this week is Bible Day Camp for my oldest 3 kids. Bible Day Camp is 4 hours every day for 5 days - kinda like VBS on steroids. It's at the same church where David and Rachel went to preschool. And boy this church really goes all out for this program. It's amazing really how much they accomplish - and it's all free. The volunteers all dress up in costumes appropriate to the theme. This year the theme is "Power Lab" so everyone is wearing white scientist coats. They do skits of Bible stories for the kids, sing songs, play games and make really cool crafts. Today for example my 3 kids each brought home a lava lamp that they'd made themselves. It was some combination of oil and water my 9-year-old informed me. All we had to do was add one tablet of Alka-Seltzer and it started bubbling and looked like an actual lava lamp. Now how cool is that exactly? So what does all this have to do with the Bible? Well I'm honestly not sure, but I'll find out Thursday night. They are doing a program for all the parents to show off what the kids have learned all week.

The best part of this week for me is my free time! My best friend and I are carpooling. We each have 4 kids, 3 of whom are going to Bible Day Camp this week. So I take the older 6 and drop them off at the church. She takes the younger 2 back to her house where they play happily together and I have the morning off!!!! It was amazingly quiet at my house this morning with no children there. So what did I do? NAP of course (after I put in a load of laundry and started the dishwasher). AAAHHHHH!!!!!