Happy Half birthday to Maddie! I’m ashamed to say I didn’t even realize it was her half birthday until I got a toys-r-us email reminding me of the fact. Haha. Well, needless to say, we don’t really celebrate those here, but there is another significant milestone that we are celebrating here in the Jones house: Sarah is 1-year-seizure-free! So, the special day came a went a couple weeks ago but I didn’t have a chance to honor it here on my blog, so there you have it. We just couldn’t be more thankful to God!
Sarah is growing like a weed! Every time I look at her she seems bigger. And, if you ask her how old she is, even though she hasn’t yet hit 2.5, she will say she’s 3. Some people actually asked me, “is she 3?” They believed her because of how advanced this little girl is. She is such a smarty! She has the cutest little singing voice, tells the funniest little stories and is a little jokester, too. I love the way she furrows her brow, sticks out her pouty lips and shakes her head when telling me she can’t find something (or when talking about anything that’s sad to her), and then immediately cheers up saying, “that’s ok. We’ll find it later.” She plays so nicely with her big sister (most of the time) and mimics so much of what Maddie says. I’m excited to see how Sarah takes on the big-sister role later this year.
Maddie is amazing me with her courage recently. I decided to take the girls to an indoor play place called the treehouse. When I told Maddie we were going there, she remembered that we had been there about a year prior. She said, ‘Last time I went to the treehouse, I was just scared, but this time I’m going to be brave.” And, sure enough, when we got there, she darted straight to the climbing area and took on the giant slide with such bravery! A week or so later, we were at a friend’s birthday party at a jumpy place. Maddie has been afraid of bouncy houses for the past couple of years and just stuck by my side on the firm ground for the majority of the time, observing the other kids. I kept encouraging her to try but told her she didn’t have to if she didn’t want to. Before I knew it, she was running towards one of the inflatables and climbing right on! She loved it and couldn’t get enough of the slides and jumps! She is excelling with her letters at school (she can spell her name audibly and is getting close to writing it on her own) and she has an unbelievable memory! She is so good at remembering her Bible verses and she repeats stories to me of things that have happened weeks ago. Phil and I have also been talking with her more and more about the gospel and are so impressed by her ability to grasp abstract concepts and try to explain them in her own words sometimes. She has such a tender heart and I can already see the spark of joy in her eye when she talks about Jesus. It makes my heart soar!
So, the only other news to report is that we have had 4 successful nights of Maddie and Sarah sleeping in bunk beds now! We are so excited that they love being in the same room together. We have to remind them every so often that it’s bedtime and not playtime, but watching them in there on the monitor brings back so many memories of sleeping in bunk beds with my sisters, my dad storming in mad because we were laughing and talking and us pretending to sleep so we wouldn’t get in trouble. I love that they get to have the experience of sharing a room with one another, too. Hopefully they won’t be as big of trouble makers as we were growing up. I’m not counting on it, though.
