Happy Birthday Spencer Grace Tannahill

First of all, I'm sorry that this post is a day late. We were having technical difficulties getting the pictures from Spencer's birthday loaded into the computer.

Well, our baby is a year old!! I just can't believe how fast this year has gone. I hope that you can bear with me as I take you on a little journey through pictures over the last year. I had wanted to do this as a slideshow, but I couldn't figure out how to do that, so you're stuck with having to go through my pictures one by one.

Here she is all red, wrinkly and brand new. This picture seems like yesterday to me.

Spencer at 1 month old, sleeping peacefully.

This was Christmas 2007. She was so little and not feeling very festive.

This picture is of the 4 kids in March. It is not easy to take a picture of 4 kids and have them all looking 'spot on'. Spencer had had enough and Seth's little chapped lips aside, I thought this was one of the best we could get at that time.

Here's Spencer in her snowsuit last March. I love the little yawn on her face.

Here's a picture of the girls earlier this summer. It's one of my favorites.

Here it is September 21, 2008 - one whole year old!! We decided since we had such a beautiful day to celebrate on, we would grill out in the backyard. Here's the baby sitting on her very own chair in the yard. She certainly wasn't going to sit on anyone else's lap!

Here's the birthday girl with her brand new doll from her Grandma and Grandpa Tannahill. As you can see by the smile on her face, she loves it!

The Prayers of Children

I love to pray with my kids. It is one of my most favorite things about being a mom. What a special privilege it is to listen each night to the things that are in the depths of their hearts. I think you can tell a lot about a person by what they pray for. You certainly get the opportunity to know what is important to them. I have heard my kids pray for people who are sick or hurting. I have heard them pour out their hearts to God for things that they want for themselves...in our case this is usually for Dad to allow them to have dinner at Culver's or for a puppy. :-) Remember we are still pretty young here. :-)

When you have a special needs child, faith and prayer are very difficult things to teach and to instill. Rob has been working on this with Seth and taught him to say, "Dear Jesus, bless my family. Amen." He has been praying his little memorized prayer for months now. Every night it was the same thing...until the last 2 weeks. He now has a desire to say his own original prayers. I am touched that our son wants to be original in what he shares with his God.

Last week he started out by saying his usual prayer..."Dear Jesus, bless my family. Amen." He then followed that by adding on..."this prayer was brought to you today by the letter S, the letter E and by the number 7." If it has been a while since you've watched PBS, let me just remind you that that is how each episode of Sesame Street closes. We all laughed with him and encouraged him in his original prayer. Telling him that he had done a great job praying.

In the last week he has been expanding on his originality - no longer starting with his little memorized prayer. Tonight his prayer was..."Dear Jesus thank you for the "or" sound in ... corn ... horn ... born ... and ... forlorn. Amen." As I said, it is interesting to listen to what your kids pray. I have to say that I have never heard anyone thank God for the 'or' sound before. But Seth [who is very interested in letters and words] is thankful for it and expressed his thankfulness. I can't wait for prayer time tomorrow night!!

Family

I 'm not sure why, but today I'm feeling a little home sick. While scrolling through the pictures that we have on the computer I found these two from our family vacation in July of 2007 in Niagara Falls. In these pictures you can see Rob, the kids, myself and both sets of our parents. As you can see Spencer was just a bump in my belly. :-) I have to say that we have the most amazing family! I love that we can all get together and just have fun. This was such a fun few days and the time went by much too quickly. Hello to all our family whether in these pics or not. I love you all !!

That Toothless Grin

Here's Lauren right after she lost the other of her front teeth. She was very excited to have lost both of them. We are enjoying her toothless smile and her slurred words. :-) She was thrilled to put this tooth under her pillow and find out what the Tooth Fairy would bring her. These are the moments of being a mother that I hope I remember forever!! :-)

The Recycled Baby

Here's a picture of our darling Spencer. She had crawled into the recycle bin. Those of you Canadians who read this blog will recognize the blue 'Region of Peel' recycling bin. We keep this one in the kitchen to hold items until we take them out to the larger covered bin that Waste Management uses here in Fond du Lac. She was so proud of herself standing in that box. Jonah and Lauren thought it was SO funny until Rob suggested that they help him take her out to the big bin outside to go off to be recycled. :-) Dads just LOVE to tease don't they??

The First Day of School

Here's the annual picture taken in front of the school sign. I can't believe how much bigger they're getting. Jonah and Lauren go to the same school, so they walked together this morning.

Here's Jonah lookin cool as he starts the 4th grade!

Here's Lauren waiting in line for the bell to ring. She was so excited to wear her very patriotic stars dress that her Grandma Kozsukan had bought for her. I think she looks so cute!

Here's Seth sitting on his bus all ready to go off to school. He was SO excited to go. He was dressed an hour before he had to go out the door! :-)