Happiness

It has warmed up here this week and Brett took Emma for a walk and then to the park while I was getting some work done in the house. They decided they would turn on the sprinkler and let Emma have her first sprinkler experience. She was very excited!

Making her approach...

...all smiles...

Omie, does this remind you of Maddi girl running in the sprinklers at your house many years ago?

She decided the water was much too cold. She would make this face each time the water would hit her. Emma asked to go inside after a few minutes of sprinkler fun. We'll have to try again when it's a little warmer.

Brett, Emma, and Cade went to Cade's baseball game while Maddi and I went to Rockford for a dance competition. Brett enjoys taking pictures of the games. This was Cade avoiding getting picked off at first.

He pitched as a releiver in the 5th inning and the whole 6th inning. I hear he did great.

We have three more baseball games in the next three days. Swim team is supposed to start too but he will have to miss the first 3 days because of baseball. Baseball and swimming make Cade a happy boy :)

Brett took a ton of pictures of Cade and I didn't get one picture of Maddi this whole weekend. I stole a few from fb from a few weeks ago. This is Maddi with the youngest girl in their company, Caitlyn. Cait and Maddi adore each other and Cait really looks up to Maddi.

This is some of the dance girls after class one day. They were silly one night and put stickers on their cheeks and then the girls took turns bringing stickers to wear on their cheeks during class for a few days. Dance makes Maddi very happy.

All of our kids make us very happy and seeing them happy is the greatest. Maddi was very happy (and we were proud as parents) to get a note from a parent of a boy at school. There is a boy, Jarid, who is new to the school this year and he's in a wheelchair and can't speak. He signs. Maddi has become friends with him and talk/signs with him each day at recess and will even help his teachers get him out of his wheelchair and go down the slides. Jarid's mom sent a note home to us saying how Jarid has enjoyed socializing with Maddi and would like to continue over the summer and asked for me to contact her to plan a time for them to get together. I'm sure most kids don't even pay him any attention, but Maddi noticed him, made the effort to get to know him and learned the alphabet in sign language and has been a friend to him. I imagine their friendship means the world to Jarid, but I'm pretty sure it means just as much to Maddi. I am so incredibly proud of the person she is and thankful for her kind heartedness.