Grace: Picture Perfect Niece

Grace is my only niece. She is now 3 1/2. Being the only girl, she holds the monopoly on the hearts of all her brothers and father. For all of her female relatives, she is our only doll so we can go overboard when it comes to pictures, dress up and girl stuff. She is a princess to the extreme. Often she will wear her cinderella dress all day.

Grace was her Daddy's shadow--never letting him out of her sight. Even when he would go to the bathroom she would wait outside the door. When Mommy had baby brother Luke, Grace started to mimic Mommy by feeding and caring for her twin dolls. She also likes to help Mommy cook. She likes to mimic Mommy by discipling her dolls and brothers. She can definitely hold her own in a house full of boys. She is full of sass and 'tude. She can be a bit bossy, but she is also precious and sweet. She sings with a very sweet voice and loves to twirl.

Every night before she goes to bed she gets at least 30 minutes of "girl time" with Mommy. They have tea parties, cook in her play kitchen, play with polly pockets and dolls. And then the night culminates with Ruth announcing Grace's full name as she proudly steps up onto a little platform. [Ruth told me she thought this was every girl's dream. It was never mine. But then again I'm not a last born who craves the limelight ;-)] Grace displays incredible dexterity at a young age. She is able to get the teensy polly pocket clothes on. She also has a sense of style. She matches the clothes and accessories properly without any help from Ruth. She's been doing this since she was 2 which I thought was impressive. She is going to start kindergarten in the fall because Ruth thinks she's ready. She knows all colors and numbers up to 20.

One of my favorite stories about Grace is her obsession with stuffing as much as possible into her little purses. She would break them because they couldn't hold up to the cramming. There was a hole in the wall in her bedroom made by the door handle. Her desire to stuff things was not limited to the purses. She put her artificial fruit in the hole in the wall. When her parents finally fixed the wall they found all kinds of interesting toys, socks, and even things Ruth never recalls owning stuck in the wall!

David: Entertainer

My sister Ruth's second born child is David. He just turned 5. He went through a difficult period when he lost the ability to speak (we think it had a lot to do with his immunization shots that he had an allergic reaction to). His younger sister began to speak more clearly than he did and he was frustrated by the inability to express himself. Fortunately, Ruth was able to get a speech therapist to come help him and he speaks perfectly now. Perhaps it is because of his struggles with speech that David's face became so expressive. When he still couldn't speak well, he would keep me entertained at the dinner table with his adorable expressions. We had our own communication going on and I feel that gave us a special bond. David loves performing to make me laugh. Last summer he came up with this odd way of walking (in order to keep his flip-flops from falling off his feet). It made me laugh so hard, so whenever he caught my eye he would do his walk. His siblings tried to mimic it, but no one can do it like him. I always made my mom laugh, so maybe it is just a second-born thing. Anyway, just thinking of David makes me smile. He loves to sing the catchy theme song from the movie "Madagascar": "You've got to move it, move it." It is so cute when he does it.



David absolutely loooooves his little league baseball team. He used to be so forlorn when he was too young to play and his big brother would go off to practice with his Dad. He is now an enthusiastic player--always cheering, "Go Rays!" One of my favorite stories about David comes from the time when he was still a spectator at his brother's games. He would either play in the dirt or run around terrorizing the little girls whose brothers were playing. He would only wear one of 2 things to each game: his batman outfit with cape or his T-Rex t-shirt. When wearing the T-Rex shirt he would chase the girls and pretend to be T-Rex.



Like his brother, David has a tender heart toward spiritual things. When he repented and asked Jesus to forgive him for his sins and come into his heart, he was deeply grieved over his sin. He was a little confused later because when I asked him about it, he said Jesus didn't take away his sins. He thinks that because he continues to do bad things. He will understand this in time, but I think that is something that all of us struggle with. We know that when we repented, we were forgiven of all sins past, present, and future and yet we continue to do the things we don't want to do and don't do the things we want to do. (See Romans 7:14-25)


What else describes David? His favorite color is blue. He likes superheroes, T-Rex, glow-in-the- dark t-shirts, and cow milk (this is an inside joke). He is very good at Math. He was always so great at anything mechanical. He always takes apart his toys and puts them back together again with ease. He is good at physical things. He learned to climb, jump, etc. sooner in his development than his siblings. David is a sweet boy.

Busy Month

I'm so sorry I've been missing in action for about 3 or 4 weeks. I'm the test coordinator at my school and we've had testing these past 4 weeks. We will finally finish up on Thursday. I had to do CRCT with elementary & middle school and other tests for our DC clients. Then it was immediately followed by End of Course Tests for our high school students. Over the past weeks I've had to work late nearly every night. When I came home at night I only had enough time to make dinner and go to bed exhausted. The good news: there are only 11 more school days before summer break! I will be taking 3 classes for my media degree so I'll stay busy, but at least I'll have a break from Devereux.