Featuring: Pumpkin

Pumpkin recently turned 4. How on earth 4 years has passed since this amazing child came into our lives is beyond me.

It all started out 12 days before my due date. I was so huge and miserable (like any other preggo in the home stretch) and this amazing little guy was so cooperative and came early!!! I could not have been more thrilled to meet my new sweet baby boy and to be DONE being pregnant. Have I ever mentioned that I don't like being pregnant? No? Well..... let me just say, it's not pretty. For anyone involved. :) So anyway, there we were, in the middle of a snowstorm, having our sweet baby early.

We have been blessed with 3 amazingly well-tempered babies. All of them have been amazing sleepers and were just so content. We could take them pretty much anywhere and they were fine and happy. Mister and Baby Bear were/are very observant and more reserved as babies. Pumpkin was all smiles. It was ridiculous - he was the happiest baby I've ever met and it was physically painful to hear him cry because he so seldom shed any tears at all. That may have changed once he became a toddler though...:)

He has grown into the most amazing little boy. His curiosity and thirst for knowledge astound me. His idea of fun is to work on a puzzle, complete dot-to-dot pictures, and to have me quiz him on random things like the different numbers/colors/names of all the trains on Thomas the Train. He loves to sit in my lap and read stories. He knew his letters (upper and lower case) before he was 2. He knew all of their sounds by shortly after his 2nd birthday. He's been counting past 100 (without hints) for a few months now. He got a floor puzzle of the United States for Christmas and now knows nearly every state's name and where on the map it goes. Although those tiny New England states still give him a bit of trouble. :) Now he's asking me what the stars are on the puzzle pieces. This kid will have the state capitals down by the spring at the rate he's going (because we seriously do this USA puzzle 4 times a day). And I have to say that I'm LOVING this! Mister is very smart, but he doesn't equate doing learning exercises as "fun" the way Pumpkin does. I love having a "nerdy" kid who is just like his mamma in that way. :)

A couple of his funniest quirks right now really crack Scott and me up and will be the stuff of family legend. First, Pumpkin has very nice manners, but he also has a temper. He will be in a fit of rage, but still using his pleases and thank yous. For example: He'll be asking for you to do something and he'll keep escalating his tone until he's screaming bloody murder yelling "COULD YOU???" or "MAY I????" or "PLEASE?!?!??!" It's pretty funny actually. The second thing is, when he asks you a question, if he doesn't like your answer he'll just say "I can't hear you." Literally 2 feet away from me. He'll ask the same question over and over again and say "I can't hear you" after every time you don't give him the answer he wants. He's very persistent and will wear you down. Sometimes Scott and i just look at each other and say "Let's just say yes now so we don't have to deal with this for an hour (because literally, he WILL NOT STOP) and then finally break down anyway." He's VERY persistent. If he doesn't think you're giving him the attention his question deserves (or aren't giving him the answer he wants) he will literally climb up, take your face between his hands and get about 2 inches from your face and ask you again. We're really hoping he channels that perseverance into one of his strengths as he grows up. :)

Pumpkin has always been active. I should've known when they had to do 3 ultrasounds to determine his gender b/c he was moving around so much they could never get a clear reading on that let alone do all the measurements they needed to do.  I took this picture a week or so ago, and this is the most common sight in our house. No matter how many times I ask him to stop, or remind him of the house rules, it's in one ear and out the other. Just like that. Poof, it's like he never heard me say it. I mean, the kid runs full speed all the time, rarely even looking in the direction he's running, so yes, he even crashes into the walls in our house. Every night I tuck him into bed without any new scars or goose eggs, I say a prayer of gratitude. :)

Because of his tendency to live with reckless abandon, he is often sporting some pretty fierce scabs, scars, fat lips, etc. Case in point:

And that's our Pumpkin in a nutshell. He's a smart, curious, reckless, happy and determined little guy. We love him just the way he is and feel so blessed that Heavenly Father has trusted us to raise him in our family.