Happy Father’s Day to the world’s greatest Daddy!!! Daddy, as you can see from the pictures, I’ve grown up a bit since Father’s Day 2010. My hair is longer…your hair is shorter. You no longer have to bottle feed me or burp me. Now you get to play hide-n-seek with me, chase me around our home, and take me for walks outside. You are a terrific father and I love playing with you!

Mommy wants to me to tell you that she loves watching you play with me. She’s delighted to be married to such a good, godly Daddy! You are better than the best! Thanks for loving me and taking such good care of Mommy and me. We’re so glad that we are your girls. We love you SO much!

Ok, I know what some of you might be wondering . . . are Daddy and Mommy so busy with me that they’ve forgotten each other (hear the beautiful background music I’m playing as I speak)? Today we’re celebrating Daddy and Mommy’s 34th month wedding anniversary! I’m here to tell you that no, even though Daddy and Mommy have a lot of fun with me, they are still enjoying being married. And they tell me that they love each other more than they love me! Gasp! How can this be?!?

Friday night is “date/family night,” and I usually get to attend part of the evening until my bedtime. But last Friday night Josh and Meredith came over to play with me while Daddy and Mommy went out all by themselves. I had a great time playing with Josh and Meredith, and only cried when they put me to bed. As you can see, when I realized that the crying trick was not going to get me any extra awake time, I went to sleep.

Saturday night we had our neighbors, Samir, RJ, and Ahana, over to decorate and hide Easter eggs. Ahana is three and a half and lives in an apartment below us. Ahana and I loved decorating the eggs, and we had a blast finding them twice after our daddies hid them. I wanted to drink the egg dye, but Mommy said no. It looked so delicious that I tried anyway and now we have yellow spots on my chair.

Easter Sunday we had Aaron Countryman, René Rodriguez, and Barry over for dinner. I wasn’t sure what to think of all the men at the dinner table and was glad when Mommy finally sat down next to me. As you can see from the picture above, I’ve grown quite a bit since last Easter. For Easter, Daddy and Mommy bought me a new Bible story book called The Big Picture Story Bible. It’s purpose is to show how Bible stories all point to the big picture of God’s plan. It also has really big illustrations.

In other exciting news, I learned how to drink from a straw just in time to enjoy the free milkshakes Daddy and Mommy got from Chick-Fil-A for turning in their old cell phones. Daddy and Mommy bought me a new cup with a straw and I really like it.

Mommy says a lot of people are asking her what she’s doing with all her free time, now that she’s finished with her dissertation. Since she can never come up with a good answer, I thought I would let you peek into what we do during the week, or at least what I do during the week. (All the exciting stuff happens when I’m the center of attention!)

In the mornings, Mommy and I usually try to spend some time outside walking around campus. I think it’s really fun to sit in the car trunk while Mommy gets the stroller out and I usually ask her to lower the door on me. I’m a great explorer of the campus. I love climbing stairs and picking up sticks. On Mondays we like to visit Daddy at school. I see all sorts of interesting people while we walk to see Daddy. We try go outside in the afternoons too.

Eating is always a fun activity. I can say “eat” and I know what it means. This week I’ve enjoyed eating my sweet potatoes with a real fork. It’s really fun to poke the food and put it in my mouth. I also enjoy drinking out of a big cup. I get lots of practice in the bathtub with my stacking cups, but Mommy says it’s not best to pour water all over my tummy when I drink around the apartment.

During the day we do all sorts of other activities like coloring, lots of reading, playing hide-n-seek, going to the pool, singing, playing chase, and having all sorts of fun adventures. Yes, Mommy makes me take a nap too. But I make sure I’m only away from the excitement for about an hour. This past week, we participated in an apartment event for child abuse awareness. We had our silhouettes traced outside our door. I thought it was great!

By the end of the day, I’m very tried. I usually go to bed before 7PM. I’m not sure what Daddy and Mommy do after I go to sleep. But I think someone comes and cleans up all my toys during the night.

So there’s a little view into what I do all day. Now that I think about it, I’m really not sure what Mommy does with all the free time she has now that she’s finished with her dissertation. I’m too busy to notice.

Oh, this weekend we had Presley and Mary over for dinner. The last time we had them over was before they were married. They are preparing to go to Vietnam where Presley will be a teacher (and teacher-trainer) and Mary will be involved in social work. Presley was a classmate of Daddy’s a few years ago.

Mommy tells me that people are supposed to sleep in on Saturday, I don’t believe her! Usually I’m up early on Saturdays, making sure that if it is a day when Daddy and Mommy were intending to sleep until 7, I keep them from giving in to laziness. Good Morning! (I should add that I usually wake up crying and then smile when I’m rescued from my bed.)

Saturday afternoons Daddy has to do Jarai research, so Mommy and I always find interesting things to keep us entertained. We made a really neat tunnel from the bedroom to our living room. We went swimming in the apartment pool. It was a little chilly, but I enjoyed climbing in and out of the pool. We also read, and as you can see in the picture I sometimes read to Flopsie (which Daddy and Mommy say is really cute).

As you can see on the left, I tend to make a mess on the floor. Mommy let me play with the bread bag. It only had an end in it, but I successfully got it open. So, Mommy let me help her wash the floor last Saturday. It was a blast. I was really surprised when I hugged my rag and got soaking wet. But what was really fun was dumping the bucket of water all over me. Mommy and I laughed a lot and I thought it was fantastic! So, now you have a little idea of what goes on in our home on Saturdays.

A big congratulations to my Uncle Joey. He’s graduating from BJU this May with a degree in accounting and just got a job with “one of the Big Four” – I’m not sure what that means. He’s going to be consulting in Washington, D.C., and I think he’s going to be helping our government. I hope they don’t ask him about the best way to get hazelnuts from a bowl, because he wasn’t very helpful to me in that area. In fact, I think he’s the one who made it hard for me!

Last Thursday afternoon, we got together with Yani and Amaris. We had a fun time together. Mommy and Daddy say I need to learn to share. They tell me that I’m a sinner and need Jesus to rescue me. For now I’m content to go my own way. Please pray that I will learn to love and obey Jesus.

Becca here. I am very happy to announce that my mommy has a dissertation defense date scheduled! She’s been working on this big paper since before I was born, and I think she’s really looking forward to having it off of her list of things to do. Please pray that my mommy will be able to successfully defend her paper on March 18th, 2011. Once that happens I won’t have to read to myself, fold the laundry, or clean my potty!

The weather has been great here in Texas. I’ve enjoyed going outside with my parents. I love pushing my dolly stroller and walking on the sidewalk. I also love getting dandelions. All the dandelions that mommy picks for me I collect in my hand, and I hold on to them very tight while we walk. I don’t want anyone to take my pretty flowers away from me.

We had a lovely Valentine’s Day. Daddy made Mommy a special meal of pulled pork sandwiches, salad with homemade croutons, and homemade mint chocolates (similar to Andies Candies — whatever those are). I wasn’t allowed to stay up for the meal, but Mommy told me that it was perfect and that the chocolates were “to die for.” My Daddy and Mommy love each other a lot and they love me a lot too!

Mommy has been teaching me to be a good mommy to my animals. Every time she comes to get me up from bed, I make sure to hand her Flopsie and Wilson before I ask her to pick me up. Even when I had a fever a few weeks ago, I still made sure Mommy had my animals before she had me. I’m also learning how to put quarters in the piggy bank Great Grandma Sutter gave me. I love putting money in my bank!

That’s all the news for this week. Daddy continues to spend a lot of time working on Jarai and reading big books. Mommy and I are finding lots of things to keep us busy. Thanks for reading!