John

Rounding-up my update on the kids, here is "Little John Rabbit," which is what we called John when was a baby. I'm not sure why, except that Christopher called him that when we brought John home from the hospital. John is now 6 years old. John is - dare I say - our "easiest child." Now, Christopher and Anna, if you read this when you are older, that doesn't mean that John was our favorite, by any means! But John is the single-handedly easiest child to please in the world. John is happy with absolutely anything. If you give him $20 to spend at Toys-R-Us, he will pick-out something for $1.75 and give you your change. And he has an unbelievably strong sense of conviction, so that he often confesses to us what he has done wrong even before we know he has done anything!

Here are some of my favorite pictures of John since his birthday in July.

Neither Tim nor I have ever known a child who is so fascinated at such a young age with spiritual things. John talks non-stop about Heaven, the Bible, and Jesus. From the time he trusted Christ as his Savior and was Baptized in 2009 at the age of 5, John has absolutely hungered for knowledge of God. He asks questions about end-times, the New Heaven and the New Earth, about Bible stories he learns in school and at church, about God's rules for us, about Jesus's life on Earth, and about missionaries. Ever since his school had a Missions Week back in September, John tells us constantly that he wants to be a missionary. We're starting to believe him! We'll see what God has in store for Little John Rabbit....

John LOVES to be outdoors, and he is a great hiker. Granted, if you hike with John, you won't see many animals, because he talks and talks the whole time, scaring the animals away, asking questions about this or that. But he loves nature, and he's totally inquisitive about animals and weather and such.

John also LOVES to eat! John eats and eats and eats. It is difficult to find anything that John won't eat, and we never have to ask John to finish his plate at dinner: infact, he often finishes everyone else's! And no matter how bad my dinner turns out, and even if no one else wants to eat it, John gives me a big smile and says, "Mommy, your dinner is so good. Thank you for making it."

When I was carrying John, my pregnancy was different than with the other two. I was ALWAYS hungry!!! I remember getting up at 3 AM and raiding the refrigerator, because it seemed like an impossibility to go from bedtime until morning without eating. So I'm not sure if John made me a good eater, or if I made him one, but perhaps that's why he was born at a hefty 9 lbs, 12 oz. I remember in the delivery room how the nurses started singing "Big John" as soon as he was born.

John's very best friend in the whole world is Big Brother Christopher.

They're inseparable.

John is a big 1st grader now at Milford Christian Academy in Ms. Richardson's class.