Sweet little girl

I realized I had something on each of the boys, so Ans, it's all you now!

This picture is actually about a year old (Easter last year), but I love it.

As I prepare to write this, I think my mom would say that Ansley is alot like I was... not sure if that's good or bad?... She has such a tender spirit and a sweet, sweet heart. I love how she is so sensitive to others. We have to work hard with Cole to see outside of his little self-circle, to look at others, be sensitive of others needs, etc. It just doesn't come natural to him.

But it does for Ansley. One of my best friends has three little boys, two with special needs. The oldest is in Ansley's class at school, and he's also in her class at church. We have had many discussions about loving on Cade, even though God made him different and also that he can still get his feelings hurt, even if he can't communicate as well as other kids. I love it when I pick her up from class at church and the teacher tells me how Ansley was almost protective of her special friend, staying right with him. Ansley seems to go more out of her way to play with him and be around him, and she always wants to know where he was if he is absent from school.

And not too long ago, a precious family from our school lost their little baby to a disease called EB (abbreviated for a very long name). One of their sons is in Cole's class, so we were really following their story. Jameson (the baby) was in the hospital for over a week before he finally passed away, so we had been talking about and praying for him and his family. I decided to show the kids the family's blog (http://jtsetsma.blogspot.com/). As soon as Ansley saw the precious baby who had a skin disease, she started to cry. She wanted to know if he was o.k, if it hurt him, and she said it made her so sad. It made me sad too, but makes me happy to know that Ansley has a sweet, sensitive heart. And I pray that she never loses that!

On the other hand, she also has a strong, stubborn will (why do all of my kids have that?). There have been a few times in the past few weeks that I have looked at her and thought "Who took my sweet little girl away? Who IS this??" So now we are trying to get creative in our discipline of our little "middle child". I think my mom said I was pretty difficult at age 4, but it got better around 5?? We are only a month away from turning 5, so I'm hoping things change quick! :-)