Happy Birthday! My youngest is four this month. I think he looks just like me. He is a perfect mix of Doug and I. Fifty percent Jennifer, fifty percent Doug make the fiesty, loving, stubborn, athlete that he is. I have to own to giving him some of my temper. But he also got my loud laughter and deep love for family. From Doug he got a hatred of change and a thirst for sports...more specifically the Hawkeyes.

Notice on his cake is a blue tractor...we don't know where he got his love of farming. It must be from Grandpa Hayes and Great Grandpa Kasha. It's definitely in his blood, because he bleeds John Deere and mowing. This winter has been hard on him. With all the snow he cannot go outside to mow the grass. Now that we are finally getting some spring weather he's excited to see some green grass growing.

I have been thinking a lot about motherhood lately. I've come to the conclusion that it's easier to raise and care for an infant. Infants need help with everything they do, but they don't talk back. In a home with a nine year old girl, a seven year old boy and a four year old boy my job is harder than when I changed diapers. My authority is constantly being questioned. And honestly, I don't know anything about boys! When they wrestle in the family room I just want to jump out of my skin. I'm a girls girl...makeup, perfume, chocolate, shopping, etc. Why, oh why do boys have to beat each other up all the while screaming at the top of their lungs? At least during those moments Emma and I get along. We have to rely on each other as the only source of estrogen in the home besides Cayman our black lab.

The past few weeks I've been so occupied with discipline that I haven't done anything fun for me. I'm behind on scrapbooking and cross stitching which is unlike me. I usually keep myself busy with something crafty all the time. Maybe I'm just fed up with the long winter we had.