Birthday Wishes...(and a new fence!)

happy birthday piper! i was thinking the other day about the first birthday card i got you (really just a friendly gesture at that point) and how much has changed in the *years since then. each day i am thankful for you; for your strength, for your compassion, for your support of me and this ministry we have been called to, for the way you challenge me, for the way you love our children and the people around us. i am thankful for your patience with me as i continue to stumble through being a husband and a father-you are quite gracious!

*i am not really allowed to say how many years, but i will say piper's years > my years :)

i pray that this year you are more blessed than ever; that you discover even more clearly the purpose the Lord has in who he has created you to be.

happy birthday (and an early happy mother's day).

while it is by no means a professional job (nor do i think it warrants quitting my 'day job' to become a chain link fence installer), i'm pretty proud of what i did accomplish...not without help, mind you. gresham is always a great help (on any project). a note here: the benefit of having an underground fence for the dogs is that i only have to put a length of fence from each back corner of the house to the underground fence line...much better than having to fence-in the entire back yard. we're doing all of this in order to allow the front yard to recover from the dog-trampling it has taken over the past year or so; we're trying to regain a bit of 'curb appeal'

Long overdue...

the past weeks have been pretty busy (between sick, cooped-up children, and getting ready to start one of my busiest months of each year), it has been hard to take the time to sit down and put together an update. i will say that i have been able to update a journey in the meantime as well.

i have a few minutes right now because i am waiting for piper to get back from some errands so i can go and get some tools from the church. my new project is fencing in our backyard (actually just putting one length of fence from each back corner of the house to the line where our underground fence is buried). this will allow us to keep the dogs in the backyard long enough for our front yard to recover. we love them, but they have certainly done a number on the front yard.

while there haven't been any real milestones in the past couple of weeks, i can say that we are all doing well. i think my being able to boast about going all winter without getting even a cold is about to come to and end...i kind of feel like i am writing this from somewhere near the bottom of a well; not enjoyable. a cold is certainly better than the flu though and i am thankful for having escaped without having to fight that fight.

we have seen some more spring-like weather this week and that has allowed us to be outside which we all LOVE. our new thursday afternoon ritual looks like it is shaping up to be this: gresham and i heading out to valle crucis park (if you are in the high country w/ your family and want to spend an afternoon at one of the most beautiful parks in the world, please make it a point to visit) to do a little fishing before piper and the rest of the kids come out (we usually include friends and/or family in this new tradition) to cookout and enjoy a spring evening in the high country. i'm trying to land some pictures from adam from our most recent trip out there and gresham's fish caught from the pond.

speaking of playing...some college friends of ours, chelsea and kelsey (who keep the boys at church on sunday mornings, sunday nights, and wednesday mornings-we're over there a good bit), bought gresham one of the greatest play-things we have ever seen. we refer to it as the 'jumpy-thing.' it is essentially a blow-up raft on steroids and the boys love it. i will say that it was a bear to inflate and it takes up most of bailey's room (we put it in there because she doesn't really 'use' her room right now), but it is so worth having...hours of entertainment! it is so fun watching the boys turn into 'buddies.' on the mornings that gresham goes to preschool while brayden stays home, piper says brayden goes to the door every 30 minutes or so, shrugs his shoulders and asks, 'where gresham?' pals.

on the bailey front, she continues to be such a delight. her brothers absolutely adore

her (of course, she isn't really a 'threat' to their stuff or their space yet). she is such a happy baby, and is always smiling and laughing. we are certainly blessed by her. and speaking of blessed, we were blessed recently by our friend jennifer perry (JT) who just sent us two very amazing little outfits for ms. bailey. she made them, by the way. what a gift. thank you jt. we'll put some pictures up soon of bailey modeling her new digs.

if you think about, pray for us in this month of may. work for me in may is crazy as we move from one end-of-the-year thing to another (all while trying to wrap of the school year and get ready for summer).

Snow in April, another Birthday, and a man down...

every winter, piper threatens to move. well, not really at the start of every winter, but say, more like the middle of march...by that time she has had entirely too many cold, gray, not quite cold enough for snow, but plenty cold for a nasty rain-kind of days; too many days where she feels like she is confined to the house with our three small children. don't get me wrong, she loves our children (they are all quite amazing), but our house at just shy of 1200 square feet fills up VERY quickly when every possible inside toy and activity has been exhausted and it is only 11:30 in the morning. so when it started to snow on sunday afternoon (that would be on sunday APRIL 13th), and then continued to snow off and on into monday, i fully expected to see my wife headed for the door w/ packed bags. all of us are over winter at this point and have had enough of the 'spring teaser' days...we're just plain ready for spring (though that is a very short-lived season here), and eventually summer. i think the circus starts to feel it too...they need some outside time as well...

not to mention the few things in our yard that the puppies haven't destroyed...they do not handle snow in april so well either.

the bright spot in the past couple of days has been that uncle adam has been here all the way from colorado. his plans are to be here for the summer (he is photographing a couple of weddings this summer and has a couple of other things he wants to do on the east coast, so he's planning on staying a while). by the way, if you or someone you know needs a wedding photographer, he's your man. check out his stuff here. at any rate, gresham and brayden both loved having adam here and loved being able to celebrate his birthday with him (as did the rest of us). i also got to take adam out to the river for a bit for his first fly fishing experience. it turned out to be a beautiful day...see spring, that's what i'm talking about. adam came close enough to catching a couple of nice trout to make him begin to fall in love w/ the sport (i told him to wait until he's actually caught one). it was a good day for a birthday.

and now brayden is waaaay under the weather. having sick kids sucks, i'm not going to lie. i don't tend to handle it that well, either. i'm not talking about puke or anything (although i definately don't handle that well AT ALL, but that's an entirely different story), but he's been running a fever and has had a pretty bad cough and is terribly congested. i just can't stand to see him so miserable. i tend to get a little angry about it actually. not at him, just angry b/c he's suffering. like i said, i don't deal w/ my kids being sick that well. it breaks my heart. your prayers are appreciated (for piper as well, she is amazing in all of this, but it certainly tends to wear her out).

Come on Spring...

While the first signs of spring are starting to arrive in the High Country (robins digging for worms, 'Blue Sky' days-see post on 'a journey of [epic] proportions), it is struggling to make itself known in our little yard up on the hill...

the azalea and the daffodils are the only thing that have (as of yet) not suffered under the feet of our wonderful dogs...

So, if i were telling you this face to face, then you would have been able to detect the sarcasm in my voice; it is hard to convey sarcasm in writing. okay, they really are wonderful dogs. we got them labor day weekend of 2006 when they were like 6 weeks old. a litter of lab-mix puppies came in to the pound and we went to pick out one, and left there with two...they have been so great with our little ones and they are great companions to have out in the woods (i'm also trying to teach them how to hang out quietly by the river while i fish, but they are having a hard time grasping this concept). the drawback, of course, has been that they have destroyed our yard. i found some pictures of the house right when we moved in and had totally forgotten that we at one time had grass in it rather than just dirt. so the project this spring will be to confine them to the backyard and try and regain some of our former 'curb appeal.'

as for spring-yesterday was a wonderful day outside; sunny and around 70 degrees. we took the kids to the tot-lot (thank you town of boone), and they played so hard...it was great to watch. during nap-time i got to sneak away for a little bit to do some fishing. it was a great afternoon on the river.

so the forecast for monday and tuesday is SNOW. what?! we used to laugh about this when i was in college...i remember driving back from seeing vertical horizon at ziggy's in winston-salem on my brother's birthday (april 15th) and about the time we got to wilkesboro we were in blizzard-like snow conditions. it was funny then...now it just makes us depressed...so, come on spring-take a stand!

it's 6:30am...

the coffee pot just went off and gresham is sleeping on the couch. we've been up with him since about 4-something. there is perhaps nothing more heartbreaking than watching your child suffer under sickness. each time we find ourselves in such a situation, each time i am wrecked over one of these little ones having an upset stomach or something, i wonder just how much we are loved that the Father would allow Jesus to suffer the way he did...i can't even handle watching one of mine deal with a runny nose. thanks for your prayers.

sleep well buddy.

Party "De-construction" and Bailey update...

a note before i begin: i have come to refer to my children (gresham-newly turned 4, brayden-a monster of a 2 year old, and bailey-a sweet 6 months), as "The Circus;" hence the title of our blog. So if I am talking about a day in our life and I say, "after we put the circus to bed...," you know i am referring (lovingly) to my wonderful children.

as i mentioned in the last post turning 4 has been a huge deal for gresham...i do, however think that he has finally settled into the idea that he is, in fact, 4 now-whether he feels like he is or not. while his birthday was on tuesday we prolonged the celebration (i like for my birthday celebration to last about a week as well) by having the party this past saturday. i would like to take this opportunity to 'publicly' apologize to my wife for being a doubter and a nay-sayer to pulling off such an elaborate shindig. gresham wanted a 'construction' themed party, and that's all piper needed to know...it was on. i would also like to say that she did an amazing job, and a good time was had by all! one of the blessings of working at the church is that we got to host his party there...the space was awesome, although i don't know if the room will ever recover.

in bailey world things are pretty amazing. i know that it was no real secret that was kind of pulling for a 3rd boy, and was actually terrified at the thought of having a girl. i would say that almost EVERYONE i talked to about it said something to the effect of, "she'll have you wrapped around her little finger in no time." okay, dang it. if you were one of the wise sages who said this then you were right. she is amazing! i cannot imagine the collins family without her. the boys love her as well (they have become real pals in the midst of all of this too-really fun to watch). she is perhaps the happiest baby i have ever seen...almost always smiling (which can truly wreck you), and praise the Lord is healthy as well. she is a tad on the small side though (20th percentile as of her most recent appointment). so, she'll be a 'small fry'-we're okay with that.

thanks for keeping up with us.

by the way, i've 'resurrected' an old blog of mine...more about my own thoughts and happenings that i didn't want to subject you to here when you come expecting to read about what is happening in our family. could be life stuff in general, could be ministry related, faith related, fishing related...give it a look if you like.

# 4

it is an appropriate title for the first post...it is:

a. about the number of times i've started and given up on having and keeping a blog
b. the number of years since gresham's birth and consequently the number of years that
i have been meaning to (see above) to find a way to keep friends and family updated on
everday life for the collins family.

when piper was given the april 2nd due date back in 2003 (for april of 2004), she rolled her eyes, gave a sigh, and said confidently that this baby was going to be an april fool's baby. good call. i will say that there was a glimmer of hope when piper went into labor on the morning of the 31st of march; it was, however, shattered due to a stubborn gresham and a 30 hour labor.

all that to say that we celebrated gresham's 4th birthday on tuesday. there is nothing like watching a child wake up to presents in his seat at the breakfast table (brayden woke up to a small one as well...it's hard to make a 2 year old understand that it is his brother's birthday, hence his brother getting the presents-you learn to choose your battles).

while it is a bit heartbreaking to watch gresham grow up (with each passing "phase" you think, "we'll never get that part of him back."), it is so exciting to watch him catch on to birthdays and "turning 4." all day long gresham kept asking, "am i 4 yet? what about now, now am i 4?" i kept thinking that it was because we told gresham that he was born in the afternoon, and his 4 year-old mind deduced that he would not truly be 4 until he reached his birth time. while this may seem like advanced reasoning on his part, he is a pretty smart little guy. it wasn't until that night when we were saying prayers that i realized why he was so consumed with whether or not he was 4 yet..."mommy, when am i going to feel 4?" all day, gresham wondered why he still felt the same as he had the day before-when he was still 3?

we'll celebrate with a party tomorrow. a "construction" party. i passed up tickets to see the Heels play in the Final Four this weekend...i kind of had a pity party in my head when i dropped them in the mail to my friend james who lives in texas and loves the Heels as much as i do.


wouldn't miss the birthday celebration for
the world.
happy birthday, buddy.