Dear Bently,

The other day you fell asleep in our bed so you wouldn't wake up Lincoln. When it was time for me to go to bed I pulled back the blankets to move you. Seeing you there in your jammies I couldn't believe how big you are. Where did my baby go? How are your arms and legs so long! There is so much of you to carry to bed now. I love you sweet boy! I loved baby you and I love big boy you. Watching you grow is an honor! I am so glad I get to be here to witness it!

Tonight you were calling for me. And to be honest this is a nightly occurrence so I wasn't all too quick to answer your call which I assumed would mean you needed a drink. When I walked into the room your eyes were full of tears and you told me "I'm scared and I want you!" I realized in that moment our time is short. Pretty soon you will be a big boy who isn't afraid of monsters in his closet. Who doesn't call for me when he is scared. With that in mind I got in bed and cuddled and talked with you. I gave you a million kisses and soaked in the moment all that I could!

I love you handsome!

Love,
Mom

Dear Bently and Olivia,

Sometimes I catch myself getting caught up in things that aren't important. I'll tell you no or later because I have to clean or do things on the computer. And while those things are important, I'm trying very hard to stop telling you later. You guys are going to be big and old and grown before I know it. I never want to look back and say I wish I would have played with them more. Or cuddled them more. So today I stopped what I was doing and made a very sad make shift tent in the family room. I don't know who came up with the idea, but I know both of you wanted to do it. Unfortunately, when it was done, Bently wanted to read books and not play with Olivia in the tent. So I suggested we read books in the tent! So that's what we did. We read our library books in our tent. It was magical. It was perfect. It was a moment straight out of my head of what being a Mom would be like. I wish you guys could remember these moments! They are fantastic and magical and hilarious! You both say things that make me laugh all the time. I was sad when Lincoln woke up! I love spending time with you guys! You make me smile and laugh every day. I couldn't ask for a better job than being your Mommy! :) Thank you for reminding me to slow down and appreciate the moments!

Love,
Mom

Dear Bently,

In an hour and half we will be entering a new year. A big year for you. You will be turning 5 and entering kindergarten! 2015 was a pretty good year, but I'm really hoping 2016 is even better! Every year I get with you kid is such a blessing. You are maturing and growing at an alarming rate. I took your picture today and you looked so tall. I had to look back out from behind the camera to see if you were really that tall or if the camera was distorting the image. Nope, you really were just a big kid. You are quickly leaving your young years and entering full on big kid. It breaks my heart and makes me happy. Watching your children grow up is such a bitter sweet feeling. I love watching you learn and grown and mature but I hate it all at the same time. I love you with all my heart my sweet boy. You make me smile every single day and I am forever grateful I get to call you mine! Happy 2016 little man! I can't wait to see what this next year brings!

Love,
Mom

P.s. You always call me Mommy. I love hearing it every single time! I one hundred percent don't mind if you always call me mommy, because you will always be my little man!

Dear Bently,

I need to write these more often. I hate when I have too many things I want to say in one letter. Sometimes I just want to focus on one thing! Well let's start with Halloween.

You are such a sweet kid. We were originally going to go as people from Monster's Inc because that's what you wanted to do. Well, one day at the store Olivia saw an Anna costume. You immediately said if Olivia was going to be Anna you were going to Olaf. No convincing what so ever. You just wanted to match her! And let me tell you, you look mighty adorable in that Olaf costume! I loved every minute you were in it!

We did lots of fun things for Halloween this year! We went to the library for there little activity. We also went to our church Halloween party. It was quite the adventure. It was our first big function as a family of five and you could tell we were newbies! You and Olivia basically ran crazy as your Dad and I tried to figure out how to juggle holding Lincoln and dishing up 4 different plates of food. We failed pretty bad at it. We finally got food when Olivia fell down and split her lip open! So I ran off to the bathroom to help her take care of the blood. Then when I got back Lincoln was ready to eat. So Olivia and I went to the mother's room to feed him. (Olivia didn't want me to leave her.) I remember thinking, at least Greg and Bently will get to eat. At this point I had eaten a roll. While in the mother's room Olivia had diarrhea. As soon as I finished changing her diaper you and Dad walked in. Where he informed me you had not been eating like I thought. You both had been in the bathroom because you had diarrhea too! Oh boy! By the time Lincoln was done eating, so was our food gone. Oh well.

The rest of the party went much smoother. We played some games and did the trunk or treat and got our picture done in the picture booth! After the party we hit up McDonalds. Because we were all starving. Haha! So much for not having to worry about dinner that night! ;)

We also went to the Christian Academy's Halloween party. We went in with pretty low expectations. It was super crowded and it was free and we were late. We figured we missed all the good stuff. Luckily that was not the case. The first thing we hit up were the bounce houses. I tried on the way to explain what a bounce house was, but you didn't really get it. Well I don't think you'll be forgetting about bounce houses any time soon. You and Olivia LOVED it. We let you bounce for most of the time because you loved it so much! Then we went trunk or treating. For reals this time. The church one was actually inside, this one was the real deal. We went at the very end so everyone was trying to get rid of their candy. We got A LOT of candy! You asked me to hold your candy bucket as we walked back to the car because it was too heavy!

Finally the actual day arrived. You were so excited leading up to it and kept asking if it was Halloween yet! The day of we didn't do anything too exciting. It's hard to do activities during the day time! We did have a couple trick or treaters come to our door! You and Olivia loved handing out hte candy. Since I knew we wouldn't have too many and we were leaving I let you hand out multiple pieces to everyone who came to our house. It was so cute watching you be so big and putting the candy in the bags! We had our annual Halloween dinner and were running super late. But we finally got in the car to go trick or treating. You were so anxious to go. You had been asking all day if we were going yet! On the way we stopped by Dad's friends house to trick or treat. This did not please you! You just wanted to get on the road. After that we finally went trick or treating. Boy did you LOVE it. I smiled the whole time watching how happy you were! You never got shy or scared. You just walked up to all those doors and boldly exclaimed, trick or treat! Than ran off to the next house. You had a hard time waiting for you slow sister! ;) One funny moment from the night: We were trick or treating at a house and it was a little boy handing out the candy. He was probably about nine. Well he put the treat in your bag and Olivia's and you were able to see what was in the candy bowl. You exclaimed, "I like liquorice." The little boy just stared at you and you stared right back. Unmoving. The little boy slowly put the Liquorice piece in your bag. You Dad and I laughed long and hard about that one.

So that was our Halloween! We had a blast to say the least! I know you loved it and I can't wait till next year! :)

Tonight I was frantically cleaning trying to get something done in the precious moments while Lincoln was actually sleeping! In my haste I found a folded up coloring page. I remembered you had told me the day before it was for me and I couldn't look at it because you wanted to put it in the mail box for me. I had been feeding Lincoln at the time and couldn't get you an envelope. Well we had both forgotten about it. I picked up and considered throwing it away without looking at it. You have been very into coloring and I have too many to keep. But I decided to open it and boy am I glad I did. There was a colored Minion and written on the side in your cute 4 year old handwriting were 3 letters. Mom. You had written Mom before but this was the very first time you had written it without asking for help. I can't even describe how much those three little letters meant to me. I bawled like a baby just staring down at it! I couldn't get over how much I loved you! I hope you know how happy you make me as a mom! I hope you know that the little things are most often the big things in life! :)

I love you so much my Bently man!

Love,
Mom

Dear Bently,

We went to the pumpkin patch yesterday! We drove an hour to go but boy was it worth it! You had a blast. You were so excited about everything! We went down slides and fed goats and got pumpkins. It was just fantastic! :) I loved watching how happy you were! 

I must admit my favorite part of the evening was when you stole a peice of licorice! Now it wasn't your fault per say. They just had a tub sitting out so you grabbed one. But that wasn't the good part. The good part is you immediately without being asked exclaimed, I'm going to share this with Olivia. You broke it in half and gave her some. My mommy heart was just glowing. I was so proud of you. It's the little moments like this that give me hope I'm not totally screwing you up! ;) you are a good sharer. I hope you always are giving to others! I love you handsome!

Love, 

Mom

Dear Bently,

You are in this adorable stage where you love the mail. Now going to get the mail has always been a highlight in our family. We usually all go to get the mail together. You love it! One day I sent a letter to Aunt Janaye and you were fascinated by the process. So now you color us pictures put them in envelopes and then into the mailbox. You get so excited every time for us to get our mail from you. You jump up and down and squel the whole way to the mailbox. I love watching you be so excited and happy! Even though we're wasting more envelopes then I could count, it's worth it. :D

You also have rediscovered you love of coloring. You have always loved to color but you stopped doing it for awhile. Well the love is back. You color all the time. We had to buy more coloring books because you had gone through our old ones! You literally spend hours coloring! And you've gotten really dang good! You color inside the lines now and everything! :) I don't even bother putting the coloring stuff away anymore because I know it will be back out in a matter of minutes! I love my artistic boy. 

Today was your second day of preschool and you did so good! You were so excited to go. I was a little sad watching you go. You didn't even look back. I yelled I love you a couple times as you walked in. You're just getting to big handsome!

I love you! 

Mom

Dear Bently,

You're new brother is here! You love him! You were so dang excited to see him! You jumped up and down and screamed when grandma kaylynn told you he was born! The love hasn't died but you definitely aren't gentle with him. I wish you were more gentle. Maybe that will come with time. Or you'll just make Lincoln super tough! :)

So after much debate your dad and I decided to put you in preschool. We had to drop you from one preschool because we couldn't afford it. I had huge mommy guilt. But luckily we found a free online preschool. You've loved doing that. Well I was on a waiting list for a cheaper preschool and they wrote me to say they had a spot available. Well then we couldn't decide if we should put you in or not. I knew it would be good for you but it was still another bill we would have to add. Also you really didn't want to go to a physical preschool. You were terrified. Finally after two weeks we decided to just do it. We didn't tell you you were going until the morning of. And after you had gone potty, eaten breakfast, and gotten dressed. I knew it would not be pretty when we told you and boy it wasn't. You cried and screamed and tried to go back to bed. We literally forced you into the car. Luckily your cousin Skyler is in the same class. So I planned with aunt Jen to arrive at the same time. You cried the whole way telling us you didn't want to go. When we pulled up and got out and immediately ran to Aunt Jen's arms and she with a big smile on her face told you how much fun you were going to have. You stopped crying and willingly walked inside. I immediately loved your teacher Mrs Sherri. You even ran off without us downstairs to the preschool room. You didn't cry when we said goodbye. And I didn't cry either surprisingly. I think I was just so shocked we could leave and you weren't throwing a fit. It went so much better than I expected. :) I'm so proud of you my big boy!!! :) Now you are so excited for preschool! You ask every morning if you're going. We started you on fall break so you only got to go one time this week. I hope you love it as much next week! :) 

Love,

Mom