how truly, how wondrously blest

i'm still sorting through the digital piles of pictures from our beach vacation, but i do have a couple to keep you all happy for awhile! when i got home from our trip, i printed out a few pictures of the kids from the beach for all the grandparents... and then i slipped these two pictures in the back...



we are beyond excited that God has chosen to bless us with another child! it still feels a little surreal right now, but the early-pregnancy fatigue has already hit...so the reality is starting to sink in.

one major difference that i can already see with this pregnancy is how much fun it is going to be to share this with ethan! he was only 16 months old when caroline was born, so he is obviously so much more aware of what is happening this time around. when we told him the good news, ethan looked a little perplexed at the fact that you could not see that there was a baby in my belly. (especially after just spending a week with kristi!) :) you could tell that he wanted to believe us, but he was really thinking this one through. throughout the day, he kept asking to see the baby, so i figured it was time for an object lesson. :) i got out a lentil bean, which is about how big a baby is at 6 wks. gestation. i held it in my hand and told him that the baby was smaller than this little tiny bean and that God was making the baby inside me and that it would keep growing bigger and bigger until it was the size of a real baby. his eyes got big, and he asked to keep the bean. i fastforwarded 10 minutes in my head when he would lose the bean and come crying that he lost the "baby", so i decided to tape the bean to an index card. ethan was so proud of that card and carried around "the baby" for the next two days. hopefully he will get the point by the time the baby is the size of a rutabaga!

the day that we told ethan about the baby, he was crawling on me on the couch and elbowed me in the stomach. it didn't really hurt, but i thought now was a good time to make him aware of the necessity of being careful around mommy's belly! well, 2 hours later, nana came over to receive the good news. she then turned to ethan and said, "so mommy has a baby in her tummy!" and ethan replied, "yes, and you better be careful!" haha. he got the point! the next day, i was sitting with my arms crossed as the kids were finishing breakfast, and ethan exclaimed, "mommy, don't crush your baby!" the big brother in him is already kicking in!!! since then, he has asked more than once if he was crushing the baby while he was sitting in my lap. i reassured him that God was keeping the baby safe inside me. :)

so it looks like this baby #3 will be quite an adventure for the whole family! caroline loves seeing babies when we are out and about, so as i get bigger and she gets a little older, i think she will begin to understand more. right now, we just tell her, "say baby!" and she smiles and says, "babiesssss!"

of course, we covet your prayers for this child that God has given us. it is so exciting to imagine another little one in our home, yet the reality of the responsibility of another child is also a humbling one. my mind keeps going back to a most wonderful quote from stepping heavenward by elizabeth prentiss... i first read it when my friend carrie announced her 4th pregnancy last year. it brought me to tears then, and it certainly does now! (carrie, i hope you don't mind that i am stealing your idea! of course you don't mind.. you've been waiting and waiting for this blog post!) i will end with this precious passage. thank you for your prayers for this sweet baby.

She says I shall now have one mouth the more to fill and two feet the more to shoes, more disturbed nights, more laborious days, and less leisure or visiting, reading, music, and drawing. Well! This is one side of the story, to be sure, but I look at the other. Here is a sweet, fragrant mouth to kiss; here are two more feet to make music with their pattering about my nursery. Here is a soul to train for God; and the body in which it dwells is worthy all it will cost, since it is the abode of a kingly tenant. I may see less of friends, but I have gained one dearer than them all, to whom, while I minister, in Christ’s name, I make a willing sacrifice of what little leisure for my own recreation my other darlings had left me. Yes, my precious baby, you are welcome to your mother’s heart, welcome to her time, her strength, her health, her tenderest cares, to her lifelong prayers! Oh, how rich I am, how truly, how wondrously blest!
thanks be to God for His indescribable gift! 2 cor. 9:15

there's still sand between our toes....

kristie and i and the kids just spent 5 wonderful days with kristi and family on the isle of palms, sc. (sigh). it was a great week. we stayed in the most adorable beach cottage, and we had beautiful weather the whole time. since i have always lived near the beach, i have had the luxury of spending a day at the beach whenever i wanted, but i've never stayed at a beach house. so this was quite a treat! what fun we had walking the kids down there in the morning and back after naps in the afternoon! and the best part is that there is no sand in my van!! (just 1,000 teddy grahams from our long drive home yesterday...) today, ethan told his nana, "we went to the beach over and over and over and over!" he's right! we did!

between the three mommies, we took over 1200 pictures and videos combined. i must admit, i most likely contributed over 80% of those pictures. kristie was the fun one, building sand castles with the kids... kristi was the very pregnant one, doing well just to make it down the path to the beach without going into labor... and i was the obnoxious one, snapping pictures of absolutely everything. so it's going to take me awhile to pare it down to my absolute favorites. but this picture is right there at the top. can you believe we got them all to sit down for this? we drew a line in the sand and told the older kids to sit. and they did! then we plopped the babies down, and i got this one shot before the youngest ones were on their way again. these days, a group picture of children is successful if you can see all the faces. they may not be looking and they may not be smiling, but we'll take it! :) i'm just glad i got it in one shot and not 50!

check back soon for tons of beach fun! thank you, kristi, for a week we will never forget!

growing so fast...

i took these of my baby girl on mother's day with these memories in mind. last night, i sat for a good while comparing the two sets of pictures, looking back and forth, back and forth. God sure is crafting a precious one right before my very eyes. she is saying new words every day with her abrupt, alto voice. ("yu you"..."love you" is her latest.) that hair is somethin' else, let me tell you. and well, so is caroline. i am getting a taste of my own medicine every minute of the day as she flashes those mischievous looks that my dad says he remembers alllll too well! but oh how i love my baby girl. the way she waves at sprinklers, the way she shrugs her shoulders to be cute, and the way she "splats" the foolish man's house with all her might. sweet caroline, you are growing up way too fast. dear Lord, please let me enjoy it. i want to slow down so that i can hurry up and catch every moment of Your Image in her...

here are some more recent pictures of caroline grace... as you can see, she sure did enjoy her first (and second) hershey's kiss!

a "muver's day" giggle

ethan delighted in wishing me and all the ladies he saw yesterday a "happy muver's day!" over and over. he even walked up to kristie's mom unprompted and offered her the sweet greeting, and i think it made her day. :)

well, after a wonderful but long sunday, we were getting the kids ready for bed. brian and ethan were in the bathroom, and i was changing caroline's clothes. the house was silent for just a moment, and then coming from the potty, i heard...



"ha-ha-happy muver's day, daddy!"

i'm still giggling about it...

update: monday, 10 pm
i must add that tonite as we arrived at bible study, one of our wonderful elders, "uncle jay", came to the van to get ethan out of the car for me... as soon ethan saw him, he perked up and told him "happy muver's day!" if jay's love for that little boy could grow any greater, it did at that very moment!

mother's day blessings

what a special mother's day we had yesterday!

i was blessed to share mother's day with several mothers: my mother, brian's mother, kristie, & her mom, cindy, who is like another mother to me! we (and all the husbands & kiddos) enjoyed lunch at a beautiful, shady park and then relaxed and played with our little blessings who call us "mommy", "gram", "nana", and "yiayia". i am so blessed to be surrounded by these and other godly women who encourage me to stay at the Cross in my mothering... some older and wiser and some who are walking this road of motherhood right along with me!



my little blessings have grown so much since last mother's day!
i don't usually get very many pictures of my mom with my children because when we are together, she is usually helping this busy mom fold laundry, bathe children, or unload the dishwasher...or she is happily playing with her grandchildren while i am attempting to frantically accomplish the aforementioned tasks! my mom is such an example of a quiet servant. she joyfully helps me throughout the week, especially by coming by after work to lend a hand until brian gets off work. (the kids LOVE greeting her at the door when they see her car pull up!) so, yesterday, i was SO HAPPY to capture these pictures of my mom with caroline! ethan was off getting sweaty with daddy and a soccer ball, so caroline was the subject of most of yesterday's pictures!





brian and i are so blessed to live in the same town as all of our parents. i say often that we are "blessed to the point of being spoiled"! our children are growing up at the feet of their grandparents, and we LOVE seeing them so often! i am so thankful for my mother-in-law. she treats me and kristie like the daughters she never had, and our children simply adore her. most of all, kristie and i are indebted to her for the years of love she has given (and continues to give) her sons. thank you for being a loving and godly mother to our husbands! here is nana with her sons and her grandchildren.


as soon as we pulled up to the park, i laughed when i saw the slogan on the side of this ice cream truck.... i grabbed kristie and glenda for a picture-- we LOVE our mother-in-law, and feel quite the opposite from this slogan about her!!! we all got a good laugh on mother's day about that truck. i hope the ice cream man's mother-in-law lives FAR away from him!!!


the blessings just keep comin' and comin'! i am also thankful to call one of my most dearest friends in all the world my SISTER! thank you, jeff, for marrying kristie!! it is such a joy to share in-laws and a last name with my sweet maid of honor. she is an incredibly fun aunt to my kiddos and a wonderful encouragement to me. i am humbled when i think of how blessed i am... we love being together and still talk about the fact that we can't believe we're family! what a blessing. thank you, Lord! here is kristie with caroline in their matchy-matchy reds.




this picture of little karina just makes me melt! look at those eyes! she and caroline are becoming such sweet little friends... holding hands and getting so excited to see each other!


cindy (kristie's mom) and my mom walking with caroline down to the water... i love that we can share family and that we all end up feeling like family even though cindy and my mom aren't technically related!


as you can see, ethan was on the move the whole afternoon and rarely stopped for pictures. but he cannot escape his mother altogether!!


one more picture of caroline... she was more understanding of her mother's need for numerous pictures on mother's day!


i hope your mother's day was a wonderful one. thank you for the encouragement that all of you are to me as a mother. may the Lord bless you this week as our contemplations of motherhood blessings linger a little longer...

the perfect shot

i guess we've started a tradition of bringing home at least a couple of boat photos each year from st. augustine... brian has done a great job with these. i love that brian shares my interest in photography. his interest is more the precise, technical, manual journey toward the perfect shot while my joy lies in taking as many pictures as possible hoping to capture that perfect shot somewhere amongst the thousands! haha! so while we both love photography, i find myself struggling to be patient as he carefully adjusts the tripod and the camera's manual settings one more time before capturing a few pictures, and he stands back and smiles as he witnesses me tearing through our 1 GB memory card in a matter of minutes!

brian took the following shots with our friend's canon rebel xti. the first was with a telephoto lens, i think... i was waiting (patiently...ahem!) in the car with nana & pappy and the kids in a no parking zone while mr. precision did his thing. :) it was worth the wait, don't you think!?





that's it for our st. augustine trip this year. and just in time! the kids and i are packing our bags again next week with kristie & karina to visit kristi and family. weee caaaaaaan't waaaaaaaaaait! it's been too long!

new memories in the old city

in addition to seeing the peacocks, we were able to see some new sights in st. augustine. (well, new to us!) in the past, we have admired the exterior of flagler college but have never taken the guided tour until this year. the tour was rich with facts and trivia about the old hotel ponce de leon, which was a popular winter destination of the rich and famous in the late 1800s built by tycoon henry flagler.

this hotel was the first building in florida to have electricity, thanks to thomas edison. with thousands of light bulbs decorating the courtyard, the entrance to this elaborate hotel must have been more than stunning! decorated by louis tiffany (of tiffany and co.), no detail was left untouched.

guests stayed a minimum of 3 months, and while the men conducted business, the ladies socialized in the grand parlor. the picture below is of the ornate parlor ceiling (painted the trademark "tiffany blue".)


this thomas edison clock was the first electric clock in a public building. the tour guide talked about how unique this clock is because edison designed it so that if you were standing in the middle of it, you would be able to read the numbers.... the 4 is IIII vs. IV, and the Vs are upside down. welllll, so are the numbers on the clock sitting in my foyer, as well as the clock that was in my living room growing up. and i am pretty sure thomas edison didn't make those! ha! so apparently, edison's idea caught on and eventually became standard operating procedure. but the clock is still really pretty!


this once-prestigious hotel is now a private liberal arts university. the students still use the original dining hall, which is quite a treat for the eyes! the gold paint that you see on the walls is actually gold. the vaulted ceilings are covered in murals. the room is filled with tiffany stained glass windows. i don't know about you, but my college cafeteria was nothing like this place!


a close-up of the tiffany windows in the dining hall... aren't they pretty?


this portion of the mosaic floor in the rotunda shows the only flaw in the whole floor--an intentional one. look at the top left of the second triangle from the left... while the other triangles have a white triangle in the corner, this triangle is completely black. this imperfection was flagler's proclamation that only God is perfect. that was my favorite part of the whole tour. :)


ethan loved these "spitting" frogs that circled the fountain in the courtyard! with 12 frogs around it, the fountain functions as a real sundial. the frogs also represent the 12 apostles. i think there was more symbolism about the fountain, but caroline was really tired of the tour by this point, so i missed some trivia attempting to entertain her.


we also toured the san sebastian winery, which was interesting to learn about how wine is made. afterwards, they offered a free wine tasting, so the kids sat at our feet eating pretzels while we tasted a bunch of wines. it's a good thing that there was a metal bucket for you to pour out the wines you don't care for because i didn't like a single one! that is no reflection on the quality of their wines... i just don't care for wine at all. but most of the people were leaving the winery with boxes of wine, so it must be good to those who like it! but brian was able to get some good photos while we were there, so it was worth the trip! :)






we did not get to spend nearly as much time at the pool as i'd hoped. this was partly because the weather was cooler than expected, but we also spent more time downtown than i thought we would. we enjoyed one fun morning at the pool... poor brian spent half the time taking ethan potty, so we did not get as many pool pictures as i'd hoped (but we have the whole summer for that!). check out caroline's bling bling flipflops!! it took a good 5 minutes to smush her feet into those things!

let's get this show on the road!

hey everybody...it's caroline!

so this is what blogging is! i always hear my mom say, "i need to blog about that..." and now i know what she's talking about! my mom has had a pretty busy week, so i thought i'd help her out a little with sharing some of the pictures from our vacation to st. augustine. so many pictures... so little time! i'm sure my mom still has plenty of stories after this, but these are my favorites.


here i am with pappy and the sheriff from the old jail. ethan was a little intimidated by this big man on the bench, but i was ok as long as i had my own sheriff deputy escort!



the day we went to the fort, i was cranky and could only be consoled by food...it's pretty cool to hear your little voice scream so loudly on the top of a huge fort! the sound really carries! my mom vigilantly kept my mouth full of pretzels instead of taking pictures at the fort this year... but my mom has more pictures of it from their first visit (before i came along...). here we are on the top of the fort with a very wind-blown mommy trying to keep everybody happy without blowing away!



see?! i told you i was miserable this day! my mom thought i would get to nap on the trolley, but there was just too much to see! so without that nap, i was pretty upset by lunchtime... somebody give me some bread!



we had so much fun with nana & pappy! here they are with ethan in front of a horse & buggy. i don't really know much about the horse, but i liked sticking my fingers up its nose!





we found some big big fish in the lightner museum pond. wow, were they fun to watch! ethan and i really didn't want to take our eyes off the fish for a picture with nana & pappy, but mommy finally convinced us to look her way!







mommy & daddy fell in love with kilwin's ice cream during their first trip to st. augustine, and ethan and i have followed our parents' example! you can smell the waffle cones baking from the other end of st. george street!



after a long day of touring all over town and riding in that stroller, a playground was just what these kids needed! there was a slide like we'd never seen before... it was made up of tubes that were somehow connected to the frame, and when we slid down it, it made the greatest frictiony noise and bumpiness that sent smiles across our faces! after a few times down it, my diaper came off! haha! now that's some friction! while ethan slid down this slide hundreds of times, i entertained nana & daddy by climbing all the way up a tunnel slide! look at all my curls in the humidity!





one of my very favorite memories from st. augustine was my very first ride on a carousel. for the first time around, mommy put me on a horse that didn't move. i loved it! i waved to the same lady every time we came around to her, but i wouldn't wave to daddy! for the second ride, i sat on a horse that went up and down. BOY OH BOY was i surprised!!!!







well, i'd better get off of here before mommy catches me! check back soon... the rest of the pictures will be worth waiting for!