blessings in return

when ethan was a baby, i began singing a special prayer to him every night at bedtime. some nights he would fall asleep as i finished singing "the Lord be gracious, gracious unto you...", but most of the time, ethan would give me a big smile as i kissed his forehead during the rests toward the end of the song. as ethan left the days of babyhood, he began filling in the "you"s... and then he learned "peace" and "gracious". now that ethan is in his last several months of being 2,he has learned the whole song. if i kiss him goodnight without singing, he requests "mommy, sing your song!" and then he joins in, singing with every last bit of energy in his tired body.... "a Yoooord be gwacious, gwacious unto you!" (to clarify: he sings "a" for "the"... yes, we teach him that there is ONE Lord, not "a" Lord"!)

this moment each night is one of those times that you just want to bottle up. and save. forever. when i began singing this song to him, i had hoped it would become special to him. i had hoped that he would one day learn the words only to one day later understand them. but i did not envision that the Lord would bless me in return with the gift of my sweet child singing back to me.



(disclaimer: this is audio only...)

googly-gurk

caroline is learning and practicing the prosody of the english language, which ironically results in speech that sounds very far from english! this stage is really fun for me because it's a cute little glimpse into what her voice sounds like. (the voice that will probably never turn itself off again!!) in this video, you will see her watching cars drive by our house. for about 3 minutes before i began recording, she yelled the same little bit of gibberish at every car that passed. she was having a good ole' time!


she is also really into animal sounds, as you can see on the video. anything with big teeth gets a big growl, but she has refined her dog, cat, and monkey sounds. :) she loves sleeping with her sock monkey (thanks, heather!!) and exclaims "ooooh ooooh!" if i forget to give it to her.

(side note: the sock monkey is the first thing that resembles a bedtime obsession object for either of my children. but the first night i gave it to her to sleep with, she slept 13 1/2 hours without one single peep. i honestly doubt that the sock monkey had anything to do with that wonderful night of incredibly long sleeping for my 10-hour-tops child, but i give it to her now more out of celebration of that night! haha! but it is one soft little monkey!)

we are having so much fun with caroline right now. she is really into yelling "dadadadadada!" a hundred times when she sees brian, which i'm sure does his daddy's heart good. i hesitate to say this, but i think she is back to normal as far as teething goes. she is sleeping so much better at night, though she thinks her day is supposed to start at 5:30.....we're working on nipping that one in the bud! she is back to eating pretty much whatever we put in front of her, which makes my days so much easier!! i'm sure that is contributing to the sleeping better as well. she is on her way to dropping her morning nap, though she still needs it most days right now. i'm excited to think about this summer when she can be out at the beach or the pool in the mornings without a need-a-nap-meltdown! fun fun fun!

i can't believe she is almost as old as ethan was when she was born!

find 50 minutes and watch this video!

we just got home from church, and i just have to share the message we heard tonite. wow! what a blessing!

titled the supremacy of Christ and truth in a postmodern world, it is about 50 minutes long and is one message from the 2006 national desiring God conference. the speaker, voddie baucham, is very well-spoken and incredibly engaging. in this message, he contrasts the Christian worldview with the secular humanistic worldview, and he explains how the differing worldviews answer the following questions:

-who am i?
-why am i here?
-what is wrong with the world?
-how can what is wrong be made right?

good, good stuff! i did not want his message to be over!

so put the kids to bed, curl up in a blanket by the fire, turn your Bible to colossians 1, click the picture above, and prepare to be moved.

father knows best

i love the little "daddy" things that brian does with the kids that i would never think of. like apple fries. when ethan decided a long time ago that he wanted french fries instead of apple one day, brian said, "well i have apple fries!"... and he sliced apple in the shape of little french fries. voila! the apple disappeared into my son's body instantly. we haven't had to pull out the apple fries bit for a while, but brian introduced them to caroline this week and it was amazing all over again. instead of apple all over the floor (which was the case 10 minutes prior to the caroline-apple-fries-debut), she devoured the whole apple!

my other favorite daddy thing is the way brian dries ethan's hands after washing them. he puts the hand towel over ethan's hands and then beats them all together (beats in a gentle sense)... and it sounds like a helicopter. which, of course, makes my son's day! now on most days, i am helping ethan wash his hands more often than brian, and he always says, "do the helicopter, mommy". and i will admit that my helicopter is just not up to par with daddy's. mine sounds more like a helicopter out of fuel landing in the middle of a golf course or something. but ethan keeps asking, and i keep trying. and i usually comment that i just can't do it like daddy can.

well, the other day, ethan was standing on a chair to wash his hands at the kitchen sink, and after my helicopter crashed and burned, ethan looked me straight in the eye and said...

"probably you should be daddy!"

oh brian, you are needed more than you know! :)

does your family have any favorite "daddy things"?

a valentine for you...

a quick valentine's blessing for you all today! the kids wanted to say hi, and caroline wanted to show you that she is wearing her brother's shirt from when he was half her age. (i think he weighed more at 7 mos. than she does at 15 months! who'd have guessed that when she started out at 9 lbs?!) we hope you've had a wonderful day today. ethan went to his first valentine's party at mops today, and he could not wait to take his lightning mcqueen & to-mater valentines to mops! i struggled with the whole consumerism idea of valentine's day vs. sharing the gospel and the TRUE LOVE of God...yet i really needed ethan to finally get excited about going to mops! so i gave in and bought the cars valentines and then wrote 1 john 4:19 on the back of all of them. :) so hopefully that will be a blessing to the moms of the kids in ethan's class.

my sweet friend autumn shared an incredibly encouraging message about truly loving our husbands based on the book created to be his helpmeet. i think we were almost all in tears as she shared how the Lord used this book to turn her marriage right-side-up. she encouraged us that we can change our marriage...not by changing our husbands but by humbly changing our actions and attitudes based on the Word of God. the first thing that she had us do was to make a list of 5 things that we wanted to change about our marriage... and then she said, "if any of those 5 are things that you want your husband to change, cross them off!" that was an eyeopening exercise for a lot of us, i think! i own this book, and listening to autumn today made me realize that i need to read it again. autumn shared my favorite quote from the book..."you are not your husband's Holy Spirit!" think about that one for awhile...that is a good one, my friends!! i want to share more but it is naptime, and i feel like i am rambling. aaaaaaand i need to be rested for my valentine's day date tonite!! i highly recommend this book, but be prepared to be convicted!

here's one more picture of my crazy little girl...


...and here's her brother who was pretty busy with his valentines inventory!



remember that we love because He first loved us! (1 john 4:19)
happy valentine's day!

the blog must go on...

so i'm pretty hesitant to post a picture on here EVER AGAIN after sharing hope's awesome photography... my photos will PALE in comparison to hers, but life must go on, and we all know that i really can't keep from blogging for very long. :) i was laughing at myself the other day because i was taking a bunch of pictures of caroline in the backyard. i was thinking, "why in the world am i even trying this? hope has done this job for me!" but of course, i continued to take pictures. i don't know how to be any other kind of mom than the kind with a camera pasted to her forehead!! :) so never fear... the photo sharing will continue. just not at the same caliber as the last 2 posts... and then when i get the proofs back from hope, the awesome photo posting will resume for a brief time. :)

speechless

a walk in the park

what an absolutely fun day we had with hope today! thank you, Lord, for a perfect slightly overcast, slightly breezy, slightly cool day. i could not have ordered better weather for our photo shoot. and the kids did wonderfully, considering that every 20 minutes, we were changing their clothes and switching out their toys for a new "set"! cousin karina joined us for some of the pictures, too, which made the day even more special. the girls had a tea party, and ethan was sittin' on the dock of the bay, as well as playing with a train set that his friend joseph let us borrow.

it was a wonderful day... when we got home, i told brian that the only downside to having someone else take pictures for you is that you don't come home with a memory card full of pictures to look at and mess with all afternoon... i didn't know what to do when we got home! and then hope emailed me shortly after we got home to tell me how cute the pictures had turned out... which made me want to see all them even more!!! :)

so while i was waiting on pictures to show up on hope's blog, i had some time to calculate some numbers from our day...

4,150-number of miles that hope flew from scotland to the US
30- number of miles that we drove to the beautiful park today
250-number of pictures that hope took
75-number of times we wiped a child's nose
378-number of gerber's puffs ingested by 3 small children
15-number of times we attempted to put that scarf on caroline's head
8-number of senior citizens that asked if ethan, caroline, and karina were triplets
3-number of members of my family who hated having their shoes off for the family picture above
147-number of times i jumped up and down screaming like a crazy woman trying to get those kiddos to turn around
75-number of times i've checked hope's blog tonite to see if our pictures are posted yet...

and here they are!






didn't she do an amazing job?!??! hope has pacified me with these four sweet sweet pictures until she can get the rest to me. please visit her blog to look at more of her beautiful work. i can't stop looking at these pictures. i have admired her photography skills for awhile now, and it's exciting and almost strange to see MY FAMILY in her pictures!!! :)

if you live nearby and want to set up a photo shoot with hope, she still has some appointments available while she's in town. i would not pass up that chance if i were you!!!

thank you, hope! thank you a million times!

a picture perfect weekend ahead!

can i just tell you how excited i am about this saturday?!?! you know how much i love taking pictures of my kids, right? but hey, we all know that brian and i are nowhere near the skill level of professionals (though brian is much closer than i am!)... because we both love taking so many pictures of our kids, we have not made the habit of getting professional pictures taken (and because we are not made of money!). ethan has been the subject of one photo shoot, which was great, but on the very very low end of professional quality... and sweet caroline has yet to look into the lens of a REAL CAMERA... well, sweetheart, that is about to change! my sweet friend hope has truly been blessed with the gift of capturing the moment. you know, those moments that you witness as a mom that melt your heart and you wish you had a camera built into your forehead?!? (like a macbook!)

well, hope is in town for a little while, and we are planning to spend saturday morning at a beautiful park. i absolutely can't wait. i have way too many outfits picked out to take for caroline to wear, and then it hit me yesterday that i need to think of what ethan should wear... haha! i need to get busy gathering fun things for the pictures... i've got everything ready for a tea party for caroline and karina, and a picture of ethan these days would not be complete without a CAR or thirty!

i am also excited to spend time with hope while she's in town. we went to high school together but didn't really know each other that well until we both started blogging and met up through our mutual friend, amy. we have sent many a baby-advice-email across the ocean, and thanks to blogger, we keep up with each others' families pretty well. it's been a couple of years since we've seen each other, so caroline and nora have been added to our families since our last visit. this one should be a fun one!! hopefully we can get together to let our kids play at least once this month. ethan and the three girls...hmm...maybe we can do a rock star/groupie photo... haha! (as long as ethan and alanna get to keep their shoes on!)

so stay tuned for fun fun, beautiful pictures!!!

a walkin' and a talkin'

boy oh boy, do we have our hands full these days! caroline is walking! caroline is talking! and caroline is teething! again! whew! i'm just about ready for another disney world trip! just kidding...sort of! :) seriously though, we are having so much fun watching caroline grow... she started walking about a month ago, and boy can she get around quickly! she is still a bit tipsy at times, especially when ethan comes flying around the corner, but she is definitely enjoying her new mode of transportation. and now she can play in dresses without crawling all over them!

you know this speech-therapist-mom is excited to tell you that caroline is saying new words almost everyday. she's been saying "bye bye" for awhile, but until this past week, she hasn't said many new words (which is just what i expected to happen since she was very focused on learning to walk)... well, hello world! here comes chatty cathy! her favorite words are car ("GAAAAA!"), eat ("eeeeeees!"), ethan ("eeeeeeees!") (gotta use context to distinguish between those), water (wawa), banana (nana), bath (baaaaa!), off (ahhhh)--she loves pushing light switches, and nite nite (nahhhhhh). she loves "itsy bitsy spider" and will do the spider motion while requesting "eees!" for "itsy" i guess.... so "eees" can mean several things these days! caroline also has employed the use of the ever annoying "ehhhhhhhhh!" to get our attention if we are not looking when she signs "please"... and well, she also uses "ehhhhhhhh" as a general exclamation of frustration or request... so we're working on that. :) actually saying "please" would be a huge improvement in this area! most of her words are spoken (yelled) with gusto and huge drama. i can't imagine where she gets that from! haha! i am really enjoying watching caroline's language blossom. she's been soaking in all this language for the past year, and now it is coming together for her to use. i have a feeling that she'll keep us on our toes with all her talking... i guess i deserve that, huh, mom?

for the past three weeks, caroline has not been feeling too great, and now i know it is all teething. several people at church a couple of weeks ago said that she didn't look right... it was something in her eyes. you could just tell she didn't feel like herself. she would not let me look in her mouth, which is a huge indication that she is getting teeth. well, now she is looking back to normal, and she has FOUR very swollen places in her mouth... she is getting all four molars at once! poor baby! one has already broken through the gums, and the others are close behind. she is not really wanting to eat her regular diet, pretty much just mushy, pureed stuff and pretzels. her sleeping is all out of whack too. one day she did not take any naps, and then a few days later, she pretty much slept all day (boy was my house clean that day!!). and of course she's waking up in the middle of the night again. just when things were getting back to normal... kaPOW, she's gotta get more teeth in. i am trying to be super comforting and loving to her because i know she is uncomfortable, but at the same time, how long will this last??? how long??? i do not want her to get in the habit of waking up in the middle of the night again! so i would appreciate your prayers in that direction... that God would give me wisdom to know when caroline needs comforting and when all this is becoming a habit. thinking about maddie reminds me to hug my kids longer, to yell at them less, and to stop and just BE with them more. so i don't mind getting up with her in the middle of the night if she needs me...

so that is what caroline is up to these days. her hair is getting curlier. she is really into ethan's cars and balls. she really doesn't care that much about her own toys. :) just whatever ethan has! she loves being with him, even when he is sent to the corner for pushing her over. (how forgiving!) she goes to the opposite corner and just stands there with him. it's pretty cute. if she has woken up and he is still napping, she tries to go in his room every minute or so. it's cute the first time and highly annoying by the 53rd time! i was thinking that i had lots of cute caroline stories to share, but i guess i have forgotten them for tonite. she is probably going to wake up soon, so i'd better go.

here are some pictures of our growing little girl...

the walking machine! now that she is walking, she doesn't have much "baby" left in her...



this is the "not right" teething look from a couple weeks ago... ironically taken just 3 minutes after the perky, happy picture at the top of this post...



here is caroline joining her brother in the corner.... after he knocked her down. she loves her brother!!!



this one is my favorite for the month....... oh be still my heart... i love you baby girl! (i have no idea what is all over her mouth!)

my personal trainer

i've finally set out to lose this lingering baby weight (though i will admit that some of it was pre-babies!)... so my dad and i are in a friendly competition to lose 10 pounds. (that will at least be a start!) as of the other day, i've lost 5 1/2, so i'm pretty happy with how things are going so far, though i did have an unfortunate (but delicious) encounter with a half piece of cheesecake at small group the other night... anyway, i have dusted off the pilates video, and i am working hard at it. i try to get my workout done before the kids get up or after they go to bed, but sometimes ethan joins me. and boy is that entertaining. i got out a couple of his bowling pins for him to use as weights, and he LOVES it. he asked me what they were called, and i told them "barbells"...

(warning: this will only be funny to you if you went to church with me when i was growing up...)
the next day, i told him it was time to exercise, and he said, "i need my barbara bells!" mrs. barbara, that one is for you! :)

here's a little peek into ethan and his "barbara bells"...



if you can hear the instructor on the dvd, you will know that ethan is following RIGHT along with her directions! this was his second day to see this video, but it was only his first day to "exercise"... i had to stop recording because i was getting too tickled!