The Rest of the Family

Ok, I'll try to do a brief update about what's happening with the rest of the family. Dave has been working hard at work and with our church. As an elder in our church, he has been called on to help us get through some very difficult times. Along with the rest of our leadership, he has led our church well through stuff that none of us expected or would ever want to go through. God has shown himself faithful during this time and we continue to look to him to see what he has in store for our body.

I have been spending most of my time taking care of the kids and the house. Just trying to keep up with life, which I find is not always easy. I am trying to get some sewing time in here and there. I have lots of projects in my head just need to sit down and work on them. And I have lots of projects sitting waiting to be finished. Need to get on those.

In May, Steph walked across the stage for graduation from college. It was a fun time and so neat to be able to be there with her as she celebrated such an accomplishment. I was about a week away from my due date, so we were all very thankful that Nathan didn't show up early and prevent me from being there. She has had a busy year trying to figure out what God has for her. She has been obedient to his call and grown in so many ways. We are so proud of the way she has allowed God to move in her life. Right now she is finishing up a class to be able to get her undergrad degree and has started working on getting her teaching certificate. I'm excited to see where God leads in the next year.

Elizabeth was in kindergarten last year. She attends the public elementary school in our neighborhood. We have been very happy with it. She has really blossomed in the last year. She has made many new friends and really enjoyed school. She is now in first grade and doing really well with her reading. She loves books, especially if they have animals in them. She continues to love animals. Since my last post, Hamsty died. It was a tough loss for her, but she continues to play with Stache and spend time working on training him.

James turned 4 this past summer and started his 4th year of Kid's Day Out. He can always make us laugh and will do something over and over again if someone will keep laughing at him. He loves to try to do things to make Nathan smile. Just this week James was running around acting crazy. Nathan started laughing at him and James said, "I've never heard him laugh like that." You could tell he was happy about that. Even though most of the time he is doing something crazy or silly, he also is so interested in God. He talks about God all the time and often answers questions I ask him with "because that's what God wants" or some variation of that. I'm interested to see how God uses him.

So, that's a brief synopsis of where we are and what's been going on. I'm hoping to be better about keeping the blog updated. We'll see how that works out.

We're Still Alive

I can't believe how long it has been since I blogged. A lot has happened and things have definitely changed around our house. Since the last time I blogged we've had a few new additions to the family.
Elizabeth got a fish tank and fish for her birthday last August. I tried to get a good picture of the fish, but it wasn't working. And I wasn't willing to spend the time to see if I could get it working. So, here's a picture of the fish tank at least.We also got a hamster. This is Hamsty. He was a Christmas present for Elizabeth. Can you tell she's just a little bit into animals.And our most important new addition: Nathan Alexander. After a not very fun pregnancy, he was born on May 20, 2011. He was a big boy at 9 lbs. and has brought so much joy into all of our lives in the last 2 1/2 months. So, as I said, things around here have changed. There has been lots more going on. I will be back in the next post to update on the rest of the family.

The grass is growing...

St. Patrick's Day Shirts

I realized as I just looked back over the blog that I've done two posts without pictures. Oops. So, here are a few pictures for y'all. I made some St. Patrick's Day shirts for Elizabeth and James.
I don't know how they ended up posed like this, but I love this picture. Elizabeth being silly.

James being MUCH more serious.

Really?? A month?

I don't know how it's been a month since I've put anything up on here. We are still living, but that's the reason I guess. We've been busy trying to keep up with life. Trying to get stuff done, keep up with everything around here, and make the days count for something more than just stuff.
This week was kindergarten round-up at Elizabeth's elementary school. So, Dave, Elizabeth and I went up on Wednesday morning with a completed registration packet and turned it in. And then took a short tour of the school. It's been an interesting week for me. It's been a week of thinking about what we do as parents and what our job is. I've been thinking about it with Elizabeth and talking about it with Steph. What can we protect them from, what should we? I think we have the power to protect them from a lot more than we actually should protect them from. Don't get me wrong, we protect our kids from a lot - overall I think we're fairly overprotective. But we also think it's important to let them make decisions (that are age appropriate) and allow them to be affected by the consequences of those decisions. For an example: If Elizabeth wants to wear a dress without pants underneath when it's a little chilly, I tell her that I think she's going to be cold and I think she should wear pants, but that it's her decision. Sometimes she listens to me and changes what she's wearing, sometimes she doesn't. And if she doesn't, sometimes she's cold. We feel like if we don't let them make these kind of decisions when they're little, how will they know how to make the big decisions when they get older. But sometimes it's hard. I don't like to let any of my kids suffer consequences. Sometimes I want to make the decisions for them, because then they won't be cold. But then they don't learn - how to make good decisions, how to handle discomfort brought about by a decision they made, how to rely on God to give them what they need when they're in a tough spot.
And isn't this how God teaches us? We have free will and the choice to make the decisions that we want to make. Sometimes we make the right ones and sometimes we don't. But when we don't, we can always turn to him. He doesn't necessarily rescue us from the situation that we're in, but he always loves us through it. And often it's in those tough times that we become more like Christ. And ultimately, that's my goal for each of my kids - that they become more like Christ.
So, as they continue to grow, we'll continue to protect them from some things (they don't have the choice of whether they play in the street or not), and we'll continue to let them make some decisions and handle the consequences. But, we will always be there, loving them, caring for them, making sure they know that no matter what the world says to them or how the world hurts them, they have a safe place to come home to where they are loved unconditionally - most of all by the God of the universe, but also by their parents.

On the road again

Yes we went on another trip. This past weekend, we headed to an EV Free Church Meeting. Our church took the entire elder team and some of the leadership to the meeting. It was an amazing weekend.
The meeting was great - we heard some great teaching, we had some much needed time for ASC (our church) to get together and pray, plan, and talk, and we got to catch up (and be encouraged by) a former boss of mine. I am always encouraged when I step back and look at what is going on at ASC. Sometimes I feel like we get so involved with the day to day, week to week part that we (or I) lose sight of what God is doing among us. I get so caught up in the logistics or the problems that I see, that I forget to see the AMAZING things God is doing through the church. So, as we stood on the stage Friday night and received a certificate that said we are an official church now (instead of a church plant), I smiled as Alex Mandes prayed about the way God has used the chaos at ASC. I smiled because it's so true. ASC is nothing like any church I've ever been involved with, and there's a lot of chaos, but there's also a lot of people's lives who are being changed daily. I am thankful to be at a church where the community is real, the members are diverse, and the body is a family - we don't look anything like each other, we have different backgrounds and we live in different neighborhoods - but we all love Jesus and want to see him glorified and that's what makes us family.
Our family stayed a little longer than the rest of the group to catch up with friends that live in the area. We saw my maid of honor and her husband and met their baby; some good friends that we did ministry with several years ago; my mentor from several years ago; and a group of friends that we used to be in Bible study with. The time was encouraging and refreshing. It's fun to share the joys and hardships of life with old friends.
I am so thankful for a great weekend; for an amazing church that is led by godly people; for the good friends that we interact with regularly and ones that we don't get to see very much; for people who have poured into our lives over the years, allowing us to pour into other's lives; for good talks with Steph; for fun playtime with the kids; and for some yummy food that we don't get to eat regularly.

Ski Trip

Last weekend, Dave's dad took us to Ruidoso for a ski trip. It was lots of fun. We were not sure how the kids were going to do with the whole skiing thing, but they did great and loved it.
I started skiing when I was 4 years old and it is one of the few sports that I really enjoy and am good at. So, seeing the kids learning how to do it and enjoying it was really neat for me.
We decided to give Elizabeth a private lesson the first day we were there. She did great and loved it - the next day she was ready to take another one. So, we set her up with the same teacher - West - and she did another hour with him. She was able to ski by herself and stay pretty much in control.
We wanted to at least let James try it out and get a feel for it. So, we let him ski between our legs. I thought we would do this a few times with him and that would be it. But, he loved it so much that we kept going. We would get to the top of the lift and he would say - "let's do it again." When I was growing up we would always say when we got to the top of the lift, "tips up" and I got James to say it. So, every time we would get close to getting of we would say "tips up" and he would lift his ski tips up to prepare to get off the lift.
I have some video of them skiing that I will try to get up soon, but here are a few pictures from the trip.
The two little ski bunnies.Dave and Page

Poppy, Page, Dave, James, & Elizabeth

Elizabeth and Dave

James and Page