Train Up a Child...

As we try to teach our little blessing daily lessons of kindness and self-control, I praise God for the godly men in his life that are examples of what it means to work hard. When he opened this present from his Grandma and Grandpa G. this morning, he set to work, using each tool in the way it was intended, and taking great joy in "building".

As he sees his sweet daddy and wonderful grandpas building our home day-by-day, he's learning what it means to be a man who builds...builds a home, builds up people...builds the kingdom. For now, it is part of the play that is child's work, but that's part of the joy...

Merry Christmas!!

What a multitude of blessings God has provided this last year!!

Ams sent up a vintage barn like we enjoyed when we were kids, and John loves it. He's played with it continuously for the last half-hour....an unheard of amount of time for an active toddler.

Lenten Break

It is Ash Wednesday, and although I'm not Catholic, I've been observing Lent for the last few years. I think it is a great Christian discipline, and I think that there is a lot of good that can personally be gained from giving up things of the flesh for the 40 days before the celebration of our Lord's great victory over death and His resurrection.

So I was just going to give up sweets (just...did I mention that Lent comes right before my birthday this year?!?), but I've been thinking about it today and I'm going to give up blogging, too. I mean, for Lent to be about fasting from temporal pleasures it has to be hard, right? And good for you...I mean me. Not writing in my blog is going to be the easy part. The hard part is going to be not reading all of the fantastic blogs that I follow (except that I'm not going to give up Holy Experience because she's doing stuff about Lent...but really, folks, nothing else).

It's only 40 days...I'm sure I can do it. If you need your cute little boy fix, just e-mail me...I'm sure I'll have something to send you.

Why I love my earplugs

Cousin Benjamin is over today, and I caught some video of the boys at play.  It involves sticks and a metal bowl, so I'd advise an adjustment to your volume before pressing play.

And, yes, that IS a pink toilet brush...a clean toilet brush...just so ya know.  It is one of John's favorite toys.  Go figure.

One Blog

If you read only one blog, including mine, read Holy Experience.  Skip mine, ponder hers, and join me in letting Ann's words melt into your heart.

Maybe they'll change you, too.

View from my front window

The beauty of this place astounds me.

How blessed I am that God chose this place for me to grow a family and make a home.

Taken January 3rd, 2009

Somebody throw me a bone...

Here are some random photos from the last couple of weeks. I've been TERRIBLE about keeping my camera handy. I didn't even take any photos at Christmas. TERRIBLE, I tell you!

However, HRH continues to grow in cuteness and smartness and downright rascalliness (if that's a word). He has a little book that has different fabric shapes in it, and he loves to crawl around the house with a square, or a little carrot, or in this case, a bone. Grandma Lori and I thought he was so cute!

And smart mama has certain ways of keeping up with him...

Actually, he was squirming so much when I was trying to get him dressed that this happened, but since he didn't seem to care, and it cracked me up, I just left him like that for a while. It didn't really work at keeping him in one location, though. He just dragged himself around like a little beached merman until I fixed things.

Here's a picture of John and Cora, the prettiest little girl in the west, while they were at IKEA.