What is Your "Stuff" Worth?

One of our friends sent us this link, and it's right on...




May God be praised for being EVERYTHING we need!

Big Trees and Horses

Today was an amazingly beautiful day outside. And since we've had some pretty intense days here in our house for about the last couple of weeks, we decided to spend an afternoon playing. We went to a park that's about a mile from our house (we walk there sometimes, but today we drove). We sat in the shade of a massive tree and ate our PB&J and fresh pineapple. There was a cool breeze blowing, and the sky was as blue as can be. (You can see how small Chet and the boys are sitting under the tree.)

Across the street from the park is a riding club, and they were getting ready for their annual horse show. We walked around and saw some horses being bathed and chatted with some in their stalls. Ladan really enjoyed this. He loves horses, so it was a special treat for him. Gabe just enjoyed being outside.


We finished it off with a bit of playground time before we went home to rest before church. After church, Ladan and I went to the store to pick out a treat for the family. He likes to hold my hand while we walk (make that run) through the store. But it's not because he's afraid. It's because he wants to show me the way, so he drags me everywhere we need to go. I just tell him to turn left or right when it's time, and he "shows me the way". He enjoys this form of leading. He picked out ice cream (which he never eats because it's too cold) and donuts (the small chocolate kind--he does eat these).

What a great day! The Lord knows just what we need and when we need it!

Backtrack a day... Gabe started pushing himself to a standing position by the couch yesterday. He's really quick! Man, he's going to be everywhere in no time at all.

1, 2, 3, 4..... GO!

It's my new favorite thing that Ladan says. Whenever he races his cars or planes, he says to each one, "One, two, free, four, GO!"

Pretty soon he's going to be saying it to Gabe. Gabe is officially crawling as of June 1, and since then he's been able to make more and more progress across the room. He still flops down after a few moves, but he can definitely get where he wants to go. And apparently, he's interested in getting into all kinds of things already. So, for those of you who we're planning to visit here in the next couple of weeks... get ready!

A while back, I mentioned that Ladan has been learning some memory verses. Well, we hadn't really gone over them for a couple of weeks (not sure why), so about a week ago, I just started by saying the first word or two of each one, and he remembered them ALL perfectly! I knew that there was one that I was forgetting, and I finally remembered which one I was leaving out. It was "All have sinned. Romans 3:23a" So, tonight I said, "All," and Ladan finished with "Have sinned!" After almost four weeks of not reviewing this one, all I had to say was "all" and he knew exactly what I was talking about and finished it up right away.

His verse for the past month is, "Children, obey your parents in the Lord, for this is right. Ephesians 6:1" He's got this one down really well... the words anyway. Chet was smart to ask Ladan tonight if he knows that Mommy and Daddy are his parents. Kind of funny, but you can't assume anything. I thought it was a great question. Ladan affirmed that he does know that we are his parents. Obviously, we'll be working on the practical application of this verse for the rest of his life with us. :)

I really enjoy it when he says, "God created the heavens and the earft (earth)," and "Do evewyfing wiffout argooing or compwaining."

When we pray at night, Ladan prays for different things, but we always include a prayer something like: "Thank you, God, most of all for sending Jesus to die on the cross and rise again to save us from our sins if we believe and trust in Him. Please help us trust in you, God." Tonight Ladan said all of that all by himself (except he said "save us TO our sins" and sometimes he says, "save us FOR our sins").

And, before I leave his room at night, I always ask Ladan what he can do if he gets scared in the night. He responds, "I can say, 'Please help me, God. I'm scared." He knows that God is everywhere, and since God created the heavens and the earth (earft), He is in charge of everything. When we're scared, we can call on God, and He will be with us. And since he's in control of everything, we don't need to fear anything.

I told Chet that these examples provide motivation for all children to start scripture memory early on (as in, as soon as they can talk)--it's not nearly as difficult for them as it is for me. It's very fun to hear your almost-three-year-old be able to articulate so many of these things. I pray that both of my boys will be able to store up the Word in their hearts so that they have comfort and direction whenever they need it. I pray that they will know the promises of the Lord so well that they know they can call on the Him and find peace and help in their times of need. May He graciously save them and lead them down the path of joy everlasting!!!!

Could We Be More Blessed?

So much has happened in the last few weeks! I'm just going to list things here and insert pictures every once in a while. And just so you're warned, I'll probably be annoyed by the fact that the formatting looks different in my editing window than it does on the published page, so the photos will likely be displayed in an annoying fashion. Anyway, here goes...

We took at trip to MO to see some family. It took me 6.5 hours to drive to St. Louis with the boys. Chet made the same drive the next day, and it took him a little over 4 hours to drive the same distance by himself. Hmmm.... Then, on the way back home again, our drive was equally long. We're scheduled to travel double the miles to see Chet's family in a couple of weeks, and for some reason, I'm dreading that car trip. It will be worth it to see everyone, but I'm not exactly sure how the ride is going to go. Maybe it will be faster when both Chet and I can go. Then one of us can help each child when we need to stop. I'm just SO GRATEFUL that neither of the boys is very fussy during the drive--it's just the stopping that takes a while.

Amber and Titus were able to come up from Texas to hang out with us too. It was so much fun to see Titus and Ladan play together. Even in the last two months since our March visit, they've grown in their ability to communicate and cooperate with one another.

Chet was able to come to STL for a couple of days too. We had a small celebration for Chet, Titus and Ladan since their birthdays are right around this time. Actually, Ladan and Titus exchanged gifts, and Chet received one lingering gift from Robyne (my step-mom), so it wasn't anything massive. The funniest part was when Titus laid his body in one cake while trying to blow out the candles in the other (see photo below).

Chet also retrieved our grill from my mom's garage. This is huge for us, as we've been not-so-patiently waiting to be able to use it for two years (our first apartment in Louisville wouldn't allow grills)! We've already used it a couple of times.

May 23rd marked the third anniversary of my dad's death. Amber and I got the boys ready that morning, took them to Garden Ridge to pick out some flowers for the grave site, and we took them to the cemetary for a bit. It was Gabe's first trip there. Man, Dad would have enjoyed him! He just sat in front of the grave stone eating grass! Our little rain boots were still there from last time, so the boys just used them for their vase again.

My brother safely traveled to and from Sudan! While he was there, he was able to be there for the opening of the second orphanage (located in Lura, Sudan). He was also able to tell two children that arrangements have been made for surgeries they need but cannot pay for. Please check out his blog for video footage of these two children.

Gabe started pushing himself up from his tummy into a sitting position. It's kind of funny, because he doesn't crawl yet, but he can get around. If he wants to get something that's out of reach, he sits up and then lunges his entire body at the item. If he's still not close enough, he sits up again, lunges his body forward, and repeats this until he can reach the item. He's going to be crawling in no time. Here are some cute photos of him:

We had a really great time hanging out with friends last night. We grilled, the guys played Baggo, and the kids did their thing. We were all able to celebrate with our friends, Donnie and Rebecca, who found out that they are going to be able to adopt a baby boy from Taiwan. They have been praying that the Lord would bless them with a baby for more than two years, and now they're parents!!! We are more than excited!

We tried having Ladan sit with us in the church service on Sunday. He did great! We'll have to work on having him sit still on his bottom (he complained a couple of times when we asked him to stop climbing down from his seat and back up again). Overall, I'd call it a successful experience!

I started my job at Old Navy, and I'm really enjoying it.

And, in closing, here are a couple of funny stories for you.... Tonight, Ladan had gone to bed, but he was crying out for me. When I went in, he said he had a scary dream and that he had to go potty. I brought him in to his potty chair, and he sat down. He saw my book in my bag and asked if he could read it. It's "Future Grace" by John Piper, which is a larger book.

Ladan asked, "Mommy, is this my Bible?" I explained that it was not the Bible, but rather, a book about things in the Bible. He replied, "This is the Word about God." And then he proceeded to "read" the book for quite a few minutes. Perfect potty reading, I guess.



And one more fun anecdote... When Ladan sees my brown purse, he asks, "Mommy, is that my brown person?" When I respond, "No, that's my brown purse," he says, "Oh, that's YOUR brown person." I think it's hilarious that he corrects his declaration of possession, but he doesn't notice that he's used the wrong noun. Man, kids are GREAT!

A Momentous Occasion

I could be talking about the fact that Chet is now 29 years old. Or I could be talking about the fact that he just finished his last exam of the year, marking the half-way point in his degree. But I'm talking about something that could quite possibly top all of this and might even go down in history...

Ladan ate real beef for the first time in his whole life!!! (I'm not counting the baby food version that looks and smells like it should be labeled refried beans. Plus, he hasn't eaten that since he was barely a year old.) And it wasn't just one bite... it was something like 6 or 7 whole bites that he actually chewed AND swallowed!!!!

Before tonight, he has only eaten chicken in surprisingly small portions and usually only in the form of poppyseed chicken. There have been about three or four other occasions where he's eaten popcorn-like chicken (i.e. from Chick-Fil-A), but other than that, it's poppyseed chicken or nothing. So I'd say that he's probably eaten chicken a total of about 20 times in his life. And I have to remind you that, outside of a few successful poppyseed chicken meals, he's only eaten about three bites total at each of these 20 sittings. But he has ALWAYS spit out his beef, turkey, pork, fish, etc. He even finds it in spaghetti sauce, eats around it, and spits out the meat.

So you can see why we were shocked when we sat down for our meal at Cheddar's (in celebration of Chet's birthday and the end of the semester) and Ladan asked for a bite of Chet's steak. Chet actually told him that he probably wouldn't like it. He wasn't being selfish. You'd say this too if your kid spit his food out in public all the time because he didn't like the texture. It's disgusting, and it's why our almost-three-year-old still wears a bib when he eats. Anyway, when he asked a second time, Chet agreed... and the kid ATE IT!!!!

Chet and I concurred that this was quite possibly the best birthday surprise he could have received... a son who is no longer a carbetarian (we couldn't call him a vegetarian, because we struggle to get him to eat veggies too--thank goodness for fruit!). I felt compelled to document the occasion with a few photos so we could prove it to those of you who know Ladan.

There IS meat on that fork!

Eagerly waiting for ANOTHER bite!

Happy Birthday to Chet!

Today is Chet's birthday!!! He has officially reached the big 2-9. For real. He has one final on his birthday and one on Thursday, and then he'll be finished with his second year of seminary. We are really proud of all his hard work! I'm anticipating that this weekend will be full of all kinds of celebration... or maybe sleeping. I told Chet that just as long as I'm the one who gets to sleep, we're in good shape! Speaking of sleep, I better get some. It's now 2am. I've been working on a project for our church for the last few hours. I still have to switch the laundry over and at least rinse the dishes from dinner before I hit the pillow. And, since I hear screaming from Ladan's room, I guess I'll take care of that too....

The Joys of Apartment Living

You thought I was going to be sarcastic here, but I actually am going to talk about the joys of apartment living. A few weeks ago I mentioned that we are really excited to have our new neighbors on the other side of our wall. And I might have mentioned that I feel like my life has become significantly easier since they moved in. Just tonight, Jessica had to go pick Glen up from work (at about 11pm). So she was able to leave her key and her baby monitor with me just in case their little girl woke up while they were gone. They have done this very same thing for me several times so I can run to the post office or other such place while my children are napping.

Then, when they arrived back at the homestead tonight, we stood in our doorways chatting for quite a while--a couple of hours, actually. Jessica is pregnant, and she ended up getting tired of standing. So I just went in and sat with her and Glen for a while. Our front doors were open (they face each other), so when Gabe woke up to eat, I was able to hear him on the monitor (which was still in its normal location in our apartment). We talked about all sorts of things, from Glen's and Chet's course selections for summer and fall; baby carriers and slings; differences between small private and large secular universities; how to effectively carry two children and lots of stuff all at the same time... the list goes on.

I've also been able to get to know one of our upstairs neighbors and the folks at the end of the building... along with many families throughout the neighborhood.

The point is that we are experiencing a blessing of close community that I don't think many people in our culture ever get to experience. I'm just reminded once again of how grateful I am to the Lord for directing us to move here. There are some who would consider this place to be a step down from our previous dwellings, but I think it's a step up. Sure, the last couple of places we've lived have been very nice, spacious, and carefully manicured. But all of those things will fade away or burn in the end. Relationships will last forever. Even if we don't all keep in contact until we die, just realizing that we are impacting each other's lives in ways that we'll never forget is totally worth the trade.

So, tonight, I'm thanking God for the smallest apartment I've ever lived in. And for four of the biggest blessings... sleeping on the other side of the wall (I'm counting the baby girl we'll get to meet in July).