I'm Here!

A HUGE thanks to my sis-in-law, Erin, for her (always) brilliant comment to make my pics smaller before uploading them. (duh.) It took me a while to figure it out, but MY GOODNESS it's so much faster now. So, here's some recent kid pics. No cohesive theme or anything funny...just our household over the last few weeks:

Max LOVES reading. Crazy - he'll be quite in his room for up to 15 minutes (!) just doing this. He likes to sit in this chair in his room or the recliner in the living room to "rock-rock" and read books.

We went to a park a couple weeks ago. He still LOVES balls...mostly "be-be-ball" (basketball).

Jake has been practicing writing his name at school. Funny - at home he doesn't want anything to do with writing or even coloring, but he comes home from school every day with papers from practicing the letter of the week. Glad Mrs. Parker (or maybe just watching the other kids) motivates him! So I was surprised when he wanted to do this on a magna doodle...

all by himself - I asked what letters it spelled. Thought that third letter was supposed to be an "a" but then he read out "J-K-Q-E." Ha. At least he knows what he wrote...

I'm learning to encourage practice without correcting too much. My instinct is to correct, but he gets discouraged so easily and hates making any mistakes. At this early stage of writing as his motivation and self-confidence are so small, I'm trying to praise any effort. We'll correct soon enough...

Kicking a ball with Daddy

We didn't catch the beginning of the soccer season this year, but we want to do Upward soccer next year...

Before church the other day...

Sweet boys...

Max Sings

Out of nowhere while I was dressing Max this morning, he sang,

"B-B-C-D-C-C" (or something like that) and then, "YAAAYYY!" with clapping --

the ABC song! I could just eat him up these days...

(at the park the other day - he saw a "buppy" (dog) and does

this hugging thing when thinking about cute animals!)

Snap!

Jake was so cute tonight. He gets really chatty right after we turn off the light for bed. He always wants to "talk for a little while." He has been talking about snapping fingers the last few days - I think some kids at school have been doing it. I showed him how, he got it right away and was SOOO proud. He would do it and just wiggle with excitement. It was fun to watch. Both hands, then at the same time. He said, "See?! I knew I could do it!" As I kissed him goodnight he hugged me spontaneously and said, "Thanks for helping me."

Definitely worth staying up for.

Not feeling very bloggy...

Hey Sweet Friends. I sat down, actually having a little time to blog - both boys are down and Andy's working on his truck and it's NOT midnight - and there's nothing I feel like blogging about. I haven't put ANY Christmas pics up. Actually, I started to, and I couldn't narrow down the pics; had about 20 to post, but uploading was SOOO slow that I quit that post. Maybe that's killing my blogginess - impatience with my computer (do you all have that problem uploading pics - only 5 at a time?). (We did have a wonderful Christmas, by the way...)

Anyway, I tried posting pics of time at the park today. After about 30 minutes - multiple tries, saying it would upload, then timing out, I gave up. Sorry, no pics. Will work on this...

Jake loves feeding the ducks, but Max wasn't so sure. He wanted to eat the bread himself and cried when the BIG goose pecked at his hand for it. The ducks' quacking was loud and he just kind of stood in amazement watching them. He did have fun on the "wee" (playground). Good to get some fresh air today.

Love Comes Out in Our Words

I get these devotionals from a pastor in the Houston area (thank you Meredith!) and they are always so wonderful. I don't like to sign up for lots of long e-devotions that I'm not going to make time for - have done this before. But these are short and so poignant:

Loving Your Neighbor

Love your neighbor as yourself.
Matthew 22:39


What does it mean to love your neighbor? What does love look like in our daily lives?

Love is radically other-centered. It is a most unusual preoccupation with other people and their needs, instead of being preoccupied with yourself and your needs.

Love listens. You listen because you care. You listen because you really want to understand. When someone is listened to, and they feel understood and cared for, well that is just about the most powerful thing on earth. Love listens.

Love serves. Love is always asking, “How can I serve him? How can I help her? What needs does he have? Does God want to use me in her life?” Love is always looking to serve. Love is forever grabbing a towel and a basin, and washing feet. Love serves.

Love is kind and gentle. Love comes out in our words. It comes out in our voice. There is a gentleness, a kindness, a patience, a tenderness. Our words are not harsh and abrasive. They are not demanding and impatient. They are not sharp and strident. Love is kind and gentle.

This is love. This is how to love your neighbor. It is simple though it is not easy. God can give you grace. Fill up with his love, and then let it spill over.

This hit me like a ton of bricks as I read this after an afternoon/evening of being impatient and frustrated with my kiddos. Oh, is it hard to maintain the patience! I take that back - in my own strength it's hard, but when I've been in prayer and listening to the Spirit's leading His patience flows out. Whew! Lord help me - my words are so often "harsh and abrasive, demanding and impatient, sharp and strident" with my kids, especially the strong-willed one. :) Amazing that God led me to this this evening - his grace gently rebukes and corrects - at the perfect time. Thank you Jesus. Also amazing that God loves us with this kind of patience too. wow. Hope this encourages you too...

(These Monday, Wednesday and Friday devotional e-mails are written by Jeff Wells, Senior Pastor at WoodsEdge Community Church. To hear our weekly messages or to find out more about WoodsEdge please go to www.woodsedge.org.

© 2009 WoodsEdge Community Church. All rights reserved. This article may be reproduced for any non-commercial use with proper attribution.)

New Do

Bold move! Don't think my hair has ever been this short, especially in the back. But my hairdresser did a great job. (She's wonderful if you need a good one!!) Please excuse the lovely zinger of a zit on my face...;) I took these shots right after I got home so I could look back if I couldn't remember how she did it. It's actually not that hard to fix. I just have a nub of a pony tail, which is how I wear it 80% of the time! Anyway...

Who Needs a Living Room When You Can Have a Basketball Court?!?

Here are shots of our living room renovation. We had that ugly, broken tile in our living room for all SIX years we've lived here and now we decide to make it look nice for the next people who live here! Maybe our next home will have had some nice renovators too??? Oh well... It's definitely made a huge improvement on the first and most important room of the house.

Andy moving out the furniture he broke it and got it up himself with this long 16 pound scraper thingbut the REALLY huge mess was getting the thin set mortar stuff off the floor. he had this loud grinding tool that he used on the whole floor. I can't even begin to describe how much dust it produced throughout our house (even though we sealed the rest of the house off with plastic). It was just billowing out the windows. As Andy was working he couldn't see the ground! We've got most of it cleaned up finally...

We decided on laminate wood! Great deal at a seconds and surplus place...

Jake testing it out - great sliding action!

The next night after the laminate wood was complete, Andy commented on how much it looked like a basketball court. He pulled the goal in from the backyard and they played for a while.

Maybe we'll just leave the furniture in the garage and keep our half court!

I LOVE to see comments!

My cousin-in-law (right, Tricia?) Tricia posted this button and I like it too. If you visit my site, let me know! It's fun seeing who's out there. In case you're not sure how, you just click at the bottom of the post where it says how many comments there are: "163 comments." A-hem. Type in a 'hello' and your name and email - don't even think you have to have a google account. Not sure. And only your name will appear with your comment.

Thanks and love!

Renovation, etc.

My to-do list is about a mile long, and blogging is toward the bottom. I know you've all been at the edge of your seats! ;)

We had a wonderful Christmas - 4 different stops. We're drowning in Transformers, Star Wars characters and various other boy stuff. Actually, we made giant sweeps in both boys' rooms before opening new packages to get rid of old. (garage sale, donate, etc.) So nice to spend time with family and the boys are at a great age to enjoy everything.

And as I type, Andy is sweeping up inches of dust from our living room floor. In a few hours yesterday he scraped off all the tile (no machines - just his back!). Today he spent ALL day sanding down the thinset mortar left from the tile so we can put carpet down eventually. He carefully covered all the doorways and vents with plastic to contain most of the dust, but it amazingly got EVERYWHERE. This fine, white dust has permeated just about every room but the garage. So somewhere on my to-do list once this project is done, is a major house cleaning. All of our living room furniture is piled in the garage. And because of the plastic covering, we have to go outside to get to the kitchen, avoiding the living room. Pretty chaotic, but I'm ever-so thankful for HANDY ANDY!

Still adjusting to the new camera, but have lots of shots to post...just not yet.

oh yeah, Happy New Year!

Also, has anyone seen the movie Australia? I REALLY liked it...

Amazing Andy

An old but favorite shot after playing in the yard together

Last night my hubby had the boys and let me go out with girlfriends (rock-climbing and dinner - SO MUCH FUN - will post about that later). Not only did he feed and bathe both boys, deal with Max's breathing treatment and meds, play video games with Jake and get them both to bed...he cleaned the entire house!!

I have been feeling super overwhelmed with house cleaning lately - I'm never ahead on laundry, there's usually dishes in the sink with a full, clean load in the dishwasher (ugh), and there's stacks of important papers everywhere! I hate it but can't seem to stay on top of things with all we've dealt with Max and Christmas shopping and everything...

I came home pretty late to find the pile of laundry that was on the rocking chair folded and put away (which I hadn't touched for a couple days), toys all picked up, dishes put away and most of the paper clutter picked up. SO nice to come home to that.

A few months ago, I left for a Saturday to get my hair done (several hours with highlights and all) and he had sustained both boys by himself :) AND repainted the kitchen! I left the house with a cookie-monster-blue kitchen and came home to a nice off-white one! Sometimes he just amazes me.

Thank you to my wonderful, hard-working, humble, sweet-attitude hubby! It's true that love grows over time. I love you more now than ever, sweetheart!