To Levi, on His Second Birthday

My dear son,
You are two now, and what a precious gift it is to be your mother! You are my lounge buddy, the one who always wants to cuddle. You light up our days. You love to dance, and your flair for the silly makes us all laugh. Your smile and laugh are always shimmering in your eyes and cheeks. You love reading and cuddles, Batie and Muntie. You are deliberate and careful in all that you do. Sometimes you deliberately color yourself instead of the paper. You love animals, and can name almost any one you see, even the bugs. You’ll gladly eat almost anything but you especially like fruit, bananas in particular, sausage, waffles, and spaghetti. I enjoy hearing you sing at the top of your lungs and and do your silly dance. You’ll sing with music or without it, using real words, or making up what you want. You adore your family: from racing around the house in delight when aunties, uncles, or grandparents show up to joining Luke in time out because you miss him to asking “Hold u, minute?”. You love to be outside, but not by yourself. You love your brother and sister, copying Luke and “dissing” and hugging Anna. I love that you like to help take care of Anna, empty the dishwasher, and dust. You are such a sweet boy, and I’m thankful you’re part of our family!

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She’s Growing So Fast

This gallery contains 4 photos.

Levi’s First Brownies

I finally found a brownie recipe that accommodates Levi’s allergies, so we tried them out.

Hide & Seek

Roses

I’m pretty sure this is a crazy idea, but I figured I might as well try. If it doesn’t work, I haven’t lost anything, and at least I’ve made myself laugh at this random project. So here’s the story: My sweet husband got roses for me a few weeks ago.They were very beautiful, and lived for quite a while in their vase. They actually started sprouting new leaves, and that gave me the idea to put them in some dirt and see if they’ll sprout. You can root roses that way, and I’ve done it with cuttings before, but there are quite a few things that aren’t quite right this time. For one, it’s the wrong time of year (way too hot!), and there aren’t any grown up leaves on the stalks.

So it looks like I have sticks in the dirt and some with jars over them. It just makes me laugh, but it’ll be fun if the Lord causes some plants to grow from them. What do you think? Will it work, or am I just silly?

Book Review~ Feminine Threads

This is the first book I’ve finished in quite some time. It takes me just a bit longer to read these days. Anyway, I enjoyed reading this history of women in the church by Dana Lynn Severance.

Feminine Threads reads almost like a history textbook, so I don’t think every reader would enjoy it, but I did. I like history, especially church history, and I always want to learn more about women of the faith. So this book’s content appealed to me a lot, even if the writing was more academic than engaging. I learned about a bunch of new women that I’d never heard of before, and about many different historical movements in Christianity. The learning was fun, but my heart was also encouraged to read of these women who loved Jesus and have gone before me.

I was encouraged to read of the steadfast faith of many martyrs, and of the Puritan understanding of the importance of family worship. My desire to stay home with my boys and raise them in the fear of the Lord was strengthened when I read of Victorian women who took their families to new, strange, and dangerous places hoping that the family would testify of the Gospel in cultures where family relationships obviously differed from what the Bible teaches. I live in a godless culture, and by choosing to honor my husband, and stay home to care for my boys, I can testify that I value what God values, that I have been changed by the Gospel from seeking my own way to seeking the good of others. This was a new, and so encouraging, perspective for me on how a Christ-centered family can be a tool for evangelism.

All in all, I’d recommend this book to you if you like history and aren’t daunted by a more factual writing style.

Rain!

We are praising the Lord today for a lovely rain shower. It started raining during the night, and continues on this morning. What a great blessing after this very dry summer! Luke couldn’t wait to get out in the rain; he had a great time just running and running through the drops. At least one of these pictures is fuzzy; it’s really difficult to get a good picture of a 3-year-old running as hard as he can. Levi and I enjoyed watching and being able to feel the fresh air without getting sweaty.

 

Fingerpainting

Luke loves to do “projecks” with me, so this week we’ve had out some fingerpaints. He enjoys mixing the colors and the messiness of using his fingers.

My little man has produced dozens of masterpieces. I’ve really loved seeing what he makes! This is my favorite painting so far.

I was thinking of making homemade fingerpaints, but all the recipes use food coloring. Does anyone know if it will stain after it’s been heated and cooled?

This Kid is Cracking Me Up

Just some pictures of the funny moments in our days recently.

Levi {9 Months}

Someone please tell me how that happened! My sweet baby is getting so big! We had his 9 month check up earlier this week. He’s 20 lbs, 13 oz, and 29 inches long. So the Creator is growing him up really well!

Levi is such a happy, sweet, hilarious baby. The Lord adds such joy and gladness to my day through this smiley baby. He’s crawling and cruising along the furniture. He loves to clap and make singing noises. He has discovered books, and likes to eat look at them or be read to.

He loves stuffed animals, and coos and laughs whenever he sees one. Then he tackles it and chomps on it with his six teeth. Everything goes in his mouth, even the crumbs off my never-quite-clean floor. He eats almost everything offered to him, and he’ll eat things he doesn’t really like, even though he makes a terrible face.

Daddy and Luke are still two of his favorite people, and he’s started saying Ma ma and Da da, which is super sweet. He loves to wrestle and play with the guys, but I still get lots of snuggles, too.