A few favorites

The kids absolutely loved the slide/pool setup. Think they'd have done this for hours if we hadn't stopped for supper!
Joshua would leap onto the slide with a single bound. Don't know what's going on with Carly and Gray here!
GrandGene did say that Joshua could get him wet, but think he got a little more than he bargained for!
Julia sat on the edge of the pool for the longest time, perfectly content and looking quite cute in her new Minnie bathing suit:)
Love this shot. Joshua is so excited he's leaping in the air (check out those feet!).
We had a great cookout at Grandmama's Saturday. Here's GrandGene and the kiddos.
Love this picture of Constance and my sweet snuggle girl.
Gray and Porter wrestled for quite awhile. Porter was so sweet to play with him and they had a blast!
Thought this picture was really cute of the big guy and little girl!
Cousins! Don't they look so different? Sawyer is so adorable and it was fun getting pictures of them together.
We enjoyed hanging out at Amanda's on Friday. I love this picture!

Tons of fun!

We're on our last day here in Fort Mill. Matt decided to come yesterday and we're going to head back this afternoon. It's been a good trip and I can't wait to share the pictures. Sawyer and Julia are so cute together and I got some great ones of all the cousins playing in kiddie pools yesterday. We had a good time with all the extended family on Saturday and it turned out well, though Joshua woke up throwing up. He soon felt better and we were all able to be together. So far no one else is sick. Julia has not slept well at all during the night, but other than that, she's been wonderful. She LOVED the baby pool yesterday and has just been really easy-going the whole trip. We've had a good trip, but it will also be good to be home and back to "normal". Happy Memorial Day!

We're here!

(in Fort Mill, that is!) The boys and I arrived yesterday around lunchtime and it's been a busy trip already! We stopped by Daddy's office on our way in and saw some of his coworkers; my friend Emily (from high school) and her sweet little girl came over yesterday afternoon; my friend Deana (from Clemson) came over last night; and we spent today with Amanda, Carly, Jackson, and a little girl that Amanda watches. Julia has been wonderful and slept pretty well last night too. I am still feeding her one to two times a night and I'm pretty okay to continue with that until she starts eating a lot of other food. The boys have not been wonderful. They kept aggravating each other in the car, continued not getting along when we got here, had numerous fits (well, that's mostly Gray), haven't been very obedient, and stayed up till 10 last night! Yuck! But there is hope...they have been napping for the last 2 hours! Hopefully with a little rest, some of the behavior issues will diminish, though I'm working on having realistic expectations for them instead of being so discouraged at home and embarrassed in front of others when they aren't perfect.

Amanda and I were discussing today how we want our children to recognize their sin and strive to do the right thing, but we don't want to put on them the burden of perfection and give them some kind of a complex. No matter how good or bad of a job I do as their mother, they are just people and people cannot always do right. Anyway I think God is showing me how prideful I have been to think that I could do such a great job parenting my boys that they'd be little angels. I'm remembering the verse that says "It is God that works in you to make you will and work for his good pleasure." Think that means I can only be responsible for doing my best as a mother and the rest is up to God! That should be freeing, but think I still need some time to grasp that..And probably a few more situations of the boys behaving badly in public to keep me humble!

Anyway, I'm excited to see all my extended family tomorrow and of course to meet my sweet nephew Sawyer in just a few hours!! Can't wait! Have a good weekend!

Crazy Love book (Francis Chan)

Anybody ever read it? I just finished a few minutes ago (Thanks, Cindy, for letting me borrow) and I thought it was great. The main point of the book is a call for Christians to really live like Jesus did, which is pretty radical in our society. So now the challenge is to do something with this encouraging message! I was definitely shown how I fall short in many areas.

One of the things I know I hold onto too much is the safety and security of myself and loved ones. I was thinking of this the other day, how it's the thing that keeps me up at night..the thing I don't want to give up for anything, even knowing that this life is so short and in light of eternity, safety is not something that I should value above all else. Then the next time I sat down to read this book, the author addressed that. Yep, I'm going to need to pray about that!

Another thing that's been on my mind for a few years (I wrote a post about it here last year) is the whole standard of living issue...like how we can live so comfortably when so many don't even have food to eat. The author talked about this a lot and particularly about the possibility that God would want Christians to downsize their homes in order to have more money to help those in need. He doesn't say that everyone should do this, but he did mention it specifically at least 3 times and I do feel like it is Biblical and it certainly can't be wrong to do this. And for me, I feel like God is really brought me to a place where I want to do this. I sincerely don't want a big house and that isn't natural, so it must be a God thing, right?

Anyway, Matt and I have talked about this for awhile and it's been a distant possibility since we wouldn't want to do it until we'd lived here 2 years for tax reasons. Now it's almost June and in a few months it will have been 2 years. And now Matt is going to only work for Sun River (his dad) one day a week in order to devote more time to doing a great job with the new gym, which means less income until things take off. So it all adds up to us tentatively planning to sell our house in the fall and hopefully find a small lot that we can build a small house on and be free of the expense of living "large." It feels right. Matt and I have talked often of how discouraging it is that he must spend so many hours working to earn money to pay for a house that he can't really enjoy because he's spending so many hours working to earn money to pay for it... When we think of how we want to live our lives, we want to free up as much time as we can to enjoy it and our family and be a blessing to other people and we want to have money to give away.

So I'm rambling, but this is where we stand. Nothing is official, but I would appreciate your prayers for us as we try to make the gym work, trust God to provide enough money for our expenses without Matt's full salary, consider the move, and hopefully live in a way that Jesus would want us to. I know that even if we do this downsizing thing, it is only a baby step to showing "crazy love" to the people around us. We have so much room to grow! (Also, as a side note, if you're someone that sees our boys, please don't mention moving. We aren't going to tell them unless/until we are really serious and it's closer to time.)

End of Soccer

We had Joshua's end of soccer season party last night. It was at a park in Durham and there was pizza, cake, and the all-important trophies. Joshua LOVES his, though he was the only child who refused to go up to the coach and get his when his name was called. Don't know how to help him not be so shy in crowds...any tips? He and Gray both had a great time playing with all the kids, though his precious Catie didn't make it. I was making a card for the coaches and asked him what he wanted to say to them. His response was, "I love Catie!" Anyway, I have been so glad that we did this activity. It was fairly cheap (I think $65, which included uniform, trophy, once a week practices and once a week games for about 2 1/2 months I think) and not only did Joshua love it, but it seemed really good for him to meet new kids, learn a sport, and have some time learning from another adult. They have a fall season and Gray would love to play too, but we haven't decided yet if we'll do it again.

Gray's checkup

We had Gray's dr. appt bright and early this morning at 8! We actually got there with a few minutes to spare and everything went fine. Gray says he didn't like it, but he was very friendly and cheerful anyway. During the sight test, the nurse held up a picture of a butterfly and asked him what it was. He said, "A picture!" The only thing the doctor brought up was his weight. His BMI is in the 94th percentile for his age. The doctor didn't say we should worry or put him on a diet, but did say that if he's not hungry some meals, don't push it:) The boys do eat more than I do for breakfast and lunch many days and then we usually make them eat most of their supper before we let them save it for breakfast. But he eats healthy food, so I'm not worried. I think most 3 year olds just eat a couple of bites of food here and there so that's why he's so dense compared to them!

Just checking in!

We had a good weekend and hope you did too. We went out to eat a few times (had a surprisingly great meal at Honey's over by Costco), did a lot of painting stuff for the new gym (which will hopefully be ready by the first week in June), and had a nice visit with my parents today (who were in Greensboro for a wedding). Now we are about to enjoy the last episode of Lost! Have a good week!

Kids

Just some random thins from our day yesterday that make me smile:

The boys both wanted to vacuum. Gray vacuumed the whole closet, all with the front end of the vacuum in the air (he's too short to hold it correctly) so nothing was actually getting sucked up, but he was very serious about his job and felt very important! Joshua could vacuum pretty well and had a different technique. He would go pick up little pieces of lint/paper/whatever and put them in the middle of the floor and then vacuum over them. He absolutely loved doing this.

The boys had a bath after their haircuts yesterday and Joshua was playing "oil spill." Guess he was paying more attention to the news than we thought!

Gray was playing with 2 toys from the Cars movie called Ramone and Red. I said, "Oh, you've got Fuhmone" (because that's the way he says it) and he looked at me weird, so I said, "I mean Ramone." He very seriously told me this: "I know how to say the name of Fuhmone. You say it like this: Fuhmone. I know how to say the name of Red. You say it like this. Red."

Last night at supper, Matt was detailing a Saturday plan for our family once he starts at the new gym and it included going to eat after his workout. He said, "Then we can go eat brunch." There was silence around the table and then Joshua and Gray just BURST out laughing as hard as they could. They had never heard of brunch and thought Matt was just being silly. It was so funny.

She's sitting...sort of

Check Ups!

Joshua and Julia had a checkup today. They were both quite overdo for one, but they haven't suffered as a result and it's been nice not to have a bunch of appointments. Thankfully we didn't get a lot of grief about this, which was surprising since when I called to make the appointment, the receptionist was lecturing me about Julia missing her 2 month and 4 month visits. So anyway, Joshua did his typical grumpy thing and would not talk to the doctor for anything. It didn't help that he had to get his finger pricked (which I didn't anticipate and I had told him that nothing would happen that hurt him!) and he told me in advance that he did not want to undress or lay down and he had to do both of those things. He hated that paper gown for some reason, even though it had cute fish on it. So the doctor asked him things like, "Do you like blueberries?" and "Do you have a tricycle?" and "Can you draw a circle?" and he frowned and said no to everything. It was quite frustrating to try to reassure the doctor that my child was normal, but then once she moved on to Julia, Joshua flipped a switch and started chatting away with her! Anyway, Joshua's sight, hearing, blood work, height, and weight are all very normal. Julia is fine too. Her weight is about average, but her height is 90th percentile right now. The boys have never been that high on the charts height-wise, though I don't think the measurements are that precise for babies, plus the nurse wrote down Joshua's weight incorrectly so she could have made a mistake with the height too. Anyway, for my first time taking all 3 to the doctor, it went pretty well. They wouldn't take all 3 kids in one appointment, so Gray has his next week and I think he's going to enjoy it. He was climbing and crawling all over the room, opening drawers, and wanting to participate in the exam. Next week should be interesting!

The World of Joshua

Well since I did a post all about Gray, thought I should do one on Joshua too! Here he is with his latest creation, the block city. He is our most inventive child and it's just amazing how he can be amused with the simple things like a shoelace.

Yesterday, he received a letter in the mail from Nepal! The 5 year old boy that ended up getting the Operation Christmas Child shoebox we sent wrote Joshua wanting to be his friend and thanking him for the box. Joshua was really excited and proud to get this letter and I had been coloring pictures to send back. (To be honest, he also threw in a "Mommy, I want a lizard like we gave him," but hey- I think he was happy to be on the giving end in some small way!)

I have really enjoyed teaching Joshua in our "preschool." Not mentioning any names, but we are a bit limited by his classmate. If I just taught Joshua, I know we could do so much more and he would really love it. He's always ready for the next task and is a quick and enthusiastic learner. Yesterday, we did a "science experiment" to see which of a handful of cars went the farthest when we put them down a race track. I did it more to introduce them to the language and process of experiments and Joshua really enjoyed it. He also loved a game we did where I put things in a pillowcase one at a time and the boys had to feel the outside and guess what was in there. Joshua could have played that all day! His reading is really great when he's in the mood and he's starting to get math concepts too. We still haven't decided whether or not we'll homeschool when it's time for him to start kindergarten. At this point, I'm not sure what will be best for him.

Soccer season is coming to and end. We have one more game and an end of the season party. I can't say enough how glad I am that we participated in soccer this year. I think it has been great for Joshua to learn about team sports and get the experience of being with other kids and playing in front of people. I still don't want our lives to be so hectic that we are running from thing to thing, but I definitely want to keep the boys in activities, particularly because we just don't see other kids that often. Matt mentioned gymnastics and Joshua is super excited to try that when we decide it's a good time.

Joshua is often "on a mission." Tonight we were outside and Pogo had taken a little ball of the boys' into the tall grass. The boys were off calling to him and trying to get him to bring it out and then Joshua marched over with a determined look and told us the situation and that he had a plan. He tied a long strap with a hook on the end to a big stick and planned to hook Pogo's collar to it so he could make him give the ball back. Unfortunately, it was suppertime so he didn't get to see how his plan would play out, but he definitely has his Daddy's engineer brain.

So that's our Joshua these days. He is still so sweet to Julia and I'm so thankful for that, but I SO would like to see him show even half the care for Gray that he does for his sister. He wants to be with Gray all the time, yet he is constantly aggravating and/or bossing him around and I have noticed the last few days that in nearly every conflict in our house, Joshua's mistreatment of Gray is the source! So I've been praying and talking with Joshua about this and about being a blessing to his brother and family. Hoping to see some changes, though I know there will always be sibling rivalry to some degree. It is nice, though, to see Joshua begin to "get" a lot of the issues we talk about, even if he doesn't always act on this understanding.

Gray-isms

Oh, Gray. What would I do without you?

Today I sent him upstairs to take the sheets off his bed. 20 minutes later when he didn't return, I found him in the storage closet, stark naked except for a pair of camo tennis shoes that are too big for Joshua. Makes perfect sense, right? Our conversation went like this:

Me: What are you doing in here?

Gray: I don't know....These shoes fit me!

Me: No they don't, they're too big.

Gray: They fit me even when they're too big!

Okay, moving on...

He continues to correct us at every turn. Example:

Gray: Where are we going now?

Me: We're going home to take a nap.

Gray: No, I MEAN where are we going now?

Me: We're going home.

Gray: OK.

(If I don't phrase my answer exactly right, he gives us the "I MEAN" bit and asks it again, even if our answer makes sense.)

Gray still loves clothes and changes outfits at the drop of a hat. Now he's become interested in hair as well. If I have my hair down and go in my room and put it in a ponytail, he'll say, "No, I want you to put your same hair back on."

He often talks about "the noise of" or "the shape of" things. Example: Last night we got home and got out of the car and there was an owl hooting. He said, "What was that? I think that was the noise of a lightning." Another: I told him Julia couldn't do something till she was older and Gray said, "Do you mean when she's as old as me?" (yes.) "Do you mean when she's the shape of me and Joshua?" Sometimes he confuses the two, like when he heard a dog barking the other day and said, "I think that's the shape of a dog."

One last thing: He's not very fast, but sometimes when I tell him to go somewhere quickly, he'll go just as slow as ever, but make this "whooshing" noise, which means he's going fast...not really.

On a not-so-comical note, he's been telling me he loves me all day long. Also, he's been dry just about every morning, even if I don't take him to the potty. I think most nights he gets up and goes himself. He went through a phase a couple of weeks ago where he'd go potty and then lay down and go to sleep in the bathroom or hall, but think he's past that. It has been a very smooth transition out of night-time diapers and it's so nice not to have to wash them for him anymore. Sadly, our consistency with the Thum yucky tasting stuff is not paying off. We have found him sucking his thumb numerous times in his bed. I had a feeling this wouldn't go as easily for him as it did for Joshua. He only does it when sleeping, so that's something, but we're kind of at a loss for getting past this phase. And to end on a positive, after much stubborn refusal to even try, he has finally taught himself to pedal a tricycle (at Nanny and Pa's house). It's about time, Gray!

More picture from the last few days

All dressed up and no place to go!

It's pouring today so we're inside doing preschool, but just felt like putting Julia in something cute. This is one of my favorite things that I picked out with a giftcard my friend gave us (Thanks, Roni!) and it's definitely in the running for the 6 months old professional picture.

And the highlight of our weekend is...

...a trip to the dump. Yes, folks, it's been a crazy one. Our one outing has been to dump trash and I do believe we're on the verge of stir-craziness. The soccer game was cancelled this weekend and there just hasn't been a lot to do. Matt has been out for several different events and is gone this morning too. We debated on the kids and I going there too (to Raleigh), but killing time for an hour and a half in an unfamiliar place with these three angels just sounded like more trouble than its worth. And then taking them all to church alone on a "family communion" day (where we have all the kids in church and there's a lot of sitting and being quiet) and a potluck lunch Sunday seemed like a disaster waiting to happen.

So here we sit. We did have a little bit of our own family church time, which began with a prayer for better attitudes, as I had to fuss at each child 4 or 5 times before we even started! This is how Gray's prayer went: "Dear God, we thank you for this nice time we got to spend tonight--No, I'll start. Dear God. I started." This is his new way to pray and he goes through these same words every time he prays. But this morning I told him he must finish, so he started again: "Dear God, thank you for this nice time we got to spend with our bad attitudes. Amen."

Nothing much else to report. No sign of Jack in the potty. No new customers for the gym. New gym not ready yet. Julia still same sweet girl, but not much going on. She is sleeping fine on her belly now. Think that's it.

So hope you all had a good weekend. Guess we're going to spend the rest of ours having a nice time with our bad attitudes!

More yuck

Well I haven't seen Jack's face yet, but wasn't going to really examine all the poop, so who knows?

Other unfortunate events going on in the last 2 days:

Gray's head took another dip in a pee-filled toilet...right before we went to small group again.

I killed 2 black widow spiders under a rock outside.

Gray played with dog poop in the yard.

Julia had to get a shot yesterday.

Julia seems to be starting the roll-on-her-belly-in-the-crib-and-can't-roll-back routine, which means she cries instead of naps. It's happened twice, but hoping she'll figure it out soon and/or get used to sleeping on her belly.

Well I just can't end with all that negative stuff, so a few good things...

Matt got to take a gymnastics class last night, which he thoroughly enjoyed.

The boys have been playing outside most of the morning without a single fight.

Joshua and Gray showed me this morning that they have memorized almost half of 1 Corinthians 13:4-7 on love (now to see these words in action!).

Matt's bringing me a calzone from Mellow Mushroom for supper and everyone else is having leftovers (no cooking for me!).

Mommy, I ate Jack's face!! (with lots of tears)

Nope, this is not a joke, but is in fact a scene from our lives this morning. Joshua (who isn't known for putting random things in his mouth like his little brother, though he has his moments) started suddenly crying and could barely get the words out of what happened. When I heard "Jack's face", I knew he meant the Thomas the Train character whose face had recently fallen off and was laying on the floor. I assume he stepped on it, rolled over it with his knee--didn't think he would have swallowed it! So I searched the internet and called Matt and we decided since it's not a battery or metal, it will probably just come out fine. Joshua seems fine, though he was pathetically asking if he could watch tv (which is our non-medical treatment for sickness in our house!). I told him no, that he is not sick and is not going to be rewarded for eating plastic. Instead he gets to wait till Matt gets home for us to announce his punishment...we're supposed to be thinking of something memorable so he will not ever think of putting non-food stuff in his mouth anymore. Matt wants to take away cereal, which would devastate Joshua, and also fulfill Matt's goal of us eating a more "Zone" breakfast. We'll see! Meanwhile, guess I'll be checking poop and hoping to see Jack's little smiling face in the toilet.

The good and the bad about Monday

Well there were times yesterday that I thought, "this day is rotten!" and other times I thought, "What a good day." First was the grocery store and surprisingly, that did not go in the rotten category! It was a quick easy trip and everyone did well. Then we got home and I needed to feed Julia. Meanwhile the boys had gotten out a big bag of beads in the office. While I was upstairs, I heard the sounds of beads being thrown against the wall and Joshua screaming, "No!" and then "You're going to have to clean these up by yourself!!" I wanted to hide and not go down, but eventually, I had to face the music and yes, Gray had thrown the beads everywhere in the office. So I decided that was the end of the beads and we would clean them up. I had Joshua help a little and I raked all the beads by Gray so he could finish. Then when I left the room, he dumped them all out again and scattered them over the floor. So I told him he had to clean them up with no help. A couple of times he put some in the bag and dumped them out again, but for the most part he just sat there (and sometimes ate some beads). THREE HOURS LATER, he finally got them cleaned up. I'll spare the very rotten details, but I definitely thought it was the worst morning we'd had in a long time. Then Gray went to bed and Joshua and I went outside. The weather was so nice and we watered the plants together. I thought, "what a great day!" And then there was supper. Matt was in the gym from 5-7, so supper and soccer was all me. Most nights, if the boys don't finish eating, I don't push it too much and they just save it for breakfast, but on Mondays, I try to get them to eat since we have the 'no dessert unless you finish your food' rule and there are the all important snacks at soccer. We have to leave for soccer at 6 and I started the boys eating at 5. At 5:50, they still had most of the food on their plates. We were bringing snack and they were SO excited about eating it and I really wanted them to finish. It was not looking good and I was thinking that it wasn't a very good day after all. Plus Julia was getting fussy and I was going to have all the kids by myself at soccer. But just in the nick of time the boys finished their food and we got out the door and made it to practice about the time the coach did...late, but no big deal. Julia was great at the game and so was Gray. Joshua had a great time and did really well. There was a drill where the kids lined up to kick a goal individually and the parents were cheering loudly for whichever child was up. I started getting nervous for Joshua since he hates a big group watching him. Would he go? He did! He did great and didn't seem shy at all. He told me later he liked kicking the goal but didn't like the cheering. I was proud of him for doing it anyway. I also enjoyed talking with the moms and it was such a nice evening to be outside. I thought, "what a great day!" And as I finished the night sitting on the couch with a big bowl of ice cream, thinking over the day's events, I was thankful that even when there are horrible moments in our day, we are so blessed and our bad times are really not so bad after all. Now to take on Tuesday!!

Happy Mother's Day to all the moms....

....but particularly to my mom!! Mama, I appreciate you more and more every year because I understand a little more how difficult being a mother can be! Thank you for all the things that I remember and know about that you have gone through for your children (and grandchildren!) and thank you for all the hard stuff you've dealt with that I don't know about. For all the support, love, training, patience, attention, sacrifices, and care you have given me, my sisters, and our children, I am so grateful! I love you, Mama! Hope you have a great day!

This week

Well I felt like I should post something, but not much going on here. Let's see...the boys beg to go to work with Matt many mornings and yesterday he gave in and took them for half a day. Time went by super fast here at home, as I was cleaning out our external hard drive. I had planned to get ahead on my cleaning, but the computer can sure suck up your time! We all met for Chick-fil-a, which went well at first and ended with a screaming child on the playground. As usual, Joshua is aggravating Gray (and laughing) and Gray is screaming about it. Julia has been her usual sweet self. I finally determined I should not be feeding her so much at night, so I have a new plan, which has brought some tears, but seems to be best. When I go to feed her in the morning and she's so full from the night that she'll barely eat, I think it's time to move past the newborn feeding routine! If you check facebook, you may have seen that before we went to small group last night, Gray decided to pee in the potty and then see what it would be like to stick his head in the toilet. I don't know what's going on with that boy! We did have a good time at our small group though. The boys were apparently "delightful" (glad they are for somebody!) and Julia laid in a bassinet there just playing with her blanket for about an hour. What more could you ask for? Nice to catch up with the group since we haven't met in a few weeks. Not much else going on here. There's a farm right down the road that has strawberry picking and grass-fed beef and we may hit that up later today and then tonight Matt and I are supposed to go to dinner sans kids. Hope you have a good weekend!

She can't figure out a paci or her thumb,

but she loves to suck her toes:)

more pictures

Here are a few more by request. And the story on losing Gray...Matt had both boys by the hand and let go to pay the parking fee and in a moment, Gray was gone. We ran around like crazy people looking for him and Matt found him on the next level up (empty) wandering around. And then we lost him yesterday at church in all the picture taking commotion. Found him laying down on the bathroom floor.

Weekend Highlights

Well I am especially super tired, but wanted to share a few pictures and a quick synopsis of our weekend...

-Friday night we went to a Hillsborough Festival to help get out the word about our church. We lost (and thankfully found) Gray in the parking garage.

-Mama and Daddy arrived late Friday night and were up with the kids bright and early Saturday morning.

-Joshua had a great soccer game and then we went to Duke Gardens for a picnic. Happy Birthday to Mama!

-We went to the new Hillsborough library for the first time and it was fun to check out books again.

-We had a nice birthday dinner for Mama, complete with cake and presents.

-Sunday dawned early again in our house and we got ready and went to church, where Julia was baptized. She was cranky, but did well once we got up front for the ceremony.

-We had a nice lunch with my parents and Matt's parents after church.

Hope you had a good weekend!