Summer Days

These summer days are flying by. Here we are having shaved ice with friends. 

We finished the living room and got some shelving and tv stand. We're enjoying the new set up.

Vacation in Alabama

Here we are making snow cones with Zeke's new maker.

Gwen got a singing bird and gum with birthday money.

Ben painted the living room and also put in new flooring.

 We spent a week in Alabama. Here are my niece and nephew, Clay and Chloe and my kids. They aren't little kids anymore. I enjoyed talking with them.

Picking blueberries was fun. And hot.

 We always have to go to the bug museum.

I can't get enough of this toothless grin!

Skating rink.

Splash pad.

Breakfast nutella mustache.

Summer Sweet Summer

Today we celebrated Gwen's 7th birthday. 7! Here are some friends. 

 We recently lost our minds and got a trampoline. Here's Paw Paw giving it a try.

 Her birthday this year was butterfly themed. We made butterfly food and put it outside, but no butterflies could make the party....except this butterfly pinata.

 We've made a renewed effort in chores. Here is a little boy with great bathroom cleaning skills. He is going to really bless his wife one day with these skills.

We also have lost our minds and are repainting the den. We took the plunge and painted the brick fireplace.

Gwen got a thing you suck bugs into and inspect them. She loves it.

3 generations of homes for hackers fans.

Ben is brilliant. He designed for the pinata to hang over the trampoline. It was fun watching kids jump and swing. (One at a time)

 Reading sweet cards from friends. She can read!

Toothless neighbors and Zeke.

She was so very excited to pull her front teeth herself. I personally can't get enough of her toothless grin.

 We saw a baby bird learning to fly. Cute! I am enjoying the kids and gardening and swimming lessons and all that summer holds.

Poem

I found this poem in a collection of songs on a CD we rented from the library.  It makes me smile.

Bed in Summer

By Robert Louis Stevenson

In winter I get up at night

And dress by yellow candle-light.

In summer, quite the other way,

I have to go to bed by day.

I have to go to bed and see

The birds still hopping on the tree,

Or hear the grown-up people's feet

Still going past me in the street.

And does it not seem hard to you,

When all the sky is clear and blue,

And I should like so much to play,

To have to go to bed by day?

How Do You Prepare?

How do you prepare to be an adult?
For the amount of mundane tasks that latch
Like a fanny pack that you never wanted to wear but you have to
Cause you gotta move your hands.

Folding of clothes, picking up shoes, sweeping floors
Dishes, dishes, silverware, silverware.
How do you prepare for the feelings?
I feel forgotten, I feel blessed. All at the same time.
A walk after dinner. Smell of grass and purple flowers.
Tomorrow there will be more dishes, more everything.
Look forward to the everything.

Gwen's Faith

Tonight was another night of questions from Gwen about the things of God. I find it a hard thing to answer her questions because I feel like I have to be truthful. She asked if hell is real. She asked who the leader of hell is. She asked if people die in hell. She says she feels bad wanting to be baptized because she doesn't love Jesus with all her heart yet. I told her that it comes with time as she gets to know Him better by reading the Bible and praying. We read the story of the eunuch that Phillip explained the scripture and who Christ was and afterward he got baptized. She liked this story and she was able to articulate her thinking better tonight. I am hesitant to write about it because it is so tender of a moment and because I'm sure I'm leaving many things out that were said. But I want to remember... She prayed and through tears told God she wanted to obey Him. Nothing is like hearing that from your child's lips unscripted.

I remember when I gave my heart to the Lord at 7. That night dad told me that it was the most important decision of my life, and it was. Later that night beside my bed I knealed down and thanked Him for what He did for me. My sister actually was concerned for me because I was crying and went to get mom. (We shared a bed) Mom knew somehow that I just was processing what had happened. Coming to Christ is a stumbly path sometimes. Gwen said tonight that she was asking in her mind questions and then opening her heart. I assured her that God wanted her to use both her brain and her heart and that He must have an amazing plan for her life. So...31 years ago I was by my bedside crying in thanks to God and now I am crying again for the same reason. Thanks.

Zeke's Preschool Graduation

 Zeke graduated from preschool yesterday.  He has gone on Mondays and Wednesdays this year.  He has learned a lot!  Getting all ready for kindergarten next year! 

Here he is with his friend Luke.

These were his teachers. 

A little fuzzy, but they sang songs in the program.

Mother's Day- zoo trip

Penguins are so shiny and beautiful!

 I really love gorillas.

Gwen

This last week Gwen has been asking questions about how to be baptized which lead to other discussions about how someone gives their life over to God. I would come downstairs after those discussions and cry just thinking of her trusting in Christ. Ben and I have had many hushed conversations about if we think she is getting ready to make a decision. We have explained that people come to the Lord at different times in their lives. I did at 7, daddy did at 13. It is a very important decision that can only be made by her.  We felt she wasn't ready so we encouraged her to pray about it and we would pray too and to keep asking questions and we would try to help her get answers.

Yesterday morning she asked to pray with us and so we did. I still wasn't sure she understood enough yet, but I never say no to a request to pray with her. She was very interested in baptism and I explained that it was a picture of something that has already happened in someone's heart. Ben stayed home from church last night with Zeke because he had a fever, so it was just Gwen and I. She looked up at me at the end of the sermon while they were passing out communion elements and said "I'm not ready to be babitized" (that's how she says it) I told her it's ok and it takes time. She started crying, I started crying. So, Gwen is seeking. Gwen asked me last night before bed to pray that Jesus would come and talk to her in her dreams. I did. It's funny how Gwen latches onto things. She heard that Elijah went to heaven in a fiery chariot and that Enoch didn't die either, but was taken up to heaven without experiencing death and she brings that up a lot. So, we are waiting and watching what God does with Gwen. 

Catch Up

The days fly by recently and the dishwasher gets loaded and unloaded and diapers are changed and I go look at the garden and tuck kids in and poof... a month has gone. 

We disciple a lady who has three kids. One night when our babysitter couldn't make it we decided to do a kid's activity. We used toothpaste tubes and told them to squeeze out the toothpaste. Then we showed them a $20 Bill and told them if they could put all the toothpaste back in they'd get it. We read scripture in James about the tongue being a small part of the body, but able to do big harm or big good. The lesson was once you say something you can't always easily take it back. 

 Here's a random thought... I noticed that I have a palette. What I mean is colors I naturally gravitate to. Here they are:

Ben's brother John is having a wedding here in a couple of weeks. He technically is already married, but he didn't have a wedding ceremony with all of the family yet. My job is decorating a wall in front of the bathrooms that is metal. Glamorous! I love garlands. They are festive to me. I made this one and I'm going to use magnets to hang photos of them interspersed. The great thing is I've decided to do a butterfly theme for Gwen's 7th birthday coming up so I can reuse the dye cut one.