Gwen turns 6

Today we celebrated Gwen turning 6.  Her real birthday is Tuesday.  We did a jungle themed party and I loved it!  Lots of fun things to decorate with.  

I'll have to show you what's in my garden this year soon.  Here's the slip n slide and baby pool the kids played on.

New sand

Gwen's neighborhood friends

We hid the pinata and made them "hunt" the snake.  It was a fun pinata... but way easy to break open.

She's taught me so much about myself and I'm grateful for her.  Lord, help me guide her toward Your heart.

Summer Fun

We've been enjoying the summer with Vacation Bible School and planning for Gwen's birthday party coming up.  We decided on a jungle theme this year.  We will have the typical slip n slide and baby pool in our backyard as well as a sand box and swings available for everyone to play on.  I'm looking forward to having everyone over and having a fun time.  This time around I don't have a lot of time to make the pinata, so viola, the snake pinata was born!  Old empty wrapping paper tube, half of a soda bottle and a little hot glue later... here he is.  I thought it would be neat to have the kids hunt for the snake and then string it up.  It has gummy rope individually wrapped things in there.

Here is my Romy.  She is 9 months now and eating like crazy.  She especially likes meatloaf and green beans.  She has recently learned to crawl and so keeping things off the floor is an all day task.  She's so sweet and such a joy to everyone around her.

Riding bikes in the summer rain... they love it!

Our new "man" to keep everyone safe.

Debatable

I signed up to teach a three day debate class.  I thought it would be an interesting challenge.  Little did I know that there are many types of debate.  I did Lincoln Douglas debate in college.  This class's text is "An Introduction to Policy Debate."  A different animal indeed.  I'm scared.  I'm a novice and I'm supposed to teach them.  It's a homeschooling group called "Classical Conversations".  I've made a plan, I've read the text, made notes, asked local debate teachers for help, read their stuff and made more notes.  I figure we'll learn something in the process of all of this... and maybe it will be somewhat interesting.  If I am not cooking, cleaning, in the car or sleeping or doing laundry, I'm doing debate.

Most of all, I hope I convey that it is good to think and reason together and ultimately lead others to know Christ. 

  

End of the Year- Kindergarten

Romy is slowly gaining interest in eating.  She loves scrambled eggs and guacamole.  She has completely skipped the baby food and is into what we eat.  She is such a happy and sweet baby I wish all of you could experience her on a daily basis.  

I got roped into making 80 cake pops for Gwen's kindergarten graduation.  I haven't volunteered for much this year... I guess this is my payback!

Gwen and a classmate

Gwen's teacher giving her an award for being "determined".  I can confirm that.

Tried to get a picture of both of them.  Of course Zeke picks this moment to be not cooperative.

Gwen posing and her friend Saffie is in the background.  I hear a lot about Saffie and Gwen enjoys playing with her.  Zeke's still sulking cause I told him no more juice.

This school year has gone very fast.  Lord, help me to remember and not have all my brain cells sucked out my breastmilk.

Life in the Cul-de-Sac

Gwen and her friends playing dress up.

She's just beautiful!

Relaxing in the sun.

Kansas Spring

Wanna see what the Kansas spring is like?  Take a look at this video I took last Sunday!  It's the land of extremes here!

Sabbath

Lately Ben and I have made a commitment to keep Sunday free of plans and full of time with the Lord and family and face to face contact with neighbors and friends.  It has been good learning what is restful to us and how to navigate and get it all done without invading Sunday.  We have started attending a Saturday night service at church and so even Sunday mornings are spent riding bikes, watching the kids play, making breakfasts and reading the Bible.  

Romy woke up one day recently and decided she'd like to try food.  She hasn't gotten fantastically good at eating, but she's opening her mouth and deciding what she likes.  Here I am taking a video of her and I guess someone took a photo too.  Too. much. technology in one photo!

Ben's mom, Pam, and Romy at church at Romy's dedication.  The verse we chose for her is Jeremiah 1:5 "Before I formed you in the womb I knew you, before you were born I set you apart"

No, we aren't at a night club.  This is church.

In the afternoon we went and visited Ben's Grandma and Grandpa.  This is Romy's namesake.  Ben's Grandma's name is Georgia and Romy's middle name is Georgia.

Easter 2014

Today has been a really nice day.  Here's a post it note I found the other day that Gwen drew on.  It says "I love Jesus" in her own way.  I hope one day she will love Jesus.  Tonight she told me she wants to get baptized or "babitized" tomorrow.  I told her you only get baptized when you ask Jesus to come into your life and take control and commit yourself to follow after Him no matter what.  I explained how you do that and she just looked thoughtful.  You never know how those talks will grow in a child's heart.  She told me she got to pet a real lamb today at church.  

Romy has had some breakthroughs with eating.  I'm not rushing it, but I've noticed that she enjoys table food much more than baby food.  She enjoyed some roasted sweet potato today on Grandma's finger.  Notice the knitted bib my mom made!

Romy got some attention from her Uncle Preston.  Gwen got a few dollars in the mail from her Grandma Morris and with it she bought a wand that lights up at Savers.  It's her new prized possession.

I had an Easter egg hunt in our backyard just for fun. This year we went to church on Saturday night and served this morning early.

Romy getting attentions from her Aunt Beki.

As the "grand prize" of the egg hunt they were presented a treasure map their dad drew to find buried treasure. (they each got a box of off brand legos that I got from Aldi)  I don't like fictitious characters that are supposed to visit children... Santa, Easter bunny, tooth fairy ect... but I do want to give fun things to my kids.

Jake and Melody are expecting their first born in October.  She's showing just a little bit here at 3 months.  We are very excited about a new little cousin coming.

It's impossible for anyone with three or more children to get a family photo without someone sticking their tongues out or looking strange.  I've decided the strawberry blond is not working for me.  Maybe it's having a baby, but I just didn't have it in me to do the dressing up Easter thing.  We just wore regular clothes.  

She is a real beauty.  I remember buying this outfit for Gwen.  I love it because it is super soft.

Grandma (Ben's mom) and her three grandchildren.

Beki and Jeff.