Dads' Night

Last night was "Dads' Night" at Wesley's preschool. He was very excited about showing Daddy his new school.

Cards were displayed in the classroom. One the outside of the cards were sentences that the children completed about their fathers. On the inside of the cards was a picture of the child. The idea was the dad would read the outside of the cards and then guess which card described them.

Wesley's card for Chris said:

My dad's favorite food is pepperoni.
My dad likes football and soccer.
My dad is 15 or 13 years old.
I like it when my dad helps me put together my train track.

I will let you guess which of the above statements are true.

Chris said most of the children said their dads were less than 10 but one card said "My dad is 68."

In the classroom, the kids and dads did an art project. They used ink to put their fingerprints on a card and then drew on the fingerprints to make them look like fish.

After the classroom activities, everyone went to the fellowship hall for singing and desserts. Below is a video of one of Wesley's favorite songs now. At the beginning of the video, he is goofing off with his favorite friend at school.

Mommy's Little Monkey - Wordless Wednesday

First Dollhouse

Lydia loves going to Allison’s house to play with all the baby dolls and dollhouse things. It is an added bonus that Wesley is occupied with all of Joshua’s toys, specifically the train sets. Elena is so sweet to share all of her girly toys with Lydia. She never takes toys away from Lydia; she just helps her play with them.

In November, Allison passed on a first dollhouse to Lydia. I brought it home that Friday and left it in the bag. When I got that dollhouse out on Saturday morning, both Wesley and Lydia played with it for two straight hours!

I did notice that after awhile, Wesley had stopped playing with the family. If you look under the pink roof, you can see Thomas.
This dollhouse is still a big hit with Lydia, but Wesley doesn't play with it very often now. I had actually forgotten that I had these photos until last week. We gave Lydia furniture for the baby's room and Wesley was once again interested in the dollhouse also.

Some Birthday Help

Lydia was very excited about her birthday this year. She kept saying, "It will be my birthday...I get cake!"

I made her a chocolate sheet cake. I love making cakes from scratch but I have not yet attempted a fancy decorated cake.

Lydia blew out one candle right away.
When she had trouble blowing out the second candle, Wesley climbed on the table to help her. Yep, we are all about good manners in our house. It was also at this point that I realized I couldn't (or rather shouldn't) share the rest of this cake with the family we were planning to have dinner with the next night.
Lydia really liked her cake and ice cream.

Wesley wanted me to take a picture of him eating also.When Wesley, saw Lydia's presents, he immediately said, "I want a present." We reminded him that it was her birthday and he said, "I want to open them. Can I open one of them?" We comprised and he helped her open all of them. Thankfully she didn't mind the help and he was satisfied with helping her. Lydia is showing off her Pooh bath toys. Wesley immediately wanted to play with Eyore and Lumpy, but he let Lydia play with her favorite, Pooh.

Wesley is showing off a present from Grandma. Both kids have enjoyed playing with these veggie heads this weekend.

Chris read one of Lydia's new books to the kids before bedtime. I think Wesley likes these books better than she does right now.

Bouncing on Her Birthday

I wanted to take Lydia to a fun place for her birthday. Since she thanks God every night for "moonbounces, hayrides, and goats" I thought I should find another indoor bounce house. We drove to Woodbridge this morning and payed $5 per kid (it's $8 for kids 4 and over) and had a great time at this bounce house with a couple of friends and their kids.


It did take Lydia a little while to warm up to the place, just like at the bounce house last month. But once she felt comfortable she spent twenty minutes or longer climbing the ladder and going down this slide. This picture is blurry but it is the only one I have that shows the entire inflatable. In the second room there was another slide very similar to this one but the ladder was in the middle. She really liked that one also. I helped her up the first couple of times and then she did it by herself. Another mom told me that every time she was on the ladder Lydia stopped near the top, turned around and said, "I am almost there!" and then at the top she said, "I made it!" every time.
There is a wooden play structure that has a ladder, monkey bars, and fireman's pole on the inside. Wesley learned how to use the monkey bars by himself. I think it helped that his feet were only six inches off the ground. He knew that he didn't have a long way to fall.

Here he is reaching for the pole.

Wesley loved the fireman's pole. Later when we were leaving I asked Evan what his favorite thing was and he said the fireman's pole.

The biggest inflatable there is large obstacle course and slide. First you crawl through a round hole, then up a short "rock wall" and then through the "squeeze".
Yes, the mommies fit through there.

The last obstacle is this higher "rock" wall.

The reward for all the hard work is this steep and very fast slide.

They had out two regular moonbounces. Well both of them were larger than most moon bounces. At one point Wesley, Lydia and I had the largest of the two all to ourselves.

Check out this neat coaster that Evan is riding. If we had a larger house, I would be interested in buying this. The kids loved it. They walk up the steps while pushing the car up on the rails. It is a great design.

Lydia didn't like this "rollercoaster" as much as the three older kids did. There was a smaller, slower one that Lydia did love.
Gabriele enjoying the "extreme coaster".

This place was great and I am sure we will go back again soon. There was a good variety of things of do and some nice little plastic slides for younger toddlers - my kids mostly skipped those.

When it was time to leave after 1 ½ hours of playing, Wesley left without complaining. He was saving that for the play area at the restaurant. Let's just say that he cried instead of putting his shoes and coat on so he carried them to the car instead of wearing them. It is 37 degrees outside today and I thought that was a good natural consequence for throwing a fit and hopefully it will be good motivation the next time.

After we ate lunch and before going to the play area, we had cupcakes to celebrate Lydia's birthday. This is cute little Sofije. She was so busy at the bounce house that I didn't get any good photos of her there.

Lydia enjoyed her cupcake!

She is Turning Two

It is hard to believe that Lydia will be two tomorrow! I looked through some of the photos from her first year. Wow, those are some sweat memories. She was such a good baby.
And speaking of babies, Wesley looks like such a baby in these photos.

In this photo, Wesley and Lydia are meeting for the first time.
Aw, sweetness.
The first of many kisses.

Easter

Four months old. Look at that chubby face!
Six months old. She still makes this pouty face.

Meeting Donald for the first time. Almost seven months old.
Meeting Mickey for the first time.

First time riding a horse. Seven months old.

First time eating sand. She was almost 8 months old.
First time eating a graham cracker.
First Christmas.

First Birthday! We celebrated in Texas with the Powells. Thanks Nancy

Jumping and Sliding - Wordless Wednesday

I keep trying to get video of Wesley in his gymnastics class but since I am trying to keep up with Lydia, I miss most of the cooler stuff he is doing. Here he is working on big jumps.




Here is Lydia going down the slide into the foam pit. She usually climbs out while holding onto a cube which she enjoys thowing back into the pit.

Hope

Here is a deviation from my typical kid activity post.

One evening a couple of weeks ago I was talking to a friend about a tragedy that stemmed from financial difficulties. My friend commented, “How sad that he felt he had no hope. We have hope because we know Jesus… I think Obama is so popular because he offers people hope.”

A couple of days later, I went to church with my friend Janet. She goes to Hope Community Church. The church’s website is get hope dot net. I love it!

I found that I also “got hope” from that church.

The pastor did an introduction to the Book of Acts which was very timely for me since I am currently reading through Acts.

At the end of his sermon he said there are three stages of Christianity.
1. Saved and happy. If you tell these people you have a problem in your life, they say, “What is wrong with you? You have a sin problem.” They think everything is easy.
2. You realize it is hard to be a Christian and you start praying
3. You realize living a Christian life is impossible and you fall on your face before God.

Not that I would ever say I am advanced in my Christian faith, but I am at stage three in his analogy. I have really been struggling with the sin in my life and wondering why it is so hard for me.

Why is it so hard for me to love like God describes in 1 Corinthians 13:4-7? Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. It is not rude, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres.

Why is it so hard to put others before myself? Do nothing out of selfish ambition or vain conceit, but in humility consider others better than yourselves. Philipians 2:3

Why is it so hard for me to not react in anger when dealing with people I love? My dear brothers, take note of this: Everyone should be quick to listen, slow to speak and slow to become angry, for man's anger does not bring about the righteous life that God desires. James 1:19 and 20

Why is so hard to show my husband unconditional respect? However, each one of you also must love his wife as he loves himself, and the wife must respect her husband. Ephesians 5:33

It seems like you don’t hear a lot about how hard it is to live like Christ. Sometimes it seems like all I usually hear and read is that if you are a believer, you are filled with the Spirit and therefore able to live as God wants. If that is all there is to it then what is wrong with me? Why isn’t it happening that way for me?

So to hear a pastor say that it is hard, even impossible, to live the Christian life just made me feel so much better! So much better that I cried for awhile over it.

These issues do drive me to knees to call out to God for help and to ask for His forgiveness and to ask for forgiveness from my loved ones.

Our Adult Bible Fellowship Class is reading through Sacred Marriage by Gary Thomas. In chapter 6, he says, “What marriage has done for me is hold up a mirror to my sin. It forces me to face myself honestly and consider my character flaws, selfishness, and anti-Christian attitudes, encouraging me to be sanctified and cleansed and to grow in godliness.”

Valentine's Breakfast

This morning was the MOPS Pancake Breakfast. This was the largest event Michelle and I have done with MOPS. We had over 175 people attend this morning. Thanfully we had a lot of help and the breakfast was catered! It was also delicious and fun!

First the batter had to be mixed up with what looked like a large drill.
Here is the pancake machine. It pumped out the exact amount of batter for each buckwheat cake.
In addition to breakfast, the kids decorated cookies and did crafts. My kids were happy to wear their pajamas out in public.
I think Lydia put more icing in her mouth than on her cookie.
Every one seemed to enjoy the breakfast and I am so thankful that it went well.

Decorating Cupcakes

Today, Wesley's class had a party during the last 20 minutes of class. The teacher invited all of the parents and said Lydia was welcome also.
I enjoyed this simple party. The teacher had placed vanilla and chocolate icing on their plates along with two popsicle sticks. She then let each child chose a chocolate or vanilla cupcake. The kids decorated the cupcakes with icing and dumped sprinkles on the cupcakes.

The kids also just spooned the icing right into their mouths.

All the kids seemed to enjoy the party. They also exchanged Valentine's. Now when I was a kid, I gave out and received simple cards. This year, Wesley gave out cards that had a little marker attached and cards that were sticker puzzles. His classmates all gave out candy. Some of the candy came in little bags or boxes and some of it just had "To: Wesley From: " written on the candy wrapper. Needless to say he is very excited about the treats he brought home from school!

It Feels Like Spring !

Since it was so warm today, we met up with friends at the closest county playground to our house.

Wesley and Lucas

Wesley hanging before going down the fireman's pole.

Lucas is such a cutie! He was also very sweet to Lydia and he played well with Wesley.

While I was busy talking to Sarah, Lydia taught herself how to climb this ladder. She did it over and over again.

Sometimes she needed help at the top, but sometimes she was independent.

Nice hair!

Isn't Julia beautiful even with cute static hair.

Lydia liked running up and down the hill and walking on the rock wall.

Lydia and Julia hanging on the bar together. Why don't we hang out more? Our kids played together very well.

After almost two hours, Wesley and Lucas needed a break before getting up and playing again.

Lydia was ready for a nap.