Friday, June 26, 2009

Name Me! A contest

This is my brother's kitten that we found in the park. We have yet to find a name that fits her. Here's the deal. Submit your name or names - as many as you want and if my brother picks one of your names I will send you a $5 Target gift card! Remember, she's a girl.BIG DISCLAIMER - he's super, super picky and may not pick any of the names SO just so you know before entering there may not be a winner. But what the heck, enter anyway!

Wednesday, June 24, 2009

A good morning indeed


I had the rare pleasure of sharing my breakfast time with a beautiful woman (even right out of bed) and a bubbling, curious toddler. Because I have to get up so early each day, Bethany and Jackson are usually sound asleep for my morning ritual of bran flakes and bible reading. This morning, however, Jackson had other plans. For some reason, he just didn't feel like sleeping anymore, and he pestered Bethany into getting up with him. By the time I finished my shower and poured my cereal, there they were- out on the back porch with the cats. I joined them and we watched the early planes come in from the west while we savored the few tolerable moments outside before the sun brought the heat. Maybe it wasn't that big of a deal to them, but for me, sharing my usually solitary breakfast with my two favorite people in the world was a special treat.

When it was time for me to head into the city, they walked me out to the car and I treated Jackson to a drive around the cul-de-sac. As we pulled up to where Bethany was standing in the driveway, she said, "Tell daddy bye."
Jackson looked at me and said, "BYE". It was the cutest thing...
"Give daddy sugar-"
He reached up and gave me his little kiss.
"Time for daddy to go to work"
"BOOO TRUCK!" Jackson exclaimed.
"Bye buddy-"
He crawled out the window to mom's waiting arms.

To heck with Folgers, the best part of waking up this day can't be poured into a ceramic mug. No, the best part is the intangibles- the things you can't quantify: sharing a back-porch sunrise, sharing the love of a child, sharing a life - one morning at a time.


Thanks to you, Lord.

~ Ben

Sunday, June 21, 2009

happy father's day

Happy Father's Day to all.

To my wonderful, talented, overly enthusiastic, patient, kind, tender and ever adorable Ben:

Thank you for being an amazing father. You are, in every sense of the word, amazing. Webster's dictionary defines amazing as, "1. To affect with great wonder; astonish."

I am astonished that God blessed us with you. Astonished that you never cease to amaze us with who you are and the amazing job you do.

Our children are so, so lucky.

Wednesday, June 17, 2009

all in




It's hot. We're sweating. It's summer and there's no turning back now.

Wednesday, June 10, 2009

things of the sort

So I have been meaning to sit down and write about Jackson turning 20 months and what he's been up to for oh, 10 days now. Better late than never, right?
Gigi told us we need to start keeping a Jackson dictionary - here are a few translations:
Gadingadinga - nonni's cat rebel dean
ball hat - football helmet
hot truck - lawn mower
bapple zsuss - apple juice
puhpell- purple
booooooo chuck - wants to drive the car
good-to-guhguh - good to go

There are many more but we'll leave them at that for now. The last one is my favorite. I will say, "Jackson...are you doody?" and he will say, "I good-to-guhguh" which usually means nothing bc he HATES having his diaper changed. Other than running and playing constantly we don't do much else. We got him a sand table that he likes only in 5 minute intervals...my poor ADD child.

He's still a great eater and will try new things with ease. Monday night I made salmon and he took a big bite, spit it out and said, "ugh dat chicken" Hilarious. At least he tried. He is obsessed with all things truck, tractor, train and plane. My aunt Missy and her family came through last week and brought him a santa sack full of toys including a very cool fire truck and a tractor book that we've read 1309843 times since. He's recently into puzzles and has learned to try again instead of getting frustrated and walking away...he gets that from me. I won't lie.
In other news, Jackson is going to be a big brother. Yep. Here I am at 14 weeks.I have been SO sick. I'm really hoping it's on its way out the door - which it seems to be. I'm actually wanting to eat things these days. Usually really salty, vinegary things. Nothing sweet AT ALL. We're really excited about our little end of the year bundle and we're looking forward to July 15th when we find out if Jackson is getting a brother or sister...we'll see :) I know, I know - Why are we waiting till now to tell? Well, we had some pretty scary dr visits in the beginning but everything seems to be going well now. We had our last ultrasound at 10 weeks and the baby looked great and measured 11 weeks - a week ahead, just like Jackson always did. We know that anything can happen but we are trusting the Lord and giving him glory no matter what happens. We hope you will pray along with us as we make the venture to being a family of four :)

Tuesday, June 9, 2009

I just don't know

anybody else follow the April Rose blog? If not, consider yourself lucky. About a month back I found a link to the blog from MckMama's blog asking for prayers for a young girl pregnant with a Trisomy 13 child. One of my dearest friends little girl Aubrey as well as Ben's little sister were Trisomy babies and I will always, always have a special place in my heart for them. Long story short, after months of updates, photos, prayer requests, scripture after scripture it has come to light that this person who stated they were pregnant was, in fact, not. Some still stand by her but evidently the picture she posted was of a very popular doll. The blog has since been removed.

I'm sad. Sad that she felt the need to mislead people and sad that so many were misled in the process. Regardless of the whys or hows I ask that we all pray for her. She obviously needs prayers more than we all originally realized and I encourage you to pray along with me. This is not the time or the place to be ugly, bash, call names, etc. I'm just asking that we pray for her. I thought about not even posting this but I think the prayers are necessary.

Here is a post on MckMama's blog that goes into a little more detail.

Wednesday, June 3, 2009

celebrating with a picture post

As of Monday, June 1st we had officially been in our new abode one year. I can not believe it has already been a year. Seriously. They say as you get older time flies and it's true. One minute you're praying that the Lord will release you from your storm and the next you're celebrating how great He has blessed you over the past year!

Words can not express how thankful I am that God blessed Ben with a great job. Especially in the current job market, we are extremely blessed. Beyond measure, really. I won't lie. There are some difficult things about being here. We're kinda isolated. We're far enough away from family and friends for it to be too far to just jet over and visit and come back home in the same day. Luckily we are close to PawPaw and Gigi and have been able to really cultivate some great memories and time with them and the girls. That is another blessing just in itself!

We celebrated by going to one of our absolute favorite places in town, Abners. Here are too many pictures to convey our evening.