Some Time In Cedar Falls with Mary and Lynn!

Pics of the First Leg of our 10 Day July Midwest Tour

Mating

Perhaps we have been letting Taylor watch too much Discovery Channel and Animal Planet.

The other day in the car, Taylor, out of the blue asked Kim, "When did you and Daddy mate?"

Kim was caught rather off guard by this question and replied, "You mean, when did we get married?"

He said, "No, when did you MATE? What year?"

Kim replied through a few suppressed giggles, "I don't know how to answer that."

Taylor said, "Ok, when did you get married then?"


Uh... Daddy is not looking forward to this more elaborate discussion. Will probably need to happen sooner than later.

Some Good New Pics of the Kids

Excitement

This morning I was getting ready to get in the shower when Taylor comes running in, "Mom! Quick! You've got to see this! !!!" Thinking this is something either fabulous or horrendous, I ran outside with him. All the kids were crouched down staring at the scene above (you maybe can't tell what this is yet, let me explain in their own words...) "Look, an ant is carrying that huge spider. It's like you carrying 5 grown-ups. He is soooo strong!". They were so excited that they insisted I take pictures. I absolutely love their enthusiasm, but I was glad to get back to my shower :)

Mya Doesn't Like To Eat

Fighting, convulsing, fake barfing, and avoiding. This child does not like to eat.

Sledding on the Stairs

Don't call the DHS on me.

Does the Tooth Fairy know Jesus?

Taylor was very excited to lose his first tooth on a piece of celery a couple of days ago. He has been full of questions about the tooth fairy since then. Is she real? How big is she? How does she get into the house? etc, etc, etc. The kids know the truth about Santa Claus b/c we didn't want to cloud the meaning of Christmas but since the tooth fairy is just fun make believe without a whole lot of theological implications, we've decided to play along. One of Taylor's friends got $1.00 for his tooth so I thought maybe he'd be a little disappointed when he got $0.50 (we thought $1/tooth a little steep :)) but he seemed very satisfied with the explanation that she probably leaves different amounts depending on the family, their finances, and what they are used to. I thought that would be the end of the topic, but Taylor continued to be infatuated with the tooth fairy. He sweetly asked me, "Do you think the tooth fairy knows about Jesus?" I said I didn't know, but he could always write a letter to her if he wanted. He must have thought this was a good idea and thankfully he told me that he had written to her and left the note under his pillow. This is what I found... Can I tell you how much I love this kid? What a sweet heart to want to give back to the tooth fairy (he included 2 pixie sticks with his note). He was glowing the next morning when he received a "your welcome" note back from her. This tooth fairy's heart was warmed :)

Happy Birthday Emery!

Emery turned 2 yesterday. We just had a family time together. He got some new cars, a stuffed lama (cause he loves this book so much) and we bought him a new trike that is yet to be assembled.

Mya's First Haircut

Emery wanted to get a piece of the action:

The 5K Challenge

Recently Taylor asked to go on a run with Kim. She was planning on going for a full 5K run and I was skeptical that Taylor could hang in there for that long. He did. In fact, he did quite well.

I think his attention span gets challenged because he runs really fast ahead of Kim and then stops and waits for her to catch up and then does it all over again. We could have a good runner on our hands!

Mya Lays Down The Deep Groove

Ian provides the beatbox and mechanics. Mya provides the arms.

Ian is a very good drummer. He played the drums on this record. Buy it. It's really good.

A Video For Grandmas on Mother's Day

An Unusual Birthday Request

Taylor (my 6-year-old): "Dad, will you buy me a metal detector for my birthday... (pause) ... or some dynamite."

I think I have allowed this child to watch one too many episodes of MythBusters.

Happy Birthday Kim!

Today Kim turns 34. In honor of her birthday I wanted to list 34 reasons why I love her.

1. She loves God more than me.
2. She is selfless.
3. She is humble and graceful.
4. She loves to care for people.
5. She has the most beautiful blue eyes.
6. She loves to have people into our home.
7. She has no problem getting her hands dirty (she's not a girly-girl).
8. She is passionate about her personal growth.
9. She is willing to do radical kingdom things.
10. She does not fear the future.
11. She does not hesitate to give financially to those in need.
12. She loves to be transparent with people.
13. She loves to memorize scripture.
14. She is a very hard worker.
15. She loves to pour her life into younger women.
16. She is extremely insightful.
17. She is a great teacher of adults and kids.
18. She has the ability to handle a lot.
19. She is tough.
20. She tells me the truth.
21. She follows where I lead.
22. She values our marriage.
23. She is not stubborn.
24. She likes to exercise.
25. She would never let me persist in sin without saying anything.
26. She loves the church and helps our kids do the same.
27. She is my biggest supporter.
28. She is wise beyond her years.
29. She is rather easy on the eyes.
30. She embodies Christ-like sacrifice with myself and the kids.
31. She is adventurous.
32. She is great with home projects.
33. Did I mention that I find her quite attractive?
34. She makes the best cookies!

Happy Easter!

As you can see, getting four little kids to look good all at the same time is quite the daunting challenge. We did our best! Emery likes to be on the move as you can tell. We had a big groups of friends over to the house for Easter dinner. It was great!

Two Is Company

So a couple nights ago we laid the kids down for the night and went downstairs to read. After a few minutes we heard some rustling upstairs, but usually if we just leave it alone the child who is making the noise will calm down and go to sleep. This night it was a bit more pronounced and so after we got done reading we went upstairs to see what all the commotion was about. Here is what we found:

Emery likes to be in the top bunk with his older brother. Very interesting that Taylor allowed this to happen without waking up! The boy sleeps hard.

Rethink your life

Taylor and I were in the car together by ourselves when all of the sudden he asks, "Mom, do you think you need to rethink your life?".

Where does this kid get these things? When I asked where he got that question, he just said, "I thought it up by myself." (actually sounds like some great advertising to me:). After laughing, I admitted that that was a very deep question. He pushed a little more, "Do you think you can answer it?"

Hmmm. It actually lead to a great discussion about how Zach and I have tried to be very intentional in how we live so that we are in line with Scripture, the gospel, and live in such a way that is pleasing to God. I was able to share how I can get too busy though and then not have as much time for what is truly the most important (God, family, etc).

Great discussion all inspired by my inquisitive, deep thinking 6 year old!

Sibling hair salon

So here is Autumn's new hairstyle. It came about one morning when I noticed her hair was looking much shorter than normal. Taylor confessed that he cut it because "she begged me to". This is actually probably true as Autumn does like getting her hair cut but she forgets that she doesn't really like her hair short :). After a little straightening up by mom (we had to do a little wedge in the back), I think it actually turned out very cute.