Me and the Kids on the Fourth...

I don't know if you noticed or not, but I tried to get my picture taken with both of the children in the same outfit on the fourth of July. This outfit was Mark's when he was a kid, so that definitely makes it special too. I wanted to duplicate the picture of Freedom, but Courage wasn't so into that. Here they are though, side by side.

40 Years and Going Strong...

If you're married, you know that anniversaries are more about patience and longsuffering than romance. --Well, that's the way it seems to me anyway. Anniversaries are a tribute to putting up with someone else and choosing to love them despite the fact that we're all chalk-ful of imperfections. Now, I'm talking about myself here--I've got firsthand knowledge of my imperfections; and I know that Mark has that knowledge too. Perhaps there are couples out there whose life and relationships come easy, relationships in which there are no cloudy dark days--just ones filled with sunshine. Perhaps.

This particular post is devoted to couples who are sticking it out and sticking together. Mark and I both have the unusual blessing of having both of our parents still married to one another. Mark's folks just celebrated their 40th annivesary this last month. So...Congratulations!!! That's awesome. We were going to get together to commemorate the occasion with a professional photographer, but the family switched plans to head up to Minnesota. So, we all got together a couple of weekends later and tried our own hand at family photos. Mark's mom has the ones with all of us, but we have a few of the others. The place where we took the pictures was so pretty. --So, here's to 40 years of marraige and many more!

I really need to blog more...

The days all seem to go so quickly, and the months just fly right on by. I tried to do better about trying to write down all the things that were going on this last year in a calendar because I have such a hard time trying to get pictures put in the right order later. But, life goes on and I am not always--okay, usually, not good at writing the things down. Blogging helps keep track of those things, so I really should do this more often. Anyway, a lot of things happened during the month of August. One thing that was pretty amazing to me was that on Courage's 11 month birthday (that day to be exact), I walked into the kids' room to see her STANDING on a rocking chair trying to get something that Freedom had put up out of her reach. Yikes! A couple of days later, Freedom thought that he'd try his hand at giving himself a haircut. Another Yikes (but not too bad)! We'd planned to go up to Mark's parents to celebrate their anniversary with a big shabang, but Mark's grandfather passed away just before that weekend. So, most of Mark's family (everybody except the kids and I) headed up to Minnesota. We missed getting to go up there, but I'm glad that the others were able to go. Some time during that month, the Campbells came through too--that's Laura with their new baby, Stephen. After that, we went up to Omaha to see my brother and to go to the Greenday concert. We ate too much, got to listen to live music, and also had the chance to hook up with Mark's brother and sister-in-law. We headed back and drove most of Mark's b-day, but we did get back just in time for him to mow the yard. :)

July 4th Celebrations...

I know that I'm a little (lot) behind with my postings, but here I go again! These pics will be from the fourth of July timeframe. Things started with a great celebration that the Ljs invited us to with the congregation they've been a part of, then we went to my hometown congregation (where I grew up) and celebrated with them, and then we had a celebration at our house (in the garage, actually) where fun was had by all and a great thunderstorm came and God had His own fireworks, etc.
Oh, and I almost forgot to mention what Courage ate that night...If memory serves me correctly (Damon and Lj probably know better, as they were feeding her), Courage ate 2 hotdogs, a hotdog bun, some baked beans, an ear of corn, and four pieces of watermelon. I'm sure she had some other things as well, but let's just say that she can put it away!

Carrying a Cross (Literally)

Recently, within the last week and a half, the kids and I were driving along the road when we saw a strange site. First we were driving on the opposite side of the road, and I thought that I saw a man carrying the frame to a very large door. (Some men were doing some construction right around where we first saw the man.) So, I thought it a little bizarre, but didn't think much of it. Later, we saw the man again, and this time we passed him on our side of the road. It was then that I said to Freedom, "I believe that man is carrying a cross. Let's go back and see." So, we passed him again, and I tried to take a picture (note man with cross in far right in photo). Then, we decided to wait for the man. And we waited and waited...and I couldn't see him anywhere. So, we decided to drive around the area where we last saw him, and Freedom saw the cross at a local sandwich shop. So, we turned around again and went to talk to the man with the cross. The cross is made from red mahogany wood that he timbered over 19 years ago, and he recently completed making it for a friend of his that is going to take it around the world. The man's youngest son suggested that he carry the cross to his friend in Tulsa (which he anticipated to be a 5 day walk). It was a cool thing to be able to see, and I appreciated the meaning behind what he was doing. The only thing that Mark and I commented on later was, "I don't think that meets the dimensions for checked luggage on a plane. Humm, how's his friend going to carry it around the world?" Maybe you can check it out on a different site--but for us, it was a great time to talk to Freedom about "carrying your cross."

Photos from the first part of June

Are you keeping up? --This makes my third post today! Whew-hew! These were some more cute pictures that I was able to download off my phone--see a trend developing with the posts?--and they are of Courage and Freedom in their hats and of Freedom's first time "really" bowling with Stone. :)

Flutter of Wings...

When I was pregnant with Courage, I was working on a couple of smocked dresses. I didn't think that I'd have much time to work on them after she came along, so I tried to get done what I could before she came. The day that I was in labor with Courage, I was working on a white dress. I really hadn't anticipated in keeping it for her because I figured that she would look better in a darker color; but because of how memorable her birth was, I decided to keep the white dress for her--after all, it was what I was working on while having contractions and sitting in the vibrator chair at home. (I was even smocking when Mom called to ask about what to get for dinner.) Anyway, these aren't the best pictures, but she looks pretty sweet. These were taken the weekend of "Women Walking with God" conference in Wichita (photos from my phone).

Like New...

Ah, I know, you may fall out of your seat realizing that we have indeed updated. My computer that was making this so very handy to update crashed on April Fool's Day, and at the prompting of my in-laws (thank you) I called the computer company and they were able to set me back to zeros. (Which I was a little bummed about, but when you can't even access your computer, you're at zeros anyway--this way I at least get to use the computer again.) The only bump is the e-highway, I haven't gotten our computers to hookup wirelessly yet.

Okay, well, I finally got a chip to fit in my phone so I could download some pics off of the phone. They turned out better than I was anticipating, so I thought that I'd share some of those. These are from our trip up to see my brother back around Spring Break (actually, as I was downloading these photos, I was pleased to see that my phone actually tells me the exact day and time that I took these photos, so wow! I know that they were taken March 22.)

My favorite car overall was the yellow Volvo TP-21 Radio Command Car. It's a cool looking vehicle in and of itself, but the fact that it was also playing "Cars" in the back TV screen (in the boot of the car) sealed the deal for Freedom. Unfortunately not many were made.

Eight Months Means Many Milestones

Courage turned eight months about a week and a half ago. She's really growing. Being a little sister means that she's got a lot of motivation to keep up with her big brother. She's been wanting to crawl for several months now, but she finally got all of her limbs working and can very effectively crawl to where she wants to go. I must admit that when Daddy puts a bowl of popcorn down, she moves faster than I've seen her move ever.

Food is a great motivator for our little darling as well. She can practically out eat her brother (and no, I'm not really kidding). She "demands" food by looking at something and making noises, and if that doesn't work, she begins to make a very loud growl--we liken it to a lion roaring. I'm trying to teach her that it's not very good manners, but how does one do that to an eight month old? She already eats a ton of stuff that I wouldn't have dreamed feeding Freedom at her age: whole pieces of bread, baked beans, eggs, "very small" pieces of lunch meat or bacon (not many as she likes to keep them in her cheek). She can easily devour a 4 oz helping of baby food and finish off another 2-3 oz of something different and follow that up with an entire slice of bread in one setting. It took me a while to realize that maybe my baby girl wasn't so content because she was sooo hungry--but I think we've got it down now. --She really likes food. :)

She also likes the great outdoors. Anytime we get ready to go out the back door, she gives whoever is there a very hopeful look and will swing her legs quite wildly. She loves to look around and see what's going on--especially if it is outside. Oh, and she has already begun the stages of trying to pull-up. She's moving much faster than I'm ready for. Yikes.

She will "kind-of" say three words, "Ma-ma" (usually when she is hungry), "Da-da-da-da" and will copy cat "Uh-oh." Yesterday she copied Freedom's sneeze, "A-chu." (Too cute!) Her first two bottom teeth are also in. The one on the left is all the way through, and I think the other is just a matter of days before it actually breaks through.

Freedom is growing up and wanting to do all kinds of things. Lately he's been a big helper and has been going out to the garden with me. He says he doesn't like hard work, but he always wants to go out to the garden with me. By his own admission, it's in hopes that it's a warm day and he'll get sprayed with the water hose mom is using. He's learning so much, and I am amazed at the different things that he can understand and relay back to me. He did a great job of explaining about Peter being told to go fish and find coins in the fishes mouth to pay the tax. I was very impressed with how he told the Bible story (and it made me wonder if I'd been talking too much about taxes back in March that it made a big impact on him with this story. :) )

I'll try to get a few pics up to go with our update.