Matthew's Uncle Gary

Please be in prayer for Matthew's uncle Gary who lives in Kentucky. He was in a serious car accident two weeks ago and has been in the hospital ever since. He broke all the bones in his face including his palate (the roof of his mouth). His mouth is wired shut to allow that to heal and also had a tracheotomy to allow for proper breathing. Needless to say, his wife Debi and children Casey and Brian and their families have been through a horrific time these last 17 days. For updates and the entire story, visit Casey's blog.

Odds 'n' Ends

No More Fire! Last Monday, Sharlene and I decided it would be fun to take the kids to Shogun, a Hibatchi-style Japanese restaurant, for lunch. Philip and Hayden enjoyed the chef's display and Philip even tried to flip his fork around like the man had done with his spatula! Jordan probably ate the most; although Braewyn would have held her own had I let her at the food on my plate! It worked out nicely as we were seated at a table with a couple and their 4-year-old daughter who eat there "twice a week". After the "display" at our table (as I had built up the fact that we'd get to see fire!), Philip decided he didn't want to see any more fire and would get panicky when a chef arrived at any table around ours!

A Doorstep Visitor On Friday, I was in the livingroom with the kids. I looked up and noticed a girl standing at my front door. She was probably in her early 20's and casually dressed. I opened the door and said hello. The first words out of her mouth were, "What is John 3:16?" (My mom was over that day and she has a John 3:16 sticker on her back windshield.) I was completely caught off guard and so stumbled through the Bible verse which I have had memorized for years, "For God so loved the world that He gave His one and only Son, that whoever believes in Him shall not perish but have eternal life". She commented about it being a religious motto or something and I said that yes, it is a verse from the Bible. I then asked her if she knew who Jesus was. She said yes and that she was Catholic. I told her that Jesus died for her. We talked a few more minutes about Easter being on Sunday and then she began to talk about the program she was involved in (selling magazine subscriptions toward a goal in which to receive a laptop). I might never know if she thought more about our conversation or not, but it was a real eye-opening moment for me. I don't want to fumble over my words when talking about the greatest thing that has ever happened to me: knowing Christ personally and receiving forgiveness for my sins and a promise of eternal life in heaven with Him. It awestruck me even more because just the day before at BSF, we were talking about how stay-at-home moms don't have that many day-to-day chances of sharing the gospel, and low and behold if someone shows up the very next day and asks me point blank about it. It reminded me of another Bible verse which I have heard but had to look up to list here, "Always be prepared to give an answer to everyone who asks you to give the reason for the hope that you have. But do this with gentleness and respect" (1 Peter 3:15). If you are reading this and have a question about Jesus, please just ask. I'll try to be better prepared this time.

Philip's Latest! I was flipping through the channels yesterday afternoon and stopped for a minute on one of the multitude of home-renovation shows. One of the designers said, "That white wicker screams beach cabin!" Philip, very nonchalantly with almost no expression says, "Why does white wicker scream?" I laughed!!!

Thank you, Fly Lady! After going the entire weekend without cleaning the kitchen (I know some of you are shreeking!), there was not one inch of visible counter space or sink. Nevertheless, I was not going to bed without finishing it. It was a daunting task which I thought would be 3+ hours! I get slower and slower washing dishes as I get more tired. Well, I remembered Fly Lady's crazy holiday cleaning plan which basically says clean for 45 minutes, do something you enjoy for 15 minutes, and repeat until done. This is what I did. In the kitchen for 45 minutes washing as fast as I could competently and knowing that the new box of hand-me-down clothes for Braewyn from Matthew's cousin Lindsay awaited me in the livingroom (thank you Lindsay and Cheryl SO MUCH!!). Next looking through the box for 15 minutes and back to the kitchen for 45 minutes!! I love my microwave timer! I was shocked to be finishing the last item just as the timer sounded. I cleaned the entire mess (yeah, I ain't too proud!) in 1 1/2 hours as opposed to my suspected 3+ hours. Now if I can only keep on top of that sink daily!!

Mommy Day Care... No I am NOT starting a home daycare, but I am a caring friend who enjoyed spending yesterday and today with two of my neighbors' sweet, sweet babies. Yesterday morning, Sharlene asked if I could watch Hayden (2 1/2 yrs.) and Jordan (14 months) for a short time as she had to take a test for work. I said the morning would work better as I would be putting Braewyn down for a nap shortly and the "workload" would be cut down to three kids. Thank the Lord, Braewyn did sleep through half the time the boys were over. However Hayden loves Braewyn and she was excited to see some new faces upon waking up. Today, I watched Frances' girls Lucy (2 yrs.) and Bella (14 months) while she went to a doctor's appointment. Again Braewyn was napping through most of the morning and Bella actually slept in our Pack n' Play for about half the time the girls were over. I do love each of these four precious little ones, but tomorrow morning will be fun just having some one-on-one time with Philip! After that Sharlene and Frances, I'd love to keep your babies again sometime. Each morning did make me grateful that I had not had twins at each of my pregnancies!

I finally did it!

I have been considering changing my blog layout for a while. For me when other people change theirs, I'm usually thrown out of whack until I get used to the new look. Well, I hope you like the new look of mine. The picture at the top is actually one I took myself; it was the view from our front yard one day. When God gives you a rainbow like that, you just can't let it go without taking a photo!!

Easter Thought

This Easter season has been so special as we have a preschooler in the house who is really beginning to grasp the true meaning of Jesus's death and resurrection. No, I don't mean he's ready to write a thesis on it or anything, but the simple gospel truth is taking root in the rich soil of his tender heart. I feel blessed to attend a church with a wonderful children's program. Over the last few weeks of Sunday School and Mission Friends (his 3-year-old program on Wednesday nights), Philip has made palm leaves, a popsicle-stick church, an Easter flower from a yellow-painted hand, and brought home his Sunday School lesson sheets which we review with him.

It warms my heart to ask my little one, "Philip, how do you get to heaven?" and hear him say, "Jesus."

In keeping with the innocence of where he is spiritually, God gave me a realization which is so simple yet something I had never acknowledged or heard anyone reference. Jesus rode to his birth on a donkey (inside Mary's body) and then he rode to His death on a donkey (the Triumphant entry into Jerusalem). In Bible Study last week, our lecture leader said that today donkeys are seen as lowly animals and horses are seen as regal. Yet, in Jesus's day, horses were used in war and donkeys were seen as peaceful animals. Jesus came to this world not to display violence and wrath, but love and peace. If you don't know Him, believe me when I say He loves you immensely! May this be the Easter when you ask Him to forgive you of your sins and you can then celebrate His resurrection personally.

Not Suited To Be A Super Spy

This past weekend out church youth participated in Disciple Now (D.Now) weekend. The premise is that the students attend a conference together on Friday evening and most of Saturday and spend Friday and Saturday nights separated by gender and grade in church families' home. The idea is to draw them closer to Jesus (the conference) and closer to each other (the home time). Prior to having Philip, Matthew and I had been a "host home" for several years, but this year Matthew manned our fort (i.e. stayed home with Philip and Braewyn) while I helped out at the 11th grade girls' home (these are the girls I teach in Sunday School).

Friday evening after having supper at my house, I was getting ready to meet Kim (host home "mom") and Kristie (other adult helper) at Walmart. The three of us have been friends for about five years. As I was leaving my house, Philip was asking Matthew if he could watch the rest of "The Backyardigans' International Super Spy" movie. I didn't know then how my weekend would turn into that movie.

Well, there weren't enough tickets for adults to attend the conference so we served as shuttle bus operators between Kim and Bobby's house (they got married last November and are still newlyweds!) and the conference host-church. The girls didn't say much about the conference, but we stayed up chatting about random things until 1:30am Friday night. Ah, lights out as we would have an early start on Saturday.

Saturday started at 6:00am for me as we made breakfast, got the girls to the conference at 8:45am, and I headed home to take Philip to a "Breakfast Birthday Party" at McDonald's for a friend from MOPS. Next to the grocery store, back home, shower, back to Kim's, made desserts and cut tomatoes and lettuce for our 11th/12th grade cook-out that night. Oh well, suddenly no cook-out as the severe thunderstorms all afternoon left the barn we were to use unusable. Everyone met at a location to swap cook-out ingredients and take portions back to their own homes. Matthew brought the kids over to enjoy dinner with us.

Now comes the super spy part...

Last year, Kim's house was visited late Saturday night by one of the guys' groups who "decorated" her front yard. They hinted that they would be returning this year so Kim was on high-alert. She didn't want them to arrive and us be unprepared as this was her new house. (When they married, she moved into Bobby's house on the farm! His parents own a lot of land surrounding their house and cows literally roam all around it.) We strategized for a few hours after Matthew took the kids back to our house (around 9:00pm).

(Before I get into the details, let me say that I really don't think this stuff should be involved in a D.Now weekend, and will hopefully be more tightly restricted in years to come. With that said, my strict mommy attitude melted into girls' slumber party mode as the hours passed and staying up past my bedtime brings out the silly side of me.)

Bobby had bought a camera to mount over the garage as their driveway is pretty long and it would enable them to see who was approaching (this would be for day-to-day use but just proved extra fun on this night). We also had positioned the garden hose to spray onto the driveway. Our cars were all turned with headlights facing the driveway. The plan was when the boys came down the driveway, douse them with the hose and hit our cars' panic buttons setting off the horns and headlights.

In the meantime (and in the gaps between groups arriving-I'll explain in a minute), we were sitting in the kitchen with all the lights off, watching the TV which Bobby had connected to the camera, crawling to windows trying to peek out the blinds to stare out into the pasture looking for black silhouettes. Yes, we turned on the hose and hit panic buttons several times. We came to find out on Sunday that three grades of boys had planned to deliver plastic Easter eggs to their front yard. They came in separate missions and that's why the multiple "defensive maneuvers". Each time however, we thought they were just outside the garage and so we hit the alarms. Turned out they were still half-way up the drive and would just run back to the street.

Overall, it was fun at the moment but now just seems like a really weird, bad dream. Matthew and I agreed that D.Now should be more Christ-focused and that includes going to bed at a decent hour so as to be alert during the conference on Saturday and church on Sunday. We do have great kids at our church, but things will just run a lot differently if we've involved next year.

Here are some pics from the weekend.


Here is their conference booklet.


The highlight of Kristie's weekend was petting the bull! She fed him some grass too.


Kim and Bobby, a.k.a. "Mr. Wonderful" as the girls call him.


Here are Brittany and Meredith being crazy girls.


Me getting ready on Saturday.

Braewyn's new favorite toy was Kim's ceramic, chicken centerpiece! From left, Bobby, Meredith, Brittany, Kristie, Braewyn, and Cassie. Lauren was our fourth girl, but she had to go to work at this time.

Philip was showing everyone how he carries Braewyn on his shoulders. Matthew looks like a ghost! He says this is the Brooks family totem pole.

The students asked Philip if they could curl his hair, but he said, "That's for girls!" Guess he said yes when they asked if they could gel his hair.


Here is our spy-vision TV. Yes, that's really what we looked at for 3 hours -- a lot of nothing.

My Dynamic Duo

I cannot thank the Lord enough for my beautiful children. One of the best parts about raising these two little ones is watching the relationship grow between Philip and Braewyn. She brings out the sweetest side of him and he brings out her best laughs. Philip told me once (and these are actually the words he used), "Mommy, you know why I always wanted a baby sister? It's because I wanted someone to be in my house who I could play with." His prayer was answered. Here are some photos of them together.

Playing with Little People toys in the livingroom.

This one didn't turn out as planned. They are still so cute, but my first thought was, "This could be on the front of a welfare brochure."

Just hanging out at the Elmo workbench. Braewyn loves standing and being with Philip, so here she's in paradise!

And right before I took this next picture, Philip told me, "Mommy, boys wear glasses so they can be rock stars!" Looks like he's already found his first groupie!!

Where Have I Been?

I know, I shouldn't be asking myself this question; you should be asking me. Either way, I have been busy. I could rent my two kids out to you so you'd understand but I think reading this post will suffice. Just back to the beginning of February with me.

On Friday, Feb. 8, I took the kids to visit Mike, Andrea and Holden for the day. It's just over an hour so a really easy drive but long enough for Braewyn to get a good nap going there and back. We had fun playing with Holden, taking a walk together and enjoying a delightfully warm February day.



Sweet, sleeping boy.



Mike is such a great daddy!



Andrea and Holden, all ready for our walk!





The next day, Matthew and I went booster carseat hunting with the kids. Braewyn had grown to capacity in the infant carrier carseat, and since Philip weighs 30 pounds, the minimum for the toddler booster seats, we would just buy one of those and give his big carseat to Braewyn. The booster seats are also less expensive than buying another infant-to-toddler carseat. Philip was excited to get a new "rocket ship" chair! Here are the before and after shots. You can tell Philip was still expressing his excitement.










By the next Wednesday, Feb. 13 Braewyn had starting running a fever. As she's in the teething age, it's hard to know why she has a fever sometimes. Well, when Philip came down with a high fever over the weekend, we knew they both probably had some sort of virus. I took Braewyn to her pediatrician when her fever was still popping up over a week's time and yes, she had her first ear infection. 10 days of amoxicillin, here we come!

We knew Braewyn felt pretty bad when she fell asleep on the livingroom floor. I had left her sitting with some toys while Matthew took a nap on the couch next to her. This is how he found her when he woke up a few minutes later.


This shows Braewyn at her worst! Poor baby girl.





It was a blessing they were better by the next weekend, Feb. 22-24, as we packed up the car with us and Grandma and headed up the highway to visit Jonathan, Lori, Hannah and Madeline. We would be visiting to celebrate Madeline's 1st birthday. We had a great time together despite Madeline being sick. Poor little girl felt pretty lousy the entire time, but still enjoyed some yummy farm cake and had fun opening pictures.


Here's the birthday girl. More photos to come!






I had Monday, Feb. 25 to rest and repack as Mom, Philip, Braewyn and I had plans to head out the next morning to spend the week visiting my Aunt Cindy, Uncle Greg, their daughter Courtney and her new baby boy Cameron. He arrived on Feb. 18 after a scary emergency c-section, but now mommy and baby were doing well. As the family member who most recently had a baby, I really wanted to spend some time with Courtney soon after her baby boy's birth. We ended up going later than planned as Mom had a stomach bug and was sick Tuesday. We drove down on Wednesday, Feb. 27 afternoon and spent the rest of the week and weekend with them. I really hope I was an encouragement to you, Courtney! Not really sure as I was solo-parenting my two (albeit with help from Mom, Cindy and Greg). Mom would be staying longer into the next week, but I had plans to drive home with the kids after going to church with them on Sunday. However, just as we didn't arrive as planned, I couldn't leave as planned. My car battery was dead after coming out of church! We spent the afternoon getting another from Walmart (20 minute drive from their house -- they live in the country!), and Aunt Cindy suggested I just leave the next morning. And that we did.


Here's a great photo of proud Mommy Courtney and baby Cameron. More photos to come!






After arriving home Monday afternoon, we went to MOPS on Tuesday, cleaned house on Wednesday, attended BSF on Thursday, ran some errands on Friday, visited with Mike, Andrea and Holden yesterday (they came to spend the day at Mom and Dad's) and went to our church's new contemporary service this morning. Whew!! I'm caught up.