We've Hit Double Digits!

With a newborn in the house and calculating his age by weeks, it's hard to believe Sully's biggest brother has hit double digits in years!  Back on January 22, Philip turned 10... 520 weeks old!  I wouldn't want to relive my teenage years, but to be a ten year old seems to be a pretty good deal. Here's how Philip spent his birthday.

8:00 am Morning YouTube watching with Braewyn

9:00 am Odd Squad on PBS and waffles for breakfast

10:00 am Reading a Bible storybook to Rylan

11:00 am Grammar in bed and pj's because it's your birthday

12:00 pm Toast pizza for birthday lunch!

1:00 pm Birthday outing with Nana and Papa (Philip didn't know where he was going)

2:00 pm Movie time watching "Paddington" at the new NCG theater followed by dinner at Subway

6:00 pm Basketball practice

8:00 pm Family time with Grandma too. Birthday presents!

Philip's quadruple chocolate cake... chocolate cake, chocolate chips in the batter, chocolate icing, chocolate sprinkles.  He loves chocolate!

Me and my boy!!!

9:00 pm End of the day watching "Star Wars: The Clone Wars" with Daddy

We are so thankful to have our tenderhearted, ready-to-be-a-man, God-fearing son Philip.  Love you so much!!!

Little Man is 8!

When people tell you to love your children being little because they grow so fast, it's the absolute truth.  I cannot believe that I became a mom 8 years ago.  Philip's birthday was January 22 and even since then the days are flying by.  With another birthday just days away, it's time to post photos from Philip's big day!

As before, I tried to take a photo every hour through the day, but also as always, occasional hours passed me by uncaptured.  Anyhow, here's an overview of Philip's day, mostly filled with schoolwork even though he tried HARD to convince me that schoolwork shouldn't be a part of his birthday.

Reading time with Juliet. A standard part of each school day.

 

"I am 8!" declares Philip.

 

Grammer on his bed.  A great part of homeschooling. 

(Sitting on his bed, not grammer.  It's Philip least liked subject.)

One of his favorite things for lunch: spaghettio's.

Bible time after lunch when Juliet is down for her nap. 

I thrills my heart to know that Philip already has a love for the Word of God.

Skip a few hours and it's party time.  Philip is ready to chow down on a piece of Grandma's chocolate chip cake - his special request for his birthday.

Philip's grandparents joined us for dessert and present time.  Who's that crazy faced girl?

And yes, another Lego set for his birthday...

completed two hours later!

 



I am so thankful to know this awesome, 8 year-old boy and to be able to say I am his mom.  Philip has truly been a blessing to us and to those who know him.  As he grows, I am excited to watch God's plan for his life unroll before us.  The Bible verses we chose to be Philip's life verses when we had him dedicated to the Lord at 3 months old are Romans 8:38-39.  I pray that Philip will never doubt the truth in these words.

 

"For I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord."

Country Kiddos

We traveled to the country and back in time this past Saturday for a reunion with Matthew's side of the family.  The reunion has been at this location a few times and it's always fun to leave technology behind (wait, I took this photo with my phone!) and enjoy life at a slower pace for a few hours.

A to Z and now we're done!

When Philip was in K-4, I helped him put together an alphabet book of pictures from magazines.  With Braewyn being in K-4 this year, I decided to make her a photo book of places we've been and things she's made which start with each letter of the alphabet.  Our visit to a nearby zoo provided the pictures I needed to wrap up the book!  Z is for Zoo!

Not only did this outting provide the Z pictures, it was also a milestone in our homeschool journey.   Our new children's pastor, George, who's awesome btw, organized Fantastic Friday outtings throughout the summer and the zoo was the first!  This means Philip rode an actual school bus for the first time with about 50 kids and adults from our church to the zoo while I followed in our car with the girls.  It was fun for him and a little anxiety-filled for me.  It's the feeling I guess I would have had had I sent him off to public kindergarten two years ago. 

Upon arriving at the zoo, we all ate our box lunches (well, my family ate grapes and graham crackers as I was banking on buying hot dogs but didn't realized large groups eat BEFORE entering the zoo!).  Then George split the groups up into smaller groups each with an assigned chaperone.  He said that I could just tag-along a group since I had Braewyn and Juliet.  I told him I could be a group stalker.  I did stay with the main group (including Philip who was in George's group; was it that obvious that I was holding the apron strings tight why George took Philip under his care?) for a while until Braewyn and I did stop for hot dogs.  For the next two hours, I didn't see Philip.  It was gratifying that I could let go and let him gain some independence.  Later that afternoon when I picked up Philip from our church gym (the bus full of kids headed back home while I let Braewyn play on a super cool playground near the zoo), George said Philip had been great.  Makes a momma proud and thankful!

Here's the recap in photos. Click on the first photo and you will be able to see all photos enlarged.

 Juliet was squealing with delight at seeing the giraffes and orangutans and lasted the four hot hours at the zoo better than I had expected.  And Braewyn no longer runs from my camera but has in fact turned into a little starlet always ready to give a smile and say cheese!

Confused about the neighbors

My kids are growing up and with each stage comes new joys and new challenges.  Philip is now 6, almost 7, and thrilled that six boys live within walking distance of our house.  I love the small community feel of our little, dead-end street but it seems recently that it's turned into the set of a soap opera instead of a sitcom. 

So I'm trying to share the love of Christ with the boy Philip plays with most often.  His parents are divorcing and I'm happy to provide him with a peaceful haven for a few hours after school.  His mom is at home during this time so I'm not techincally babysitting.  The friend who I will call Charlie is an overall good kid but somewhat on the hyper side but I've grown to love him and he and Philip play really well together.  There's been a few potty humor jokes said and pretend injuries to the groin area but Philip sees that stuff from his church friends as well.  At this age, that kind of stuff seems to be on the minds of all boys no matter how strong his family is spiritually. 

Well, Charlie's mom and I are acquaintances.  I'll listen when she tells me how things are going with her husband and I try to encourage her to turn to Jesus.  Not that I'm trying to be preachy, but He is truly my only source of hope and strength, and I want that for her too.  She is a seemingly nice lady but I don't know her well enough to ask her to babysit my kids.  I don't think I should feel bad for saying that I don't know exactly what is said or done in their house and so I don't want my kids influenced to the point of not being able to come home if they want to (only Philip goes over there, but she's offered to watch all three). 

Here's where it gets complicated. Another mom on the street called me last week. She and I are even more distant acquaintances but she's always seemed very friendly and I know their family to be Christians. She called me with much hesitation as she didn't want to gossip but she told me that she and Charlie's mom are no longer friends due to Charlie's mom saying some very unkind things about her to other neighbors and being involved with things that the mom calling me disagreed with (being places and saying she was elsewhere, lying to her husband about things, etc.). This other mom said that Charlie had gotten too rough with her kids and was not allowed to play there anymore.  The mom was calling me to make me aware of the situation and not trust everything I see or hear.

Now I feel silly writing all of this because it does sound so 6th grade.  But the bottom line is that I love my son and want to protect him with my life.  Where do I draw the line as to whom he can play with, whose houses should I let him go into, how do I say he can play with certain kids if they come to our house but not to their houses?  I don't really think I'm a good judge of character as I'm quite gullible and often buy into whatever the person says. I do know I should pray for discernment and not let my mind go all "after school special" coming up with crazy thoughts of what might happen.

A friend whose kids are older teenagers now told me, "When your kids are little, it's physically exhausting, but when they get older, it's mentally exhausting."  I'm going to be all-around exhausted if I'm in the tough physical and mental stuff all at the same time!

They Grow So Fast!

One of my favorite parts of having children is watching them learn new things and reach different milestones. Philip is at a wonderful age. He comes up with the funniest stories and says just the silliest things everyday. His recent phrase is "That's so funny! Ha Ha!" He says it at random times, not always when anything funny actually happened, and he doesn't laugh at the end but actually just says ha ha. I've got to get it on video! While visiting Jonathan and Lori last weekend, Lori and I compared stories and she said Hannah has make believe tea parties. I look forward to hearing who Braewyn invites to her parties, but in the meantime, I hear almost daily about which game Philip is off to play and then if his team won or not. He'll say, "I'm going to play ball with the boys." (He's not aspiring to be just like his Daddy or anything!) The funny part is that half the time, he'll come back and say his team lost. I guess I should be glad he understands how the world really works. But I was concerned when earlier this week he told me, "I was playing soccer ball (he can't just say soccer), and the other guy kicked me in the face." Oh, I hope that's not a sign of inner turmoil or something.

Anyway, a few of the new things Philip is learning these days is how to cook and what school will be like. He is always asking what we're doing when preparing dinner so Matthew and I try to let him help out a little whenever possible. Tonight, he mixed the Italian dressing and spice pack together for our Pasta Salad. Overall, he does quite well.

I just don't feel like God is leading me to home-school my children, but after seeing the workbooks Hannah is working in these days, I was excited to buy one for Philip. As smart as he is, I may as well teach him all I can so he's ahead of the game when it's time to really go to school. We've had "school" twice this week and we've both had such a great time. I bring out his workbook (Preschool Scholar with a farm theme which he picked out himself at Walmart), and he picks a crayon from his crayon cup (it's actually a Moe's kid cup but he loves it because you can put the crayons away through the straw hole!). We sit down together at the coffee table and do as many pages in the workbook as he wants (each time we've done 3 pages). Here he is after "school" today. This page shows a lesson in size comparison. He had to circle the largest object from each line. The extra lesson at the bottom of the page instructed us to find a pair of shoes from each person in our home and put them in largest to smallest order. Philip was really excited when I told him we were going on a "shoe hunt"! It was a lot of fun.

I cannot thank the Lord enough for this wonderful little person He has blessed my life with!

Braewyn is my beautiful, sweet, baby girl. I say that because I get so mad at myself for not being as excited over her accomplishments as I was with Philip as an infant. I know that sleep deprivation has a lot to do with it as well as the frustration that occurs when I'm trying to feed her rice cereal and Philip is running around, singing, throwing things in the air and it is all REALLY interesting to Braewyn who could really not seem to care less about the spoon in front of her. This photo was from the first time she had rice cereal. If only she were always that excited.

Now having a FULLY VERBAL toddler, it's just that much harder to have a baby who can't tell you exactly what's going on and why she's crying. I wouldn't trade my life for anything, but I hope there are other moms reading this and agreeing from the same experiences.