I love this guy :)

So I've been trying this new thing.  It's called thinking of others before I think of myself.  Revolutionary, I know.  I've been pretty whiny lately.  It's really awful.  God has really convicted of me this as I think of others before myself.  What could others be complaining about, but they don't?  

 John has been working so hard in his classes and in his job.  He works so, so hard, with little reward.  He's been waiting too long (in my opinion) for a promotion.  You probably know that when waiting for something like that, it's easy for the bitter weed of discontentment to rise up inside your heart and take over.

But not John.  My sweet husband has been driving around in an SUV every day this summer without air conditioning,  I had almost forgotten it didn't have a/c because he never complains about it.  It has been a terribly hot summer, and traffic can be pretty awful on his way home from work.  I'd be pretty worked  up into a tizzy by the time I got home!  But he is kind, and greets us all with a smile, hugs and kisses.  :)  He will step in immediately and assist with dinner, make dinner, or take control of the children during the "witching hour" as I make dinner.

Josiah put on a button up, collared shirt today and walked around very proudly saying, "Daddy's shirt," because I guess he thought he looked like his Daddy.  Our children have the best father.  I'm so happy our boys have him to look up to.  I'm so grateful our daughter has him to show her how a man should treat a woman.

We love you, Daddy.  And John, I'm amazed by you.  God is good.  He has been so good to us.  I know it's only through His Spirit that John is as faithful, hard working, and loving as he is.

The righteous who walks in his integrity– blessed are his children after him!   Proverbs 20:7

Parenting is a temporary stewardship.  Marriage is forever.  The best thing you can do for your kids is to be a good husband.  (Wayne Stocks, Ministry-to-children.com)

Therefore a man shall leave his father and his mother and hold fast to his wife, and they shall become one flesh. [Genesis 2:24 ESV]

The Louisville Science Center

Last December, our dear friends the Schwenkes moved away.  It was really awful.  We are all still pretty sad and not at peace about it, I'll just be honest.  Many friends move away because they are done with seminary and find jobs.  The Schwenkes had to move because they couldn't sell their home in Eastern Kentucky and the people (the state?  the gov't, whoever) wouldn't allow them to rent it any longer.  And a few months ago, Matt got his orders from the US Army...he'll be leaving for Afghanistan soon...for over a year.  :-(  They have three children ages 8, 6 and 5 (something like that).  Please pray for this sweet, precious family.

We are reading the story of Joseph right now.  The story always convicts me and teaches me,  more and more every time I read it, that God's plans are the best plans.  That there is a bigger picture we can't see.  That He does love us so very, very much.  

I don't know why God has taken the Schwenke family away from us.  Josiah doesn't understand why I don't let him have whatever he wants, either.  He lets me know through frequent temper tantrums that hurt my heart, my feelings and make me angry.

He doesn't understand because he is two.

He is small.  He's short-sighted, selfish and immature.

You see what I'm saying, here, right?

Every now and then, the Schwenkes visit us.  They make us go crazy places like they always used to.  Jenn always planned our home school field trips.  She got us all motivated to drag our clan to places us moms would probably never go by ourselves, without our husbands, because it is quite a chore!  But in a large group, we watch out for each other, and it all works just fine.

Plus a lot of people leave when they see our big group coming...

On Tuesday (yesterday) we went to the Louisville Science Center.  We all had earned free passes anyway with the Louisville Free Public Library Summer Reading Program.  So this trip was almost free.  I paid for my ticket and we all packed our lunches.  We left at 9:15 am and got home at 2:30.  Shwew.  It was quite a day!  

Waiting outside the doors for all our friends to arrive.

Our 5 and 6 year old friends  really know how to get into character.  We love playing with them!

Josiah was an excellent bus driver, even though he was convinced it was a train.  Choo choo!

He spent an hour playing in the water, getting soaked.

The rain jacket didn't help much!

He loves to make tea for Mommy.

I l-o-v-e this picture of our sweet seven year old friend, Kaylee.

The tubes of air...shot balls out, so cool!

"We need these blocks at our house.  These are REAL blocks!"

Shopping for shapes!  The kids could grab a list of shapes to "buy" and checked out at the register.  

Maryn apparently had a very, very long list.

Building a rollercoaster!

After our friends left, we stayed a while since Owen finally fell asleep.
I got to play with them finally, and we all built a couple castles.  :)

A Walk with Daddy

Room to run!

Get that nectar, Mr. Bee!

The community garden gets a little overgrown.

Cuties

Sleeping in the big boy bed is still going well.  Most of the time.

Somebody...

Somebody

 got a new

CAMERA!

These are just the pictures we took when John brought the camera home.  We haven't read the manual yet.  It's more like a BOOK!  Holy cow.  I guess I'm in this mommy blogging business for real!

Almost Four

Me:  Sometimes being a mommy is just really hard.  Do you have any advice for me?
Maryn:  Hmm...nuh-uh.  Not yet.

I was falling asleep forehead to forehead next to my sweet child last night.  She nodded off before I did, but I kept talking to her.  "I love you, sweet girl.  I hope you know that.  I hope you know, even though I don't act like it all the time.  Or even most of the time."

Yesterday, Josiah was being so bad.  I had told them both we could have ice cream after dinner but it was very obvious that wasn't going to happen.  So Josiah went to bed and Maryn was in her bed.  She was being very obedient.  I know she remembers everything, so I know she knew she got jipped out of ice cream because of her brother's behavior.  So I brought her a bowl of cake and ice cream with sprinkles to eat in her bed as we read two books of her choice.  I reminded her this is not something we could do every night.  "Just tonight."  She said.  "Because tonight is special."

Maryn has been playing games and figuring out other things that shows us she is reading.  She really can read.  I tell her this.  She says, "No I can't!"  Haha!  I don't know if there's much I can do about that right now, but I've decided I'm not going to push her in this matter.  For school this year, I've decided to do a few things.

1.)  Watch less television.  Our screen free week showed me that a ton of learning takes place naturally if the television is OFF and the kids know it is OFF, that it's not even an option.

2.)  Play more.  Playing outside with our bigger kid friends and littler kid friends is such a fantastic opportunity.  They learn how to play with and take care of younger children and they learn new, interesting things from the bigger kids.  Living here around so many homeschooled children has opened my eyes to the great privileges of homeschooling.  One of the things I love the most is the multi-age factor and learning how to be a leader but also be a team member, an assistant, etc.  We have two more years to PLAY and not worry about school.  So one of my goals is to chill out and play, play, play.

3.)  Read more.  I found that when the television was off, we sure did read a lot.  Story times at the library help encourage us to get into books more often and give us some themes to spring forward from.  Last week, story time was about "getting ready for bed time," so I got out all our books about that type of thing (we own about 10 of them, ha!), put them with our "coffee table books," and spent the week reading them again and again.

Right now, our favorite books are Bedtime for Frances, these alphabet books that are fantastic and Maryn LOVES them, and of course Corduroy, Clifford, and Tickle Monster, which are always favorites.

And that's what's going on with Maryn.  Maryn, who is almost four.

Happy 2nd Birthday Josiah

Josiah is the child in our family who is rarely the center of attention.

 But he's also the one who captures everyone's hearts.

 He is our junk food junkie, but he recently did start eating vegetables.

 He loves balloons, balls, swords, sticks, rocks, trains, planes, fast cars, music (especially drums, guitars, and country music) and most of all, DIRT.

 And he loves his Mama, and any women in the family.  And also Juju, our sweet neighbor girl.  :)

 He was so blessed to be able to spend his birthday party with Aunt Anna and Grammy here!

 His face just lit up with joy and pride when we started singing to HIM!

 Here's your crazy family, buddy.  Sorry :)

 You little cutie!

 He is an optimist.  He broke his Lightning McQueen balloon after only 20 minutes.  But he didn't shed a tear.  He just scooped it up and started playing with it, without it even having any air.  It made a great coat.  It also was fun to kick around.

 We love you, sweet Josiah.

Happy 2nd Birthday to my baby boy!

Family Day

We've lived here for three years and just found this cute little splash park down the street.  Seriously, within walking distance.

 We went to storytime at the library and then met John at the park for lunch.

 Owen was the life of the party.

 Josiah went down the slide that was super slippery when wet.  He must have flown up two feet in the air off the end of the slide, falling right on his back, his head bounced right off the rubberized mat.  Thank God for that rubberized mat.  I almost had a heart attack.  I was shaking all over, almost in tears.  He cried for about 4 seconds and started playing again.

 He's either really tough, brain damaged or crazy.  I'm scared.