Grow Old With Me

Here is a picture I took on my phone of the kids! Everyone loves to cuddle! We had a great day today, learning about the letter "D". We pasted pictures of Daddy to our paper! Looking forward to a weekend at the shore with Mat's family...

Today we had our third day of school! We worked on the letter "C". So, we cut out carrots and cows out of magazines and drew pictures for people. It was fun! I guess I'm not a very good artist, because Elijah asked me to draw a lion. So I did. He looked at it and said, "Do another mouse." I said, "A mouse! That's a lion!" Then Nadine piped up and said, "That looks like a pig!" So, my lion turned out to be half mouse, half pig. =) I am NOT an artist. Sherry, help!

Yesterday we cut out a picture of Bambi since we were learning "B". Elijah said, "I want to ride on Bambi's back!" Then Nadine said, "Bambi's don't live here."
Later, she was pretending to be the teacher and said, "Elijah, what does owl start with?"
He would answer, "Whoo! Whoo!"
"That's right!"

So, we have rather animated times between 7 and 11AM.

The Lord has been strengthening Matthew through this week. His prednisone dose is starting to lower each day, so at times he is feeling the effects of that. We are really looking forward to a time of relaxing this weekend down at the shore with his family.

Here is Nadine singing Jesus Loves Me...

Some more Nadine quotables from another day:

"I have Jesus in my heart... just like Alanna! Alanna's in Africa. I'm going to go to Africa... but after Heaven."

"Jesus loves us when we sing and dance and bounce and swing and chase bunnies, and..."

"When do we have to die on a cross?" -Nadine
"We don't have to die on the cross, because Jesus did it for us!" -Mommy
"Yes. Remember? Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and you will be saved! If we don't believe, we will be lost."- Nadine

Some funny quotes today from Nadine:
"Elijah, if you don't obey me, I'm going to stick you in my purse!"

Then she was trying to remember what the words were to "the wheels on the bus." So she sang, "The holy bus goes 'round and 'round..." "The holy horn goes beep, beep, beep..." =)

After Matthew came home from work he asked her, "So, were you running around outside?" She said, "No. I was running straight, in a LINE. Not AROUND." She is so literal! =)

Today I had a great morning with the kids. We did our Bible time, then had to rush off to the Doctor to get shots for Jack. Once there, Nadine commented to the nurse that we were here so Jack could get "shot". Oh, dear! They all did a great job at the Dr.'s and Jack even smiled at the nurse after all four shots were done and he cried a little. Sweet!

We then ventured to the grocery store where we had to get such essentials as oatmeal and milk and peaches! Again, the kids did great. I somehow maneuvered this gargantuan cart with Nadine & Elijah "driving" the car in front (and getting out at every stop, pretending something-or-other). Jack nestled in his car seat, which barely fit inside the shopping cart basket, and he ended up holding the oats and peaches! We checked out with little incident, both kids were rewarded with gum for such good behavior and off we headed for home to eat lunch!

Well, on our drive home, Elijah got it into his head that he should unbuckle his belts and start monkeying around in the backseat. I told him he would get punished at home, but that didn't detour him from "enjoying the passing pleasures of sin". We had all the windows down, and I had a funny feeling (which I should know by now to heed!). Well, next thing I know, Elijah was leaning forward, yellow crocodile shoe in hand, and tossing it OUT the window! I looked in my rear-view mirror just in time to see it skipping and blowing along the highway behind me. I did a quick U-turn and wondered what on earth had gotten into my child. There the shoe was, in the middle of the suicide lane. So, I stopped our van right there, waited for no cars either way, retrieved the shoe, and drove home. Needless to say, the ride home was pretty silent from then on...

After nap-time I polyurethaned some crown-moulding Matthew made for a job he's doing on Saturday. Then I finished making chicken cacciatore for supper. At one point I looked out the kitchen window from where I had just gone to check on my pot, to see Elijah ON TOP OF our van. Is life ever boring?

Today Nadine was pretending to be a Doctor and had a thermometer with which she was "taking her temper".

Jack topped the growth charts and is in the 97th percentile for height and weight.

A group shot of us all at the Mayan Ruins of Xunantunich!

Elijah drinking the remains of Red Bull

All of us girls after our hair was braided. Vanessa (in green) got saved that day! A definite treasure that day!

A cute prayer by Nadine the other day, as I had cut her peanut butter toast into three pieces:
"Thank you, Lord for toast & toast & toast. Amen."

A great day with the kids. Some days I FEEL like a mom, instead of, well, like a drill seargent or a frustrated lunatic. It's exciting when things go well and their feet get dirty and then wash away in the bathtub. It's especially exciting to me when bedtime goes smoothly and no one sneaks down the stairs right about the time I think they're asleep. Sure, we had almost an entire bottle of apple juice spilled on the floor when Elijah tried to "help". We had handfuls of hair at another point of the day. There were loud wails for Daddy when something didn't want to be done.

The hardest part of my day was finding out that Matthew's Wegener's Disease has worssened in his sinuses, and hearing his confession of how it hurt to get them cleaned out at the Dr. today. I am filled with wonder at what is going to become of us through all of this. One thing is that I love Matthew SOOOO much more each day and appreciate every moment with him. His heavy breathing at night no longer bothers me. I am thrilled he is beside me. He is the best, most incredible husband in the entire world.