Photo Gallery

After a few requests, I am finally getting some more pictures on here. It's been a fun week doing Vacation Bible School with Providence, but it's been busy as well. Here are several more recent photos of the fam.

Witty Wisdom

We've been having bad thunderstorms here the past couple of days. This evening, while getting the children ready for bed, the power briefly flickered off. This led to a conversation with Ben about electricity. Ben was looking out the window, wondering where the electricity was. I pointed to the power lines and said, "The electricity runs through the power lines, but it's invisible- you can't see it." Ben said (in his funny little drawl), "Ummmm, maaaybe it will come out of visible and I can see it."

Play-Dough

Just for fun, I wanted to show you guys what kind of fun we have around the house. I've been jokingly telling folks that I live at a preschool, what with all the activities we do and toys we play with around here. I'm a big fan of standard, uncomplicated toys. Puzzles, blocks, balls, cars, trucks, baby dolls, and of course play-dough. Take a look at what my children wanted me to make. Can someone from my Queens College CORE class say "The McDonaldization of America?" Sigh. Would you like some green squishy fries with that?

Real Post

Anna is enjoying her new wheelchair. In this picture, she is zipping down the road in front of our house. Yesterday we took her to Costco. Nice wide concrete isles were available for her to peruse. It was a great experience. For the first time, Anna was able to display developmentally appropriate behaviors- like running away from her parents in the store. Seriously, though, she enjoyed being independently mobile. And I really did have an experience where I was picking up a (huge multi pack) box of Kleenexes, and while my back was turned, she sped away. She didn't get far- just around the corner and into the next isle, but you should have seen the look on the other customer's face when she saw this little toddler flying down the isle in a light-up wheel chair with mom trotting after her, grasping an infant in a sling with one arm and holding a huge box of Kleenexes under the other. I'm sure you can imagine the fun we had with all three of these little guys at the store.....
In other news, we are moving a little closer to the construction of our new home. Last week we had another meeting with the contractor. He wanted to change yet another detail of the plans, causing the architect to have to edit and reprint all the pages again. We are signing the papers for the land this week, the house has been staked out on the lot, and we have our final quote in. Our loan should be going through soon, so sometime in the next four weeks they will be able to officially start on the house. Yea!!! We are looking at being finished by the end of the year, although we may not make good on our promise of Thanksgiving in the new house. For fun, Brad and I went to h.h.gregg on our "date" Friday night and priced some appliances. We are actually supposed to be picking out brick and shingles right now, since that is what the builder told us to do, but looking at front loading washer/dryers was much more fun. I did find out that the major appliance brands won't come out with the magnetic induction stove tops for a few more months, so we didn't get to see any. It doesn't really matter, though, because they will have them in stores before we need them anyway. I can't wait to update everyone in a few weeks when we finally break ground and grade the lot. What with the wheelchairs and toys and babies around here, our current home is shrinking every day!

Placeholder Post

Well, I told some folks that I would have an entry up tonight about Anna's new wheelchair. I have officially run out of time this evening, so I will have to renig on that promise. However, tomorrow I should upload some pictures and I will be able to update folks on the wheelchair situation and give a little update on the new house as well.

The Irony of the Situation

My child had to be removed from church for talking about Jesus....

Today we had a visiting musical group come to our church. The children had seen nothing like it in their short lives. The musicians were very talented. They played all sorts of interesting stringed instruments such as the mandolin (hand crafted by the guy who was playing it), violin, guitar, banjo, and even a bass. Ben and Anna did very well sitting and listening. However, at one point Anna looked over at me and said-in a quiet, demure voice-"Jesus". Uh, oh, we were in for trouble. This was not a statement or casual conversation about the preschool Sunday School lesson. This was a request to sing Anna's all time favorite church song, "Jesus Loves Me." Unfortunately for Anna, "Jesus Loves Me" was not on the play list. However, any one who has been around Anna in person knows that she can be very persistent. And Anna LOVES that song. So. She smiles at me and says, a little louder, "Jesus." I whisper back that we "aren't singing 'Jesus Loves Me' right now." Anna looked a little disappointed. "Jesus," she says, in a very put-out tone of voice. I continued to whisper explinations to her as to why we were not going to sing that particular song at the moment. Apparently I didn't get it. Anna starts yelling, "Jesus! Jesus! Jesmumph!" We muffled her final scream and toted her out of the sanctuary. Brad pointed out the irony of the situation. We took our child out of church for talking about Jesus. The happy ending of this story is that although the musicians did not have "Jesus Loves Me" in their instrumental repertoire, they did end up doing a special vocal rendition near the end of the program, "Just for the children." Hmmm, I bet no one could guess why...