There are a few verses that have come back to me since we lost our sweet angel. They come from Psalm 42, a desperate psalm where David is in agony and oppressed. One verse says, "My tears have been my food day and night..." The verses that comfort me though, that express my attitude and feelings, go like this... "Why are you downcast, Oh my soul? Why so disturbed within me? Put your hope in God, for I will yet praise him, my Savior and my God", and the second like this, "By day the Lord directs his love, at night his song is with me- a prayer to the God of my life." For me it expresses that even though something terrible has happened, even though I sometimes feel that like David, "My bones are in mortal agony..." that God is with me, that I have chosen to put my trust in him and that no matter what I will continue to praise my God. Because even through all of this, he is with me. His love surrounds me during the day and at night his song cradles me as the holy spirit sends up prayers for me, "with groans that words cannot express." (Romans 8:26).

I am praising God, partly for being constant and loving. Partly for all of the people he has placed in my life who show his love to me each day. For all of you, and especially for Luke and Greg. Because of this my heart is not always downcast, because of this I still have laughter and happiness, because of this my life is still full of hope.

Luke

Luke has been growing and changing so much lately. He has started liking books that have more words on the page, he talks all the time, he knows what he wants and he will definitely let you know!

Today he wanted to wear shoes that were two different colors!

And he wanted to eat in his house.

...................................................................

Luke has started reading to himself, the "One Fish, Two Fish" book is one of his favorites and he will turn to the page that starts out, "Bump! Bump! Bump!" and say "Bu! Bu! Bu!", or to the page that talks about brushing and combing blue hair and say, "Comb! Comb! Comb!" He also likes to get out one of my books, I am reading, "The Hobbit" each evening right now, and pretend to read that too. Sometimes he will bring me a book or something else and point at me, which means he wants me to do it. Other times he will point to himself which means that whatever we are doing I need to get my hands off because he is going to do it himself!

.........................................................................

He still loves bath time. Here are the boys tonight having fun with bubbles.

Daddy is saying cheese even if Luke isn't.


Daddy told him to show Mommy the soap so that is what he is doing, first the soap on himself...




Then the soap in the bottle!

Scrub, scrub, scrub!!!

One of my favorite words that he says right now is shampoo, which comes out, "poo poo?" He won't say it on command though, just when he is actually taking a bath and is ready to wash his hair.

.................................................................

Luke has been terribly sweet. When I am sad he comes and sits on my lap and gives me hugs and kisses or pats my back to make me feel better. He used to tell me to give the baby in my tummy nah nahs and I would say that the baby was too little, but recently I started telling him that the baby went bye-bye. At first that made him upset, I wasn't playing the game right. Then one time I asked him if that made him sad, that the baby went bye-bye, and asked if he wanted to say bye-bye to the baby. He brightened up and waved bye-bye to my tummy and then came over and gave my tummy a kiss. I can't be sad too much with such a wonderful little boy to cheer me up!

Leah and Amos!!!

One of my best friends, Leah, brought her son Amos to visit us all the way from Oregon from January 27-31! The last time I got to see her we were all pregnant (Amy, Leah and I). We all have blogs so we have watched each other's kids grow up in pictures that way and email some too, but this was the first time we have had the chance to meet in person and see our three boys together. Here we are, Amy, Leah and I with Glen, Luke and Amos.

Luke was 27 lbs and 21 months, Amos 22 lbs at his last checkup, and Glen was 29 lbs at 18 months! While Glen obviously has them all beat in the weight category Luke is definitely the tallest! Amos has them both beat in the vocab category, he talks all the time and is very easy to understand! I think he taught Luke a few things because Luke is starting to talk way more than he was before, but he isn't nearly as clear yet as Amos. I'm sure it will come.

The boys really hit it off right from the start! They had so much fun playing together, which really surprised Leah and I because most of the time our boys just play next to other kids, but Amos and Luke really interacted a lot while they played and they LAUGHED AND LAUGHED AND LAUGHED!!! (and so did we!) Glen, while just as big, is 4 months younger, so he mostly played next to the two older boys, but Luke and Amos are only 2 weeks apart in age. These next pics are from the first day they were all together at Amy's house. Leah spent the 27th with another friend, Beth. Then the next evening she spent the night with Amy and on the 29th I went and picked her up and brought them to our house for the rest of her stay.

Over the few days we had together the boys frequently staged "nurse-ins". Usually Amos would start and Luke was always quick to follow! Glen doesn't usually nurse as much as Amos or Luke, but the power of suggestion was strong and he was never far behind in requesting an extra nursing! It was so much fun to have the three of them together!

...................................................................................

On the 29th we spent the evening at my brother's house with his wife and some other friends, Faby and Camila. It was a blast but unfortunately I didn't take any pictures. I don't know if anyone else did either, maybe some will turn up. For a while Amos and Luke were in the kitchen together playing and when I went to check on them they had a piece of paper and they would take turns throwing it up in the air and then laughing hysterically while they watched it fall! Ben and I were about doubled over watching them!

.................................................................

Saturday Amy and Glen came down for the afternoon and we played and went shopping together down town. We also took the pics of the six of us that day (at the very top of this post). Then in the evening we went out to my aunt and uncle's house, Ruth and Dwayne's. My parents and my aunt Janet and uncle Dwight were also there and my grandparents also showed up for a bit. Leah is not only one of my best friends, but also a second cousin and our families have always been extremely close so everyone wanted to see her and Amos.

My cousin Kaitlyn playing with the boys.

A piano!

It is kind of funny, but there is a piano at my house and Amy's house too and the boys couldn't resist playing on all of them!

My grandparents...

Luke and Amos are both on later schedules to accommodate their parents work schedules (Amos' dad John works late hours with his pizza food cart), so it worked out well for visiting late and sleeping in all together.

..................................................................................

On Sunday we woke up late and went to church and the boys did really well together and made it through the service! Then we came back to our house and Ben and Andrea also came and had lunch together with us before we had to take Leah and Amos to the Airport. Here are a couple of pics of Luke and Amos playing in his cardboard house.

It's so much fun having a playmate just your size!

The visit was over way too fast. Leah and I had some good time to talk while we waited for her plane and then they were gone! I am hoping it won't be another 2 years before we see them again.

Bye-bye! We miss you both!

Visit from Becca and Joe in January

My sister Becca and her husband were here from January 13-23. We saved two of our Christmases for while they were here. We took a lot of pics at the bartel Christmas but not a lot of them turned out and I don't feel like posting one hundred bad picks, so here is one of Bec and Joe...

We also had my family's Christmas.

I made Becca a pair of leggings and here she is modeling them for us!

I had to do a few modifications on the patern and to my own knitting but I think they turned out pretty well.

We had a lot of good time hanging out together and playing.

After Christmas Brunch luke had too much sugar in his system and had to get some of it out!

We went out to dinner at a family owned Italian restaurant here in town.

Luke and I shared this beautiful dish, Luke ate almost all the broccoli right away, my favorite part of the dish too, although the whole thing was good. The broccoli was the best broccoli I have ever had I think.

We also went to visit Courtney and baby Bently.

He is a cutey!

Luke had fun playing with him too, until we started holding him and then I think he got a little jealous!

Luke found other things to do!

Another day Ben taught Luke how to juggle!

Becca and Joe's visits always go by way to fast, but it was really good while it lasted.

late Christmas post from Indiana

These are pics from our time in Indiana over New Years. We had a really good time with lots of family gatherings and a New Years party with our old sunday school class that was a blast. Aparently though we only took a few pictures, mostly of kids, and almost all of them on the day we opened presents! Here they are...

Easton has really gotten a lot bigger since we last saw him. We had his name and gave him a wooden pull toy in the shape of a frog and some cool plastic bug toys (BPA free of course)!


We also had Cassia's name this year and we got her a couple of activity books, one that has lots of princess things to make to wear, and the other has things to make little stuffed toys, kind of like potatoe head dolls I think but soft and more options.

Anna and Isaac both got those little razor scooters from Mimi and Pawpaw.

Luke got a bunch of things including this music set in the picture above (I think the canastas are his favorite). He also got some books and movies, a great big play mat which he loves and some hand-me-down duplos from Kent and Kathy's family which he also loves.

Greg was bad so this was all he got.

(actually Greg's parents were in Europe so they got us each afew smaller things from there, Greg got the travel water bottle from his name and a couple of shirts from his parents, and then we each got a Christmas tree ornament with some cash in it. Greg and I used our cash for a bluray player which we are really enjoying because it enables us to watch netflix movies from the internet on our tv instead of having to watch them on the computer.)

From Greg's parents I got a beautiful set of earings and a necklass pendant. From my name some knitting needles and one of those things you can use to hang your purse up anywhere so it doesn't go on the floor!

After the gifts we took a bumch of family shots, first all the grandkids!

Dawn and Ryan's family (Cassia and Easton)

Kent, Kathy, Anna and Isaac

And us, not a great pic of us I'm afraid but I am not very photogenic so that's how it goes.

;-)

Fortunately Luke is extremely photogenic as evidenced by the above pic with his fake smile!

We had a lot of fun just hanging out together...

And being silly......

All too soon it was time to go home....

I don't remember this pic at all, was I driving???

This video is from our last evening which we spent in Indianapolis with our good friends there. Jen's brother Jon was on his way home too adn staying with them, and he was a huge hit with Luke. We had a really good time eating burgers and playing wii mario cart at Kevin and Jen's house, and then spent the late evening playing board games at Dori and Tom's and getting to know their new family member, a very sweet old dog. The next morning Dori ate a late breakfast with us and we hit the road. Unfortunately we left behind Luke's three favorite books and he is still asking us for them. It really is my fault that he doesn't have them, I remembered them before we got on the highway but didn't realize how attatched Luke was and told Greg that since we were already so late we could just have Dori send them to us later. Then I kept forgetting to send Dori our address so she could, but hopefully they will be back soon. I am amazed that he still is asking for them after all this time!