Lake Rabun 1

I am not even sure where to begin. pause. Oh wait! I do!

Thank you Father, for an amazing weekend at the lake! For an amazing family who I love to spend time with! For amazing scenery to behold your beauty! For fun things to do and therefore endless opportunities to smile, laugh and see the people I love do the same! It was awesome!

Ok now-- memories!

 

I choose to begin with swimming. no wait, jumping in to swim. Now, I credit these fearless children jumping in to several things. When I see Will and Drew, one word, TRUST. Those boys would just fall off the dock without doubt that their Daddy would catch them. They practice this all the time from whatever they can jump from. Their amazing Daddy has proved himself to be one who is strong, able to catch them from wherever, whenever. hummm, who does that sound like? Oh yes, our Heavenly Father. We can leap into his call like these boys jump into their Daddy's arms. It was amazing to watch. My kids, just plain ole love to swim, and it was the way to get in- nothing to much spiritual there. ha! Really though, I love to see Ben's boys with him. 

L wasn't too much on the whole jumping thing, but she loved to get in, she would beg to jump in to us, but really she just wanted to get in, hold onto our thumbs and float around. Her grin was so huge and her laugh was so big. Oh I wish I could go back and do it again tomorrow. Today we all got in mom and dad, me and john, and our three kids, all the kids were literally laughing and giggling non-stop. It was an amazing moment. So joyful. So happy. I just treasure the memory of their faces, and ours, there. 

Check-up

Well today was the not-so-fun part of H's birthday--- the checkup. He was so anxious he couldn't even step on the scale, I was thinking it was going to be a looonnngg day. But he perked up was cooperative for his perfect vision screen and almost fail of the hearing screen. His doctor thought that he almost failed his hearing because of pressure in is head due to allergies and started him on Nasonex. He fell right at 50th percentile on height and weight, and developmentally he was perfect. The shots were bad. The nurse was amazingly kind and fast. H's scream got louder with each of the 4 shots. I mean loud. Poor little guy, he was anxious, scared and in pain, bad combo. The first lollipop didn't help much, the milkshake- not so much either, the second lollipop really started doing the trick. He has been a bit puny all day, I sure hope he feels better tomorrow, I know he is relieved it is over.  

Where were the girls? Safely away from the screaming, having their own Doctor's clinic next door, I think L thought her clinic was out west though. Thank you Tara for the pics!

H's sisters

These are H's sweet adorable sisters on his birthday. I cannot get over the fact that L is how old Ek was when H was born. It just does not seem possible that I could have seen her as a "big" sister. I remember thinking she really was big-- she could walk, talk, feed herself- I guess that was enough to be big in my book- out of necessity! Ek was definitely big enough if her life now is any indication of how well she has taken to it-- she is an amazing big sister. She played Little People with H for like 3 hours today and even included L at times and found her alternate games. Wow, she's good. H is a very blessed little boy to have her as his big sister. And sweet L, well she will just get to keep on being the baby. I think she likes that role pretty well as well.

Happy Birthday H

It was such a joy to celebrate H's birthday yesterday. I love a Sunday birthday. Mom and Dad were here, so Ek slept in his room and was the first to wish him a happy day, which she was very happy about, and Mom and Dad were second. Ek said she thought he had grown during the night! H was convinced he had grown too and wanted to check it out to where we measured last week, he couldn't understand why he wasn't bigger and even said later in the day that he though his feet still looked 3. He opened his gifts from us at breakfast-- a new football jersey, basketball shorts, a concrete bulldog for his room, a tiger stuffed animal and baseball boxers. Mom and Dad gave him new rainboots and a book about a GA bulldog. Ek gave him a teddy bear from her room! Mom made him French toast and we stacked four bites, stuck a candle in it and sang to him. Ek and L wanted to be sung to too, so we sang 'happy day' to them. Off to church where he wore his new jersey and shorts and was wished happy birthday many times. Memaw and Big Daddy and Aunt Meri were waiting for us when we got home from church to have lunch, we had a very nice visit. After a nice nap, it was time for his wonderful party! He was so excited about his swim party and had a ball. Grandma and Papa gave him a new train set, Dave gave him several new t-shirts like he and J wear, the Polhills gave him a skateboard and a boomerang, the Browns gave him 101 Dalmations, the Kellams gave him a Bingo alphabet game, and Rhonda gave him a ice cream gift card. When we got home he was so excited to play with his new toys and quickly built a train and played 4 rounds of bingo. We had a really sweet moment during Bible story time. They were so tired but Ek wanted to read a Bible story and it was the story of the Crucifiction. Midway through H looked at me and said "Mommy, is sin in our way?" There was a great visual gospel presentation during Backyard Bible Club with God on one side, man on another and a boy in the middle who was sin. Sin didn't let man get to God until Jesus came to take the sin away. I think it beginning to make some sense to H. He was asking some great questions about sin. J prayed last night and then H asked to. The first thing he prayed was thanking God that Jesus took sin out of our way. Big 4 year old thinking about big things. 

H is a great boy. He is playful, always up for playing ball, playing outside, and is very active. He is very generous and kind. He is thoughtful and affectionate- he gives great hugs and kisses. He loves to read and is getting very close to knowing all his letters. He is very excited to go to Trinity next year. He loves to laugh and smile and is very ticklish. He is very focused and self motivated. We are so thankful for our H and are loving to watch him grow up. 

H's party

Because it is freshest on my mind, I choose to begin H's birthday posts with his party. We had 3 family friends, kind Rhonda and H's amazing grandparents and uncle Dave to the pool for some swimming, pizza and cake. It was so fun! We all swam and swam, it was so hot outside by the pool was pleasant. The kids really played well together, they played train, torpedoes, football, and mostly just jumped in and romped around in the water. H said he loved the pizza and "cake" which for him was really just a huge amount of icing that was the frog on top of the cake. We are very blessed to have wonderful support and help loving and encouraging our H. He has some great friends, and we are blessed to be great friends with their parents. 

Done

Done! Well today we did it! My first tri. John, Mike and I left before dawn to go over to Indian Springs State Park with Dad along as our cheerleader. We were really excited. I was so determined not to panic in the water, but, i did. I did not swim well,not near as much free style as I wanted, but I got it done. The bike was so much fun! The course was hilly but really nice, I passed a lot of people  and was hoping to pass some that I got behind on the swim. The run was hot! And they ran out of water, so I walked so for fear of getting way too hot. So I finished the swim in about 15 minutes, started the bike at about 20, started the run at about 1:15 and finished at about 1:45. Very close to my goal and I'm just so thankful to have been able to do it and finish it!

If I didn't know better...

... I would think my kids wanted a dog. They LOVE playing with their stuffed animal dogs. For the last week, it has really picked up. I have found dogs eating and drinking out of various dishes around the house, seen the kids take the dogs for walks and scooter rides, they played dog groomer, and last night they were giving away free dogs for a dollar (!).   I asked them yesterday to get their favorite dogs for a picture and they came up with a bunch! I took a picture of just the dogs for them to see which ones they had at this moment and Ek was behing me getting their attention and trying to get them to smile! What will they think of next?