Flying a kite in Forest Park

One evening back in June we took a family picnic (of pizza) to Forest Park, a huge park here in the city of St. Louis. It was a windy afternoon so we took the opportunity to fly a kite. It was fun! (And I was pretty gigantically pregnant so I was the designated photographer.)

This boy loves his costumes

Remind you of someone?

If this doesn't automatically remind you of someone in particular, check out the bottom picture of this blog post from May 2007.

May 2011

I am not going to do a whole post about April because I just don't remember much of it! But, on April 28, Isaac turned 3 and that's worth noting. We are so thankful for our sweet Isaac. He is a funny boy, always marching to his own drummer. Recently, Isa

ac was praying for supper. "God is good, God is great...God, thank you for our church, for the bricks in our house. Thank you that we can go robber hunting and that you give us a forest for robber hunting. Thank you for our food. Thank you for wild animals and our cats. Mommy doesn't like dogs so we decided to get a cat. Amen." That prayer exactly sums up Isaac. When he wants to do something, like pray, he's very thorough but does it exactly how he wants to do it. Isaac, we love how God made you and are so thankful you are part of our family!


May started with me having a really, really bad ear infection. I thought children were the only ones who got ear infections. WRONG. Mine was actually an outer-ear infections, also called swimmer's ear. My whole ear canal got swollen shut. I'm pretty sure it was from using a q-tip. Q-tips, if you stick them in the ear canal, can cause little tears in the skin in which bacteria can grow and then cause the infections. Believe me when I tell you that you do not want an outer ear infection. The whole side of my face and neck was swollen and sore. Ugh. I'm so glad that's over.

During said ear infection, I also turned the big 3-0 on May 3rd. I had actually been looking forward to my 30th birthday for a while. For the past several years (since having Isaac, probably), I have felt like I was in my 30s, whatever that means. So I was glad to finally arrive and be among "my people." Jimmy is still lagging two years behind, but he'll make it! Jimmy threw a little dessert party for me for my birthday which included my favorite desserts. It was great because I was pregnant and felt like I could indulge in whatever I wanted. Plus, my ear hurt and I'm a huge pain wuss so I self-medicated with lemon chess pie and chocolate eclair cake!

May 17th was cute little Toby's first birthday.

That boy is definitely full of life! We get comments all the time about how cute he is, how friendly he is, how much he smiles...it's very contagious. He's been called a "charmer" more than once by totally different people. He's got wonderful dimples and he is always laughing so they come out a lot! Toby, we are so glad God gave you to us!

After the big birthday there was looming ahead like a giant wall of water about to crash down.....GRADUATION. Graduation is usually a joyous event. But this year it was also very sad as we had to say goodbye to some of our closest friends. Many of the families with whom we entered seminary graduated after three years while we're on the four-year track. Graduation was May 20th and we were so proud to see our good friends receive the degree they'd worked so hard for. The next week was challenging as we said goodbye to many friends. May 28th was not only Jimmy's 28th birthday, but also moving day for two of my closest friends. I cried a lot that day, but I know God has good plans in store for them and for us.

Those are the May highlights. It was a month that was packed full of birthdays, Mother's day (Oh yeah! Jimmy bought me a beautiful corsage for me to wear to church on Mother's Day), graduation and moving. It had some very high emotional highs and some very sad lows. But we can see God's hand through it all and that makes us excited about what he's still got in store!

A May trip to the zoo: (As always, if you click on the picture you will be able to see a bigger version.)

End of Maternity Leave

I have not blogged in 8 months and 10 days. It's time to remedy that. I've got too much fun/exciting/scary things going on in my life that I don't want to forget. Maternity leave is officially over now that Zach is three months old (tomorrow). I will start by doing a post for each month that I didn't blog. They will be short and to the point, but they will come. If you're still reading, that is.

And because it's April Fools' Day...

I love Google's April Fools' Day jokes. I don't remember what it was the first year they did one, but it didn't dawn on me that that's what it was. Now I've come to expect it and I find them generally hilarious. Click here to go to Gmail and click on the bottom where it talks about Gmail Motion. The two-minute video is really funny :)

This is what I feel like saying sometimes

Not all of the time, just sometimes. Like when people think it's funny to ask, "You do know what's causing that, right?" as though I have a headache and keep purposely slamming my head against a brick wall. I know, I know. They're not trying to be mean. But when you've heard it a thousand times it kind of gets old. I probably don't have the guts to wear it, though. :) (If you want to test me on that, though, if you click on the shirt it'll take you to the website where it's sold...)