Prayers for Boston...

Listening to the news today about the attack on the Boston Marathon was very sad to hear. 

As a runner (I guess these days it would be more accurate to say former runner), I can only imagine the fear and horror those involved with the race must have gone through.

 

In the coming days as the details of what happen become more clear and the authorities figure out who are responsible, I hope that we can find peace.  A world where we can all respect each others differences and learn to work together to make the world better.  A world where violence and innocent loss is not the answer, but where acceptance, love and togetherness heal pain and all wounds.

 

As I think about all the tragedy and sadness that has filled our news in the recent past, it makes me worry what headlines our children will come to read as adults.  I remember as a child hearing my parents ask, "What has this world come to?" and today I find myself asking the very same question.

 

I pray that some day very soon this sadness and tragedy will stop and that we can come to celebrate the great victories of life.  Whether those victories are completing the Boston Marathon or safely attending first grade.

 

 

Fifteen years ago, as a high school track athlete there was a prayer our team said before every race.  And tonight I dug through my closet, to find my cleat box that carefully holds the memories from track seasons past, including the prayer that gave me hope and peace as I prepared for each race.

 

Tonight as thousands of runners contact their families and count their blessings of safety, I pray for those who have finished their last race, for those who lay in a hospital fighting to race again and for those who experienced first hand the horror that we pray never happens again.

 

Come Holy Spirit enlighten me, guide me, strengthen me, console me.

Tell me what you want me to do.

Give me your orders. 

I submit myself to all that you desire and accept all you permit to happen to me.

Let me only do your will.

Amen.

 

Until next time,

angie

Tigger and Pooh

Isabelle has been a fan of Tigger (and Pooh) and the rest of the Winnie the Pooh gang for a long time.  And her loves continues to grow for them as I will explain in the coming days.  But for now, here are some photos I took of her when she was between 7 and 8 months old. 

 

Her love for "ooh" and "Ta" is super cute to watch.  Here's a few glimpses from their earlier days of being friends....

 

Until next time,

Angie

Wordless Wednesday… Google me this….

The boys love Google.  Obsessed would be an understatement.  You know as a child when you’d ask your parents the meaning of a particular word and they’d send you to the dictionary (as in the monstrous book that weighed at least 10 pounds and collected dust next to the stack of 27 encyclopedia books) to look it up yourself; many things have changed from the good-ol-days.    On a side note is it bad that spell check doesn’t even recognize how to spell encyclopedia anymore?  Anyway, I’ve come to the realization that my children have no idea what a dictionary let alone and entire stack of encyclopedias are.  To them there is only one resource to turn to for all the info they could ever want.  That source…. GOOGLE.

 You wouldn’t believe the questions they want us to look up on Google.

A few of the common requests….

 

“Mom- can you look up and see where Joe Falco (as in the quarterback for the Baltimore Raven’s) lives?”  “What’s his phone number, can we call him?”

“Mom- can you Google where Superman buys his clothes? You know the clothes he wears in New York so people don’t know he’s Superman.”

And one of the more interesting….

Recently I was asked, “Can you Google if Harry Potter is alive?”  What?  Why Gabriel? I said.  Michael interjected saying, “Gabriel, Harry Potter is NOT alive.  He’s in the movies.”  To which Gabriel sharply retorted, “Yes he is alive Michael, Ms. Katie (their after school teacher) told me he is alive. And Ms. Katie would not lie to me.”  So Google it I did (see below) and read directly from the second listing (and from another great source wiki…answers).  I said, “Gabriel, I’m sorry Harry Potter is not alive.”  With a big gasp, “Gabriel inhaled in complete surprise, and said “Mom- I can’t believe Google is wrong.  I know Harry Potter is alive, because Ms. Katie told me she is married to him.”

And finally a story that proves to me my boys firmly believe that Google has the answers to everything one could ever want to know and more.

The other day at lunch we were of course talking about sports.  Gabriel WAS at the table.  Talking about everything from football to baseball and even some wrestling.  Gabriel said, “Mom – Can you Google to see how many football fields God has in Heaven so I know how much I’ll get to play when I go there?”

 

Once again, I was left without words.

 

Until next time,

Angie

Isabelle the adventure-seeker..

Looking back at Isabelle as a tiny tiny baby I never would have guessed she would grow to become the adventure, get-into-everything, climb on everything toddler that she is.  The world  (i.e. our house) is her adventureland and she plans to investigate, learn about and climb on everything she can.

Take for example her adventure to climb to the top of Mount Stove... or as we call it in our house, the stove.  Isabelle loves to walk right up to the stove, grab onto the over door handle and step up onto the drawer to peer up onto the stove to see what's cooking.  Needless to say we've been having a lot of cold and microwaved meals lately.  At first she didn't weight enough to pull the oven door open but now she's finally reached a weight comparable to the oven door and so now we must always keep the oven door locked.  Here's a demo of how she enjoys conquering Mount Stove.

And then there is Chair Peak.  Who knew it was so enjoyable to pull chairs over to a wall, climb on top of them, then stand on your tippy toes and try to reach the light switches.  Yes, I guess touching the light switches is the true victory for this climbing expedition.  See her conquer that feat here....

And then the latest adventure, the Mount Everest of this mountainous land that is our home.  Just last night, Isabelle decided to climb on top of her brother's art table chair, which was next to the art table, which was next to our dining room table.  I'm sure you can see where this is going.... and although I didn't actually get her "victory climb" on tape, I did get one of her practice climbs, as you can see here.  In her victory climb she went from the small chair, to the art table and finally to on top of the big dining room table.  Those items have now been separated and moved away from each other.

So now that you've seen how the climber is in action, please rest assured there were no injures in the filming of these videos.  Although it looks like we may send her out on her adventure climbs unsupervised, I assure you there are many watchful hands surrounding her and backing her up.  And you may be asking yourself why we let her do it, we usually only let her do it until I get it on video and then we move her to another activity.  See I'm going to use this as evidence for when day when she's a mom, has a baby that climbs on everything and can't figure out where the behavior comes from. 

Until next time,
Angie

Wordless Wednesdays #2

This past weekend as we were driving home, Michael noticed a new car (not as in new but as in a car that hasn’t been there before) in the neighborhood.  He made a comment and we turned to look seeing that it was a 1960’s Chevy pick-up truck.

 He said, “Mom and Dad, look at that OLD car.  It must be from 1999 or something.”

  Jarrett and I just looked at each other, burst into laughter and couldn’t utter a single word.

 And while we held our sides and laughed, Gabriel looked and chimed in with a very serious response, “Yeah its totally from 1999... its old”

Until next time,

Angie

PS:  In other related news, Gabriel and Michael must think Dad and I are really old.. Tonight he asked me, "Mom, was there pizza when you were my age?" 

Easter morning....

This year the Easter Bunny came to visit and we had a lot of fun watching the kids hunt for their 178 eggs (no joke, the Easter Bunny counted all of those eggs and may or may not have decided next year to bring less than half of them).  It was a fun morning and here a few pictures to remember it...

 

It is hard for me to believe the kids can already be this big!

The boys both love to hold Isabelle, even though it makes me nervous they are very careful and I think she likes it too.

After church picture with our cousins.  Isabelle was so excited she fell asleep.

The egg hunt started in the boys room and went all throughout the house.  Isabelle actually enjoyed "hunting" for eggs as much as her brothers did.

The boys were very nice and let her "find" the eggs that were at her level, that is "find them" after they picked them up, showed them to her right in front of her face and then put them back in the spot for her to pick up.  She had a lot of fun.

The eggs were all stored in this grocery sack which Isabelle LOVED to dig into. 

And after all the eggs were found and after church we came home to find another Easter present.  The boy's former pre-school teacher, Ms. Stacey or as she's so fondly known now as Aunt Stacey, left them a gift that read, "Some Bunny Loves you..."  inside was a gift the boys went crazy over... as you can see below...

They got GUM, and LOTS and LOTS of gum.  Upon opening the gift to see that gum was inside he screamed, "I'm so excited I think my heads going to explode"  and by the looks of this picture he may have been right! 

So thankful they are so easily pleased.... can you tell they don't get gum very often?

It was a wonderful Easter again this year, and I have so many things to be thankful for.  I try to remember to tell myself each and every day but especially on the holidays, to cherish every moment, just looking at the pictures from last Easter to now, all three of them have grown so much and changed, I can hardly believe it.  I tell myself to cherish these times because they go sooooo quickly.

 

I hope each of you had a wonderful Easter and that your Easter basket overflows with blessings.

 

Until next time,

Angie

Sunday morning cartoons....

Another old post...

This morning mom and dad were very tired, but the boys and Isabelle were wide awake and ready to begin the day with some great cartoon watching....

Here's a few of them tuning in to watch the cartoons... and when they watch, they are really tuned in.  As I walked right near them and around right in front of the TV, the only one who even noticed me, (even though I was blocking their view) was Isabelle, but as I sat down again to get ready to take the picture, thus opening up their view again, all eyes became focused on the TV...



What a serious bunch of kiddos...

And here's me saying, "Okay, everyone look at me!"



After the third time of telling everyone to look, I finally got this one.

Until next time, Angie