Nathan writes us lettes

Recently Nathan has gotten into writing us letters.  He's learning so quickly in first grade and is excited by this new freedom of expression.  He also is very artistic, and made us each a Christmas present.  This morning he was handing out his Christmas presents and said, "Now remember, if it looks like a little kid made these, I did." :) Also in his Christmas gifts to Jimmy & me was the following letter:

"It is os helpfall when you help me!  As I growe up you help me, and I help you! But we all Love echathir.  Even when you unoy me I stil Love you and oba.  It is fun too live heer.  Love: Nathan"

Did you understand all of that?  No?  I needed just a smidge of translation, too.  So here it is:

It is so helpful when you help me!  As I grow up you help me, and I help you.  But we all love each other.  Even when you annoy me I still love you and obey.  It is fun to live here.  Love: Nathan

I think my favorite line is the part about us annoying him.  I think the letter was to the whole family so we're going to go with he was talking about his brothers.....Usually his letters are full of thanks for us loving him even when he's disobedient.  He's a sweet (and hilarious) little boy.

Christmas decorations and a little tour of our house

Here's a little peek at our house. I've included pictures of some Christmas decorations as well as general pictures of the house. You can assume that if you don't see a picture of it (the kitchen for example!!), it was too messy to photograph ;)

Near the bottom you'll see two pictures of a room that looks somewhat empty (but has the black piano). That's the two halves if what I think is supposed to be the formal living room. We don't have much furniture for it so for now it's the boys' art room and my piano room :)

More pictures of the house to come when the rooms are cleaned up enough to photograph!!

He has a sweet heart

I have to share a story about Nathan from this week that has made me very proud to be his mother, and has also been very humbling to know how powerfully God is working in his young heart.  A few days ago I was driving all four boys somewhere by myself and I started talking about how great Jimmy is as a husband and dad.  I was exhorting them to learn well from him.  Nathan was concerned about several things--how was he going to learn to be a good husband and dad?  Those things seem hard to a 6-year-old!  And here was the winner (out of nowhere), "How will I learn how to spend my money?!" So he and I had a brief conversation about wise spending habits, the number one being that we always first give part of our money to God.

Fast forward to this weekend.  Jimmy had a few jobs at church he said he'd pay Nathan to do (at the whopping rate of $1 a day!).  By Saturday night Nathan had $3.  He told me he wanted to give one of his dollars to church, referencing our previous conversation that we always give our firstfruits to God.  (And 33%--quite the offering!)  Then he said that instead of giving me a paper dollar, he'd give me four quarters, "because if I give a paper dollar, the church can only give it to one person, but if I give four quarters, the church can give it to four people."  I ended up carrying 10 dimes into worship, at his request, to put in the offering.  I admit that since no one else knew the story I felt a little foolish putting 10 dimes into the offering basket.  But the sincerity of this child, and how pleased God is with his simple act of obedience, nearly brought me to tears.

This Is How We Welcome The Weekend

It was Friday night. They were high on McDonald's and frozen yogurt. And we all love weekends. Happy boys make for happy parents.

Because They're Cute

These boys are fun. Loud, silly, loving, energetic, and an amazing blessing from the Lord. Come visit any time you want to partake in the craziness :)

What should we do with our jungle?

Our back yard looks like a jungle. Ok maybe it IS a jungle. We can tell that once upon a time it was a nice yard. There seems to be the remains of a fern garden and some hostas with a brick outline.

But no one has lived here for several years. It's very overgrown and seems like a big job to us. We aren't sure what to do or, more importantly, how to do it. What can we do ourselves? What should we have someone else do?

So now you can give us some pointers. The yard is all shade and has a lot of ivy. It doesn't have grass but does have some non-ivy ground cover. Here are some pics to get you started!

Oh and that last pic is just for fun. If you look closely you can see a brick building. It is an abandoned, broken down old building that we think was at one time the community pool building! It is actually kind of creepy!

A day at the park

I am trying something new: a blog post from my phone! Maybe this way I'll blog more? Anyway, today we took the boys to the park for a picnic lunch. We're trying to get our errands and chores done during the week so we can just have fun the one day everyone is home. This was an easy outing but Nathan's already requested the aquarium sometime! I know this isn't the most exciting post ever but it will at least serve as updated pictures of my four little men. :)