Here's to Hoping They Never Change

I was looking out the kitchen window while washing the dishes yesterday and I saw something so cute, I had to go out and take some pictures. (It kind of reminded me of one of my favorite country songs that says "I've been here and everywhere, seen paintings brushed by the hand of God/But the view I love the most is my front porch looking in")

And here's something (I swore I would never do) that's slightly ridiculous and totally adorable at the same time...

I've just been pretty enamored with my kiddos lately...I just want to freeze them in time!  I know I'm going to blink and they are going to be big enough to shave and go places by themselves and (heaven forbid) ride motorcycles.

But right now, I love the excitement they get over new dresses from yard sales and swings in the yard...

And how cute this one looks all dressed up in her pretty dress that grandma sent her

My kids pick their noses a lot...just an FYI

And how they think it's really exciting to read their Bibles, even if they can't read yet...

And how good of friends they are and how hard they play...

And wrestling time (otherwise known as Total Domination) that happens almost every night.  I don't want them to get too big and grown up to be on the bed together like that!  (Already they do chest hair inspections on themselves when they have their shirts off...ew).

And I don't ever want to give up the snuggles and reading "Goodnight Moon" (and looking for the mouse on every page).

But I do like going to the park and sitting on a blanket and watching them play...not having to hover over them because they are too small to climb by themselves.

And I do love watching them gain new skills and develop their own interests...

And watching them make their first real friends besides each other is really sweet...

But still, I don't want them to get self-conscious and embarrassed about playing dress-up and make-believe!

And I don't want to keep taking it for granted that their answer to "What do you want to play?" will always be "With you!".

Even though I don't want them to grow, I know there are other flavors of motherhood to come...like hearing them share their own thoughts and ideas, watching them learn to make good choices that aren't based on immediate rewards, and seeing them have families of their own (okay, that's way too far in the future...I got a little carried away). This weekend, Jeremy got to baptize some youth group students at church. Our kids sat front and center on the stage to watch--Evan was first a little appalled at the thought of Daddy dunking people underwater, but after the first one, he announced loudly (from the front row, remember?) "Oh, we go under for WAY longer than them!" as if it were a swimming competition. Despite my children's un-pious reactions, a sweet moment transpired when Jeremy introduced a couple fathers who baptized their young teenage daughters. There wasn't a dry eye in the place as one of the father's said in a voice broken with emotion, "I baptize you, my sister and my daughter." I held tight to Annie on my lap (mostly because she kept lifting up her dress and showing her underwear to the rest of the church), but also because though I desperately want her to stay little, I know that the day I see her grow (hopefully) into a young lady who loves Jesus will be a day of great tears and celebration.

Who Needs Pinterest When You Have a Sam

I told Sam we were going to have a Passover celebration on the Saturday before Easter (I know, we were a day late, it was Passover "Observed" because Friday night was when Jeremy's parents were arriving). Sam pretty much planned and executed much of the special things pictured below:

He painted some wood with blood on one side and not on the other, so you could flip it around depending on how obedient the family inside was to God's command to cover the doorposts with the blood of a spotless lamb to cause the Angel of death to pass over the house and not kill the firstborn child while the Israelites were slaves in Egypt (think Prince of Egypt if you are not familiar with the story). Much to his grandmother's horror surprise, I let him make a cutout of a small child with a smile and open eyes on one side and crossed out eyes, sad face and arms folded on the flip side and we would play angel of death and look inside the house to see if the firstborn had died. It was really educational and a little morbid.


I made matzah bread from scratch which was a little stressful because all the recipes I found online said I HAD to make it in 16 minutes or less from start to finish, and I felt like generations of Jewish grandmothers were going to frown on me if I did it in 17 minutes.

(It wasn't very good, storebought is much better)

Jeremy led us in an abbreviated Seder dinner. The kids liked the parsley dipped in saltwater much better than I thought they would. I should have gotten the horseradish, too.That afternoon, Sam worked really hard to make three crosses out of chopsticks (come on, you work with whatcha got) and he let Evan find a good rock to roll over the entrance to the tomb (flower pot buried in the rocks). They put Pirate Jesus inside ("Mom, it was the only guy who sort of had no shirt and a sad face.") and Sam was so excited to see if he was still in the tomb on Easter morning.


He wasn't!

(Of course I did it while he was sleeping, and the other creatures gathered around in awe and excitement was my added touch. Sam really came up with everything else on his own!)

When I asked Sam on Saturday night how he would have felt if he had been one of Jesus' disciples and watched him die on Friday and nothing happened on Saturday, he replied with a shrug of his shoulders:

"If I had been with him and heard him teach and saw him do all those miracles, I think I would have just believed him!"

I'll close with a photo progression of Saturday, April 14th at 1 pm to Monday, April 16th at 10 am:

Instead of opening day for Evan, our family's first T-ball player, we were building a snowgirl in the backyard.

Instead of going to the gym, I got my exercise building a sledding hill in the front yard. I was so proud of it that I texted my neighbor, Brooke, to bring her girls down to sled with us

After I suggested that we were being buried alive by the heavy snowfall,
Sam appears to believe me as shown by the look on his face

Sunday morning we took the sleds out for a little pre-church spin (yes, we were late, but that's not uncommon for us, even on non-sledding mornings)

We did use sleds, this is just at the end when I let them ruin the run by sliding down like penguins

Annie supervised the proceedings from safe inside in her pajamas and sunglasses

45 hours after the snowgirl was made, 24 hours after she had still been standing at full height:

Right after I took this picture, Brooke texted me to see if she and the kids could take me up on my offer to come sledding. I had to tell her to bring their own sleds because, sadly, they would be sledding on rocks, not snow.