A Little Pink Crayon

Isn't she adorable?

Winter 2003 in Germany

A couple of weeks ago I posted some pictures of Alley and Liam playing in the snow in our yard. I found these old ones on my computer and they reminded me of those pictures. These were taken one day when they were playing in the parking lot of our apartment building in Germany. I am not exactly sure when these were taken but my best guess is early 2003 which would make Liam about a year and a half old and Alley about four and a half. I know that was three years ago but I remember taking them out that day and it definitely doesn't seem like that long ago!

Good Books

Now that we have read the entire "Little House on the Prairie" series of books as well as the more fictionalized follow-up series that focuses on Laura Ingalls Wilder's daughter, Rose, Alley and I are now reading a series of books about a young girl named Elsie Dinsmore. These books were written in the mid 1800s and were very popular then. They were reprinted several years ago by a Christian company and I bought the set of twelve books after reading and enjoying the first two. I never did complete the series so when Alley wanted to read something else, we decided to give these a try. The series starts when Elsie is about seven or eight years old so I thought it would be good for Alley as Elsie is a very tenderhearted Christian little girl, desiring to please God in all things. It has a good plot and lots of interesting characters. It is set somewhere in the South and Elsie's grandfather is a wealthy plantation owner. I highly recommend these books and I think Alley would agree, as she asks me to read a chapter several times throughout each day. As soon as I sit down to feed the baby, she grabs her chance and asks, "Can you read?" We started reading these books about a month ago and we just began the fifth one today.

Alley has learned lots of new vocabulary words from these books and I have even learned one or two new words myself. We both have caught ourselves speaking as if we were characters in the story. One day Alley told me that something she was trying to do was "quite difficult" and another time I said something was "dreadful"! Even after this, I was surprised last night with how much she has picked up. She asked if she could have a small snack and I said she could and she said, " I am availing myself of the privilege ." After I stopped laughing, I was glad that she remembered a phrase like that and that she used it correctly in conversation. I love reading books aloud to her because it gives us something to do together that is worthwhile and something to talk about afterwards. I hope it continues even after she can read these big books on her own.

Bad Hair Day

Poor Dresden woke up this morning with a bad case of bed hair. The second picture shows it the best but I put the first one in too just because she looks so cute in it (and it does not have my foot in the background!) If she was a little older she would probably not be happy that I was posting pictures of her bad hair day on the internet for all to see but as long as she can't speak for herself, it's up to me!! :)

Refrigerator Theology

A couple of days ago, I came in to the kitchen, and saw this on the door of the refrigerator. (It DID say "God is good", as you might have figured out, and that is also the point of this post!) I don't know exactly what happened but my guess is that Dresden messed it up and Liam tried to fix it. Alley saw me looking at it and laughing a little and realized that it was wrong so she and Liam found the right magnets and fixed it together.

I like to use the refrigerator door as a place to put things that I want to remember. I have magnets there from different places we have traveled, coupons I don't want to forget about and several pictures of my friends and family, including one taken at my sister's wedding where I was wearing a dress in the smallest size I have worn since childhood. That picture is there to remind me to watch what I take out of the fridge if I ever want to lose the rest of this pregnancy weight and get back to that size! That picture is also there because my two sisters, my only two girl cousins, my daughter and my grandparents are also in it and I like to be reminded of special moments like those.

Back to the point of this post...God is good. And this is something that we need to remember and we need to teach it to our children. We have seen this clearly in our family this last month. Michael's survey job is very dependent on the weather and that can be a problem during this time of the year. This month was probably our lowest income month of our entire marriage, especially difficult with three children to provide for, but none of our bills were late or are overdue, the heat is on, and there is food in the fridge. God provided for us in some very amazing and timely ways. Just when we needed something and didn't have any idea where it was going to come from, it would be there. Many different people helped us this month in different ways and we are very thankful for their willingness to be used by Him for our good. We have been able to talk about this with our children and they have seen our prayers answered. I don't mean that God always gives all of His children whatever they want whenever they want it, He alone knows what is best for each of us and may choose to withhold something or He may allow something to happen to us which we cannot understand but our duty is to trsut Him regardless. He loves us and He works all things for our good.

This is what is on our refrigerator right now because it is something we all want to remember.

Fun in the Snow

As you can see, Alley and Liam had fun playing in the snow, the little bit we had, yesterday. The above picture is them trying to hit me with a handful of snow. It was by no means a "snowball". This is only the second time so far this winter that we have had any snow that stuck at all so they were trying to take advantage of it! Of course, they had big mugs of hot chocolate with lots of marshmallows when they came in...after all, isn't that the reason you play in the snow?

As I sat down to type this, Liam was in the room and he was singing a song. It was a song from a kids Bible song cd they have. He was singing,"God created what happens in the earth." As you might have guessed, the actual lyrics are, "God created the heavens and the earth." Both are very true!

Dresden just pulled up to and is standing by the chair next to mine. This is the second time she has done it so far this afternoon. She is very proud of herself but doesn't realize that if she lifts her hands up to bang on the seat of the chair with excitement at her accomplishment, she will lose her balance and fall. I am going to have to be very much on guard duty this week...starting now!

Lost Tooth

Alley lost one of her front teeth on Sunday. It was one that had been bothering her for awhile and she is glad it is finally gone! It was very loose that morning and she asked me to help her so I got her toothbrush and used it to gently move it forwards and back and it did get looser but still would not quite let go. After several minutes and some bleeding, she sought out her Daddy. He told her to try to pull it straight down real hard and she did try but it stayed in there. He asked if she wanted him to do it and she agreed that he could try. He grabbed it and quickly pulled down and out it came! She was very glad! I think that was her third tooth to lose. ( It was right next to a spot where she had a tooth pulled awhile ago so the space looks bigger than it normally would.)

And now for a laugh from Liam. Last night he was pretending to read one of Michael's Star Wars books on the couch while I was washing dishes and he said, "Mom, I can read R2D2. See, R..2..D..2...there's two 2s and a D and a R." I was thinking to myself that that was probably the longest commentary ever given on the actual name of R2D2 by a 4 year old and also how long it would take him to read the whole boook at that rate! I know that someday (much sooner than I would like) he will be reading long books like that for real and I hope he still wants to talk to me about what he is reading while I am doing the dishes. :)

Mobility Specialist

Dresden just turned 8 months old on January 3 and as you can see, she is already pulling up to things! She has been crawling for a couple weeks now and scooted across the floor on her belly for a while before that. I was not expecting her to be doing all of this yet, since my other two children were still mastering sitting up at this age. Unfortunately, she is trying to do things that she really is not big enough or strong enough to do yet and I am afraid that she is going to hurt herself in the process. She gets her feet underneath her and tries to stand but then she does not have the strength or balance to hold herself up and she falls or has to be rescued by someone. Right now, as I am writing this, she is trying to pull up to my chair and she just banged her head...she has also not figured out that she has to watch where her head is going to go if she stands up where she is! She is a very determined little girl and will most likely be the cause of my first gray hairs! We love her very much and are very glad that God put her in our family.

Old Friend, New Year

Going to Germany and leaving everyone and everything we knew behind was not easy but God gave us some very special blessings there, some "silver linings" as we like to call them, and one of those was our good friend, Jon. Michael met Jon a few months before the kids and I joined him in Bamberg and by the time I got there, they had spent many hours together working, eating, debating the finer points of theology, and traveling around Germany by train on the weekends. When we arrived in Germany and went to our new apartment for the first time we found a note written on a page in a spiral notebook laying on the coffee table addressed to me and Alley and Liam from Jon, welcoming us to Germany. It was a few days before we met him in person but since then he has been like family.

He spent most weekends at our house. He spent holidays with us and he spent almost a month with us when he was recovering from surgery on his foot. We took various train trips with him as well as a very quick road trip to Paris! He was always learning a language and trying, with limited success, to teach it to the kids. (This especially came in handy when trying to order from German menus!) He was always there to help carry Christmas decorations up to our third floor apartment from the storage room in the basement and to keep our dog when we traveled without him. He watched our kids so we could go out for our anniversary both years we were there. He even had his own account on our Windows XP. In short, he was a member of the family.

Michael last saw Jon in Germany in February of 2004 right before he left for Iraq. (Jon's injured foot kept him out of Iraq.) Liam and I saw Jon in March of 2004 when I went back to Germany to tie up loose ends before spending the rest of the year in the USA. Jon left the Army and Germany in the fall of 2004. Since Michael returned home earlier this year, Jon has been trying to get out here for a visit but due to many conflicts in all of our schedules, it didn't work out until last week. Jon arrived here on Wednesday, December 28 after spending Christmas in Georgia. From the minute he walked in the door, it was like old times. The kids warmed up to him within a few minutes, even Dresden,who he had not yet met. (The only exception was Piper, our dog. He worked very diligently to win her over with treats of all kinds but made little progress...maybe next time:) We had a different dog when we lived in Germany and she and Jon were fast friends but she has since passed away.)

We had many good conversations and lots of laughter, as well as some reminiscing of our Army/Germany days. Michael gave him a tour of Bristol/Abingdon and we spent New Year's Eve at my parent's house playing games and eating lots of good food with them and one of my sisters and her husband and baby boy. Shortly after the ball was dropped in Times Square, we headed home to try to get some sleep before church Sunday morning. Jon went with us to church and then headed out of town right after. He is now back home in warm and sunny Waco, Texas. It was a wonderful visit and we hope to repeat it more than once in 2006!

Happy New Year!