I didn’t realize how long it’s been since I posted pictures. So here’s enough to make your eyeballs bleed. These are from the first of the month after the kids spent a week with Papa & Grandmere and had a blast!
I won’t beat around the bush so here it is!
In March, we will meet our newest little
Malachi Ian to be exact. Yep, we finally worked Ian into a name! Malachi has been one of Mark’s favorite names for awhile now. We had started out with another name but when I mentioned Malachi Ian, Mark was all for it.
Malachi means “messenger of God” and Ian means “God is gracious.” We truly feel blessed to have little Malachi growing strong and healthy. God has graciously blessed us with this little one (and all of our little ones) and we are reminded of that more each day.
The five oldest went with us to the ultrasound and they were all excited! Ceili Rain wasn’t sure what to think and now she wants to see the baby all the time. She is still insisting that he is a princess but she’s slowly realizing that we are talking about something totally different and is working around to calling him Malachi.
*And big thanks to Tracy for taking this quick shot with my rinky dink camera (and not her way super cool slr) so I could put it up on the blog tonight! We’ll do it right when family pictures roll around!
This afternoon, I told Ceili Rain I wanted a hug and kiss and asked her where they went.
“I don’t know! Maybe the lion ate them.”
So, I told her she better find that lion because I wanted a hug and kiss and a chase began only to be ended quickly because we realized daddy was home and a daddy trumps lion chasing any day.
And since daddy was home, she had to follow him in to our closet where she spotted my dresses.
She came out with one hand on her hip and the other over her mouth grinning.
“I saw your princess dresses, Mommy!”
Mark said she spotted my dresses hanging up and asked in wide eyed wonder, “Are those Mommy’s princess dresses?”
I have proof she’s silly and fun and just adorable.
I’ve still got the clothes boxes down from the Great Seasonal Swap Out. She found a pair of one of the boy’s swimshorts and decided she need to pretend to go swimming.
Here’s the result:
Someone please tell me how to get blogger to realize I’ve saved and uploaded my pictures the right way!
Pay no attention to the overturned shopping cart, toys, puzzles and other various things scattered all over my floor. This is real life people! I will clean up if you come over though. Well, most of the time. For now, let’s just focus on the most adorable 2 year old around.
A sweet mom brought pudding for the Cubbies to snack on at church. Ceili Rain is half a cubbie so she gets to go in and do all they do only she doesn’t get a vest or patches. Anyway, I asked her if she had thanked the mom and she said she hadn’t so she went to do it. And she did, and the mom was talking to someone else and they were trying to make sure they got her name right. The mom asked her, “Ceili Rain, is that your name?” Ceili Rain shook her head yes and then slowly shook it no. The mom asked, “Well, what’s your name?” “I a princess,” is how she responded.
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Ceili Rain got up one morning this week and said, “Where’s my baby? Oh dere it is.” And pointed to my belly. I asked her if the baby was a girl or boy. “A girl. No, no, no. I jus’ kiddin’. Da baby is goin’ to be a pwincess!” I just pray she’ll be okay if the baby turns out to be a prince.
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If we (she) lose something of Ceili Rain’s and you ask her where it is. She’ll say, “I don’t know. Maybe the lion ate it.” We’re not sure where the lion is hiding but we’ve never met him. He does, however, release them eventually because we typically find them.
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If she feels like something is itchy like a nose or a fly, then a ladybug is to blame. For instance, she got something in her eye and was scratching it and she said, “Mommy, a ladybug is in my eye.”
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Everything belongs to Ceili Rain…my baby, my Bryant, my daddy, my mommy, etc. She’s happy to share us but we’re all hers. And I’m okay with that!
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We’ve heard that last week while Mom and Dad were away that Ceili Rain was either talking or singing which is typical here too. She loves to sing “Hold my heart…mama…dada” and is learning “Jesus loves me” The “Hold my heart” is probably because we all enjoy listening to Jamie Grace. When we hear her song on the radio, she’ll yell out, “Jamie Grace! Mama! Jamie Grace!” She’s going to be super bummed that we can’t take her with Zoe and I to their concert.
We’ll just turn up this video really loud and pretend we’re at a concert.
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I want to remember some of Bryant’s words at 14 months so I’m writing them down here. Ignore my mommy brain trying to dump.
-Roll Tide: “oooo tide.”
-Amen: he thinks that’s how we should begin and end prayers and he’ll even fold his hands!
-Mama and Daddy and he knows it now!
-ball: one of his favorite words
-go: when racing down the hall
-ready, set, go which comes out “uh, uh, goooo!” when he really wants to race or he’s throwing the ball down the hall
-Ace: and if Ace slips out to take the trash Bryant will stand at the door and call him. Word has it he called for Ace a lot last week while mommy and daddy were away.
-Zoe: o-e
-Josiah: Diah
-Ceili Rain: a-a (Cei Rai)
-Raffe: ra-e (Ceili Rain’s giraffe
-Paci: Papi
-Papa: for Papa
-Grandmere:mandmere
-hi
-bye
-uh oh
-more: mo
-doggy: goggy
And a few more I can’t remember right now.
At our church, if the father of the house is a Christian, he is encouraged to be the one to baptize his children and those under his house. The premise being that the husband should be the head of the home especially in spiritual matters. Mark and I had never really thought much about him baptizing our children until we started attending this church. After looking through the Bible, we realized that God’s word does not say, “Thou shalt be ordained within the ministry of the church to baptize others.” And realized what a blessing this would be to us and to our children if he baptized them.
So, Ace was the first one to be baptized by his father. And it all happened last Sunday. And, believe it or not, I did not cry buckets of tears. Mainly, I was too worried that my camera would die before I could get pictures and video.
But it didn’t! And I did get pictures and video!
And I’m so thrilled (are you tired of seeing And’s at the beginning of my sentences?)!
We had a lot of firsts that day…church at the lake under a pavilion in the semi cool weather. Ace getting baptized. Our kids and us having a wonderful time of fellowship and amazing food afterwards (no joke…at the end of this pregnancy they’re going to have to roll me around if our church keeps fixing amazing food).
Labor Day weekend our local (okay, it’s only local because it’s the closest one and it’s about 45 minutes away), drive-in shows a ton of movies. Last year, we were able to see two kids movies for very cheap. This year, they only played one. And I tried to express my dislike in that. However, we were able to get home before midnight so it worked out good! We surprised them with the trip and they were all thrilled.
I, however, was less than thrilled as they played on the playground and I got attacked by fire ants. That was none too fun.
Anyway, they all enjoyed the pre-show playground and the during show snacks. And then we high tailed it out of there before the other movies started.
This was Bryant’s second drive in movie. The first he was but a mere babe and totally didn’t care one way or the other as long as he got fed and relaxed.
We were blessed with decent weather too! It was a slight bit warm before the sun went down but cooled off considerably afterwards. Even though it’s a drive-in, it was still too warm to sit in cars so the chairs and blankets came out!
It’s been awhile since I posted a pillow diving photo time, so we’re all due. Aren’t you all excited? Mark, of course, is responsible for these awesome action shots!
We took advantage of the change to not so humid weather and went bike riding in the not too far distant past.
I’ve not kept it a secret that Liam is a challenging kid to work with. He’s set in his ways and knows what he wants to do. And he gets very upset when what he wants to do doesn’t comply with what I want to do. I say he’s passionate…about everything. And, well, it’s hard most days. We work really hard at focusing our heads and hearts on God. Sometimes we work overtime with Liam. He’s an amazing kid and is going to do some amazing things.
But, it happened today. It all started with Liam waking up, getting dressed, grabbing his clean clothes and putting them up. It continued with Liam starting school with a joyful heart and only needing a few reminders throughout the day to have a joyful heart. It was so odd that I called Mark at work to see if something happened last night while I was out to have him change his attitude. He said nothing.
And he’s not sick! Woohoo!
And I praised…and praised…and praised. We talked a lot about how his attitude was effecting everyone else today. We talked about how we please God and others with joyful hearts, etc. So, as we were talking, I asked him if we could keep this Liam.
He replied, “You have to!”
And I wouldn’t have it any other way.
I continued to talk to him and then he just popped up, “I love you mama!”
And that’s more than my hormonal heart can handle and I just cried.
I love this little boy dearly and I’m fully aware that tomorrow we may wake up and have to work harder than ever to keep joyful hearts and practice immediate obedience. But today, today I saw that God is working in his (and my) heart. We both are seeking Him and wanting to please Him. Today, God showed me that He is here and that He is in control. I’d love to take credit for his good day. But I can’t. Only through God’s love did we have a day like today!
Now on to rest for whatever challenges await us tomorrow!
It’s now a month until we have the ultrasound, so we want to know what you think…will Seven be a boy or girl? Here’s some clues that may or may not help:
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We decided to go to Ikea on the way home from visiting my parents. We went with the kids. For the first time. I was a bit nervous and it was packed. And, we had some digestive issues with one child which resulted in me running through most of the store holding that child’s hand searching for the bathroom. That wasn’t fun. Besides that, the kids thought it was really really cool and they get big props from me for being totally family friendly even down to the parking!
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While in Ikea I told Mark that I had seriously been considering moving the school room into the living room and moving the living room to our bonus room. For once, he didn’t make a shock and awe face and agreed that it just might work.
Now, we are trying to figure out how to do it. It’s going to be a challenge but if we can get it to work and make it look nice (our living room is the room you see when you walk into our house), then it’ll work.
Either way, we’re committed to it because we moved our giant sleeper sofa down to the playroom and there’s no way my pregnant self is going to try and lug that thing back up the two steps!
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I’m anticipating a wonderful night out with other moms from our homeschool care group. So excited to get some mom time to visit with these amazing ladies!
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If I’m going to leave this house sans kids, I had better get supper done asap.
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Before I go, make sure you go to my actual blog and leave your opinion about what our baby is!