To My Love

I think this song says so much. Rest and let the words penetrate you heart, mind and soul. I love you Steven.

Technology of the future.

Calvin is sitting on the couch.....asking my I pod questions....in time I am sure....but not yet... :)

Calvin makes me laugh.

The other evening while our family was having our evening family devotions the kids asked if they could start off by singing the books of the bible song. We think it is adorable when they sing this all together, and even getting through this song normally without confusion is a crack up!
On this particular evening, Sydney's voice had died off right at Song- of- Sol-o-men. Calvin went on with
Isaiah, Jeremiah, Lamentations, Ezekiel, Daniel.....then paused, looked at us with one eyebrow up and his head cocked a bit and said with total seriousness the name of the book in the bible that he assumed had to be next...Travis?
So, most of you will get why this is so funny, but for those of you who don't, lots of our friends choose names for their children from the bible or from the books of the bible. Most of these names, with the exception of Lamentations (so far... just kidding!) he knows as friends, so the logical name next in line was of course Travis, not Hosea, Joel, Amos, Obadiah. Jonah, Micah, Na-hum, Habakakuk, Zephani-ah. Haggai, Zechariah, and the last book Malachi!
Anyway, I'm sure had we not all stopped to giggle he would have gone on with Christian, Caleb, Luke, Jake, Elijah, Augustine!

Beach day

We love the beach. I can't believe that last week was the first time we went all summer! We will being going more soon, as the summer comes to an end.
The summer flew by. I can't believe that school is starting up already. I don't know how that happened. thankfully we love the beach in the fall. The water is warm, everyone else is at work or school and we get a beautiful warm sandy beach all to ourselves. We look forward to the fall all year. The whole summer Sydney has been reminding me of how she is ready for fall and is thrilled that September is here.  
Sydney will be starting 2nd grade and Calvin, although still not old enough to be in Kindergarten officially, will be starting up a kindergarten like school year. We will see how that goes!

Check out GROUPON

This is a newer coupon site called Groupon. They have some deeply discounted prices on a range of items. It's kinda one of those sites you check out and if they have something you need you are scoring a great deal. If you don't need it and are still purchasing it then even if it is deeply discounted, it is still a waste of money.

Anyway, check it out and sign up. It is super quick and easy. If you sign up through this link then I will earn 10 groupon dollars. ( I actually don't even know what that means yet!) If you sign up then you can refer your friends and earn 10 groupon dollars too! If anyone signs up through me I will tell you if the groupon dollars do anything wonderful or not. Check it out. See what kind of special savings you can find!

Water Play

This little one is so much fun. He is very happy and is so easy to care for. He loves his big sisters and big brother and they adore him too!

It has been great having a pool this summer. Sydney and Calvin are excellent swimmers now that they have been able to practice all summer long. Calvin even taught himself to dive and is pretty good at it. I keep trying to convince him to try a back dive but he's not quite ready yet. He just likes to tell me to try one then laugh at how silly I look attempting to hurl myself backwards and somewhat resemble the back diving of my youth! Yes I said youth, back dives don't come easy as the years go by!

Sydney loves jumping in too but doesn't dare try anything fancy. She likes cannon balls just fine.

I don't know how this picture turned out this way but it looks kinda neat.  Anyway, Jaclynn loves the pool too and will often be heard singing "Come on get on the board with the Lord and let's ride! Wiping out with a crash! In the tube what a splash! I'm on the board with the Lord, living to do God's will!" You know, the Jana Alyra song. It's hysterical. I think she sings it while she swims as part of her safety net. When she first started getting in the pool this summer she would slowly let go of me then swim around saying "I not scared, I not scared, I not scared!" And say it the whole time she swam! Now, it's the song.   It is pretty cute to watch. She is a fun little two year old.

He makes me smile so much! He will be eight months in just a couple of days. I love this age, he is so sweet and cute! He's almost crawling.He makes it from one end of the room to the other but not by official crawling yet. I think we will see the real thing soon.

Thats it for now. More to come soon.

I have been going back and forth about what to post next. I have summer updates and pictures of the kids and Steven's 30th birthday to write about. I knew I couldn't post anything else about the summer though until I posted about our loss. Sadly, at almost 15 weeks pregnant, we lost our baby.

Honestly, it was devastating. But God, in His goodness and mercy toward me and my family has held us up through it all. We have been showered with love from friends and family and our church. We had lots of meals and help with the kids and the house. We also enjoyed visitors just stopping by to visit with us and keep us going. It has been so much easier to handle with all of the support around us and we are very grateful.

We don't know why God chose to give us the special blessing of a baby and then take it away. We do know that "...for those who love God all things work together for good, for those who are called according to His purpose." Romans 8:28 Thankfully, this is where we rest. We have full confidence in the plans He has made for us and are looking to the future with hope and excitement for what comes our way. Good or bad. We want what is His will. That doesn't mean it is easy to accept the hard stuff. Just makes it a little more bearable.