tiny highlights... 2011

Oh my goodness... how did I manage to let ELEVEN months pass by without updating our family blog??? We started this blog a few years ago to help far away family and friends to stay connected to what's happening: to allow them to watch our "little arrows" grow. Please forgive me for not posting even a single picture in the last year (ok, 11 months, but it might as well have been a year).

I think to post something on the blog soooo often but it doesn't make the priority cut-off by the end of most days when it comes down to the last load of dishes to wash, a chance to hit that last bit of ministry work, spending a few more minutes with my super sweet husband, oh and trying to go to SLEEP!

Still, I am going to give it one more try before I give up altogether. So, to that end, here's a quick few pics taken throughout 2011 and a few precious moments pulled from my mommy journal so you can see the kids grow.

some SPRING 2011 PICS:

Here are the kids playing in the backyard. There's a funny story in this pic and I don't mean N with the toy dump truck bed on his head... I had the brilliant idea to write the Fruit of the Spirit (Gal 5:22-23) on the back fence with sidewalk chalk, assuming that at the first rain it would wash away. It didn't. It rained several times. But, that sidewalk chalk didn't budge. Then I tried to just brush it away with a broom. Nope. It was set in for sure. FINALLY I had to get a bucket, a stiff brush, AND soap and scrub the words off of the fence. If I had written them more neatly, I would have left them up there, but it wasn't my neatest. The chalk did wash off but so did several years of fence dirt. So, even a full year later, the "clean" spots on the fence remain visible. Lol! Oh well! I do NOT intend to scrub the entire fence!

Easter Sunday 2011

The annual battle on the living room floor. We move the couch off the blank wall, spread a white sheet on the floor, open all the blinds, position the camera, and then I hit that 10 second timer button and the fun begins. An hour and half later we usually find one pic on the camera that we're satisfied with 'cause the kids are all out of sit and smile power!

J (4 years old)

J with PT's parents a.k.a. Grandmother and Papa!

Mommy and her four on the first 76 degree day of the spring... Daddy was behind the camera. (Pardon my house-shoes... it was after church and I had already shed the less comfy shoes and the little white shrug that covered my shoulders that day.)

J dancing in her beloved boots! We had to buy new boots for her bday 2012 because she outgrew this pair in November of 2011 and what a sad few months those were. She actually had to wear other shoes! :0)

Judah sweet Judah!

Esther outside on a mat.

Esther outside on the exercise mat.

The boys working on their "collection." It's a bucket on the back porch full of leaves, sticks, acorns and rocks. Yep. It makes them happy and the bucket has a lid, so nothing else gets in there, which makes this anti-bug momma happy.

Esther throws her head back when she laughs. It's not so bad when she's sitting, but when she's standing she sometimes throws it back so hard that she knocks herself off balance and tips over. This, of course, leads to more laughing!

Esther loves to pull containers out of the recycling trash. Oh well, cheap fun, and it's all washed out before it goes in there anyway.

some Summer and Fall 2011 pics:

Nana and Esther on Nehemiah's 6th bday. No party, just us and nana for this one. We made party hats though!

N's bday gift: a bike his legs fit... we waited way too long to move him up bike sizes. Oops.. he's so much more comfy and much faster on his bigger bike.

The kids took 12 weeks of swim lessons from our dear friend Jordan this summer. Even Esther learned survival skills in case she falls into water. YAY! (She had fallen on the sidewalk the day before this pic was taken... even with scratches, isn't she CUTE! :0)

B leaping in to take a lap with Jordan, world's best swim teacher, right there to help!

A playday with the cousins (my sister's kiddos and their doggie, Star).

Another swim lesson day. Judah learning to dive in!

N and J practicing kicking.

A day at the park. (This pic was taken at the end of our day... hence the sleeping Esther!)

At the park.

Fall... and our first trip to the State Fair of Texas! Who knew they'd like it sooooo much! This was at an exhibit that taught how produce is grown on farms and then arrives in a store. 30 minutes to go through, and lots of steps and teaching activities... they learned a LOT!

Flying at the fair!

SWEET MOMENTS of our 2011 (praise the Lord for my mommy journal or I'd have no idea):

• (March 2011) Nehemiah asking for manilla paper to draw on: "Can I have some vanilla paper?"
• (May 2011) Esther took her first steps on May 5 and was a fully independent walker by May 15! What a cutie! I love those early steps (even if it takes til you're 13 months old to see them)!
• (June 2011) Judah says, matter of factly, "I think Gypsy (the cat) is in her glitter box." (I loved that one so much that I didn't even correct it til the third time it came up!)
• (June 2011) Benjamin is "all boy" so much so that he wipes kisses off with his hand most of the time. So, he crawled up in my lap on the couch one night and kissed my cheek. He looked up at me for a minute, then said, "I like it when you kiss my cheeky. I won't wipe it off. Really, I won't." What a sweet way for him to say he loves me!

ARGUABLY THE BEST TWO MOMENTS OF OUR 2011!!!

• (August 2011) Judah and Benjamin both prayed the prayer of salvation, just one week apart! On a drizzly Saturday morning, (Aug 13, 2011) Benjamin rode with me to a Christian charter school closing sale to look at the available curriculum they had available. On the way, he asked me about Jesus and the cross so we discussed the topic as we had countless times before. At the end of our talk, as always, I asked him if he'd like to pray to ask Jesus to be his forever friend, his Lord and Savior, so that he could spend his forever in heaven with Jesus. And this time he said, "Yes, I would like to pray that." So when I parked the car, we stepped out, squatted in a drizzly parking lot, held hands and prayed a prayer of salvation!
• Judah prayed a prayer of salvation a week later on August 19, 2011. Benjamin and Nehemiah had spent the week talking with her about asking Jesus to be their forever friend. She had questions all week about it and asked to pray with me one afternoon following our school time. What an amazing and JOYFUL thing it is to watch your children change from lost and condemned to eternal separation from God, to FOUND in Christ and eternity with King Jesus!

Love and JOY,

t

one

How can it be? Our youngest little arrow celebrates turning ONE YEAR old today! Wasn't she just born? Wow! E' is amazing! She just started crawling a couple of weeks ago, so she's in no hurry to stop being our baby. She's into soft solid foods and has 1 and half teeth (the second tooth is still on it's way out).

Her personality is all JOY just like her mommy's! She doesn't really cry or fuss unless she's hungry or needs a diaper change. She loves to discover new things -- anything really :0) -- a scrap of paper found on the floor is a major treasure to E! She loves to talk! She says, "mom mom," "daddy," "kitty cat," "Nee-my-uh" (when she's calling biggest brother), "Ju-ah" (when she wants her sister), "Nana," "Yes," and her newest words, "Hi," and "uh oh." Ha! She doesn't say B's name yet. She just points or pulls on his pant leg :0)

I love watching her sibs love on her! Eszi (ya know how I have to nickname!) is pure delight! I marvel at the way people smile when she captures their eye. I am forever handing her off to someone we meet who just wants to cuddle her for a minute. She's in ministry already, dispensing love and JOY with her adorable smile and sparkling eyes wherever she goes!

Thank you Lord for the wonder of your creation as we watch E' grow into a beautiful little girl. May she come to understand and desire a personal relationship with our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, so that her eternity might be spent glorifying You! And may that desire come to fruition soon and very soon!

Look at me being beautiful! Mommy's precious friend, Miss J', sent this super cute number as my welcome baby present! I am ooey gooey cute in it and it's soooo soft!!!

This is my brother's submarine. I LOVE it! No baby toys for me!

I am too fancy in my crazy pajamas!

this was taken one year and one day ago...
as we welcomed this little masterpiece into our world...


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ohh... and about the blog... I know I'm sooo slow and terrible about posting regularly! It's my heart intention to post at least once a month. Sorry I missed posting Christmas pics and winter pics... I have some that may appear in the next few weeks just 'cause they're cute, but I won't promise :0/ Thanks for extending grace as I endeavor to do better and be more consistent! -- all JOY, t...

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girls girls girls

Eszi is getting older every minute! Here are some of her super cutest recent pics!

She loves to gum carrot sticks and celery sticks! Odd, but fun.


"playing" with B.
Sweet B' LOVES to play with E beside him. He asks us to bring her over and he'll pat the spot where he wants her to sit. She just started sitting this week by the way, but I haven't taken a good pic yet.


She watches me cook and wash dishes from her high chair.


all giggles! I wish this one was a video clip so you could hear her totally contagious laugh!
N loves for her to wear this outfit because it has so many shades of blue which is currently his signature color!
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J' likes to choose her look for the day. She's bold, creative, courageous and ALL J!!! Here's a particularly bright look ;0) It did all match, so what could I say. You go girl! Work it! hee hee!

Thanks again to my sweet friend N' who shared these fun boots with J' when her little lady's feet outgrew them earlier this summer. J' LOVES them and they definitely make a statement!



I needed to trim J's ends. The split ends had taken over and were impeding growth, but with super curly hair that doesn't even straighten when wet, it was easier to flat iron it and then trim the ends. So, she was pressed and smooth-curled for a day. So cute.

The finished product. She was so pleased because she thought her bangs looked like the front of Nana's hair (she's right... yay for nana-love!)

Common J' sighting... she loves puzzles! She'll sit and solve the same one 4 or 5 times in a row.

You may have noticed a serious lack of B' pics on the blog... I really do try to take pics of B', but he rarely sits still and he has no desire to pose, so pics of him tend to look like blurs, the back of his head as he high-tails it away, him sleeping, or he's making weird faces. I'm working on it though!

and the heavens rejoiced

On November 2, 2010 our precious N' asked how he could go to "God's heaven." We were completing a Bible lesson about God's faithfulness based on the story of Joseph and his brothers. He asked about how God could forgive Joseph's brothers for doing such a bad thing (selling Joseph and then lying about it). Soooo we talked again about sin (which we've discussed several times before) and about Jesus, the cross, and resurrection. He said, "that was bad" about the scourging and the cross and then said "that was pretty nice" about Jesus' willingness to suffer and die so that he could take the punishment for our sins. I explained (not for the first time) that Jesus did all that so that we could enter heaven when we die and spend forever with God.

So, N' asked how he could go to God's heaven when he dies. (I love how he kept calling it that.) So we talked it all through and he said that he loved Jesus and he was sorry for doing things that make God sad (sin) and that he wanted to ask Jesus to come into his heart. Oh I wanted to melt into a puddle of happy tears on the spot, but instead I said we should wait and talk to daddy about it when he got home from work.

So, we waited and I called PT to let him know there was an exciting conversation to have once he got home. It was a looooongggg night. N' tried to ask PT about it at dinner but it was just not a great time to doublecheck that he understood it all with the other kids interrupting every few minutes, so we just had to wait.

Finally at bedtime we put everyone down and then pulled N' out for a few minutes. PT talked with him to see where his heart was at and to make sure he understood what he was asking to do. I was there too and it was so sweet to hear him talk about it all. When PT asked him if he loved Jesus he said, "Of course I love Jesus." Hee hee! That's a good answer!

Anyway, we all talked through it all again right down to explaining again that you just need to pray and tell God that you love him, that you're sorry for making God sad by sinning, that you believe that Jesus died on the cross to take the punishment for your sins, and that He was made alive again three days later, that you want Jesus to come into your heart, and that you want to spend forever with God. Then PT told him that he could tell God those things any time and that he and mommy would be glad to help him do that.

AND THEN PT asked him if he wanted to pray that prayer. AND HE WANTED TO! So, I sat on a couch in a room in a house and listened as my beloved husband helped my precious son become a believer!!!

where oh where is autumn?

We keep waiting and waiting for fall to arrive... and it just doesn't come. Well, we had a week of fall, but then it was summer again. They say it's going to be fall again at the end of this week. We'll see. :0) The leaves are falling though, and the kids LOVE to collect them and show us each and every leaf. It seems each one is more exciting than the last and then they're excited about how many they've collected. B likes to say, "We got a whole bunch of it." Hee hee!

Here are some more pics of the kids that haven't made it online yet. I'm playing catch-up on blogging today and just trying to cover the months I've missed. My goal is to put something fresh up every couple of weeks or at least once a month.

Here's E' looking cute!

N finally likes bike-riding.


While N rides, the rest of us walk along. J wanted to bring her baby doll along since I had E in the stroller.

E is sooo impressed with textures. She loves soft things, but a new texture is fun too. She loved touching the grass!

J keeps trying to hit that ball every time. B is much more consistent at it, but J doesn't give up trying. N prefers to turn the bat upside down and pretend it's a guitar :0)