Family funnies

On the way to church this morning, Christopher (almost 8) asked, "What does GOR-met mean?"

"Huh? How do you spell it?"

"G-O-U-R-M-E-T."

"OH, you mean 'gourmet'. That means fancy and delicious food."

-pause-

"Then they shouldn't have that word describing the food at Panda Express."

Appalled but laughing, I asked, "You mean you saw that word on a sign for Panda Express?!? That's what I call false advertising!"

Christopher then said, "In his spare time, the owner of Panda Express needs to try the food at 3-6-9 Chinese BBQ."

That's my boy. Start 'em young, I say.

During church today, I had my arm around Sarah (6) as she was leaning into me. As I noticed her reaching for her nose, I quickly grabbed her hands and held them down in her lap to keep her from picking her nose. Since she was unable to grab those boogers herself, she simply turned her head to the side and wiped her nose on my bare arm. Immediately grossed out, I pulled my arm away and began madly wiping it off with a napkin. She thought this was hilarious and couldn't stop giggling. My apologies to those who may have witnessed this exchange of mucus.

Tonight as I was about to read from the Jesus Storybook Bible , I announced the title of our next-up story about Zacchaeus called, "The Man Who Didn't Have Any Friends (none)". Christopher looked up and said, "Well, he wouldn't be able to have facebook if he didn't have any friends."

More effects of the Fall...

It's been a long while since I've posted anything on this blog...

Yesterday morning, I came back from my early morning run (oh yes, I've started running again since my last post - I think I'm about 6 or 7 weeks into it) and found out that Christopher was complaining of a stomach ache. That's about all he said about it and he then proceeded to eat a full breakfast of french toast. I figured he must be fine since he ate breakfast and then asked him to get dressed and ready to start school. Next thing I know, he's lying in my bed under the covers. I said, "Hey, didn't I tell you to get dressed?" He groaned and said that his tummy still hurt. I asked him what he meant by that and he couldn't quite find the words. I left him there so I could at least get school ready for Sarah. After about 10 minutes I finally had the presence of mind to bring him a bowl or something, just in case. He was in my bed, after all. I walked in the room, laid the bowl on the bed next to him and said, "Hey Christopher, here's a bowl just in case you feel like you're going to get sick." I kid you not, the second after I said that, he leaned over the bowl and hurled his french toast breakfast into it! Good timing - sheesh.

After I figured he was finished, I made him follow me to the bathroom. As he stumbled alongside, he declared, "If only Adam and Eve didn't choose to obey Satan." Indeed. We'd all be spared from the dreaded stomach bugs.

This and that...

Cutest thing - I hadn't heard from Mary Grace in a while (usually not a good sign), so I looked in the backyard and found her like this.

Then of course, Hannah and Sarah wanted me to take their picture.

Mary Grace settled herself in...

Sweetness...

Christopher squinting in the sun.

Hannah and Sarah in a sea of bubbles.

MG covered in suds. (yes, that's tear-free shampoo)

A 6 1/2 year old's thoughts on the aseity of God

Yesterday evening after all the girls had gone to bed, Christopher and I were sitting in the family room having conversations about random things. After a few moments of silence, he blurted out, "Well, we could walk to Nana's house since we know the way. Right?" I said, "Well, you could, but it's 3 miles to Nana's house." Undaunted, Christopher replied, "So? We walked more than 3 miles on that hike in Colorado, right?" I conceded, "Yes, we hiked 3 1/2 miles...but you'll remember that everyone was falling apart on the last mile back to the van. You had blisters on your feet, Sarah kept tripping and scraping her knees, Mary Grace was crying..." Christopher said, "Yeah. It was like a 6-person Cherokee Trail of Tears." Oh, that gave me a good chuckle. Gotta love those homeschooled kids.

I shared this story with Nana this morning which reminded her of a conversation that she had with Christopher in the car the other day. Christopher said out of the blue, "Nana, you know what I have a hard time believing?" Nana: "What's that?" Christopher said, "I just don't understand how God can have no beginning." Nana said, "Yes, that is a very hard thing for us to understand. But He doesn't have an ending either." Christopher quickly said, "Oh, I can believe that He doesn't have an ending. I just don't understand how He doesn't have a beginning. I mean, when did God come to be?" Nana said, "He didn't, He just always was." Christopher said, "When I get to heaven, that's definitely one thing I'm going to ask God about... Do you think that we'll be able to see God?" Nana, "Well, God is a Spirit and doesn't have a body...but Jesus does, and you'll be able to see Jesus." Then Sarah, my 5 year old, interjected, "Christopher, just talk to Jesus. Jesus has a body and He's the same as God."

Love it!

The saga of Christopher's first loose tooth...

BEFORE: Christopher's tooth has been loose and hanging by a mere thread for a couple of weeks now. No manner of trickery, bribery or persuasion has worked. I think the loose tooth was bothering us way more than it was bothering him!

AFTER: Today was the day. I could stand it no longer. He let me wiggle it for 10 seconds and then I convinced him to let Nana do the same. She pulled it without him even knowing or feeling it, it was so loose! You should see how relieved and happy he has been since it has been pulled!

The memory of a golfish...

Yesterday while I was madly trying to get dinner ready, Christopher was asking me to think up something fun to do and Hannah wanted me to read her a book. I came up with the brilliant idea for Christopher to sit down and write a story, which just prodded him to write an 'encyclopedia' of monsters, and got Hannah to sit at the table with him and color. His imagination was going wild as he began to write down these outlandish statistics about these monsters that were bigger than galaxies and Hannah kept asking him what the names of the creatures were in his big dinosaur book that was sprawled out on the table. After repeatedly asking him the same questions (which 2 year olds are want to do) to which he'd already given answers, Christopher cried out in frustration, "You're a FISH! Because fish have a memory of 3 seconds!"

Ever hear the one about the goldfish who declared, "Hey, who put this castle here?? These people think just because I have a memory span of 3 seconds that I'll be satisfied with the same 'ol fish flakes...Ooooo, look! Fish flakes!...That's a nice castle..."

Google earth/sky and big bath tub...

If you've been following the blog for a number of years, you may have picked up that Christopher has had a long line of obsessions that began with flicking spring-bound door stoppers and drawer handles as a crawling baby, to bowl-spinning as a toddler, to choirs as a 3-4 year old, to dinosaurs as a 5 year old, and most recently outer space as a 6 year old.  What's interesting about each of these is that it completely consumes his imagination until he has 'mastered' or exhausted it and finds something else that captures his interest.  We really didn't do too much to encourage the first 2 very noisy obsessions, but we did feed his zest for choirs by exposing him to lots of choral music.  We also exhausted the dinosaur bookshelves at our public library on top of buying him several dino encyclopedias.  

We have now moved on to the astronomy bookshelves across the aisle and he is devouring them. Another thing he likes to do during free time is watch YouTube videos about planets, stars, galaxies and the universe.  A friend of ours told us about an application on Google Earth where you can switch to the sky and zoom in on different stars, planets and galaxies.  It is way cool.  I showed it to Christopher the other day and he is hooked.  The above picture shows him checking out one of the galaxies.

Now onto the youngest child: Mary Grace had her first official bath in the big tub.  She displaces too much water in the infant tub, so it was time to make the transition.  As you can see from the above picture, she thoroughly enjoyed it.

As soon as Sarah and Hannah saw her in the tub, they immediately wanted to join her.

Cheese!

The biggest sister with the littlest sister enjoying some fun in the tub.

Christopher and Sarah on the local news...

Back in March, I took the kids along with other homeschool families to the Dallas Heritage Villlage in Old City Park for a field trip.  It just so happened that the local FOX4 news was there the same day video taping a segment for their Lone Star Adventures.  Christopher and Sarah ended up in a couple portions of the video.  Christopher first appears in the lower left corner when a man demonstrates and explains pottery.  Then both Christopher and Sarah appear sitting at a table planting sunflower seeds.  Christopher is wearing a charcoal golf shirt with a white stripe at the top and Sarah is wearing a hot pink t-shirt.  If you click on this link, you can watch it: http://www.myfoxdfw.com/dpp/news/fox_4_features/Lone_Star_Adventures_Heritage

End of the year program...

We are part of a homeschool co-op called "Classical Conversations" which meets once a week for 12 weeks each semester.  We have finished our first full year with them and have learned a TON! Today was our end-of-the-year program where each of the classes presented some of the material that they have learned throughout the year.  Christopher's class (the abecedarians) presented some of the history sentences that they have learned.  We covered U.S. history this year and what's amazing is that they memorized 22 history sentences in order from 1492 all the way to Sept.11, 2001, plus the preamble to the Constitution, the Bill of Rights and all 44 U. S. presidents.  Each of the kids picked his/her favorite history sentence for the program...

Candace picked "In 1866 the 14th Ammendment made all former slaves U.S. citizens and paved the way for the Civil Rights movement."  So she got to stand in front while the rest of the class stood behind her and held up signs saying "Freedom for all".  I think Candace was the most consistent in singing loudly and clearly for every song.  Christopher wasn't singing the words during the presentation, so when I made eye contact with him he said out loud, "Stage fright." Yeah right...

R.J. picked the next song, "In 1898 Theodore Roosevelt and his rough riders defeated the Spanish at the Battle of San Juan Hill, while trying to help the Cubans win their independence." Everybody had a stick horse as one of the rough riders while R.J. had a cowboy hat to boot.  He rode his stick horse around in circles so much during the presentation, I'm surprised he didn't get dizzy and fall over!

Catie picked the next song, "On December 7, 1941 the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor, Hawaii, causing the U.S. to join the allies in World War II."  Remembering that he should sing loudly and clearly, Christopher broke out in the middle of the song but ended up cracking himself up.  Catie (wearing the sailor hat and hawaiian necklace) remained amazingly composed and unaffected by all the commotion going on behind her.

Christopher naturally chose, "In 1969 U.S. astronauts Neil Armstrong and Edwin Aldrin were the first men to walk on the moon."  Thankfully he chose to sing loudly and clearly for the song of his choice, but in the middle of the second time through, he decided to interrupt the flow of the song by telling everyone that "My grandmother thinks I'm saying 'moo moo moo'".  Such a clown.  He's the one in the space suit hood while the other kids are holding pictures of outer space.

Even Sarah wanted to stand with the class during the presentation and I think I saw her singing some of the words to the songs.  She has definitely picked up a lot by listening in.  I knew that no matter what they ended up doing on stage it would be funny and adorable, but I think they all did a great job and made it very entertaining!

Christopher writes his first story...

This morning, Christopher began telling me for maybe the hundredth time certain facts and statistics about monsters.  He has always been interested in facts and statistics (i.e. the biggest, the tallest, the deepest, the greatest population, the fastest, etc.) and has some crazy ability to retain facts about everything from dinosaurs, ocean life, mammals, and now the solar system, which is his latest obsession.  I mean, he can tell you off the top of his head the exact temperature of the core of the sun, the lowest temperature recorded on Pluto, Antarctica, how many earths can fit into Jupiter's red spot, what the diameters are of each planet, and he can rattle off the names of more than a dozen stars from our sun to Canis Majoris in order of size.

That said, he likes to apply these statistics to monsters that he has dreamed up in his wild imagination.  The monster I've heard the most about is the Acoelyis monster, which is thousands of feet tall, runs thousands of miles per second, and eats millions of tons of food.  The other day when he was telling me about his imaginary monsters, I suggested that he should write a book about all of his monsters.  He replied, "Well how on earth could I do that?!"  I told him all he had to do was write down the names of each monster and then describe them.  This morning he was flipping through Dr. Seuss's My Book About Me that he got for his 5th birthday last year. This book is great because there are places where kids can fill in their own answers on the pages (i.e. hair & eye color, address, phone number, age, weight, favorite pet, what I want to be when I grow up, etc.).  He had pretty much filled the entire thing out except for the last couple of pages, which were for the child's first story.  He asked me this morning what story he should write, so I suggested that he write about monsters.  To my utter shock and surprise, he sat at the kitchen table for the better part of an hour, intent and focused on filling out both pages with his monster story!  I can hardly get this kid to stay focused long enough to write his full name let alone write a long story.  He had so much fun writing this that he asked for more lined paper to start another story.  What cracks me up is that he writes just like he talks.  If you click on each image, it should enlarge enough to read it.  I've provided a translation below since many of the words are misspelled.  But hey, he's six!  

"Once upon a time I was writing monster facts.  This is what I wrote: from monsters we cannot see to huge monsters (bigger than that).  But that's not all!  There are infinite monsters!  And what kind is the biggest?  The Lone Great Wall Monster.  Yes Sir!  But the Cook Monster which is 15 feet long, it was seen with 100 legs!  But the Pecan Monster is 4 nanometers.  And it was first found in 1956.  4,001 Monster scientists discovered it!  The story has much more to go!  And this monster has a funny name!  Don't guess!  The SooKoo monster!  Which was 187 feet tall.  And do you know how long it is?  400 feet long!!!!!  But the Shoof monster has a very long diet!  Do you want to hear it?  Well it eats 50 goldfish and clownfish a day!  And with itself 9,028 feet tall and 15,256 feet long, this Monster can run 16 mile per hour!  But here is some facts of the Lone Great Wall Monster:  it is the most common monster known.  It lives half of Russia.  It eats 19 tons of ostrich a year!!  Also 900 pounds of emu a day!!!!!!  And the Crab Monster can hop 7,204,454 feet off the ground!  It lays 202 eggs!  But it is the slowest monster known to man!  It walks 1,988 mile per day!  It has 141,997 species and lives for up to 15,000,001 years old!  It does!"

A glimpse of life in March through photos...

Tomorrow is the last day of March but it feels like March just started!

Mary Grace turned 6 months old, started eating cereal and weighed in at 18 lbs. 11 oz. at her 6 mos. check-up.  Hannah weighed 5 1/2 ounces LESS than that at her 12 mos. check-up!  I thought for sure, Mary Grace must be my biggest baby.  But after  sorting through the baby files I found that Sarah weighed over 19 lbs. and Christopher weighed over 20 lbs. at their respective 6 mos. check-ups.

We had a glorious week of Spring Break where we didn't have to be anywhere during the week, so we didn't go anywhere.  It was amazingly relaxing.  Here is Nana with her girls.

Hannah turned 2 on the 27th.  Wouldn't you know she'd have to go and get a black eye just in time for her birthday pictures?  She fell from the bench in our kitchen and hit her upper cheek on something on the way down.  The bruise drained into her eye socket over night giving her this nice little shiner on her fair skin.

Hannah is speaking so much more clearly these days and acting like such a 'big girl'.  She mimics her older sister and wants to do everything herself.  Even though she has officially entered the 'terrible twos', she has retained her very sweet nature, giving hugs and kisses and saying things like, "I wuv you so much" and "Oh, fank you!"

The sisters together at the Chinese restaurant (our favorite spot for birthday celebrations, it seems).  That balloon in the background was the object of much quarreling between the girls and much angst for their mother.  

A sign of the terrible twos: Hannah declared ownership over the balloon, her presents, her food, her water, and anything within reach with these dreaded words, "This is MINE!"  I really don't remember her saying this phrase so repeatedly up until this day.  That box on the table contained a toy sail boat with Jesus and the 12 disciples as figurines.  She even yelled, "This is MY Jee-us...No! That's MY Jee-us!"

She even staked her claim on the whole cake by opening her jaws and putting her tongue on the side of the cake.  "This is most definitely MINE!"

She clearly finished her piece more quickly than I had a chance to finish mine, so she reached over to my plate and said, "This is mine."  I may be a little more than 30 years past the terrible twos, but I asssured her that that piece was MINE.

Afterwards I took the kids to a public playground in Frisco and had a blast.  It was such a pretty evening and we had the whole place to ourselves.  Sarah climbed the highest on everything and, as the oldest girls are want to do, told her brother and sister where to go and what to do next.

Hannah peeks over the wall.

Ever-cautious Christopher.  He never climbs too high or does anything 'too risky'.  This kid is happier reading about or drawing pictures of the solar system (his latest obsession) than he is on a bike.

Happy Mary Grace with her toothless grin and big dimples.

MG is eating cereal like a pro and can't seem to get enough of it.  As you can see, she is starting to sit upright really well.

Saturday afternoon - We came home from a birthday party, got baths and then plopped in front of some cartoons for rest and Hannah just zonked out in the chair next to Sarah.

Mary Grace's first cereal and some retro cartoons for the kids...

I've neglected blogging, reading blogs and anything else that requires uninterrupted time these days since 3 very active kids and a baby keep my life FILLED with interruptions!  In the past I would blog or visit the internet when the kids were napping or in bed for the night, but with homeschooling filling up my mornings, I've found my afternoons and evenings filled with endless laundry, dishes, preparing dinner, dishes, more laundry, etc.  Anyway, this week is Spring Break and I'm using the occasion to do some serious spring cleaning, rearranging and relaxing fun while the laundry or dishwasher is going.  One of the "projects" on my to do list for this week was to start Mary Grace on rice cereal.  She is 6 months old, wearing 9-12mos. size clothes, chunky as ever and yet, starting to wake up early from all of her naps.  This is always a sure sign that the baby needs something more substantial than the heavy cream I've been serving her!  So the first video is MG's first taste of cereal.  Nana was here today and served as the camera woman for the event.  What's fun is that all 4 kids are featured in the video and I'm pretty certain all 4 kids had their first rice cereal in that same bouncy chair that Mary Grace was sitting in today.

The second video is of Christopher and Sarah watching an old Tom & Jerry cartoon.  I grabbed the video recorder because Christopher was in stitches laughing out loud throughout the entire episode and it just cracked me up!  What is it with boys and physical humor?  Watching this old classic made me realize how utterly tame today's cartoons (or computer animations) are by comparison.  Tom & Jerry, as well as all the old Merry Melodies, are filled with characters hitting, bonking, tripping, slapping, shooting, falling, and blowing each other up with ACME brand dynamite; a perfect recipe for entertaining a 5 year old boy.

While we were away...

John and I just got back from a reunion with our cohort in St. Louis.  I'll write about that later if I get time, but I wanted to quickly jot down some of the funny things the kids said while we were away and immediately after we returned.

After we loaded the kids into the van and kissed them good-bye, Nana (John's mom) told me that Hannah was saying, "Bye bye, Mindy" as they were pulling out of our driveway.

One cold morning, Nana firmly told the kids that they had to keep their shoes on if they wanted to play outside.  After a while, Sarah approached Nana and said, "Nana, can I take my shoes off now, 'cuz my foots are bored."  

After Nana and Pop bathed the kids Monday evening, Christopher threw the towel into the bathtub that was still filled with water.  When I learned of this, I said, "Christopher - what in the world did you do that for?  We don't put bath towels in the water!"  He looked at me and earnestly asked, "Then why do we call it a 'bath towel'?"

When we arrived to pick up the kids at Nana and Pop's house, they were all going crazy trying to tell us all of the fun things they did while we were away.  I then said, "Ok, now I want to hear a report from Nana and Pop on how you guys behaved while Mommy and Daddy were away."  As Nana began to gush about how good they were, Christopher interrupted, "Well, there was some disobedience, but NO consequences!"  

The other day while we were driving to the grocery store, Christopher said, "Mommy, that sign says 40 miles per hour...Pop told me to tell you how fast you're supposed to drive."

Yesterday, the kids and I walked to the playground and Nana drove to meet us there.  Sarah was riding her bike and said, "Mommy and Chri-ofer are walking and I'm riding my bike.  But Chri-ofer doesn't like to ride his bike because he's scared...and Hannah and Mary Grace ride in the stroller because they're babies...but Nana can't walk to the playground because she's old."

Last night the kids went to the Explorer Kids program at our church.  After the puppet show, the teacher asked the kids if they knew of anyone they could tell about Jesus.  She then asked if anyone had a sister or grandmother they could tell.  Christopher raised his hand and yelled, "My grandmother is 67 years old!"

Copy cats

One of the funniest, adorable, and sometimes alarming things that you get to witness as a parent is your children copying your behavior and manerisms or repeating what you say.  I thought it was pretty comical that Christopher would begin his answer to almost every question with, "Well..." until I heard Sarah do it on a regular basis.  Then I realized that's how I begin all of my answers to their questions; they simply learned this response from me.  

After a very full morning of homeschooling on Wednesday, I persuaded my wiggly 5-year-old to get through his history timeline and Latin memory work with the promise of a Starburst upon completion.  As soon as he was finished, he triumphantly took his Starburst into the family room to show Nana, who was reading books to Sarah.  Sarah naturally wanted one too, so she came into the kitchen to see where the stash was.  I had her sit down and simply go through her number recognition so that she could earn a treat just like Christopher did.  She took great pride and satisfaction in this.  After she picked out a sucker for herself, she said, "I want to take another one to give to Hannah."  I let her take one to Hannah, who was happily playing in the toyroom. Moments later, I heard Sarah asking Hannah her catechism questions while dangling the tasty sucker behind her back!  "Hannah, who made you?  Who made you, Hannah?"  Ha!  She was making Hannah "earn" her treat as well.  Hilarious.

On omnipresence and incarnation...

Christopher, our 5 year old, has asked me on a few different occasions if God is bigger than Jupiter.  I've told him that God is bigger than the entire universe.  Not able to get his mind around that, he asked, "How can God be bigger than outer space?"  I said, "Well, remember God is everywhere."  "But how can God be everywhere?"  I said, "Well, God is a spirit and is bigger than everything He created and...well, that's just a really hard thing for little people like us to understand, isn't it?"

The other day while the kids and I were driving down the road in the minivan, Christopher asked me, "Mommy, if God is everywhere, does that mean that we are driving over God?" Chuckling at first but then wanting to give him a serious answer, I confidently replied, "No Christopher, remember that God is a spirit and doesn't have a body like men."  I was hopeful this would satisfy him since the answer recalled one of the catechism questions he has memorized. But no.  He then said, "So does that mean we are driving on God's non-body?"

Today as we were driving home from church, our 4-year old, Sarah asked, "Mommy, is Jesus in the van?"  Happy that I could again refer back to already-memorized catechisms I replied, "Yes Sarah!  Remember, God is everywhere and Jesus is God."  Unsatisfied, Sarah demanded, "No, I said is Jesus right here next to me in this van!"

Then after we arrived home, Hannah and Sarah were sitting together on the sofa reading a book and I noticed that Hannah had something in her mouth.  I immediately asked her to spit it out and saw that it was the baby Jesus from their Playmobile nativity set.  I found myself laughing while saying, "No, Hannah - don't put baby Jesus in your mouth!"

On the one hand, it is true that God is a spirit and does not have a body like men.  This is an incredibly abstract concept for us to grasp, let alone to explain to our children.  On the other hand, John 1:14 is also true - "The Word became flesh and made His dwelling among us."  This infinite God who created the universe and everything in it, entered our world by taking on human flesh.  This is Christmas - God became a man.  I find that my children better understand and grasp who God is when they hear about Jesus.  In Jesus, "all the fullness of God was pleased to dwell."  (Colossians 1:19)

An entertaining and memorable event - MG's baptism

"The heart of a man plans his way but the LORD establishes his steps." (Proverbs 16:9)

Before the worship service yesterday, I had these grand visions (or delusions of grandeur) of my 3 older children obediently and angelically standing in front of the congregation as our 4th baby would be baptized.  I even "prepped" them for this event by instructing Christopher to stand close to me and Sarah to hold tightly to Hannah's hand since I had to hold Mary Grace.  Being that John would be doing the baptizing, I was prepared to corral the kids on my own.  At least I thought I was prepared.  Kids have such a knack of going way beyond your expectations...but in a completely different direction!

Now why on earth would I have such ridiculous expectations?  When Christopher was our only child, I remember welling up with all sorts of tender emotions during his baptism.  When Sarah was baptized, I remember wrestling my 19 1/2 month old Christopher just to keep him still and feeling a bit frazzled afterwards rather than misty-eyed.  When Hannah was baptized just last year, I recall both Christopher and Sarah having a grand ol' time hopping down the steps of the stage.  Mary Grace's baptism yesterday proved to be more like the last two and less like the first.    

Here you see John and I straining to listen and respond to our baptismal vows that Patrick was reading to us.  Sarah and Christopher walked up to the front by themselves and left me with Hannah and Mary Grace, so John came to the rescue since I couldn't get Sarah to stay on her task of holding Hannah's hand.  Christopher took it upon himself to grab Hannah's hand and keep her from running away, but he tends to be a little less nurturing and gentle than Sarah would be so Hannah resisted his efforts.  Sarah took great interest in the flower arrangements and all of the cool objects on the communion table.  Hannah kept grabbing the microphone on Daddy's robe and pulling it off.  When we responded "I do" to the baptismal vows, Hannah grabbed Daddy's nose for fun.  Then to top it off, I saw Christopher doing dinosaur charades out of the corner of my eye.  

John put Hannah down, picked up the baptismal bowl and handed it to Patrick.  I handed Mary Grace to John and then quickly scooped up Hannah from climbing on the front row chairs.  As soon as the cold water hit Mary Grace's head, she began to wail and John said, "Well, here Mommy..."  The congregation cracked up because as soon as John started to give Mary Grace back to me, he said, "Nevermind" realizing I already had my hands full with Hannah.  As he began to tell the congregation about Mary Grace, Sarah thought it would be great fun to play hide-and-seek underneath his big black robe.  By this point, the congregation was roaring with laughter and we had lost complete control over the entire situation (not sure we ever had it in the first place).  

John quickly tied up his comments and I soon realized that we didn't have a good exit strategy since John had to go back to the pulpit for the Scripture reading.  I put Hannah down, took a loudly crying Mary Grace back into my arms and began to walk them both down to the nursery wing.  Thankfully Patrick had the presence of mind to walk Christopher and Sarah in the opposite direction to children's church.  Maybe we should have done a "dry run" (no pun intended) beforehand, but then it would have been so much less chaotic and therefore less entertaining.   We captured the whole blessed event on video so that we can remember this 3-ring circus in years to come.

The expression on Christopher's face above suggests that he had been scheming and planning this chaos all along.

Here he is pretending to be an Struthiomimus dinosaur.

Being that Hannah is only 18 months old and has no prior experience standing up in front of the congregation, we did expect the most action from her.  

Sarah LOOKS sweet and innocent...

My mom thoroughly enjoyed being the photographer of the day.  I saw her laughing behind the camera during Sarah's hide-and-seek under John's robe.  As we were packing everyone up to finally leave the sanctuary, we realized that we didn't have any pictures with her in them.  We were too exhausted to round up all of the kids who were running throughout the sanctuary by this time, but we did manage to get a picture of her holding Hannah (above) and Mary Grace (below).

All of this excitement even wore out Mary Grace.  What a day!  

Now that I have had a little time to stand back and reflect, I am truly thankful that God's covenant promises are for believers and their offspring as we seek to raise our children up to know, love and worship the risen Christ.  And even though it made for an eventful day, I also think it is a wonderful privilege that each of our children has been baptized by their Daddy.  

"And I will establish my covenant between Me and you and your offspring after you throughout their generations for an everlasting covenant, to be God to you and to your offspring after you." (Genesis 17:7)

1 week old...

Mary Grace turned 1 week old today, so of course, this became an occasion for photos.  

While pink is not my favorite color, I'll have to admit that it is fun to dress up my little girls in pink and pastels.  

"One of these children doesn't look like the others..." but I promise you that Hannah DOES belong!  Looks like she remains the only fair-skinned, blond-haired, blue-eyed kid among the bunch.  Funny how genetics works.

Big bro and big sis enjoying a moment with Mary Grace.

Big sister Sarah snuggling with Mary Grace.

Yesterday evening I took the older 3 kids for a walk to the playground while John stayed home as Mary Grace slept.  When we returned, John met us outside and we began chatting with our neighbors.  We didn't notice Sarah run into the house, but John saw her walking back outside holding what he thought was a doll.  Next thing I know, John says, "Oh!" and begins running up the driveway.  Sarah had scooped Mary Grace up out of her cradle and carried her outside to be with us. Thankfully Mary Grace is just fine...but her parents are still recovering from near heart failure.

You may remember when we found out the sex of this baby, Christopher was sorely disappointed.  He was determined that this baby was going to be a boy and had a hard time getting over the fact that he was going to have yet another sister.  I am happy to report that since Mary Grace has come home, Christopher has said things like, "Mommy, I think Mary Grace is beautiful," and "I want Mary Grace to be in our family forever."

The protective older brother holding his littlest sister.

Since we were on a roll and the kids were so willing, I thought I'd see how Hannah would do with 'holding' Mary Grace.  When I asked her, she immediately climbed up onto the couch and laid down on the pillow, so I laid Mary Grace down next to her.  You see the results...

Of all 3 kids, Hannah has been the most enraptured and curious by Mary Grace's presence.  Whenever I get her up from a long nap and bring her out into the family room or kitchen, Hannah's face lights up and she says, "Ah baby!  Ah baby!" She'll then come closer and speak in a soft, high pitched voice, "Hi baby...aahhhh, baby!"  It's very sweet to see.  

So while our adjustment to being a family of 6 has been a bit of a circus at times, it has also been filled with many sweet and endearing moments.