James at 1 Month

Here's our little 1 month old guy... These pictures are from a week or so ago when his baby acne was still hanging around...





We love you, James!!

Making Breadsticks

We're still here!

And while uploading pictures from the camera I see that we have been making breadsticks. Wednesdays are Spaghetti Nights at our house. Generally, I try to make some kind of bread item to go along with our meal.


The bread maker, as well as many hands, make these breadsticks light work.


Josiah at 19 months is old enough now to join us at the counter on a chair. I give him a little pile of flour and he spends most of the time licking it off his hand.


Mercy is wearing an apron I made for her last Christmas. (Home made craft type projects are my favorite kind of Christmas gifts. Note to self: It's high time to get going on those!)


Concentrating...

And we're done! If you look behind the row of kind of smiling kind of looking at the camera kids, you'll see that this recipe makes quite a few breadsticks/lumps. They are almost always gone at the end of Spaghetti Wednesday.


Nothing against Playdoh but I've always though real dough is more fun.

Random Fall Doings

Just a little bit about our last few weeks... We've had some sickness and some adventures but mostly we've just been at home together.


Here we are getting ready for a family movie night. We watched the Pixar Cars movie...


Mercy is learning to change James' diaper. And yes. I am teaching her to change diapers. And no. I haven't taught her how to do her own hair.


We live about an hour from my parents, Grammy and Grandad. Occaisionally, the kids and I meet Grammy at a mall halfway between our homes. A morning at the mall with Grammy is extra special and includes very little actual shopping unless you count the careful picking and choosing at the Sweet Factory. This particular mall day included my sister as well! Why didn't I get pictures of Auntie Heather?!


Mercy and James... She is continually saying how James is her "favorite baby". I'm thankful for how careful she really tries to be with him. James, Mercy has been in love with you since she first laid eyes on you!

Well, we all are, really.

Mariners Game

My parents gave us a couple tickets to see the Mariners play a couple weeks ago. And yes, we had a brand new baby but that didn't stop us.

I think Bob and I look a little weary in these pictures but we had a great time on our date with James.

By the way, if you are headed to an M's game next season and need a quiet place to change or feed your baby, they have a cozy little Mother's Room on the first level, behind home plate. I was thankful for this discovery when I realized how very close I would be sitting to my seatmates.

Thanks Mom and Dad for sharing with us!

School Time in Mostly Pictures

Come on in... We're in the middle of School Time...


It's about 9:30am... We've had breakfast and Circle Time. The kids are dressed and so am I. And everyone is in their School Time Spot. Yes, James is in the changing table portion of the packnplay. On the floor. I just finished feeding him. James is far enough from Josiah that I'm not super worried that he will get something from inside the packnplay dropped on his head. But I'm watching for that...


The boys are working on their math lessons. Mathusee blocks. Crayon box. Math books. And the counter is covered in random stuff.


Mercy sits below our calendar happily drawing with dry erase markers in a special coloring book. Her blanket is visible off to the right in the living room with another activity for her to switch to in a few minutes. I didn't do her hair this morning.


Hi Josiah! Don't throw anything on your brother! Thank you for not crying during School Time today! James, if you need any wipes or diapers, they are right there by your feet.


Daniel pauses to smell a crayon. I'm pretty sure.


"Five plus two is the same as... One. Two. Fwee. Fur..."

We're just going to finish up this math, do a little grammar and handwriting, play a game with our history vocab and then we'll be done!

Our Prayer Jar and some other thoughts about prayer...

Sometime during last winter, our little Prayer Bowl fell in the soup. Or maybe some soup fell in the bowl and onto the little papers inside it. I can't remember.

These little papers had the names of family and friends for which we pray, fruits of the Spirit, etc. We were in the habit of pulling out a name or two to pray for before we ate dinner each evening. But after the little papers got all soupy, well, there just wasn't any help for them.

We took a break.

Last Sunday, we made a new Prayer Jar. Each participating child had a job. And we discussed for whom and for what we'd like to pray while we worked.

Here's Daddy preparing our new set of little papers. In Fall colors. Michael waits patiently.

Mercy glues little Fall leaves onto our new Prayer Jar. This is one of her favorite sweaters. Seeing it reminds me that I need to replace the button that fell off in the wash. I think the wooden toggle buttons are her favorite part of her favorite sweater.


Michael cuts. Michael is left handed and I think it must be hard to cut left handed when you are 5 and you are Michael. He stuck with it, though.


Daniel writes our prayer ideas onto each little paper. He begs to write things these days and is disappointed when his grammar lesson doesn't include a writing assignment.


And here we have our new Prayer Jar. Please know that this idea is not original to me. I borrowed it from my friend Stacy a year or so ago. It has really helped in making prayer for others as a family a part of our day.

The kids and I have also been praying together each day during Circle Time in the mornings. Circle Time begins our school day and a few minutes of prayer begins each Circle Time. I've been asking the kids to share prayer requests.

This is how it goes almost every morning:

Me: Does anyone need prayer this morning?
(Michael's and Mercy's hands shoot up. Daniel joins in reluctantly.)
Me: Yes, Michael?
Michael: Doggy still has the measles... and today he has to get all of his teeth pulled out.
Me: Okay. How about you Mercy?
Mercy: Tigger has the measles, too.
Me: We can pray about that. Daniel?
Daniel: I'd like prayer so that I can have better concentration.
Me (somewhat hopeful that we won't be praying only for imaginary stuffed animals today): What kind of things do you want to concentrate on?
Daniel: Ummm. Video games.
Me(After sharing my prayer needs with them-patience and a cheerful voice): Right. Okay. Let's pray!

The other day when we had the pleasure of sharing Circle Time with Daddy, I was about to stop the praying for the stuffed animals business out of irritation with the fact that it wasn't "real". Before I said anything, Bob quietly nixed my attempt to quiet the kids' childish prayer requests. I'm glad he did. After all, they are children, right?

This little topic here is probably worth a whole 'nother post. How do you teach and model for your kids how to pray? I'm pretty sure that making lists of things they can't pray for is not a good beginning.

So we'll be using our Prayer Jar and I'll be keeping my mouth smile-y but mostly shut at Circle Time while the stuffed animals recover from the measles and we pray for more concentration for getting the TriForce when we play Zelda.