Photo Fun

It's a lazy Saturday morning over here. Since the boys are sick I stayed home from the baby shower I was hoping to attend, and have been rewarded by some very sweet moments of playing with them and watching them play together. Currently they're playing Legos together. Ezra is handing Levi legos, and Levi is making them into, "a house for Baby Ezra." Now that Ezra's sitting up proficiently the boys play together a lot. Levi has taken it upon himself to be Ezra's translator, telling me, "Baby Ezra wants to play Legos now" or, "Baby Ezra wants to play racecars with me" or (my favorite), "Baby Ezra thinks I need a little snack." All in all, Levi is very happy to have a brother, and with the way Ezra shrieks and giggles at Levi I'd say the feeling is mutual.

In honor of that brotherly love, how about a little photo montage to end out today's post?

"Not Yet .."

The time out chair stays by the front door at our house. There's not a whole lot of front door traffic, most of you have "back door privileges" as far as we're concerned, plus with the bookcase/door/closet/wall it's pretty sheltered (read: BORING) for the person (read: LEVI) who sits there to be punished. Good placement. However, on piano lesson days I move the time out chair for the sake of the students who come in the front door and deserve better than to trip on their piano teacher's kids' stuff. This morning Levi found it in the living room, and this conversation followed ...

"Mommy, I found my time out chair."
"Yeah, I moved it for piano lessons."
"Now it needs to go back by the door."
"Oh? Do you need a time out?"
"Not yet. I'll put it there for later."

Apparently I should consider myself forewarned, and ought to pay extra attention to his actions for the rest of the day as he may or may not be planning to do something "later" that warrants a time out.

(I'd save this post for later, but I wanted to find out if it worked to add some email addresses to automatically get emails with a new post. Plus, it seems later I will be busy administering a time out. If it worked, and you got an email about this post, let me know. If you'd like to get an email with new posts, let me know that, too.)

"Jesus Forgives Me."

**Oops, I forgot to publish the post I wrote yesterday, so here it is now ... two posts in one day, my bad.**

We've been talking a lot about forgiveness over here as of late. Mostly about it being sinful to hit/bite/bonk/grab/kick/etc. On Wednesday night we went to church for an Ash Wednesday service. We put the boys in the nursery, and when we came to get them Levi saw our foreheads:

"Mommy, what happened on your forehead? What you got there?"
"It's ashes, buddy."
"Why is it ashes?"
"It means that Jesus forgives me."
"Oh. Jesus forgives me, too. I want some."

So I decided that since we've been talking about it lately at home, and since it's never too early to introduce children to spirituality and religion, we would go ask the pastor if there were any ashes left for Levi.

There were. Pastor Mark rubbed a cross on Levi's forehead, saying, "Levi, without Jesus you would be lost."

Levi responded, big brown eyes open wide, "Jesus forgives me."

So sweet. So true. So proud I was as a parent. And so privileged we are to raise children to love Jesus, accept His gift of forgiveness, and be ambassadors for Him in this world.

Who's Cuter?

We're in the middle of a family disagreement. Before you think terrible thoughts about us as parents, no we are NOT discussing who's cuter between our children. Now stop thinking about that, and keep reading ...

It started Monday night. Steve was at Bible Study, so I was putting Levi to bed (Steve usually does this while I put Ezra to bed). Every night after prayers the first words out of Levi's mouth are, "snuggle me!" So I laid down next to him, wrapped my arm around him, and he whispers to me, "I love you, Mommy." It's so sweet that he's starting to do this on his own, not just as a response to us saying it to him! So I respond that I love him too, upon which he ERUPTS into uncontrollable giggles. Not knowing what we're laughing about, I joined in. As we're winding down, the disagreement began:

"Oh, Levi. Levi, Levi."
"Oh Mommy ... you're so cute, Mommy."
(???He's never told me this before, and it's hilarious to hear from him!)
"You're cute, too, Levi."
"No, YOU'RE so cute."
"And you're cute, too."
"No, just MOMMY so cute."

As you can imagine, this went on for a couple of minutes until I told him this was not helping him sleep and I was going to leave his room. About 10 minutes later Steve came home and peeked in on Levi.

"Goodnight buddy, I love you."
"Goodnight Daddy. I love you."
"See you tomorrow."
"Daddy, Mommy's so cute."

Since then two things have happened ... Steve has begun to wonder whether Levi's trying to compete with him for me (haha), and Levi has started this disagreement with me multiple times a day, every day. Who's cuter?! And now he includes Steve in the cuteness, and Ezra. "Oh, Baby Ezra, you're so cute. So cute. So cute, Baby Ezra."

One thing's for sure, even though he will not accept the fact that he's cute, we know the truth.

I've been thinking ...

I've been thinking that it might be time to try my hand at blogging. Not so much as a personal endeavor, and definitely not as a MomBlog, but moreso as a record of the things that go on in the day to day raising of our sons. Conversations between Levi and I, new things that Ezra's doing, things I overhear the racecars saying to each other, and of course the famed adventures of Baa-Baa the sheep. Don't look here for parenting advice, strategies, or even a whole lot of what we're going through as people learning to parent ... we choose to keep that to ourselves because we feel parenting is a very personal thing. Simply enjoy this as a window into our day to day, moment by moment life as Steve and I pour our all into raising little boys who love the Lord and love life.

Right off the bat, I want to state a disclaimer for this site: I know that all kids are cute ... meaning, I do not want to come across on this site as thinking that mine are the cutest, brightest, funniest, most advanced children ever. It has become a pet peeve of mine when parents brag about their children as if they're the only ones in the world that could possibly be so wonderful. THAT'S NOT WHAT I'M DOING HERE. My children bring such joy to my life and I consider it a great privilege to be their mother. These moments that I observe and share with them are much too beautiful to keep to myself!