Tuesday, February 27, 2007

Lydia's 3 Years Old!

Our kids get Bob and Larry cakes for their 3rd birthday and Lydia was no exception! She has been saying "My birthday coming up soon!" ever since Christmas because she knows that her birthday is the next one after Jesus' birthday. She has been picking out random items at every store we have gone to and saying "Me want that for my birthday." We celebrated Lydia's birthday on Sunday afternoon with a birthday party at Paul and AmyJo's house. The party was also to celebrate Sonja's brother Russell's graduation from his Masters. Lydia had fun playing with cousins and eating Cheesy Puffs. She loved her Bob and Larry cakes and practiced blowing out candles all afternoon whenever she saw one lit anywhere. We also went sledding down Grandpa Roger's driveway and had a tea party with Lydia's new princess tea set. On Monday, her actual birthday, she opened presents after her birthday supper of hot dogs and bread and cheese fondue. The three girls are showing off their new sweatshirts from Grandma and Grandpa Maas and Caleb has on his that he got from them at Christmas time. They are excited to have pink hoodies to wear together! Lydia, our "Pixie Dust," had a very fun birthday and is excited to be 3!
I am also including a picture of Hannah and Lydia as flower girls from Dan and Laura Kilpatrick's wedding on the 17th. Hannah was giving Lydia a little hug and pep talk before walking down the aisle. They were cute and did a great job.

Monday, February 05, 2007

Caleb

I just want to brag on Caleb for a little bit. I am SO proud of him. He has really started reading well! Today during quiet time he asked if he could take his Bible to bed and work on his memory verse for Sunday School. We have been going to Fingerlakes Christian Fellowship for about 5 months and I just learned that he is supposed to bring back his "homework" for Sunday School and memorize his verse, I am not with it. So anyway, Caleb was in his room for about 10 minutes when he came back out with a huge grin on his face and told us he knew his new verse and quoted for us Colossians 3:17 "In whatsoever ye do in word or deed do all in the name of the Lord Jesus." He had read his verse and memorized it himself. After quiet time we sat with his Sunday School homework and he read me the story about Jesus healing a blind man. We talked about loyalty (had to look it up in the dictionary) and how we can be loyal to God. I am so excited that Caleb is able to read his Bible. He can look up verses in his Bible too because he just memorized the books of the New Testament for AWANA. He thought of a verse that he had memorized earlier this year in AWANA and ran to get his book to find out where the verse was found. He is almost done with his first book and doing well. We went through and looked at all he had learned this year. How excited to get so much of God's Word in his heart at such a young age. He is my firstborn son, the one that the Bible tells me should be given to the Lord. His ambition right now is to be a pastor. What a great calling. I pray that he is always excited about learning Bible verses and knowing more about God.

This morning as we started school, pretty late unfortunately after staying up so late at the Superbowl party that we went to last night, Glenn was reading from
More Little Visits With God and it was about Charles Spurgeon's mother paying him to kill rats and to memorize hymns. We started talking about what hymns were and I got a hymn book and we looked at it and decided to work on memorizing one hymn a week. This weeks is A Mighty Fortress is Our God. So we discussed Martin Luther and read through the hymn and had to look up several words in the dictionary like fortress and bulwark. We talked about how through Jesus we have victory over Satan and don't have to fear. It was great. As we sang it together, having just discussed the hymn, I was crying over the truth in it. I am so thankful that the Lord of Hosts is in the battle and that I don't have to strive in my own strength. I am excited about learning hymns with the kids and strengthening their faith in God (and my own) through the words.
God is really working on renewing my mind right now, about homeschooling and lots of other things. He is using His Word, Calm My Anxious Heart by Linda Dillow (from my Tuesday morning Bible Study), Sunday School, Church, stuff I hear on FLN, a homeschooling blog that my 'mother in love' recently introduced me to, etc. I want to do what He wants me to do. I know that He has a purpose for my life and I know that I have not been going about it the right way lately. This coming week in Bible study we are supposed to work on a life purpose statement and I am so excited because I can see how God has been preparing me in the last few weeks to do just that. Our God is so faithful and amazing. I am so thankful that I am a child of the King! Pastor was talking yesterday about how thankful we should be for the Word of God and what advantages we have over OT saints, Christians in the 1st century, even Christians of 100 years ago or Christians that live in other countries. Am I taking advantage of the advantages we have been given? I know I have not been but I would like to do so and am praying that God will reveal through His Word and that I would be obedient.
Anyway, enough blabbing. I am just so excited to see what God is doing in us.

Sunday, February 04, 2007

Where does the time go.

Well it has been a long time since we have updated so...here is an update. We have been busy homeschooling Caleb, he is learning subtraction and it is going ok. Hannah loves to play tic-tac-toe so if you are planning on coming to our house you had better brush up on your skills first. Lydia loves playing with "Abs" who is according to Lydia "My best friend!" They play with some magnetic dolls that they got for Christmas and also Sesame Street "Little People" that are from Sonja's childhood. Abigail plays with Lydia and also loves walking around with "Little People" in her mouth. Sonja stated yesterday "I am ready to go back to Louisiana." I think that she is tired of being solely responsible for cooking and cleaning all day long. She said, "I need a day off." I asked what she would do with a day off and she had no idea. I have been working on physics and will get it finished off tomorrow for now. Then on to Organic. Yeah!!!!