Songs of Joy: Some newish pictures...

Nate's new naughty habit: standing in the oven.

My super thoughtful husband brought me a frog purse for my birthday. It's made from a real frog. He also gave me black pearls from Borneo, so that kind of redeems the gift. Kind of. I had to unzip the frog's mouth to get the pearls out, so you be the judge.

Pretty girl :) Kelly's trying out for soccer, and also plans on doing basketball and volleyball! Busy, busy. And she's on the worship team which practices before school. AND she's taking an AP world history class this year, which is a senior level class. Smarty pants! She's a sophomore. Which means, I'm old. Yikes!

Happy boy!

Run away!!

Mr. Mischief

Caleb in his shining armor. The curtain is shiny satin, he found them under the stairs. Then he paired it with a broken trash can lid, a towel rack, and a toy bin. Tada- knight in shining armor. He put it all together on his own, I swear I did not coach him in any way! His favorite story is David and Goliath, even though David didn't use the armor. The other day I heard him telling Kelly, "You stay here, we're going to play David and Goliath, and I'm going to throw a rock at your head and kill you." Sounds fun, right?

This is kid is pretty adorable. He loves his little brother, too. It's funny for someone who used to be so aggressive, he's so sweet to Nate. He never (well, hardly ever) retaliates when Nate is rough with him. And that's pretty often. In the morning Nate hears Caleb's voice and his face lights up, and they run to each other and hug. This morning Caleb hugged him then said, "Mommy, Nate be'd sweet to me!!" And this afternoon when Nate was clawing Caleb's eyes, Caleb took Nate's hand and said, "Don't be mean, be nice like this..." and stroked Nate's hand up and down his cheek. What a stinkin' cute little kid. Between his imagination and his (newfound) kind demeanor, I'm thinking it almost makes up for his terrible, terrible twos. Almost.

I am having trouble getting blogger to let me type a little info except in the caption boxes. I just want to add that a) we're redecorating/renovating the Center (where we work) and we're crazy busy, so that's one reason for no posting lately. b) Matt does still live with us, and he's awesome. He just never wants to get in any pictures. In fact, he disappears whenever the camera comes out. He's a great help with the little boys, especially Caleb. Caleb loves to watch him play video games. It works well for everybody! Matt has a couple good friends who live nearby and spends a lot of time at their houses. We're so thankful for them! Matt's even thinking about trying out for the soccer team at school, but only if his big toe heals. It's been infected for a couple weeks and hurts to kick a ball. We're going to the doctor on Saturday.

Kelly gets in on the game...she's a great sister!