Getting Closer

We are almost there - less than 3 weeks until our new little one is due to join our family.  I realized I haven't blogged much about my pregnancy.  I guess that's what happens when life continues at a million miles an hour with two boys who are full of life and energy.

The other thing that happens is that we suddenly find ourselves three weeks from our due date with nothing ready for the baby.  Stress threatens to overtake me when I look at all of the baby things we brought home from storage at my parents' house still sitting in the back of our van because it has no place to go.  While I had hoped we would be in a new house before this baby's arrival, I am realizing that we will just need to be creative in making it work.  It's a good challenge!

As I've been tempted to be stressed and panicked about not feeling ready and organized, I have been so encouraged by the Lord's promises and faithfulness and the peace that is in Him.  It has been so good to go to the Word for life, encouragement, and truth when it feels like tasks and our house and baby things and clutter are consuming me.    My all time favorite Scripture is Lamentations 3:21-24

²¹ Yet this I call to mind
   and therefore I have hope:

 ²² Because of the LORD’s great love we are not consumed,
   for his compassions never fail.
²³ They are new every morning;
   great is your faithfulness.
²⁴ I say to myself, “The LORD is my portion; 

   therefore I will wait for him.”

These verses have been foundational for me through so many seasons of life and here I am again refreshed by the truth of God's great faithfulness.

Through this time leading up to my delivery and the craziness of life that is sure to accompany life with three kids, I have been learning to pray instead of think.  Trying to immediately give thoughts to the Lord when they enter my mind rather than dwelling on them and trying to figure it all out myself.  Sounds like a basic spiritual practice but amazingly it takes effort.

As a side note, I love both of the baby names we have chosen.  It's kind of funny that the boy name is very common and the girl name is very uncommon.  But both have much meaning for us and for who we pray our baby becomes!

Stay tuned...

Cool Books

Today I took the boys to the library and as we picked out books, I began to see a divide between what books I wanted to choose for Mr. Mister and the books he wanted to choose.  He loves to read and will still listen to any book I choose - I don't think he's ever found a book he doesn't like.  But the books he wanted today were "cool books."  I encouraged him to ask the librarian for help and here is what he said to her:

"We are looking for cool books.  Like ones about Batman, karate choppers or Superman.  Or any superhero."

Haha. As opposed to the Curious George and Llama Llama books I was picking out!  So we brought home some Curious George books and a couple superhero books.  I know he'll still be excited to read the ones I chose, but I'm glad he is excited about his books.  Even though it's hard sometimes for me to be excited about things like superheroes, I do love seeing his personality and interests continue to develop!

The Third Person

One of my favorite stages in toddler language development is when they start to refer to themselves in the third person.  Mr. Mister called himself Mars for so long.  I loved it and it still makes me laugh to remember that.  Mr. Newton has just started saying his name and calls himself II.  That's not a roman numeral - that's two I's like eye eye.  It's super cute and will make you smile!

Star Wars Nativity

Here is a nativity scene according to a 4 year old boy.


The wise men drove their three cars down the train track to the stable.

Then King Herod (Darth Vader) came to try to take Baby Jesus but Yoda fought him off!

Birthday Love

This week I became another year older.  Besides that fact, it was a wonderful day.  It was sunny and warm and I got to do so many fun things like sleep in, go for a walk, and spend time reading and journaling at Starbucks (one of my favorite birthday traditions).  I also felt so loved by a lot of different people.

One of my favorite parts was waking up to Daddy and the kids eating breakfast.  They had a Happy Birthday sign up and a homemade card ready for me.  It was actually one of those coupon books with different things I could trade my coupons for.  See if you can tell which ones Daddy helped the boys come up with and which ones they came up with on their own:

1. A quiet house
2. No whining
3. Hugs
4. Ice skating
5. Football
6. Football

Haha. I love that they just think of the things they like to do!  The two football entries were both from Mr. Newton.  That's one of his favorite words.

I love these boys!  And my husband, who takes such good care of me.

Loved This Video

A friend sent me this video.  I don't know the family in it, but I love it because it renews my appreciation of boys!


The Poulsen's from Brinton Films on Vimeo.

My favorite parts are:
1. When they are pretending to be knights fighting monsters and aliens.  Mr. Mister loves stories about him being a brave knight and rescuing princess Mommy from the dragon and the castle. I love that being brave and rescuing people from evil is innate in little boys.

2. When the boys say why they love their Mom and Dad.  He plays with them and she cleans up everything they don't want to clean up.  Sounds familiar :)

3. At the end when they say "My mom is going to have a baby and we think it's a girl because we have too much boys in our family.  We need to mellow it down."  

Highs and Lows

We have learned this about Mr. Mister's personality:
His highs are very high and his lows are very low.

Today was a day of mostly low lows.  After hearing that he tried to bite someone at school (thankfully the teacher caught it in time), our day just got crazier.  After lunch he went to the bathroom and was gone a long time.  When I went to check on him, the door was locked and he told me he was sitting in water (at least he's honest).  When I finally made my way in, here is what I found:



He said, "I just wanted to get baptized."   While that's a really sweet intention and I appreciate his creativity and adventurous spirit, I also was frustrated by the water everywhere and the fact that he would think this is okay to do.  Thankfully, Daddy grabbed the camera and reminded me that we would laugh about this at some point.

The craziness only progressed with disrespectful words, disobedience, and wild antics that are uncommon even for him.  I was at the end of my rope when I put him in our room with books for some quiet time.  Thankfully, I found him sound asleep not long afterwards.  After feeling completely drained by the afternoon with him, I fell asleep as well.

Those were the lows.

Then tonight when I was putting them to bed, Mr. Mister asked me to tell them the story of Jesus calming the storm when he was in the boat with his disciples.  I told him my summarized version, which I thought was pretty good.  Then he said,"I'm going to tell you that story now but I know all the words."

And he went on to tell me the entire story word for word from the Jesus Storybook Bible.  We gave the boys the audio version for Christmas and we listen to it all the time in the car.  He completely memorized that story, complete with the inflections that the narrator uses.

I was amazed.  That is a complete gift from the Lord.  It was such a reminder, once again, that God is already at work in Mr. Mister's life and as one of our friends constantly reminds us, he's going to do great things.  That's probably why there are such intense battles now.  So in the battles, when I am overwhelmed by how hard the lows can be,  I want to remember that there is more going on than I see.  That someday I will look back and see all that God has accomplished in and through the life of this intense little guy who I just love so much.

Blog in a Book

This year for Christmas, my sister gave me one of the most unique and special gifts I have ever received.  She had my blog printed into a hardback book.  I had heard of people doing this before and it had crossed my mind, but I knew it was one of those things I would never get around to doing.  I LOVE IT.  It is my whole blog from my very first post through my last December posts of 2011.  That is over 4 years of blog posts and pictures!   I am so excited to sit with it and slowly read through it.  What a fun collection of memories to have as the boys get older and what a fun gift to pass onto them someday.  Thanks, Sister!