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!

A Glimpse of Christmas

Our Christmas was so wonderful.  My brother was in town from Colorado with his family for almost a week and Daddy took the whole week off of work.  We spent every day either out doing fun winter activities or hanging out at my parents' house.  There are 17 of us all together, including 7 grand kids (6 boys) ages 6 and under.  So it was mostly loud and crazy but so much fun.  I am so blessed with a family that loves being together.  We definitely miss the Colorado crew throughout the year and love having them in town.

Here are some highlights from the week - ice skating downtown, decorating candy houses, pretzel making, and lots of playing outside because we had beautiful weather.  With all of those boys, there was a lot of wrestling and tackle football. There is even a room at my parents' house that is designated as the "wrestling room."   They did such a great job playing together - I can't believe no one got hurt!  Even Mr. Newton kept up pretty well.  Cousin L, the only girl, was content to watch the ballerina spin on her new jewelry box while the boys tackled each other.

Here's a picture of each individual kid.  I love them!

St. Nick

The other day Mr. Mister was watching the Veggie Tales St. Nicholas movie, one of our Christmas favorites.  When it was over I was hoping to engage him in some intentional conversation about St. Nicholas and who he was.   So I asked him, "Do you know that St. Nick was a real person a long time ago?"

I could see the wheels in his mind spinning as he tried to figure this all out.  Then he answered me,  "And now he's just a vegetable?"

Haha. It made me laugh so hard.  I tried to explain but just decided to enjoy his attempts at making sense of the world!

The Rescuer

A couple weeks ago I experienced a holy moment as a mom - one in which I saw a glimpse into what God is really doing in my son's life and the fruit that He is bearing despite the challenges that blind me each day.  It was a sweet reminder to me that our efforts to raise him into a man who loves Jesus have not been completely marred by our faults and shortcomings. That even though there is much to be refined in him (and me!), there is also evidence of eternal truth taking root.

This moment happened at an event called A Night in Bethlehem at a friend's church.  It was set up like the village that Bethlehem once was.  We got tunics to wear and gold coins to carry that the kids could use to do activities like weaving and pottery and baking and jewelry making.  After completing all of the activities in the market area, we continued walking and came upon a choir of angels singing and a group of shepherds excitedly announcing the arrival of a baby in the stable.  Finally, we made it to the stable where Mary and Joseph were holding their new baby.

At this point, Mr. Mister was in the front of the crowd, so engaged in what he was experiencing that he was unaware that Daddy and I were standing toward the back.  I loved just observing him, watching him interact and engage so intently.

The woman dressed as Mary asked everyone, "Do you know who Jesus is?"

And Mr. Mister shouted out loud: "The Rescuer!"

Oh. My heart filled with such joy and my eyes brimmed with tears.  Out of everything he could say, he shouted The Rescuer.  He knows that Jesus is so much more than a baby in a manger.  He knows that He is the Rescuer.  The One who came as part of God's perfect rescue plan - His plan to save the people He loves from the life of sin and brokenness that is apart from Him.

The whole way home that night, he asked us to tell him more about Jesus.  And we did.  We told him all about the hope that the birth of Jesus brought to a broken world waiting for its savior.  We told him the hope that Jesus brings to us in His promise of abundant life and forgiveness of sin.  We told him about the hope we have that one day there will be no more pain and no more tears.  And we told him that we have this hope because Jesus came as man, died even though he was perfect, and rose in victory over all of our sin and the death we deserved.

It was the sweetest night.  Such an honor to be the one to share this with Him and to see his mind so thoroughly processing everything, even if he doesn't understand it all right now.  Right now, He knows Jesus as the Rescuer.  And really, isn't that childlike faith?

I pray this Christmas that you know Jesus as your Rescuer.  The One who knows and loves you intimately.  The source of all life, the One who satisfies, who gives hope, who is faithful to all of His promises, who cannot stop loving you, who is calling you into a life more abundant than anything this world can offer.  May we celebrate Him this Christmas.  May we celebrate that God did not leave us in our brokenness but out of His perfect love for us, came as the long awaited Savior to rescue, redeem and restore us.

(As a side note, we love the Jesus Storybook Bible.  It does an amazing job of pointing everything in all of Scripture back to Jesus.  It talks about the terrible lie, God's secret rescue plan, Jesus as the Rescuer, and His never stopping, never giving up, unbreaking, always and forever love.  I highly highly recommend it!)