New Haircut & 2 Entreprenuers

Last week, Reid got a new haircut. Jeff wanted him to get his hair buzzed for the last few months, so I finally consented...I'm sure his head is a lot cooler with all this summer heat, but I do miss his hair!!
Chillin' with B on the rocking chair...
Sydney & Reid playing on Ethan's bed...
Sydney is saving up her money for an American Girl doll. As expensive as they are, she has a way to go, but we did find we can get one a bit cheaper on ebay. Ethan is saving his money for an Easy Bake Oven. (He loves to cook, and I bet one day he'll have his own cooking show called Gluten Free Eatin' With Ethan!) Although they earn money each day for chores, they have been looking for ways to earn more. So they both set up shops in their rooms.


Sydney set up her own jewelery shop- see how she set all her handiwork on her lamp for display? She made Christmas ornaments out of colored paper clips and beads, which is what is hanging off the flowers on the lamp. I love the look on her face...she looks so proud of herself and excited about her creations. She was more than thrilled when I bought some of her wares.
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She was especially excited about how her lamp looked turned on with the handmade jewelery on it.
Ethan's store was a bit more ecclectic. He was selling a collection of Playmobils, jibitts, a Gideon's Bible, and a homemade lepprechaun trap (the playmobil island with an Egyptian oar sticking out of it which was attached to a pen by a green string.)



He wanted $20 for the Gideon's Bible.

Garden, Swim Lessons, and a Birthday

Here's a picture of a huge zucchini from our garden!

For Sydney's 7th birthday, she had 2 of her friends sleep over. Sidney, Sydney & Aliza had Papa John's pizza, learned finger knitting, watched a movie, ate yummy bakery treats, and played shadow games before crashing on Sydney's bedroom floor. Jeff & the boys went out to dinner and Toy Story 3.

So then we were in VA on Sydney's actual birthday, so she had another party at Grammy & Papa's house with cousins Riley & Liam and dear friends Alexa, Emmaline & Harrison.
Our blackberry bushes went nuts this year!!!
2 weeks of swim lessons in VA with the Morgan Swim School produced 2 very confident swimmers! Here they are with Miss Sarah.


Here is an excerpt from an email I sent to the swim school:

Sydney (age 7) went from being convinced she would drown in the water (unless she had on a life vest or could stand in the shallow end) to jumping in and swimming (with rocket hands) to the other end of the pool. Ethan (age 5) was so cautious of the water, and as it turned out, jumping into the pool ended up being his most favorite part of swim lessons!!

The best part, though, was on the last day of class, after Miss Sarah worked with the 3 of us in the water and she & I were talking, Sydney and Ethan were playing ring-around-the-rosies in the pool and going under water at the end!!! They were having so much fun doing this!!! My kids have never wanted to go under water, and here they were so happy about going under at the end!

Coming from out of state added an extra cost to my family- both financially, and in the amount of energy expended, but wow! This was so worth it!

I so appreciate how Sarah handled Sydney & Ethan. She expected them to listen, just as we do at home. She was never deterred by their behavior when they were afraid, and because she did not allow their fear to control the lesson, they learned a tremendous amount and gained a vast amount of confidence in the water.

TV Dinners

Today, Ethan finished up his reading lessons from Teach Your Child To Read In 100 Easy Lessons. For his reward, he wanted a TV dinner. My kids have never had these, but they have heard me tell them a story about them. When I was in 4th grade, I spent the night at a friend's house, and for dinner her mom took us to the grocery store to pick out our own TV dinners. I didn't know what a TV dinner was. I remember looking at the boxes and asking what that white square was (it was mashed potatoes!)
Since hearing that story, my kids have been curious about TV dinners. So we trekked out to Whole Foods after the boys had their hair cuts and picked out some gluten free TV dinners! To complete the whole concept of TV dinners, we watched TV- Little House on The Prairie!
In Reid Land, he is talking up a storm! He picked up a penny tonight (Ethan's money for fly swatting- flies have a one penny bounty in our house!) and said, "I need money too!"

Cowboy Cantina & Homemade Roller Skates

Yesterday morning, I went upstairs, and this is what I saw... Sydney said it was The Cowboy Cantina. All I have to say is she is a pretty good shot, thanks to lessons Ethan has given her!



And later in the day, Ethan decided to make his own roller skates! He rubberbanded his shoes to toy train blocks and skated around and busted! What a fun, creative boy!



More to come over the weekend!

Gold Medal Day

One Less Tooth!

Sydney lost her fourth tooth last night! She walked around with that tooth hanging by a thread for 2 days before it made it's final departure! On Sunday at church, she kept pushing it out of her mouth and closing her lips around it so she would look like a bunny rabbit! She even did this to Hunter when we went up to take communion!!!

Our Little Bunny on Mother's Day

Look how loose it was!

And she is now one tooth less!

Ethan's 2 Birthdays

Ethan had his 5th birthday party in April!! It was an army theme, and Col. Chandler (Jeff's dad) and Grammy made that party rock! The games, the cake, the decor...it was all fabulous. I'm very lucky to have such wonderful party planners...really all I did was send out the evite and order the BBQ for lunch!

Ethan received a BB gun for his gift from us, which he totally did not expect because we kept telling him he had to be 10 to get one. Jeff set it up just like the scene in A Christmas Story when Ralphie gets his BB gun. Jeff even wore his "You'll Shoot Your Eye Out" shirt for the occasion. Below is a video of Ethan opening his gift.



Ethan's second birthday happened this past Tuesday night, May 4 (Uncle Jason's bday!) as he was born again, this time into the family of God. Being in a believing family, he has been exposed to the love of Christ, the doctrines of sin, repentance, forgiveness, and grace since birth, and we have all had many conversations about what it means to be a true believer in Jesus. How we come to Him totally unworthy because of our sin, and exchange our sin for His righteousness...His perfect righteousness that we could never begin to dream of earning or deserving...just becoming righteous and accepted by the Father through our simple belief in Jesus as our Savior...accepting our position as children of the King!

Ethan began asking Jeff about taking communion while Jeff was reading the Bible to E & Sydney Tuesday night. We have many times talked about how communion is for those who fully trust Jesus, and that we wait to take it until we really do believe that Jesus is our only hope, otherwise we encourage hypocrisy, and have our hearts hardened toward it. And while in the past he has said he believed in Jesus, there was something different about Tuesday night. We sensed he had a genuine understanding of his sin, his need for a Savior, his inadequacy to ever be good enough, his knowing that the love of God was not dependent on Ethan's behavior, but rather on what Jesus has done for Ethan. So we had the joy and privilege of praying to our Father with our son in the name of Jesus Christ for forgiveness and giving thanks for Ethan's faith.

The below verse was quoted at Ethan's baptism when he was 3 months old. How cool to see God's covenant at work in him!

Acts 2:38-39Peter replied, "Repent and be baptized, every one of you, in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins. And you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit. ³⁹The promise is for you and your children and for all who are far off—for all whom the Lord our God will call."