shaving cream

1 bottle of shaving cream = tons of fun!!

twins?

how is it possible that these boys have such identical facial expressions all the time?!? They're not even trying to look alike, yet I find myself doing "double takes" at how identical they seem. It's been a bit of a long and rough week with the little kiddos this week, but i'm so thankful for them and pictures like this make my heart ache with the sweetness of these years.

walkin' in the rain :o)

We almost always take a family walk (or bike ride) after dinner... tonight, as we were finishing up our grilled cheese, the heavens opened up and it started pouring! We, however, were not deterred.

2nd photo shoot

This afternoon, I became determined to get a few good pics of the boys, so I did a 2nd photo shoot of the day. I switched locations, switched cameras, used props, used bribes involving juice, made lots of exciting (and embarassing) sounds, and got a few decent pics.

My challenge in getting a really good pic with BOTH the boys (which is my daily goal) is this: Brody = always sucking on his toes... and Jasper = always in constant movement. They both are super smiley boys. If I could, by some act of God, get Brody to stop sucking on his toes at the exact same moment that Jasper stops moving, get them both to smile, get the camera to focus, and snap the picture before that rare millisecond is over, I will die a happy woman.

A few tidbits from the past week or so...

Andrew was doing family devo's recently and asked Jasper at the end...
Andrew- "So, Jasper, who is Jesus' father?"
Jasper- ".... hmm.... I know!!! It's pastor!!!"

Yesterday, Jasper and I were swimming together and I said something like this:
me- "What a gorgeous day!! Did you know that this is the day the Lord has made? He made this day just so we can enjoy it!! What else did God make?"
Jasper- "Hmm... God made... fishies! And aga-waiters (alligators). And whine-oss-owisis (rhinoceroses). And nuffin' else."

The other day at breakfast..
Jasper- "mommy... what's sin? I's jus' don' unnerstand it. And how on earf do dey get da milk out of da cowies? I jus' don' unnerstand dat, eever (either)."

After a quick prayer for help, I decided to tackle the sin issue first and address the cow issue later. :o) More and more, I realize how desperately I need the Holy Spirit's help in parenting a very sweet and very curious and slightly ornery little boy.

A few days ago in the car...
Jasper- "When I's get beeeeg an' stwong wike daddy, all's I wanna do is work at Wafferstwom wif daddy and provide for my's family."

Yesterday...
Jasper- "Bwodybug... you're's my's best fwiend it da whole wide worwd. My's bestest fwiend ever."

In other news:

Jasper is now wearing undies during nap time and is accident-free! He's transitioning to pull-ups at night time, but I think he could do undies at night time right now if we wanted. we'll go ahead and do pull ups at night for a few weeks and then put him in undies when our pack of pull ups run out.

Brody turned 5 months old yesterday! I can't believe 5 months have passed since he's been born! It feels like just last week! I did a "photo shoot" with the boys this morning ("photo shoot" takes on a whole new meaning when dealing with a toddler and an infant). I didn't get any amazing pics, but here are the ones I got.

most of them turned out something like this

I love this one of Jasper. Not the best of Brodybug, but super cute of big brother.

never-a-dull-moment

One day last week, I walked into the bathroom to randomly find this:

Yeah...

your guess is as good as mine. :o)

Jasper's heart

Jasper's heart is so, so very sweet and tender. He loves easily and has recently shown a growing interest in the Lord and loving the bible. It's so very precious! A few sweet examples from our past week:

- At breakfast the other morning, Jasper was supposed to pray a "thankful prayer" for our food. (a little background... he refused to eat his dinner of egg salad sandwiches the night before, and as is our rule in our house, if he doesn't eat it for dinner, he has to eat it for breakfast. If he won't eat it for breakfast, he has to eat it for lunch, etc. Also, he recently learned that eggs come from chickens.)

Anyway, the night before, he wouldn't eat his egg salad. So he was having egg salad for breakfast Thur morn. He normally prays before breakfast, "Dear Gowd. Thank you's for my's food. AAAAaaaaamen." On Thur morn, however, he said, "Dear Gowd. Pwease help me to eat my's egg sawad from da chickens. I's need Your's stwength to eat da egg sawad from da chickens. I's can't do it by myself. I's need Your's help to eat da egg sawad from da chickens. Pwease help me's to obey my's mommy and to hab an obedient heart. I's need Your's help to have da obedient heart. And pwease give me's Your's strength to eat da egg sawad from da chickens. AAAAAaaaamen!!"

Oh... how it melted my heart.

- The other day, Jasper and I were looking for a swim suit that actually fit Jasper. I knew we had one somewhere, and up till now, I'd been squeezing him into his 24 month swim suit. I couldn't find the 3T suit anywhere, so I stopped and prayed out loud with Jasper, "Dear Lord. Please help us to find the bigger swim suit for Jasper so that his belly doesn't hurt anymore when he swims. Please help us find it. Amen." We continued looking for another few minutes and we found the suit! As soon as we found it, Jasper said, "Pwaise da Lawd!! Pwaise da Lawd!! He's helped us to find my's suit!! Pwaise da Lawd!!" and he just kept saying it so joyfully and so enthusiastically for the next half hour or so. So, so precious!!!

- Friday, I took a quick shower right before lunch. I put Brody in his bouncy seat and put him on the bathroom floor right beside the shower. I told Jasper to play with toys or read books on the couch until I was done. I took a quick shower and then flung open the shower curtain and looked at Brody with a huge grin on my face. Except... Brody wasn't there. There was no Brody, no bouncy seat, no noise in the house whatsoever. My heart both stopped and sped up to 10,000 beats per second all at the same time. I was terrified. I raced out of the bathroom, searching in the boys' rooms, and finally found them like this:

After I calmed down (it took a while!), I oh-so casually said, "Hey buddy!! Whatcha guys doin'?" and Jasper said, "Oh, I's jus' readin' da Bible to Brodybug." Oh. my. word. This is my constant, heartfelt prayer coming true before my eyes (he also got them a snack of Animal Crackers to munch on while they were reading... how cute is that?!?). Then I oh-so-casually said, "Oh honey! That's awesome!! I'm so thankful that you're doing that!....Oh, um... by the way... how did you get Brody over there?" and Jasper said, "oh. I jus' drugged him over." ok, sweetie pie, ok.