Getting Big!

My family is getting big! I can't believe it, I cooked a whole five pound bag of potatoes today (our favourite way, baked wedges), and we ate it all up!

I've been very busy with school (I actually got sick last week because I was just so busy...). Bethany can read lots of three letter sight words now ("the" and "and," for example), and is working on long vowels. ("Why would it have two sounds? Why would it sound different if there's another vowel? Why don't you just write "ay" A? (Capitalize to show long vowels)) She's also been working on drawing hands, and today drew a life-sized hand with rings on each finger. Yesterday she drew a princess with full sleeves and the right number of fingers!
Matthias is working on breaking down long words to sound them out accurately -- af-fec-tion-ate-ly, for example, or today's Aus-tra-lia. He is also drilling to memorize the addition facts up to 20 -- and not getting completely frustrated yet!
Carrie Ann writes:
/.,lkiji8[][]=-==-]ulddll;dcpd
s
[flcclolopdopo0osp0wo-q-[q[=]==000qqqqqqqqqqqq-;/'
5.41417
Yesterday she said to me, "Mommy, sit-down table, drink water! Like me, drink water!" Today she asked me, "I yike tum-up, Mommy!" (I would like to come up (be picked up), Mommy!) "Pud-it 'way!" means "Put it away!", and when she was playing she said, "Girl is sleeping ("syeepeen"). Another ("nu-doe") girl is sleeping. A boy is sleeping." When she was drawing she told me, "Me dawyeen piecess!" (I'm drawing a princess!). At the table yesterday she said to Frank, "Pass-it salt, please!"

We are reading Gordon Korman's "I want to go home!" together, and the kids have fun yelling "Miller!" along with the story (Miller is the kid who keeps trying to run away from camp). Carrie Ann says, "Miya!"

Bethany's new glasses!

Bethany got glasses this week!
On Tuesday we had the eye check up, on Wednesday we went in to choose a frame, and on Thursday we picked up the glasses! She is near-sighted, so doesn't need them for school work or reading, just for distance viewing (eg. watching a movie from the couch).


She picked a nice pink sparkly frame which looks very good on her (in my opinion), and also resembles my first pair of glasses. Interesting!
See my family picture album (link at right) for more on the neat dolls the kids are holding!

The Year of Living Biblically

Is a great book I read recently by AJ Jacobs. It is a chronicle of his year of trying to follow all the rules of the Bible indiscriminately -- starting off as a secular humanist agnostic, a non-practicing Jew. Since I also try to "live biblically", it was very interesting to read someone else's journey through the same ideal, but from a very different starting point. First of all, he discovered that picking and choosing is not optional -- although he set out to follow "all the rules", from the very beginning this was impossible. In my opinion, that makes the rule by which we pick and choose which rules to follow very important! The best things AJ got out of his year, to him, were living a life of gratitude rather than envy, keeping the Sabbath (he loved this!), wearing white and growing a beard (though he gave these up at the end of the year). He now sees God more as an abiding life-principle (rather than non-existent), not as a personal being, and still has trouble believing in Jesus -- yet his life was clearly changed by the experiment! If you've ever struggled with which rules to follow and which no longer apply, this book is a great read!

Barrier-Free

This past weekend we went to a one-day seminar (held by the Bonner's Ferry, ID church near Troy, Montana) by Daniel and Lorna Dreher. We heard about it because Lorna's parents recently moved to our church in Creston. So we camped by the Yaak River. The kids had fun jumping from stone to stone in the river's edge Friday afternoon. (The first miracle was that at 2 pm Frank dropped his work -- just dropped it where he was, instead of finishing his list, and came down and said, "If we want to get there we'd better get going!" I wasn't expecting that so early! It was actually the time we had planned!) So the girls had time to jump from stone to stone in the river after we set up the tent! It was too cold for "swimming". Bethany had fun drawing princesses on the rocks with water, and Carrie Ann cried when the water evaporated and the princesses were gone! Matthias really enjoyed the campfire at the first meeting, Friday night. The night was so cold I could hardly sleep -- but we expected that. We had lots of extra blankets and sleeping bags, and once I finally got them properly arranged (and Frank got cold and snuggled up to me) I got a couple more hours of sleep. Frank got up early (because of the cold) and started a fire -- that was more fun for Matthias, in fact it was hard to drag him away!

The seminar was about getting rid of the barriers in our relationships with eachother and with Christ -- so that his love can flow through us. A barrier is a sin -- the first step is to become aware of and acknowledge the sin/barrier. The second is to be sorry for it -- repentance. The third step is to ask for and accept forgiveness -- from God primarily, but also from anyone we've wrong, and to make restitution where necessary. The fourth step is to ask for and accept the Holy Spirit to cleanse us from unrighteousness and fill us with power to walk a holy life.

The greatest barrier is self -- at first I thought I probably wasn't too bad, but when I read the list of selfish ways, all but two or three of the 16 fit me either now, or at some time in the past! So even though it was a "rate yourself then your spouse" exercise, I didn't rate Frank -- he sometimes feels like I'm always judging and accusing him, so it opens up the way for him to search his own heart when I reveal that I'm searching mine -- not his!

The most painful barrier is bitterness. This is when I am right and someone else has wronged me, perhaps hurt me deeply -- and I have the wrong attitude about it. Instead of forgiveness and pity towards the offender, I cling to the hurt and my "rightness", preventing God from healing me. This is one of my biggies -- it sometimes takes years for me to realize that I'm still bitter about something in the past. So this weekend I realized that, although I made some progress in not being bitter toward Frank, I was selfishly protecting myself, not able to trust God, because I was bitter against Him -- for taking my Mom (it was good for her, but not for me!), for the whole Dickendorf experience (it was not what I expected), for the amount of pain it took to have Carrie Ann (I couldn't roll over in bed without pain for about 6 weeks after she was born -- the hernia is only now starting to close). I want to open my heart up to God -- I always knew he loves me, and I belong to him -- but He can't use me (or heal me) when I'm protecting myself from him! So if you've seen my bitterness in my stories, I'm sorry. And if you put me on a pedestal because I concealed it well -- I'm sorry!

One of the tools they mentioned for overcoming a besetting sin (one confession doesn't take away a habit of years) was to use Bible verses to fight it every single time it tries to creep in. So right after the session, as I was reading my Bible, God gave me this verse from Job (my paraphrase) "God will lift up those who mourn to safety". Isn't that funny? The connection from mourning to safety is not immediately obvious, but it was exactly what my heart was crying for. So I know that doesn't mean nothing bad will ever happen, and I always knew God has promised to not give us more than we can bear... but this is a help for me on my road to healing. God really does care -- he really does speak to us, and even write us love letters in the sky from time to time (see this post and this one).

So, please pray for me too, that my healing will be complete, and God will be able to use me.

Sounds

So one of Carrie Ann's new words is goom. She said this at the table (I want a "goom", Mommy) -- so take a guess, and I'll tell you at the end of the post.

Here are the last of the sounds I managed to capture.
Stuck
Swimsuit
More talking
Thank you
Who's there?

I hope you enjoyed them, because my drivers took a beating in one of Frank's experiments, and I can't get the microphone working again! My next project (which may take a while since school starts again tomorrow for us) is to get the videos off our video camera and post them one way or another. I'll let you know when I get that working (last time I tried, the sound was about 2 minutes ahead of the video, sometimes more, sometimes less).

Ps Goom? It's a spoon.

Sentences!

Wow, Carrie Ann is making some sentences now! Three words is common, but once in while she comes out with four or even five:

"Betadane wasp see'd-it. 'Aiyan wasp see'd-it." Bethany and Carrie Ann were looking at the wasp.
"I see'd-it big wasp 'den, Mommy!" I want to see the big wasp picture again, Mommy!
(See the August pictures on my picture gallery for the pictures she was referring to.)

She finally learned how to say her own name (kind of). Right now, she loves telling me what someone said. Matthias, "Hmm-hm-hum-hm-mmmmm" Carrie Ann, "Mommy, 'Tias, 'Hmm-hm-hum-hm-mmmmm'" or "Ahhhh. Mommy, 'Aiyan, 'Ahhhh.'" In other words, "Ahhhh. Mommy, Carrie Ann said, 'Ahhhh.'" It's really cute!