Sit down!

"Zit down!" Carrie Ann pronounces this very emphatically. I think she learned it from me telling her to sit down in her chair so I could give her food. She says it to me when she wants me to sit on the couch and read her a story, or nurse her. Usually, I ask her to add "Mommy, please", which she can and does say! "Peass, peass (sounds like peace, but shorter), mama zit down!"

We're back!

We made it home again! I just finished going through the pictures of our trip, and realized that in May and the first week of June I (with some help) took almost 400 pictures. I hope to not keep that up! Taking and posting pictures has been my outlet this month for some loneliness and feeling unconnected with my family, especially since two siblings just had new babies! Now I've met both babies, which is wonderful. It is an amazing thing to be an aunt of blood-related (not just marriage-related) children! Speaking of which, congratulations to Erik, my first marriage-related nephew, on his graduation from highschool! It's hard to believe it's been that long -- he was just Matthias' age when I met him.

Back to the pictures, I was pondering one evening if I was wasting my God-given time on "connecting" and documenting. Then, as I thought about it, I realized that angels are going back and forth to heaven all the time, observing what we do and recording it in the books of record. Nothing will be truly forgotten -- sins overcome will be listed as victories. Last Sabbath in Trail we discussed whether the memory of sin would be wiped out, and I have to say I agreed with those who maintained that it will not. The memory of sin (and its results) is the very factor which will ensure that God's children never fall again! This is one of the benefits we will have which Lucifer did not have, before he fell. It is like our vaccination against sin. So anyway, I figured if record-keeping was that important to God, it couldn't be wrong for me to spend time on it (provided I don't neglect my other duties, of course).

More pictures are coming later, but I wanted to share this one with you:

This one has had such an impact on Carrie Ann's life, since it is where she learned "Bike, Hat, Owie!"
Her first real word was "up" -- Frank taught her to say this instead of crying when she wants me to pick her up! "Dada" came months before "Mama" ("Mum-mum", which sounds an awful lot like her word for yummy, "num-num"). She calls Bethany "Bet-a-dine" with the emphasis on "Bet", and where "dine" is so long it almost rhymes with "Jane" sometimes. Matthias is some version of "Tias", with an "a" in front occasionally, or an extra "us" at the end, or a "sh" sound at the end... but usually we know who she means! She doesn't refer to herself at all yet, though once she pointed to herself and said, "me-me-me". She is the only baby I've known to learn "pls" before "no" -- which she rarely if ever says. Yesterday Bethany asked if she wanted to go up and jump on the bed together, and she nodded enthusiastically, saying, "Yah-yah-yeah!"

Deep!

Ever have that, when you are made a liar just as you are saying something???
I was just admonishing Bethany to keep going without being afraid, because, after all, you never sink in past your knees -- when I sank right to my thigh! I was sitting on the snow, one leg kneeling and the other fully buried!
Frank took us up to the summit for our yearly springtime snow play -- it is really fun to play in the snow when it is already hot in the valley. Even up at top, the air is warm and the snow cool, creating perfect conditions (if you don't get too wet). It was a little meltier this year than last, though, and I went in deeper than expected! I was sure glad I was wearing my hiking boots, which were tied tight and didn't come off when I pulled my leg out!
More pictures in my picture gallery, see the link at the right. I didn't comment them yet, I will get to that after our trip.
PS I posted a few today, keep on reading until you get to an old one!

"Train!"

"Zane! Zane!" Every night between 8 and 10 pm we hear this word, accompanied by train whistles, ringing through our house. Carrie Ann is fascinated by transportation right now. This morning, she looked out the window and said, "Duck" (which might mean crow), and then Bike, Tar (Car) and Zane (Train) were her next three words. "Kuck" for truck, and "yeyitata" for helicopter, as well as "hot ah babayoon" (up-away!) for hot-air balloon, up up and away! have also entered her vocabulary, due to a DK Reader from the library called "On the Move" -- which she wants to hear at least three times a day!

I got out Matthias' old wooden train toy, and she enjoyed playing with it! Tonight, the train stopped on the tracks (it was around 8 pm, still light out). Carrie and I rushed out with the stroller, to see if we could get closer before it left. After two blocks, we saw a line of stopped cars (52 of them in fact). The engine had switched to another track and was dropping off four cars behind the seed and feed place in town. We watched it shunting back and forth, and finally waved goodbye as it disappeared down the tracks. We even got to wave at the two engineers, as the got on and off the train to switch the tracks back and forth. I hope they had a smile at the little baby who dragged her mom out at bedtime to watch a train! Maybe they appreciated their job just a little more than before!

On the way to the train, we saw the most incredible sunset, with alternating pink and blue lines streaking up from the top of the mountain. I wished I had my camera, but anyway, I stopped for a moment and thanked God for his incredible painting with mountains, clouds, and bent sunlight!

DMD Art

Darius Goes West vehicle

We ordered and watched this video about a boy with DMD, the condition we thought Matthias had at first (Matthias' is a less-severe form). I thought it was worth watching (language warning), but Frank wasn't as impressed.

They sent an email asking us to share their trailer ("vehicle"), which I thought was worthwhile.



As DMD art goes, the book I read a couple years ago was better: The Boys, or, Waiting for the Electrician's Daughter by John Terpstra. This one is actually by a Christian Reformed author, as I remember, so it comes on familiar ground for some of us.

Famous!

Remember this picture? Last year, our picture was in the paper after the Victoria Day Children's Parade. Well, this year, they used that same picture in the promotional material for the "Blossom Valley Festival" and also the Creston Valley Tourist Guide!

We went to the parade again this year. It was fun dressing up for it, but then Matthias tripped on the way there. We had to rush home (thankfully only a block away, still) and bandage his knees, and then we rushed up to town for the parade with Matthias in the stroller and Carrie Ann on his lap! He was not so brave last night when I took the gauze off the scrapes (a big one on one knee, a medium sized one on the other knee, and a smaller one on his ankle), but this morning he bravely took off the bandaids all by himself.

Bethany was a long-haired princess, and Carrie Ann was just enthralled with all the flowery bicycles, dogs, and even a fire truck!

For more pictures, see my picture gallery (link at right). I haven't added comments yet, I'll hopefully get to that next week!

Singing

Matthias is humming and singing away while he washes dishes! I love it when my kids are happy while they work (okay, it took him almost an hour to stop procrastinating and wash... but now he's really happy!).
Carrie Ann brought her her "There's a Spider on the Floor" board book yesterday morning and started singing -- "pida fow" -- in other words, "Mommy, sing the "Spider on the Floor" song with me!" When she wants to eat, she climbs in her chair ("Zit, zit!") then holds out her hands and starts humming -- "For health and strength..."
We have been teaching the kids to play the harmony line for one of our rounds on their melodicas (a blow-in keyboard). Bethany picked it up really well! (ccccffggccccfgc.... not too complicated, but she's only 5!)
This picture is from about a year ago, but you can see what a melodica is.