Yes, I may be a writer, but I'm also a mother of four. That's my excuse for such few blog entries.
Well, of the last six weeks, we've spent 7 nights in our own beds. After spending three weeks in Minneapolis, we were home six days before finding out Dan's dad had had a heart attack. So we re-folded the clothes that had just come out of suitcases and returned to Minneapolis--much easier packing the second time around. Not wanting to overburden Jud and Yvonne, I and the three youngest girls stayed at my mom's about 15 minutes down the road. Dan and Annika stayed with his parents. Why Annika you may ask? Because she has Daddy wrapped around her little finger. "Daddy, I want to spend time with you. I don't get to spend much time with you when you're in school." He instantly melted.
Jud is doing well. He didn't have to have open heart surgery; he's home, but getting his endurance up to pre-constricted artery levels will be slow. We're just extremely glad he's around to work on his endurance.
We tried returning to Chicago on Saturday, but two of us having the flu made that a poor decision. We came back yesterday. Rear view mirrors are great tools for watching Emily dance to "Locomotion" at the end of the Thomas the Tank Engine movie while Annika and Lauren sang to it.
Today's quotes:
Lauren at 1:45 a.m. next to my bedside: "Well, I was thinking I should sleep with you for a little while."
Lauren at dinner with a salad dressing she didn't like: "I don't think this is good for children."
Annika, excited about her eighth cousin being born in December: "They can't name the baby Darth Vader if it's a girl. That would be weird. I think, if it's a girl, they should name her Princess Leia." Ahh, after Uncle Steve's own heart! (Sara--you got your way with Bailey. It's Steve's turn now!)
Monday, June 23, 2008
Monday, June 9, 2008
Bringing in the Sheaves
The title is a throwback to my memories of Little House on the Prairie. Not that you needed to know that--but I'm attempting to create a sense of suspense by not telling you my exciting news right away. No, I'm not pregnant (that would be exciting though, wouldn't it?).
This morning in church, our pastor Rob Peterson was talking about The Fall in the book of Genesis. He said one of the greatest things we could do was to spend time with our kids and show them our love--he mentioned that every time Adam and Eve walked by the tree of the knowledge of good and evil and obeyed, they were showing love to God (just so you know how this all ties together).
I thought about how I kind of thought one of the greatest things in life was sharing God with others and another great thing was spending time with your kids. So, tonight I tied them together. As I was putting Annika to bed, I asked her if she wanted to ask Jesus into her heart. We've discussed this line of thinking before so it wasn't new--just more of a resolution. She said, "Jesus is already in my heart." I explained that Jesus doesn't get in there until you allow him in. I said, "Annika, it's like when a friend comes over to play. They knock on the door, but you have to actually open the door and invite them in." She said that she wanted to do that. She was willing to repeat after me. She seemed to feel a little silly about this because I was being so serious, but she repeated after me, with a few extra fingers in her mouth for good measure.
After we finished praying, I asked her a few questions about how serious she was. She said she was serious, and I know she grasps the concepts of obeying, making Jesus happy, Jesus helping us try to obey, and asking for forgiveness. She then went to tell Daddy. She was "nervous" about it, but eventually gave him clues like, "Daddy, it has to do with Jesus and believing and my heart." So Dan figured it out. He then suggested we call Grandma and Papa which we did since it was only 9:20 at night. This of course meant for many phone calls because of the size of our extended family.
As Annika made more calls, she got more comfortable telling people that she "put Jesus in my heart and God, too" and that when someone asks her if she believes in Jesus, she'll tell them, "Yes!"
So June 8, 2008 goes in Annika's new princess Bible (for her birthday). I'll post more later. Anything else now seems rather anticlimactic.
This morning in church, our pastor Rob Peterson was talking about The Fall in the book of Genesis. He said one of the greatest things we could do was to spend time with our kids and show them our love--he mentioned that every time Adam and Eve walked by the tree of the knowledge of good and evil and obeyed, they were showing love to God (just so you know how this all ties together).
I thought about how I kind of thought one of the greatest things in life was sharing God with others and another great thing was spending time with your kids. So, tonight I tied them together. As I was putting Annika to bed, I asked her if she wanted to ask Jesus into her heart. We've discussed this line of thinking before so it wasn't new--just more of a resolution. She said, "Jesus is already in my heart." I explained that Jesus doesn't get in there until you allow him in. I said, "Annika, it's like when a friend comes over to play. They knock on the door, but you have to actually open the door and invite them in." She said that she wanted to do that. She was willing to repeat after me. She seemed to feel a little silly about this because I was being so serious, but she repeated after me, with a few extra fingers in her mouth for good measure.
After we finished praying, I asked her a few questions about how serious she was. She said she was serious, and I know she grasps the concepts of obeying, making Jesus happy, Jesus helping us try to obey, and asking for forgiveness. She then went to tell Daddy. She was "nervous" about it, but eventually gave him clues like, "Daddy, it has to do with Jesus and believing and my heart." So Dan figured it out. He then suggested we call Grandma and Papa which we did since it was only 9:20 at night. This of course meant for many phone calls because of the size of our extended family.
As Annika made more calls, she got more comfortable telling people that she "put Jesus in my heart and God, too" and that when someone asks her if she believes in Jesus, she'll tell them, "Yes!"
So June 8, 2008 goes in Annika's new princess Bible (for her birthday). I'll post more later. Anything else now seems rather anticlimactic.
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