Summer Bounty

from our garden. I love having flowers.

We will, by God's grace.

Daniel and I had the great pleasure of having our kids dedicated a few Sundays ago at church. For those of you who were unable to be there, here's the video:



We are thankful for our church for so many reasons. We know that God brought us here--this is the church God had put on our hearts. I believe with all my heart that God put the desires in us for a church with a mission and vision and commitment to the gospel just like Redemption.

One of the many reasons we love this place is the community that surrounds us. It is a community that challenges us to live out the gospel in our family, to see children and family as a blessing from God, to pray for our children, to instruct and nurture them. It challenges us to do things not just on one Sunday morning at the beginning of their lives, but in the trenches, week after week after week. I am thankful for this place, because it is not a place where people stand up and make empty promises to pray for us, to love us, to wrap their arms around us. These people love our family, love our kids. And I am humbled by it.

We are so blessed to be able to stand up in front of these people and promise to parent Ava and Timmy by the grace of God and by his power.

Learning

Ava has really started to string words together. She seems to absorb little bits of information, and all of a sudden blurts out whole strings of words or songs. For example, we've been working on her ABC's for a while now, and she can pretty much identify them when I point to them (with the exception of E--somehow this is always F). But one day she all of a sudden was singing the whole song, and last week she tagged on the last two sentences ("Now I know my..."). Here's a video. She misses some letters (and words), but overall, she's got it.

Horn Creek

Things have been a little quiet around here, I know (*crickets chirping*). I've been pretty busy being a mom to two kiddos. I haven't had a whole lot of time to blog, other than the occasional picture. My other excuse is that we just got back from a week in Colorado. We went to Horn Creek, the camp where Daniel and I met eight years ago. It was great to be back there, especially with our kids. Here's what we were up to:

Horn Peak from the valley:

Tuesday we went to Focus on the Family, where we caught up with our friends at Boundless for the taping of their podcast. We were interviewed for it! Lots of fun. :) We'll let you know when it airs. We got to sit in Dr. Dobson's chair, and meet Jim Daly (Focus' current president), as well as Lisa Anderson, Steve Watters, Motte Brown, and Ted Slater of Boundless fame.

We went to Garden of the Gods and did some exploring there as well:
Love these two:

Here are some views of from the valley. The mountain to the left in the first pic is Humboldt Peak, the fourteener that Daniel climbed with his Dad and sisters later in the week.


And from the hike date Daniel and I took:

Daniel on his hike up Humboldt Peak (elevation: 14,064 feet). Here he is in front of Crestone Needles (pretty gnarly, huh?)

Daniel and Ava catching their breakfast:

Ava and Grandpa (she's a big Grandpa fan):

Western Night:

All prettied up for banquet night:

Timmy Tummy Time

Toddler Theology

Ava has just now started talking in complete sentences. I've discovered that one can have some very interesting conversations with a two-year-old. Like this one:

Ava (unprompted): "Jesus died."
Me: "You're right! But you know what? He also rose again. Can you say: Jesus rose again?"
Ava: "Jesus rose 'gain."
Me: "Good job!"
Timmy: *burp*
Ava: "Jesus burped."

And you know what? He probably did.