happy 5th birthday to Caleb!

5 years ago our son was born. it seems so long ago, and yet it has gone by quickly.

he is such a big boy now, growing and changing quickly. as Michelle noted in our prayers for him this morning, even at a young age it seems that he has a heart for God, for which we are very thankful. and he is so very excited about being in homeschool and he loves to learn (and he’s a bit of a perfectionist which causes issues sometimes). he is always surprising us with his amazing memory, and I am often impressed at how observant he is. we just love how much he cares for his sisters, and its so great to see that Alice is his best friend. of course they have their “moments” (daily), but it warms our hearts to see them grow closer and have so much fun together.

so we thank God for our little boy who is growing up fast. we pray that he will always have his tender heart, that he will always be eager to learn, and always be eager to pray and seek God.

a strange dream

I don’t often remember my dreams, but this is one I can’t forget. this is how I remember it, two days later:

it was something of a scene out of one of CS Lewis’s space trilogy books. it was dark out and I was swimming in a murky green sea, with little floating islands all around. the shore was near, and there were others swimming as well. we were all heading into shore with urgency. there weren’t waves to speak of, but it was difficult somehow.

then my knees bumped into a man who was below the surface. he was pale and unresponsive and seemed to be dead. somehow this wasn’t a shock to me, but I still tried to hoist him up to one of the tiny floating islands nearby. I remember grabbing him by the hair and lifting with all my might. others nearby came over to help. he gasped and sputtered water. somehow we all got to the shore, and somehow the man was revived.

the next thing I remember we were in a big bright room at a conference center or perhaps the basement of a large church. there were chairs around the edge of the room and just a few people around. I was sitting next to the man who was wrapped in a blanket and looked tired, lonely and sad. he apparently didn’t want to talk to me or to anyone.

but I tried. I said, “Tell me, are you a Christian? or are you religious?”

he looked at me sternly, yet distant, “I do not talk about such things.”

“Oh. Perhaps you can tell me about yourself then?”

“No.”

and that was all.

—

although it is often on my mind, and indeed one of my favorite subjects (and truly my reason for living), I do not often talk to others about faith in Christ. I feel God is changing that in me, and I even asked someone recently the very thing I asked the man in my dream. thankfully the response was quite different, and I am thrilled to be used of God in this person’s life, and I am praying that God would bring this person to salvation.

yet I can’t help wondering why I had this dream (especially since our pastor is preaching on the life of Joseph, the big dreamer himself). the rescue-from-drowning is a familiar analogy of salvation, but somehow if fell flat when my dream tried to interpret itself in the end. I suppose if God is going to use me, it’s not up to me to figure it all out, nor is it up to me to do the saving, but to follow the Spirit’s leading and do what he has set out for me to do.

new stuff

if you’ve read the last couple posts, you may have discovered that Michelle is now on board (again) and we’re planning on having this space be a place to record some of our homeschool adventures. we’re all quite excited. I’ll still post some obligatory milestone updates on the kids and such too.

speaking of: Selah is now and accomplished sitter-upper, as she does quite well sitting and playing by herself, as long as someone is in the room with her (she cries if she’s left alone even for a moment).  she’s not too interested in crawling yet, but we’re all fine with that.

a little while ago Michelle and I got to go (by ourselves!) to New Hampshire to Sarah and Jeff’s wedding. it was such a beautiful weekend, and we had a lovely time celebrating with old friends and relaxing together. we indulged in seafood and enjoyed staying by the seacost.

the most memorable time of the weekend was the evening after the wedding. Michelle and I were collecting rocks on the beach (there’s an endless supply of very cool stones on the shore) and then got in the car to go to a nice dinner. the phone rang and it was Sarah! my first thought was “shouldn’t you be on your honeymoon by now?” but no, they tossed all manner of tradition to the wind that weekend, and they wanted to see as many folks as possible before everyone left town. so we ended up having a lovely dinner together, laughing like old friends and delighting in God’s good gifts. and we are SO excited that they are now just up the road a bit.

by the way, here are the official pics from the wedding weekend: http://gwynethcolleen.com/clients/index.php?do=photocart&viewGallery=1351 Gwyn is a wonderful photographer and a lovely, hilarious person. here’s a favorite: http://gwynethcolleen.com/clients/index.php?do=photocart&viewImage=26794

First Day

We had a great first day of school!

Homeschool!

Tomorrow we kick off a new phase for our family, school!  I (Michelle) will be starting some of our homeschooling, so its out first day of school and we’re excited.  Caleb and Alice are very eager to learn and excited to be starting school.  We’re using the Sonlight curriculum and super excited about the read aloud focus that it has.  Yes, I used excited in the last three sentences!  Can you tell I’m eager?  I’ve been working off and on in converting the playroom to a school room.  So we’re somewhat set and ready to go.  I’m hoping to post here somewhat regularly on beulahland throughout the year as all learn together.

teeth and such

a few weeks ago Selah (finally) cut a couple teeth. she’s been pretty upset generally lately, so I think there’s more on the way. she’s pretty good at scooting around the floor in a non-linear fashion, and she’s taking after her sister by sleeping in quite late and still taking a long nap. and she’s just about sitting up on her own too.

meanwhile, Caleb has his first loose tooth, of which he’s quite proud. I’m hoping to use it as motivation to stop sucking his thumb, which really needs to stop soon.

Alice meanwhile has turned a corner herself, at least for the time being. she’s much less defiant, and more prone to listen to us without a battle or a fit. of course there are exceptions, but we’re thankful that she’s a much more pleasant child lately. maybe the “terrible 2s/3s” are finally winding down?

we’re all getting excited about VBS next week, as well as a getaway to attend Sarah’s wedding (yay!), and then we’ll kick off the homeschooling adventures. not too coincidentally, we’re finally pulling the plug on the TV, especially since we dont watch it any more, nor do we want the kids to get into it much…they can always go next door :-)

we’re constantly amazed how much God delights in answering prayer. lots of good stuff going on lately. God is so good, and more and more we delight in serving Him.

vacation pics

off the charts

not surprisingly, Selah is off the charts in height. she just had her six month checkup and she’s 28-1/4″ long and 17lb, 8oz. (that’s about as long as a typical 9 month old) everyone who gets a good look at her says “wow, she’s long!” so she fits right in around here. she’s already busting out of her carseat, so we need to figure out what to do about that. she’s still a very happy person and did great on her first road trip…pretty much slept and sat quietly for most of the time. she’s now proficient at rolling around to and fro, so we’ve got to be careful what’s on the floor these days.

hopefully soon I’ll get pics up of our vacation, and also our surprise trip to NC.

too many toys

we have long thought that we’ve got way too many toys in the house. I especially bemoan this around Christmas and birthdays (and to compound it we have lots of birthdays in December). yes, I like cool and fun stuff, but I also don’t want to be materialistic, so it’s an inner struggle. thus we haven’t really done much about the littered landscape.

but then a few things happened recently:

first, we went on vacation for a week to a cabin, and packed one small kid-sized backpack of toys for each kid. and they did fine. of course much of their time was spent outside and on adventures as a family, but that’s part of the point. they had some of their favorite toys, and they played creatively with them and didn’t miss all the other stuff left at home.

second, Michelle was especially moved by the story of an old friend visiting a child in the slums of Uganda. her friend sponsors a child through Compassion International. wow, it’s a great story…read it here. so we signed up to sponsor a child…our “other” Caleb…and started praying for him and considering more how much we’ve been given, trying to teach the kids (and ourselves) to be generous and thankful. so looking around, we realized how much stuff we have that we really don’t need, and maybe even the blessing of abundance is also a curse.

also, we’re starting to get ready for homeschool, and have converted the play room to the school room. they never really played in the play room, except a little when friends came over. it was a little silly to have a whole room of toys that they didn’t use much, so why not get rid of it.

we also got Michelle a book for Christmas that she recently uncovered while cleaning out the bookshelf (fitting, no?). The Creative Family by the “soule mama” has a section dedicated to the joys of less. very inspiring.

not to mention a few ongoing things:

the kids rooms are nearly always a disaster. even if we told them to clean up, they clearly wouldnt know where to start. and all the clutter obscures the truly good toys that inspire creativity and good play together. Caleb’s desk was piled so high with papers (mostly cute preschool and sunday school papers we didnt have the heart to throw out) that it was useless. away with all but one or two favorites!

I have long been tired of all the little plastic junk/toys around the house that I call “detritus“. I’ve been just as quick to throw away even somewhat-junky things instead of shoving it in a drawer.

so, mama and Sara P tackled the kids rooms this week, and we’ve got quite a pile of give-away (if you’re on the neighbors or church email list, you’ve seen the list), not to mention the throw-away. and some to put-away for when the baby is older, or just for down the road so it’s “new” again and so we have more space to play.  the cool part is the kids are totally on board with giving stuff away. hopefully they’ll keep this generous spirit as they grow. and last night the kids actually played in their rooms — running back and forth like the crazies they can sometimes be. and they got out some toys and actually put them back! Caleb especially is a perfectionist, so he’s most likely to keep things organized.

so come next birthday or Christmas, if you’re one of the folks in our life who would want to give a gift, please consider the idea that less is more. one truly creative toy, book, game, activity or art-supply goes a lot farther than a big pile of plastic flashing lights and noise. or go crazy and wrap a gallon if ice-cream (or beer, depending on the recipient) or something like that.

I hope all this doesn’t come across as holier-than-thou to anyone, as it really is a struggle to let go of stuff. I’m definitely inspired by the easy-going attitudes of the kids in this process. so I hope we don’t offend if we’ve already given away what you may have bestowed recently, or if the next thing doesn’t last long. we will always be thankful for the generosity of friends and family, but we want to emphasize to the kids and ourselves that life isn’t about stuff. we hope we’re modeling that life is about love, faith, learning, and fun, most of which seems to be hindered by having too many things.

the start of summer

we’re taking our summer vacation a little early this year and a LOT more local, as we’re going to a cabin just outside Fall Creek Falls. this will be the first time we’ve been away with 3 kids, so we’ll see how it goes! we’re very much looking forward to just being together and being “off the grid” for a while. hopefully we’ll have some nice hikes and such too. it will also be nice to spend part of the time with family, and part of the time with friends.

Caleb is all done with preschool! he loved it so much, so it was hard to decide to homeschool in some ways, but we’re very excited about that too. Michelle will be teaching both Caleb (Pre-K and K material) and Alice (mostly the same material, but less stuff to do so she’ll be at a preschool level). we’re going to use a curriculum called Sonlight, which fits very well with how we’re wanting to go about it (no surprise: there’s a ton of methodologies out there!). so we’re setting up the play room to be the school room, complete with a giant goldfish for the “class pet”. Caleb is on the cusp of reading, and Alice is taking more interest in letters and such too. we read them “The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe” and Caleb especially was captivated. it was so cool to see his imagination light up, and I trust this is another step in their love for learning.

we are SO very excited that our old friend Sarah B will be getting married this summer! woohoo! and we’re almost as excited that we’re going up just the 2 of us for a lovely wedding on the “seacoast” of NH. and they’ll be moving back to the area, so we can hopefully grow old together.

Selah is 5 months old now and still very,  very smiley. she’s getting more active, loving her jumper especially. she’s sleeping quite well and really loves her rice cereal stuff. now that she’s more attentive, the big kids are enjoying her more, at least when they’re not doing their own thing. she’s off the charts in height and pretty far up there in weight too. we think she’s a pretty good mix of Caleb and Alice, favoring Alice so far for her looks, and favoring Caleb for her personality, although there’s flashes of each in both aspects. of course she’s her own beautiful, snuggly person and we love her to pieces!

the swingset is the most popular thing we have these days, and Caleb has finally learned how to swing by himself. something about me gets so proud of him to see him soar up all by his big-boy self. the neighbor kids like to play in our yard too, so it’s usually a good time. once it gets hot we’ll get out the kid pool and I’m sure it’ll be even crazier around here.

we hosted a block party cookout the other day, and had a nice time with some of the neighbors. the weather was pretty bad but we still had a good time on the deck, getting to know each other a little better. we’ve been thinking lately of ways to love our neighbors more, so I suppose that’s a small step in that direction. hopefully we can have another soon. we’re praying for more opportunities to love others, and the wisdom to know what things we should take up and what things we shouldnt. there’s always the potential to be too busy, so we’re trying to slow things down so we can listen to God’s leading.

speaking of, I’m reading a good book on prayer that I highly recommend: A Praying Life.

and thus ends what is now becoming a somewhat monthly update. I am honestly weary of blogland and facebook, etc, but I dont want to lose track of some of the memories.