Do You See It?

In the (just shy) three years we've lived in this house, I've never consciously realized we could see it...

MT. BAKER!!  We can see Mt. Baker from our back door.  What an epiphany this morning. 

These freezing, windy winter mornings are my least favorite (well add snow then it would be really bad!), however, the sunrises on these kinds of mornings are spectacular displays of God's beauty!

Praying you are celebrating God's beauty this morning as well.

Brandon Sayings...

Favorite quote from Brandon yesterday:
"Mom, the sandbox is in my boot!"

6 Months!!

Where did the time go?  I clearly remember sitting on the couch at 2 AM one morning, in my sleep deprived state thinking, "When Micah's six months old I won't be having to do these early morning feedings any more...that's a LONG ways away..."  Not so much...it went way too quickly.  Thankfully he stopped needing to get up in the middle of the night after a month and a half already and just this week I cut out his 5 AM feeding so now he eats every time we do, with a 4 o'clock snack in the afternoon.  How quickly children grow.  I'm having a harder time with that with Micah then I did with Brandon, probably because Brandon was an infant for so much longer than Micah ever was.  Anyway, he's teething and non too happy about it.  He spit peaches back at me the other day (I know, Mom, sweet revenge! :))  But bring on the potatoes and rice.  In Bryan's words, "What ever are you going to do, Sara?  You have ANOTHER boy who likes meat and potatoes!" 

Here's the (usually giggling/smiling) tubbo:

The stinker has been doing lots of this:

and this:

but he refuses to roll over, either from front to back or vice versa.  He STOPS himself from continuing.  Brandon did that a little bit, but not this much. 

Micah also has an amazing sense of humor.  The other day he was laying on his jungle gym and he had gotten one of the links off the chain and was very proud of himself.  I was in the kitchen when I heard him giggling and he just didn't stop.  I thought maybe Brandon was tickling him and poked my head around the corner to make sure he was being "gentle" but Brandon was happily playing with his trains and completely ignorning Micah.  Micah was simply laying there cracking himself up!  He had the link laying on his bottom lip and every once in a while he would suck it into his mouth, bite down on it, and then move it back out and LAUGH HARD.  I was in tears I was laughing so hard watching him. 

On a different note, my lens is out for delivery today.  YAY!!!  I've been thankful for a borrowed lens, but I am soooo ready for my own back again.  ;)  And just in time.  As of today we take off in 14 days.  The count down/rush is on.

Have a wonderful finish to your week.

Proclaiming His Glory

This n' That

It's that time of year again--pruning!  When we bought this play neither of us had any idea how much pruning we would really be doing, or how much work it would really entail.  Thankfully this year is seeming to be much easier since we finally have our yard more or less under control.  It was pretty wild when we first moved here.  The first year we took out 18 pick up loads full of stuff, and that's not counting the two or three long trailers overflowing.  I think we only took out one tree this year--which is considerably less from the last two years.

Anyway, back to pruning.  Bryan has been hitting it early this year, trying to get it all done before we leave for two weeks.  It's his job to prune and Brandon and I go behind and pick up all the sticks.  Brandon absolutely LOVES riding on top of the wheelbarrow full of sticks, but since he's old enough to help this year, we added a little caveat--he had to help pick up the sticks if he wanted to ride on top.  One run without him did the trick and now he helps like a trooper; so much "easier" with help.  It will get better with time, right?  ;)  At least he does it with a smile and a few funny stories in between to entertain.

On a different front, Brandon and Micah are really starting to become "brothers", if that makes any sense.  Brandon is really starting to play with Micah and want to help out taking care of him.  (His latest is wanting to "get Micah up" from nap time, meaning go in and take his blankets off and talk to him until I get there.)  And Micah is really starting to laugh and play along with Brandon.  Here is a classic example.  The other day I put Micah in his high chair with a bowl and spoon and he banged away like crazy once he got the hang of it.  Brandon came along and thought it was the funniest thing that Micah kept throwing the spoon on the ground.  You can see the circle starting to happen...Micah threw the spoon down, Brandon laughed histerically and picked it up, Micah laughed hard because Brandon was laughing, banged the bowl a couple times and threw the spoon back on to the floor...and it goes round and round and round...  I was making supper at the time and throroughly enjoying the fact that they were totaly entertaining each other and loving it!!  Here's what it looked like:



I put this picture in for you to see how he's really starting to use his little arm.

 

The other day we went for a walk.  Brandon's has really started using his imagination in imaginary play and it's been fun watching it develop.  In this picture he is using a stick to "look at the fish through his 'noclers'".

And finally, another big kick Brandon is on right now is Thomas and all his trains falling off the bridge.  He saw it once in one of his Thomas videos and has become obsessed with all the trains falling.  I help him build a BIG track and he uses one corner (sometimes they drive around a little bit) and makes all his trains fall off.  *sigh*

May this Lord's day find you resting and basking in the joy of His presence.

Ice and an Anatomy Lesson

I braved the snow/ice last week to take pictures.  The ice hanging from the branches was just too cool (ha ha) not to take pictures of. 



If you look closely, you can see my reflection on the left side of the ice drop in focus.

 



Do you see the ice trail leading down to the smaller ice drop?

While walking around outside taking pictures (before the boys were up) I realized how wet the snow was and how well it was compacting.  Brandon has been trying to figure out the difference between snow and a snowman.  With the snow packing and holding so nicely, this was the perfect opportunity to make a snowman with him.  So after I put Micah to bed we went outside and had an anatomy lesson while building our snowman.  I love these two pictures because I told Brandon to smile and look at me and he thought the snowman (or "Friend" as he named him) should smile too.  Brandon pointed at Friend and told him, "You smile!" then leaned forward to make sure Friend was smiling.  :)  I was laughing so hard I almost couldn't take the pictures.

Blessings on a new week.  May God's presense be very real for you.

Photoshop Play

My new Photoshop Elements 9 arrived this week but I haven't had a whole lot of time to play with it.  Since everyone is still sleeping here I thought it would be the perfect morning to try out/play with a new technique I saw the other day on a professional photographer/photoshopper's (is that a word?) website.  It's called "Out-of-Bounds" technique.  (You can click HERE to see his whole video tutorial.)  Anyway, the other day we went for walk (before I had to send my lens to CA to be fixed) and I was trying to capture some of Brandon's "motion" in a picture.  The pictures didn't turn out all that great, but I learned a lot and this one was okay enough to try this technique with--I'm pretty excited with how it turned out with it being my first time trying a lot of new things.  Here's my out-of-bounds picture:

How fun is that!?!

Anyway, time to work on some real projects.  Have a wonderful weekend!

Micah's 5 (and a half) Month Pictures

I finally got around to taking Micah's 5 month pictures, just in time to take his 6 month ones.  He's becoming such a smiley kid and it's so much fun to make him laugh and smile.  I couldn't pick a favorite, so if you have one let me know.  (I'll number them so it's easier to pick one out.)  I'm curious.  ;)



1



2



3



4



5



6

 Have a good day!

So Insignificant and Yet So Loved

Ever have it that you've become so used to an idea it really doesn't faze you any more, doesn't really boggle your mind?  Then something happens or you read something and the amazingness comes back and completely astounds you...

I had that this morning working through a lesson in Beth Moore's "Beloved Disciple" (on John).  Here are a few excerpts that were refreshing, amazing, mind boggling, and astounding to me again this morning:

"Perhaps we've grown inordinately casual about the most overwhelming fact: God sent Jesus to the world.

"The Word of God delineates between on little planet He called Earth and the entire rest of the universe.  We have no idea what is out there.  What little science documents and hypothesizes makes Gensis 1:1 inconceivably impressive.

"Our solar system is in a galaxy called the Milky Way.  'Scientists estimate that there are more than 100 billion galaxies scattered throughout the visible universe.  Astronomers have photographed millions of them through telescopes.  The most distant galaxies ever photographed are as far as 10 billion to 13 billion light-years away. ... The Milky Way has a diameter of about 100,000 light-years.  The solar system lies about 25,000 light-years from the center of the galaxy.  There are about 100 billion stars in the Milky Way.'"

Psalm 147:4 says, "He determines the number of stars, and calls them each by name."

"Impressive, isn't it?  But this gets even more impressive: in the beginning God created the sun, the moon, every single star, all their surrounding planets, and the earth.  You and I have no idea what God's activities may have been elsewhere in the universe, but according to the Bible and as far as He wanted us to know, He picked out one tiny speck on which to build a world.  Our world.  And He picked it out so that when the time had fully come, He would send His Son...Perfectly placed in the universe with adequate distance from sun, moon, and stars to sustain human life, it was chosen for divine infiltration.

"Scripture doesn't tell us He loved the sun, and it is the most impressive among visible elements.  Nor are we told He loved the stars, even though He knows each by name.  John went out of his way, however, to tell us not just that God loved the world but that He so loved the world.  In a universe so vast, so incomprehensible, why does God single out one little planet to so love?  Beloved, absorb this into the marrow: because we are on it.  As despicable as humanity can be, God loves us...

"Elohim is so huge.  We are so small.  Yet the vastness of His love--so high, so wide, so deep, so long--envelops us as the endless universe envelops a crude little planet God called Earth."

Praying that is an awe-inspiring and refreshing reminder for you today as well.

Oh My...

I had a good chuckle this morning when I turned on our porch light to see how much snow was on the ground.  We have a "tree bush" (no idea what it's really called) in the back that normally looks like this (taken during a different snow fall):

This morning, however, it looked like this:

Almost as if it is doing a jig and saying to me "Ta-da!  Yes, there's more snow this morning."  I wonder if it will bounce back.

It was raining ice this morning when I got up (around 5:15).  We are pretty big wimps around here cause all the schools have shut down.  I drove in far more snow than this for three years in Iowa, but it wasn't nearly as icy/slippery as snow is here.  I made Bryan take the Explorer to work this morning cause I didn't want him sliding around in that little go-cart he usually drives.  It means I won't be at Bible study (if it happens) this morning, but I'd much prefer having my husband safe.

Besides, me and snow, we don't get along so well so I'm perfectly content to stay inside my warm house!  Now if I can only figure out how to get our garbage can out to the street, down our ice covered sloped driveway without falling we'll be all set...

Praying you're staying warm in heart and home today.

Korthuis Christmas

Our original plan was to celebrate Christmas with Dad and Mom Korthuis on the Sunday before we left for Colorado.  However, Brandon ended up in ER Saturday night and all four of us had horrible colds so we decided to postpone until after we got back.  It ended up being providential because then Andrew and Cheryl were around and we were able to celebrate as a whole family--which was really fun. 



The biggest hit for Brandon of the evening. 





I got some new sweaters--this is the one I'm the most cautious and the most intrigued about.



Getting read to open the "BIGGEST" present of the evening.



It's his!!!  Bryan finally has a kindle.  I can't count how many years he's wanted one.





Dad and Mom bought a Lightning McQueen WII racing game for "themselves" to play with Brandon.
We had to try it out.

 

See those gears turning?  He's figuring it out...

And with that, Christmas if finally finished!  It was a different, wild, crazy, and amazingly fun Christmas.

Have a great weekend.

(Note: I'll probably not be posting for several days.  It's that time of year where I go through all my pictures, organize, sort, and this year I'll also be burning them to DVD.  I realized the other day that all my pictures are stored on this computer, and that's the only place they're stored, so it's time to do some major back-up.)