More on My Sweet Nephew

As promised, I am finally posting more pictures of this sweet little boy.  It's been almost 2 weeks since I've seen him and I just know that he has changed and gotten bigger.  So, in honor of his 3 week birthday, I wanted to share his birth story.

As you know, he came several weeks early.  All along, my sister's time table was several weeks off from the doctors, so she wasn't surprised with his early appearance.  What brought it on was a surprise.  She began showing signs of pre-eclampsia (sp?).  The doctor called her into labor & delivery to be checked.  They monitored her for almost 12 hours and finally decided it would be better for her and sweet Andrew if they induced her.  She gave me a call at 10:00pm to let me know that if I wanted to be there for his birth, I better get on up to the hospital.  So, off I went, got a few hours of sleep at my parents and got to the hospital.  At 6am they told her it would still be awhile, so I got a few more hours of sleep.  

Thankfully, I got ancy and headed back to the hospital around 9:30.  She felt things moving along down there, was checked at 10am and told the doctor she was going to have the baby by 10:30.  Sure enough, he was born at 10:31.  When Audra makes up her mind, she has made up her mind!!

I can't even begin to explain how amazing it was to be part of this birth!!  I missed Ethan's birth, since I had my own little one at home (only 4 weeks old!  and I was sleep deprived!) and both my boys were C-sections.  it was awesome to be a part of a birth and witness this miracle.  It was a blessing to be able to share it with my sister!  I was able to pray with her as she was trying not to push.  Hold her hand and cry with her as we heard his first cries.  Then, I got to cut the cord!!  Andrew and I bonded at that very moment!!  It was so COOL.  I'm sure there's a better, smarter word, but really!!  It was so cool!!

So here are a few pictures of that special day.

As he was being measured, he just held tightly onto my finger.  Talk about warming an Auntie's heart!!

This is when I became Aunty Flash!!  He's squinting because I was taking too many pictures!

Here's my big boy all excited to go up and see his new cousin!!

Grammy and Papa getting some early snuggles!!

Sweet Benjamin getting his first glimpse of the little bundle.

Andrew with his daddy, auntie jenica and grandpa byers

i finally got a few sweet moments to snuggle with him!!

Then the boys got to come back in and meet Andrew.  They couldn't take their eyes off of him.

Ethan getting to meet Andrew was so sweet!  He was momentarily more excited about his new car than his new brother, but when the excitement of the car was over, he couldn't get over his brother!

Prayer

Prayer seems to be a common theme running through my life lately.  I've been reading the book Transforming Prayer recently and it's began changing my prayer life.  The main theme is "Seeking the face of God, not the hand of God."  The author refers to it as worship based prayer.  Striving to seek God's heart and plan for all our requests. Praying out of His word and not just off our grocery list of needs.  Honestly, I'm struggling through it.  Seeing just how much more I need to be in His Word.  Realizing how often I go to Him with requests and how little time I spend worshiping Him.

We had a workshop at church based on the book and it's been very helpful.  So wonderful to struggle through it with the ladies in the church.  We have each other to "practice" with and to learn more with.  We are all seeing how rich it is to pray God's word back to Him.  To really focus on asking His will, not just what we would like.

One thing it's left me thinking on quite often is how I'm teaching Thomas and Benjamin to pray.  I'm doing it through example now, but Thomas is old enough to be taught how to pray.  With him I want to focus on worshiping God, have that be his foundation, praising God for who He is.  Then, thanking God.  Requests will come, they come so naturally.  As I've been thinking through this, I came across this quote on Piper's blog:

J. C. Ryle:

Prayer is, of all habits, the one which we recollect the longest. Many a grey-headed man could tell you how his mother used to make him pray in the days of his childhood. Other things have passed away from his mind perhaps. The church where he was taken to worship, the minister whom he heard preach, the companions who used to play with him — all these, it may be, have passed from his memory, and left no mark behind. But you will often find it is far different with his first prayers. He will often be able to tell you where he knelt, and what he was taught to say, and even how his mother looked all the while. It will come up as fresh before his mind’s eye as if it was but yesterday.

J. C. Ryle, The Upper Room, chapter 16.

I love how the Holy Spirit just places things in our paths.  Truths to think on and apply.  Just a great reminder that how I teach my boys to pray is vitally important!!  Thankful for the reminder of the importance of what I do and don't teach them!  

Before I leave this post, I have to end with this wonderful verse.  A theme for the book and a reminder tucked away in my heart and prayers:

When You said, “Seek My face,”
My heart said to You, “Your face, Lord, I will seek.”

Psalms 27:8

My Precious Little Ones

I find myself looking at these precious faces and pausing more.  How does time go so quickly?

How is it that the Lord chose to so richly bless me?

Their love blesses me everyday!

Their love for one another fills my heart to overflowing.

Boys Being Boys

This past weekend we were given the opportunity to get away overnight.  We jumped on it!!  It was in the beautiful Anderson Valley at a timeshare location.  We weren't able to get in until 2, so we took the day to moosey on over that way.  We stopped for lunch in Santa Rosa and then wondered through the Luther Burbank Home and Gardens.  It was just a couple of acres big and perfect for our hour of time to be wasted!  What a waste it wasn't!!  It is so wonderful to enjoy God's unique creation through the eyes of my boys!

They love to run and jump and explore.  Thomas found this great big fountain and ran straight over to inspect it and Benjamin was a little slower.

Later we found this giant cactus that had an empty center.  The boys loved checking out the inside.  It was like a secret cave full of things to discover.

I was reading some signs when the boys waundered off with Jared and found a comfy spot to sit and watch the world go by.  As soon as I turned the corner they all said cheese, they knew I'd want a picture since I'd been snapping pictures all morning.

We walked down the downtown street a little bit and found a path that went along the creek.  It was beautiful.  God's beautiful creation mixed with a man made path that just accentuated the beauty instead of taking away from it.

There was a boat ramp that we walked down and the boys were thrilled to find some sand, sticks and stones to play with.

Jared loved this look out part and insisted I go out there with the boys for a picture.  Really he just wanted me to walk out over nothing-ness because earlier I totally froze on the bridge!!  Nice guy, huh?!  I'm glad I did because it was beautiful!  (I know, it doesn't look high at all... it was though, I promise!)

Later I took a moment to just watch my baby stroll along.  He's such a big boy now.  It was a moment of joy to my heart!!

Here he is checking out things mountains taller than he is.  He was fascinated!

The rest of the time away was great, but this is where the picture taking stopped so you'll just have to believe me!

We got the keys to our place, explored downtown Windsor and spent about 45 minutes in a neat little toy store.  We had dinner in the condo made up of microwave dinners for the kiddos and safeway soup for us.  Followed up by homemade cookies and ice cream!!  We played cards with the boys and just enjoyed being a family, which is always extra special when you're away from the distractions at home.  I feel asleep early and Jared watched some funny TV.

The next morning we took our time getting ready and made it (a little late) to church.

I'm so thankful for this unexpected gift.  It was so much more than a free night away!

Mother's of Faith

It's been awhile since I have shared about mom's group, or now known as "Mothers of Faith."

Our group is so great and it's a privilege to serve the mom's of our church through the leadership of this group.  We just finished going through the book "Give Them Grace by Elyse Fitzpatrick and Jessica Thompson.  It was a big challenge, but so helpful for me as a mom that desperately wants to raise my children in a godly way in the midst of this crazy, sinful world.  

We have now gone back to something we are hoping is a little more practical, Joy of the Word Filled Family, by John Barnett.  It is a great book and one I suggest everyone has on their bookshelf.  It isn't a book you have to read cover to cover.  It is written to both the husband and the wife.  They laid it out according to topic and in a way that you really can just read one chapter to help in the area you need the help in.  It's great and I'm hoping the mom's will read it and I know it will be great to teach out of!  I hope I do a better job of sharing here what we are learning then I did with the last book.

We are in our 5th season and do have our time together down to a good routine.  We've added a few new things and just cleaned it up and really are loving it!

We start at 9:30 with coffee and a delicious, homemade, somewhat-healthy treat and some fellowship.  Usually by 9:40 the kids are dropped off in their assigned spots and we are making our way to our seats for announcements and prayer.  Then we have a yummy recipe and sometimes a helpful tip.  After that we get into the teaching.  Hannah was teaching this day and you can see her in the purple chair.

 We try to keep the lesson time informal, where people can interrupt with questions.  We like sitting in a circle and try to make it feel homey.  As you can see, we have the pleasure of meeting in a beautiful home, that makes the homey-ness possible and delightful!!

While we are meeting our kiddos are out playing!  They have a planned lesson, activity, project and occasionally a time of singing.  They are even memorizing a verse!  They get to play outside on sunny days and run around.  This particular day we had 16 kiddos!!  If the little ones aren't walking yet, they have their own playroom!

This is Izzy.  She's been with us the entire time!  We've gotten to see her grow up as well!  She was 10 when we started, Thomas was about 6mos old.

Here's Allie, she's been with us since the beginning as well.  She was 9, I think when we started!  What a delight these girls are.  They love our kids and are so good with them.  They are a true gift to the moms and to the kids.

Back inside, when lesson time is down, we split up into small groups where we go over memory verses (if we are on top of things), have a discussion time based on the lesson for the day and then a time of prayer.

We continue to work on building relationships with these moms as we all strive to "Walk Like Jesus"

It's a time of blessing to me and I hope we have many more years to come!!

Pajama Day at Pre School

Thomas is loving pre-school and I'm loving it, too.  Benjamin and I get our special time and even better, I get to see the joy of exploring life through Thomas' eyes.  He is making friends, learning letters, counting, story sequencing and just growing like a weed.  It's so much fun to watch him get smarter and see more and more of his personality!

I could see so much of it by the pajama's he chose to wear.  As soon as he heard he'd get to wear pj's to school (back at the beginning of the month) he knew right away what he would wear.  He pulled it out and set it aside.  Yep, this is his non-outfit!

 The transformer top is a hand-me-down that came without bottoms.  It's his favorite.

He informed me that he chose it because, "i think my friends will think it's cool!"

(oh how soon it starts!)

He picked these bottoms just because he liked them, he told me he didn't care that they didn't match at all.  Then to top it off, ToyStory slippers and doggie blanket for a robe.  Yep, that's an outfit all right!

 (aren't they cute!!!)

(cheeseburger face, I just had to share!)

He had a great time at school in his pj's.  They did "snow" stuff, watched a movie, had hot chocolate and ate bagels.  I checked out a few of the other kids in their jammies.  Yep, they were all matching, cute, clean and perhaps bought just for the day...  

Oh How Time "Bounces" By

I was able to spend yet another wonderful day with my college girls just a couple of weeks ago.  As I always say, it's so good to be with them!  We find a little bit of time to have such good conversations between the sweet (and not-so-sweet) interruptions of our now 7 children.  I think we know the time is precious so, somehow, we always jump right to the heart of the matter.  We are able to share encouragement with one another, the hardships of discipline, the wonderfulness of our husbands, talk through big upcoming decisions.  Our hearts are knitted together because of our time together in college.  It's such a blessing to have one another!!

It's also just so cool to see our kids grow up together.  They love being together just as much as the mommies do.  Before heading of the bounce house, Kristine pulled out her phone to show me a picture of our oldest 3 when they are all about 18 months old!!  It's amazing how much time has passed by!!

Now that the kids are older, it's fun to get out of the houses and take them somewhere that they can really have fun and run off that crazy energy!  We decided on a bounce house.  All of them had a great time!

Benjamin loved it, for about 5 minutes, then he was back to running around!

Here they are, all but the sweet baby who is sleeping just out of camera shot.  Aren't they cute?

Our three oldest, all with in months of one another.