Coonskin brothers

Keaton put this coonskin cap on Mark this morning. 

I was able to snap a quick pic before he pulled it off. 

Mark
7 months old

I knew I had a similar picture of Keaton around the same age.

Keaton
7 months old, obviously after some sweet potatoes or carrots :-)

Maybe they are looking less alike now? Still definitely brothers! So fun to compare and contrast as they get older and more of Mark's personality is coming out. 

Easter Sunday

Leading up to Easter, I tried to downplay the whole "bunny and egg" thing and make sure that Keaton understood exactly what Easter was really about this year: 

"Jesus died on the cwoss, and was alive again!"

He was so surprised to wake up on Easter morning to a basket full of goodies. Among his treasures: new crayons, Cars bandaids, windup boats for the pool, Spiderman plate, and of course - plenty of candy! Baby brother got 2 sippy cups, a new paci clip, and some puffs in his basket -
very practical boy, that Mark :-).

Easter Baskets! 

Keaton acted like I was the meanest Mama in the world by putting a collared shirt and long pants on him for church (my "Hawaiianized" boys are not used to dressing up so much). Thankfully, he perked up enough for some Easter pics.

I love these boys - have I mentioned that?

Dada and his boys! 

I apparently did not get the "green shirt" memo.

After naps, we headed over to the Heaths, so Keaton could hunt eggs with best buddy, Lucas.

Look what I found, Mom!

Such a great day of fellowship, resting, and remembering Christ's sacrifice and ultimate victory over the grave! Happy Easter! 

7 months

Another month. A whole new set of tricks.

His 2 bottom teeth finally broke through. Hello, drool! He won't let you get close enough to look at them, but he sticks his little tongue out all the time making sure they are still there. 

I can't believe I ever thought this kid would be a poor eater. In the last month, he's turned into a complete solid food junkie. He eats everything from smoothie to oatmeal to black beans and rice to quinoa and zucchini.  Still working on getting him to take a bottle. So far, he only likes THAT kinda food from one restaurant.... 

Despite my discouragement and promises that mobility is WAY overrated, the kid gets around. He already army-crawls his way across the room with ease, usually on a mission to get one of Keaton's toys or some other thing he's not supposed to have. 

I even caught him pulling up to the TiVo box the other day. Won't be long before he's showing me how to work it.

He said his first word! 

"Mamamamamamamama..."

 I'm pretty sure he knows what it means now too. 

Mark loves his big brother! Keaton makes him laugh like no one else can. One of my greatest joys as a mom is watching this relationship grow as these two interact more every day. 

No Biggie

Happy birthday to me! 

This is me at 8 months. 

I'm 30 now. 

Weird.

Last night, Scott threw me a birthday party. Not a surprise - thank goodness. I made it clear months ago that I had no interest in being a "surprise-ee" on my birthday. 

My party was was perfect: close friends, good food, Costco cake, Dance Dance Revolution. Well, that last part was not my idea, but it was surprisingly fun anyway.

Me and my boys

Dance Dance Revolution

Scott vs. Suzy

Yes, we even made the preggers get up there.  Karen won the DDR tournament - 3 weeks from her due date! 

Her face is priceless here.  

How appropriate that my 30th birthday would fall on a Monday, and I would spend the majority of my day folding laundry and wiping bottoms? Not complaining - I love spending time at home with my boys, and what a perfect picture of my life at 30 years old. Honestly, turning 30 has been no big deal to me. I mean, I've been married 7 years, I have 2 kids. I might as well be 30, right? It's like I'm finally acting my age. I feel so blessed to be where I am doing just what I'm doing right now.

At lunch today, I made Keaton sing "Happy Birthday to Mama!"  before he could enjoy a piece of leftover cake. I can do that because I'm the mom. 

And I'm 30.

Ice cream in the house

There are 12 bowls in my dishwasher right now. This can only mean one thing. There is ice cream in the house, and I'm eating way to much of it. There was recently a coupon for $5 off $15 frozen foods at Safeway. It might as well have said "$5 off ice cream" when I clipped it.













I don't have a favorite ice cream flavor.  Nuts, fruit, coconut,  Neapolitan, brownie bits, cookie dough - bring it on. I can't say no. Right now, I'm really into Extreme Moose Tracks (aka Double Chocolate Kiss of Death). Scott's not a fan. I can't remember exactly how he described it - something like "offensively rich." :-)

I never forget when there is ice cream in the house. In fact, I think about it quite a LOT. You could even say that I plan my day around it sometimes. You could even say that I put my kids to bed extra early sometimes, because I can't wait to scoop myself a bowl. I know, sad.

Scott loves ice cream too. We love eating ice cream together on the couch while we watch our favorite shows. He would probably say his favorite ice cream is Breyers Vanilla Fudge Twirl. It's what his mama used to buy for him. When I'm not home to remind Scott that we have ice cream, he will forget and not have any. Help me understand - how does this happen??? This might be biggest difference between men and women - dessert awareness. I never EVER forget when we have ice cream in the house. Thank goodness I'm lactating right now or I would probably weigh 300 lbs.

Here's someone who doesn't know we have ice cream in the house... he he he (evil Mama laugh)

Here's someone who doesn't even know about ice cream yet. Mmmm, boy. Just you wait, little Mister. I gotta feeling this one has a sweet tooth.

Daddy's home

I mentioned that Scott was gone for 2 full weeks!!?? We were so thankful to get Daddy came home on Saturday. We missed him terribly. I don't normally do well by myself. I do weird things like sleep with the lights on, stay up late watching shows like "The History of Licorice," put Keaton to sleep in my bed to "protect" me, lock the door to our lanai (which is 3 stories up). I tried to stay as busy as possible while he was gone. We took advantage of having the car everyday and visited places we don't often get to go during the week like the zoo, discovery "buseum" (as Keaton calls it), parks on the other side of town, Wal-mart (okay, that was mainly for me). We ate a lot of popcorn and macaroni for dinner. But, we made it by without him somehow. 


Here's some of the cool stuff Scott got to see while he was "working"

He also made a trip to Charlotte to surprise his family and celebrate Caroline's 7th birthday. They had her party at Chuck e Cheese. Sniff sniff. Keaton would have loved that. Wish we could have been there. Happy Birthday, Caroline!

Look at that Liebler cousin! Any day now...

Sorry, but way too many blog posts have gone by without a picture of my baby. Bear with me here. I cannot help myself. 

"Help! I think my mom has a camera literally attached to her hand!"

Sobering Week

It's been an emotional week. Scott just got home from a 2 week research trip to the Archives in DC. While he was gone, we had a terrible tragedy occur in our church. A 5 year old boy, Evan English, fell to his death from a two story window in his home. Although this family was fairly new to our church and had only moved to Hawaii in November, it was amazing to see our church come together to love, support and mourn with them. 

We had the honor of worshipping with them on Sunday morning, only 4 days after they said goodbye to their son.  They had the courage not only to attend church, but to pray aloud, sing, ask openly for forgiveness, call unbelievers to faith! Wow. It was an experience I'll never forget. Jason and Ami English are spiritual giants in my book. They have a long road of grief ahead of them. Please lift them up if God brings them to your mind.

 Of course, Evan's death brought forth a whole host of emotions for both Scott and I: mainly fear, sadness, overwhelming thankfulness for our children's protection - to name just a few. Sadly, it takes tragedy to refocus life sometimes. To help us remember that this world is not our home. To make us realize how trivial our "problems" are and to open our eyes to our enormous blessings. In honor of Evan, I hope we can remember this week and savor every second we have with our children. 

My mother in law (providentially) sent me this amazing message written on facebook by her pastor Andy Lewis of Mitchell Road Presbyterian Church.  I felt it so applicable and encouraging after a week like this to be reminded that we can rejoice in our sufferings because we have a personal God who suffers with us. 

not a fair weather religion

by Andy Lewis on Wednesday, March 30, 2011

Many things can be said about Christianity.  One thing that cannot be said is that it is a fair weather religion. It is abundantly clear that Christianity isn’t just for sunny days and beautiful spring mornings.  Of course it is a religion for that as well.  But there are many religions that do well in those climates.  When life is perfect, your finances are in order, your friends and family are healthy and there are no anxieties it is hard to think of religion at all!  But we all know that life is never perfect, there are diseases, sickness, poverty and stress.  And even when it is “as good as it gets” there is still a burning unrest within us.  That we were meant for something greater. 

Christianity does fine in fair weather because it teaches us how to be thankful and enjoy the gifts given from God.  However, Christianity separates itself from other religions and thinking during the storms of life.  During the dark night of the soul.  During the dark days and dreary mornings one thing is clear – that the God of Christianity enters into our misery with us.  It is good to know that this is clear because during those seasons of life so few things are clear.  There are too many clouds to see the sun. 

We see this theme played out throughout the Scriptures.  Take for example the central passage of the cross of Christ.  It is precisely that cross that calls me understand God’s love for me.  That God not only knows my sin and misery but enters into that sin in order that I may be free from my misery.  That even during the dark days of life we have a God we can worship who is with us in the trials.  Unlike other religions or idols Christ has tasted rejection, temptation, despair, and trials. 

Reading this morning in Exodus 4 I came across this verse.  “And when they heard the Lord was concerned about them and had seen their misery, they bowed down and worshiped.”  In this passage God doesn’t immediately fix the problem.  But he will eventually.  He will bring them out of bondage to slavery in Egypt and give them a new land.  Worship therefore happens not when God frees us but rather when we know God knows and is concerned.  Worship happens at this moment because no other God is like our God.  No other god we give ourselves to (be it reputation, fame, money, comfort, family, etc.)  will care for us when the rain rolls in.  

Take heart friends. God sees and tastes our misery.  He does so ultimately at the cross.  You and I can worship a God with confidence who has promised to bring us out of bondage and into his wonderful light.  It starts now as we worship him and will be completed in the new heavens and new earth… where all our misery and trials will seem like a distant dream that we cannot quite remember.