surprise!

we braved the journey to california with our 2 restless children in order to surprise papa for his 70th birthday. we had a wonderful time with family and friends... and we must add that papa looks very good for 70 and what a privilege to be able to celebrate with him.

we also enjoyed our time with cousins, aunts and uncles. here's wishing we could celebrate with you all more often...

reasons we love easter

1st (and by far most important): a great day to celebrate that our savior has risen and we have the promise of salvation and the hope of eternity with him.

(far distant) 2nd: we get to wear a fun easter dress for church, have a great day at the park where we see the easter bunny (who happened to be ella's favorite sunday school teacher about to pass out from heat exhaustion), we get easter baskets, and the opportunity to hunt around the house for eggs filled with raisins, jelly beans, or pennies (for our piggy banks, the offering jar at sunday school, or the fountain at AJ's, our choice)

3rd: this easter morning is especially exciting because angie and phil (my sister and brother-in-law) are on their way to China to bring home their new son!

they will be in China for just under 3 weeks to complete a process that began, in their minds, over a year ago, but in God's heart long before that. Joshua RuBin was born August 17th, 2006 just 2 months after Bennett. not only am i excited about a new nephew, i have been encouraged and challenged by angie and phil's faith and commitment to "look after orphans... in their distress..." (james 1:27) and i must say my eyes have been opened to the overwhelming need of orphaned and abandoned children around the world. over the last few months i often look at bennett and think that joshua may be doing similar things developmentally. and one day, as bennett was saying "mama" and "dada" it hit me that those are words joshua wouldn't be saying.

if you are interested in their adoption journey (which began with a simple prayer of a 2 year old) or would like to follow their adventures while they are in china, you can check out their blog at http://heir-raisingtales.blogspot.com/ and of course, your prayers for them, joshua, and their 2 kids they had to leave with grammy and poppa are very much appreciated.

some pictures...

some pictures of a few fun-filled days...


lots of fun memories... we celebrated caleb's 4th birthday with family, a bounce-house and some yummy birthday cake, made a couple of trips to the zoo, had a special baby shower day for angie, and hung out with grammy while she enjoyed her spring break. and thanks to the bee movie, which we have enjoyed the last few days, my kids now think that bees are a sweet little bug we hold and pet.

ikea

14 weeks along and had my 2nd doctor appointment yesterday. everything looked good and we even had another ultrasound. our little one is getting bigger and we could see the heart beating and the hands waving. so amazing. i am even feeling better and we are trying to squeeze all kinds of fun into these last days of spring before summer hits us with a vengeance.

and if you are wondering why this posting is titled "ikea"... that is the new baby name of the week, decided of course by ella.

tony bologna

ella enjoys a variety of stories told to her at naptime and bedtime. if mommy is putting her down, she hears a susan story (which often has to do with a little girl, who sounds mysteriously similar to ella, learning a valuable lesson after throwing a temper tantrum or hurting someone or not following directions) and a Jesus story. if daddy is putting her down, she hears an e.j. story ("ella joy" which is often fun and silly and ends with "ej saves the day!") and a tony bologna story (which originated initially with uncle tony telling these stories to ella's cousins and are so exciting and creative they have become some of ella's favorites). often, ella has special requests and gets specific stories confused... like when it's time to hear a Jesus story and ella wants the one where they go to the D-Backs game and eat tony bologna sandwiches and a little girl falls off her bicycle and ej saves the day.

since tony bologna eats "special" sandwiches in his stories, anthony thought it would be fun for ella to have one of these "special" sandwiches. (i say "special" with quotes because i don't find bologna the least bit appealing, especially in my first trimester.) but this is why daddy is so much fun. having bologna sandwiches has become a favorite meal ella looks forward to, especially on weekends when daddy is home and will make them with her.

bennett's announcement

bennett has some exciting news to share. he is going to be a big brother! he is very excited and can't wait for his mommy to get out of this miserable first trimester so we can do some fun things again.

i am 11 weeks and we had our first dr. appt last week, complete with a very cool ultrasound where we even saw our baby waving to us. i am due september 18 which, lucky me, means yet another summer in phoenix where i am miserable and huge. the "good" news is, the high today is supposed to be 81 degrees. to most of you, that sounds quite nice. to those of us in phoenix, we look at the calendar, realize it is only FEBRUARY and know that if it is this hot now, we are all going to die for sure this summer!

so yes, back to the baby. although we were a bit surprised at God's timing, we are very excited and feel so blessed to be able to have another child in our family. we do realize we may never sleep again, but that is a small price to pay to add to our adorable collection of children. :)

we told ella last week and her first response was to run to me, look at me intently and ask, "are you just teasing?" (apparently we do that often in our family.) once i assured her we were serious she got so excited and started running around. and then she asked, "what's his name?" we told her we didn't have a name so what did she think it should be. she thought for about 2 seconds before a huge grin broke across her face and she said with confidence, "zaccheas!" and somehow, for ella it has stuck. every time she points at my belly (which is not yet "baby" and is more so a "surplus of carbs") she talks about zaccheas. i'm a bit worried if it is a girl whose name would then mean "wee little man who climbs a tree."

sunday school

our family headed up to see my parents this past weekend for a nice little break. anthony went to church with ella while i stayed home with bennett and his runny nose. when they got back, i asked ella how sunday school was. "good." she then told me her teacher's name was miss jennifer. "was she nice?" i asked her. "yeah," said ella. "and she didn't even hit me."

ummm... what? does that usually happen to you in sunday school? what kind of church are we going to!?! :)

dear ole maddie

today is the day you hope will never come. maddie was put to sleep today. anthony took her in this morning. she was such a good dog and she will definitely be missed.

hockey fun

our family was treated to 4 coyotes tickets. the seats were quite good and the kids sat still and enjoyed themselves until the 3rd period (the food stashed in my purse helped a bit).

ella took it all in and wondered, "where do they sleep?"

bennett loved the action... the fights, the floating taco, the zamboni, the people sitting behind us that whistled really loud, the licorice, the fruit snacks....

ella even got a picture with jeremy roenick... so he doesn't play for phoenix anymore and it happened to be a picture on the wall....

stitches

i have always said bennett would be our first E.R. visitor. maybe it was seeing him dangling from his high chair at 8 months old, or finding him on tops of tables, chairs or beds before he could walk. it could be the way he walks without looking at the obstacles blocking his path and laughs as he lands on his face. i did find him climbing to the top of our rock retaining wall in the backyard one day, which really could have been a disaster if he fell. i often hear, "maybe he learned his lesson." however, no amount of bumps, bruises or time-outs seem to have any effect on his ever-smiling face.

this brings me to saturday. i was enjoying a wonderful weekend with my mom and sister (dad was there too, although not quite into the scrapbooking and girl's talk... he did make us some yummy food and served us lattes...). anthony called me to inform me that bennett had "quite a spill," his head hitting the sharp corner of the coffee table. my husband is never an alarmist and although i tend to over-react, he is always calm and unrattled. "i didn't think much of it, but i don't want you to be mad when you get home if you thought i should have taken him to get stitches." my first thought was, if you are even mentioning that "s-word" it must be bad! so after emailing some pictures for nurse grammy to look at, it was decided that my wonderful husband would indeed sacrifice his entire day, including a much needed naptime to cart the kids to urgent care in order to preserve bennett's beautiful face. (we did consider the fact that a scar might make the tiny framed little man look a little more tough, but neglecting healthcare for a superficial motive is quite careless. we may just enroll him in karate instead)

so, after a long wait and fun games played such as "ring around the rosy...ashes, ashes, we DON'T fall down!" bennett received one lonely stitch (after lots of trauma of being pinned down by daddy and a nurse, with a drape over his face and a needle going through his forehead). well... maybe he learned his lesson... but don't count on it

our little tough-guy hugging (or is it choking?) his big sister... and his very cool band-aid

haircuts and more

last night, ella decided her little brother needed a haircut and since we clearly weren't doing anything about it, she decided to take matters into her own hands. not quite sure where she learned to use a shoe to cut hair, but it kept her busy, and bennett entertained, for quite some time.

later, a little rough-housing with daddy followed by a very intense screaming match. and of course, ella still trying to do something about that hair.

grilling with daddy

bennett very much enjoys being in the middle of everything and constantly wants to "help." not the safest method of involving the children in dinner prep, but no one asked me. :)

Never Leave Your Children Unattended

every parent is faced with defining moments in life. moments where you choose... you choose between yelling at your children and losing your temper or... you grab your camera.

i opt for the second option. it keeps life fun.

here is my tribute to my children and the creative things they find to do while I am otherwise occupied. (by the way, these things happen in mere moments. its not like i'm sunning myself in the backyard or lounging around watching soaps.)

bennett's favorite coloring spot has become the back door. should i forget the one lone crayon on the floor, he will find it, and create for me a masterpiece... one that isn't too easy to clean up. (this picture really doesn't do it justice. just trust me)

anytime you hear the words, "oh no, bennett!" in a very shrill, happy voice, followed by, "mama! come look!" it is not a good sign. i found bennett covered in liquid foundation (make-up). i wasn't sure who the responsible child was or if it was a group effort. later in the day i told anthony the story and when he asked who did it, ella overheard and interrupted and said, "i did it daddy!" she was very proud of herself. i forgot all i had to do was ask her. she hasn't learned to lie yet :)
oh, and it didn't clean up so well either. took quite a few shampoos and his hair looked gray for a couple of days.

ella was quite proud of herself... piling as many toys and miscellaneous items around Bennett as she possibly can.

a joint effort of emptying the ENTIRE contents of the game closet. it did take an hour to clean up. those battleship pieces, scrabble squares, trivial pursuit cards, and many other games with numerous tiny pieces... at least we only have one puzzle. :)