AJ

AJ has had a wonderful year as a first grader! She has worked very hard to acheive grade level reading status and continues to learn new things everyday. She has many great friends and is such a prized companion! All her classmates begged for playdates with her on a regular basis. We tell her often what a great strength it is to know how to be such a fun loving and caring friend. She is keeping busy this summer with lots of playdates and swims almost daily with our wonderful neighbors. Her birthday is fast approaching and we are surprising her with a long awaited session of gymnastics classes! Her party will be a small gathering of some neighbors and classmates at the pool. She is excited about enjoying my "pigs in a blanket" and her all time favorite...CAKE! We feel so blessed to be the parents of such a beautiful, fun-loving girl and look forward to watching her grow. She made a public commitment to accept Christ...she prayed with us when she was very young to ask the Lord into her heart...but Wednesday, July 2nd at church she really was touched in worship, knelt on her own, and raised her hands in worship without any cue from me. Pastor gave an alter call and she nearly bolted down front to my heart's delight! In the prayer room she asked the woman counselor to pray for her Papa Phil and Uncle Phil that they might come to accept Christ someday as well. It was the same request I had as well when I gave my heart to Jesus when I was also 7. That has been the most special news we can share about our special daughter! I look forward to continuing to keep family and friends updated with all our family news! Thanks for reading...remember..."the Lord will perfect that which concerns me" (Ps. 138:8). We have been praying this over our lives for over a year now and are watching God do really neat things daily. Praise the Lord...my business is growing...3 new clients this week! Sorry so random and fragmented but that is my brain at this late hour...almost midnight right now! Check back soon for more fun stories from the chronicles of our lives!

Keenan continues to bless us with his love for life and cars! He and big sister AJ play that old game about Volkswagen bug cars in the car. They call them Herbie cars and will say when they see one..."punch bug, no punchback!" I remember kids playing this game when I was young as well. Clearly it can cause some sibling rivalry battles of "I saw that Herbie car first...no I saw it first..." You get the point. They became obsessed with Herbie cars upon watching the Herbie Fully Loaded movie on Disney several months ago and it became a close favorite right up there with Disney Pixar's Cars movie. I cannot stress enough how funny it is to see my boy so excited about seeing a Herbie car or race car...and now he is even really good at calling out the colors of cars...something I thought was taking him forever to learn. I guess it's true what they say "kids learn best through play." Keenan has learned his colors by relating them to something he loves...I couldn't be prouder of my little boy who is truly "all boy."

The joy of being a mother

Darien is our little guy and what a joy he is to our lives! He is such a sweet, snuggly baby and though we were terrified at first to enter into being parents of THREE kids, God has just increased our capacity to manage our household and we are loving life with this amazing blessing, priviledge and miracle of another baby to love and raise as a part of our family! Becoming a mom of three has actually helped make me more content as a mom. I finally feel I have accepted this role as God's supreme destiny for my life and am now embracing it and feel much more at peace than when I was constantly feeling like...what's next Lord, what now...clearly this is my forever and anything else is just never going to fill our lives like loving our kids. It's still not easy to find time for other things that we enjoy but we are committed to just making our kids feel loved and as though they are our #1 Priority!