Baby Stepping

Last week I made what will probably be my last big batch of baby food. Simeon and Lieren are becoming less interested in baby food as their appetite for table food increases. Tonight they gobbled up homemade kung-pao chicken and peas. Granted, I will probably keep making veggies for as long as they will eat them. But I'll probably never take 2-3 days and fill up the freezer with sweet potatoes, squash, green beans, peas, pears, peaches, avocado-banana, and blueberries like I have been. As I finished I felt a mix of relief and sadness. Our babies are not slowly toddling into toddlerhood, they are flying.

Speaking of toddling, we have a new little toddler among us. Yep, Simeon took his first steps over the weekend. What a big boy. Eleven months and starting to walk. Just like his big brother.

In another development, both babies are starting to talk! They happily say "uh-oh" when things drop. They are approximating the sign for "more". And they clearly say "hi" and wave to greet. Tonight I almost fell over when Lieren responded to my prompt to "Say 'night-night' to Daddy". She looked at him, waved, and said "ni-ni". Eleven months and starting to talk. Just like their big brother.

Speaking of big brother, Silas is making strides of his own. I will have to dedicate a blog post to him soon.

We had a sweet weekend celebrating my birthday and having my good friend Denise and her husband Daniel come to visit. It was rainy and cool most of the weekend, but we braved a trip to the park anyway. I am thankful for friends who are willing to join in our chaos and take it all in stride!

You won't be surprised to hear that I am thrilled the weather is warming up and the sun has been out! Tomorrow we take our first trip to the pool. I tried everyone's swim gear on today and I think we are set. Should be an adventure to say the least!

Great Day for a Birthday

Today is my birthday! I am gifting myself a few minutes of quiet while the babies nap this morning. I am letting Silas watch Diego in the living room while I retreat to the office at the front of our house.
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Someone must have whispered in Simeon's ear that it was my birthday today because neither he nor Lieren woke during the night and he slept till 7! I can count on one hand the number of nights that has happened in these eleven months. Wonders never cease.
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Yesterday was Thursday, which means playdate-day for us every other week. Yesterday was the off-week so I took the children to run errands instead. Ironically, we ended up at Babies R Us on what was the coldest day in late May that I can ever remember, looking at swimgear. It was a struggle not to feel discouraged. Will summer ever come? So strange to be picking out floaties while my children wore coats.
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Not that we haven't had any warm days. We have had several beautiful, hot days recently that has gotten me itching to be outside. I love that we all got a bit of color on our cheeks earlier this week and Silas' feet already have tan lines from his flip-flops.
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Last week at playgroup the weather was beautiful. We were at Natalie's house and before some babies went down for naps, some started eating, and others started to run amok in the backyard, we sat them down for a picture. Turned out pretty good if you look at the number of children and their ages (oldest is just a couple months past 3)...

Did you pinpoint the three sets of twins? Hint: Silas is sitting beside his friend Haley then Jack is next to her. They are the three non-twins of the group.

The oldest three loved the swings...

And once again, where's Simeon???

There he is!

Sweet nappin' baby...

Well, today promises to be a great day. The sun is out, the babies are napping well, Shane and I are going out for dinner, and we have friends coming in town for the long weekend. Silas' video is about over and as I hear the faintest hint of babies waking, I think the outdoors might be calling us...

We Took A Trip

It was all smiles after church for the two little somebody's in this house who turned 11 months yesterday!

If you're thinking to yourself that you've seen Lieren's shirt before, you have! We bought it as a special newborn dress, but it is actually a 12-month shirt. Since it was cut exactly like the newborn dresses and we liked it so much, we went ahead and bought it. Now we have used it all year.

The three and I went on a day-trip to visit my dear friend Nikki in St. Louis on Friday. It was a wonderful and much-anticipated day.

We left just after breakfast and arrived in time for lunch. It took us almost three hours (longer than expected because of traffic and a slight detour that might have just been my fault). We stopped only once for about 7 minutes at a rest stop for me to hand snacks to Silas in the back of the van. Then, for the next 20 minutes of our drive, I passed snacks to Sim and Lieren until I realized they were just dropping them on the floor. Sim fussed for a minute or two when we were about 10 minutes from arrival but once he found that paci, he relaxed again.

Nikki had a great lunch waiting for us but the kids were more interested in playing than eating so it took a good hour for us to eat! Times sure have changed since our college days...

But some things never change. Nikki and I always pick right up where we left off, even if it had been longer than we realized since we saw each other in person the last time!

Friendships like ours don't form overnight. Ours was forged through four years of college, three years sharing the same room, countless hours talking deep into the night, much laughter, and many tears; praying together, hoping together, and sharing together the joy of dreams realized.

The last time we were together, only Silas and Lainey were around. Now there are three more in our homes, born just 8 days apart: Simeon, Lieren, and Cooper...

After dinner, I packed my three back into the van, hugged my sweet friend's neck and drove home. Within 30 minutes, the van was quiet with sleeping children. I got home at 10 to Shane waiting for us, tucked the babes in bed (Silas never even woke, Lieren went back to sleep the minute I put her in bed, and Sim needed some coddling to be reminded it was still nighttime), and went to bed myself.

Tara and the Three

There are about 15 things I am ignoring at the moment, including going to sleep, to put these pictures on here. Considering that it is about midnight, I think sleep is going to win out and this is about all I have in me. But I so wanted my parents to get to see a bit of the action from Aunt Tara's visit this weekend. We had a wonderful, eventful, rainy, flight-delayed, suitcase-not-arriving, playful, finally-sunny-on-Monday-so-we-got-to-be-outside, just-being-together kind of visit.

Love my sister.

Sorry, Tara. I know these are not the best pics, but they pretty much sum up the chaos of the weekend. Life around here is anything but a relaxing vacation. Thanks for doing life with us for a few days. We miss you already!

Three on the Move

Shane and I are still trying to get unpacked after a little trip to Chicago this week. Yep, three of us got to spend a few days with the Harvest Bible Fellowship at our Harvest Bible Chapel in Elgin for Harvest University.

We took Lieren with us and left the boys back home. Not that they seemed to mind. Lieren soaked up the attention she got as an "only child" for 2 days. Silas stayed home and Grandma kept him entertained with trips to the park and Monkey Joes and kept him busy with all kinds of fun activities. Simeon took a little trip of his own across town to stay with my friend Tammy and her family. They had a large family gathering and their church small group over while he was there so he got more loving-on than he knew what to do with. Everybody did great, slept great, and were happy as can be when we got home Tuesday night.

The 2 days away were a blissful retreat and precious time of spiritual renewal for me. Who knew that traveling with one child could still allow me such rest? Lieren was a dream and I was able to participate in worship with the others, sit in on a bit of one workshop, and hear James McDonald speak. Experiencing God move among such an international body of believers is something I will not soon forget.

Well, the title to this post certainly does pertain to 3 of us voyaging up to Chi-town. But you may have thought it meant that we have another crawler in the house...

And you would be right!

While getting Mommy's complete focus for a couple days, Lieren decided it was time to crawl. Here she is on Tuesday morning, showing me how it's done. She is already quicker and more sure of herself than in this video...

Training and the Work of Motherhood

My heart is full to overflowing with the events in our lives the past two days. I will tell more about what we are up to today at a later time. But yesterday we had the privilege of dedicating these two precious ones at church...

"...we will tell the next generation the praiseworthy deeds of the Lord,

His power, and the wonders He has done.

He decreed statutes for Jacob and established the law in Israel,

which He commanded our forefathers to each their children,

so the next generation would know them, even the children yet to be born,

and they in turn would tell their children.

Then they would put their trust in God and would not forget His deeds

but would keep His commands."

Psalm 78:4-7

I have never loved my children more than yesterday. It was such a sweet day. Partly because it was Mother's Day. Partly because of the dedication. And partly because I wanted to love on them all I could, even with everything we had going on, before the events of today and tomorrow transpired.

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So while it was sweet, it was not the most relaxing Mother's Day of all time. And it got me thinking about a conversation I had with my friend Julie recently about how this seems to be a season of training. So much about having little ones is training and teaching. Training them in behavior, but also teaching them God's heart behind the behavior. It's instilling truth that we believe will take root and flourish into their own belief and a harvest of righteousness.

And there is nothing I would rather do than invest in the hearts of our children.

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You all know that back in the fall when the babies were still only a few months old, my mother began helping Silas memorize scripture. After she left, I kept up what he had learned but felt compelled to have a more tangible and organized way to help him memorize. I prayed and watched what things he really liked and came up with the simplest thing. But it works and he loves it.

Almost every week he and I sit down together and type up a new verse. It is amazing what he has been able to learn! I love that this taps into his love of literacy, promotes his reading of sight words, and is building a foundation for Him to love the Scripture. I hope to develop a tool like this that is unique for each of our children, that will fit their personalities, interests, and strengths.

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I am humbly thankful that the beginning stages of the Lord training me in the work of motherhood is happening while these three are little. Because they won't remember. Isn't He good? It's how He planned it.

Of course you know it doesn't always happen this way, but perhaps some of our "training" about sharing has been taking hold in Silas' heart. Shane called me in to the Sim and Lieren's room the other day to witness Silas "sharing" with Lieren!

Ha! Like I said, never loved them more.

Our Playgroup is Growing

Today playgroup was at our house. We had 9 children here, the oldest of whom just turned 3. Four mommies among us and 3 sets of twins. Whew, it was a whirlwind!

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I walked down the stairs at one point with one of our babies who had just woken from nap. Sitting at the bottom of the stairs was one of the mommies with about five little people crowding around her. As I reached the bottom step all their little faces looked up at me and my heart about stopped. Such sweetness! "This would be a great picture," I quipped.

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But because Simeon fell and hit his head about 5 times while they were here, I never took a minute to snap even one photograph. Oh well, we will do it again. And next time there will be pictures.

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Lots of people have been asking how our Lieren is doing. She is great! We went back to our pediatrician yesterday to follow-up and he is very pleased with how she looks. She is still down a tiny bit in weight, but nothing significant. She will finish the antibiotic tomorrow and hopefully we are done for the time being. We do have an appointment with a pediatric urologist soon to ensure there is nothing that would cause a recurrent infection but right now have no reason to be concerned.

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See how happy she is?

What a big girl...she pulled up to standing all by herself!

She is not quite crawling yet, but is slowly getting there. This was just this week...

glimpses

mealtime

(everybody loves blueberries. and yes, i am making our baby food.)

bathtime

(it was a happy day when i realized i could bathe all 3 children together. happy for all of us.)

bedtime

(we finally got silas a toddler bed. he loves it. lieren inherited his crib and said goodbye to the pack-n-play. she just needed a couple of sleeps to figure out how to not get caught, although she loves trying to pull up on the sides. and silas has yet to get out of bed without us coming to get him. dear boy, he has no idea what joy that brings to his mommy.)