James 1:19-20

The little ones have been working on their verses too. James 1:19-20 "Let everyone be quick to hear, slow to speak and slow to anger. For the anger of man does not achieve the righteousness of God."

Matt seems to be a little conjunction happy.

Don't you love the way she searches for the right words and then finds them?! Or is it just because I'm her daddy!?

The Lord's Prayer

In the mornings, Sandy has been working on teaching the boys and girl the Lord's prayer.

This is the Lord's Prayer rock star version.

Here's the sweet version.

And of course, the cute version!

Basketball

The first thing Andrew does when he gets up and the last thing he does before he goes to bed is shoot baskets on his indoor nerf hoop. We've had it for about 2 years - that's about 200 years in nerf years. It shows.Even duct tape couldn't keep that thing alive. So with the money Andrew earned from picking up rocks in our yard, he purchased a new hoop. He's loving it. He's usually re-creating the Lakers 2009 championship season or the UCLA Bruins 1995 championship season!

Of course, the little ones get the hand me down hoop...they're still working on their fundamentals!

SPARKS!

Andrew memorized his Sparks (Kindergarten - 2nd grade) verses for Awana tonight. Every letter in Sparks has a corresponding word and Bible verse. I'm glad that he's enjoying it.

S - Savior
P - Power
A - According to the Scriptures
R - Raised
K - Keep
S - Saved

She can read!

Sort of...

She's "reading" the book, I Believe in Jesus by John MacArthur.

Pain Givers HQ

Little did I know that our basement has become a Head Quarters for the Pain Givers. I guess Andrew is the president of this organization.And of course, boys are the only ones allowed to be pain givers. If I were a boy, I wouldn't want it any other way.This sign says, "Known as the tower of pain." I promise, we are not torturing the boy nor are we letting him watch any Friday the 13th movies.

Children's Farm

Yesterday, we drove to the Deanna Rose Children's Farm near Kansas City. It was a gorgeous and fun day, and it was FREE!We panned for precious stones.Andrew milked a cow.If it looks like Matt was a little hesitant to go near the cow, it's because he was.We explored a teepee.We rode mini-tractors.

This goat really liked Sandy.And we fed the fish. They were CRAZY hungry!

Proverbs 15:5

Proverbs 15:5 - A fool rejects his father's discipline but he who listens to correction is wise.

Andrew was a little too excited about saying his verse to get on camera and on the blog. Should I be worried about that?!

The grass really is greener on the other side

Really. It is. See?But thanks to a friend, the lawn now has grass seed...and lots of straw. And hopefully, the seed will grow and then the grass will be the same over there and here! So for now, we water and wait.

#15 - The Silmarillion

Well, I finished The Silmarillion by JRR Tolkien the other day. It was my first fiction book in a while. Unfortunately, it read more like a history book for the first 200 pages. It might have been somewhat worthwhile if it truly was history...but it was PRETEND! So I was disappointed to say the least. But the last 100 pages was a lot more fun and provided the back story to The Lord of the Rings that I was hoping to read about.

But this marks the completion of my goal for this year - to read 12 books (specifically 12 certain types of books - see my previous post in January). By the grace of God, I have met my goal (see sidebar for the complete list) and exceeded it by reading 3 other books and it's only mid-Sept!

I will continue to read. There are still many books on my "to read" list / shelf. I think all this reading has benefited me, but I'm not sure if it has helped my writing much! But I'm starting to enjoy reading more, and I think it helps me think more clearly. We can only hope...

Powerful!

I was doing a little workout yesterday when Matt surprised me with his new abilities.

When he first did this (before I got the camera out), both myself and Emery were quite impressed. She said, "Wow Matt! You are very powerful!" This is high praise because up to this point, she pretty much only has called God powerful. When we have family devotions, her answer for every question about God is because He is Powerful (or holy)! So Matt is in high company.

Now that I think about it, we just finished Exodus and Numbers in our family devotions. So Emery really got the message that God is a great and holy God! Praise God.

Trick shots

So Andrew is now entering the world of trick shots. We've started to play H-O-R-S-E and of course, he must learn the backwards shot.

It only took about 10 tries to get this on film though...I think Sandy was more excited to get this on tape than Andrew!

Hide and seek

Emery loves babies. Even though she's barely big enough, she thinks she can hold one.The boys and girl played hide and seek with their friends Addy and Luke the other day.

Unfortunately, Emery is a bit bossy and Matt suddenly turned violent. If they keep this up, they won't have friends much longer. Thankfully, Addy is a good friend to put up with them!

Playing with blocks

I didn't grow up playing a whole lot with Legos or blocks, but I guess I should have. I took the day off yesterday to work on setting up some castleblock walls in preparation for seeding the lawn. I was going to wait on this project til next year but the castleblock was on sale...it's hard to pass up a sale.I worked hard to get the first few blocks straight and level. But then I started running out of time and sand.So as you can see, the blocks started going up and down, left and right, back and forth.
It was funny how everyone driving by was letting me know that too! But I figure I can fix it later after we get our lawn back. Either that or I can wait until Andrew gets old enough and save that project for him!On a separate note, we had a little Awana Cubbies "dress rehearsal" last week. Can you tell that they're excited and can't wait for Cubbies to start?!

Topeka Zoo part 2

Our camera went a little haywire the day that we went to the zoo. I thought we had lost a bunch of pictures but thankfully we didn't. So here are some of those.We enjoyed our family picture with the lion.Andrew was the only one brave enough to touch an animal at the petting zoo.Although I tried to kiss the pig.Emery enjoyed the playground.All in all, it was a great day that produced lots of cute smiles.