I've wondered before if God really loves me. Knowledge tells me that the answer is yes. However undeserving, I am His child. But am I just a big, fat disappointment to Him? Does He see some shred of hope that I could actually amount to something useful someday? As I tangle and struggle with issues I wish I could have shaken ten years ago, I wonder what the eternal implications are for these constant failings. I long to be that good and faithful servant. I wonder with tears if my heavenly crown will have any jewels, or if I'll slip into eternity justified by Jesus' precious blood, but with nothing to offer back to my Lord.

It's easy for me to keep a godly perspective on, well, anything . . . for about two minutes. I have the attention span of a labrador retriever. I appear to be genuinely focused, and then Oh! A tennis ball! and I come back hours, days . . . years later to that character trait or assignment or ministry or question or whatever it was. I set my heart to focus. I pray. And then somehow I become distracted by just living life.

I am a seriously flawed individual. And at the same time I am amazingly discontented. How can both of those ideas coexist in a human heart? I am deceived! I can somehow admit that I do not, by my own merit, deserve any good at all . . . and in the same moment somehow feel that my circumstances are not good enough for me.

If only ___, then I could be happy.

If only ___, then I could be more obedient to the Lord.

If only ___, then I could have this difficult conversation without getting angry.

If only ___, then I could be a better wife, a better mother.

God, You know exactly what goes in those blanks, and yet You are all I need. Expose my foolish self-deception! Let me never forget the depth of my sin. Humble my heart. Be always before my eyes.

I do not deserve Your mercy! You pursued me through my wandering away and you continue to pursue me through my crippled attempts to serve You. Your love is real, as hard as it is to understand. How loving and patient You are, my Savior! I know this not because somebody told me so, but because I can see it when I look back. Thank you.

Father, never let me go!

Trampoline!

Since we moved in, we've been trying to figure out whether we wanted something for the kids to play on in the backyard, and what. We had a slide and swingset combo in Florida (that had been given to us by some neighbors when they moved away), but we decided to leave it with another neighbor rather than move it to Montana with us. It had been nice in Florida, but Drake (who's going to be 8 this summer and is getting pretty tall) had really outgrown it already. We thought about buying or making a really big swingset, or getting a big slide, or building some type of play structure, and finally, after weighing lots of pros and cons, we decided to get a trampoline instead.

Yesterday was the big day - we went to Sam's Club and bought one, and got the bottom part put together. This morning, we got up and put together the net part, and attached it. I realized that trampolines are a lot more time consuming to put together than I had anticipated! But it was worth it! Look at all the smiles...

Levi doesn't like to stand on it when other people are jumping, because at barely 30 lbs., he gets tossed around a lot!

But he loves to be held while Adam or I jump!

So much fun!!

But very tiring. I'm so out of shape. This is good for me!

Drake can really jump high!

Levi decided he doesn't mind jumping like this either (holding on with two hands, facing out, and being held close to Dad or Mom's body).

Jump boys, jump!

. . .

So who wants to come for a visit?

Art class pictures, continued

Okay, so here are some pictures I took last week at art class when they were doing sculpture...

Drake and Levi showing me their favorite wagon from the huge wagon display at the museum.

.

The art class was held at a western art museum in town, which is an awesome museum, by the way. (We toured it last week after class, and it's got all kinds of Native American stuff and early European settler stuff, and much of it is hands-on.) The class was held on Thursday mornings, and was specifically for homeschooled kids. The price was awesome, I just have to mention that, because I still can't believe how much it cost. $10 for all 5 weeks! And the instructor gave us permission to tour the museum for free while we were there! It has been really fun for Drake; he's looked forward to going every week. The instructor mentioned today that she's hoping to offer another class in the fall, so we'll definitely be watching for that!

Sculpting a bar of Ivory soap.


All the sculptors hard at work.

This class has been a great introduction to various types of art!

Art class pictures

Betcha thought we dropped off the face of the earth, huh?

Almost, but not quite. Here's a brief synopsis of our lives for the past, oh, 8 or 9 months:

• Packers and movers came and got all our stuff.
• We drove two vehicles for 5 days and finally made it from Florida to Montana. Fun trip, actually!
• We stayed in TLF (Temporary Lodging Facility) at the base for a month while we purchased our first home. (Short description: built in 1948, hardwood floors on main level, almost 2,000 s.f., counting the partially finished basement, 2 bedrooms upstairs and one down, 2-car garage, breezeway connecting house and garage, corner lot, fenced backyard, nice older neighborhood with lots of big trees, across the street from a Catholic school. I know, I know, I should post some pictures of the house, but that will have to wait until another day!)
• My mom came while we were still in TLF and watched the boys while we closed on our house, and stayed to help us unpack. (She even painted our living and dining rooms before our household good were delivered. It was such a blessing to have her help, and her company, on Adam's first tour out in the field!)
• We found our wonderful new church.
• We moved into said new house.
• Both of Adam's sisters and their (7 total) children visited for Thanksgiving, a couple of weeks after we moved in.
• Drake started Awana here.
• We started our first remodeling project - adding a 2nd bathroom in the basement.
• My parents visited for Christmas.
• We pulled out gobs of hair over the bathroom project.
• Adam and the boys fished all winter. A lot!
• We learned to finish drywall and texture walls.
• Drake took swimming lessons.
• Levi turned 3 in February and had a dinosaur birthday party with lots of new friends!
• Adam's dad visited for a few days.
• We learned to lay linoleum tile.
• More (plumber-oriented) bathroom drama.
• We moved 8 smallish poplar trees from our backyard to our friends' yard to make room for a garden. Fun day!
• Drake took more swimming lessons.
• My sister and brother-in-law visited at the end of March.
• I was diagnosed with Carpal Tunnel Syndrome and have started wearing wrist splints and going to physical therapy twice a week. Not my favorite thing, but I am really thankful that the pain is decreasing after almost a year!
• Drake started a 5-week art class at a local art museum.
• Drake had his awards ceremony for the close of the Awana year, and was awarded for finishing his book, his review, and his extra credit for the year. Excellent work, Drake!
• We tilled and fertilized our new garden space, and realized that it was probably an old garden space, once upon a time, because the soil is excellent!
• We had warm, gorgeous, spring-like weather.
• We drove to our hometown in Washington for a few days. (Drove...wow...it's awesome to be so close!)
• We decided that we hope to never see our plumber again. Ever.
• We got snow at the tail end of April. And just when it had all melted and started trying to warm up again, we got more in May.
• We took the first few showers in our fully-functional new bathroom. Yay!
• We took a trip into the Rockies with some new friends and saw all kinds of animals and cool stuff, discharged weapons, built a fire, etc.
• I just discovered the showerhead is leaking, probably from where it connects inside the wall, after probably 4 or 5 showers. Grrr...did I mention how much I love that plumber?
• And through all of this, my daily life has consisted of homeschooling Drake, childrearing in general, meeting new friends and getting involved in stuff, and getting used to Adam's schedule, which most of the time hasn't been too bad. The good thing about his new job is that he really likes it!

So, that was the Reader's Digest Condensed Version. Drake's art class ended today, so I'm going to post some pictures of that, hopefully getting back into the swing of blogging occasionally. So without further ado...

Drake at the kitchen table with all his projects from art class. (Except the soap sculpture...I forgot to include pictures of that. I'll post again in a few minutes with some of those pictures. I am NOT about to try to add them because I've been fighting Blogger for over an hour already, and it doesn't want to let me move any pictures or text around!)

The cover of Drake's portfolio

Drake's collage, made from a rubbing of the sole of his shoe and magazine clippings. (Drake says the shoe rubbing is a monster and the magazine clippings are his habitat.)

All the goodies he made. Each week was a different topic: drawing, collage, painting, sculpture, and then today was supposed to be pinhole camera, but because of the weather it had to be changed, so the kids got to paint a ceramic bison!


Another view

Cool bison!

Making a charging-bison face.

And this one is totally unrelated, but I just wanted to throw it in anyway! I took it this afternoon after Levi woke up from his nap. They were playing Lego Star Wars together in the basement, very intent on their game!

Imaginary friends

Some of you are privileged enough to have met Mousie and Tiger, Drake's imaginary friends from several years ago. We rarely hear about them anymore, but for 3- to 5-year-old Drake, they were definitely important individuals in his life.

I figured that Drake needed imaginary friends because he was an only child until he was 4-1/2. And I didn't suspect Levi would probably ever have one, because he and Drake play together all the time. ALL the time.

But I was wrong.

So without further ado, I would like to introduce you to Levi's new friend...Baby Einstein.

(Yes, I'm serious.)

As far as I can tell, Baby Einstein (the imaginary friend version) looks like the little cartoon head on the Baby Einstein videos. And he fits in Levi's hand. And "He's - Nice - Boy" according to Levi.

We woke up this morning to a rain storm, and Levi came out of his room concerned that Baby "Ine-tine" was outside in the scary thunderstorm. I assured him that "he" was not, without realizing that he wasn't talking about one of the videotapes. Then again after nap, he worried that B.E. had been left outside in the rain. Since then he has played hide-and-seek with B.E., drawn a picture of him, and let me hold him. Right at this very moment, B.E. is in the playroom on an airplane.

Mmm Hmmmm...

7 years old!

We ended up celebrating Drake's 7th birthday for almost a week, because it fell on a Monday and we didn't have his "friends" party until the following Saturday. I think he enjoyed having a "birthday week" instead of just a day, though! Here are some pictures from the various celebrations...

Madagascar 2 - Drake is a huge Madagascar fan! This kid does movie quotes like nobody's business.

Since the boys are exactly 4 1/2 years apart, they each have a half-birthday on the other one's real birthday, and we give the half-birthday boy one gift, while the real birthday boy gets several. Levi got a puzzle rack and four new puzzles! He is a puzzler, just like his daddy!

Drake got books, coloring books, and a drawing book, too! Here he is with his beloved new "Dragons of the Deep" creation science book from our favorite Alaskans!

His big gift from Daddy, Mommy, and Levi - a Razor scooter! This kid was over the moon! He has been riding it daily for the past week.

We got a cookie cake for our little family party - it was really good! I had never tried one before.

For the friends party last weekend, Drake wanted a "rain forest" party...Adam cut up all the fruit and I made the cakes - lemon rounds with vanilla frosting and chocolate cupcakes with chocolate frosting. (Adam helped me with frog placement!)

A closer view of the cake. (That's a pineapple top that we used for a plant.)

It's finally party time! This is a shot of the kids playing an ice cube game...who can hold the ice cube the longest without dropping it? Drake's friend Kiley won - their ice cubes had all but melted, so I was relieved when someone finally won the game!

Make a wish....

Opening gifts

Drake loved the gifts from his friends!

Here's the "tree" we made to decorate for the rain forest party.

Drake in front of his tree! He colored all the animals in the branches during the week or so before his party. (The trunk and branches are paper shopping bags from the commissary, and the leaves and grass are construction paper.)

***

Our big boy had a great time turning 7!

Moving and School

I was planning to write a blog post about our first week of school, and well...that didn't really happen. There's been some major busyness going on at our house. We have orders to Montana, and we'll probably be moving in October or November. Seriously, words cannot express our excitement! A new start has been a long time coming, and Adam was accepted for a special duty assignment at Malmstrom AFB, near Great Falls, MT. So there's a lot going on with getting ready to move!

We were planning to start homeschooling the first week in August, but when we got our assignment, we decided to bump it up yet another week to provide some extra wiggle-room. So we're toward the end of our fourth week of school now, and I have to say, it's - well - busy! Wow. I feel sorta like Drake when Levi was born. I always say that Drake knew he was going to have a new baby brother, and he had a grasp on what newborn babies are like...but he didn't quite internalize how much the new baby would affect his life. Yeah, that's how this whole homeschool "adventure" feels to me, now that we've almost finished our first month. It has been a major adjustment! I had all the details planned out pretty well, and I did suspect somewhere in the fuzzy recesses of my brain that it wasn't going to be all that easy. But suspecting and experiencing are two very different things!

Anyway, school is actually going quite well, aside from the fact that I feel like I more than earn my keep nowadays! Drake's reading is improving so much, and his desire to do it has improved ten-fold since I shelved his nemesis, the hated reading/phonics lesson book that we'd been using since March. (Planning to start a new phonics program soon, but for now we're reading lots of easy reader books from the library, and he's doing great!) He also no longer tells me he's "not good at math" like he did last year - he actually seems to enjoy math, and he gets at least some satisfaction from successfully mastering new concepts in math. I am very, very thankful that I chose the math curriculum we're using - it seems to fit his learning style very well. He is so not the worksheet type. Not at all. Also, his handwriting is actually legible now, and he forms all the letters correctly, most of the time! (Last year, he had no instruction in "how" to form letters, so he did it in the wackiest ways, like detached balls and sticks all over the place...not conducive to writing with any speed or legibility down the road.) So his handwriting has been "reworked" and I think it's pretty much fixed now - yay!

So all that to say...it feels like a snail's pace sometimes, but now that we've covered enough ground to look back a little bit, I can see a lot of improvement and a lot of learning that's happened over the past 4 weeks. And I pray it will continue to get easier as we get our "groove" even more deeply established! I'm so proud of my wiggly, imaginative, talkative, loving, very-much-a-boy first grader, and all he has accomplished so far! I believe he's in the ideal place to learn without destroying those very traits that I love about him.

Excited on the first day of school.

Drake was taking a break and played with Levi for a few minutes. Getting out the dried beans keeps Levi occupied for a L-O-N-G time! (As does filling the sink with bubble water...)

Experiencing fox ears...having large ears really does help you hear better!

That yellow strip at the top of the wall is our history timeline, labeled 5000 BC to 0. (It goes around the dining room and just barely into the kitchen.) This year in history we're doing ancient history, or "Creation to Christ". History is Drake's favorite subject so far, and definitely mine too! It's amazing to actually study history in order and see how the Old Testament lines up with other events and civilizations around the world!

Close-up of our timeline after the first three days. (There are a lot more timeline figures now!)

Hmmm...

It's a "minibeast trap" - our first flopped science experiement. What is the only minibeast ("bug") you can attract in Florida? Ants. We were hoping that maybe we could catch a beetle or something if we checked it early in the morning. Nope.

Drake writing in "cuneiform". (Not really; just pretending. Cuneiform is the oldest known written language, produced by the oldest known civilization, the Sumerians. Cuneiform was actually an alphabet - unlike Egyptian hieroglyphics or Chinese characters - but it had 600 letters!) Drake had fun with this one, and dried his "cuneiform tablet" in the sun to keep.

***

Anyway, that's a brief overview of our first few weeks of school. Drake's birthday was on Monday, and he's SEVEN years old now! (How did this happen??!?) His party will be this Saturday, and I'm hoping to post birthday pictures when "birthday week" is officially over.