we love the chrissys and their birthday party

this past weekend we celebrated our friends chrissy (a) and crissy (b)s' birthdays! it was an arrested development theme or wear a wig. we had a blast and i have to say ryan could pass for buster, as could malachi. i'm not sure if that is a good thing. if you haven't seen the show (it was canceled) you can you tube it to get the idea. i wore this great black wig and some stunning eyelashes, didn't look a whole lot like myself. abram was a bit confused until i started talking. chrissy (a) rocked a mulat like no one I have seen before and crissy (b) convinced me she is joining hte army! it was a grand time with sparkly hair, togas, clothes from who knows what closet and good friends. so thanks chrissys for giving us a reason to party and have a ton of fun. malachi will someday owe you for introducing him to his love of karaoke and eating a microphone.

eggscellent

our chickens laid eggs this weekend and now each day we collect 3 eggs from the coop! we haven't eaten any quite yet because the little hens are on anti-biotics for colds. did you know you could give chickens medicine. oh yea, there are only 3 eggs because we sadly lost a chicken to this nasty cold. malachi believes the chicken flew away (his fish died the same day and we thought that was enough to explain) and if you want to hear the real story, it involves my brother and an axe.

the joy of being 2

malachi took great delight today in splashing and playing - what joy he has for life. joy. he teaches me so much!

abram jack's baptism

"Abraham believed God, and it was credited to him as righteousness," and he was called God's friend. James 2:23 This is our pray for our little Abram, that he would become God's friend and believe in him with his whole heart. Yesterday we baptized Abram. The water of baptism is a symbol of the covenant God has made with us, his people, and now to Abram his child. A symbol of what Jesus has done for us by giving us LIFE in him. We were surrounded by family and friends who love us and love Abram and blessed him through words, presence, touch, and song. We are given such a gift in our son and we pray that we would be given wisdom and patience as parents. We desire to live in a such a way that Abram would learn what a daily journey with Jesus is. Our friends the Fieldhouses wrote this prayer for Abram from Jeremiah 32: 39-40
"Count Abram as one of your people, and be his God. Give him a singleness of heart and action, so that he will always fear you for his own good and for the good of his children. Make an everlasting covenant with Abram. Never stop doing good to him, and inspire him to fear you so that he will never turn away from you."
What an awesome prayer for Abram. He is named after his great grandfather and grandfather, both men who walked and continue to walk with God. Abram is already blessed through their faithfulness to God and we pray he will be a blessing to many as well.

so hot, so fun with water!

loved by our family

this week we were loved in person by our parents and my brother dirk. ryan's parents came into town last week tuesday and mine came on friday night. we have amazing parents who love our kids (and us) so well and just being with them was a delight. we can't thank them enough for coming out to ca for abram's baptism. we had a great laughs, fun adventures and wonderful conversation.

chicken little and chicken mcqueen

those are the names of 2 of the 4 chickens who are now a part of the verwys family urban farm. ryan used his great handy man skills and built a chicken coop for our backyard, thanks to eric and aaron's help as well. last night we went to a local feed store in bellflower, one of bellflower's hidden gems. this place sells chickens, goats, bunnies, mice, doves... right here in good old bellflower. so now we have 4 chickens that will eat the compost items and make more compost for our garden. we've had one escape attempt and almost death due to sienna just about capturing the poor chicken. now we just need malachi to understand he can't open the door to the coop. we'll let you know when we get our first egg!

potty party

holding joey on the potty party tractor


pretzel treats


his sticker chart

so we have ventured into potty training - wow! what an adventure and one of the most exhausting days of parenting yet. tiring but good, that feeling like you've spent yourself all day and it actually made a difference, and i'm not talking about malachi. so we had a potty party day on wednesday, cars was our theme, he is obessed with them. i went into the day with the thought, its one day, if it works great and if not we'll just keep on keeping on. my friend martha was my inspiration having trained 2 little boys using the potty part day method. we taught malachi's "new" doll (aka: murphy, ryan's cabage patch kid from growing up) Joey to go potty. by lunch malachi was putting him on the potty and telling him he had to practice longer. then malachi took his long nap which left us with little time to practice himself. but he went a few times and had accidents, he doesn't care to much about having accidents. fast forward to the next day and we spent the morning at a friends house. he would go on the potty and then have an accident 10 minutes later - so i thought to myself, it was worth a try and this is not working. well friday rolled around and we kept up with the treats, encouragement and potty party dances - he was dry the whole day! we are still working on moving beyond peeing in the potty - he seems to use his pull up at nap time to do this number. but amazingly we are moving forward, there is light at the end of the tunnel. i am so proud of him and myself for that matter. i learned that it isn't just about the kid being ready, but also the mom who now needs to know where bathrooms are and be prepared at all times to make a mad dash for the nearest potty.

easter

sunrise at the beach -every year we celebrate easter with the sunrise, worship and reading scripture. what an amazing morning!!