R & R

just us for 6 days! what an amazing treat to be together to rest, have uninterrupted conversation, fun adventures, rest, good food, sun and reflection. we celebrated 10 years of marriage and 10 years of Bellflower. love my husband and love Bellflower.








this is just funny - wedding and sunbathers don't mix well

end of summer...

summer is done. but who would have guessed it this week when it reached 111 degrees in bellflower in septemeber - crazy. i realized after our trip to mi and chicago that the last year has been very full. but i look back and think - we did it. some bruises along the way but we made it and learned and grew as a family. we had a great summer even though we only went to the beach 1 time. i had high hopes... i also had high hopes of visiting many people while we were in mi, and we didn't. i thought for sure our house addition would be close to finished by now, but it isn't. i even thought we might be starting a charter school this fall but we are still working on that one too. a dear friend told me the other day, "give yourself a break rachel." so i am (or trying to remember that she said this and i should embrace it) i loved my summer with the boys! if we missed you this summer, please know we love you... here are a lot of pictures to record the end of summer.


ezekiel loves dogs - my sister's dog toby got lots of attention...




yes sue is about to eat ryan's head!



chicago lego store - the boys heaven

ryan and his dad baptized our neice brinsley - what a honey

ezekiel is 1

baby zeke is 1. today he looked at me like he was all grown up. as he crawls up in the window and attempts to climb over the chair i realize he isn't a little baby anymore. what a year he has lived through with our family. sometimes i look back on the year behind us and asks myself did all that happen? we had a baby, started organizing to start a charter school, started a house project, started preschool, started a new homeless prevention program, moved into a new and remodeled community center, started remodeling a new affordable house, started to volunteer for Communities First Board... we started a lot this past year and Ezekiel was a trooper through it all. I guess thats why he went on 6 plane trips and a long road trip all by the age of 1. he is by far our most traveled infant and he just goes with the flow. thankful for his sweet and laid back personality this past year. although now that he moves around i realize he is a little explorer and climber. he loves playing with his big brothers and generally gets into everything they are playing with. breaking things they build or helping them play would be the debate each day. i often hear ezekiel don't do that... he also like to play on his own, zooming cars around, yes he already uses sound effects. throwing balls and crawling as fast as he can to get them. putting things in boxes and taking them out. building the best way he can with his chubby hands. looking at books. crawling with his head down and throwing himself on the floor in delight. he finally learned to sleep through the night by his first birthday much to our delight. we are blessed by this little man and we are thankful for the smiles and laughter he adds to our family. we pray he grows in God's strength and God's grace, like his name means. we hope for more growth, discovery, learning, love and joy in this next year.

this is a Psalm i read just after he was born last year:

God, brilliant Lord,
yours is a household name.
Nursing infants gurgle choruses about you;
toddlers shout the songs
That drown out enemy talk,
and silence atheist babble.
I look up at your macro-skies, dark and enormous
your handmade sky jewelry,
Moon and stars mounted in their settings.
Then I look at my micro-self and wonder,
Why do you bother with us?
Why take a second look our way?
Yet we've so narrowly missed being gods,
bright with Eden's dawn light.
You put us in charge of your handcrafted world,
repeated to us you Genesis-charge,
Made us lords of sheep and cattle,
even animals out in the wild,
Birds flying and fish swimming,
whales singing in the ocean deeps.

God, brilliant Lord,
your name echoes around the world.

the three boys

riding a bike

about a month ago we were at the park with friends. malachi asked me if he could ride his friends bike, the one without training wheels. i hesitated but thought he might as well try. so he got on and i held the seat for about 15 seconds, realizing he might fall when i let go. this i think was more of a lesson for me; holding on because i didn't want malachi to get hurt and realizing he wouldn't learn unless i let go. as a mother of 3 boys i think i will have many instances when i need to let go and let my boys make a choice that might have a painful consequence but totally survivable. so i let go. and malachi rode away and didn't look back. amazing! now he riding all over town with us, enjoying the bike path in Bellflower. last night as a family we went on a 3 mile ride and he did great.

ps: excuse the helmet, its mine because i couldn't find his as we raced out the door...

swimming

the benefit of having an older brother for abram is that he is exposed to skills he might not be ready to attempt, but he likes to do everything malachi does. which means swim. so abram started swimming lessons last week and he is swimming. this kid was also jumping off the diving board last summer with no fear. he was very ready to learn so he could ditch the swimvest. the first day he cried when water got up his nose. but on day 2 he told me he wasn't going to cry and he was right. his confidence seemed to go up a notch as well and he was ready to swim immediately. he is so proud of himself. so now we have 2 little fish. malachi's is also loving the water and his big accomplishments now are diving for rings and doing underwater flips. so thanks to the fieldhouse's amazing pool that hovers at 90 we are enjoying many swim days. the boys told me they will never get sick of swimming.