swing set raising

so you know how the amish community has barn raisings - the whole community builds the barn together... we had a swing set raising a couple weekends ago and our friends helped us build the swing set. we are "storing" our friends, the nespers, swing set for them - not a bad deal we must admit. :) we were so blessed to have friends come to hang out and put the beast of the swing set together. it involved lifting the balcony/slide part over our fence and figuring out how to fit it in between the pomegranate tree and shed... we also enjoyed some amazing taco salad with our home grown lettuce and avocados. to make the day complete we were thrilled to have our dear friends the copelands back in america from indonesia - malachi affectionately calls them the "copeland family." we are excited to spend lots of play time with them the next 5 months and meet their new baby boy soon.
i stole these pictures from chrissy because camera is out of commission- abram pulled it off a table... thanks chrissy!

our baby #3

we saw our little baby moving all around today at the ultrasound appt. - so amazing. its hard to describe the feelings that swell up inside you as you see this little one's arms stretch across its face and its head turn from side to side. we are still in awe of how this little one is growing and developing and how much this baby looks like abram and malachi already. :) so i know you are wondering if we found out the gender. well we kind of did. it is written on a piece of paper in an envelope with a picture. so we have 20 more weeks to decide whether to find out. we'll keep you posted.

bath time again

this teaches you to drain the bath immediately after you are done!

pirates

malachi wanted to pretend all day today. tonight he asked that the boys be pirates and i would be the dragon... everyone has always told me boys make guns out of anything and they just figure it out somehow. as much as we have attempted to keep violent images out of his little head malachi has figured it out kind of - i don't think he knows the word gun so he has made up his own word - "poosher" and you "poosh" people. hence the pirates had his play tools aka "pooshers." so welcome to the world of a litle boy

our first blood orange

ryan was super excited this morning that the first blood orange was ready. he asked me to take pictures of it...our other citrus trees are producing more fruit but the fruit isn't quite sweet enough to eat, in fact its rather sour. if anyone knows how to fix this problem let us know. the boys loved enjoying the "good" orange.




the noises he was making went along with the stuff your face look...


YUM!

thanks grandma!

ryan's mom left today after enjoying california's suddenly very rainy weather and the flu epidemic at our house. not exactly the trip she was expecting but we still had fun. we are thankful she only suffered from the flu slightly...rob also hung out with us for the weekend and we graciously gave him the flu as well. makes you want to visit us soon, huh!
the boys loved hanging out with grandma, reading books, playing games, working in the garden, watching the rain pour down. it was a treat for us to have her here because we even had a marathon date as well: movie, dinner and shopping! i think the last time we had that long of a date was when she visited last fall. so come again any time.

some review of life

verwys family

cousins

fun in mi snow

so my runs a making a post have failed lately - this one was in the middle of being done and then it posted before without my knowledge. i am complaining about the mac book i used to do it because it kept on going to "sleep" while the photos were loading and disconnecting my from the internet. ok so there you have it.
so these are christmas shots and maybe some day i'll get more up. like birthdays, our trip to disneyland...

in the mean time. right now i am enjoying rain falling outside while the boys sleep. we are also finally vomit free at our house after a whole week. every one of us was sick and i can't remember the last time i was that sick (maybe 15 years ago.) in the middle of the sickness i did leave for the weekend to go to a retreat with a group of women that i am in a learning community with. great women, all connected with urban ministry of some sort. we had a great time, good food and wonderful discussion, learning, solitude, and prayer. there were a number of things that stuck with me from the weekend but one was shared by the spiritual director who was with us, lynn. she led us through a lot of self reflection and time to journal and think about God and our relationship with him as a real God or a concept. it was good and deep and i could go into a lot of detail but i'd rather talk about it in person than on my blog... so anyway we talked about wholeness and her comment was that being whole means a:

"relentless pursuit of truth about you that will give you a healthy sense of self and loving relationships" that God brings light in to this truth because he doesn't show us truth without himself present in it - this was after we talked about our calling by God, with God and for God and then did a life evaluation of sorts. i was blessed to have the time to get away and reflect and was reminded about how needed time like that is. it was good timing because then i came home to sick kids and life...