a blessed February 2011...

At L & J's wedding reception

February was about all things love and wedding!  My brother L got married to his wife J on February 12.  It was a fabulous wedding and everyone had such a nice time and a lot of fun!  The best part was seeing how relaxed L & J were about everything, how wonderfully the wedding and reception reflected their personalities, and how excited they were to be married to each other.  When S and I got engaged 11.5 years ago, one of my cousins wisely told us to plan as much for the marriage as for the wedding.  We took this great advice to heart and have treasured the gift that God has given us in our marriage.  It is not always easy, but that is why we work at it and rest in God's hands.  And we can see that L & J are going to treasure this gift of marriage as well.    I love L to bits and am so happy he has found someone to love and spend the rest of his life with.  And I couldn't be happier to have J as a sister-in-law as well!  And excuse me for getting a little (more!) mushy, but weddings are also such a great time to reflect on how thankful for and how much I love my husband!  So cheers to L & J, may God bless them and their marriage!  (and we would like a niece or nephew sometime soon, too - the wedding is done so we can start bugging you about kids, right? =)

At Calvin's Fun Fest

G notes:

• Her reading is continuing to improve.  She has brought home sets of phonics books from school and has been flying through them.  She is finally starting to enjoy reading out loud rather than whining and asking us to just read it.
• was SOOOOO excited about Uncle L and Auntie J's wedding.  She loved the dress we found her, and loved seeing everyone else dressed up too - especially Auntie J in her beautiful dress.  And by far her favorite part of the wedding was dancing at the reception.
• when getting ready for the school carnival, G told us "I am going to meet up with O & K tonight at Fun Fest, k?"  Umm....when did she turn 13?

W notes:

• LOVES kids books on CD. We got a number of them for our trip to Edgerton for the wedding and W could turn the pages at the right times and often asks to listen to them at home as well.
• has started waking up in the middle of the night and coming to ask Dadda to sleep with him because he is "lonely!"
• is very into the disney movie Cars.  He asks to watch "Race Cars!" every Sunday night.  I think G went through this phase and we know other kids that have too, but W has got it pretty bad.  He comes up with all sorts of imaginary play with the characters, sings race car songs, pretends to be a race car and zooms through the house, and of course pretends he is Lightning McQueen, G is Sally, and C is Mater.

C notes:

• is starting to sing songs!  His first one was "Holy, Holy, Holy" and you can hardly stand the cuteness when he sings this in his own way.  He can also sing the doxology, almost all of the ABC song, and "Cows" from Philadelphia Chickens (don't own this or know what it is?  if you have kids or know kids go and buy it - Boynton and friends are fabulous!)
• C is starting to be more stubborn with toys.  He is not as easily distracted anymore and if he wants something he intends to get it no matter who is holding it, and the same thing if he has something he won't give it up for anything.  This has led to a lot more fights between him and W... I know they are brothers and brothers fight, but do they really have to?
• has graduated to eating at the table without the tray on his high chair.  He still uses the seat, but it is just butted up against the table now and he eats off the table like everyone else.  He is pretty proud of this, especially how he has figured out how to climb in and out of the high chair and "skootch" it to the table himself too.