Funny Boys

Josiah: Mom, do you know what cleans off boys and dads?
Me: What?
Josiah, laughing: Water. Because we have bugs on us!

???

Anticipating Easter

Where we were the weeks leading up to Easter...

Children's choir on Palm Sunday (Victor is the plaid shirt just behind the pianist)

The boys each got to pick out a packet of seeds for us to plant. 

(Victor: watermelon, Josiah: wildflowers, Elliot: corn, plus quite a handful of others).

The first thrilling shoot!

Hot cross buns and handmade notes for our neighbors before Easter, 

praying that God will let the light of Christ shine on their hearts, even to new life!

This fine fellow, soaking in sunshine at a little backyard barbecue on the day before Easter

Our Easter "sugar cookie cake"

What a sweet season!

3 Years Old!

3 years old!

2 years old

18 months old

1 year old

11 months old

10 months old

9 months old

8 months old

7 months old

6 months old

5 months

 4 months

3 months

2 months

 1 month

 2 weeks old

Dear Elliot,

My big 3 year old! It is a jolly gift to have you as a part of our family, and I'm enjoying so many ways your little personality is blossoming in these days.


- It is a total hoot to hear you when you wake up. Almost always, you awake with a cheery disposition, and you'll lay in your bed, happily singing, kicking your feet, playing little games with yourself for quite a long time!

- One of my very most favorite things is when you'll alert us in the most charming fashion that it is now time to get up:

- You can definitely pack away a meal, though your preferences are markedly weighted in the direction of pb&j, apple juice, fruit, corn, and treats and away from such things as broccoli, rice, potatoes, and carrot sticks. But really, you've grown in willingness to eat all that is given to you, when helped along.

- You enjoy reading books. It's pretty much irresistible when you ask, "Do you want to read a book with me?" and crawl in my lap somewhere for a good snuggle.

- Another of my favorite things is when you come over to give me a big hug and tell me you're going to "squeeze the jelly out of me."

- You love to sleep with your puppy and blanket. Normally you're on your tummy, puppy under one arm (sure to have the blanket snuggly tucked up to both of your chins). If in the course of falling asleep you will wrangle yourself out of position, you regularly request help getting your blanket back onto your back.

- You love helping in the kitchen and are a surprisingly careful assistant with pouring, measuring, and stirring things (most of the time). You can also wash your own hands now, which is a lovely advance in capabilities.

- You love your brothers... lying next to Calvin for a diaper change, putting together puzzles with Josiah, playing fort with Victor. I love seeing how you boys are becoming buddies.

- You have a musical ear and enjoy sitting on the piano bench, crooning out little melodies to your own accompaniment.

- You have an excellent arm, with great follow-through on your shot.You still love watching hockey or using a little plastic golf club to hit around a bottle cap as your hockey puck. And you have vastly superior eye-hand coordination to make contact with it than your momma!

- You are chock-full of personality. Making faces, striking poses, telling jokes, asking questions (with your cute little head tilted to one side). You can definitely exert your will, but we are learning to take God's help to say no to sin and instead say, "Help me, Jesus!" when it's hard to do what is right.


Your name means "The LORD is my God." When you belong to God, because you are trusting in His Son Jesus, everything changes. Everything you do can be an expression of your love and trust in Him. And as it is done in dependent trust in Him, it honors and delights Him! This morning I was reading in Colossians 3, and this verse stood out to me:

Whatever you do, work heartily, as for the Lord and not for men, knowing that from the Lord you will receive the inheritance as your reward. You are serving the Lord Christ. (Colossians 3:23-24)

Can you even imagine how astounding that is? If you are putting away your plate after supper... you are serving the Lord Christ! If you are playing with Calvin to help him feel happy... you are serving the Lord Christ! As you study and learn and grow in school... you are serving the Lord Christ! When you work at home or work to earn a paycheck... you are serving the Lord Christ! I pray, Mr. Elliot, that all your days will be full of joyful, significant, satisfying service of our great Savior, the Lord Christ! He is worthy!

I love you, my precious pumpkin, Elliot James!

Momma

Elliot's birthday interview (4.26.19) 3 years old

1.      What is your favorite color? red

2.      What is your favorite toy? Cars with a light on top, like a police car

3.      What is your favorite fruit? Apple juice

4.      What is your favorite video to watch? Wild Kratts

5.      What is your favorite thing to eat for lunch? Macaroni and cheese

6.      What is your favorite thing to wear? Dinosaur shirt

7.      What is your favorite game? Tick-tac-toe

8.      What is your favorite snack? pretzels

9.      What is your favorite animal? doggies

10.   What is your favorite song? Hallelujah

11.   What is your favorite verse? When I am afraid I will put my trust in You, God.

12.   What is your favorite book? Clifford

13.   Who is your best friend? Zachary

14.   What is your favorite thing to do outside? Blow my own bubbles

15.   What is your favorite drink? Apple juice

16.   What do you like to sleep with at night? My doggy and my blanket

17.   What is your favorite thing to eat for breakfast? Oatmeal

18.   What do you want for dinner on your birthday? pancakes

19.   What do you want to be when you grow up? I forget

20.   What was one of your favorite things that you did this year? Play at Grammy and Grandad’s house

21.   What is your favorite place to go? To the park with the Kattersons

The Right to Choose

The right to choose is a real a weighty thing.

I choose what I do with my body. That is a great and valuable entrustment.

What difference do those choices make?

There are huge and far-reaching effects.

If I choose to act in compassion, considering others' interests and not just my own, the effects of my choice will be significant. Others will be changed in response to my choice.

If I choose to act in anger, selfishness, or pride, there are consequences to those choices as well. Though I have the right to choose, I cannot manage or control all the results of that choice. There are many factors outside of my control. In addition, the choices I make shape the course of my life and the direction of others. The choices I make matter.

If I choose to harm others with my body, that choice bears fruit. If I should choose to harm my 7-year-old, it would be a terrible and culpable decision. He has certain rights, because he is made in God's image and his body is not my own. Where my choices impact others, there is more to consider than just my own rights.

I also have a 10-month-old baby. He is much smaller than my 7-year-old. He is much more dependent. In fact, he depends on me for nearly all of his care. He doesn't contribute very much to our household, from the standpoint of utilitarian value. His presence impacts my own responsibilities in great ways. It is possible that my own health or sleep or employment may be affected because of the interconnected bonds of our lives. That impact does not mean that his body is under my jurisdiction, that I may do to it what I please. To assert such, to misuse his body in any way, is called abuse, and it is a horrifying reality. That I am stronger than he, more capable than he, more productive than he does not give me permission to use my body to harm him without repercussion.

Slightly more than 10 months ago, my baby was within me. His DNA was the same as it is now. His precious little nose had the same shape. His tiny fingers (already chubby!) had their own unique fingerprint. His little heels jabbed me in the ribs, quite aside from any impulse or effort of my own body.

About 8 months and 8 days earlier than that, his heart was already beating on its own.

Let us not imagine that the decisions I made with my body, the choices I had and have the right to make, were less significant in their consequences on his body than they are now. Nor, in the sight of God, do those decisions have any less weight of responsibility.

That may seem quite a burden. Who of us has perfectly stewarded the right to choose without error? Some have made choices that ended the lives of others. Maybe the others were very tiny and still within their body. Maybe the others were living independently. Some have made choices that did not harm the physical lives of others but harbored anger and hatred for them internally. In a crushing insight, God has said that the heart reality behind anger is the same as behind murder (Matthew 5:21-22). I am guilty. And the hard truth is that my guilt has earned me a consequence. Before a holy God, I have earned death (Romans 6:23).

But this grim, sweeping sentence is not the end of the story. In a shocking move, the Righteous Judge, God Himself, made a choice. He chose to send His only Son, the beloved Son, sent as a helpless baby into His own creation. He lived perfectly but was betrayed. He was judged innocent (John 19:4), yet handed over to death. He could have been delivered (Matthew 26:53), but He chose to give His life. And like a divine exclamation point, God raised Him from the dead to show that the exchange was complete, that the way was opened for us to be made right with God, to receive by faith the perfect record of the Son and by His death the penalty for our sin be paid (2 Corinthians 5:21).

Easter morning dawns tomorrow, reminding us of this cosmic invitation, to trust in One who chose not to be served but to serve and give His life as a ransom for many. I pray you find eternal joy and comfort in Him, whatever choices you have made before. He is worthy.



 

He Is Worthy

A real Friday. A terrible pain.

The day when the Lamb of the world was slain,

When the Light was crushed, whom the Father gave,

The Lord of life put into a grave.

The day toward which our hopes were bent.

The day for which the Son was sent.

A day of infamy, cruelty, death,

He uttered a cry and gave His last breath.

He is worthy.

10 Months Old!

10 months old!

9 months old

8 months old

7 months old

6 months old

 
 5 months old

4 months old

3 months old

 2 months old

1 month old

2 weeks old

Dear Calvin,

Somehow we have passed another month already! Now it is April, the snow (from last week) is melting, and the world outside wants to introduce you to that glorious sensation of warmth called spring. What a lovely time!

Since last we checked:

- You have 6 big teeth in that cute little mouth of yours! The arrival of your 2 front teeth make you look like 1) quite a big man and 2) the spitting image of your Katterson brothers and cousins.

- I no longer prop a pillow behind you while you sit, but that doesn't mean you still don't throw yourself backwards more than occasionally. In addition, you like to reeeeeeach for toys out of grasp and flop onto your belly as well. You don't crawl, but you can kind of scooch in a sitting position to get where you want to go (quite a bit farther than I normally anticipate). You don't really care to be constrained by the exersaucer or jumperoo anymore. So limiting.

- You sleep! Having girded up my loins and made it through a few rough weeks, you now sleep pretty consistently from 7:15pm or 7:30pm to somewhere between 5am and 7am. Maybe you have a half feeding and go back to bed or maybe you make it to full wake-up time (anytime after 6:45am) and have a full breakfast. After a season of concerted effort at convincing you to take a bottle, you scream upon sight of one (at least for me). So we gave that up.

- You eat! Cereal, pears, peas, carrots, sweet potatoes, banana, applesauce, prunes (just a touch), squash, and so forth. You reeeally love your little half-Cheerios, though if given in too great a quantity (i.e. more than like 3 at a time), you'll kinda gag and puke all over. But it doesn't stop you from wanting more...

- I'm still trying to squeeze you into 12 month clothes, but it's real hard to zip.

- You get cranky around mealtimes, so I'll often put on some bopping music (for example, the Let's Go channel on Pandora), and you love to groove! It's most especially funny (to you) when Momma dances too.

- Josiah's playing peekaboo is h.i.l.a.r.i.o.u.s. You give him a belly laugh like nothing else, and it doesn't matter how long he keeps popping out from behind the refrigerator, you jump every time and laugh to beat the band!



We are in the midst of Holy Week, just three days until Easter. Each day your brothers and Daddy are going through the Resurrection eggs, little by little recalling the events that led up to Jesus' death, burial, and resurrection.

How purposeful He was. He would not be distracted from the mission of the Father. How humble He was, receiving the praise of children and the cries of the crowd as He entered Jerusalem, even knowing full well that they would reject Him, demand His death just a few days later. How loving He was, serving His disciples with symbolic bread and wine and giving them promises and hope to hang onto before they understood what a crucible was coming. How obedient He was, praying for the Father's will to be done, even as He bled out of His pores for the pain, the crushing horror of bearing His Father's wrath. How gentle He was, refusing to lash out at the weakness and injustice of Pilate, the abuse of the guards, the guilty insurrectionist released in His place. How holy He was, that He could become the perfect substitute, the perfect payment for my sin--and for yours, little son.

He made Him who knew no sin to be sin on our behalf, so that we might become the righteousness of God in Him. (2 Corinthians 5:21)

This is the good news. This is the breath-stealing trade offered to anyone who will put off the insane craving to prove our own worth before God and receive the gift of the credit of Christ's righteousness instead.

I love this season of the year, when all the bleakness outside starts to hint again at life and growth and the miracle of spring. It is a picture of what God does inside to those who trust in Jesus--where everything was dead, ugly, sick, and wrong, He gives new life and forever hope. How we pray, my Calvin, that you will come to worship and trust in Jesus as all you ever need. He is so good! And He is risen, He is risen indeed!

I love you, Calvin David,
Momma

-

A Few of My Favorite Things

To Ben, a day late, some of my favorite things about you, for your birthday...

• You're enthusiastic about what I cook. This is especially appreciated when all the boys squirm and try to fidget their way out of eating the special new dishes... 
• Your capacity for enjoyment is the highest of anyone I know. You love... everything. Except for chewy granola bars and cooked squash.
• You seek God in His Word, in prayer, in relationships with others in the body of Christ. You make it possible for me to get daily quiet time with God too. You make space for my heart to stay healthy. I am truly rich with this.
• You lean into the difficult things for God's kingdom and righteousness. 
• You are receptive to my feedback and let me pushback or wrestle through things with you.
• You play with our boys, read to them, sing to them, run with them, take them to the grocery store (you ninja), and in general bear the delightful load of parenting them.
• You are working hard to appropriate God's grace in ways that are not the easiest or most natural to you. Administration, vision, leadership... I see the growth, and others see it too.
• You still like sitting next to me on the couch for that brief time post-boys' bedtime and pre-our own to talk about the day.  

Well, gotta get back to those little boys, so it is just a few. But I do love you!