First Hunting Trip

Papa came to Austin the day after Christmas to pick up the boys for Adriaan's first hunting trip.  Adriaan was so excited and he was thrilled to take his new flashlight that he was given from Marin and Maya.  Here are some pictures of the boys before they left.  

I heard from Will that Ado's best quote from the trip was the first early morning in the deer blind, "This isn't hunting...it's sitting!"  We're not sure what he was expeciting but sitting wasn't on the list.

Don went alone the second morning and that's when he shot the buck.  Ado watched the animal get skinned and was curious asking several questions.  

He came home and has been talking a lot more about dying, death and blood.  I think its a combination of the deer dying and all the conversations we've had about Jesus dying on the cross to give him a clean heart.  Sadly, the car door gave Adriaan a scare when the wind closed it and he thought it might "kill him a little bit."  Adriaan was wondering if the deer might come back to life after a few days and want to play with his friends.  Hmm.  Well, we'll keep helping him figure things out.

 

                                                  

Christmas

We thoroughly enjoyed our Christmas at home this year  It was peaceful and we were able to focus on the birth of our Savior.  Right after Thanksgiving, we put together our Jesse tree, which is an activity that shares the genealogy of Christ as we walk through the Bible.  This was our third year to do a Jesse tree and it's rewarding and fun to do with Adriaan.

I won a wonderful little ornament at MOPS that allowed me to simply share the story of Christmas and our need for a Savior.  It utilizes the colors from a wordless book which is an evangelism tool for kids:  Black (Sin), Gold (Heaven), Red (Jesus' Blood), White (Salvation), Green (Grow in God).  Ado would often ask me to tell him the story on the ornament, a painted nativity scene incorporating the wordless book colors.  With the ornament we talked about how Jesus died for everyone in the whole world and it's our job to share it people who don't know and we learned the "Go tell it on the mountains" song.  Recently, Ado shared this song with everyone in the produce section at HEB.  I love it that Adriaan knows that Jesus was born to "make our hearts clean" and that is why we celebrate his birthday at Christmas.  He's not ashamed to sing about it either!

We started Christmas morning in the living room enjoying a couple of gifts that were not wrapped.  The roller coaster for the babies and the balance bike for Adriaan - both gifts from Gramma Jackie.  We took a break to have breakfast and finish our "What God wants for Christmas" advent activity!  Then we finished opening all the gifts and had a blast playing and hanging out as a family.

still groggy but very curious

still half asleep but loving the ride

first trip down the roller coaster together!

   

adriaan opening the final box in our newest advent tradition called "what god wants for christmas"

 

we now refer to this balance bike as "ado's growth" because he goes everywhere on it, even just to cross a room.

 

adriaan's new stamp set is a hit with the babies because they're fun to chew on and they look like funny paci's.

"happy birthday jesus!!!"

after a very short walk.  it was in the low 40's and everyone was really cold.

eden in her new very pink coat from GG

 

My Adorable "Helpers"

Santa and her Elf

Mama-Ado Date

Our whole family is so thrilled with a gift from my mom (aka Gramma Jackie) - A family pass to the Austin Children's Museum!  Adriaan and I went this morning, just the two of us, and we call that a "Mama-Do Date."

The museum is downtown and it takes less than 10 minutes to drive there and then another 10-20 minutes to find parking.  I was having a hard time this morning finding a spot and then asked Adriaan to pray with me that God would provide a parking place.  After we prayed, Ado said "I think God is leading us on his path."

I soon discovered another parking garage who offers a discount to museum members and we found a prime spot right away.  Before we got out of the car we thanked God for hearing and answering our prayer!

We had a great time at the museum, it was my first time there.  Adriaan has been twice before and was happy to show me around.  What makes the Museum pass even better is that our good friends also got a pass for the year.  We'll be meeting there often for play dates and home school outings.

Our trips downtown may also provide frequent opportunities to trust God to answer our prayers for parking!  I have to remind myself that it's important to be an example to Ado and show him how to trust God for little things.  We'll get to have lots of conversations about how God answers prayer.


Thanks so much mom/Gramma Jackie! 

Before our date to the Children's Museum

yep, i'm back...or at least it's looking good so far...

I can't really describe the relief and joy I feel at finally being settled in one place, but it is wonderful.  

One of the benefits of putting down roots is that we can start traditions, like giving gifts to our neighbors at Christmas.  We hope to build genuine and lasting relationships with the people living on our block and in our neighborhood but we decided to start small this year with 7 houses on our street.

I had the idea to give small gifts to our neighbors especially since I had intended to do something when we first moved in but never got around to putting anything together.  What really inspired me to get on the ball with gifts this week was a short conversation with Adriaan.  He asked me, "Mama, do you know what makes me kind to people?"  I was curious about what was going on in his little mind and said, "hmm, what makes you kind to people?"  "Getting to help you bake stuff and use the mixer helps me be kind to others!"  "Well I guess we better bake something!!!"

So, Adriaan and I baked four huge batches of chocolate chip cookies.  We packaged them up with a home made (mostly by Ado) note that said, "Happy Christmas, from your neighbors on Willamette Drive."  We spent two evenings with the babies in the stroller delivering the cookies to our neighbors as well as the library staff where everyone knows us by name.  Adriaan didn't just walk along side the stroller, he skipped and bounced.  He ran to each door holding a bag of cookies and was so eager to give them away!  For the most part, he did really well when a person would actually answer the door.  There was one person whose cookies were kind of thrown in their general direction.  We learned valuable lessons about door bells, that they should only be rung once and not 10 times!

I was finally able to meet several neighbors who had come over to introduce themselves and met Will while he was installing flooring.  I heard from more than one person that they didn't realize we had twins, which I thought was both funny and sad.  I'm out with them a lot in the stroller and front yard but mostly during the day when working people wouldn't notice us.

We prayed that God would show his love through us and our simple gift of cookies.  Adriaan had a blast giving our gifts, I've wondered more than a few times if gifts may be his love language.  I really enjoyed watching his excitement about the whole thing.  We wrote down everyone's name so that we can pray for our neighbors and friends at the library by name.

This week has been about enjoying roots by starting traditions that help me to teach our children to pray for others and that it's better to give than to receive.  I praise God for our home and pray that he'll bless our desire to love our neighbors and to make Him known to those around us on Willamette Drive.

Am I Back?

It has been an abnormally productive day and I am beginning to wonder if I might be ready to come back to  the blogging world...we'll see.  We set up our christmas tree and I made a wreath.  It took me about an hour to make the wreath but during that time I also changed a diaper, nursed both babies, fed them applesauce/butternut squash and answered at least 10 questions that started with "why."

our homemade (in less than 5 minutes) angel tree topper

 

the above photo was taken by adriaan.  this was his first experience with our SLR and we were cracking up watching him try to figure out how to look through the viewer.  he kept opening both eyes super wide and for some reason that was incredibly funny to watch.

the wreath, i'm really happy with it!