Andrew's Birthday Party!!

It has taken me awhile to post pictures on Andrew's party (a month ago) but it was a fun time! Nana and Grandpa Jerry even got a chance to come. We had his party at a park with a playground. There were tons of kids running around and playing which was awesome.

We decided on a 'Hungry Caterpillar' theme which turned out super cute. There were tons of free printables on Pinterest that you could print out and use! I made sure that we had pretty much all the food that was in the 'Hungry Caterpillar' book.

Luke was pretty cute. Weeks before Andrew's party, he had a countdown going. He was super excited for the birthday party, which of course meant CAKE! :)

Cake time did not go as we expected...unfortunately Andrew decided to put out the candle with his finger :( Not a good idea, but he learned quickly! Poor guy. We kept thinking he was going to stop crying but then he kept going...

He eventually calmed down and was able to enjoy his first taste of sugar!!

I think Andrew overall had a good time! Here are some of his baby friends...

Luke definitely wore himself out. The next day Luke started the countdown for Mommy's birthday, which we recently celebrated by going to the Children's Museum! It was fun. 

The biggest news that we have now is that we are in the process of selling our home! We have been in our townhome for two years now and after much research and many talks, we decided that now is probably the best time for us! It has been on the market for a couple weeks now, which is a really bittersweet feeling. We love our neighbors and the area we live in but we also know it is time to upgrade! Our dog needs a yard to run in as well as the boys. It would be nice to have a guest room and an office area for homeschooling. Please pray for our house to sell at God's perfect timing and that He would already be preparing the next place for us. We are looking for a place to be in for a long time! Also, it is beginning to wear on us as we prepare each day for showings by keeping a perfectly clean house with two little boys and we keep having to go out (to eat or during naps) because of showings. We are hoping this process won't last much longer! We will keep you all updated though! 

Thank you all!

The last couple of months in pictures...

Luke loves running around our house in Mommy or Daddy's shoes. He is always telling us that he is going to Grandma's house or off to work. The video was from a Purim party that we had at our church :) Luke got up on stage during the dance party and busted out some moves...sorry the video isn't the best quality but it is still pretty cute!

I am loving the fun ideas that I keep getting from Pinterest for activities that toddlers can do! I feel like Luke is so smart that I have to keep up with challenging him with fun things to do. He currently loves puzzles and I am amazed at how quickly he can put them back together all by himself. We just bought him a 24 piece puzzle that I figured would be way above his level. It took him a couple of hours to figure it out and now he can do it all by himself!

Tom and I are trying to exercise and get out more so we bought some bicycles and a trailer for the boys! They LOVE it! They are pretty cute with their helmets on cruising the town...

About a month ago, Luke accidentally hit his mouth on our hard wood coffee table and his tooth got pushed back up into his gum :( It was pretty gross and sad but the dentist said it should heal fine. He just now has some crooked, bruised teeth.

Andrew is growing like a weed!  He is not quite walking, but he pulls himself up to standing and is crawling around like crazy!  He is a very active boy - so once he starts walking we're going to have quite the duo on our hands! It's amazing how different he is from Luke, but how similar he is at the same time.  He is now able to eat most of the same food we do, as long as we cut it up small - but he has especially developed an obsession with Cheerios!  He gets really excited and starts bouncing up and down whenever he sees us bring them out!  He is a huge joy to us and loves to cuddle. :)

 It was Andrew's first Easter!! I was so excited to finally take Luke on an Easter Egg Hunt! We woke up early on Easter weekend to go to one at the YMCA, I felt pretty sick but forced myself out the door because I was so excited to share this experience with Luke. The whole drive over I was quizzing him and pumping him up on what to do and how he had to 'run, run, run!' When we got there it was packed! By the time we got out on the field, all the big kids had taken all the eggs :( Poor Luke, I felt so bad. I felt even worse when he started saying, 'I want to get Easter eggs Mommy!' Needless to say, I almost cried and we will not be doing that ever again. We came home and did our own hunt for him with stickers and m&m's in each egg. A much better idea!

Easter was also pretty fun because it was the first time we got to start sharing with Luke about what Easter is really about! We read through the book, "Benjamin's Box", which goes through the passion week and shares the story of Jesus rising from the dead. It was cool to see how much Luke picked up from that story alone! I also paired it up with a preschool version of the 'Resurrection Eggs' and he really soaked it all in. Just the other day he opened an empty easter egg that we haven't put away yet and said 'Jesus is gone. He has risen'. We pray as parents that these little seeds will take root in their hearts to bring our children to the Lord!

Luke learning about Baking Soda & Vinegar for the first time!

It has been pretty exciting for me to be home with two of my best friends and share life with them! Tom and I just took an amazing parenting class that is based off of "Growing Kids God's Way" and are so excited to be implementing some of these new tools that we have learned! I have loved playing with Luke and helping him learn and I continue to see myself homeschooling him! We will see how things go though. It is not in our hands! In two weeks we will be celebrating Andrew's first birthday! I cannot believe how fast time has gone. We really are truly blessed. Keep praying for our family. Pray for patience in parenting and for us to honor Him in all that we do! God bless.

Happy Valentine's Day!

Happy Valentine's Day to Everyone! We started off our day with some yummy homemade crepes, strawberries and cream. Delicious. I am pretty sure we are going to have to continue that tradition...

Also, in our journey to be good parents, Tom & I have been praying through whether or not to homeschool our children. There are a lot of good reasons for either option but lately we have really been feeling like homeschooling would be the better option for our family! It is kind of a scary thought but fun too. Here are some of our reasons behind it so far:
1) We think we could do a better job at building a unique education that fits the needs of each of our children
2) We want our kids to learn wisdom and not just knowledge each day and we feel like homeschooling helps to really cultivate an atmosphere for that. Let's face it, teachers really don't have a lot of freedom these days to shape character in kids unless they are really acting bad
3) I like the idea of our kids learning constantly. There would be no big break for summers (for us) and the world can be our teacher
4) You can do a lot of unique things with homeschooling like swim classes or skiing instead of the 'mandatory PE'

Happy Boys...

5) Schools have cut out a lot of the Christian perspectives that we want our kids to learn from the beginning. We don't want to be competing with other authority figures in teaching our kids truth.
6) I love the flexibility of it! We could take a vacation anytime we want! We could spend a whole year traveling the world and still be homeschooling our kids...
7) We want to teach our kids some good hands on practical things for life. How to cook, balance checkbooks, how to set up a tent, go fishing...I would love to incorporate that into school
8) We could also explore Classical Education and not spend a ton on a private school in the process.
9) We want to shepherd the hearts of our children with the precious time that we are given with them. Time goes by fast! I want to build solid relationships with them.

Andrew fighting Luke off

10) There are also a bunch of reasons why I don't like public schools. I think overall it makes kids grow up too fast. Especially, in todays society. There is so much peer pressure, bullying, violence, sexual influences that squash children so quickly. We don't want to shelter them completely. We just want to be the ones to expose them to the harshness of the world after they have a more solid worldview.

I am sure that we will have many other reasons to add and edit on the list but we are pretty excited! I have heard over and over again that homeschooling is a journey. You really have to take it one day at a time, and you can change it at any point you want. I really have a peace about it now but who knows? Maybe in a few years, God will be leading us down a whole different path. :)

I have also been experimenting more in the kitchen. 

I have turned this...

Into this... (chicken stock)

As well as cutting up and cooking lots of other pieces of chicken! Wow! Quite the process. I definitely was dramatic at first when I was popping bones out of place :( I got used to it though. 

It will be a lot healthier for our family too to be using chicken stock rather than just bouillon. Also, we are now able to switch over to organic chicken this way because it helps a lot more with the cost to buy a whole chicken!

On a side note, Luke now has sunglasses!! :)

Our Family

Just in case anyone is still wanting to be updated on our family and mainly want to see pictures of our little boys:

Luke singing the ABC's.

Also, Andrew is now standing!! I am not quite ready for two walkers yet...

We have also started into the adventures in potty training :) Luke has actually adapted really well! It is amazing what that little boy will do for chocolate. I guess it is amazing what Tom & I will do for Taco Bell though. We have been trying to eat more healthy and whole foods, but I guess sometimes we splurge. We are trying for the 80/20 rule!

Time truly flies...

Much has happened since our last update but I will try to keep it brief :) I think our biggest news to report is that we are pregnant again! It was a pretty big shock to us at first, but we are excited. We found out at the end of November that we are having another boy, which I think will be perfect for Luke! He needs a playmate that he can wrestle around with, other than our poor dog.

We have been going through our own little family transition lately in trying to figure out where our place in life is - and moreover learning to be content with wherever we're at right now. Tom recently told me that that is what these years are all about, but I am still convinced we can have our entire life planned out right now :) Tom is trying to figure out where the best place is for him to thrive, something he doesn't always feel like he's doing right now. We are also debating whether or not we want to move back to the Louisville/Superior area or stay where we are. We wouldn't move for another couple of years but we are keeping it in mind because we haven't been sure that we have really been all that effective in our original purpose of moving down here. I think it is somewhat hard to be involved in a college ministry when you aren't full time with it. Please pray for us in all these decisions. I know that God will direct us when the time is right. For now, we are loving the area we live in. The mountains are right by us and Denver is pretty close too!

Tom blew away my perspectives the other night when he questioned how biblical it is to have a big savings account and prepare for things like retirement. I come from a background where saving is the most important thing you could do because you never know what can happen. At first, I really defended that perspective mentioning how even in the Bible they saved crops and food for seven years so that they would be prepared for the coming seven years of famine. It seems though, ever since that conversation, other things keep popping up in my mind about how I am not trusting in God to provide as much. I have this attitude that God can work miracles for others but it is too risky to give Him it all when it comes to my own life.  

“Do not store up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moths and vermin destroy, and where thieves break in and steal. But store up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where moths and vermin do not destroy, and where thieves do not break in and steal. For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also." (Matthew 6:19-21) 

Recently, we both took a spiritual gifts test and the biggest thing we had in common that was important to us was giving. We both love to give to people in several different ways and I think the more we give sacrificially, the more God will truly bless us. It is the same story as the widow who gave the only coin she had compared to the Pharisees who gave out of surplus. We each should be taking those steps of faith of giving when we don't have extra to give, knowing that God will provide. He doesn't always provide though in the way we expect, but He will take care of us. Tom and I are only beginning to grasp this lesson and think about ways to live it out. Even the concept of us being givers is a huge change for me. I have always thought that I would be more on the stage of things by directly impacting people through missions or some ministry, but it seems like, at least for now, God wants us to be behind the scenes. Learning to give ourselves up through sacrificial giving and by praying more for our needs as well as the needs of others. We are learning about what it means to truly 'hold the ropes' for others.

School is Starting!!! :)

School is starting this week for School of Mines and we are really excited to see what God has in store for us. We are going to be helping out with Christian Challenge which is a student group on campus led by our good friends Robby & Mary Pruett. We already feel so welcomed into the group and any insecurities of not fitting in or knowing if this is the right thing for us to be doing have been wiped away. Over the summer, we got to know some of the students through a Bible Study and have really enjoyed every minute we have gotten to hang out with them since. We have gotten more babysitting offers than I know what to do with! :)

We are officially settled into our new townhome on the border of Arvada and Golden and have recently welcomed a new roommate, Steve Slater, to our home! He is going to be living with us for at least the semester and we have been blessed by him already. Our new place has 3 bedrooms and 2.5 baths which will serve as a perfect home for us for the next 5 years or so.  All of our neighbors are super friendly too. There is a ten year old girl, Amy, who lives a couple doors down and comes over 3-4 times a day asking to play with Luke! We have really been trying to reach out to Amy and her brother who have just gone through a divorce and live with their mom now. Please keep them in your prayers!

Tom and I had a really good heart to heart a few days ago about how we both have let things slip with our relationship with God. If you could even call it a relationship at times. We had a really good wake up call and decided that every night right after putting Luke to bed, we are going to go through a passage of the Bible together and pray through it! We have only done this twice now but let me tell you it has already made the difference! My mind already feels a lot less cloudy and more clear throughout the day. It is so easy to just go through the motions with being a Christian and not experience God. I think the biggest thing is that you have to pursue it! Spiritual disciplines are so important, especially when you feel like you have no time for anything. "You will seek me and find me when you seek me with all your heart." (Jeremiah 29:13) Trust me, He is worth all of your heart!

Luke is doing well, he has had a hard last couple of weeks but today we discovered why! I can already see three more teeth starting to poke through! He loves sticking his tongue out and touching them. He is getting really active lately too! He can crawl and pull himself up and walk alongside tables and couches! Last Saturday, he started standing on his own for a few seconds. It is only a matter of time before he starts walking... His favorite pastime lately has been wrestling Molly, which is pretty cute.

This Fall is going to be pretty busy for us but we are so excited for every piece of it! Tom will continue Caraway Street (a puppet ministry at church), I am going to be involved in the women's bible study at church, we also just found out that we are going to be co-leading our life group with some other friends, then we have a bunch of trips coming up that will be a lot of fun! Including my sister's wedding! :) Please be praying that in all our busyness, that we can stay focused on our Creator. We love you guys! Thanks for listening.

Background...

For those of you who do not already know our story, here it is:

Tom and I met in college through a ministry called 'Christian Challenge'. We went on a few trips together and saw each other grow in amazing ways. By Lindy's sophomore year, there was definitely an attraction going. We even decided to flirt by creating a contest on who had the most ridiculous facial expressions. I am pretty sure I won that battle.

 

After Lindy's junior year of college, she led a trip to Bangladesh through Focus international. It was a hard summer being apart but it really grew our relationship and helped Tom decide that he couldn't live without me :) That Fall, Tom proposed on a surprise trip to NYC and instead of jumping into Tom's arms and saying "YES!!!" I asked him what marriage was and replied 'i think so' to his question of "Will you marry me?"

We got married on January 3, 2009 and are still best friends. We have had a fun journey and wouldn't trade it for the world. I think the biggest question that we have asked ourselves as a couple thus far is what are our strengths and how can we best use them now to serve the Lord? Through prayer, talks and life, I think we are beginning to figure that out. 

Along our journey, we have had a lot of fun surprises! For example, when we found out that we were pregnant after coming home from a second trip to Bangladesh!! Luke was born December 3, 2010 and has been such a blessing! We love him so much and can't wait to see him grow into a man of God. 

Luke keeps things interesting for us. Recently, he has started pulling himself up on things and crawling like crazy! It is amazing how much he has grown in the past 7 months!

Through prayer and many talks we decided last Spring that we wanted to move to the Arvada/Golden area and help out with Christian Challenge at School of Mines and also stay involved in Cornerstone Church. We are all really excited to get to know the students at Mines better and to serve in any way we can! I think it will be good for Tom to relate to other engineers (with their Star Wars and math jokes) and also a chance for him to speak. He is a really gifted speaker and I think the students will benefit from him. I want to have the chance to listen to the girls and their hearts while also showing them what it is like to be a stay at home mom! I am pretty excited and we are both insecure, but God will cover over our faults. 

I have also decided to develop a passion of mine of home making recently. When it comes to our home, I love decorating it and helping people feel welcomed to it. A month ago I started selling At Home America decorations and am super excited to see where it goes! I even have a website so check it out: www.athome.com/Lindy :) I have gotten a ton of decorations out of the deal and am excited to have a hobby of my own where I can express myself. We will see where it goes.